• Premiere: Hiva Oa – A Great Height

    June 15, 2016 - By 

    Not merely the second largest island in the Marquesas Islands in French Polynesia, Hiva Oa are a Belfast duo set to release their long-awaited new EP mk2 (part 1) on August 5. Having returned to their native Ireland after residing in Edinburgh, Stephen Houlihan and Christine Tubridy turn their attention to the laws and imprint of fear, loneliness, abandonment and awakening on the new release, something that’s impressively manifest on its lead single ‘A Great Height’. Evoking the likes of PVT, The Twilight Sad and a more inward-looking Not Squares, the track’s swirling flurry of contorting electronica, weaving bass patterns and braying guitar swells meld…

  • Watch: August Wells – She Was a Question

    June 14, 2016 - By 

    “One day you wake up, as the man that you are, And not as the one you thought you’d become. You stop making promises, you stop telling lies. You look right into your own eyes and start saying your goodbyes.” Few Irish singer-songwriters command with the same immediacy, pathos and poignance as August Wells‘ Ken Griffin. Of all their single releases to date – including the particularly excellent ‘Here In The Wild‘ – the band’s new single ‘She Was a Question’ aims straight from the psychic jugular, distilling Sisyphean acceptance to three minutes of sublimely woven, Bacharachian alt-pop where cold, hard reality simply has…

  • James Blake set for Dublin and Belfast

    June 14, 2016 - By 

    Having released his stellar third album, The Colour in Anything, last month, James Blake will kick off a UK and Ireland October/November tour with two Irish dates. Five years on from making his Irish debut at Whelan’s in March, 2011 (we’d love to say we were in attendance – alas) Blake will play Dublin”s Olympia on October 27 and make his Belfast debut on October 28. Tickets go on sale this Friday at 9am, priced €37.00/£19.50.

  • Album Premiere: Glimmermen – Breakin’ Out

    June 14, 2016 - By 

    Just last month we shared ‘Bang’, the lead single from Breakin’ Out, the new album by Dublin’s Glimmermen. Calling it a “markedly more linear yet no less distinct and ear-grabbing effort from the four-piece”, it reinforced our belief that the band – whose debut EP Satellite People caught our attention back in 2012 – had something different and potentially quite vital to their collective bow. As it so happens, Breakin’ Out confirms that fact in assured fashion, each of the release’s nine tracks threading together to form an effort where the major key and quietly emphatic cogitations on the everyday meld to…

  • Video Premiere: Alana Henderson – Song About a Song

    June 14, 2016 - By 

    Before setting off on the very long road as cellist/backing vocalist for Hozier, Dungannon singer-songwriter Alana Henderson (one of our ones to watch last year) had staked her very own captivating claim with her debut EP, Wax & Wane. Released in early 2013, it was veritable pandora’s box of burrowing folk noir, each of the release’s four traditional-tinged chamber tales bounding forth with gallant imagination and delicate, melodic finesse. With brand new material in the pipeline, ‘Song About a Song’ – a perfectly ruminating peak from Wax & Wane that’s had an incredible 5,000,000 plays on Spotify – has been resurrected with a homespun video by David Moody that wonderfully captures the song’s essence.

  • Monday Mixtape: Anton Newcombe (The Brian Jonestown Massacre)

    June 13, 2016 - By 

    Ahead of The Brian Jonestown Massacre dates at Belfast’s Limelight on Wednesday, June 15 and Dublin’s Academy on Thursday, June 16, Anton Newcombe selects and talks about not five, not ten but twenty-three of his all-time favourite songs, featuring 13th Floor Elevators, Joni Mitchell, Dungen, Marvin Gaye, Nina Simone and more. The Doors – The Crystal Ship There’s something about this beautiful love song that touched me when I was very young. Still love it. Dungen – Panda God, when this came out I was taken back – so powerful in any language. Love these guys, love Sweden. John’s Children –…

  • Music City 2016 Announce First Line-up

    June 13, 2016 - By 

    Returning for its fourth consecutive year, the first line-up announcement for this year’s Music City in Derry – “the festival where everyone can play” – has been revealed. Set to take place from July 4-10,  Choice Music Prize winner SOAK, The Strypes, Girls Names (pictured), Saint Sister, The Willis Clan, Overhead The Albatross, R.S.A.G, Bitch Falcon, David Kitt, Malojian, Best Boy Grip, Chris McConaghy AKA Our Krypton Son, The Clameens, Paddy Nash & The Happy Enchiladas, Strength, Triggerman, Ruth McGinley and Gerard McChrystal will make up the bill. Taking place in various squares, neighbourhoods, shops, pubs and clubs throughout the city, more acts…

  • Premiere: The Hipshakes – Attention Spans

    June 11, 2016 - By 

    Set to headline the last ever (and downright unmissable) Retro Revival Club at Dublin’s soon-to-be-departed Sweeney’s, Manchester garage punk quartet The Hipshakes recently released their blistering, new album, Snake, via Sligo independent label par excellence, Art For Blind records (The Number Ones, September Girls, The Altered Hours, Perfect Pussy, No Ditching, etc.) An outright highlight from said release, we’re pleased to premiere the video for ‘Attention Spans’ – a breathless, Harmacy-era Sebadohesque throwdown – below.