• Sound of Belfast Programme Launched

    September 27, 2016 - By 

    Promising “live gigs, music industry, awards, learning and community” the programme for this year’s Sound of Belfast was launched earlier this afternoon at Belfast’s Oh Yeah Centre. The nominal successor to Belfast Music Week, the 10 day annual festival is, according to Oh Yeah Music Centre CEO Charlotte Dryden, “a celebration of a great music city impressing audiences with new sounds, providing youth and community with access, encouraging participation through workshops and discussing the sector with industry and artists”. With highlights including Malojian’s This Is Nowhere album launch at the MAC, Robyn G Shiels’ ‘If I Were Thy Demon’ single…

  • Album Premiere: Count Vaseline – Yo No Soy Marinero

    September 27, 2016 - By 

    Whilst many musicians tend to tread the thin, often imperceptible lines blurring their status as performer or full-blown artist, it’s safe to say Dublin’s Stefan Murphy falls very comfortably into the latter. With his unique brand of urgent, genre-warping sonic wanderlust, from his days fronting the much-loved The Mighty Stef to his current guise as Count Vaseline, Murphy has always clearly lived, felt and fully meant his calling. Set for release on Friday (September 30) via OCDC, the debut Count Vaseline album, Yo No Soy Marinero, was born as a DIY project in Berlin back in the Spring. Having spent much of his time since in…

  • Album Premiere: windings – Be Honest and Fear Not

    September 27, 2016 - By 

    It takes a certain amount of gall to open an album with a 7 minute epic culminating in an arena-seeking, solo-drenched crescendo. But in the case of much-loved Limerick alt/folk five-piece windings that gall is something far more akin to collective poise and confidence on ‘Ambivalence Blues’, the lead track from their wonderfully-realised fourth studio album, Be Honest and Fear Not. Four years on from the release of the band’s sublime, Choice Prize-nominated I Am Not The Crow, this new record – recorded at Attica Studios in Donegal with Villagers’ Tommy McLaughlin – bursts forth with the band’s “modus operandi in 2016: if you are…

  • Kraftwerk 3D Set For Dublin and Belfast

    September 26, 2016 - By 

    Following hugely successful worldwide concert tours, German electronic legends Kraftwerk will bring their career-distilling 3-D show to Dublin’s Bord Gais Energy Theatre and Belfast’s Waterfront Hall on June 2 and 4 next year. Bringing together music and performance art, the concerts are a true “Gesamtkunstwerk – a total work of art.” Tickets for both shows go on sale this Friday (September 30), priced from €62.50 (Dublin) and £49.00 (Belfast).

  • Video Premiere: No Monster Club – Do The Mess Around

    September 23, 2016 - By 

    In case you missed the memo, Dublin’s No Monster Club are catchier than velcro with a cold.  They’re catchier than Avian flu on the 212 to Derry from Belfast on a Friday afternoon. They’re catchier than Brian Wilson spinning a whole stack of Ty Segall records back-to-back for eternity, ad infinitum. You get the picture. With its synopsis of “en route to the big gig, the boys cross paths with a peculiar stranger…” the Bobby Aherne-fronted outfit’s latest visual extravaganza is a veritable feast for the senses. The track itself is one of four new songs on the 7″ EP Where Did You…

  • Inbound: FONDA

    September 23, 2016 - By 

    FONDA are the sound of power pop having grown older and that bit more cynical: imagine Big Star replacing tickets to the dance with overpriced bars and the inevitable morning-after introspection. There’s a sense of displacement and longing that characterises the band’s music, a possible result of the group’s varying backgrounds, with band members Liam O’Connor, Laura Kelly and Patrick Burke hailing from Limerick, Galway and Glasgow respectively. The trio have been performing together since 2015, releasing debut EP Social Services that August. It’s four songs tackled everyday ennui with assured understatement, both in O’Connor’s lyrics and baritone delivery, and…

  • Watch: Meltybrains? – Know My Name

    September 23, 2016 - By 

    Still very much one of the country’s most singular sonic propositions, Dublin five-piece Meltybrains? have returned with ‘Know My Name’, a new track featuring their trademark blend of warped electronic textures and auto-tune sprinkled harmonies. The track is the first single to be taken from the band’s upcoming Kiss Yourself EP, which is released on November 18. Meltybrains? play the following dates in October and November: 01/10/16: Nelliefreds – Dingle 07/10/16: Billie Byrnes – Kilkenny 08/10/16: Connolly’s of Leap – Cork 15/10/16: Roisín Dubh – Galway 31/10/16: KEX Hostel – Reykjavik (Iceland) 05/11/16: Loft – Reykjavik (Iceland) 11/11/16: Eagle Inn – Manchester (UK) 12/11/16: Legain –…

  • Wah Wah Club Launch @ The Grand Social, Dublin

    September 23, 2016 - By 

    Operating within the walls of The Grand Social, Hidden Agenda and This Greedy Pig will team up to launch Wah Wah Club, a new late late night club experience in Dublin on Thursday, September 29. Taking place from Wednesday through to Sunday every week in the Lower Liffey Street venue, the club will feature light installations by visual design crew Algorithm, a brand new custom built Funktion-One sound system. Elsewhere, the downstairs space has been completely renovated to accommodate a purpose-built club space with a custom DJ booth. Nice. With yet more to be announced over the coming days (including…

  • Stream: Rejjie Snow – D.R.U.G.S

    September 21, 2016 - By 

    Doubling up as his first release since signing to Lyor Cohen’s 300 Entertainment (home to Fetty Wap, Young Thug et al) Rejjie Snow is streaming his stellar, subtly euphoric new single, ‘D.R.U.G.S’. Featuring a laid-back Rahki-produced beat, it’s a typically slick, blip-heavy three-minutes from the fast-rising Dublin rapper and the lead single from his forthcoming – and long-awaited – debut album.

  • Stream: Shrug Life – Your Body

    September 22, 2016 - By 

    We in the Republic don’t like to talk about the big things, and if our history of women’s rights is anything to go by, we especially don’t like to talk about the big things that involve women. As Dublin gears up for Saturday’s March For Choice, jangle poppers Shrug Life have decided to celebrate the event with their latest single, the 8th amendment baiting ‘Your Body’. Leaving subtly and nuance at the door, the trio launch into their polemic with the jugular strike of the track’s opening line: “Your body is not your body/ It’s the property of church and state”.…