• Monday Mixtape: Ramper

    April 14, 2025 - By 

    Off the back of his sublime debut album, Loner, Donegal alt-folk artist Declan McClafferty aka Ramper talks us through some of his all-time favourite songs – from Kate Bush and the Bothy Band, to Dylan, Villagers and beyond. Photo by Joe Doherty Bob Dylan – Girl From The North Country I think this was the first song that pulled me out of listening to music through the prism of what the guitars were doing. I got a bit obsessed with the simplicity of it – acoustic, vocal, harmonica. Dylan is like a big hole. If you get stuck in there…

  • Irish Tracks of the Week – 4th April

    April 4, 2025 - By 

    Irish music this week isn’t so much stacked as spilling over. Hear brand new cuts from Myles Manley (who we’re bringing to Ulster Sports Club on Good Friday – tickets below), Search Results, Garrett Laurie, The Null Club, Data.Soul, The Number Ones and many more. Myles Manley – Jeremiaaad 1 // Di Fontaines Tickets for Myles Manley and Garden Centre at the Ulster Sports Club in Belfast on Friday 11th April are right here Search Results – Be Laurel Garrett Laurie – Something Blue Data.Soul – My Data Soul The Null Club – The Null Club Monday’s Child – Love,…

  • 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 – 28th March

    March 28, 2025 - By 

    It’s another stacked week for new music from across the island. The releases are coming thick and very fast – and we wouldn’t have it any other way. Lemoncello cover The Corrs in a way only they can. The Oh Yeah Centre’s latest Scratch My Progress compilation returns with standout tracks from Touzai and co. Connor McCann drops a stellar new EP, Cloakroom Q return with album number two, and there are some essential curveballers from Peng Weng, Unique Freaks and more. Link in bio Various Artists – Scratch My Progress Lemoncello – Breathless Connor McCann – After The End…

  • Video Premiere: Field Trip – I Get Down

    March 27, 2025 - By 

    It’s been a while – too long – since we last heard from Galway’s Field Trip. And while we’ll get into the hows and whys of that shortly, the return alone is cause enough for celebration. Today, we’re pleased to premiere ‘I Get Down’, a textbook harmony-laced gem that reaffirms just why the triom became one of the country’s most quietly beloved garage-pop bands. Taken from their long-awaited debut LP, Foreign Land, it’s a track that reaches gently into the past and brings something timeless back with it: bittersweet, impossibly earworming jangle-pop. Formed in Galway and fondly remembered for a…

  • Track-by-Track: Meljoann – Status

    March 25, 2025 - By 

    One of Ireland’s very best genre-fluid experimentalists Meljoann walks us through Status – a bristling, truth-telling odyssey through queerness, class, digital resistance and emotional survival. Blending industrial pop, retro-futurist funk and slow jams, the album takes aim at Big Tech, cultural cringe and the exploitative mechanics of the music industry, all while staying defiantly heartfelt and fiercely DIY. Here, she breaks down each track’s origins – from leprechaun-coded short stories and algorithmic nightmares to jazz-nerd odysseys and FOSS-slow jams. Status by Meljoann Rainbow Language (is for Losers) This song is rooted in growing up queer, when rural Ireland was still…

  • Monday Mixtape: Tigers of Tin Pan

    March 24, 2025 - By 

    Off the back of their stellar new single ‘Under The Moodlight,’ cult Dublin psych-pop duo Liam Mulvaney and John Butler aka Tigers of Tin Pan riff on some of their favourite tracks, featuring Cocteau Twins, Rollerskate Skinny, Sly & The Family Stone, The Association and more. Liam Mulvaney: Cocteau Twins – Heaven or Las Vegas Could be anything on that album, really. It’s like a warm rinse for the brain; musically unique, exotic and intoxicating. Oft copied: never bettered. Jimi Hendrix – All Along the Watchtower A threefer this one. Grade A Dylan lyrics, Hendrix at his most fluid and…

  • Irish Tracks of the Week – 21st March

    March 21, 2025 - By 

    From sharp returns to brand new sparks, I Dreamed I Dream, The Null Club, Adebisi Shank, Ultan O’Brien and others land with force. I Dreamed I Dream – Fags The Null Club feat. E L U C I D – Frameshift Adebisi Shank – Start a Band Ultan O’Brien – Dancing The Line Ultan O’Brien – Dancing the LIne by Nyahh Records Dash! – Luas Luas by Dash! YARD – Trevor Pastiche – Calories Adrian Crowley and Sean O’Hagan – The Wreck of the Julia Speak Wreck Speak! by Bring Your Own Hammer presents Daniel Luke – My Father’s Son…

  • The Long Thread: An Interview With Joshua Burnside

    March 21, 2025 - By 

    Released last month, Teeth of Time feels like the culmination of everything Joshua Burnside has been quietly perfecting: layered alt-folk that sits somewhere between memory and myth, soundscapes that smuggle in the ambient truths of everyday life and a voice that cuts clean through the noise with understated gravity. A month on from its release, Burnside’s latest LP has already marked itself out as a high watermark and with a new run of live dates ahead – including a return to one of Ireland’s finest folk venues, DeBarra’s in Clonakilty, and a milestone return tothe Ulster Hall in Belfast (among…

  • Irish Tracks of the Week – 14th March

    March 14, 2025 - By 

    Another beyond-deadly week for Irish music delivers brand new Search Results, Junior Brother, Nomadic Rituals, Deeply Armed, ghoulgirl, Swimmers Jackson x Stray Light, Awesimon & Pat Lagoon, and New Jackson. Search Results – Wrinkle Junior Brother – Take Guilt (Live at Vicar Street0 Nomadic Rituals – Fust Fust by Nomadic Rituals Deeply Armed – The Healing Swimmers Jackson x Stray Light – Stripped Away (Cold Fry Remix) ghoulgirl – not hanging around Awesimon & Pat Lagoon – One and Only New Jackson – LIVE ONES 2