This year’s Life Festival kicks off the summer in earnest from May 29 to 31 at Ballinlough Castle in Athboy, County Meath, which previously hosted Garden Party and Tiesto. Previous Life events took place in Gort, County Galway.

The music stages promise an eclectic blend of talent from Friday afternoon to midnight Sunday. With the diverse range of genres on offer including psytrance, electro, techno, dubstep, breakbeats, dub, reggae, drum n bass and house.
Among more than 60 artists appearing are Future Sound of London, Carl Craig, Green Velvet, Goldie, Altern 8, Sebastien Leger, Nicky Blackmarket, Sunil Sharpe, Beckett, Don Rosco, Al Keegan, XLR8, Matador, LRB and David de Valera.
Three-day tickets cost e105 from Ticketmaster and tickets.ie and this fee includes the cost of camping and access to the festival arena. However, parking and campervan camping are not included in the price.
There are also one-day and two-day tickets available, details of which can be found on www.life-festival.com.
The organizers of Planetlove Ireland, meanwhile, have informed Hot Press that they plan to avoid last year’s mudfest by moving all of their festival’s seven arenas on to the tarmac at Fairyhouse Racecourse, Ratoath, County Meath. Planetlove runs from 1pm until 1am on Saturday June 6.
Techno star Donncha Costello (now living in Berlin) unleashes the third single from his new Look Long label on May 11.
LNG3 sees the reissue of the producer’s deep house classic ‘Pleite’ that originally appeared on Trapez in 2003. Recorded in Dublin in 2002, this version has been mastered at Dubplates and Mastering, Berlin in 2009.
A label statement says: “The results are stunning and serve as a welcome reminder of Costello’s deep roots. [B-Side] ‘Pleite (Costello Dub)’ could teach some of today’s hyperactive producers a thing or two about setting up a solid groove and letting it sit.”
Meanwhile, the digital version of LNG2, the three-track Tragedy Of The Commons EP from ¸, also surfaces this month.
Paul Webster has been confirmed as a guest at Judgement Sundays in Ibiza on July 19. The Dublin trance producer, who recently produced a guest DJ mix for Tiesto’s radio show, has also remixed forthcoming singles from hot UK young gun Jordan Suckley and European scene stalwart Talla 2xlc.
And Webster has announced his next single on Armada, ‘The Wolf’/’Vibrations’, will be released in August. His current Armada release ‘Istanbul’ topped all of the key online UK trance sales charts last month.
Spin 103.8 presenter John Gibbons has become the first Irish DJ that this column is aware of to sign an endorsement deal. Well-known for his trademark glasses, Gibbons will exclusively use iWear’s customised glasses while DJing.
The shades are from iWear’s new Klub Kultur range and see Gibbons as the face of iWear in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria and Croatia.
The ‘Beautiful Filth’ hitmaker has also been making more waves on the production front of late.
Gibbons launches his Club Educate label on June 5 to coincide with Planetlove Ireland. The debut release is his second outing with studio collaborator Scimon Tist, ‘Maktub’, which is already being caned by Armin van Buuren, Paul van Dyk, Tiesto and Judge Jules.
The pair follow this with ‘Propaganda’ on Stampvegaar and ‘Yesterday’s Children’ on Bonzai, and they have also remixed Brian Taaffe’s ‘Counterpart’ for DXR and Thom V’s ‘Generator’ for Dutch label Sunset To Sunrise.
North-west producer Jason Young’s new single ‘Cassini’ is released this month on Spanish label Penelope Records through Beatport. It will be accompanised by remixes from Donegal’s Timmy & Tommy and Belfast’s Jay Kay.
Cork native Edwin James is about to give the world two Corrugated Tunnel singles. ‘Careful What You Wish For’ comes on Invisible Agent with remixes from Orlando Voorn and Mark O’Sullivan. It will be preceded by the ‘Temple Jack Remixes’ on seedy R that also includes an Orlando Voorn remix alongside versions from Colombian Leoesque and aspiring Irish producer Jay Riordan.
Dublin Xpress recordings has just unleashed its 17th outing, from hot techno producer and RTÉ Pulse host, Brian Taaffe. The I’m In Transit EP’includes remixes from Belfast’s rising star Tony Craig, upcoming Dublin whiz Paul Prior and Austrian Martin Muller. Taaffe, incidentally, has remixed the forthcoming single from Jonno Brien, ‘Rewind’.
Jonno, meanwhile, has just completed his first collaboration, with your Beats & Pieces scribe, in fact. It’s entitled ‘Dance With Me’.
Controversial house producer Deadmau5 has been confirmed as support for The Prodigy’s Live In The Park gig at Donard Park, Newcastle, County Down on June 19. Also appearing are Hot Chip (DJ Set), BBC Radio 1’s Zane Lowe, The Japanese Popstars and Dublin-based band Noize Control who were hand-picked by The Prodigy for the show… THE BEAT GOES ON!