• Irish Tracks of the Week – October 15th

    October 15, 2021 - By 

    The good and the great just keep on coming. Here’s the very best Irish releases of the week, featuring Group Zero, Maria Kelly, Fixity, Brigid Mae Power, Thumper, Dani Larkin, Sprints and more. Group Zero – We Need Water Fixity – Homeworld Brigid Mae Power – Mother In the Sky Maria Kelly – The Sum of the In-between The Sum of the In-between by Maria Kelly Dani Larkin – Bloodthirsty Anthony Byrne – Chasing Sprints – Modern Job smallmint – where we all end up in the end where we all end up in the end by smallmint THUMPER –…

  • Watch: Bouts – Passing Through

    May 17, 2019 - By 

    Not that you need reminding, but Dublin indie quartet Bouts released one of the Irish albums of the year (thus far) back in January. Released today, the fourth single to be taken from Flow is ‘Passing Through’ and what a timely, sun-drenched cut it is. Bounding with starry-eyed hooks, it’s a brisk but brilliant effort that faces down “the transience of life – friendship, music and attachment.” Move over ‘Get Lucky’ – this is the sound of the (Irish) summer. Check out Teresa Weikmann’s video for the single below.

  • Stream a new Kobina remix of Bouts’ Love’s Lost Landings Pt. 2

    March 22, 2019 - By 

    In one of the finest musical meeting of minds we’ve heard in quite some time, Amsterdam-based Irish producer Sean Arthur aka Kobina has reworked ‘Love’s Lost Landings Pt. 2’, a recent single from Dublin indie rock heroes Bouts. Across four minutes, it makes for a glitchy, subtly propulsive affair that masterfully ekes out hidden rhythms and streams of melodic finesse from the original. Start your weekend right by giving it a spin or two below. Arthur said, “With any remix I try to find the core of what makes the original stand out to me and then flip it. For me the original…

  • Bouts – Flow

    January 24, 2019 - By 

    After a five year hiatus, Dublin based Bouts have harkened back to when they were regulars on the Irish music scene, circa 2013, and gifted us with a long awaited second album. Flow is the result of two years of intercontinental songwriting and recording, as the lads are now spread across Dublin, London and Amsterdam. But has the maturity and cultural expansion added to the creative and musical process? Barry Bracken (vocals, guitar), Colin Boylan (guitar, vocals), Niall Jackson (bass, vocals) and Daniel Flynn (drums, percussion) have nurtured a sound that’s familiar and comforting in its ‘90s inspired indie pop…

  • Watch: Bouts – Love’s Lost Landings (Part 2)

    January 18, 2019 - By 

    Next week, Bouts will release their highly-anticipated second album, Flow. It’s an release that finds the Dublin quartet distilling their star-shaped, and instantly recognisable brand of indie rock down to nine tracks. Doubling up as the long-awaited full-length follow-up to 2013’s Nothing Good Gets Away, the album – which was recorded by Fiachra McCarthy in Dublin – is an emphatic return effort at a time when carefully-crafted guitar music is experiencing a long-overdue renaissance. Coming off the back of singles ‘Face Up’ and ‘Love’s Lost Lost Landings (Part 1)’, the newly-released ‘Love’s Lost Landings (Part 2)’ is an irresistible shoegaze-leaning burst revolving around Barry Bracken’s…

  • Bouts Announce Tour, Stream ‘Love’s Lost Landings (Part 2)’

    November 21, 2018 - By 

    Dublin indie rock quartet Bouts are about to hit the road for the first time in almost five years in support of their new album, Flow. The 9-track album – which is released on January 25th 2019 and available for pre-order from today on Wonky Karousel Records – will be available on a limited run of 100 vinyl records. Half of the run will sold exclusively on their UK and Irish tour which kicks off in London with two shows (Lion Coffee + Records and The Finsbury) on Saturday, January 26th. The tour then moves to Ireland for a series of five Irish shows:…

  • Watch: Bouts – Love’s Lost Landings (Pt. 1)

    October 19, 2018 - By 

    Five years on from the release of their debut album, Nothing Good Gets Away, Dublin indie rock quartet Bouts resurfaced back in May with ‘Face Up’. The lead single from the band’s highly-anticipated second full-length, Flow, frontman Barry Bracken called it “a no-filter, punch the air plea for staring things down and pushing on through.” Second single ‘Love’s Lost Landings (Pt. 1)’ picks up the pace in emphatic fashion. Accompanied with visuals from Paris/London-based French photographer Gwenaëlle Trannoy (link below) it’s an equal parts slick and starry-eyed burst of indie rock from the re-emerging Irish four-piece, centreing around frontman Barry Bracken’s…

  • Watch: Bouts – Face Up

    May 16, 2018 - By 

    It’s been five years since debut LP Nothing Good Gets Away, and four since their last release, Unlearn, but back in style are Dublin indie rock Bouts, with ‘Face Up’. Influenced by the kind of breezy, hook-laden indie rock best placed to soundtrack the main stages of the Irish summer, its DIY video fittingly  papers over the malaise with emphatic optimism. Of the song, frontman Barry Bracken says: “Face Up is a no-filter, punch the air plea for staring things down and pushing on through. Some songs you write, others just materialise. This seemed born ready. Its immediacy excites us as much now as those first moments playing it.…

  • EP Premiere: Bouts – Unlearn

    February 29, 2016 - By 

    Self-described as a “pop-grunge noise rock band with an inherent, unashamed attachment to big pop hooks” Dublin indie rock quartet Bouts have well and truly lived up to that explication over the last few years. Having fully arrived with their stupendous debut album Nothing Good Gets Away back in 2013, today marks the release of a five-track EP that sees their craft as downright convincing as ever, in spite of two members living overseas. Recorded at various points in 2015, at no point during the process where all members present together – a fact that both underlines the studio efforts of John Murphy and Shane…

  • Watch: Bouts – Allies

    January 26, 2016 - By 

    It’s no secret that we’re big fans of Dublin’s wanderlust-ridden Bouts. Five months on from the release of its lead single ‘Missteps’, the indie rock quartet have reappeared with their forthcoming debut EP’s emphatic follow-up, ‘Allies’. Featuring a brilliantly bizarre video courtesy of Eoin Heaney of Highly Stimulating Productions, the track is classic Bouts through-and-through, marrying urgent, starry-eyed melodies with noise-laced zeal. Bouts’ Unlearn EP will be released on February 29. Check out the artwork for the EP and watch the video for ‘Allies’ below.