• Spilt Milk Festival 2019

    November 21, 2019 - By 

    The brainchild of one of the country’s finest imprints, Art For Blind, Split Milk is a brand new audio-visual festival in Sligo. Bringing together national and international artists to perform and exhibit in intimate venues across Sligo Town alongside emerging local artists, the three-day festival will take place across November 22-24. And the festival’s inaugural line-up is quite something. Including several TTA favourites, Percolator, Landless (pictured), Aoife Nessa Frances, Katie Geraldine O’Neill, Problem Patterns, Ensemble Economique, Jusme ft. Farid Williams, Gulpt, BB84, Dult, Spekulativ Fiktion, Rachael Lavelle, Diarmuid McDiarmada and Marge Bouvier will perform across the weekend. Better yet, there will be film…

  • A Litany of Failures Announce Volume III and Fundraising Gig

    October 21, 2019 - By 

    After triumphant failures in 2018 and 2016, A Litany Of Failures – an independent, cross-border compilation series featuring the best in alternative Irish music – is back.  Ahead of another double-vinyl release in July 2020, A Litany Of Failures is curating a series of fundraiser gigs around Ireland. These will feature the curdled cream of the indie scene, with the first gig taking place on Friday 25th October in JaJa Studios in Stoneybatter, Dublin 7.  A BYOB show, music on the night comes from Belfast indie psych quartet Junk Drawer – check out their NI Music Prize-nominated single ‘Year of the Sofa‘ – the Paddy Hanna fronted…

  • Video Premiere: Rory Nellis – When I Sleep

    October 17, 2019 - By 

    Over the last few years, Belfast artist Rory Nellis has steadily emerged as one of the country’s most respected songwriting voices. On albums Ready For You Now and 2017’s There’s Enough Songs In The World, his thoughtful, earworming craft has garnered comparisons to everyone from Conor O’Brien Villagers to Grandaddy at their most gossamer and contemplative. Nellis’ forthcoming new single, ‘When I Sleep’ is a meditative and delicately-crafted case in point. Released ahead of a new album in the works for release next year – and mixed by and featuring backing vocals from long-time friend collaborator Philip Watts d’Alton (Master…

  • Premiere: Violet Fields – All My Life

    September 30, 2019 - By 

    Over the last couple of years, Berlin-based quartet Violet Fields have emerged as a force to be reckoned with within the realm of psych-leaning garage pop. Acclaimed by the likes of Clash Magazine and The Line of Best Fit, their fast rise is distilled on their emphatic new single, ‘All My Life’. Fronted by Joe Chant and Coco Ramona, the Berlin quartet’s organ-dappled, starry-eyed craft simultaneously pushes forward and throws back to an era when Britpop dominated the airwaves. This synthesis is laid bare on their brilliant, burrowing new track. Across four minutes, it makes for a slick, harmony-laden ode…

  • Mixtape Preview: Donnie Darko

    September 24, 2019 - By 

    Mentally divorce, for a moment, music from Richard Kelly’s Donnie Darko. You’re still left with a genre-defining film. A contemporary indie classic. A movie blurring the lines between horror, black comedy, teen drama and cult sci-fi mind-bender. Put it back – Michael Andrews’ motifs brimming with vintages Moogs and electric vibraphone, alongside era-defining jams from Tears For Fears, Oingo Boingo, Echo & The Bunnymen and more – and you have a near perfect big-screen encapsulation of a particular breed of ’80s suburban ennui.   Despite its lacklustre performance at the box office, Donnie Darko was, of course, a runaway critical…

  • Iron Maiden Set For Belfast Show

    September 23, 2019 - By 

    Heavy metal legends Iron Maiden are set for a Belfast return. Having last played the city in August last year as part of their Legacy of the Beast tour, the Bruce Dickinson-fronted band will play Belfast’s Ormeau Park as part of Belsonic 2020 on Monday, June 15th. Tickets go on sale on Friday, September 27th at 9am.

  • And So I Watch You From Afar Announce New Release ‘Jettison’

    September 23, 2019 - By 

    North Coast instrumental titans And So I Watch You From Afar have announced details of their next release. Posting on Facebook, the quartet shared the news about Jettison – a project they say is “unlike anything we’ve ever undertaken before”: “We’re beyond excited to be able to share the initial context to our next release, and it’s called Jettison. During winter last year we left for the wilds of Donegal, joined by a string quartet and made this unique piece of music. Equal parts political, cultural and musical, Jettison is an irreverential two finger salute against convention. The single piece…

  • Silverbacks and Somebody’s Child Set For The Great Escape

    September 18, 2019 - By 

    Two Irish acts feature in the First Fifty line-up announcement for the Great Escape. With more acts from our neck of the woods expected in the next line-up, Dublin indie-rock heroes Silverbacks and multi-instrumentalist singer-songwriter Somebody’s Child have made the first cut. The Great Escape returns to Brighton across 13-16th May 2020. Check out the full first line-up reveal here and revisit Silversbacks’ ‘Pink Tide’ below.

  • Watch: Malojian – DIRT

    September 18, 2019 - By 

    It’s a truth universally acknowledged dark, strange times always yield the best art. Which conveniently bring us to the new single from one of the country’s very best singer-songwriters, Stevie Scullion aka Malojian. Honing in on the towering shitehawkery of Johnson, Trump & co., media corruption and more, it’s a masterful, major-keyed riposte to the worldly forces that conspire to make fretting, sleepless wrecks of us all. Featuring animations by Michael Winchester, check out Colm Laverty’s accompanying video for the unexpected but very happily-received new single below.