Evoking the likes of Julia Holter and Kate Bush, Dublin singer-songwriter Niamh Parkinson AKA i am niamh has unveiled the video for her sublime new single, ‘Creep’. Showing how far a simple set-up can be stretched to great effect, the video – directed by Aidan Duffy – features the fast-rising, classically-trained Parkinson in positively phantasmal form. Check out the video and i am niamh’s debut album Wonderland below.
When he’s not making truly wonderful music as Best Boy Grip, Derry singer-songwriter Eoin O’Callaghan is channeling another side to his broad alt-pop wizardry as Wake America. Taking from Silly Boy – his forthcoming debut EP in this guise – we’re very pleased to premiere ‘Government Said’, a track that falls very, very comfortably the impossibly infectious bracket. One listen and you’ll be hooked – mark our words. Written, produced, mixed and mastered by O’Callaghan, watch the video for the new single (featuring footage from Cosmos: War of The Planets) below. You can catch Wake America in Lavery’s Belfast on Tuesday, December 15 with Guillem…
To say Dublin’s Paddy Hanna is on a bit of a roll would be a towering understatement. Off the back of November’s sublime ‘Underprotected‘ – hands down one of our favourite Irish tracks of the year – and a string of Irish dates with Girl Band, he has unveiled the bobbing and brilliant mastery of ‘Chocolate and Salt’, the b-side to the aforementioned single. Described by Hanna as “an ode to self-doubt, a story of embracing worth, while mourning the loss of a sorrow which once defined you” it’s another solid, pathos-laden pop effort from the artist, summoning Summertime disconnection in perfectly restrained…
The cover stars of our final magazine issue of 2015, Girls Names have recently returned from yet another successful trek across Europe, touring their seriously accomplished new album, Arms Around a Vision. Aside from a show planned at Belfast’s Black Box on December 19, the Cathal Cully-fronted band will lay low until the New Year before setting off on another European mini-tour, culminating in three Irish dates and SXSW 2016. Tiding us over until then, the band have unveiled the Matthew Reed-directed video for ‘Reticence’, a highlight from their aforementioned third studio album in four years. Mirroring the song’s turbid bent and clanging power,…
From the release of their BOMBEP EP back in April, unveiling double-single Iwazaru/Mizaru in October and several memorable shows in Belfast and further afield, it’s safe to say 2015 has been something of a breakthrough year for Robocobra Quartet. A quick scan through our copious posts on the Chris Ryan-fronted band – before and after featuring them as one of our 15 For ’15 – reveals that we’ve called them: chamber punk, jazz-inflected rap-punk, rapjazz-punk, jazz-rap-punk, jazz-punk and (our current personal favourite) “four-piece”. At this juncture, then, it’s say to safe we’ve reached a descriptor Endgame when it comes to even flirting with the idea of summing up…
Set to feature on Belfast electronic imprint Extended Play’s EP50: STATEMENT OF INTENT – out Monday, November 30 – we’re pleased to premiere ‘B.K.I.T.B’ by Belfast producer Chris Hanna. Standing for ‘Broken Knuckles In The Bunatee’, Hanna said of the track: “‘Broken Knuckles In The Bunatee’ is my nod to the room in the Queens University Student’s Union. It regularly hosts Belfast’s rowdiest nights. When things kick off in the place the low ceiling always takes the brunt of it and I wanted to make something as a tribute to that exact moment. They’ve happened so frequently now they’ve started repairing…
A nonpareil artist very much operating on his own creative axis, Myles Manley positively inveigled us back in 2012 with his self-titled debut EP. In the three years since, he has maintained that power to intrigue and ensnare with a trickle of releases including mini-album More Songs, released back in February. The latest single to be released from that, the somnambulant ‘Slip Into The Sea’ is both the closer and our personal favourite track from that release, conjuring a submersing netherworld that Manley can lay claim to as czar. Directed, film and edited by Michael Higgins, watch the video for Slip into the Sea and check out upcoming Myles Manley tour dates supporting…
Some bands – and some considerably better than others of their ilk – are well and truly compelled by the riff. Having recently melted the face of your writer supporting Japanese psych gurus Acid Mother’s Temple at Belfast’s Voodoo recently, Dublin rockers Wizards of Firetop Mountain are one such act. Set to launch their self-titled debut album at Dublin’s Bello Bar tomorrow (Friday, November 27) night, the band are comprised of members of some of the city’s finest pioneering underground bands including Zom, No Spill Blood, Dread Soverign and others. At the epicentre of seismic, hat-tipping craft is a combined worship of the…
Four years and a string of short releases in, Belfast-based duo Dave Jackson and Fiona O’Kane AKA Runaway[GO] have cultivated a carefully considered, wonderfully delivered pop sound that has grown so innately distinctive that the release of their debut album, Alive, feels every week worth the wait. As much about poise and restraint as it is unabashed, nigh on ridiculously infectious melodic bombast, it’s a consistent and solid release (in both senses of the word) for the hotly-tipped twosome. Stream the album via Soundcloud now below.
Currently based in Newcastle, North Coast alt-punk three-piece Good Friend have grown in leaps and bounds over the last couple of years. Having spent 2015 recording their forthcoming debut album, Ride The Storm, the Adam Carroll-fronted band have just re-emerged with ‘The Return of Fionn & The Fianna’, an equally urgent and anthemic new track that features on compilation Paper + Plastick; Welcome to the UK. Re-adapting stories from Irish Mythology to a contemporary context, it’s a strong and purposeful cut hinting at promising things for Ride The Storm. Check out the video for the track below.