• Q+A: Swimmers Jackson

    August 24, 2023 - By 

    Off the back of his stellar new LP Now Is All, we chat to Dublin singer-songwriter Niall Jackson aka Swimmers Jackson about the health of the scene, breaking new ground and being 100% DIY Swimmers Jackson plays Belfast’s Sunflower on 8th September, the Kicking Donkey in Bundoran on 9th September and Sandino’s in Derry on 10th Sunday. Go here for tickets Your new album, Now Is All, is full of highlights and features some of your finest songs to date. Taking a step outside of it, how do you feel it stands apart from what you’ve done before? It’s been…

  • Irish Tracks of the Week – 18th August

    August 18, 2023 - By 

    It’s been another stacked week for Irish music. Delve into the very best releases of the last seven days, from HAVVK, Slomatics, Tandem Felix and more Tandem Felix – Message of the Afternoon Slomatics – Voidians Strontium Fields by Slomatics Lucy Gaffney – Make Me Smile Amerik feat. Sasha Samara – The Real Thing HAVVK – Expiry Beauty Pageant – A Bank Holiday Miracle Kojaque – Cabra Drive Jordan Adetunji – Things You Do Lucy Blue – Love Hate Soda Blonde – Midnight Show Boyfrens – Soft & Mindless

  • Inbound: Stratford Rise

    August 16, 2023 - By 

    Photo by David McEneaney You might have noticed in these pages over the past year the refreshing air of a heteroglot of brand new, guitar bands. One such act that’s grabbed – and proceeded to mercilessly pulverise – our attention is Bangor quartet Stratford Rise. They’ve been together since early 2020, but it’s still early days, playing live for over a year, but having only just performed their first date outside Northern Ireland in May.  “Gilla Band and a number of no-wave bands inspired our interest in incorporating noise into our songs,” they tell us. Indeed, their debut single ‘Water…

  • Irish Tracks of the Week – 4th August

    August 4, 2023 - By 

    This Bandcamp Friday, delve into the very best Irish releases of the week, from Natalia Beylis, Soda Blonde, Heliopause, iSad2 and more Natalia Beylis – Afloat In Fog And Feathers <a href=”https://touchsensitiverecords.bandcamp.com/album/mermaids”>Mermaids by Natalia Beylis</a> Heliopause – Runaway <a href=”https://heliopause.bandcamp.com/track/runaway-single-version”>Runaway (single version) by Heliopause</a> Soda Blonde – Bad Machine Mark Waldron-Hyden & Peadar Tom Mercier – Bruach na Laoi: Fidil & Drumaí improvisations Vol. I ​​<a href=”https://blindheadrecordings.bandcamp.com/album/bruach-na-laoi-fidil-druma-improvisations-vol-i”>Bruach na Laoi: Fidil & Drumaí improvisations Vol. I by Mark Waldron-Hyden & Peadar Tom Mercier</a> Orla Gartland – Kiss Your Face Forever iSad2 – Money Back

  • The Museyroom and Many Worlds of Roger Doyle

    August 1, 2023 - By 

    Irish composer and godfather of Irish electronica Roger Doyle speaks about his latest album, Finnegans Wake – Suite of Affections, performing live, science fiction and the creative process Photos by Loreana Rushe When Roger Doyle graduated from the University of Utrecht, he was told that he was “the flowering of a seed that was never planted”. It was a poetic summation of his anomalous position on the 1970s Irish music scene, as an electroacoustic composer. What’s more remarkable is that this has been just one strand in his radiating, ever-evolving corpus. For over fifty years, he’s been a force of…

  • The ddr. Radio Logs – Entry #5: Talking Notes

    August 1, 2023 - By 

    In this month’s edition of the ddr. Radio Logs, Ellen O’Donohue discusses the background of her radio show Talking Notes. In my house growing up, the radio was always something to talk back to. BBC Radio 4’s current affairs programme The Today Show was the backing track to mornings before school, and alongside the smells of ground coffee and charred toast, my mum’s loud retorts to whoever was speaking carried throughout the house. On mornings with a particularly bad schedule, full-blown arguments back and forth would occur. At the weekend, the station’s afternoon comedy programmes brought a cackle so gleeful…

  • Irish Tracks of the Week – 28th July

    July 28, 2023 - By 

    As we try to come to terms with the collective sucker punch that is Sinéad O’Connor’s passing, we also band together and celebrate the very best Irish music of the week from Naoise Roo, Alpha Chrome Yayo, Cruel Sister, Aislinn Logan and more. Naoise Roo – Sacred Cow Elaine Malone – Eat Out of Your Hand Alpha Chrome Yayo – Baby Steps Baby Steps by Alpha Chrome Yayo Cruel Sister – Hands Infinite Left – Infinite Bliss Infinite Bliss by Infinite Left Aislinn Logan – Tír na nÓg Nara – Scarlet Moncrieff – Love Somebody

  • Inbound: Chubby Cat

    July 27, 2023 - By 

    The last year has been markedly transitional for Cat Doran aka Chubby Cat; a new name, new city, and new vibe to contextualise the alt-pop artist’s emergence as she builds on the hype that’s followed her 2021 debut ‘slipping’.  The Cork-born artist made her Belfast debut at Output in 2022, showcasing to an impressively-sized crowd of listeners left reeling by her vocal riffs. A year on, having made the move up from Dublin at the start of this spring to work on new music, what’s to come is certainly Belfast’s gain. The BIMM graduate’s artistic ethic and approach are both…

  • Small Trans Library

    July 24, 2023 - By 

    Librarians James Hudson, Julian Bernard and Greta Jursys write on the forward-pushing goings-on of the Small Trans Library Dublin Photos by David McEneaney Founded in 2018 as the offshoot of a Dublin Fringe project, the Small Trans Library is an all-trans collective of artists and organisers working to bring Ireland a lending library of over 500 trans- and queer-authored books, a host of trans-led events open alternately to Dublin’s trans community and to the public at large, and a radical mutual aid fund which has redistributed over €40,000 over the last three years. The political mission of the library is…

  • Inbound: Lunch Machine

    July 21, 2023 - By 

    “I was working as a waitress when it came to me”, says Jude Barriscale of the origin of her band’s name. “It was really busy all the time, so I felt like a machine that brings you lunch. Lunch is also the break in the working day, the break we all look forward to.” Apt, given how much there is to look forward to from the Belfast-based quartet. Frontwoman Barriscale and company – guitarist Pearse Owens, Robert Mulhern of Tuath on bass, and drummer Kieran Devlin – channel disparate influences like Courtney Barnett, Deftones, Bicep, and “lo-fi hip hop to…