• Stream: Pat Dam Smyth – Juliette

    April 12, 2017 - By 

    Ask a selection of the country’s most well-regarded and successful singer-songwriters who their own favourite Irish songsmith is and there’s a very strong chance that Pat Dam Smyth will crop up. An artist whose candour, lyricism and musicianship leaves affectation and hubris at the door, his long-awaited new single ‘Juliette’ is a masterfully mournful cut, concisely relaying the tale of a woman attempting to escape an abusive relationship. Cut from the same cloth of Nick Cave and John Grant, the full-band effort also conjures Dark Side-era Pink Floyd in its braying brass and portentous, swaggering pop élan. The first single to be taken from…

  • Mons Olympus Announce Debut Album

    April 10, 2017 - By 

    Having recently played a Thin Air Tuesday Throwdown at Lavery’s in Belfast, Northern Irish quartet Mons Olympus have announced details of their forthcoming debut album. Produced by their guitarist Stephen O’Hagan and Nathan Murray, (minus single ‘Critical Mass’, which was recorded by Michael Mormecha) the eight-track Vampyroteuthis will be launched and officially released at Belfast Empire Music Hall on May 4. Blending the Rory Dee-fronted foursome’s potent amalgalm of space-rock and neo-prog, it’s sure to establish the band as one of the country’s leading exponents of cosmically-inclined, riff-fuelled alternative rock. With more shows to be announced, Mons Olympus will play the following…

  • Premiere: Hand Models – TV Kids/Wednesday

    April 12, 2017 - By 

    Having pulled back the cloche on their debut tune, a fine slice of fuzzy surf-pop, ‘TV Kids’ last week, young Belfast indie rock upstarts Hand Models have now unveiled both sides of their debut single, ‘TV Kids/Wednesday’. Assisted by the hushed tones of vocalist/guitarist Gareth Murray, B-side ‘Wednesday’ calls to mind the phase-heavy, rhythmically-light likes of Kurt Vile and Mac DeMarco. It’s a slight ditty that’s so chilled it’s practically horizontal, an apt flip side to its jaunty, grunge-lite A-side. Both tracks were recorded & produced by Niall Doran at Start Together Studio, Belfast. Hand Models hold their single launch at McHugh’s Basement on April 26, with support from Bdbr & LetGo Dive. TV…

  • Premiere: Cat Palace – Don’t Come Around

    April 7, 2017 - By 

    Last month we had the distinct pleasure of premiering ‘Peddle It’ by Cat Palace, a Dublin act with one David Blaney at the helm. Set to release their debut album Why Don’t You // Why Don’t You, Go Off on Monday, new single ‘Don’t Come Around’ is a reflective, two-minute flicker of throwback garage-rock that sees Blaney waxing delirious on backwashed memories of youth, from WWF to Donkey Kong, and later, the dregs of friendship when it goes little pear-shaped (like, totally, man) heading into adulthood. Cat Palace play alongside Junk Drawer, Autre Monde and Oh Joy at Tivoli Backstage in Dublin on April 21. Have…

  • Watch: Final Boss of My Twenties – Let Go

    April 7, 2017 - By 

    As Irish music-making monikers go, Final Boss of My Twenties is right up there with the most inspired. The sonic sobriquet (yes, we went there) of twenty-eight year old Dubliner Simon Maguire, the turn of phrase has very recently come to our attention off the back of Murphy latest single, ‘Let Go’. Featuring a rather impressive, Lego-based video – the product of “weeks of moving these little guys millimetres at a time”) – the single is a pretty contemplative affair, and what Maguire calls the “culmination of an ounce of action and a ton of theory; now the seed’s finally in the soil, I’d…

  • Stream: Isobel Anderson – Flint Shingle

    April 7, 2017 - By 

    A compelling highlight from her recent live shows, ‘Flint Shingle’ by Belfast-based artist Isobel Anderson is a wonderfully meditative song inspired by the jagged cliffs of her childhood in South East England. The first single to be taken from her fourth studio album, CHALK/FLINT, the track – a “self-proclaimed symphony to the sea” – is a delicately textured, perfectly phantasmal ambient effort written in her birthplace of Sussex and recorded in Belfast. Anderson said, “It is sort of a love song, if only with a nostalgic, almost regretful, sentiment. The idea is that the landscape acts as a sort of sobering force, a marker of…

  • Watch: The Swedish Railway Orchestra – I Don’t See Any Daylight Anymore

    April 7, 2017 - By 

    Dublin’s Rob Smith has had an interesting musical trajectory over the years. From years of operating in singer-songwriter territory to exciting sojourns into a more punk sound, he has seen fit to always dabble in a styles that take hold of him at a given time. It was through becoming all the more enticed by the sounds of acts like LCD Soundsystem, Jape and Talking Heads then that Smith took it upon himself to start The Swedish Railway Orchestra, a project that embraces the computerised disco-laden energy of those acts. Armed with cowbells, a plethora of analog sounds from throbbing bass to swirling synths,…

  • Stream: tapedesk – three euro and forty cent

    April 7, 2017 - By 

    You know what’s missing from your Friday? Yes, you guessed it! An experimental, ambient vocal work composed using flipped coins (adding to a total of €3.40), eight notes, a notebook, and something to record the results onto. And that’s about all we know about tapedesk, a mysterious artist out of Dublin whose first release is both playfully cynical and utterly beguiling. As this 15-minute piece plays through its eight movements it is easy to become absorbed in the sound of the looped, droning vocals. Reminiscent of fellow Dublin experimentalists Rollers/Sparkers or even, at a push, pioneering vocal manipulator Meredith Monk, this is  a welcome helping…

  • Watch: Swords – Sitting On Walls (Live)

    April 7, 2017 - By 

    Dublin based trio Swords have revealed a video for a live performance of ‘Sitting on Walls’. Taken from their second album, Tidal Waves, which came out last year, ‘Sitting on Walls’ is a touching ballad for fans of Sharon Van Etten and Broken Twin. Diane Anglim’s brittle yet resolute vocal carries the track while a piano, bass and drum combo that wouldn’t seem entirely out of place on earlier Mogwai album gives it a rewarding backbone. The video was produced and directed by Amelia Caulfield and Gearoid Connaughton with live sound being mixed by Micheal Sheil. Tidal Waves is out now and can be purchased here.

  • Stream: Sea Pinks – Into Nowhere

    April 7, 2017 - By 

    Never ones to be shy of new tunes, Belfast-based jangle-pop trio Sea Pinks have just announced their sixth album, Watercourse, and with it, have made new single ‘Into Nowhere’ available to stream. Watercourse is the band’s sixth album since their 2010 inception, the trio, fronted by singer/guitarist Neil Brogan – also of Cruising – started recording the album at Belfast’s Start Together Studios with Ben McAuley – producer with Documenta, Girls Names and Robyn G Shiels – in Summer 2016 through until the Autumn, initially with the intention to write just an EP. You can stream ‘Into Nowhere’ below, and pre-order Watercourse on Bandcamp – due for release on May 26 through…