• Video Premiere: Lankum – The Granite Gaze

    October 27, 2017 - By 

    Few things are more satisfying than seeing a homegrown act or artist get the attention they so richly deserve further afield. Having spent several years as forging out their own inimitable – and increasingly compelling – alt-folk path as Lynched, Dublin quartet Lankum release their new album, Between the Earth and Sky, via Rough Trade today. Having already received a wave of critical acclaim via the likes of the Guardian, the release is a masterclass of vital and deftly crafted song confirming the foursome’s uncanny knack for transformative, contemporarily-framed traditional song. A nigh on hymnal peak from the new album, ‘The Granite Gaze’ – a…

  • Track-by-Track: Feather Beds – Blooming

    October 26, 2017 - By 

      Ahead of the release of his second album Blooming, Dublin’s Michael Orange AKA Feather Beds has been kind enough to give us a track by track rundown of the record. Set for release this Friday 27 October on Montreal-based label Moderna Records, Blooming is a dreamy alt-folk venture written and recorded when the songwriter was living in Canada. Following his debut LP in 2015, The Skeletal System, Blooming is mixed and co-produced by Stephen Shannon (Adrian Crowley, Strands) and is a dreamy, multi-layered a that evokes the likes of The Antlers and Mutual Benefit‘s Love’s Crushing Diamond in its ambient folk atmosphere, but owes just as much to the hypnotic, minimal compositions of Steve Reich and to the…

  • Video Premiere: Malojian – Let Your Weirdness Carry You Home

    October 24, 2017 - By 

    Released last week, Let Your Weirdness Carry You Home by Stephen Scullion’s Malojian is a record firmly rooted in place and visual memory. With the seeds of this latest outing being sown when BFI and Northern Ireland screen approached Scullion about playing a show at a coastal location with coastal-themed visuals from their archive to be used as a backdrop, Scullion soon took to the idea of recording some new material to go alongside those visuals. Teaming up with long-time collaborator, Belfast filmmaker and photographer Colm Laverty, the videos for LYWCYH’s lead singles ‘Some New Bones‘ and ‘Ambulance Song‘ presented symbiotic visual narratives that…

  • Premiere: Bear Worship – Frequency

    October 20, 2017 - By 

    Back in June we were very pleased to premiere one of our favourite Irish albums of the year, WAS by Dublin’s Karl Knuttel AKA Bear Worship. A release we called “a prismatic traipse of melodically rich, compositionally ambitious alt-pop” the album peaked on various tracks, not least new single ‘Frequency’. Backed by b-side ‘Post Geographical Orientalism – a beautifully woven, Grandaddy-esque effort – the single is a layered, synth-washed gem that sees Knuttel’s beatific vocal take centre-stage. We’re all over this, and you should be, too. Frequency/Post Geographical Orientalism by Bear Worship

  • EP Premiere: Ana Gog – Wake

    September 22, 2017 - By 

    Having formed while studying at NUI Maynooth, Dublin five-piece Ana Gog have been on a winding and wonderful journey over the last eleven years. The long-awaited follow-up to 2014 EP Resemblance, Wake marks a significant step in the band’s carefully-crafted aesthetic, with songs exploring themes of loss, inertia and rebirth. Recorded live at K9 and Arad Studios, it’s a candid, harmony-driven release in which the band’s collective talents interweave across four songs, from the gossamer-like sway of opener ‘Better Than Silence’ to the reflective, understated folk-pop of ‘Roze’s Kitchen (Wake)’. Upping the ante on all their previous output to date, there’s an almost voyeuristic intimacy to the…

  • Premiere: Carriages – Hardest Mile

    September 21, 2017 - By 

    Dublin duo Harry Bookless and Aaron Page AKA Carriages are an act that we’ve followed closely over the last few years. Spearheading an experimental folk aesthetic that comprises nature, open spaces and facets of the modern world, their music masterfully blurs the lines between the external world and internal processes, as well as electronic textures and organic sounds. Doubling up as the debut release on Homebeat Presents (an imprint we’re very excited about looking ahead to next year and beyond), the pair’s forthcoming new EP Movement is a five-track masterstroke melding Bookless’ found sound electronic atmospherics and elemental production with the inimitable soulful and…

  • Video Premiere: Elder Druid – Witchdoctor

    September 15, 2017 - By 

    Belfast-based sludge doom five-piece Elder Druid are self-proclaimed “Occult-laced riff dealers” on a mission. Having impressed with their debut EP, Magicka, in September last year, the band – who count the holy, hazed-out tetrad Black Sabbath, Electric Wizard, Kyuss and Sleep as key influences – will release their pummelling full-length release, Carmina Satanae, early next month. Produced by Niall Doran at Belfast’s Start Together Studio, the record is a fist-clenched, eight-track statement of intent from the fast-rising, Gregg McDowell-fronted band. A highlight from the release, lead single ‘Witchdoctor’ evolves from straight-up riff worship to the slowly bludgeoning self-exorcism of its Electric…

  • Video Premiere: Malojian – Ambulance Song

    September 11, 2017 - By 

    The highly-anticipated follow-up to last year’s Steve Albini-produced This Is Nowhere, Let Your Weirdness Carry You Home by Malojian was partly recorded in a lighthouse off the coast of Northern Ireland. Speaking of the release, the band’s main man Stephen Scullion said, “A few months ago the British Film Institute and Northern Ireland screen contacted me to see if I’d be interested in playing a gig at a coastal location, with coastal-themed visuals from their archive to be used as a backdrop. This sounded very cool to me and the more I thought about it, I began to get really into the…

  • Premiere: The Shaker Hymn – Dead Trees

    September 6, 2017 - By 

    Look far and wide but you’ll struggle to find a more consistent Irish act that Cork quartet The Shaker Hymn. Following a busy few months of extensive touring, as well as featuring on the soundtrack to breakout Irish film Handsome Devil, the band also found time to record their forthcoming third studio album. The lead single from that (which doubles up as the follow-up to last year’s stellar Do You Think You’re Clever) ‘Dead Trees’ is a wonderfully-crafted three-minute burst of slick, psych-tinged rock, conjuring the likes of Ty Segall, Supergrass, early The Coral and more. Recorded straight to tape by producer Brendan Fennessy,…

  • Premiere: Brand New Friend – Hate It When You Have To Go

    September 1, 2017 - By 

    Few Irish bands have had a stronger 2017 than fast-rising North Coast quartet Brand New Friend. Having featured them as an Inbound one-to-watch act in our magazine this time last year, we’re pleased to present a first listen to the band’s virulent new single ‘Hate It When You Have To Go’. Clocking in at just over two minutes, the track – conjuring everyone from Mountain Goats’ John Darnielle ato early Ash – perfectly distils the Taylor Johnson-fronted foursome’s peerless brand of starry-eyed lo-fi indie-pop. Check out the band at Cosby Stage at Electric Picnic this Sunday at 2pm and a…