• Monday Mixtape: Slomatics

    November 2, 2020 - By 

    Belfast’s primary exponents of titanically heavy sludge, Slomatics, give us a rundown of some of their all-time essential tracks, from krautrock through to horror OSTs. Hawkwind – The Watcher Live Hawkwind albums can be a real mixed bag, and even for fans with as low a quality threshold as me they can be fairly disappointing. I’d avoided The ‘99 Party Live for years as I assumed it was recorded in 1999, a bit of a low point for the band, but this was actually recorded during Lemmy’s last tour with the band in ‘74 when the concept of 1999 was still very futuristic, and…

  • Premiere: A.S. Fanning – All Time

    October 29, 2020 - By 

    We’re pleased to give a first listen to ‘All Time’, the lushly-textured new single from Berlin-based Irish singer-songwriter A.S. Fanning. A Nick Cave-ian gothic mini-fable, Fanning weaves personal neurosis through time and memory. Navigating the maelstrom’s dream logic, its subtly psychedelic layering and glistening production push toward briefly lucid moments of internal respite. Of the track, Fanning tells us: “‘All Time’ is a song about love and acceptance. Or maybe love and mercy, to borrow a line from Brian Wilson. I wrote it very quickly one night, it just sort of fell out fully formed, as sometimes happens. I was thinking about Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, and the idea of being…

  • Moving On Music Set To Hold Online Concert Event ‘All The Noels’

    October 20, 2020 - By 

    Belfast-based tastemakers par excellence Moving on Music are set to hold unique online live music experience held throughout the Black Box, Belfast, titled All The Noels. The 30-odd-minute single shot, walk-through experience is set to showcase different music taking place across the various spaces of the venue. The video – recorded across one day by a team of audio-visual professionals – attempts to capture the feeling of being in possibly our favourite Belfast venue for live music. Performances come from some of TTA faves, experimental rock quartet Blue Whale, traditional Irish vocal quartet Landless, Irish jazz pianist Scott Flanigan‘s Trio, jazz drummer Steve Davis, folk duo Laytha and traditional flute & whistle player Martha Guiney with Shane McCartan. Speaking of the project, Mick Bonner of Moving on Music said “it was…

  • Monday Mixtape: Son Zept

    October 19, 2020 - By 

    Recently championed and playlisted by the likes of by ourselves, The Quietus, DJ Mag and leftfield DJ par excellence Avalon Emerson, “Northern Ireland’s resident electronic compositional polymath” Liam McCartan, AKA Son Zept has just released his second mini-album of 2020, B. Today, he gives us an uncharacteristically abridged mixtape of some current favourite tracks. I tried to keep this as just a stream of thought and not cram in stuff that I’d end rambling about daft things like cheeky hauntological anti-memory sound (*ahem*). Excluded tunes from Aphex Twin + Aphex covers, Mal Waldron, Oneohtrix Point Never, Eprom, Lyra Pramuk, Pinch & Mumdance, Holly Herndon, Chassol,…

  • Irish Tracks of the Week – October 9th

    October 9, 2020 - By 

    It’s only right that a week that gave us innumerable incredible performances at Ireland Music Week would also deliver on the releases front. We’re here with some of the best, including Loah & Bantum, Erica Cody, Tau, Ross Hamer’s Safe Neighbourhood, the returning M(h)aol, Nealo, Eve Belle, Lucy Gaffney, a kraut-punk Organs & Mike Watt collaboration, R.S.A.G., B.K. Pepper, Tolü Makay, and Owen Lamont. Tau – All That Is ft. Deirdre Mulrooney Safe Neighbourhood – Big Decisions In the Heart of the Heart of The by Safe Neighbourhood Loah & Bantum – NGLA M(h)aol – Laundries Erica Cody – Calculated feat. Hare Squead…

  • “Is There Ever NOT More To Say About the Institutional Oppression of Women?” – M(h)aol Release First Single in 5 Years

    October 5, 2020 - By 

    Having releasing one single (‘Clementine‘ – featuring guest vocals from none other than Dara Kiely) in 2015, laying out a pointed intersection feminist & animal welfare-centred manifesto across their raw, visceral 15-minute sets, fast becoming one of the most talked-about bands in Dublin – their bassist the titular Jamie on Girl Band’s debut album – before inexplicably withdrawing with the same unpredictable energy they rode in with, M(h)aol, are the stuff of punk legend. As you well know, the intervening years in a post-referendum and post-Girl Band Irish landscape have seen a seismic transformation – with peak post-punk dude fecundity. Things were supposed to improve. Women were to experience something resembling equal representation on every…

  • Irish Tracks of the Week – September 25th

    September 25, 2020 - By 

    Once again, it’s been a ridiculously strong week for Irish music throughout. Here’s the very best, from Post Punk Podge & TPM’s toxic masculinity takedown, wonderfully-constructed modern classic pop from Paddy Hanna, CMAT, Wyvern Lingo, Jackie Beverly, Dark Tropics, twisted Donegal Lynchisms from Shammen Delly, Bitch Falcon’s dreamy post-punk, and the inimitable Myles Manley, and wonderful new EPs from Gadget & the Cloud and Damien Lynch. Denise Chaila, Sorcha Richardson, God Knows, Murli – Out The Gaff Post Punk Podge & The Technohippies feat. TPM – Hard Man Paddy Hanna – Sinatra Cmat – I Wanna Be A Cowboy, Baby! Myles Manley –…

  • Watch: Post Punk Podge & The Technohippies feat. TPM – Hard Man

    September 22, 2020 - By 

    If there’s a scene in Ireland right now that best embodies the power of a diverse, unified voice for disseminating positive change, then it’s without a doubt the hip-hop community. An all-star pairing of independent acts, Limerick’s Post Punk Podge & The Technohippies have paired with Dundalk counterparts TPM to give toxic masculinity the acerbic skewering it needs in a collaboration that more than delivers on its ear-watering potential. Podge, no stranger to exploring personal and societal issues without filter or pontification, tells us: “it’s a comedic look at the nature of being a ‘hardman’, and how those who portray machoism in a very direct way are often masking their own vulnerability.…

  • Premiere: Mark Loughrey – Nothing But A Truth / Strangled Birds

    September 16, 2020 - By 

    Having relocated to Berlin in 2017 shortly after the release of debut album Treppenwitz, Sion Mills, Tyrone native Mark Loughrey is back with his first release in three years. Loughrey’s stay in Berlin  has seen him engage with and draw inspiration from its community, with A-side ‘Nothing But A Truth’ being another marked progression from a songwriter who effortlessly marries his own fernweh with a voyeuristic glimpse at the lives and insights of strangers. The single is taken from his forthcoming home-recorded EP, On Through the Veil Anew, completed during a period of self-isolation. As Loughrey tells us, “each track was written to a third person, and all address change in some way, be it physical, spiritual,…

  • Watch: SORBET – Birth (My First Day)

    September 16, 2020 - By 

    Ahead of the release of his debut solo EP, Life Variations this Friday, producer/songwriter/vocalist – and bandleader with Robocobra Quartet – Chris Ryan, AKA SORBET has lifted the cloche on the video for opening track ‘Birth (My First Day)’, which conjures the all-too-real sensation of impostor syndrome. Directed by Dominic Curran with AR motion graphics by Fabiano Benetton, the piece is a magic-realism expression of the singular, otherworldly feeling of the writing alone through his period of home-studio isolation. The seed of Life Variations grew from meditations upon two piano chords to which Ryan was repeatedly and profoundly drawn. Each of its three tracks takes this notion and explores cyclical threads and progression through key stages…