• Music Venue Trust Announces New Save Our Venues T-Shirt Campaign

    June 18, 2020 - By 

    The Music Venue Trust has been a force of immeasurable value within the arts sector in the last few months, saving a great number of  venues UK-wide with their #SaveOurVenues campaign, which continues to guarantee the presence places in which to gather, once gathering is an option. Their latest initiative will offer the official Save Our Venues T-shirt for sale on the Crowdfunder page of each artist – with each costing £20 posted. From this, each £20 will go directly towards the individual venue’s campaign, with production & distribution costs being covered by the Trust itself. The six MVT venues under threat in Northern Ireland are Belfast’s Black Box, Voodoo, Oh Yeah…

  • Second Issue of ‘Spread’ Zine Set to Raise Funds for JaJa Studios

    June 19, 2020 - By 

    Feminist zine Spread was introduced in December 2019 as part of the Sex Workers Alliance Ireland Art Exhibition, covering themes of  music, sex and DIY culture in Ireland. Initially intended as a March release, editors Yvonne Kiely and Mairead Mullan decided to push back its release in order to effectively engage with the Covid-19 crisis. Spread #2 is available online at Lazer Guided Reporter, as of 3pm – completely free to read and download. Parallel to this, one of our favourite DIY artist spaces on the island, Stoneybatter’s JaJa Studios have recently been given the unenviable task of finding a new location in Dublin. In addition to this, Spread have generously…

  • Video Premiere: Dott – Extra Introvert

    June 11, 2020 - By 

    If there’s any band in Ireland who can lay claim to an Earworm Guarantee™, it may well be Galway’s harmony-laced dream-pop quartet Dott, and new single ‘Extra Introvert’ proves that once more in spades. As interactions return to relative normality in time for summer, the gradual reacquaintance with our old friend social anxiety proves much easier when masked in a seasonally-appropriate bop. Dott were in the midst of recording their third album when the Covid-19 pandemic put a stop to things, but mercifully they’ve delivered us a homespun, all-too-relatable video, made for phone. Featuring lead singer Anna and her many attempts to overcome Lockdown Anxiety, it records the day-to-day of using…

  • Watch: Shifting – Spudgasm

    May 27, 2020 - By 

    Post-hardcore noise rock trio Shifting have announced the release of their debut long-player, with a release date of August 24. To accompany the news, they’ve unveiled the first in a line of accompanying videos for debut single ‘Spudgasm’. A triad of highly-respected Dublin heads – also of No Spill Blood, Hands Up Who Wants To Die, amongst others – Shifting are Paul Clynes and brothers Matt & Lewis Hedigan. In line with their other work, and akin to late 80s/early 90s Touch & Go Records, their music is an acerbic blend of gut-wreching yet dynamic repetition, nihilistic cackling, and the unmistakably razorsharp, wiry guitar work. You’d be hard-pressed to…

  • Watch: Fears – two_

    May 19, 2020 - By 

    Content note: self-harm Fears, AKA Constance Keane, has consistently used her voice to further the conversation on the importance of the arts in mental health, so we could think of no more apt artist to open up the Northern Ireland Mental Health Arts Festival. Taking place remotely for the first time, running through until May 24th, the festival could hardly happen at a more pertinent time, with online-only commissioned music, art, film premieres, talks & workshops from esteemed doctors and comedians, with many innovative ways to navigate ‘the great unprecedented’. Commissioned by the festival, the self-produced single and its visual companion depict the non-linear recovery from trauma, using repurposed footage shot by Constance and her family during the last…

  • EP Premiere: Licehead – Friends

    May 19, 2020 - By 

    Paul O’Connor – of That Snaake notoriety – has shared with us his latest release under the Licehead banner, which follows up on last year’s Music For Normal People album, and precedes upcoming summer LP Perfect Death Forever, which is set in a modern Ireland and based around a reincarnated lung’s attempts to kill its host. An aural equivalent to peeling-paint walls-closing-in claustrophobic hysteria, Friends at its extremes recalls the torpid squalor of Fat White Family or The Fall in dada-techno mode. Partly written over the last two months, the EP sees O’Connor turns the pen upon himself and loved ones, and societally-ingrained truths; title track ‘fRENDS’ is itself a reworking of ‘I’ll Be There For You’,…

  • Video Premiere: Hey Jigsaw – Where Do You Wanna Go

    May 14, 2020 - By 

    Hey Jigsaw is the new project from Dublin musician Alan Finnerty – also of punk heroes Guilty Optics – and today, we’re delighted to premiere their first single, taken from their forthcoming debut album Who’s Your Dark Master? Featuring Dave Prendergast on trumpet and Niamh Buckley on backing vocals, ‘Where Do You Wanna Go’ recalls the discordant melodicism of Les Savy Fav or Q And Not U. It’s difficult to avoid every cliche of this trying time, so if you’ll indulge us, the video and song’s unified sense of bittersweet widescreen escapism is exactly what we could be doing with. Watch it below:

  • EP Stream: Shammen Delly – The Peoples Temple OV Big Tom

    May 1, 2020 - By 

    Without a doubt our favourite hauntological, psychogeography peddler around, Donegal experimental electronic auteur Aengus Friel, AKA Shammen Delly has released his mythological magnum opus, created in the midst of lockdown. This latest heady, hazy trip-hop-influenced concoction was recorded at his own ‘Red Dunge’, inspired by country & Irish legend Big Tom‘s 70s little-known wilderness years: “This is a vivid reimagined vision of a time when Big Tom and his Mainliners were leaders of ‘The Peoples Temple’ in Monaghan back in the late 70’s and would travel around the country summoning new followers for the sacred dances around stone circles and beaches. His followers…

  • EP Premiere: Naoise Roo – Sick Girlfriend

    April 23, 2020 - By 

    With singles drip-fed over the course of the last year, we’ve been patiently anticipating the extended follow-up to Naoise Roo‘s masterful debut album Lilith for some time now. Finally, with the cosmos’ on-brand sense of blackly comic timing very much in tact, the Sick Girlfriend EP is out tomorrow. A fully-formed statement that, across just four snapshots, embraces life in all its ugliness and challenges the accountable norms within the industry. Alongside producer Liam Mulvaney, bassist Daniel Fox & Rian Trench on drums & synth, she ably treads the line between emotionally-driven textural experimentation without forgoing her ability to create gargantuan introvert’s pop banger. Much like the subversive, zeitgeist-capturing album of 2020 in Fiona Apple’s Fetch…

  • Artists’ Union of Ireland Issues Letter of Support to Irish Artists

    April 7, 2020 - By 

    The recently formed Artists’ Union of Ireland has issued a letter detailing a chain of support to any and all Irish artists currently facing issues due to the ongoing Covid-19 crisis, which reads as follows: Fellow artists, We are a group of 15 artists from various disciplines who are setting up a trade union for artists in Ireland. In light of the current crisis, we would like to offer support to artists who are dealing with issues such as: Cancelled gigs Late or unpaid fees Paying rehearsal space rent We would also like to speak to self-employed musicians who have experienced issues with…