• Watch: No Monster Club – I’ve Retired

    Filmed over the course of two years in venues and festivals including Whelan’s, The Pop Inn, Knockanstockan, The Button Factory, Galway’s Roisin Dubh, Castlepalooza, Cork’s Connolly’s of Leap, No Monster Club have released the jubilant video for probably the catchiest Irish song of 2015, ‘I’ve Retired’. Compiled by Daniel Martin, the video “follows the song on its journey from house shows to festivals, via rock clubs and dive bars”. Good times. No Monster Club will release a new 7″ EP, Where Did You Get That Milkeshake?, via Emotional Response Records on September 5.

  • Stream: Extra Fox – Ain’t That The Way

    Dublin producer Neil Adams AKA Extra Fox was last on our radar back in February with ‘Lunar Float’, a spectral single we called “nigh on onomatopoetic”. With a rare live show expected to be announced over the next while, Adams has returned with the equally strong ‘Ain’t That The Way’, a brilliantly bobbing slice of electro-pop that, by virtue of its restrained, gradually layered repetition, burrows its way inside very nicely indeed.

  • First Acts Announced for Metropolis 2016

    Following a massive inaugural outing last year, Dublin festival Metropolis have revealed Grace Jones, DJ Shadow, Solomun and Moderat are amongst the first acts set to play its second installment from November 3-5. Presented by POD and Hidden Agenda, this year’s festival will return to RDS at the end of the year after a sell-out first year. Set in the industrial array of warehouses and venues with the RDS complex, the indoor event offers a tapestry of music, art installation performance and conversation over 6 days. With many more acts still to be announced, SBTRKT (DJ Set), Booka Shade –…

  • Super Furry Animals Set For Irish Dates

    Kicking off a string of winter dates culminating in a homecoming show in Cardiff, Welsh psych-pop legends Super Furry Animals will perform their landmark debut album, Fuzzy Logic, and its follow-up, Radiator, in order and back-to-back at Belfast’s Limelight and Dublin’s Olympia on November 30 and December 1. The dates mark the forthcoming re-issue of Fuzzy Logic on heavyweight vinyl, CD and digital formats. Fully remastered from the original tape reels, the band have enlisted their official archivist Kliph Scurlock and mastering expert Donal Whelan to ensure the recordings have been “meticulously rediscovered”. In a statement, the band said: “We were a young…

  • Watch: FONDA – Dreaming

    Few things can compete with that fuzzy feeling you get discovering a band – particularly one close to home – that just instantly tick all the boxes and hit home on first listen. A three-piece garage band from Limerick, Galway and Glasgow, FONDA are one of those bands. Having drawn comparisons to the likes of Crystal Stilts and the Go Betweens, the three-piece recorded their debut EP, Social Services with So Cow’s Brian Kelly last Summer. Now they’re back with ‘Dreaming’, a wonderful, perfectly understated new single that wields hard truths and major-minor chord transitions with a knack normally reserved for acts that have been around the…

  • Watch: Morrissey & Marshall – Stand Down

    Set for release on August 26, ‘Stand Down’ by Dublin rock n’ roll duo Morrissey and Marshall is a track inspired “by those poor unfortunates (politicians) who tend to stop at nothing when striving for success… They will lie, mislead, instil fear and do whatever it takes to get the people on side, without any true regard for the people. This song sparks the idea that there will eventually come a time when we’ll come together, rise above the fear and use truth, honesty and love to start fixing all of the things that need to be fixed.” An admirable,…

  • EP Stream: Dott – Beverly Baldwin

    Long-time TTA favourites, Dott first appeared on our radar back in January of 2012 via a demo of ‘Leave Tonight’. Four years a bit on, the Galway garage-pop quartet are back with a four-track EP distilling exactly what has kept us firmly interested in their trajectory to date. Set for release via NYC’s Mirror Universe Tapes on Friday, Beverly Baldwin was written and recorded by Anna and Evan of the band during a year spent in Toronto following their marriage in 2015. Titled after the part of Toronto where they recorded the EP in their tiny apartment, the release marries subtle…

  • Stream: Chris Hanna – And All Shall Be Well

    Ahead of playing Sunflowerfest this weekend, Belfast producer Chris Hanna shared this track on SoundCloud. A bright and bouncy affair, it’s part of a live set he’ll be playing next month, made entirely of new material — having lost all his work he’s making everything again from scratch. Hanna describes it as “a wee Songs of Praise house tune”, and it’s not hard to see why. Hands in the air.

  • Electric Picnic Reveal Hazel Wood Area

    The constant evolution and expansion of Electric Picnic has long been one of the annual Laois festival’s biggest draws. Set to return to Stradbally Estate from September 2-4, organisers have revealed its latest extension: a new area called Hazel Wood that offers “mesmerising storytelling through interactive theatre, immersive hauntings, shadow puppetry, visual displays, commedia dell’arte workshops, visual art and much, much more”. And to mark the new area’s debut outing, festival-goers will be given the opportunity to hear Cathy Davey’s forthcoming new album live and in full on the Friday night. Davey said, “Because this album was written in the forest I had fairly…

  • EP Stream: Remains of Youth – There is Hope Without Progress

    Bringing together new material with complete re-workings of older songs, There is Hope With Progress is an EP that marks the return of rejuvenated Belfast post-hardcore/alternative quartet Remains of Youth. With key influences in the likes of Idlewild, At The Drive-In and Derry’s Jetplane Landing (acts always proudly worn on their sleeve without ever feeling overbearing) the Adam Shirlow fronted-band have forged a five-track release that, largely ruminating on the passing of time – often in relation to the band’s own extended hiatus – brims with carefully-considered musicianship, strong sense of urgency and deft vitality. Stream the EP – recorded by Rocky O’Reilly…