• Shortlists for NI Music Prize 2024 Announced

    September 24, 2024 - By 

    With just over seven weeks to go, the shortlists for the 2024 Northern Ireland Music Prize have been revealed. A year on from Arborist scooping the main Album of the Year prize,  it’s another strong, genre-spanning showing across the board for what is – give or take a few elements – essentially the North’s answer to the Choice/Mercury Prize. As expected, the strongest shortlist of the lot is the Album of the Year Prize, which features some of the island’s very best releases of the last 12 months, including Exmagician’s Sit Tight, Last Immediate Images by Blue Whale (pictured), Blouse…

  • Stream: Junior Brother – Take Guilt

    September 19, 2024 - By 

    A new Junior Brother song has long been good cause for some celebration here at TTA. In the six years since we featured him as one of our 18 artists to watch out for in 2018, Ronan Kealy has underscored his status as one of the island’s all-time songwriting greats. A born curveballer par excellence, the Kerry native increasingly put paid to the kneejerk “alt-folk” mantle via sprawling songs that are as burrowing and beatific as they are brilliantly-realized. It’s a fact woven throughout his latest, ‘Take Guilt’. Paired with a lyric video by Dylan Gomery, it’s a sorcerous five-minute…

  • Premiere: PostLast – Mizen

    September 18, 2024 - By 

    In their first six months, PostLast, the duo of HAVVK’s Julie Hough and BARQ’s Stephen McHale, have consistently drawn us in with their prismatic alt-pop craft. Three months after premiering their third single, ‘Scavenge,’ we’re excited to present a first listen of the wonderfully wistful ‘Mizen,’ out tomorrow, 19th September. The song was inspired by one of Julie Hough’s earliest memories – a family holiday in Cork and Kerry. The accompanying music video features the same seascapes that mesmerised her as a child. Reflecting on the track, Julie said: “I remember being in the back seat of the car, listening…

  • Ten Past Seven and Bye Bye Tsunami Set For Irish Mini-Tour

    September 12, 2024 - By 

    Kerry bog prog masters Ten Past Seven are joining forces with Copenhagen trio Bye Bye Tsunami for a string of Irish gigs later this month. A year after teaming up for a Berlin show, these two genre-flipping experimental powerhouses will hit Limerick, Cork, and Dublin from 19-21 September. Expect a supreme raft of support from Louder Than Books, Rising Damp, Eoghan Horgan (Non-Sleep), and Gag Reflex at different stops along the way. You can file every single one of these under unmissable. Thurs 19th Sept: The Commercial/Record Room, Limerick (with Louder Than Books) Fri 20th Sept: Nudes/Dali, Cork (with Rising…

  • Premiere: Anthony Layde – Aphids

    September 5, 2024 - By 

    A couple of months ago, I had the pleasure of being invited to the latest edition of Soft Gut Songwriting Camp. As I tried to sum up here, in under two days, I saw some of the island’s top talent in both songwriting and production come together to create some truly outstanding original music. But one collaboration in particular stood out for me—and many others in attendance at Analogue Catalogue that weekend. ‘Aphids,’ the new single from Northern Irish artist Anthony Layde, felt singular. With Layde’s masterfully vulnerable refrains paired with the soaring register of Belfast art-pop artist J SHIELDS…

  • 3Arena Set For Massive Pogues Show

    September 2, 2024 - By 

    The Pogues will mark the 40th anniversary of their seminal debut album, Red Roses For Me, with an unmissable show at Dublin’s 3Arena on December 17th. Founding member Spider Stacy will lead the performance, reprising his recent critically acclaimed performance of the band’s debut. Coming just over a year after the passing of Shane MacGowan, the night will also feature a top-tier lineup of guests, including Ian and Daragh Lynch from Lankum, Junior Brother, Grian Chatten and Tom Coll from Fontaines D.C., Nadine Shah, John Francis Flynn, Kojaque, Iona Zajac, and Stick In The Wheel. Additional guests are expected to…

  • Brian Jonestown Massacre Set For Belfast and Dublin Shows

    September 2, 2024 - By 

    Hold on to your love beads: one of the all-time greats, Brian Jonestown Massacre, are coming back to Ireland next year. Having stopped off in the cities early last year, the Anton Newcombe-fronted psych-rock masters will return to play Belfast’s Ulster Hall on 11th February 2025 and the 3Olympia in Dublin on 12th February. The shows are part of an 18-stop tour across Europe in January and February, kicking of off in Hamburg on 28th January and finishing at Cardiff on 20th February. Check out the full dates below. Reflecting on BJM’s recent output, 2022’s Fire Doesn’t Grow On Trees…

  • Ciaran Lavery Set For Lyric Theatre Show

    August 21, 2024 - By 

    Ciaran Lavery has announced details of a new live music experience at the Lyric Theatre. One of the highlights from this year’s Belfast International Arts Festival programme, which takes over the city from 16th October until 23rd November, Light Entertainment follows the acclaimed Northern Irish artist as he battles against crippling creative self-doubt and the allure of procrastination-inducing distractions in a last-ditch attempt to create his next hit record. Sound familiar? Collective consciousness within the sphere of self-doubt and so much more aside, Lavery – who you’ll know as one of the island’s finest, most reliably shapeshifting artists – is…

  • Premiere: Adjunct Ensemble – How Dare You Be Free!

    August 21, 2024 - By 

    In a sonic flash that feels both fleeting and eternal, Adjunct Ensemble’s ‘How Dare You Be Free!’ emerges as a six-minute sorcerous effort – a masterful act of improvisational conjuring featured on the forthcoming Habits Of Assembly – Live At Café OTO. Under the direction of fêted Belfast composer and musician Jamie Thompson, whose radical improvisational instincts are matched by his uncompromising political commentary, the project assembled a world-class lineup: Stephen Davis on drums, John Pope on bass, Sam Comerford on tenor sax, and Thompson himself on piano and electronics. Recorded live at the legendary Café OTO, their session transforms…

  • Premiere: TRAMP – The Birds (Lowered Suspension)

    August 21, 2024 - By 

    TRAMP’s music is pure-cut alchemy. Since forming in 2019, the Donegal/Derry quartet has become a singular force in our cross-border DIY scene, packing out venues and nabbing the prestigious Artist of the Year Award at the 2023 Northern Irish Music Prize along the way. Comprised of Siânna Lafferty, Ellie McFadden, Fionnbarr Doran, and Ciaran ‘Steamy’ McCay, TRAMP returns this Friday, 23rd August, with their most incisive effort yet, ‘The Birds (Lowered Suspension).’ Off the back of their stellar fundraising track ‘Postcard from Poland‘ and a series of blistering shows across the island, the single doubles as a statement of intent…