• A Litany of Failures: Volume IV is Announced

    August 9, 2023 - By 

    Irish compilation series A Litany of Failures, which features independent acts from all corners of the island, has just announced the pre-order and tracklisting for its fourth volume.  Set for release on double vinyl and digitally on September 8th, it’s available via Bandcamp. The compilation features 22 brand new, exclusive tracks from some of our favourite acts on the island, as well as some exciting new prospects. The double vinyl set once again features artwork by Pipe & Pallet, and the first 30 pre-orders feature a bespoke print from Belfast-based artist Phantom Powered Pixels.  The Litany of Failures series aims to document the grassroots music community…

  • Stream: An Taobh Tuathail Vol. 9

    September 10, 2020 - By 

    The arrival of An Taobh Tuathail Vol. 9 doesn’t come a second too soon. Long a highlight of the Irish music calendar, Cian Ó Cíobháin’s annual compilation, which is based on music played on his stellar leftfield radio show of the same name, is as reliable and filler-free as many of us have come to expect. Thankfully, Vol. 9 isn’t an exception to the rule. Featuring over 120 tracks (roughly akin to ten hours of music) the compilation includes TTA favourites such as Elaine Howley, Natalia Beylis, Mark Waldron-Hyden, Maria Somerville and Elma Orkestra, alongside international acts like Mica Levi, Mary Lattimore, Carla dal…

  • A Litany of Failures: Volume III Announced

    July 3, 2020 - By 

    Two years on from its second volume, islandwide independent music compilation series A Litany of Failures has opened pre-orders and announced the tracklisting for Volume III in the series – out Friday, October 2nd. More eclectic, and more export-ready than ever, the compilation features brand new music from 22 acts across Ireland, including the first recorded output from Fifty Years of Hair (Postcard Versions/Girl Band’s Dara Kiely), The Golden Cleric (Shrug Life/Girlfriend/That Snaake) and Grave Goods (Girls Names, Pins, September Girls), as well as many of our favourites – Robocobra Quartet, Silverbacks, Rising Damp, Percolator, Extravision and many more. With cover art by Nathanaël Roman, it will be accompanied by…

  • 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: Sunken Foal – Barley Stick

    March 10, 2020 - By 

    Dublin’s Sunken Foal will release his seventh album, Hexose, on April 24th. One of the most prolific producers in Ireland, the Countersunk label-founder and synthesist supreme – real name Dunk Murphy – follows 2019’s Ribbon Works and Le Doux Nord albums with a new 10-track collection of rich electronics inspired partially by “a lifelong infatuation with confectionery”. Every track on the album is named after some kind of sugar or dessert. Rich, generative melodies and syrupy atmospheres ooze all over the tracklist, while bubbling percussion keeps things energised. Throughout the album, comparisons to Laurie Spiegel, Cluster and Warp’s early bleep…

  • Split EP Premiere: Mob Wife / Cruiser

    November 27, 2019 - By 

    It’s easy for bands to serve up those oft. espoused platitudes about the value of “co-operation in the music scene”, but to be pro-active in that is another matter entirely. Gladly, we’re seeing that attitude start to spread, with the latest in the trend being two of the most exciting DIY, guitar-driven bands on the island coming together for a split EP release. Mob Wife/Cruiser features, unsurprisingly, two tracks each from Belfast trio Mob Wife and Limerick quartet Cruiser, conceived of in early 2019. Both with their own singular imprint, Mob Wife and Cruiser share the emotionally-charged influence of 90s post-hardcore and fist-clenched modern indie rock & punk sensibility, as well…

  • Album Stream: Careerist – Weird Hill

    November 15, 2019 - By 

    It’s been a long, weird (sorry) trip up to this point, but the debut album for Belfast’s slickest indie rock trio Careerist (fka Hot Cops) is upon us. Weird Hill‘s nine tracks manage to slink through any number of influences and curveballs without losing coherence, clocking in at just under a half-hour. The wry smirk of Pavement can be glanced through buoyant, Deerhunter-sized melodies and slaloming Spaghetti Western guitar work, while the trio’s distinct, jerking sense of otherness remains consistent throughout. The LP was recorded & produced by Robocobra Quartet’s Chris Ryan, who does justice to the band’s reputation as one of Ireland’s tightest, most…

  • Album Stream: Mark Waldron-Hyden – Stream Segregation

    July 30, 2019 - By 

    Last month, we premiered the cavernous somnambulance of first single, ‘Did You Hide’, and today, founder of Cork-based label Sunshine Cult, and psychgaze act The Sunshine Factory, Mark Waldron-Hyden has released the debut album under his own name. Titled Stream Segregation, and out through his own label, the LP’s source material is a blend of field recording, acoustic instrumentation, synths and tape machines, and was written, recorded & produced by Waldron-Hyden. Its name came from a psychoacoustic phenomenon “in which a sequence of sounds is perceived as more than one auditory stream, each arising from a distinct acoustic source in the environment”. Mark goes on: “That’s what I wanted…

  • EP Premiere: Comrade Hat – Tuque

    May 3, 2019 - By 

    Derry-based experimental pop auteur Neil Burns’ Comrade Hat‘s latest EP, Tuque, is set for release on May 10, but we’re pleased to say we have an exclusive premiere streaming a week in advance. Following a string of EPs – including his series of Winter EPs – production credits, and a high profile collaboration with Phil Kieran and the Ulster Orchestra at Celtronic 2018, Burns needed a change. In Autumn of 2018, he relocated to Toronto with some musician friends for a recharge that ultimately led to the creation of Tuque, a complete work that spans post-breakup what’s-it-all-about soul-searching to geopolitical observations in under 15 minutes, with cameos from cult musical figures of the area,…

  • Stream New Irish Grassroots Compilation: Live @ Fennor Lane

    April 10, 2019 - By 

    Tucked away amongst castle ruins and relics of history on the outskirts of Slane town, Mark Carolan runs the intimate Fennor Lane Studios. Like the encouraging number of grassroots Irish compilations and splits that have graced our Bandcamp accounts in recent times to act as connective tissue between previously-disparate scenes, Live at Fennor Lane was made with the same philosophy of shared elevation in mind, as Mark tells us: “The idea behind this album was simply to create a record worth listening to, and the live method of recording gives a characterful and natural feel to it. I hope we can bring new music to all the followers of each band involved in this project and help everyone to expand their audience. Aaaand it was great craic making it!” Featuring several of our favourite bands in the land, each more idiosyncratic than the last, contributions range from Slouch‘s submerged psychogroove, to the…