Featuring suitably enchanting vocals by Karen Sheridan AKA Slow Skies) Cork producer REID has concocted delicate somnambulant wonder on his new track, ‘Fractures’. Clocking in a just over four minutes, the track evolves from a simmering, shady eulogy to a fully-blossomed dancefloor jam, shuffling beats marrying gently stabbing synth lines and tinkling chimes. The track is taken from REID’s new EP, Fractures, which will be released via M:UK on August 11. Stream ‘Fractures’ via Soundcloud below.
A brand new song has been unveiled by Toronto dance-punks Death From Above 1979, following their reunion in 2011. The song, ‘Trainwreck 1979,’ is the first taste of new music from the duo since their 2004 album You’re A Woman, I’m A Machine, and if this track is anything to go by, their comeback record The Physical World will surely appease any anxious fans. That bone-rattling bass dirge of previous releases is present and accounted for, certainly, along with a seriously memorable hook. The band themselves have described their forthcoming album as “Springsteen meets Sonic Youth.” A bold claim, sure; an exciting…
Experimental multi-instrumenalist and producer Tim Hecker has released an alternate version of his track ‘Amps, Drugs, Harmonium’ as part of the Adult Swim singles series. The re-imagining of the track, entitled ‘Amps, Drugs, Mellotron’ may seem foreign to the album from which it has been taken, (2013’s Virgins,) despite the original song being a moment of respite amid some of that years most cacophonous songs. This alternate version lowers in volume and tension more so than any other track from his starkly brilliant last album, though his fondness for drones and slow musical evolutions has not wavered. You can listen…
Taken from their forthcoming first album proper, The Long Con, Galway three-piece So Cow have made an extremely solid return with their new single ‘Barry Richardson’. A typically off-the-wall dose of slinky, guitar-led garage pop, the track calls to mind Pinkerton-era Weezer, Blur circa Modern Life Is Rubbish, the charming lyrical ruralism of Andy Falco (Mclusky/Future of the Left) and Deerhoof. The Long Con – produced by Deerhoof’s Greg Saunier, no less – is the band’s first album recorded in a studio and sees Brian Kelly joined by Dublin drummer Peter O’Shea and Jonny White on bass. According to the band’s Soundcloud…
One for fans of abstracted, hip-hop inflected ambient noise, Belfast-based musician James Bruce AKA Oaks has released his eight-track debut album, Safe Haven. Calling to mind everyone from Mouse and Mars, Labradford and The Books to Tortoise, Exploding Orchestra and Boards of Canada, the album – recorded in different locations but predominantly Bruce’s home – melds found sounds and samples with scattered beats, brass and strings to form an impressive, nicely hypnotic mid-point between drifting melancholia and bold experimentalism. The artwork for the released – arranged by Bruce, also drummer with Belfast prog band Kasper Rosa – features a photo taken by Tom McGeehan. Stream Safe Haven via Bandcamp…
Everyone loves the good weather at this time of year, right? And who better to sing a song about the searing heat than the Austin, Texas band Spoon? On the second single from their upcoming album, They Want My Soul, they have perfectly captured that sense of summer euphoria. The song, titled ‘Do You’, is the sound of the wind going through your hair as you drive the coastline with the top down – yes, its undeniably corny in a sense, but its just too lovely to pass up. The track is wonderfully textured, with shimmering keys and quirky backing vocals keeping…
Dropped late last night, Dublin instrumental three-piece Adebisi Shank have got us even more excited for their forthcoming third album with the release of the somewhat familiar ‘Voodoo Vision’. A fixture of their live sets over the last few few years, the track – previously titled ‘Thunder’ – is a vocoder-laced, effects-laden brilliantly-realised, beautifully bastardised and utterly exhilarating six minutes of sheer instrumental transcendentalism. We’re fans, in other words. Stream the track – set to feature on the band’s forthcoming third album – below.
A new video for the track ‘Old Toys’ has been unveiled by the Donegal-born producer Conor McNamee, aka Nyt Bloomer. The video appropriately sees an assortment of nostalgia-inducing 80s and 90s children’s toys animated into life, backed by Nyt Bloomer’s sample-heavy instrumental. Ninja Turtles meet Action Man, and there’s even a Street Shark involved. And can you spot the brief homage to And So I Watch You From Afar? The promising young producer releases his debut Old Toys tape in Belfast’s Menagerie, on Friday July 4, alongside Welfare and Colpey. Watch the video for ‘Old Toys’ below.
The otherworldly summer sounds of Claire Boucher’s 2012 breakthrough Visions under her moniker GRIMES have largely been eschewed on this new single, unveiled in the UK by Zane Lowe of BBC Radio 1. Entitled ‘Go’, the track was originally penned by Boucher for Rihanna, who then turned it away. The song features a much punchier beat and a more dubstep inspired sound than anything the musician has touched before, opening with chilling harpsichord and Boucher’s luscious vocals, before twisting into a darker and heavier territory. The track also features Blood Diamonds, who has collaborated with the Montreal songstress in the past.…
Legendary New York hip-hop group Public Enemy are set to play Belfast’s Limelight 1 on Tuesday, August 5. Consisting of Chuck D, Flavor Flav, DJ Lord and more, the show will mark pioneering Long Island outfit’s debut show in the city, thirty two years after they formed. Lauded for albums including Fear of a Black Planet and It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, the group released their twelfth studio album, The Evil Empire of Everything, back in 2012. Tickets for the show go on sale from Ticketmaster right here at 9am on Monday morning (June 30). Watch the video…