• EP Premiere: Shrug Life – The Grand Stretch

    Having all but soiled ourselves listening to and shouting about its second track, ‘Funderland’, yesterday, we’re rather happy to present an exclusive first listen to The Grand Stretch, the debut EP by Popical Island’s latest – and perhaps some day greatest – outfit, Shrug Life. Life sucks and we all know it, but not all of us (in fact, very few of us) have the creative or whimsical tools at our disposal to express said utter despair and pointlessness via inescapably deadly, stupidly catchy, lo-fi indie rock. God knows we’d all love to, but who’s got the time to give…

  • Download: An Taobh Tuathail Vol 7

    Not merely the finest Irish radio programme, An Taobh Tuathail on RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta is nothing short of a consistently impeccable underground music institution. Presented by Cian Ó Cíobháin, the show has proven an indispensable go-to criterion for fresh, unusual and glorious sounds for innumerable listeners both across the country and throughout the world since starting way back in 1999. Eight years on from the release of its first collection, the seventh volume of ATT’s free, all-but annual compilation – featuring tracks by the likes of Orcas, Loner Deluxe, Kode9, Colleen, Rival Consoles, Nils Frahm, Sufjan Stevens and Mica Levi – is a perfect place to…

  • Watch: Shrug Life – Funderland

    Dublin-based bastion of jangle and virulent lo-fidelity, Popical Island’s latest “ingenues” Shrug Life have gotten off to a ridiculously catchy start with the release of tracks ‘Chewing Gum Breakfast’ and ‘Funderland’. Set to feature on the band’s debut EP, The Grand Stretch (which we’ll be streaming next week), the latter song was released earlier today and is for our money the finest (our at least our favourite) Popical Island track ever. Stick that on our tombstone; we shall forever stand by it. Not terrified of mimes? Watch the video for ‘Funderland’ below. Go here for the Facebook page event page…

  • Watch: Clancy & Parkes – Twenty-One Minutes of Music

    Twenty-One Minutes Of Music is a collaboration between Thomas Parkes (The Jimmy Cake) and contemporary composer Sean L. Clancy, which was recorded during a two day residency at the Moog Sound Lab at Birmingham City University. The aim of the collaboration was to develop new compositions using a large selection of Moog synthesisers which included the legendary Moog System 55 modular synth. With a combination of improvisation and chance techniques they recorded around seven hours of material which will eventually be whittled down to an album’s worth of material in the coming months. The piece in this video is a…

  • Stream: Replete – Day Off

    One of our Acts to Watch in 2014, Kilkenny producer Pete Lawlor AKA Replete recently delivered two stellar sets in Belfast and Dublin, in Aether & Echo and the new-fangled Wiley Fox respectively. Having released stuff from the likes of Nphonix, Reagan Grey and Sly-One over the last couple of years, Devon imprint Shifting Peaks – purveyors of half decent bass, house and stuff” – have featured Lawlor in their new five-year retrospective compilation, Bass and Superstructure. A mere flicker at five minutes long, the galvanic ‘Day Off’ emerges from sublime washes of synth to form a fleshed-out gem of finespun, glistening House.

  • Watch: Brian Conniffe – Mercy Mine

    When he’s not playing with Patrick Kelleher, Catscars (feat. Robyn Bromfield of Everything Shook’s) and Tenro AKA Marc Aubele of Nanu Nanu and Bell X1, Dublin cross-genre, experimental musician Brian Conniffe is concocting his own warped, psych-soaked brand of electronic noise. According to Conniffe, his new track ‘Mercy Mine’ is a “surreal, ghostly and strangely misshapen take on elements of contemporary electronic pop fused in deep darkness with a distinctly vintage warped VHS video, producing a luminous and poisonous, kinetic and frenetic result.” Took the words right out of our mouth. Delve in below. Photo by Maricarmen Copca

  • Watch: Pocket Promise – Music For The Twelfth

    Having been on extended hiatus for a few years, Co. Tyrone band Pocket Promise remain of Ireland’s all-time truly great alt-pop bands. With some expectation suggestive of a reunion of sorts in the pipeline at some point in the future, the band have re-emerged, in some form, with the up until-now unreleased ‘Music For The Twelfth’. With its backdrop of the Northern Irish marching season, the song – over a decade old at this point – should be familiar to anyone caught the band (compised of members that went on to form Seven Summits) during their initial, country-spanning tenure of the mid-noughties. Speaking of…

  • Watch: Best Boy Grip – Can’t Buy Love, Son

    The latest in a string of Irish singer-songwriters to wisely wander down the road of crowd-funding, Derry’s Eoin O’Callaghan AKA Best Boy Grip aims to released his forthcoming debut album on September 7. The latest track to be released from the album, the impassioned and swooning ‘Can’t Buy Love, Son’ perfectly captures the essence of the project, hinting – alongside the previously released ‘Sharks‘ and ‘Cops‘ – at something really special in the works. Having already achieved his Pledge goal, there’s still 55 days to contribute. Like what you hear? You can do so here.

  • Stream: Girls Names – A Hunger Artist

    Having just returned from a string of European dates, Girls Names have unveiled ‘A Hunger Artist’, the latest single to be taken from their forthcoming third album, Arms Around a Vision. Assumingly taking its title from Franz Kafka’s 1922 short story of the same name, the track – quite possibly our favourite Girls Names effort to date – sees frontman Cathal Cully confront a life lived “hand in mouth.” Elaborating, he said, “Most guitar music now is just a playground for the rich middle classes, and it’s really boring and elitist. We’re elitist in our own way, in that we’re on our own…

  • Watch: Come On Live Long – Speak Up

    Shot by Mercedes Arturo & Nico Casavecchia in (deep breath) Brooklyn, Buenos Aires, Bangkok, Beijing, Barcelona, Berlin, Tigre, Tierra del Fuego, Niece, Mar del Plata, San Jose, Copenhagan, Cannes, Ko Pha Ngan and London, Dublin’s Come On Live Long have unveiled the sprawling, rather spectacular video for their seven-minute new single, ‘Speak Up’. Watch it below.