• Premiere: Aural Air – The Torpor of Minds

    It’s released this Friday, December 8, but we’re pleased to premiere today The Torpor of Minds, the debut EP from Aural Air, the project of Sligo native Laura Rai. This EP follows up on her 2016 debut two-track, Edinburgh – both of which are included on this release. The EP is propelled by the pairing of dreamily soaring, ethereal vocals with the kind of ethereal, off-kilter guitar chime you’d hope for on an Angel Olsen, Anna Calvi or Jeff Buckley record. Following a productive 2017 that saw her play the likes of Stendhal Festival and Sligo’s own Live On Air, The Torpor of Minds looks to propel her further again in 2018. With artwork by Tom Doig, it…

  • Five to Two – How Tall Do You Think You Could Grow (If You Wanted To Be So Tall)

    Dublin jazz outfit Five To Two have just released their debut album at Workman’s Club through Dublin-based indie, Soft Boy Records. The trio, comprising Matthew Breen on piano, Jonah Byrne on double bass & Finn Mac Anna on drums, lean towards a traditional piano-led jazz combo sound, with some of the progressional hallmarks and playfulness of the likes of Kamasi Washington & other contemporary jazz that’s allowed the influence of hip-hop & r’n’b to seep into its blend. It’s out now, available to stream on Spotify, Bandcamp, iTunes and the usuals. Stream it below: How Tall Do You Think You Could…

  • Le Guess Who? 2017

    Photo by Tim van Veen You can’t help but admire the audacity of Le Guess Who? After an almost household-friendly 2016 lineup, they made a point of aiming their powers of tastemaking further toward the underground, with a broad range of curators that give as accurate a microcosm of the festival as you’d hope – Perfume Genius, Jerusalem In My Heart, Grouper, James Holden, Han Bennink, Basilica Soundscape & Shabazz Palaces. This comes accompanied by everything a fan of music & the arts could dream of, including the world’s largest record fair, the smaller Le Mini Who? festival. Every festival…

  • Buí – Eugene

    There’s not much to beat a cathartic wallow from an earnest dose of honest-to-goodness indie rock, so if that’s what you’re after, look no further than Eugene, the album that emerges from singer-songwriter Josh Healy, aka Buí. Released on November 27, accompanied with a launch show, the LP was recorded at Earth Music Studios by Vic Bronzini-Fulton, and features appearances from a range of local names like Joel Harkin, and members of Colonel Chocolate & the Justice Triangle. Healy is also, in this project, joined by Eoin Johnson & Rónán McQuillan of his previous project, Josh The Human. Written throughout 2014-2017, Eugene is dripping with emotion, sincerity and character;…

  • Forbidden Fruit Festival 2018

    The June Bank Holiday weekend returns, and with it comes Bulmers Forbidden Fruit Festival, which runs from Saturday, June 2 until Monday, June 4. Amongst the first wave of indie-heavy announcements are Monday headliners, mellowed-out stadium-fillers The War On Drugs. This follows the release of their latest album, A Deeper Understanding. Sharing the bill on Monday are Grizzly Bear – just off the back of 2 tremendously well-received sold-out dates at Vicar Street – Warpaint, Thundercat, Spoon and Superorganism. Stay tuned for more announcements. Tickets for 1, 2 & 3 days are available from Ticketmaster, priced from €64.50, €109 & €162.50 respectively.

  • Alien She – Feeler

    Dublin’s Alien She have been dazzling us with their snappy, experimental art-punk since the start, and have lifted the cloche on their much-anticipated debut LP, Feeler, released through Sligo DIY distro, Art For Blind Records (Altered Hours, Wild Rocket, I Am The Cosmos). Musically, the trio play a blend of agit. punk, shoegaze and alt. pop, tied together with an in-the-moment sense of experimentalism and febrile live energy, giving weight to Alien She’s politically & socially conscious impulse. The artistic inclination of founding members Katie & Aoife, both of whom are heavily Dublin’s art & poetry community in Dublin, first came together at a feminist meeting, and having spent the last two…

  • Premiere: Alien She – Feeler

    Dublin’s Alien She have been dazzling us with their snappy, experimental art-punk since the start, and have just lifted the cloche on their much-anticipated debut LP, Feeler, unveiled today through Sligo DIY distro, Art For Blind Records (Altered Hours, Wild Rocket, I Am The Cosmos) Musically, the trio play a blend of agit. punk, shoegaze and alt. pop, tied together with an in-the-moment sense of experimentalism and febrile live energy, giving weight to Alien She’s politically & socially conscious impulse. The artistic inclination of founding members Katie & Aoife, both of whom are heavily Dublin’s art & poetry community in Dublin, first came together at a feminist meeting, and having spent…

  • Premiere: The Sunshine Factory – Seer

    Cork, ever Ireland’s unexpected cornerstone of hazy psych, can boast another addition to the canon in the The Sunshine Factory‘s new single ‘Seer’, which we’re delighted to premiere here. This comes alongside the announcement of their debut EP proper, Cruelest Animal, the title track of which was released last year following a string of extremely promising demos and homemade recordings. Towering out of the speaker like some meta-diegetic music recorded live from a cave to soundtrack a climactic David Lynch scene – probably one of Evil Coop walking cooly away from a major explosion – ‘Seer”s measured, primal urgency, gives way to an incredible synth motif – think Vangelis’ Blade Runner Blues – before settling into a mess of rusty, screeching guitars.…

  • Autre Monde – Autre Monde EP

    We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: Dublin quartet Autre Monde are one of the very best indie bands in the country at the moment – the proof being scattered all over their eponymous debut physical release, out now on borderline-iconic Dublin indie label Popical Island. Barely allowing us to sit upon their opening (acclaimed, by our reckoning) batch of singles – available on Bandcamp – the act are undeniably referential to contemporary pop & art-rock from the mid-sixties through today. Indeed, they make an art out of mining genuine originality from a breadth of genre touchstones like Talking Heads, Can or Pavement, simultaneously giving a nod to underground movements like CBGBs new wave…

  • Rory Nellis – There Are Enough Songs In The World

    One of the country’s finest songwriting voices, Rory Nellis, releases his second album, There Are Enough Songs In The World on November 11. The frontman of deeply-respected Belfast power-pop outfit Seven Summits, his 2015 debut LP Ready For You Now was followed by a string of numbered singles, drip-fed to us over the space of 18 months in a typically curated fashion, to make up There Are Enough Songs In The World. It’s an approach, as we’ve already said, has served to isolate each song in its own right, building up and developing a narrative that is clearly threaded throughout the release. A collection of parables, ruminations, and the many suspects of the…