• Irish Tour: Therapy?

    December 13, 2015 - By 

    With words from Conor Callanan at the former, Ste Murray and Liam Kielt capture the mighty Therapy? at The Button Factory, Dublin and Belfast’s Limelight 1 (AAA). The Button Factory, Dublin One of the main qualities of a band such as Therapy? is their pure and unadulterated unwillingness to compromise. During their 26 year career they’ve never shied away from sticking steadfastly to their guns when it comes to releasing what they’ve wanted. No matter what the response may be from fans or critics alike. With the release of 1994’s Troublegum it seemed like Therapy? were on the cusp of something…

  • Album Premiere: A Co-Present Christmas

    December 14, 2015 - By 

    Featuring the likes of i am niamh, Sleep Thieves and Laura Ann Brady, we’re very pleased to present a premiere of the inaugural A Co-Present Christmas, a first-rate, fourteen-track compilation of covers, original tracks and Christmas themed tracks from various Irish artists. To celebration the end of what they rightly have called an amazing year for Irish music (and how) The Co-Present – hands down one of our favourite radio shows in Ireland, broadcast weekly on Radiomade.ie – selected some of their favourite artists to contribute their festive songs to release. Having launched in November 2013, the Co-Present – hosted…

  • Elastic Sleep – Bad Machine

    December 11, 2015 - By 

    We’ve a lot of time for Cork noise-pop wizards Elastic Sleep here at TTA Towers (ok, it’s a singular tower) and never has that been more the case than now, with the release of their rapturous new single, ‘Bad Machine’. Continuing to sound like no other band in the island (at the very least) the Muireann Levis-fronted five-piece the song explores the idea of wilful submission in the face of self destruction, segueing from a hypnagogic groove to full-blown, feedback-drenched ire. Check out Echo Tree’s tripped-out video for the new single (available as a free download from the band’s Bandcamp and Soundcloud pages) and…

  • Monday Mixtape: Jason Loewenstein (Sebadoh)

    December 14, 2015 - By 

    In the latest installment of Monday Mixtape, Jason Loewenstein of lo-fi legends Sebadoh and Fiery Furnaces selects live versions of some of his all-time favourite tracks from the likes of Deerhoof, Unsane and Devo. Dummy Dumpster – Hatchet Sebadoh wandered into the swamps of Louisiana last year where my mind was blown by this band. Chaotic energy is addictive. Deerhoof – Flower Definitely one of the most exciting live bands of all time. This is the “classic lineup” with Chris Cohen still on guitar. NRBQ – Get Rhythm The best bar band of all time. What a rhythm section. Antelope –…

  • Album stream: New Pope – Youth

    December 10, 2015 - By 

    Tapping into the profound and altogether ineffable world of the most powerful of Eternal returns: home, tracing the years back to their source and what it means to belong, Youth by Galway dream-folk artist David Boland AKA New Pope is a seven-track, debut full-length chronicle of youthful reminiscence perfectly balanced between the tender and more pining realms of nostalgia. Released at a perfect time of year, when many of us return home, gradually taking stock of another year just gone, the album – evoking the likes of Red House Painters and American Music Club – offers up a wonderfully re-assuring, immaculately crafted summation of the inner, intersubjective workings of…

  • 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…