• Landless – Bleaching Bones

    January 16, 2018 - By 

    Dublin/Belfast-based vocal quartet Landless are set to release their debut album in March 2018 on new Irish label, Humble Serpent Records. Landless was formed in 2013 by Lily Power, Meabh Meir, Ruth Clinton & Sinead Lynch, and subsequently released their Landless EP the following year. They’ve spent the last year recording in a variety of churches, corridors and other acoustically fascinating spaces with ‘Spud’ Murphy, who’s responsible for some of Ireland’s most important releases in recent years – notably Lankum, The Jimmy Cake and a number of Ireland’s finest. Entitled Bleaching Bones, we have good faith that the LP will be another feather in the cap of an Irish folk resurgence that…

  • Festival Preview: Quarter Block Party 2018

    January 15, 2018 - By 

    Returning to the centre of Cork city for its fourth year isQuarter Block Party, a music and arts festival fast establishing its position as one of the finest weekends in the cultural calendar. Presented by Makeshift Ensemble and the Southern Hospitality Board, a myriad of events are due to provide some much-needed upliftment following the post-Christmas tedium over the first weekend of February (Friday 2nd to Sunday the 4th). Psych-pop experimentalists O Emperor (below) have been quiet since the release of their Lizard EP which came out back in 2015 and their return provides an occasion for the band to debut…

  • 18 for ’18: Landless

    January 15, 2018 - By 

    We continue 18 for ’18, our feature of showcasing eighteen Irish acts we’re convinced are going places in 2018. Throughout January we’re going to be previewing each of those acts, accompanied by words from our writers and an original photograph from one of our photographers. Next up is Dublin/Belfast quartet Landless. Traditional music has experienced somewhat of a renaissance over recent years, with artists such as The Morning Tree, Rue, Lisa O’Neill and Martha Wainwright waving the flag proudly. Arguably spearheading this, however, are Dublin/Belfast-based Landless. The four-piece, comprising of Ruth Clinton, Meabh Meir, Sinead Lynch and Lily Power, have…

  • The Cranberries’ Dolores O’Riordan Has Died

    January 15, 2018 - By 

    It has just been announced that Dolores O’Riordan, frontwoman of The Cranberries and member of D.A.R.K., has died suddenly in London. She was just 46 Her publicist confirmed the news in a statement. It read “The lead singer with the Irish band The Cranberries was in London for a short recording session. No further details are available at this time. Family members are devastated to hear the breaking news and have requested privacy at this very difficult time.” Limerick rock band The Cranberries rose to international fame in the 1990s with their debut album, Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t…

  • The Number Ones – Another Side of The Number Ones

    January 15, 2018 - By 

    Back with another celebration of retro power-pop songwriting, following their 2014 debut LP, The Number Ones have just released their Another Side of The Number Ones EP. The Buzzcocks and, to a lesser degree of global dominance, Good Vibrations Records – think Protex, Rudi & the likes – injected the British invasion sound with lightning-in-a-bottle youthful insurgency in the late ’70s. Half a decade later, The Number Ones’ latest takes great pride in doing much the same across its twelve hasty minutes. Infectious, immediate, and essential for any fans of modern purveyors of garage pop – Oh Boland, Sheer Mag, and the aforementioned – or the band’s ‘sideline’ projects, Cryboys and internationally-renowned…

  • Watch: David Kitt – Still Don’t Know

    January 16, 2018 - By 

    Six days on from his New Jackson project being nominated for this year’s Choice Music Prize, David Kitt has returned with the title track from his upcoming four-track 10″ EP. Described by Kitt as “a travelogue within a dream, a jump-cut journey that crosses the globe. It’s one of those dreams you don’t want to wake from, where you want to go back under to piece the finer details together” it’s a soothing, typically stellar effort from the Dublin musician, accompanied with a pretty, wonderfully inspired by New York-based director/animator Lessa Millet. Kitt plays the following shows in Ireland and the UK…

  • 18 for ’18: Sun Mahshene

    January 15, 2018 - By 

    We continue 18 for ’18, our feature of showcasing eighteen Irish acts we’re convinced are going places in 2018. Throughout January we’re going to be previewing each of those acts, accompanied by words from our writers and an original photograph from one of our photographers. Next up is Sun Mahshene. Photo by Moira Reilly Dublin’s Sun Mahshene are dedicated to doing their own thing. Indeed, frontman Nathan Henderson started the project having grown tired with the local band scene back in 2014. Initially a solo endeavour where he played all instruments himself, over the years a revolving door of musicians…

  • Premiere: Cranky Face – Vultures

    January 13, 2018 - By 

    Galway rock outfit Cranky Face have shared their new single ‘Vultures’. Taken off their forthcoming EP set for release early this year, it’s a rollicking guitar number for fans of Queens of the Stone Age’s recent output, The Raconteurs and Pixies. With a host of festival appearances under their belt in 2017 and big plans lined up for the coming year, this is not one to be missed.

  • Festival Preview: It Takes A Village 2018

    January 12, 2018 - By 

    At the final All Tomorrows Parties festival at Pontins Holiday Camp, East Sussex in 2013, one music fan-in-residence jovially likened the rows of chalets and wandering music fans that inhabited them as being like some kind of ‘dystopian playground’. They didn’t realise the prescience of their reflection at the time. All Tomorrow’s Parties subsequently went down in an inglorious debt-ridden blaze after so many stellar festivals – events that took the holiday camp model and created a communal event where artist and punter stood on equal footing. They ate, drank, and slept together, got fucked up and came back down together; they…

  • Typhoon – Offerings

    January 12, 2018 - By 

    Memory loss is terrifying on the deepest existential level. It’s a condition that slowly gnaws away at every part of an existence. It leaves only a shell with no ghost. Unfortunately, it is also a disease with an impact that is increasing annually. As we remove natural predators and previously untreatable conditions from the gene-pool-culling Olympics, more of us may eventually succumb to this trembling inducing fate. It’s a tough idea to face and an even harder one to explore artistically as it’s too frightening to bear thinking about for extended periods of time. But there is this inherent layer…