• Jape – This Chemical Sea

    January 29, 2015 - By 

    How do you follow up not one, but two Choice Music Prize winning albums? This is a dilemma that so far no one has ever had to face other than Jape’s Richie Egan. He’s Ireland’s answer to PJ Harvey in that respect, although even she didn’t win her two Mercury Prizes with two consecutive albums.  First properly establishing himself with 2008’s Ritual, still a bona fide Irish classic and arguably Egan’s first solidly consistent piece of work, having benefitted from the success of minor hit single ‘Floating’ to show him which direction to settle on, 2011’s Ocean Of Frequency was…

  • Ty Segall – Mr. Face EP

    January 28, 2015 - By 

    We’re not really certain that Ty Segall sleeps. His near-constant stream of output, be it through his seven solo albums or countless collaborations on other records, all within a relatively short span of seven years, make us wonder when he would have the time. His latest effort comes straight off the back of last year’s glam-powered double album, Manipulator in the form of a four track EP entitled Mr. Face. Mr. Face is currently being promoted as being ‘The World’s First Playable Pair Of 3D Glasses’ but they use the term ‘glasses’ generously. If you were to hold the two red and blue 7”…

  • The Midnight Union Band – Of Life And Lesser Evils

    January 23, 2015 - By 

    The formation of The Midnight Union Band sounds like one of those great rock and roll stories. Peter Flynn (piano/organ/electric guitar/lapslide/mandolin), Brian McGrath (bass) and Cian Doolan (electric guitar/mandolin) had all played in a band together, but they were struggling with creating a grander sound. One day they literally stumbled upon busker Shane Joyce on the streets of Kilkenny and invited him to join the band, and with the addition of drummer John Wallace, it seems the The Midnight Union Band was truly born. After the release of five song EP Behind The Truth in 2013 and a year of…

  • Sleater-Kinney – No Cities To Love

    January 23, 2015 - By 

    If, after ten years and numerous highly influential albums, you want to call it a day, that’s perfectly fine. That old Neil Young line about burning out holds as much weight now as it did in back in 1979. But if you are going to reappear without warning, you’d better have a damn good reason. You can talk about legacy ultimately being redundant, but how many great bands are tarnished by a bad comeback album. The Pixies’ Indie Cindy is a record chock full of cuts that wouldn’t be considered C-sides back in their heyday, the world wasn’t begging for…

  • Belle and Sebastian – Girls In Peacetime Want To Dance

    January 21, 2015 - By 

    Nineteen years and nine albums later, Belle and Sebastian still prove to be a true testament of youth. Nearly two decades after the release of their debut album Tiger Milk, ninth studio album Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance finds a sound that carries the torch of their primordial folk roots while embracing the changing tastes of an alt-oriented audience. Distributed by Matador Records, the album marks the band’s first release with the US indie label and the first with Atlanta-based producer Ben H. Allen III. Given this tenuous moment in the Glasgow group’s prolific career, the change in direction reads a…

  • The Dodos – Individ

    January 20, 2015 - By 

    Some bands have one album in their discography that will simply never be bettered and will always slightly overshadow all subsequent releases. The Dodos are one of those bands. After debuting with the pretty solid Beware Of The Maniacs, the duo came to most people’s attention with second album Visiter, an hour long indie folk odyssey, characterised by Meric Long’s intricate yet sometimes ramshackle finger picking and honey-like voice accompanied by Logan Kroeber’s frantic percussion, performed as if by a man with at least 3 arms. Wonderfully melodic, occasionally chaotic, it was the overlooked gem of 2008. They followed it…

  • Panda Bear – Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper

    January 13, 2015 - By 

    Noah Lennox knows how to stir up a bit of intrigue. On his fifth album as Panda Bear, the Animal Collective co-conspirator has chosen a title that seems prophetic. Are we seeing the retirement of the Panda Bear avatar as we know it or is this simply a vague conceptual slant that the record seems to take? Lennox has said that the sequence of songs deals with the death of certain “character traits that are unnecessary or detrimental”, the dissolution of an identity, broken down until it is completely eradicated. In parts it’s reminiscent of The Terror by Flaming Lips,…

  • The Cyclist – Flourish

    December 17, 2014 - By 

    Having set out his stall with last year’s Bones In Motion LP, Derry native The Cyclist (Andrew Morrison) has returned with another full-length example of what he very aptly describes as ‘tape throb,’ a boundary-defying genre envisioned as a warmer approach to making electronica; crackling, fluid-like but with danceable overtones. Flourish, Morrison’s second album and his first through All City Records, extends to the listener a slightly more evolved tape throb mantra of lo-fi, compounded and naturally rich electronica than that of Bones In Motion; in this latest instance for example, Morrison has included just seven tracks in comparison to…

  • Mogwai – Music Industry 3. Fitness Industry 1.

    December 15, 2014 - By 

    Another Mogwai release, another excellent title. Following on from solid yet divisive 8th studio album Rave Tapes, released earlier this year, Music Industry 3. Fashion Industry 1. is a short collection of remixes and unreleased tracks recorded in the same sessions, and if Rave Tapes‘ surprisingly restrained nature was main the reason for such divided opinion, then that shouldn’t be an issue here. Lead track ‘Teenage Exorcists’ includes vocals, a secret weapon Mogwai tend to unleash sparingly but effectively, and in fact it instantly establishes itself as one of the finest vocal tracks in their catalogue. While their vocals often…

  • Ken & Ryu – Fantasy Ink

    December 5, 2014 - By 

    Space and electronic music are seemingly intrinsically linked. It’s understandable; the initial development of electronic instrumentation happened when the Space Race was in full swing. The sounds themselves feel otherworldly and wondrous and though synthy space music is by now a path well-trodden it’s far from an exhausted source of interesting sounds and good vibes. This is none more evident than on Fantasy Ink, a solid record of stellar funk from Belfast’s James McConville, aka Ken & Ryu. Clocking in at just over fifteen minutes, the EP treats us to a short and sweet galactic trip. Opener ‘Backbone of the…