• Stream: Gadget and the Cloud – Continue

    May 23, 2017 - By 

    Cork producer Kelly Doherty AKA Gadget and the Cloud has returned with her strongest track to date in the form of ‘Continue’. A skilfully layered, emotively dense effort, the intent that underpins the single – which sounds like ‘Ful Stop’ by Radiohead re-imagined with euphoria and release firmly in mind – proves virulent from start to finish. This is a deceptively ambitious slice of downtempo, trip-hop inflected electronica that hits home and then some. Keep an eye out for Doherty’s forthcoming mini-album, Deceased Estate, which is set to drop at some point this summer.

  • Album Stream: FIXITY – FIXITY 3

    May 23, 2017 - By 

    Over the last couple of years Cork’s FIXITY have established themselves to be one of the country’s consistently intriguing sonic propositions. Composed and steered by Cork multi-instrumentalist Dan Walsh, the project’s explored in collective improvisation with other individuals three different releases, most recently December’s The Things In The Room. Tied together with masterfully loose conviction, new mini-album FIXITY 3 is is solo-produced album is a sprawling seven-track descent into free-form ambient textures, free jazz tangents and psychedelic colour. Performed and produced by Walsh, it’s a release that, in conjuring the more cosmically-inclined reverberations of Albert Ayler, Jessamine, Tortoise, Klaus Schulze and the Residents, offers…

  • Stream a new Twin Peaks-themed cover EP from Our Krypton Son

    May 22, 2017 - By 

    Unless you’ve been living under a very sizeable rock recently, you’ll know David Lynch and Mark Frost’s seminal serial drama Twin Peaks returned for its long-awaited third season last night. Marking the occasion in exquisite fashion, Derry singer-songwriter – and one of our featured 17 for 17 acts – Chris McConaghy AKA Our Krypton Son has unveiled a four-track, Twin Peaks-themed cover EP, Music From Blackfoot River. As well as Angelo Badalamenti/Julee Cruise gems ‘Falling’ and ‘Nightingale’ – both of which feature in the original Twin Peaks – the wonderfully lo-fi release features takes on ‘In Dreams’ and the the eponymous track…

  • EP Stream: Galants – Galants

    May 19, 2017 - By 

    In case you missed the memo: Dublin noise-pop quartet Galants rule. Evoking the varyingly shaded, feedback-soaked lulls and barrages of Dinosaur Jr., Teenage Fanclub, My Bloody Valentine, Sonic Youth, Swervedriver and Yo La Tengo, the band have caught our attention on numerous occasions of the last couple of years. Something of a feature-length culmination of this particular phase in the journey to date, their self-titled EP – which sees David Kennedy, James McDonald, Colin O’Dwyer and Ruairi Paxton concoct some real magic over four tracks – has now been release on 10″ via UK imprint Zen Ten. Delve in below. Galants by Galants

  • Stream: Isobel Anderson – Feed Me/Effortless Pain Relief

    May 19, 2017 - By 

    Having recently released the wistful ‘Flint Shingle’ – a track we called a “delicately textured, perfectly phantasmal ambient effort” – Belfast-based artist Isobel Anderson has return with its follow-up, ‘Feed Me’. A track that once more sees Anderson’s command of harmony and counterpoint blend with textures and rhythms that weave in wonderful patterns, it makes for an exquisite four minutes from the Sussex-born musician. Better still, the spectral, reverberating meditation that is ‘Effortless Pain Relief’ proves an equally enchanting b-side. Two of her strongest tracks to date, we reckon.

  • Boris Announce Irish Dates

    May 19, 2017 - By 

    To coincide with their grand twenty-third studio album – and 25th anniversary – experimental trio Boris have announced that they’ll play Dublin, Belfast and Cork in August. Noted for their genre-spanning output, the threesome will play Dublin’s Whelan’s on August 20, Cork’s Cyprus Avenue on August 21 and Belfast’s Limelight on August 23. Tickets are on sale now for the Dublin and Cork shows; tickets for the Belfast date go on sale on Monday, May 22. Dear is released worldwide on July 14.

  • Preview: Metropolis Live @ The MAC

    May 19, 2017 - By 

    Ahead of live-soundtracking Fritz Lang’s German expressionist masterpiece Metropolis at Belfast’s the MAC on Thursday, May 25, we talk to acclaimed composer and pianist Dmytro Morykit about the dramatic theatre of his score. Go here to buy tickets to the event. Hi Dmytro. Take us back: when did you first watched Metropolis and how did it affect you? I suppose the first time I saw it was 1983, around about the same time I saw Nosferatu. I had been reading about the Directors of the silent classics but F W Murnau made more of an impact, perhaps that was just…

  • EP Stream: Silverbacks – Sink The Fat Moon

    May 19, 2017 - By 

    Set for a midnight launch at Whelan’s next Saturday night (May 27), Sink The Fat Moon by Dublin indie rock five-piece Silverbacks will sure rank up there with our favourite Irish releases of the year come December. A plinking, squalling five-track sweep of scuzzed-out tangents and lo-fi passages, it marries the patent – yet very impressively wrought – imprint of the likes of Parquet Courts, Sonic Youth and Pavement in fine fashion, revealing a band whose knack for forging something new from the aforementioned influence is really a delight to behold. For a sub-genre oversaturated with clumsily disaffected amour-propre, Silverbacks wield a far more natural…

  • Watch: Count Vaseline – Russia

    May 18, 2017 - By 

    Currently based in Atlanta, GA Dublin’s Stefan Murphy has set off on a compelling, genre-spanning and decidedly DIY solo journey as Count Vaseline following the disbanding of The Mighty Stef in May last year. A highlight from his second solo album, Cascade – a release Murphy has astutely called a self-contained “micro-universe” – ‘Russia’ is a timely release that, via a stripped back but layered sound that conjures the likes of Darklands-era Jesus and Mary Chain, meditates on and tussles with the the mystery of the past the precariousness of the future. Better still, Murphy vocals – emphatic as ever – veer into perfectly melodic, ear-worming…

  • The Sad and Beautiful World of Sparklehorse Irish Premiere @ Whelan’s

    May 17, 2017 - By 

    We will host the Irish premiere of Alex Crowton and Bobby Dass’ The Sad and Beautiful World of Sparklehorse at Whelan’s on Sunday, July 2. Following the screening of the documentary, which looks at the life and music of the sadly-missed Mark Linkous, a band of musicians – including Tom McShane, The Mad Dalton, Pixie Saytar, Heliopause and Jake Lennox – will play an hour-long set of material from the Sparklehorse songbook. Doors are at 7pm and tickets – priced €13.00 – are available to buy via Whelan’s, a venue which Sparklehorse performed at on a handful of occasions.