• Label Mixtape #003: 4AD

    March 10, 2015 - By 

    A label based on aesthetic principles, 4AD has spent over 30 years being everything you think it is not. Initially founded by Ivo Watts Russell in 1980 as a vehicle to release music by bands at the centre of the nascent goth scene, the label quickly established a style and format that would lead to it becoming one of the most iconic record labels of the 80s.With records clad in immaculate Vaughn Oliver sleeves, the label originally specialised in floaty, gothic ambience, before encompassing world music, dance music, and – perhaps most significantly – the cutting edge of the US…

  • Stream: Tandem Felix – Nothing I Do Will Ever Be Good Enough

    March 9, 2015 - By 

    With a title immediately conjuring the titular despondence of The Twilight Sad or a Mark Kozelek album track, Dublin’s Tandem Felix have unveiled the mellow, Americana-tinged ‘Nothing I Do Will Ever Be Good Enough’. Having featured in the third issue of our monthly physical magazine, the band – sporting a new line-up and notable shift in sound – will release their new EP, Comma, on Trout Records on April 27. Read our feature on the label in the second issue of our magazine online here.

  • Watch: Documenta – Idle Hands

    March 9, 2015 - By 

    The video for ‘Idle Hands’, the first track from the new record by space-oriented drone pop outfit Documenta is now online. The rarely seen ensemble, led by singer, guitarist and songwriter Joe Greene, has already announced that there will only ever be three Documenta LPs, with only Drone Pop #2 having been given a full vinyl release so far. Their next album is to be called Drone Pop #1, and features songs – some of which are re-recorded – from the first CD-R the band released. The record should be available in July through new label Touch Sensitive Records. Watch the video for ‘Idle Hands’ below.

  • Download: Loud Mouth Compilation Volume 7

    March 9, 2015 - By 

    Covering a pretty broad spectrum of homegrown electronica, The Loud Mouth Collective have released the seventh installment of their compilation. Featuring the return of LM regulars Jon Candi, edit;erase, Intuitive Travels In Sound, Kali, Space Travelers, Plastic Rhythm and Haüer, the fifteen-track release also features tracks from newcomers Sun Mo, Mangetout, Kevin Aiken, Kubo, Basement Garcia, PolyGlove and Happiness Cage. The Loud Mouth Collective will team up with Bodytonic on March 21 to launch the compilation at Dublin’s Twisted Pepper. The night will include a live set by Warp’s Rustie and Costello, as well as DJ sets from Mangetour, Lui…

  • Stream: Naoise Roo – For You

    March 9, 2015 - By 

    Alternative singer-songwriter Naoise Roo unveiled yesterday – International Women’s Day – ‘For You’, the darkly atmospheric new single to be taken from her upcoming debut album, Lilith. Having debuted only last summer with powerful alt. rock free-download single, ‘Oh Son‘, Roo’s fire has lit up the local scene impressively quickly, with Lilith set for release on April 27 through Irish alternative & experimental label Little L Records. With only the layered-yet-stripped sound of ‘For You’ to go by, the album’s genre-spanning promises of ambient electronica, indie rock and burlesque could well show Lilith to be one of the great Irish breakthrough albums of 2015. Certainly this early on, her output is…

  • Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter

    March 9, 2015 - By 

    THIS IS A TRUE STORY. The events depicted in this film took place in Minnesota in 1987. At the request of the survivors, the names have been changed. Out of respect for the dead, the rest has been told exactly as it occurred. The preface of Joel and Ethan Coen’s 1996 dark comedy film, Fargo, is perhaps one of the most discussed in recent cinema history. Claiming itself to be based exactly on factual events, the authenticity of these opening lines has long been debunked as simply a device to set the tone. No big deal. Screenwriters have been bending the…

  • Deep Down South: Affirmations and a Few More Gigs, There, Lads

    March 8, 2015 - By 

    To be quite frank, your writer is still recovering from an excellent few bouts of sleep deprivation on the trot, so a short one it is this week, before another gig-news binge next week. Deal? Okay. Saturday night saw about five or six majorly important shows happening in town at once. That hasn’t happened in a really long time. To be quite frank, the gig-going public was a little small until recently to be pulling in multiple directions, and if you’d told your writer this time last year that five shows in one night would do well, he’d have told…

  • Premiere: White Sage – Way Beyond Our Means EP

    March 8, 2015 - By 

    Beyond running Dublin’s newest record shop, Little Gem, or performing as part of I Heart The Monster Hero and GODHATESDISCO, Andy Walsh has been concocting his own solo sonic wizardry as White Sage. Evoking the likes of Kraftwerk, Cluster and Harmonia, his superb debut EP, Way Beyond Our Means, is a self-proclaimed “sonic exploration of thought, emotion, dreams and imaginings through melody, countermelody and rhythms created using conventional and unconventional recording techniques.” Released via Little Gem Records on March 20, the EP – performed and recorded entirely by Andy Walsh between November 2013 and June 2014 – was layered using an early 20th century Ritzmar…