• Watch: Orchid Collective – Lay As Stone

    March 8, 2016 - By 

    When we shared the track two weeks ago we said ‘Lay As Stone’ by Dublin quartet Orchid Collective was “unwinding alt-folk meditation on weariness and reprieve that sees wonderfully-woven harmonies come to the fore across the track’s nigh on four minutes”. Having zig-zagged around the country playing shows in the time since, the band have released a video for the single directed by Cill Farrell, the moral of which we’ve deduced is: it’s often – if not always – advisable to drink a few glasses of milk before going on the rip. Orchid Collective launch ‘Lay As Stone’ at Dublin’s…

  • Album Stream: J Cowhie – Veil

    March 8, 2016 - By 

    Early days though it is, after just a handful of listens Veil by J Cowhie is right up there with our favourite Irish albums of the year so far. Formerly known as GOODTIME/Goodtime John, the Malmö-based, Dublin “alternative electronic experimental folk” singer-songwriter very much trades in the currency of the mystery of memory, the throes of time and the curious laws of belonging, his hushed tales – each as slow-burning, incisive and revelatory as the next – framed in a phantasmal hue of sublime, ruminating ambience. An album about loss, change and the “responsibilities that come to us all in our lives whether we…

  • Stream: Oaks – Knowledge Spice

    March 8, 2016 - By 

    Featuring Jess Edlin and fellow Matua Trap member Steven Butler, ‘Knowledge Spice’ is the latest track to drop from Belfast-based producer James Bruce AKA Oaks. Assuredly building on early material including his debut album Safe Haven (revisit here), it summons subtly cascading Brainfeeder grooves, enveloping, Of Montrealian vocal harmonies and a sonic terrain inhabited by everyone from The Books and Ametsub to Madlib and Boards of Canada. Stream it and Rachael Boyd’s remix below.

  • Video Premiere: Edward F Butler – Joke Until Caught

    March 7, 2016 - By 

    Having spent the last few years making his mark in Belfast with HOWL and solo adventures, audio-visual maestro Edward F Butler is currently back home in Norfolk, working in a wood and home studio having recently returning from recording material in Berlin. Ahead of recording with LCON in Canada in May and playing shows in Toronto, New York and Montreal in May/June, Butler is releasing 12 releases in 2016, the second and latest of which, ‘Joke Until Caught’, distils his very prismatic craft to four consuming minutes. Keep up to date with Butler’s 12 releases in 2016 here. Created by Butler, check…

  • Watch: No Monster Club – Charity Shop/Slaughterhouse

    March 4, 2016 - By 

    No Monster Club’s Bobby Aherne doesn’t as much shirk convention as he takes it to one side and kindly conveys that it has absolutely no place at his party. Set to launch his new album I Feel Magic at Dublin’s Bello Bar this very evening (Friday, March 4) Aherne has unveiled the perfectly oddball video for the release’s second single ‘Charity Shop/Slaughterhouse’, a “surreal video sees Bobby playing a mysterious stranger getting to know the last few inhabitants of an otherwise abandoned planet. Uniquely, it also features a sign language interpreter for the hard of hearing.” Beware: this track – nicely placed between…

  • EP Premiere: Warriors of the Dystotheque – Return To Coney

    March 4, 2016 - By 

    A self-proclaimed “dystopian journey deep into the heart of modern trip hop and gloomtronica” Return to Coney is the second EP from multi-national outfit Warriors of the Dystotheque. Founded by Derry’s Jonny Mac, the quartet’s craft is a darkly blend of slick, lo-fi soundscapes in the vein of Massive Attack and UNKLE, rounded off by a deft cinematic scope and solid command of layered, trip-hop leaning instrumentalism. Released via Tigre Fair today, Return to Coney is inspired by cult 70s film The Warriors and particularly one of the final moments of the film, where The Warriors return to their home turf – Coney…

  • Electric Picnic Reveal First Acts

    March 2, 2016 - By 

    With the rumours coming thick and fast over the last couple of weeks, Electric Picnic have revealed the first acts confirmed to play this year’s festival. With much more yet to be revealed, LCD Soundsystem, Lana Del Rey, New Order and The Chemical Brothers top this year’s festival. Super Furry Animals, Haim, Todd Terje, Animal Collective, Broken Social Scene, Savages are also amongst the first confirmed acts. See the full first announcement below. Weekend camping tickets for Electric Picnic 2016 are now on sale here. To enter our competition to win two weekend tickets to this year’s festival, go here.

  • Stream: Solar Bears – Gravity Calling

    March 2, 2016 - By 

    This time last month we were rather giddily raving about Solar Bears‘ ‘Wild Flowers’, a track we said seen the Dublin duo “as prismatic and sorcerous as ever”. Very much following in that vein, ‘Gravity Calling’ is the latest track to be streamed from their forthcoming third album, Advancement, which drops via Sunday Best Recordings on March 18. Inducing yet another neon-lit netherworld of lambent retro-futurism, it’s a superbly synth-driven, soundtrack-like four minutes of flawless mastery from the twosome. Solar Bears play Belfast’s Lavery’s on Friday, March 18. Pre-order Advancement here.

  • Watch: New Secret Weapon – You’re Still Losing (Live)

    March 1, 2016 - By 

    Few Irish alt-rock bands command their own sound quite as convincingly as Dublin’s New Secret Weapon. Counting The Fear, The Late Late Show and OJ Simpson as their many influences on their Facebook page, the David Griffin-fronted trio have unveiled a live version of ‘You’re Still Losing’, a riff-fuelled, multi-part ode to the interminable, Sisyphean strife of The Everyday. Evoking everything from Jeff Buckley’s more tenacious efforts to the backwashed urban doom of Enablers and Incubus’ earlier, more emphatic material. Created by Scan and recorded by Deaf Bros, watch the video below.

  • Watch: Bad Bones – Games

    March 1, 2016 - By 

    Set to play the next installment of Psykick Dancehall – our new night with Medium presents at Dublin’s Bello Bar – Dublin producer Sal Stapleton AKA Bad Bones released her shadowy, wonderfully cloistered first gambit last month in the form of ‘Beg’. Going one better, her new single ‘Games’ is a delicious slice of darkly electronica weaving perfectly-spliced beats, bobbing bass and modulated vocals in a fine, cimmerian mesh of noise. Check out the video for ‘Games’ – also created by Stapleton – below.