• Watch: Talos – Contra

    June 7, 2017 - By 

    Having assumingly just dried off from Forbidden Fruit at the weekend, Cork artist Eoin French AKA Talos is back with another sublime audio-visual offering in the form of ‘Contra’. Featuring a video shot in Roundstone, Connemara in Co. Galway by Talos manager and collaborator Brendan Canty, the track is a blossoming burst of electro-pop that doubles up as a highlight fro French’s recently released debut album, Wild Alee. Speaking about the video, Canty said, “We wanted to explore the idea of the uncanny – finding the strange in something ordinary. Using the West of Ireland as a canvas we wanted to…

  • Watch: The Hot Sprockets – Right Spots

    June 7, 2017 - By 

    Dublin’s blues rock dedicants The Hot Sprockets have shared a tripped-out new video for their recent single ‘Right Spots’. Taken from their forthcoming album Dream Mover which is set to land later this year, ‘Right Spots’ is an infectious and driving outing to watch a bar fight to. If there are no bar fights around, the visual accompaniment for the track curtesy of Little Beast founder Luke Sweetman, three animators and a 30-strong crew is a much more vibrant affair. A feast of hand-drawn psychedelia, neon lights and uncanny-valley choreography, it’s a lot to take in, but an awful lot of fun to…

  • Premiere: Rabble Babble – Joe’s Bust

    May 29, 2017 - By 

    Dublin young bloods Rabble Babble have shared the first of a trio of singles documenting the misadventures of protagonists Joe and Gal and their associates on a night out in Dublin. ‘Joe’s Bust’ is a straight spoken narrative written by bandleader Pa Ski and delivered by Molly Callan Cassidy detailing your standard undercover cop drug grab in a nightclub with enough fists flying and twists to keep us gripped, like we’re hearing the story through giddy ears on the next day’s rollover, mulled over a slow Guinness. Sonically it’s an affair that has as many funk and neo-jazz nods as it does post-punk and…

  • Erasure Set For Headline Show at The Olympia

    May 29, 2017 - By 

    With 2017 marking their thirty-second consecutive year together, English synthpop legends Erasure have announced that they will play a headline show at Dublin’s Olympia Theatre on January 31, 2018. The news comes less than a month before Andy Bell and Vince Clarke support Robbie Williams at Dublin’s Aviva Stadium on June 17. Tickets for the Olympia Show go on sale this Friday, June 2, priced €54.50.

  • Album Stream: Sea Pinks – Watercourse

    May 26, 2017 - By 

    Just off the back of the release of their fourth album, Dreaming Tracks, Belfast three-piece Sea Pinks graced the cover of the second issue of our magazine back in November, 2014. Almost three years on, album number six, Watercourse, finds the Neil Brogan-fronted band at the peak of their most ruminative, surf-dappled and jangle-popped best. Striking yet another keen balance between dream and power pop, the album’s ten tracks slot into a half-hour running time – testament, not that it’s necessarily needed, to the refined punch and finesse of the band’s craft to date. Speaking of the album, Brogan said, “The…

  • Premiere: Swimmers Jackson – Summer’s Here

    May 26, 2017 - By 

    An “ode to the welcome stretch in the Dublin summer’s evenings, spent largely at the Portobello section of the canal in South Dublin” ‘Summer’s Here’ by Dublin’s Niall Jackson AKA Swimmers Jackson is the most charming summer song™ that we’ve heard from an Irish artist in quite some time. Equal parts celebratory and wistful, the single finds Jackson – who has been living out of the country for 18 months now – marrying breezy reflection with some rather beautiful harmonies. Have a first listen to the track and check out Bouts’ bassist Jackson’s eighteen-track, self-explanatory Summer Songs playlist below.

  • Video Premiere: Naoise Roo – Almost Perfect

    May 26, 2017 - By 

    Having left a considerable dent with her A Cappella cover of Roy Orbison’s ‘Crying’ back in March, Dublin chanteuse Naoise Roo is back with ‘Almost Perfect’, the fourth single from her exceptional debut album, Lilith. Launched last night in Dublin, the song is a masterfully melancholic and brilliantly candid insight into the mind of the artist, who has teamed up with Cork-based visual artist and filmmaker Chris O’Neill for the release. O’Neill – whose stripped-back, lo-fi visuals elevates the single to a whole new soul-baring realm – said: “Lilith is, in my opinion, amongst the finest albums released by an Irish artist in recent…

  • Premiere: Heliopause – Falling (Part 2)

    May 25, 2017 - By 

    Whilst you might know him for his distinctive animation work for the likes of fellow Northern Irish songsmiths Malojian, Robyn G Shiels and Our Krypton Son as Lumo, Belfast-based musician Richard Davis has also been crafting some exceptional sounds as Heliopause for a number of years now. Released early last year, his third album How Can We Laugh After This​…  married subtly-woven soundscapes with pining tales of redemption, and explored a range of themes and sounds over twelve tracks. A highlight from that, new single ‘Falling (Part 2)’ tussles with the powerful birth of attachment to another, a motif nicely reflected in the single’s (naturally)…

  • BARE In The Woods Festival Postponed

    May 24, 2017 - By 

    With just over a two weeks until its scheduled return to Portarlington in Co. Laois, BARE In The Woods have announced that this year’s festival – which included Mike Skinner, Rubberbandits, New Secret Weapon, RSAG and many more – has been postponed due to licensing issues. See the full statement from organisers below. All the best with the rescheduled date, guys. “It is with great regret that we wish to inform our patrons that, despite our best efforts to grow the festival into a fully-fledged licensed event, we have made the decision to postpone BARE in the Woods festival until a…

  • Watch: BAILER – In For A Penny, In For A Pound

    May 24, 2017 - By 

    Cork metalcore maestros BAILER are back with a fierce new single in the form of ‘In For A Penny, In For A Pound’. Rounded off with one of the more curious Irish music videos we’ve seen in a while – an accompaniment the quartet aptly summed as featuring “skateboarding gorillas drinking Buckfast and Dutch Gold, and engaging in a high action chase with raging hicks in a Honda Civic” – it’s another pleasingly face-melting effort that is worth it for that pinch harmonic at 1.32 alone. You’ll never watch Planet of the Apes the same way again.