• Video Premiere: Cruiser – Gram

    March 15, 2018 - By 

    We’ve featured a few videos from Limerick’s burgeoning DIY scene this year – notably, Eraser TV & Casavettes – that channel a very certain type of disaffection and sense of growing pains.We’re not sure whether the trend comes from pervading mood in Limerick or that connection when a music scene pulls itself together to embrace each other for the greater good, but adding to that increasingly colossal pile is discordant indie rock outfit Cruiser, with their latest single, ‘Gram’ – which is somehow not even the only wistfully uplifting 9-minute single to emerge from the city in the last half-year. The video – directed by Stephen Savage…

  • David Byrne – American Utopia

    March 13, 2018 - By 

    David Byrne should be more egomaniacal than he is. Just take a moment and examine his back catalogue. Any human being who can craft records as powerful and diverse as Remain in Light, Fear of Music, and My Life In The Bush of Ghosts has every right to be as pompous as they like. Add to this the fact that he composed what might be the greatest love song ever recorded (‘This Must Be The Place’) and managed to get traditional music from across Africa played on mainstream radio and you simply have to accept it without question. But what’s always…

  • Robocobra Quartet – Plays Hard To Get

    March 12, 2018 - By 

    Belfast-based jazz-punk ensemble Robocobra Quartet have just announced details of the follow-up to their NI Music Prize-nominated debut album, entitled Plays Hard To Get. Released through Abbreviated Records on May 25 on digital & vinyl formats, it’s going to be one of Ireland’s finest releases of 2018. With drummer, vocalist & producer Chris Ryan once more at the helm, it features a broader palette of sounds, it rocks harder, pushes its avant-garde & contemporary classical flourishes further out there, and is more lyrically daring than ever before – no small statement for arguably the most unique outfit on the island. Never resting on any one idea or preconceived notion, its blackly comic, starkly…

  • New Acts and Day Breakdown Announced for The Beatyard

    March 12, 2018 - By 

    Set to take over Dun Laoghair Harbour in Dublin across the August bank holiday (August 3-5), The Beatyard have revealed new acts and its day breakdown. Eleven new additions join the line-up: St Germain, Daphni (aka Caribou), Kiasmos, Django Django, Mr Scruff, King Kong Company, Confidence Man, Loah, The Scratch, The Reflex and Kelly-Anne Byrne. See the full current line-up and day breakdown below. Tickets for The Beatyard are available here, ranging from €59 for adult day tickets to €150 for an adult weekend ticket. Kids aged 0-2 go free; 2-12 year olds is just €5 per day.

  • Wyvern Lingo – Wyvern Lingo

    March 11, 2018 - By 

    At its core, Wyvern Lingo’s stunning, eponymous debut is a journey towards recovery after a break-up, leading us on an intimate journey through love, loss and healing to an eventual resurrection. Wyvern Lingo bring to the table the storytelling qualities of Ireland’s contemporary folk musicians (Lisa Hannigan, Glen Hansard) but just as confidently introduce decades worth of pop and R&B flavours and sensibilties to make this an album that is truly their own. The Bray trio succeed in adapting these personal tales of woe, love and loss into a universal experience,  most clearly executed in tracks like ‘Dark Cloud’ and…

  • Paddy Hanna – Frankly, I Mutate

    March 10, 2018 - By 

    Four years have passed since Paddy Hanna’s triumphant solo debut Leafy Stilleto was released by the ever reliable Popical Island collective. Not that he hasn’t kept busy in that time, bridging the gap with a couple of standalone singles and fronting the mighty Autre Monde, all adding to an ever-growing CV that includes stints in the likes of Grand Pocket Orchestra, No Monster Club, Ginnels and Skelocrats. His long-awaited sophomore effort Frankly, I Mutate, released on increasingly impressive Galway label Strange Brew, features a star studded lineup of guests such as Saint Sister and Tandem Felix. Meanwhile members of Girl Band such as…

  • Soccer Mommy – Clean

    March 12, 2018 - By 

    Any child on a football pitch who takes the time to look down the touchline will be sure to see an eclectic bunch of fans: Passing dog walkers, aggressive and overly-stimulated dads who kick every ball and question every decision, mates and their crossed fingers for public embarrassment, and the unsung heroes, their mothers, sacrificing valuable weekend hours week in and week out watching a sport they may not have the faintest interest in, just to be there for that moment when their kid finally gets that goal. Somewhere down the line, Sophie Allison, AKA Soccer Mommy took at least some…

  • EP Stream: The Altered Hours – On My Tongue

    March 9, 2018 - By 

    Two years on from the release of their triumphant debut album, In Heat Not Sorry, Cork five-piece The Altered Hours‘ brand of snaking, crepuscular psych-rock sounds more more singular and vital than ever. Released via Art for Blind/Penske Recordings on 12″ vinyl and digital, the band’s new EP, On My Tongue, is an equal parts murky and prismatic four-track re-affirmation of something we have have always maintained: the Altered Hours are not merely one of the country’s very best bands, they continue to push headlong into a masterfully dazed realm all their very own. Stream the EP in full via Bandcamp below. On My Tongue by…