• Premiere: David Murphy & Ether Ensemble – The March of the King of Laois

    April 3, 2025 - By 

    Cork’s, and arguably Ireland’s premier pedal steel player David Murphy released one of our favourite albums of last year with debut LP Cuimhne Ghlinn: Explorations in Irish Music for Pedal Steel Guitar. A sublime collection of interpretations of traditional songs, it was another part of a growing body of work that is reshaping the role of the pedal steel away from its American roots and into global folk and contemporary music. His work has spanned soundtracks, collaborations with acclaimed Irish songwriters like The Lost Brothers, Arborist and John Blek, to versions of Led Zeppelin’s ‘The Rain Song’ and Aphex Twin’s…

  • Irish Tracks of the Week – 26th July

    July 26, 2024 - By 

    It’s once again been a ridiculously prolific week for new music from across the island. Here’s the best of it, featuring releases by PostLast, Meljoann, Rejjie Snow, Buí, Thee U.F.O, Arvo Party, cbakl, God Is An Astronaut, and more. Meljoann – Bye Bye by Meljoann PostLast – Hollywood Ending Hypnic Jerk – Hypnic Jerk Hypnic Jerk by Hypnic Jerk Selu & Living Things – Merry Go Arvo Party – to evening kleio – mercury HEALTH GOTH WIFE – Where Did I Go When You Stopped passersby – leaveing leaveing by passersby Thee U.F.O – Glowing Friends EP Glowing Friends by…

  • Jane’s Addiction at Trinity College, Dublin

    July 3, 2024 - By 

    Full disclosure: I was obsessed with this band from the ages of 15-18. I was insufferable to those around me who didn’t get it – and to them all, I apologise – but growing up in rural south Derry, Jane’s Addiction felt like some portal to the unseen. Whether it was the LA seediness or their connection to a more sensual world, it mattered little. Everyone has that band, but going through the typical starter pack of Guns N’ Roses, Zeppelin, RHCP, and Nirvana, Jane’s were the first band that lit the passage to somewhere higher. They were the band that Anthony…

  • Gary Numan at Limelight 1, Belfast

    May 22, 2024 - By 

    It’s almost 45 years to the day since Gary Numan appeared with Tubeway Army in one of the all-time memorable Old Grey Whistle Test performances, promoting the then-new album Replicas. The band, led by some shamanic, androgynous alien cyborg, felt like a transmission of Ziggy Stardust & the Spiders as imagined by William Gibson or Philip K. Dick. A totem for the lost and alienated, his words sought out glimpses of humanity and connection in the darkest corners of a dystopia caused by the excesses of technology, and this was reflected in the music, a literal post-punk antithesis to the…

  • Chatting To The Cheesemonger: An Interview with Danny Carroll

    February 28, 2024 - By 

    A quintessential indie rock showman-turned-millennial songsmith in the classical mode, we have a chat with Danny Carroll ahead of the release of his solo debut LP I Am The Cheese, out this Friday. Your debut LP I Am The Cheese shares its title with a 1977 young adult fiction novel, written by Robert Cormier. Could you tell us about the poignancy of that title to yourself and this body of work? It’s a book I read when I was 12 and was pretty haunted by. The final lines of the novel refer back to the folk song ‘The Farmer In…

  • The Low-End Theory: An Interview John ‘Spud’ Murphy

    January 4, 2024 - By 

    Stevie Lennox chats with Spud Murphy about his crucial role in sculpting the soundworlds of Lankum, Black MIDI, ØXN and more Photos by Loreana Rushe In an inauspicious arch underneath the Dart line in North Dublin you’ll find John ‘Spud’ Murphy, working away in his longtime hub of Guerrilla Studios. “So it still is like a cave, which has pros and cons,” he says. “You’re in a cave. And there’s no external light, but you don’t know what time of the day it is. So you just keep working and you’re not looking outside going, oh, it’s beautiful outside. You…

  • Inbound: Spit

    December 5, 2023 - By 

    ‘Indie rock’, ‘Post-punk’ – the music industry does an effective job of co-opting and commodifying terms originally defined by their reaction to stagnation, creating a deluge of so-close-yet-so-far simulacra. We’ve noticed young artists, of late, pushing back against algorithmically-pleasing confines, into creatively fertile territory. Dublin’s Spit are doing just that with their abrasive, experimental punk that conjures the essence of the movement. Guitarist Alex and bassist/violist Sarah connected with drummer Conor, and just days before their first gig, their first music was written, its credos tantamount to its sound.  Part of a crop of forward-thinking acts emerging in the wake…

  • Inbound: Search Results

    November 24, 2023 - By 

    The most interesting sounds tend to come from those unencumbered with risk aversion. Take Devo, whose five gestative years before releasing a debut album bought them creative armour, allowing them to hone their worldview and arrive fully-formed. Search Results started writing in Dublin within a week of meeting in 2020, having moved from Waterford, Sligo, and Tipperary just prior to Covid. Drummer Jack Condon explains: “We assigned ourselves different instruments to the ones we would have been most comfortable on. Myself and Adam had more training in guitar, and Fionn in bass, so that took away any safety nets and…

  • Inbound: Touch Excellent

    September 6, 2023 - By 

    The only thing in Ireland faster than the church dropout rate seems to be the growth of its queer and trans punk scene, with Dublin trio Touch Excellent being one of the latest, brightest prospects in the movement. Featuring Amber Excellent on drums, Lenny Hennessy on bass and vocals, and Ló Boyle on guitar, they’re a political band in the purest way that one can be: by simply existing as themselves – and themselves are as full of wit as they are passion. Both engaging and engaged, they’re a direct product of representation. “A big aim is writing songs that…

  • Inbound: Stratford Rise

    August 16, 2023 - By 

    Photo by David McEneaney You might have noticed in these pages over the past year the refreshing air of a heteroglot of brand new, guitar bands. One such act that’s grabbed – and proceeded to mercilessly pulverise – our attention is Bangor quartet Stratford Rise. They’ve been together since early 2020, but it’s still early days, playing live for over a year, but having only just performed their first date outside Northern Ireland in May.  “Gilla Band and a number of no-wave bands inspired our interest in incorporating noise into our songs,” they tell us. Indeed, their debut single ‘Water…