• Irish Tour: Boris

    May 8, 2023 - By 

    Boris set out on their Irish tour last week performing live at Cyprus Avenue in Cork, The Button Factory in Dublin and The Black Box in Belfast with support from Pupil Slicer. Photos by Celeste Burdon, Monika Ruman and Aislinn McGinn Cyprus Avenue in Cork by Celeste Burdon The Button Factory in Dublin by Monika Ruman The Black Box in Belfast by Aislinn McGinn

  • “Are we really back here again?” The Return of girlfriend.

    May 5, 2023 - By 

    Following a three-year hiatus, Hana Lamari and Lahela Jones of Dublin DIY heroes girlfriend. discuss their return to the scene, Ireland’s ever-changing music community and the secret to longevity Words by Jack Rudden Photos by Gemma Bovenizer In a country as small as Ireland, independent music is an intimate and sometimes volatile affair. Artists, promoters and venues are cobbled together or torn asunder with remarkable speed and comparable tenacity. Only the most dedicated can survive atop these ever-shifting subcultural tectonic plates. Those that are willing to fight tooth and nail, reinvent and lay themselves bare are capable of enduring the…

  • Irish Tracks of the Week – 5th May

    May 5, 2023 - By 

    It’s Bandcamp Friday once again, and it’s been yet another banner week for Irish releases. Dig into the best of them from The Bonk, Adjunct Ensemble, Chalk, Elaine Mai & MayKay, Pôt-Pôt and more The Bonk – The Blueshirt Shuffle The Blueshirt Shuffle by The Bonk Adjunct Ensemble – Sovereign Bodies/Ritual Taxonomy Chalk – Conditions Elaine Mai & MayKay – 3am Alpha Chrome Yayo – Hidden Earth Hidden Earth by Alpha Chrome Yayo Asi Nisi Masa – Cobweb Thread Daniel Luke – Shadow Dance Shadow Dance by Daniel Luke Raja Baal – I Will Never Be Cool (You Can’t Make Me)…

  • EP Stream: Pôt-Pôt – Ode To A

    May 5, 2023 - By 

    Following their first gig as a four-piece in March for the Port-To-Port festival in Lisbon, we’re delighted to give you a first listen to Ode To A, the debut EP from Cork-based experimental project pôt-pôt. Its four swirling, oneiric songs are based entirely around the note of A, with it being the only musical note used across the whole record. Cork’s Mark Waldron-Hyden (drums, synth, vocals) created pôt-pôt initially as a solo project – with the goal of writing only music that could be recreated as a solo act – during lockdown, before moving to Lisbon, where he met and recruited bassist Joe Armitage and guitarist Michael…

  • Hamer Place Releases Debut Single ‘A Tribute To Tina’

    May 5, 2023 - By 

    As a member of Postcard Versions, Safe Neighbourhood, and Oh Boland, Ross Hamer’s place in the furniture of Dublin indie rock furniture is fairly well cemented. Enter new project Hamer Place and debut single ‘A Tribute To Tina’, another joyous guitar-led nugget brimming with all the immediacy you’d come to expect from him. Led by Hamer, the band features David Tapley, Hugh O’Dwyer and Neil Dexter, and was recorded by O’Dwyer in Hodland Studio earlier this year. On ‘Tribute To Tina’, Ross told us: “I’ve written lots of songs in my life, mostly miserable ones, but recently I felt like a change. Inspired by some of the greatest musicians of…

  • Inbound: Yinyang

    May 3, 2023 - By 

    Part of a crop of artists from the North that are bending genre to break its confines, Yinyang is all about duality. Known offstage as Lauren Hannan, the artist’s select but ferocious string of five singles, culminating in last year’s booming, bass-heavy ‘Happy Money’, fuse together alternative hip-hop with pop-punk sensibilities. There’s a bit of GIRLI meets Biig Piig; a bold sense of self and delivery with a self-conscious edge. Huge production values mask the bite of scathing verses that you’d perhaps miss on a first listen, with subject matter tackling mental illness, antidepressants, down and bad days. Paired together…

  • Redefining Themselves for Themselves: An Interview With M(h)aol

    May 2, 2023 - By 

    Off the back of the release of their debut LP Attachment Styles, fast-rising feminist punk five-piece M(h)aol talk fierce storytelling, breaking taboo, and representing their truth to the world Words by Leigh Arthur Photos by Jane Donnelly “I didn’t imagine eight years ago when I shaved your head this is where we’d be, but there’s nowhere that I’d rather be.” Constance Keane (also known as Fears for her solo work) is emotive as are the other members of M(h)aol as they make affectionate dedications to each other onstage in a basement in Dalston. The strike of midnight marks the release…