• Premiere: Jake Wallace – Sanguine feat. Clare Kearney

    March 25, 2022 - By 

    Released last June, Lacuna by Jake Wallace marked an inspired solo break from the pure-cut heft of his work with doom/sludge outfit Elder Druid. On 1st April, the Belfast musician doubles down on the five-track EP’s deft, contemplative explorations with the release of his debut solo album, Lustre of the Dark. Featuring seven new tracks alongside remastered versions of Lacuna, it traverses, in Wallace’s words, themes of self-discovery, isolation and the balance between light and dark. Lead single ‘Sanguine’ features one of the album’s two guest vocal appearances. Above a phantasmal weave of cyclical piano and guitar patterns, Clare Kearney…

  • Irish Tracks of the Week – 18th March

    March 18, 2022 - By 

    Here’s the very best music released across the island this week, featuring Problem Patterns, Melts, Sprints, ZOiD, Mob Wife and more Problem Patterns – Y.A.W. Mob Wife – Cutting Teeth on Suburban Curbs Cutting Teeth on Suburban Curbs by Mob Wife Melts – Waltzer Sprints – Delia Smith Myles McCormack – Comfort Zone Daire Heffernan – Skeletons the ghost tapes – barely holding on Dee Fitz – Lucky Lover ​​ A Smyth – Long Night ZOiD – Looking In The Rain

  • Irish Tracks of the Week – 11th March

    March 11, 2022 - By 

    Here’s our round-up of the best Irish music to drop in the past seven days, featuring Pillow Queens, Sprints, Kynsy, Deaf Joe, Naoise Roo, THUMPER, April, Fears, Beauty Sleep & more Kynsy – New Year Pillow Queens – No Good Woman Deaf Joe – Kalachuchi Kalachuchi by Deaf Joe Naoise Roo – Whore (John Agnello Remix) THUMPER – Fear of Art April – Pressure Nine Raths – EP1 EP1 by Nine Raths Beauty Sleep – I Love It Here I Hate It I Love It Here I Hate It by Beauty Sleep Fears – 16 Sprints – A Modern Job…

  • Line-Up Announced For Electric Picnic 2022

    March 10, 2022 - By 

    The line-up for this year’s Electric Picnic has been revealed. Marking its return to Stradbally Estate in Co. Laois after three years, this year’s bill features headliners including Tame Impala, Arctic Monkeys and Megan Thee Stallion, as well as Pixies, Sleaford Mods, Bright Eyes, Wolf Alice and more. There’s a raft of Irish acts in there too, from CMAT, Kojaque and Just Mustard, to Denise Chaila, For Those I Love and Saint Sister.With more acts set to be announced in the coming weeks, check out the full first line-up announcement below. Tickets for this year’s festival go on sale at 9am…

  • SoFFT Nights Reveal 2022 Line-Up

    March 7, 2022 - By 

    Lisa O’Neill and Tolü Makay are among the names set to play this year’s SoFFT Nights. Making its return to Dunderry Park in Co. Meath across 4-5th June, the festival will also play host to Elaine Mai (with MayKay and Sinead White), Pastiche, Moxie, Kíla, and Séan Fitzgerald with Lankum’s Daragh Lynch across the weekend. Beyond live music, there will also be activities including astronomy talks, bat walks, shamanic journeying, reggae yoga, sound baths, active imagination workshops, music for young children, and site-specific theatre. “We put on the very first festival in the midst of covid in October 2020 and over the course of…

  • For Those I Love Wins Choice Music Prize

    March 4, 2022 - By 

    For Those I Love, aka David Balfe, has won this year’s RTÉ Choice Music Prize. Off the back of performing three tracks at the event, which was held live at Dublin’s Vicar Street, Balfe scooped the prize for his self-titled 2021 LP. The Dubliner walked away with the prize – which was presented in association with IMRO and IRMA – as well as €10,000. Balfe beat off stiff competition in this year’s shortlist, which also featured the likes of Villagers, Bicep, Kojague, Saint Sister, Elaine Mai and more. Revisit For Those I Love in full below.

  • Video Premiere: Wild Rocket – Formless Abyss

    March 3, 2022 - By 

    Few bands do obliterating quite as convincingly as Wild Rocket. On releases such as 2017’s Disassociation Mechanics, the Dublin space rock band wed masterful repetition with a slew of bludgeoning riffs to lethal effect. The title track from the band’s imminent new release, ‘Formless Abyss’ takes that unfuckwithable ratio and ups the ante a hundredfold. Across the perfect eternity of ten minutes, the band unshackle one almighty beast that’s equal parts trouncing and – as it crests, a bokeh shot of face-searing sludge – supremely acid-soaked. Big words, yes, but this is a big fucking song. Watch Rian Trench’s aptly tripped-out visuals for the track below. Featuring contributions by Colin Mifsud, Tommy O’Sullivan…

  • Watch: Comrade Hat – From Lost To The River (feat. Inishowen Gospel Choir)

    March 2, 2022 - By 

    Ahead of his first Belfast show in over 3 years for Brilliant Corners Jazz Festival this Friday, 4th March at the Black Box Green Room – and another on the 11th – staple of the Northern jazz scene Neil Burns, aka Comrade Hat is back with his definitive artistic statement to date in ‘From Lost To The River’, the first single taken from his forthcoming album, Old Gods, Vol. 2, the follow up to last year’s Vol. 1. Without straying from the oneiric yearning that’s been threaded through his work so far, the single truly levels up his practice. Starting out with a locked, deep-pocket…

  • Video Premiere: Arthur Itis – I Wish I Was Here

    March 3, 2022 - By 

    The word ‘shapeshifter’ loiters never too far from Cork experimentalist Arthur Itis, aka Arthur Pawsey, having cultivated a prismatic pop alter ego via a singular blend of electronics, psychedelia, looping & glitched-out Sun Araw-esque rhythms, and the avant-garde. Having released a truly accomplished LP in 2021 with Occam’s Razor (Art For Blind), he returns today with ‘I Wish I Was Here’ the first track from his forthcoming, altogether more minimalist, home-recorded new mini-album Longhand. Coloured with tape warbles, hiss, inbuilt reverb and a more traditional kind of homespun aesthetic, the tape method’s limited parameters enable Pawsey to strip back layers of the usual…

  • Watch: Deaf Joe – Shadow Work

    February 23, 2022 - By 

    Over the last few years, Joe Harney aka Deaf Joe has emerged as one of the country’s most consistent and singular songwriting voices. Spanning dream-pop, electronic, indie and far beyond, his deftly-woven craft on albums including 2019’s Love Stories has been nigh on polychromatic and remarkably refined. On 9th March, Harney releases his highly-anticipated fifth studio album, Kalachuchi, via Donegal’s Bluestack Records. Recorded in Scotland, Denmark, and Ireland over three years, it’s a release that, if lead single ‘Shadow Work (Come Help Me Sleep)’ is anything to go by, is set to reveal the full, prismatic majesty of Harney’s talents. Check…