• Tight Unit, Closer Friends: An Interview With Search Results

    March 18, 2024 - By 

    Since featuring them as an Inbound artist late last year, Search Results have smitten many more listeners with their masterfully mercurial indie-rock craft Ahead of what’s set to be a packed few months, Danny Kilmartin chats to Dublin trio – guitarist Fionn Brennan, drummer Jack Condon and bassist Adam Hoban – about the road less travelled they have taken to their upcoming second LP Photos by Monika Ruman What’s in a name – why Search Results? Jack: We lost a bet with Shane Clifford. You started writing together very quickly after first meeting. What was it that brought you together…

  • Irish Tracks of the Week – 15th March

    March 15, 2024 - By 

    With not a single St. Paddy’s-angled misfire among them, today sees essential new albums from Blue Whale and HAVVK, Fight Like Apes covering a Sinéad O’Connor classic in aid of Palestine, stellar new tracks by Garrett Laurie, Ciaran Lavery and more Blue Whale – Last Immediate Images Fight Like Apes – Black Boys on Mopeds Garrett Laurie – No Warning Ciaran Lavery – Honeybun HAVVK – To Fall Asleep To Fall Asleep by HAVVK Eoghan Ó Ceannabháin – Siren Spring Siren Spring by Eoghan Ó Ceannabháin The Guilteens – The Boat

  • Track Record: HAVVK

    March 14, 2024 - By 

      Ahead of the release of their third album tomorrow, Julie Hough and Matt Harris from HAVVK select five records that have left a deep impression on their music and lives. Photos by Monika Ruman   Olafur Arnalds – Some Kind of Peace Matt: I have always enjoyed the Erased Tapes compilations. I went to see Lowli play and we started sharing some influences and she sent me link to a performance of ‘Oldurot’ which is a track from Island Songs, the previous album. It hit my emotions and then she got me Some Kind of Peace after we did…

  • Irish Tracks of the Week – March 8th

    March 8, 2024 - By 

    From a brace of beautiful LPs by Anamoe Drive and Oisin Leech to new tracks by Casavettes, Blue Whale, Cherym, Thom Southern and more, here’s the very best Irish music of the week just gone Photo by Greg Purcell Casavettes – Cois Farraige/Fold Cois Farraige by Casavettes Anamoe Drive – Breakfast in Bed Blue Whale – Carpet Man Oisin Leech – Cold Sea Cherym – Boss Bitch Boss Bitch (Doja Cat Cover) by CHERYM Nahreally + The Expert feat. Hemlock Ernst – Movement and Light BLIP by NAHreally & The Expert Thom Southern – The Guy In The Suit and…

  • Whaling On: An Interview With Blue Whale

    March 6, 2024 - By 

    Next Friday, March 15, Belfast jazz-punk band Blue Whale return with their highly-anticipated second LP, Last Immediate Images. The follow-up to 2018’s Process, it’s another masterfully shapeshifting leap forward from one of the island’s most fiercely unpigeonholeable bands. Recorded and produced by Gilla Band’s Dan Fox, the album is a remarkable expansion, and deft deconstruction, of what the Quietus once hailed as their “chaotic, yet controlled experimental rock.” Ahead of its release, Cathal McBride spoke with guitarist Ben Behzadafshar about prolonged experimentation, the magic of biding one’s timing, being ‘sound carriers’ for Damo Suzuki and more. Blue Whale launch Last…

  • Track-by-Track: Chalk – Conditions II

    March 5, 2024 - By 

    Ahead of what looks primed to be a breakthrough year for the fast-rising electronic/noise rock Belfast trio, Chalk vocalist and producer Ross Cullen takes us on a track-by-track tour of the diverse influence and inspiration behind their brand new EP, Conditions II The Gate Conditions II by Chalk ‘The Gate’ is all about pressure and the pressures of being in a band. It began with a drum and bass loop I found on Splice alongside some 1/16 notes from a preset called Demented Percussion on Logic. Combining those two sounds set up the energy of the track fairly quickly. There’s a…

  • Monday Mixtape: Pissed Jeans

    March 4, 2024 - By 

    It’s early days but if Pennsylvanian hardcore heroes Pissed Jeans didn’t just return with one of the records of the year in Half Divorced, recorded sound – I’m afraid to report – is officially over. Released on Friday, it doubles as the band’s first album in seven years and delivers a dozen sludge-punk face rippers that rank right up there with their very best. Good luck finding fucked-off finesse more compelling than this in 2024. Which is to say we seriously wouldn’t advise that you pass on the band’s show in Dublin next month. Taking over Whelan’s main room on…

  • Irish Tracks of the Week – 1st March

    March 1, 2024 - By 

    Have at the very best Irish tracks and albums out today – and from the final week in February just gone – from Chalk feat. Fears, Pixie Cut Rhythm Orchestra, M(h)aol, Connor McCann, THEE U.F.O., Oisin Leech, Danny Carroll and more M(h)aol – Pursuit Pixie Cut Rhythm Orchestra – Problem Child Reevah – Golden Danny Carroll – I Am The Cheese I Am The Cheese by Danny Carroll Oisin Leech – One Hill Further THEE U.F.O – Bursting Egos Chalk feat. Fears – Bliss Connor McCann – Ever The Dreamer Shark School – 411

  • Chatting To The Cheesemonger: An Interview with Danny Carroll

    February 28, 2024 - By 

    A quintessential indie rock showman-turned-millennial songsmith in the classical mode, we have a chat with Danny Carroll ahead of the release of his solo debut LP I Am The Cheese, out this Friday. Your debut LP I Am The Cheese shares its title with a 1977 young adult fiction novel, written by Robert Cormier. Could you tell us about the poignancy of that title to yourself and this body of work? It’s a book I read when I was 12 and was pretty haunted by. The final lines of the novel refer back to the folk song ‘The Farmer In…

  • A Band Apart: An Interview With Gilla Band

    February 29, 2024 - By 

    Next year marks a mind-melting decade since we hosted two sold-out headliners by Gilla Band at Belfast’s Bar Sub. Coming off the back of a trouncing set in support of Slint at the Limelight – and their second EP The Early Years – the shows confirmed the arrival of a blitzing force in forward-pushing noise rock. Three genre-defining LPs, a two-year hiatus, one name change, and heaps of well-earned international recognition later, the Dara Kiely-fronted four-piece are on the cusp of a thrilling new era. Ahead of their long-awaited return to Belfast next week, we chat to guitarist Alan Duggan…