• Jack O’Rourke: Comfort in Melancholy

    Set to play Dublin’s Whelan’s tonight (Friday, February 19) we chat to Cork baroque-pop singer-songwriter Jack O’Rourke about influence and inspiration, soundtracking the Yes campaign, the thin line between joy and melancholy, as well as the writing and recording of his forthcoming debut album. First up: for those not in the know, when and how did you first start writing and playing your own music? I was four and doodling at the piano. It chilled me out and excited me simultaneously. I discovered Kate Bush and Tom Waits when I was 15 and the rest is history. I sometimes wish I…

  • Stream: Ciaran Lavery – Return To Form

    At the risk of (really) repeating ourselves, Ciaran Lavery is easily one of the country’s most naturally gifted, hugely endearing singer-songwriters. From his days in Captain Kennedy up until the present day, we’ve seen the Aghagallon songsmith silence the most bustling venue with the the slightest of syllables and all but seduce innumerable crowds with his brilliantly charming badinage. At the root of all that is Lavery’s extraordinary grasp of the human condition, masterfully bolstered by an enviable harmonic grasp and compositional flair that continues to blossom unabated. The latest – and quite possibly greatest – manifestation of that is his new single, ‘Return To…

  • Stream: Michael Mormecha – Family

    Long one of the country’s more indomitable and fiercely individual musicians, Michael Mormecha is best known as the frontman of quintessential NI alt-rock band Mojo Fury. But rather than ever been bound to either that realm or moniker, Mormecha has pursued his music-making thus far with an idiosyncratic wanderlust via many collaborations, his work as Clown Parlour and – more recently – his own sounds, under his very own name. Having very recently launched a Pledge Campaign to ensure its release, the proverbial seeds of Lofi-Life, the forthcoming debut solo album by Mormecha, were first openly sown a couple of years now. Forever…

  • Stream: Shrug Life – Making Progress

    With varyingly mind-numbing electioneering currently frying a good portion of the island’s collective head, Dublin indie-rock trio Shrug Life want your vote… … of confidence pertaining to the release of their excellent new single, ‘Making Progress’. One of our 16 For ’16 acts, the Danny Carroll-fronted maestros set out with the following Five Point Plan in mind: 1. Danny (lyrics, vox & guitars), Josh (drums) & Keith (bass) write song. 2. Get song recorded & mixed by Fiachra McCarthy (HEFTTRAX). 3. Get song mastered by Mark Chester. 4. Get artwork designed by Sean Conroy (deadl.ie) 5. Release song via online platforms. They have succeeded and…

  • Texture and Physicality with ELLLL

    Having featuring as an Inbound act in the second issue of our magazine, Cork-based producer Ellen King AKA ELLLL has well and truly kicked into gear with recent release ‘Romance’, a self-professed “beat-driven collage with a playful and sinister narrative”. Touching on her creative process, Irish electronic music and what the future holds, King talks to fellow Cork native Mike McGrath Bryan. Photos by Louise Adelaide McKeown. How did ELLLL start? Where does Ellen King end and ELLLL begin? I had been writing some music as an undergrad and was approached to play live. I needed a name. So, that’s how it came…

  • Album Premiere: Heliopause – How Can We Laugh After This…

    Released ten years to the day since performing his first ever show, How Can We Laugh After This… by Belfast’s Richard Davis AKA Heliopause is an exquisite electro-acoustic release confronting creativity, self-questioning and mental health with a refined, incisive delicacy that goes some distance in revealing the musician’s rejuvenated prowess. His 13th release to be self-released via Bandcamp, the 12 track album was mostly composed using Ableton Live, in which his usual backbone of acoustic guitar is replaced in favour of a baritone electric. Occasionally shaped by literary influences including Mysterious Stranger, the final novel by Mark Twain and James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room, Davis’ lyrics…

  • Premiere: Hot Cops – Scared of Everything

    It’s no coincidence that we’ve hosted Belfast indie rock trio Hot Cops in four different TTA shows over the last couple of years, most recently at a packed-out show at Belfast’s Lavery’s on Tuesday night for the launch of their stellar new single ‘Passive Passive‘. The b-side to that, ‘Scared of Everything’ is an equally emphatic effort from the fast-rising threesome, forging pounding, fuzzed-out chords and frontman Carl Eccles’ admissions of apprehension (“I’m afraid to go outside/I don’t want to see your skin/I’m afraid to let you in”). Conjuring the likes of Pinkerton-era Weezer and Cloud Nothings’ more tuneful throwdowns, it gives everyday quasi-agoraphobic dread yet another…

  • Inbound: Bear Worship

    Bear Worship is the new project from Irish musician Karl Knuttel, who has previously performed as Pinkie and as Ivan St John.  Here, he talks about his love of synthesisers, making music out of necessity, and the benefits of being ‘ridiculously controlling’. Words by David Turpin. You’ve said that Bear Worship emerged out of a time of anxiety and depression, and yet the music is far more dreamlike than nightmarish, and far more expansive than claustrophobic.  What do you mean when you say it was made “out of necessity”? You know, anxiety is a harrowing experience. It’s not at all…

  • Watch: Talos – In Time

    Having first streamed it back in September last year, the exquisite  ‘In Time’ by Cork singer-songwriter and producer Eoin French AKA Talos has been brought to life via what should probably be commonly referred to as the Feel Good Lost treatment. Speaking about video for the track, FGL’s Brendan Canty said, “It is an abstract portrayal of searching for a lost love, clinging onto memories and doing everything you can to save it.” Wonderfully mirroring lyrics including, “I was loved and now that loves lost I know they’ll never find us/Way out amongst the madness I feel free” Canty summons an arcane world in which every movement…

  • Watch: September Girls – Love No One

    A dark and charging effort from the South by Southwest-bound Dublin five-piece, September Girls have re-emerged with new single ‘Love No One’. Pretty much exactly what we’d imagine the opening theme from a revenge horror re-imaging of a spaghetti Western to sound like, it’s a wonderfully tempestuous cut taken from their forthcoming album, Age of Indignation, which is set for released on April 8.  Check out the suitably baleful video for the single, courtesy of the band’s vocalist and lead guitarist Jessie Ward O’Sullivan, below.