Scene and Heard

MUSIC NEWS: Arcade Fire have exploded back on to the music scene with a promotional blitz for their forthcoming album Reflektor, due out on Oct 29. Last Monday, the band released the single ‘Reflektor’, complete with backing vocals from David Bowie.

The single bears the hallmark disco-inflected sound of producer James Murphy aka LCD Soundsystem. They also released a dramatic black and white video for the single, directed by Anton Corbijn, as well as an interactive film in collaboration with Google Chrome.

Meanwhile, the band played a second surprise gig in a week in Montreal venue, Salsatheque. It was reported that 100 fans got to see the band for $9 a ticket. Their friend Bowie has also been announced as one of the acts on this year’s short list for the Mercury Prize.

Bowie’s album, The Next Day, is favourite to win the prize, alongside the new Arctic Monkeys album AM. Others on the shortlist include Laura Marling for Once I Was An Eagle, which is the prodigious 23-year-old’s fourth album.

Ireland is represented by Villagers (fronted by Conor O’Brien, above) nominated for the album Awayland. The first Irish act to claim two separate nominations, Villagers will play Dublin's Vicar Street on Dec 17 next. The Mercury Prize winner will be announced on Oct 30.

Following their guest slot on The Simpsons earlier this year, members of Sigur Ros are now set to appear in Game Of Thrones.

Jonsi Birigisson, Georg Hólm and Orri Páll Dýrason are currently in Croatia shooting scenes for the HBO show’s forthcoming fourth series. Entertainment Weekly reports the bandmates will play musicians in the programme and that their cameo came about as showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss are big fans of the Icelandic band.

GIG NEWS: Kodaline will headline a show at the O2 next year. The band has already sold out a run of gigs at Dublin’s Olympia Theatre this November. Tickets for the O2 show, on March 16 next year are priced at €30 and go on sale today.

CULTURE NIGHT: One for night owls is this year’s Culture Night, which takes place at venues around the country next Friday, Sept 20, from 5pm-11pm. Arts and cultural organisations open their doors until late with hundreds of free events, tours, talks and performances.

Running also is ‘A solution is in the room’, three new works by Maud Cotter, made while based in the National Sculpture Factory in Cork.

In conjunction with the exhibition, Cotter has produced an artist’s newspaper, the second of a series, also entitled ‘A solution is in the room’. The paper collects photographic images, alongside a commissioned text by curator and writer Matt Packer.

Cotter’s work has featured in group exhibitions and solo projects in Europe and the US. In 2000, she was shortlisted for the Glen Dimplex Award at the Irish Museum of Modern Art. Cotter’s work is in the collection of, among others; the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Allied Irish Bank, New Hall College Cambridge and in numerous collections in Ireland, and Europe. She is co-founder of the National Sculpture Factory and a member of Aosdána (2000).

The exhibition runs at Wandesford Quay Gallery in Cork from Sept 14 to Oct 5.

THEATRICAL TREATS: Pat Kinevane performs in his acclaimed plays Silent and Forgotten tonight and tomorrow at the Theatre Royal, Waterford.

Film tips: Showing at the Triskel Christchurch cinema in Cork on Monday and Tuesday is Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer, a documentary on the Russian feminists whose arrest and trial gained global attention. Hailed as one of the most brilliant indie films of recent times, Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, at the IFI Dublin, is a Badlandsesque tale of an outlaw couple, played by Rooney Mara and Casey Affleck.