• Premiere: Yawning Chasm – Awful Blue

    July 30, 2018 - By 

    The solo moniker of Galway musician and one-half of Mirakil Whip, Aaron Coyne, Yawning Chasm has drip-fed the world some wonderfully ruminative, psych-tinged dream-folk over the last few years. His new album, Songs from Blue House  follows suit, and mines twelve cloistered and candid tales by way of baritone ukulele, four-string electric mandolin, keyboard and voice. Out now on Rusted Rail, the album was mostly self-recorded during a rainstorm in a shed. The album’s lead track, ‘Awful Blue’ is a brisk, major-keyed antidote to a minor-key preoccupation. Have a first peek at its suitably low-key visuals below. Stream/buy Songs From Blue House here.

  • Goodbye Mandela @ Mandela Hall, Belfast

    July 30, 2018 - By 

    So, the last gig at Mandella Hall. Probably a pretty great venue when you sit and list off all the great gigs you saw there. But nostalgia is for later. WASPS are a pleasantly rambunctious start to the evening, playing in Bar Sub they strike excitable silhouettes adrift in a haze of dry ice and some slick, stark lighting. They find their groove somewhere between desert surf and mathy punk and mine it to death, littering it with nice interplay and clever fills, throwing in some swampy rock riffs every now and then, too. They give an energetic and warm…

  • Ross From Friends – Family Portrait

    July 29, 2018 - By 

    What is it about the past that fascinates us? What is it that allows us to romanticise and dream of places that we can’t ever return to? Is it because they are out of our reach that so too is the disappointment that often arises from getting what we desire? Nostalgia is a fickle thing, and in its use we often become completely submerged in our own warped perception of the past, ignorant to all but the glamorous detail. When we incorporate this almost artificial warmth into the lucid and veritable memories of our families, the intoxication becomes all the…

  • The Ophelias – Almost

    July 29, 2018 - By 

    Very occasionally you hear an album that neatly demonstrates its full mission statement within seconds of starting. The opening number is normally a musician’s calling card, but generally this takes a few minutes to let the audience in on what’s being attempted. There’s a real delight in encountering music that is so self-assured and confident that it’s willing to show all of its cards as soon as the chips are drawn. To The Ophelias credit, they give you a nice ten-second window in which to decide if this is going to be for you. If you think that a high…

  • Watch: Fears – Blood

    July 31, 2018 - By 

    From her immersive live shows to recent single ‘h_always‘, Constance Keane, AKA Fears, has grown to become one of Ireland’s foremost creators of ambitious, subtle pop. Her latest in a recent string of audio-visual collaborations revisits her stark, somnambulist 2016 single ‘Blood‘, which has now too met its warped match with the help of director Aodh. ‘Blood’ stars Mark Loughran as father and IFTA-nominated young actor Dafhyd Flynn from award-winning Irish 2017 film Michael Inside as son. Thanks in no small part to the to contrasting camera work from Matthew Rogan & lo-fi footage by Cloda Farrelly, the video is eye-wateringly evocative in its portrayal of the complexities…

  • Premiere: Hot Cops – Decay

    July 27, 2018 - By 

    On Monday (July 30), Belfast indie rock stalwarts Hot Cops will release Speed Dating, a five-track EP that compiles remastered versions of their singles to date. Doubling up as a quick primer of-sorts, the release holds up as an all-killer insight into why the Carl Eccles-fronted band are widely considered to be one of the country’s very best (a theory you may have noticed we’ve shared over the last few years.) The release’s lead track, ‘Decay’ has long been a live highlight for the band. A three-minute blast of fuzzed-out slacker-pop, it’s a full-blown celebration of ennui that finds relief in both simple admittance and its feedback-soaked closing…

  • Years & Years – Palo Santo

    July 26, 2018 - By 

    In 1987, the Pet Shop Boys released ‘It’s A Sin’, detailing Neil Tennant’s relationship with his own sexuality and the sense of shame that came with it. It was years after the singer publicly came out. Thankfully, these days, singing about sex and love outside of heterosexual constraints isn’t a rarity. So many songs in the pop zeitgeist have gone beyond heteronormative boundaries, but still, it is often treated as something forbidden, experimental, taboo and something explicitly, solely sexual. Think Katy Perry’s ‘I Kissed A Girl’ or Demi Lovato’s ‘Cool for the Summer.’ Years & Years’ Olly Alexander joyfully takes…

  • Premiere: Oisin O’Scolai & The Virginia Slims – Join Me in The Ground

    July 27, 2018 - By 

    Hailing from Donegal, Derry-based artist Oisin O’Scolai is most certainly one to watch. Very accurately being dubbed by his label, Belfast’s Black Tragick Records, as “the Buncrana Beck” (alternatively “if Harry Nilsson was from Donegal” or a latter day Paul Westerberg if he hadn’t have got drunk with the Stinson brothers and started The Replacements”). Self-recorded and released as Oisin O’Scolai and the Virginia Slims, the stellar, slow-burning gothic-folk of ‘Join Me in the Ground’ was mixed Ben McAuley and sees O’Scolai wield subtlety and pathos like a scythe. Taken from his forthcoming debut album, Vacant Sea, the single comes yet more…

  • The 8 Best Sets at Townlands Carnival 2018

    July 26, 2018 - By 

    Cork’s Townlands Carnival returned another year filled with the brightest and best in upcoming Irish music, as well as a handful of international names. It’s a formula that works superbly with Townlands, which made for an incredibly enjoyable, relaxed experience that drew a highly eclectic crowd and kept all tastes satiated. These were our highlights. Words by Kelly Doherty HappyAlone Closing up the relaxed Friday night of Townlands were Cork natives HappyAlone over at the Rising Sons stage. Having recently received a lot of attention due to their live shows and impressive social media presence, the band are a clear headliner…