• Premiere: The Mad Dalton – Devil Came To Derry

    Keeping the candle burning for the dying tradition of the Halloween single, Belfast-based Scots/Canadian singer-songwriter Peter Sumadh AKA The Mad Dalton’s ‘Devil Came To Derry’ is a slow-burning dose of malevolent Americana that puts sparsely plucked guitar guitars and a bleak, unravelling narrative centre-stage. Accompanied by a video shot up Derry way by Dog Kennel Productions, the single is the follow-up to Sumadh’s 2015’s The Little Belfry EP, which we reviewed here. Have an exclusive first look at the video for the single (“a song for people of all faiths and for people with no faith at all.”) below.  

  • Premiere: The IYMAs Volume 9

    Ahead of its launch in on Friday, we’re pleased to present a premiere of Irish Youth Music Awards Volume 9. With the awards – the country’s only all island youth focused music awards and festival – celebrating its tenth anniversary today, the release features original tracks recorded by last year’s recipients from team Galway. Irish Youth Music Awards Director Barry Lennon said, “We are very excited to be entering our tenth year supporting the creativity of young people across Ireland and acting as a stepping stone in their journey as they progress to further education and employment opportunities. As part of this…

  • Premiere: That Snaake – Scofflaw // Sisyphus

    We’ve a lot of time for Dublin’s That Snaake. Cutting a singular figure in a scene of prevailing alt-rock uniformity, the Paul O’Connor-fronted quartet’s live shows are some akin to shock-and-awe; a steady blitzkrieg of carefully honed noise and unrelenting disdain. Taken from their forthcoming second EP, Blinded By The Smell (“the melodious outward looking companion to the short-sighted tumultuous rage of [their debut EP] At Swim One Stone“) we’re pleased to premiere the band’s new single ‘Scofflaw // Sisyphus’. According to the band, “It tells the story of an ageing musician who played a bit part in the Commitments desperately trying to…

  • Video Premiere: The Urges – Echoes Softly

    Ahead of premiering their second album, Time Will Pass, next week, we’re pleased to present a first look at the video for ‘Echoes Softly’ by Dublin psychedelic garage trailblazers The Urges. Filmed in Florence during an Italian tour last year, the video was directed by Amos Kahana and features Julien Vannucchi as Director of Photography. The single is now available via iTunes and all other usual online outlets as a download only. The Urges launch Time Will Pass at Dublin’s Grand Social on Saturday, October 29.

  • Watch: Burnt Out – Joyrider

    Back in March we featured North Dublin multi-disciplinary project Burnt Out in our physical magazine, discussing their origins, class disparity, misrepresentation and their stellar debut single ‘Dear James‘. The piece presented the project as one of the country’s most authentic and unequivocal artistic propositions and a a group of firmly rooted in working class society, raging against the distinct under-appreciation of their culture. Six months on, they have resurfaced ‘Joyrider’, a masterfully cathartic audio-visual statement confronting the “systematic concept of masculinity with regard to violence and emotions, aiming to highlight the destructive nature masculine expectation has on the adolescent and those surrounding”. Burnt Out…

  • Album Premiere: Katie Kim – Salt

    Whether you look to Ireland or further afield, few artists cut such a compelling and fiercely individual figure as Waterford’s Katie Sullivan AKA Katie Kim. Four years on from the magisterial, slowcore-tinged indie-folk of her second album Cover and Flood, the Dublin-based musician has returned with its extraordinary, fully-realised follow-up, Salt. A nine-track ode to the unknowable sway of memory, transience, indestructible love, the spectre of loss & longing and what Kafka called the Indestructible, sparsely plucked guitars, disembodied piano shapes, washes of droned ambience and quietly-woven percussion plait to propel Katie Kim’s wonderfully esoteric, deeply-felt inner narratives to a realm of almost meditative poise and intent. Recorded with John…

  • Stream: Kieran O’Brien – Won’t You

    Rediscovery is a central concept when listening to the music of Kieran O’Brien. The songwriter spent four years after finishing university living in Dublin and Athlone but found himself drawn back to life closer to ocean in his home county of Galway, thus re-emersing himself in the place that had inspired his musical awakening. Reconnecting with home and the associated memories and emotions both positive and negative therein became a fuel for O’Brien to re-awaken the songwriter within him. This “un-freezing” as he describes it came to be defined by his life by the ocean and the memories of youth that…

  • The Altered Hours Announce Irish Fall Tour

    Having released and widely toured their debut album In Heat Not Sorry at the start of the year, Cork psych five-piece – and arguably the country’s very best live proposition right now – The Altered Hours have announced a four-date Irish fall tour. To coincide with the dates, IHNS has been re-pressed and will be available on limited edition orange vinyl via Art For Blind Records, Penske Recordings and at all upcoming gigs. Check out the dates – and a tour promo video – below. November 18: Lavery’s, Belfast December 3:  Kasbah Social Club, Limerick December 10: The Kino, Cork December 15: The Grand Social, Dublin…

  • Watch: Buckles n’ Son – Pancake Paradise

    A self-proclaimed weird hip-hop duo, Dublin’s Conor Buckley and Shawn Mkandala AKA Buckles n’ Son caught our attention with their superb cover of Thundercat’s ‘Them Changes’ back in May. With its wonderfully warped melange of hip-hop beats, woozy synths, blips, beeps, bizarro lyrics and soulful/psycho vocal zig-zagging, the multi-instrumentalist pair have returned with new single,  ‘Pancake Paradise’. Watch its video – directed by Alex Harrison and featuring animation/co-direction from Kav – below. ‘Pancake Paradise’ is taken from Buckles n’ Son’s forthcoming five-track EP, Demo, which is launched via Clockwork on Friday (October 14) at Dublin’s Wigwam.

  • EP Stream: Myronik – North/South

    A six-track “audio diary” borne from travelling New Zealand for a year, North/South by 25 year old Dublin producer Liam Myers AKA Myronik features collected samples of various sounds and environments, from birds to instruments to various sound objects that Myers tried to recreate the emotions that “this amazing country evoked in me.” But far from an ad hoc series of tracks made simply to time-freeze a fond journey, the release is a masterfully assembled document of pastoral ambient, understated electronica and inspired experimentalism. In case you missed it, check out our Track Record with Myronik here. North/South by Myronik