• Hard Working Class Heroes Call For Musician and Band Applications

    June 22, 2016 - By 

    Arguably the country’s leading celebration of homegrown, independent music, Hard Working Class Heroes will return to Dublin from October 6-8. With the likes of Hare Squead, Saint Sister and Rusangano Family standing out last year, the festival have made its annual call to the country’s musicians, bands and singer-songwriters to apply to play this year’s showcase.  You can apply via HWCH’s Breaking Tunes site; simply go here and click the ‘BANDS APPLY HERE’ button. The closing date for applications is July 22. Early bird tickets to Hard Working Class Heroes 2016 are priced at €35 via DICE until August 10, after which tickets will…

  • Watch: Girl Band – In Plastic

    June 21, 2016 - By 

    Surrealism is no unbeaten path for Girl Band, and the latest video from the Dublin noise-rock darlings, as usual directed by long-time collaborator Bob Gallagher, takes matters in a much more grimly funny direction. Set in a security line, somewhere, someplace, the video for ‘In Plastic’ mirrors in Gallagher’s inimitable manner the current paranoia around borders, travel, and security, as things quickly unravel for our nameless protagonist. Speaking with Spin mag in the States, Gallagher expands on its themes: “the video is obviously totally ridiculous in many ways, but it touches on themes of surveillance, paranoia, and how arbitrary the…

  • Inbound: Elephant

    June 16, 2016 - By 

    With a busy few months ahead of him, including the release of new single ‘Stay With Me’ and a slot at Body & Soul at the weekend, Dundalk-based multi-instrumentalist Shane Clarke AKA Elephant is an artist carving out his own wonderfully inimitable path. Eoin Murray chats to him about his debut LP, Hypergiant, new stirrings and what it means to be a musician beyond the city. Since Hypergiant came out last October what have you been up to? Well I spent the end of last year gigging the album around. I decided at the beginning of this year to take a wee break…

  • Stream: I Am The Cosmos – Letting It Go

    June 16, 2016 - By 

    Set to launch at Dublin’s Bello Bar on July 16 , ‘Letting It Go’ sees Dublin electronic duo Ross Turner and Cian Murphy AKA I Am The Cosmos re-capture the magic that set them apart on their 2013 debut album, Monochrome. Wilfully sparse to begin, the track unwinds in typically commanding fashion, each cyclical re-iteration yielding new shades of propulsive, synth-laden magic from the pair. Set for release via Happy Valley on July 1, there’s an almost mechanical simplicity to the track that proves delightfully deceptive with repeated listens. Mastered by Simon Cullen, the single comes with b-side Taciturning On You and a re-imagining of the…

  • Premiere: Hiva Oa – A Great Height

    June 15, 2016 - By 

    Not merely the second largest island in the Marquesas Islands in French Polynesia, Hiva Oa are a Belfast duo set to release their long-awaited new EP mk2 (part 1) on August 5. Having returned to their native Ireland after residing in Edinburgh, Stephen Houlihan and Christine Tubridy turn their attention to the laws and imprint of fear, loneliness, abandonment and awakening on the new release, something that’s impressively manifest on its lead single ‘A Great Height’. Evoking the likes of PVT, The Twilight Sad and a more inward-looking Not Squares, the track’s swirling flurry of contorting electronica, weaving bass patterns and braying guitar swells meld…

  • Album Premiere: Glimmermen – Breakin’ Out

    June 14, 2016 - By 

    Just last month we shared ‘Bang’, the lead single from Breakin’ Out, the new album by Dublin’s Glimmermen. Calling it a “markedly more linear yet no less distinct and ear-grabbing effort from the four-piece”, it reinforced our belief that the band – whose debut EP Satellite People caught our attention back in 2012 – had something different and potentially quite vital to their collective bow. As it so happens, Breakin’ Out confirms that fact in assured fashion, each of the release’s nine tracks threading together to form an effort where the major key and quietly emphatic cogitations on the everyday meld to…

  • Video Premiere: Alana Henderson – Song About a Song

    June 14, 2016 - By 

    Before setting off on the very long road as cellist/backing vocalist for Hozier, Dungannon singer-songwriter Alana Henderson (one of our ones to watch last year) had staked her very own captivating claim with her debut EP, Wax & Wane. Released in early 2013, it was veritable pandora’s box of burrowing folk noir, each of the release’s four traditional-tinged chamber tales bounding forth with gallant imagination and delicate, melodic finesse. With brand new material in the pipeline, ‘Song About a Song’ – a perfectly ruminating peak from Wax & Wane that’s had an incredible 5,000,000 plays on Spotify – has been resurrected with a homespun video by David Moody that wonderfully captures the song’s essence.

  • Watch: Dublin Boiler Room

    June 9, 2016 - By 

    Headlined by one of the country’s most respected proponents of techno, Sunil Sharpe, the mighty Boiler Room made it’s highly-anticipated return to Dublin on Monday night with another stellar line-up of all-Irish electronic talent. As well as featuring TTA Cork favourite Elll, the night also featured live sets from hardware wizard DeFeKT, Daire Carolan & Sonel Ali. Miss out first time around? Watch all 4 hours and 38 minutes of it below.

  • Stream: Arborist – A Man of My Age

    June 7, 2016 - By 

    Fronted by Mark McCambridge, Belfast’s Arborist are masters of the subtly-wielded phrase and burrowing melody. A year on from having the one and only Kim Deal feature on their single ‘Twisted Arrow’, the band have returned with ‘A Man of My Age’, a pleasantly reflective six-minute effort brilliantly bolstered by shivering strings and a layered Americana folk ambience that rewards with repeated listens. With fading youth, familial change and growing perspective at the heart of the McCambridge’s words here, we’re treated to something rather special; a carefully considered meditation imbued with a calm sense of acceptance that seals the deal in fine fashion. Stream the single…

  • Inbound: Feather

    May 31, 2016 - By 

    Emma Garnett AKA Feather has morphed again. While many may know her from the punchy, artistic collaborations with Ben Bix this itineration is something of a departure. Now fully backed by an eight-piece band, she and the group are emerging as a blooded, blended new horizon in Irish music so it’s no surprise that they’re signed up with emerging world conscious independent label Hipdrop Records whose slant towards global sounds, funk, soul and jazz distinguish them from the pack. Take their new single ‘Like No Other’ which works its way through three distinct movements without sounding piecemeal. The comparisons to…