• Irish Tracks of the Week – August 28th

    August 28, 2020 - By 

    From the sledgehammer riffing of Shifting, electronics of Son Zept and Marcus Woods, indie-pop returns by Æ MAK, Catalan and We Cut Corners, to arguably Ireland’s most exciting rising hip-hop star in Denise Chaila, check out this week’s round-up of best new Irish music. Denise Chaila – Holy Grail Son Zept – Lush Lab B by Son Zept Æ MAK – I Dance In The Kitchen (feat. Seba Safe) Shifting – Big Ed It Was Good by Shifting SENU – Jetlag 2 Catalan – Fortune We Cut Corners – Muscle Memory Muscle Memory EP by We Cut Corners Marcus Woods – Repose Tactics Maria Doyle Kennedy – Keeps…

  • Album Stream: Postcard Versions – Remote Viewing

    August 10, 2020 - By 

    In case you missed it, Friday saw the surprise, name-your-price release of Postcard Versions‘ new LP, following up on their debut –  one of Ireland’s finest indie rock albums of last year. Messrs Paddy Ormond and Ross Hamer – of The Claque, Music City, Oh Boland and more – are back with another ten warming, bite-size gems, adding to the city’s not-insubstantial bedroom-pop canon – born not out of aesthetic, but economic necessity. Stream below: Remote Viewing by Postcard Versions

  • Irish Tracks Of The Week – August 7th

    August 7, 2020 - By 

    It’s been yet another phenomenal week for new releases in every corner of the island, boosted by today being the monthly Bandcamp Friday, which sees the platform waive all its own cuts – take that, Spotify. Delve into the best of the lot, featuring Postcard Versions, Joshua Burnside, Just Mustard, Wyvern Lingo, Natalia Beylis, and many more. Postcard Versions – Do You Consider? Just Mustard – Seven (Live on KXLU) Live Session by Just Mustard Joshua Burnside – War on Everything Kynsy – Cold Blue Light lastminuteman – Walking Into Water At Night %%%%%% by lastminuteman Natalia Beylis – Ursa Minor Old…

  • Moving On Music and Improvised Music Company Announce BAN BAM Female-led Creative Initiative

    August 7, 2020 - By 

    Moving on Music and Improvised Music Company have announced a 2020/2021 BAN BAM creative commissioning and career development opportunity to all Irish-born or resident female and gender-minority music-makers across the island of Ireland working in jazz and improvised music. This follows IMC’s similar 2017/18 programme and MOM’s succession of emerging artist programmes, both of which have elevated many of our favourite Irish acts. Available across jazz and creative music, three composers will be selected, each receiving a €2500 commission fee to compose for duo, trio or quartet. The composition period will be followed by 12 months of bespoke creative and career development support and consultation from both organisations,…

  • Monday Mixtape: John Francis Flynn

    July 27, 2020 - By 

    In the latest instalment of Monday Mixtape, experimental Dublin folk singer John Francis Flynn – who you may have caught on the wonderful inaugural episode of Live From Guerrilla Studios – takes us through some of his favourite recent musical finds, across a wealth of traditional and avant-garde sounds. It’s the year 2020. I’m on a train wearing a mask. Time has been moving very fast recently, and very very slowly. I’m going to Mayo to be alone. I will climb a mountain, swim in the sea and work on some music. When I come back to Dublin I will finish recording my first album…

  • Video Premiere: Shrug Life – Last Gasp Of Summer

    July 24, 2020 - By 

    A timely arrival to cushion the blow of a festival-free summer, perennial TTA favourites Shrug Life are back with the video for new single ‘Last Gasp of Summer’. The track is taken from Shrug Life’s excellent, Daniel Fox-produced second LP Maybe You’re The Punchline which came out in April, available on 12″ vinyl through Bandcamp. Typical of their vision of a DEVO-meets-Thin Lizzy world, it’s a razor-sharp incision into minutia of the make some noise Irish experience, and festival fatigue that starts to set in as one’s twenties edges closer to the finishing line, without ever straying into ‘yells at cloud’ territory. Filmed partly at Arcadian Field Festival 2019, and featuring…

  • Video Premiere: Shifting – The Bland Leading the Bland

    July 21, 2020 - By 

    A month ahead of the release of what will surely be one of Ireland’s essential punk records of 2020, Shifting have just shared with us the video for ‘The Bland Leading the Bland’. An ideal introduction to the trio, who formed in 2016, and include members of No Spill Blood & Hands Up Who Wants To Die, amongst other noisemakers par excellence. The video a sub-ninety second microcosm of their repetitious, yet spontaneous dissonance, and squalid, darkly comic worldview, conjuring everything  from Unwound to Death Grips. The second in a series of videos to accompany their debut LP, it chronicles the time Matt ‘Uncle Dad’ Hedigan…

  • Premiere: Comrade Hat – Summer of Glove

    July 14, 2020 - By 

    Derry’s resident lounge-lizard/experimental pop savant Neil Burns, AKA Comrade Hat returns today with a slinking, sun-kissed, seven minute porta-epic. A marriage of craft and intuition, journeying through louche tropicalia, psych and jazz-pop, it’s taken from his forthcoming two-volume compilation, Old Gods.  Written during an isolation-necessitated creative spree as progress on his studio album went on pause, ‘Summer of Glove’ sees an emergence of a more guitar-led, full band sound as opposed to Comrade Hat’s factory setting as bedroom producer. Burns spoke to us on the development of his forthcoming two albums, named for their spontaneous birth in fairly mysterious circumstances: “Maybe I was channeling the cautious optimism of…

  • Video Premiere: Vivid Dreamer – This Is Not Living

    July 9, 2020 - By 

    Something you may have missed amidst the maelstrom of new releases last Bandcamp Friday was the surprise announcement of Vivid Dreamer, a collaborative project between two of Belfast’s synth-pop creators par excellence. Today, they’re lifting the cloche on second single ‘This Is Not Living’, ahead of the release of their eponymous debut album this Sunday, July 12. Both as producers and songwriters – with the likes of Oppenheimer, Beauty Sleep, Malibu Shark Attack, Wonder Villains, amongst others – Rocky O’Reilly & Ryan McGroarty been directly or indirectly integral in the sound of no shortage of Northern Ireland’s most essential listening across the last 15-odd years. Vivid Dreamer…

  • Irish Tracks of the Week – June 19th

    June 19, 2020 - By 

    We’re back with another round-up of the best Irish tracks released this week. Spanning from a stellar surprise release from US-Belfast hip-hop collaboration Malibu Shark Attack, new PowPig, JyellowL, MuRli, Cruiser, and many more. It’s worth bearing in mind that almost all these acts are on Bandcamp, who will be donating all their takings to NAACP until midnight, with many artists themselves giving proceeds to MASI and other worthy charities. PowPig – Intellectual Malibu Shark Attack! – The People Could Fly The People Could Fly by Malibu Shark Attack! MuRli – We Are Not Kids Anymore Fly High Sampler Vol.1 by MuRli Cruiser – Ovaltine JyellowL – JeweLs Bicurious…