Category: CQAF22 Sun 1

Starring real-life friends Annie Clark (a.k.a. Grammy-winning artist St. Vincent) and Carrie Brownstein (Portlandia, Sleater-Kinney), this is a mischievous, metafictional and frequently laugh-out-loud funny account of banding together to make a documentary about St. Vincent’s music, touring life and on-stage persona.

But they quickly discover unpredictable forces lurking within the subject and the filmmaker that threaten to derail the friendship, the project, and the duo’s creative lives.

From first-time filmmaker Bill Benz (Portlandia, At Home With Amy Sedaris) comes a densely woven and increasingly fractured commentary on reality, identity and authenticity.

A music documentary like no other, this is the story of two close friends who attempt to wrestle the truth out of a complex subject before the hall of mirrors that is their artistic lives devours.

Doors 1.45pm | Unreserved Seating

Supported by Film Hub NI, part of the BFI Film Audience Network, awarding funds from National
Lottery.

Award-winning Irish singer songwriter Declan O’Rourke  returns after 2 years with his Paul Weller-produced Arrivals, the most emotionally raw and affecting album of his career.

Arrivals sees Declan O’Rourke present his art in a different yet wholly distinctive manner. The sound is stripped back to Declan’s soulful and resonant voice, the virtuosic guitar playing for which he’s renowned and only the occasional sparse arrangement of strings and late night drums bringing colour and light to the LP’s 10 songs.

Weller, a fan of Declan’s songwriting for some years, also adds his multi-instrumental abilities to the recordings, including a beautiful piano accompaniment to the closing track.

Marked out as a major talent with the release of 2004’s debut Since Kyabram, Declan has produced possibly his finest work to date and this will be a very unique and special show as part of this year’s festival.

‘A masterful lyricist and staggering guitarist’    4**** MOJO

 Doors 7.30pm | Unreserved Seating

Michael Janisch is a US-native who has lived in London for 17 years and in that time has established himself as a first-call electric & double bassist to the stars, a MOBO-Award nominated solo artist, an in-demand producer, and founder of Whirlwind Recordings, one of the premiere indie labels in jazz and related music.

His latest release Worlds Collide is an electro-acoustic joyride of original material recorded at Abbey Road Studios, combining contemporary jazz alongside free improvisations and soaring melodies over multi – metered grooves and swing.

Paying homage to artists as diverse as Ornette Coleman, Fela Kuti & Afro-Beat to the electronic music pioneer Aphex Twin, the album has been a hit on streaming sites with well over 1,000,000 global plays to date as well as one of the year’s most talked about and covered releases.

Janisch has performed with everyone from Joe Lovano to Claire Martin OBE to Kurt Rosenwinkel to Shirley Horn and Wynton Marsalis, not to mention the “who’s who” players of his generation ranging from Walter Smith III to Melissa Aldana and Soweto Kinch.

Joining Janisch (on basses) for this date to play new music, selections from Worlds Collide and a few gems from his last five albums is Slovenian artist Jure Pukl on tenor saxophone (Greg Hutchinson, Esperanza Spalding), Nathaniel Face on alto sax (Empirical, Gary Crosby), Rick Simpson on piano/keys (Christian Scott, Leo Richardson), and Shane Forbes on drums (Emperical, Jean Toussaint).

Doors 7.45pm | Unreserved seating

Rescheduled from OTL 22

Rory Nellis launches his brand new album, Written & Underlined, with a full band show at McHughs in Belfast.

Rory is a singer-songwriter and guitarist based in Belfast. Producing a mix of folk-pop and indie-rock stemming from musings on life, death, relationships and politics he is a natural fit for fans of Wilco, Villagers and Duke Special.

Rory has been writing and performing since he was a teenager, gaining support from the likes of BBC Radio Ulster, RTE 2FM and Hot Press Magazine. Rory has toured all around Ireland and beyond – playing festivals and venues such as The Limelight, The Atlantic Sessions, Other Voices (Dingle), Whelan’s (Dublin) and The Bluebird Cafe (Nashville).

Nellis’s second album, There Are Enough Songs in the World, was widely acclaimed, seeing him being heralded as “One of Ireland’s most naturally gifted songsmiths” by The Thin Air. As Snow Patrol’s Gary Lightbody put it at the time: “the music is sweeping. There’s magic in it”.

Doors 7.30pm | Unreserved seating

‘She’s the urgent, pulsing, compassionate talent this world desperately needs.’  The Observer

Protest singer Grace Petrie has an army of loyal fans across the alternative, folk, political and comedy scenes.

She’s toured to arenas with Frank Turner, has supported comedian Hannah Gadsby, toured with comedy phenomenon The Guilty Feminist, has done a prestigious live session on the BBC Radio 2 Jo Whiley Show and reached the top 40 in the UK album charts in autumn 2021 with her new album Connectivity.

Festival appearances have included The Acoustic Stage at Glastonbury Festival, Port Fairy Folk Festival in Australia and Vancouver Folk Festival in Canada among many more.

Grace will be accompanied on stage by long-time music collaborator, singer and multi-instrumentalist Ben Moss.

‘She writes the sort of songs you want to pin the lyrics of on your bedroom wall, or on the office door, to remind you and everyone else who might read them what is important and true’ Buzz Magazine

Doors 7:30pm | Unreserved Seating