• Watch: Daithí – Mary Keane’s Introduction

    December 9, 2015 - By 

    Shot and directed by Conal Thomson, the video for ‘Mary Keane’s Introduction’ by Daithí is a wonderfully evocative accompaniment to a track featuring the Galway experimental electronic maestro’s 90 year old grandmother reminiscing about romance in her youth in the West coast of Ireland. Back in October, we said the said the single track “fused distinct worlds – that of the old and that of the new – to spawn something so innately joyous that you would struggle to find it anything but wonderfully accomplished.” With Thomson’s video it takes on an even greater sense of resonant context. In a Facebook post today, Daithí said: “Dotted along…

  • Duke Special Announced as Lyric Theatre Artist in Residence

    December 9, 2015 - By 

    Having released eighth studio album Look Out Machines! earlier this year Peter Wilson AKA Duke Special has been announced as the new Artist in Residence at Belfast’s Lyric Theatre. Hands down one of Northern Ireland’s most respected and consistently innovative artists, Wilson is no stranger to work in the theatre. In 2009 he appeared stage at the National Theatre in London as part of a new production of Bertolt Brecht’s play Mother Courage and Her Children for which he wrote music for a number of songs, and earlier this year he wrote the music for Youth Music Theatre’s production of Gulliver’s…

  • Watch: No Monster Club – Lemonade

    December 8, 2015 - By 

    Set to play Popical Island’s jam-packed All-Dayer on Saturday, December 19, Bobby Aherne’s No Monster Club have unveiled the video for their new single ‘ Lemonade’. Lifted from his forthcoming eleventh (yes, eleventh) album I Feel Magic, the track – helped along very nicely by Aherne’s accompanying video – is an equal parts bobbing and burrowing slice of art-pop worthy of many repeated listens. The PR say it “bask[s] in a strange, newfound intersection of Future Islands, Talking Heads and early Flaming Lips” and we’re not even remotely inclined to disagree. I Feel Magic is released via Popical Island on February 5.…

  • Watch: A.S. Fanning – Carmelita

    December 8, 2015 - By 

    Currently residing in Berlin and with a debut album in the works, the debut single from Dublin singer-songwriter A.S. Fanning retains a wonderfully wry and decidedly literary tone and import that could only stem from the streets of the Irish capital. Having gigged in pubs around Ireland from the age of 12 – “playing mostly Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley covers among some original songs” – Fanning’s carefully constructed, almost Cohen-esque craft harks back whilst preserving a very present-day resonance. Combined with Candice Gordon’s superb video, below, this is a very memorable opening gambit from an artist certain to keep us on…

  • Watch: The Shaker Hymn – Sucking It Out

    December 8, 2015 - By 

    Having supported Gaz Coombes at Cyprus Avenue on Saturday night – an apt local/international pairing if there ever was one – Cork four-piece The Shaker Hymn look back on a two month U.S. road trip as the spur for their de facto formation in 2012 having made “rudimentary teenage noises” since 2005. To say the least, the imprint of this rather curious, drawn-out gestation period shines through on the band’s new single, ‘Sucking It Out’. Revealing a band who seem to know each other’s musical anatomy inside out, it’s a perfectly discriminating release, tipping its hat to the likes of QOTSA’s more undemanding, subtly swaggering…

  • Stream: The Altered Hours – Silver Leather

    December 8, 2015 - By 

    Unveiled with a string of European dates for Spring – including a Belfast show hosted by yours truly on Friday, February 26 – Cork five-piece The Altered Hours will release their hugely anticipated debut album, In Heat Not Sorry, via Art For Blind and Penske Recording on January 29. The second single to be taken from that, five-minute cut ‘Silver Leather’ reveals the more rapt and ruminative side to the band, evincing a woozy netherworld full of brilliant restraint and shoegaze-leaning dark psych wonder. Stream the track and check out the band’s forthcoming tour dates below. Sat 19th Dec – Connolly’s of Leap, Co. Cork (IE)…

  • Watch: i am niamh – Creep

    December 7, 2015 - By 

    Evoking the likes of Julia Holter and Kate Bush, Dublin singer-songwriter Niamh Parkinson AKA i am niamh has unveiled the video for her sublime new single, ‘Creep’. Showing how far a simple set-up can be stretched to great effect, the video – directed by Aidan Duffy – features the fast-rising, classically-trained Parkinson in positively phantasmal form. Check out the video and i am niamh’s debut album Wonderland below.

  • Mixtape: 30 Years of Dinosaur Jr.

    December 7, 2015 - By 

    Currently celebrating their grand 30th anniversary with a seven-night run at the Bowery, Dinosaur Jr. have long laid claim to being bona fide indie rock dignitaries. From their 1985 self-titled debut as Dinosaur and almighty 87-89 heyday to Lou Barlow’s acrimonious departure shortly thereafter and the founding threesome of Barlow, J Mascis and Murph’s Second Coming in 2007, they have time and again re-asserted their peerless status. With every glorious hook, “Come on down/over” and fuzzed out, wailing guitar solo in mind, we’ve compiled a thirty-track Spotify playlist of our very favourite Dinosaur Jr. songs in chronological order. Check it out and keep up…