• Watch: Girl Band – Pears For Lunch

    September 3, 2015 - By 

    To say Dublin’s Girl Band are on a bit of a roll would be a towering understatement. Set to play a Thin Air show at Belfast’s Bar Sub on Friday, September 25 as part of a forthcoming new UK tour (full dates below), the Dara Kiely-fronted four-piece have just unleashed ‘Pears For Lunch’, the latest single from their hugely-anticipated debut album, Holding Hands With Jamie. A suffocating, masterfully maniacal three and a half minutes culminating in the the immortal adage “I look crap with my top off…”, the track feels like an epilogue of sorts to last January’s ‘Lawman’. If the…

  • Watch: Abandcalledboy – LA Dick (Keian Remix)

    September 3, 2015 - By 

    Back in May we introduced Lia, the debut EP by Dublin-based Irish-Iranian songwriter and producer Keian Roohipour AKA Keian. Four months on, the Co. Down man has worked his shuffling, unravelling wizardry on ‘LA Dick’, the latest single by Abandcalledboy. Warping the original to a barely recognisable state, it makes for five odd minutes of wonderfully tangential electronic nocturnalism, hinting at some great things in the pipeline. Watch the video for the original track here and check out Keian’s remix below.

  • Stream: Little Xs For Eyes – Funk Island

    September 2, 2015 - By 

    Funk Island: not only where James Brown desperately (possibly) wanted to see in his retirement, but also the tropical-tinged new single by Dublin indie-pop band Little Xs For Eyes. While they’re just a little late in capturing the sound of the great (cough) Irish summer, they’ve certainly fused a whole plethora of sun-kissed sounds on the new release, which is accompanied a remix of ‘Logical Love’ by Rory Grubb. It’s not quite as radiant but we’re fans. Funk Island by little xs for eyes

  • Watch: Girls Names – A Hunger Artist

    August 26, 2015 - By 

    With its wonderfully droll pisstake intro transporting us right back to an age of super-awkward 80s TV interviews, the video for Girls Names‘ ‘A Hunger Artist’ is a sparse, brilliantly realised, perfectly self-contained little no man’s land where their music couldn’t serve any more aptly as a soundtrack. A highlight from the band’s forthcoming third studio album, Arms Around a Vision, the track is a sneering and gallant slab of burrowing post-punk (yes, we went “there”) with a payoff that marries Magazine and Gary Numan at their most utterly resolute. Girls Names kick off another string of Europeans shows at Belfast’s Empire Music Hall on…

  • Stream: Contour – Rearrange & Realign

    August 26, 2015 - By 

    One of our favourite Irish acts at the minute – and arguably the jewel in Belfast imprint Champion Sound’s crown – Dublin’s Contour has returned with ‘Rearrange & Realign’, a six-minute track bursting with the pair’s increasingly distinctive brand of electro-pop. Taken from their forthcoming second EP, the brilliantly titled Blessed With Weird Things, you can stream it below now via the Champion Sound Soundcloud page.

  • Watch: Overhead, The Albatross – Big River Man

    August 25, 2015 - By 

    There’s videos capturing the sheer kinesis and electricity of performance, then there’s the video for ‘Big River’ Man by Dublin instrumental six-piece Overhead, The Albatross. Directed by the band’s guitarist Luke Daly, it masterfully taps into OTA’s inexorable brand of post-rock, capturing the sheer power innate in its pockets of ardor and zeal. We’re big fans. Watch the video below. And again.

  • Premiere: Music For Dead Birds – English Weed/What a Waste

    August 24, 2015 - By 

    Ahead of the unveiled of an EP for September, we’re pleased to premiere a pre-release double-single of sorts from Galway/Mayo duo Music For Dead Birds. Brimming with the band’s distinctive brand of lo-fi indie “anti-folk”, ‘English Weed/What a Waste’ clocks in at just under seven minutes but still manages to pack an emphatic punch. Seemingly operating outside of any strong semblance of a scene in Connacht, Jimmy Monaghan and Dónal Walsh continue to embody the outsider spirit that they drove home on the likes of 2009’s And Then It Rained For Seven Days, the sublime The Pope’s Sister and their album, Vitamins,…

  • Watch: Enemies – Play Fire

    August 18, 2015 - By 

    Last month, we featured a special The Record feature documenting the recording of ‘Play Fire’, the sublime new track by Kilcoole math-pop maestros Enemies. Their first release in two (long) years, it sees the band concoct one of their most wonderfully cohesive, deftly arranged and downright catchy tracks to date. Speaking of the single – taken from their forthcoming third studio album – Enemies’ guitarist Lewis Jackson said, “It was this idea of getting as far away from our comfort zone as possible, without losing what makes us Enemies.” And how they’ve succeeded. Watch Finn Keenan’s video for the song below.

  • Watch: Cat Palace – Real Fresh

    August 17, 2015 - By 

    “Hey, I wanna be different, so I shaved my head on both sides – I leave a little on top. You know I’m keeping it real fresh, man.” So goes the chorus to ‘Real Fresh’ by Dublin singer-songwriter David Blaney AKA Cat Palace, a self-proclaimed “devotional” artist whose hugely impressive debut self-titled debut EP quite frankly blew us away back in February. This latest single – featuring a simple yet wonderfully singular video – fuses woozy Americana with a brilliantly biting commentary on half-arsed, samey social charades. The track will also feature on a forthcoming Cat Palace EP, set for release at the beginning of September.

  • Watch: Planet Parade – Blue Sky

    August 14, 2015 - By 

    Striking a keen balance between Tame Impala, Vampire Weekend and Mac Demarco, Maynooth duo Michael Hopkins and Andrew Lloyd AKA Planet Parade have just release one of the most sublimely sun-kissed Irish singles of the Summer. Featuring Steven McCann on guitar and Graham Hopkins (assumingly a relative of Michael’s) on drums, the wonderfully throwback video – created by Brian Lloyd – just seals the deal and then some. One for the repeat button.