• Lighght – Seodra

    April 8, 2022 - By 

    As Lighght, Cork producer Eamon Ivri has repeatedly flipped the script in  becoming one of the island’s most mercurial producers. Marking his return to L.A. imprint Doom Trip, the six-track Seodra is a blitzing trip featuring some of his most lethal (in both senses of the word) club material. And talk about a timely return. Where last year’s Holy Endings offered sublime ambient reprieve in supremely fucked-up times, these six deftly-produced volleys all but proffer hectic times with a rake of good heads. While the searing arps of ‘Rib’ strike a museful tone, peaks including ‘Tactile Love’ and ‘Hang Tight’…

  • Inbound: Pixie Cut Rhythm Orchestra

    April 8, 2022 - By 

    Pixie Cut Rhythm Orchestra look poised for a strong 2022. Off the back of the cutting ‘I didn’t love you when I said I did,’ the Dublin trio recently released ‘Empty Envelope,’ a contemplative dream-pop lamentation that earned comparisons to Pillow Queens and the Cranberries. The single was inspired by a dream that frontwoman Sarah Deegan had in which she received an envelope in the post. “It was from my ex,” she explains. “I opened it and it was empty. It felt like a good metaphor for the relationship – a nice outward appearance but inside there’s really nothing there.”…

  • Video Premiere: Group Zero – We Need Water

    April 8, 2022 - By 

    Last October, Belfast-based musician Cathal Cully, AKA Group Zero, unveiled the sublime Everyone’s Already Come Apart. Released via Touch Sensitive, the five-track album melded muted psychedelia with loose, electronic experimentalism that brightened some brilliant corners. While each track rewarded, ‘We Need Water,’ proved an outright peak. Across six minutes, the subtle interactions between backwashed samples with piano, synth, and muted drum machine patterns burrow deep. Today, we’re pleased to present a first look at Belfast-based artist and filmmaker Benén Dillon’s video for the single. Shot on location in Mayo at the annual cliff-diving competition, it was filmed during the counties’ collective hangover from the All-Ireland…

  • Irish Tracks of the Week – April 8th

    April 8, 2022 - By 

    Here’s the very best Irish tracks of the week, featuring Paddy Hanna, SOAK, Iona Zajac, Súil Amháin x Quantum Foam x Tuath and more Paddy Hanna – Yoko Ono Yoko Ono by Paddy Hanna Iona Zajac – Red Corn Poppies Súil Amháin x Quantum Foam x Tuath – ​​Dúchas Iarlais by Tuath X Súil Amháin X Quantum Foam Group Zero – We Need Water SOAK – Purgatory Dirty Dreamer – The Everyday In Bloom Deadbeat Drew – Pick Up The Phone cbaki – New Girls Every Night Happyalone – Car Crash modernlove. – Don’t Wanna The Burma – Don’t Believe…

  • A Sacred Heart: Remembering Aengus Friel Lawrence

    April 8, 2022 - By 

    Jude Barriscale pays tribute to her close friend, and much-loved TTA favourite Aengus Friel Lawrence, aka Shammen Delly, who sadly passed away in February Illustration by Loreana Rushe We’re at an afters house party, all of us sat in a circle in the living room. I ask for the acoustic guitar from someone who’s just played a Fleetwood Mac cover to great acclaim. Ill-advisedly, I play a song I’ve been working on, which isn’t ready and I’m far too inebriated to do it any justice. The cringe monster crawls up my spine as I approach the end and I trail…

  • Wall of Sound: Marion Hawkes of Sound Advice

    April 7, 2022 - By 

    Belfast’s newest record store is far from your usual fare. With DJ Marion Hawkes at the helm, Sound Advice is helping set the pace for a city brimming with fresh possibility Photos by Darren Hill It’s only a few short years since Belfast was hit with a succession of independent record shop closures that left something of a wilderness unbefitting a city of its stature. Thankfully, with city centre joint Starr Records making strides, recovery has been swift. The latest store to open its doors is east Belfast’s Sound Advice, owned and run by Marion Hawkes, DJ and co-founder of…

  • Son of the Session: An Interview with John Francis Flynn

    April 7, 2022 - By 

    “There were people that shouldn’t know who I am coming to see me.” If there’s one thing you quickly learn when speaking to John Francis Flynn it’s that he’s not exactly prone to entitlement. Speaking over Zoom from his home in Dublin, the singer and multi-instrumentalist is reflecting on his recent debut UK headline tour. It was a run of 15 shows that, if a few glowing reports are anything to go by, were more than a bit special. Not that Flynn would tell you as much himself. “It was kind of mind-blowing,” he tells me. “After two years of…

  • And So I Watch You From Afar – Jettison

    April 7, 2022 - By 

    After five albums, And So I Watch You From Afar take something of a left turn with their first ‘multimedia album’ Jettison. Produced with accompanying visuals, their usual crushing riffs and frenzied guitar workouts are replaced, at least initially, by gentle chords resembling The Cinematic Orchestra’s ‘To Build a Home’. Strings and spoken word passages from Emma Ruth Rundle and Clutch’s Neil Fallon float in and out, adding new dimensions to the beloved Belfast-based band’s sound The tension racks up though as the album continues, each movement seamlessly progressing into the next as one long continuous piece, at times recalling…

  • Inbound: Ricky Chong

    April 7, 2022 - By 

    There’s something genuinely refreshing about Ricky Chong. The Sligo-based DJ and producer mixes house and disco records with a deft hand, digging deep for radiant cuts that stomp and soar with NRG, funk and soul. A resident at Sligo’s Faint club night as well as Dublin’s The Big Romance, he’s been building his profile for a couple of years now, but his love for music that kicks and swings stretches back to his childhood. Growing up, his dad’s collection was a treasure trove of jazz, funk, disco and sounds from around the world such as Oscar Peterson’s We Get Requests,…

  • Mitski Announces Belfast and Dublin Shows

    April 6, 2022 - By 

    Mitski has announced two Irish shows this summer. Taking place a couple of months after her sold-out show at Vicar Street later this month, she will play Belfast’s Ulster Hall and Dublin’s 3Olympia on June 12th and 13th respectively. Tickets go on sale at 10am on Friday, April 7th, priced £35.50 and €34.90.