• Album Stream: Ralph Cola – Cosmic Joke

    October 24, 2016 - By 

    Dublin based label Little L Records have released the debut album Cosmic Joke from Coventry based musician Aidan Leather aka Ralph Cola. The LP is an assortment of crisp, jaunty cuts, incorporating into the psyche-pop foundation more jazz, funk and soul tropes and tricks than you could throw your hat at. Tracks like ‘Sundial’ and ‘Are You’ are psychedelic gems to put smiles on the faces of Connan Mockasin fans while ‘Floating’ and ‘Must be Tiring’ lean gleefully into the soul and jazz realm while maintaining the lo-fi pop charm. ‘COMMAND’ is a stand-out interlude, splitting the album down the middle and providing an electronic spin…

  • Stream: Kieran O’Brien – Won’t You

    October 12, 2016 - By 

    Rediscovery is a central concept when listening to the music of Kieran O’Brien. The songwriter spent four years after finishing university living in Dublin and Athlone but found himself drawn back to life closer to ocean in his home county of Galway, thus re-emersing himself in the place that had inspired his musical awakening. Reconnecting with home and the associated memories and emotions both positive and negative therein became a fuel for O’Brien to re-awaken the songwriter within him. This “un-freezing” as he describes it came to be defined by his life by the ocean and the memories of youth that…

  • Tales From The Manor: An Interview With Emmet Condon of Another Love Story

    October 10, 2016 - By 

    Camaraderie and intimacy are what lie at the root one of Ireland’s most enticing summer spectacles, Another Love Story. Off the back of its marvellously successful third year, Homebeat founder and festival curator Emmet Condon talks to Eoin Murray about what separates ALS from Ireland’s larger music festivals and about the very real love that fuels it above all else. Photos by Aaron Corr It’s been a few weeks since Another Love Story. Now that you’ve had some time to let it digest, what were some of the highlights of the festival for you? Highlights are a bit tough to…

  • Album Stream: Zinc – Zinc

    October 6, 2016 - By 

    Galway based post-rock trio Zinc have spent the first two years of their existence patiently honing a sound that blends their respective musical backgrounds together into a neat instrumental package. Their self-titled debut, mixed by Solar Bears’ and Leo Drezden‘s Rian Trench, is a fitting testament to that careful moulding together of styles, with the sporadic jazz influences sitting comfortably among the trip-hop, electronic and punk elements throughout its seven cuts. Originating as a purely instrumental act, the group, comprised of Simon Kenny (drums), Aengus Hackett (guitar) and Andrew Madec (bass), began expanding on melodic and rhythmic motifs to create something definitive while maintaining a free-form…

  • Jenny Hval – Blood Bitch

    October 3, 2016 - By 

    Concept albums are tricky. Honing in on a singular narrative or theme throughout a 40 minute collection of music requires precision and tact from an artist, an ability to carry an idea throughout without allowing it to devour every other facet of the record. Norwegian experimental-artist Jenny Hval has, over the course of about a decade, built a collection of albums under varying monickers with roots stretching into concepts of sexuality, the human body, sociology, gender and mortality all the while allowing her music to be captivatingly nuanced and enticing; she knows how to make a concept album. Her last…

  • windings – Be Honest and Fear Not

    September 30, 2016 - By 

    There could be no more apt a title for the fourth full length LP from one of Ireland’s oft unsung but widely respected acts, Windings. Be Honest and Fear Not arrives after a four year spell of silence from the Limerick outfit and shows us a band, fronted by former Giveamanakick vocalist and guitarist Steve Ryan, who have absolutely nothing to camouflage and no affectation to assume. While this record might not match its 2012 predecessor I Am Not the Crow in terms of ambition or cohesion, it makes up for that in unabashed heart and candid songwriting. Lyrically, Ryan has discussed how the album plays…

  • WIFE – Standard Nature

    September 21, 2016 - By 

    Combing ferocity with beauty is something that has always played a central role in the music of James Kelly. In his other musical life the Cork artist makes up part of currently-in-limbo Atmospheric Black Metal outfit, Altar of Plagues, a group whose knack for vicious energy is made all the more gripping by the constant undercurrent of anguished melody, in particular on their 2013 album Teethed Glory and Injury.  Under his electronic solo moniker, WIFE, Kelly has, over the course of two previous releases, always tended to err more on the atmospheric end of that spectrum. His last LP, 2014’s…

  • Devendra Banhart – Ape In Pink Marble

    September 22, 2016 - By 

    Once you become aware of Venezuelan-American songwriter Devendra Banhart‘s other life as a visual artist it becomes difficult to distance it from his musical output. Despite rarely linking his music and visual art, aside from painting his own album artwork (including the grammy nominated beauty of 2009’s What We Will Be), one always feels the intended aesthetic and colour that permeates his music. In 2013 Banhart released his Nonesuch Records debut, Mala, a record of playful, winsome cuts that toyed with love’s awkwardness and silliness with equal parts melancholy and wit. Throughout the album, the grainy pink colouring that defined its cover perched on the listener’s…

  • Album stream: Oh Boland – Spilt Milk

    September 14, 2016 - By 

    While the West of Ireland’s favourite garage-rock, sloppy pop trio Oh Boland commence their travels across America over the next three weeks, those of us at home wait with baited breath for the release of their debut LP Spilt Milk on September 30th via San Diego label Volar Records  (at long last I hear you cry!) In anticipation for the official release you can now stream the album in its entirety over on Volar Records’ Bandcamp. With lyrics rooted in boredom, apathy and vague tragedy, Niall Murphy’s vocals are playfully sardonic while the rhythm section of Eanna MacDonnchadha (bass) and Simon McDonagh (drums) keeps things…

  • Stream: Lighght – What U Need

    September 14, 2016 - By 

    Over the past year or so, mysterious Cork based producer Lighght has been steadily building a collection of dark, ambient, sometimes industrial electronica, with each new composition feeling like a movement in a much more driven direction. Beginnings with tracks like ‘Oppen’ and ‘Croesus Pieces’ were sparse but were enticing in their intent, droning backdrops providing stable bases for muffled melodies. Three months ago saw the unveiling of ‘Drown’, a track which saw the artist veering into more dub, garage influenced territory while still hanging onto the ambient drones. Now Lighght reveals ‘What U Need’, yet another step forward in the artists’ technical…