Having positively enamoured with their previous single ‘Trough’ (which we premiered back in January) Dublin’s Come On Live Long have returned with a fluttering, kaleidoscopic, seven-minute alt-pop gem, ‘Speak Up’. Recorded in August last year, the recording of the track was “an opportunity for the band to try out a new way to collaborate, adopting a different approach to communicating and arranging the piece”. We’re big fans. Stream the track below.
Following on from the release of Cherrystones’ Critical Mass, Belfast-based imprint Touch Sensetive have announced that Esalen Lectures by Northern Irish producer The Host (AKA Barry Lynn/Boxcutter) will be their next release on August 14. As well as unveiled release info, the label have also made available a track from the release, ‘Peri-Natal Imprinting’. A teasing slice of oscillating abstracted ambience, the track follows on from the release of ‘World Sensitive‘ back in April. Check out the very intriguing back-story and underlying impetus behind the release, and stream the track itself, below. “Inspired by think tanks and floatation tanks, psychological research, 2012 mythology, 1960’s…
Forming from the embers of General Fiasco early last year, Belfast brother duo Owen and Enda Strathern AKA Oh Volcano have consistently piqued our interest over the last couple of years with sporadic live shows and singles including ‘Oceans’ and ‘See No Evil’. Taken from their forthcoming debut, Don’t Know Love, new single ‘Rush of Blood’ goes one further, proving a very considered, wonderfully produced piece of electro-pop. Oh Volcano play their next show at Belfast’s Empire on July 3, alongside Goons, Dutch Schultz and Parapa Palace. Stream ‘Rush of Blood’ below. Artwork by Stuart Bell.
Cork songstress Niamh Murphy AKA Foxglove is one of those artists who just instantly commands a song from the moment her vocals enter into the music. Featuring a suitably phantasmal video by David Nelligan, the beautifully elegiac, chamber-pop tale that is ‘We’re No Armies’ is a perfect example of this seemingly effortless knack in action. Photo by Emma Jervis.
Having delivered a stellar set at our second birthday show at Twisted Pepper back in May, Dublin duo Night Trap have unveiled some delightful throwback electro-pop in the form of ‘Someone Like You’. Propulsive in all the right places, simply grooving forth in honour of the duo’s obvious influences, the song proves uncannily earworming after a couple of listens. Seriously, give it two listens… you’ll be humming it all day. And possibly tomorrow. Night Trap launch the single with Patrick Kelleher, L/B/W and Old Moon at Dublin’s TenterHooks Gigspace on Friday night. Created by Andy Walsh, watch the video for…
Melding estranged spoken word meets kosmiche-tinged instrumental psych, ‘Incredible Technology’ by GODHATESDISCO gives a subtly glorious glimmer of insight of what to expect from the Dublin duo’s forthcoming album, Great Radio. Grasping for unseen lucidity, marrying malevolent electronic dissonance with pulsating bass and Motorik groove, the track blossoms and simmers before expiring in a haze of noise and the fractured words of an anonymous female voice. Great Radio is released via Little Gem Records on July 24. Go here to help fund the record.
With Belfast set for the return of the Tall Ships at the Belfast Maritime Festival from July 2-5, Lavery’s have announced that they will host some of the North’s best live acts on the Thursday, Friday and Saturday at their Continental Market-style beer tent on the Odyssey Arena’s front lawn. With the full timetable to be announced, Runaway Go will play on Thursday, indie pop quartet Go Wolf (pictured )will play on Friday and Wonder Villains will play on Saturday. Elsewhere, Stevie Scullion & co. AKA Malojian, Stephen Macartney and Rachel Coulter, New Ancestors and Chris Wilson, The Salt Flats, Loris, Michael Mormecha and…
With the likes of Kerbdog and Donovan included in their first announcement early last month, Stendhal Festival of Art have revealed that reggae/dancehall pioneer Macka B (pictured), Dublin singer-songwriter Declan O’Rourke and fast-rising musician Rainy Boy Sleep are amongst the acts included in their second line-up announcement. Also set to play the festival – which takes place at Limavady’s Ballymully Cottage Farm on August 7 and 8 – are Scottish alt-rock band Fatherson, harpist Ursula Burns, Derry’s Making Monsters, Dylan Walshe, Zimbabwean folk band Afresh, Co. Down soprano Maria McGrann, The Hardchargers, The Whereabouts, Exit Pursued by Bear, The Eunan McLaughlin Quartet, Axecatcher, Apartment…
Taken from their Octagon EP – released via Dutch imprint Rhythm Nation – Dublin duo Peter Ward and Ronan Downing AKA Terriers have mustered some real magic on their unravelling, seven-minute techno chugger ‘Believing The Crystal’. Evoking tripped-out, somnambulist forays in some non-descript, sweaty-walled club of yore, the track bears the sonic fruits of the pair recently being under the learned guide of Levon Vincent for three months in Berlin. A sound move, we say. Photo by Sarah Doyle
Set to play Body & Soul at the weekend, Dublin duo My Tribe Your Tribe really caught our attention back in February with the dreamy, subtly cascading alt-electro of ‘Only a Horizon’. Going several steps further, their new single, ‘Will To Survive’, was obviously written with those imminent summer festival sets in mind. Danceable in all the first places, it looks both inward and outward, evoking the vocals of Ben Gibbard, and a musical marriage between Caribou and early Arcade Fire. ‘Will To Survive’ – produced by James Darkin at Temple Lane Studio – will be officially released on November 6.