• Cian Nugent, Nap Eyes & Cryboys @ Whelan’s, Dublin

    May 16, 2016 - By 

    It’s a diverse crowd of music heads both old and young here at Whelan’s for a night of straight-up good music, untethered to current trends for what’s a homecoming show for Cian Nugent who has been gallivanting across America with main support Nap Eyes recently; this night kick starts the European leg. Opening the show are one of Nugent’s numerous side-projects, alt. country-meets-power-pop of Cryboys. Their 3-4 minute nuggets evoke early Wilco in what appears to be their first outing in some time with the group. It’s a strong set, scattered with the kinds of nostalgic hooks one would expect…

  • Album stream: Land Lovers – The Rooks Have Returned

    May 13, 2016 - By 

    There’s something uncannily accurate about Dublin’s Land Lovers calling themselves “Undulating Pop”. With a craft that equally weaves and lulls with gaze-y, wave-like motion, their new album The Rooks Have Returned is a full-length earworm sweetly balanced between throwback jangle and dream-pop. Tipping its lyrical hat to everything from 1916, mortal restlessness and nostalgic reminiscence, it wears the band’s key influences of Elvis Costello, New Order and David Bowie on its proverbial sleeve, bursting forth with a level of hook-heavy songwriting that we’ve come to expect from the Irish five-piece. The Rooks Have Returned is out via the mighty Popical Island on Monday…

  • Stream: Flecks – Girl EP

    May 11, 2016 - By 

    Dublin five-piece Flecks‘ debut EP Girl is a four-track statement of intent, keenly balanced between feverish Summertime synth-pop (‘Girl’ and ‘Distance=Distance’ and more ruminating, wonderfully darkly efforts in EP highlight ‘Objects of Desire’ and ‘Fear’. At once yearning and hopeful, it serves as a finely produced, sublimely restrained opening gambit from an Irish outfit we suspect will well and truly make their mark. Stream Girl below.

  • Stream: Colour Canyon – Home

    April 20, 2016 - By 

    Michelle Considine & Harry Bookless of Dublin indie pop outfit Little xs for Eyes have unveiled ‘Home’, their first original single under the name Colour Canyon. ‘Home’ follows their Record Store Gay cover of ‘Open Your Heart‘ by The Human League, with the duo having been working on new original material in the months since. The synths are very much in soft focus on this dusk-emulating slice of ’80s disco-pop, with swirling, verb-drenched vocals that would make Elizabeth Fraser envious. ‘Home’ is out now. Stream it below:

  • Stream: El Grey – My Names A, Your Names Zed

    April 20, 2016 - By 

    Well this is pretty mind blowing – Bray-based singer-songwriter project El Grey has released an 18-minute stream-of-consciousness odyssey. Despite being known to be one for creating atmospheric pop soundscapes, cinematic in scope, her ambition had never reached heights of magnitude until ‘My Names A, Your Names Zed’ – available to purchase on Bandcamp. The recording was completed with no pre-production or strict composition in place beforehand, and was recorded live in one take. Much like El Grey’s process in writing – alternatively: channelling – the song, it’s one to sit back and let happen to you, as it accomplishes that feat of tapping into something deeper entirely. It’s…

  • Stream: Roisin Murphy – Mastermind

    April 19, 2016 - By 

    Having just announced her new album, Take Her Up To Monto – due for release on July 8 through Play It Again Sam – Roisin Murphy has unveiled the LP’s lead track, ‘Mastermind’. The album was recorded along with long-time collaborator Eddie Stevens, during the same sessions as its predecessor, the Choice & Mercury Prize-nominated Hairless Toys. Never one to ignore the bigger picture of her art, Murphy is also to self-direct each video from the record. Stream ‘Mastermind’ below:

  • Watch: Molossus – Sine, Spiky & Orcas

    April 11, 2016 - By 

    Comprised of members of The Jimmy Cake, Hands Up Who Want To Die and Percolator, Dublin five-piece Molossus – formerly Art Slug – are set to record their debut album later in the year. The self-proclaimed sound of “an owl and a bear fighting over a mason jar full of electricity”, the band have featured in the latest installment Sean Zissou’s Practice Tapes in the form of three-song video compilation of tracks ‘Sine’, ‘Spiky’ and ‘Ocras’, filmed at Guerilla Sounds. Traversing the post-rock gamut, this material sits cross-legged somewhere between Portishead, Jessamine and Slint; brilliantly brooding and yearning forth in a tangible attempt to clasp…

  • Album stream: Rusangano Family – Let The Dead Bury The Dead

    April 8, 2016 - By 

    Very few Irish acts have so comprehensively demanded our attention over the last couple of years quite like Rusangano Family. Having featured them as one of our “ones to watch” acts in our 15 For 15 feature last year and fondly recalling their unforgettable appearance to close our second birthday party at Dublin’s Twisted Pepper last May, the Limerick trio of God Knows, MuRli and mynameisjOhn have burned with a certain indomitable zeal from the very moment they set out on what has become a journey very much worth following. Now, after after a string of increasingly tenacious standalone releases, the trio have unveiled their…

  • Watch: Laura Sheeran – Light A Fire

    April 2, 2016 - By 

    Set to headline the second installment of Psykick Dancehall – our new Dublin night with Medium Presents at Bello Bar – tonight, Laura Sheeran has unveiled the video for her first single in four years, ‘Light a Fire’. Very aptly accompanied by its DIY, decidedly spectral video, the track wields space and texture in extraordinary fashion, with sparse beats and cloistered, portentous vocals dancing subtle shamanistic patterns across four minutes confronting fervid recollection and the workings of memory in the death and dying of love. Sheeran plays alongside BAD BONES and Katharine Philippa tonight. Event page here.

  • Watch: Overhead, The Albatross – Indie Rose

    March 29, 2016 - By 

    As you might well know by now, Dublin instrumental six-piece Overhead, The Albatross don’t exactly to things by halves. A visual epic (we never use that word, so you know we mean it) traversing countless locations and individuals, the video for their new single ‘Indie Rose’ is a slow-burning, wonderfully shot accompaniment- directed by Luke Daly and produced by Bold Puppy that masterfully mirrors the impassioned, increasingly purposeful drive of their music. ‘Indie Rose’ is the opening track from Overhead The Albatross’ forthcoming debut album, Learning to Growl, which is released on May 13.