• Watch: Future Islands – Seasons (Waiting On You)

    January 22, 2014 - By 

    Baltimore synthpop outfit Future Islands have released a video for ‘Seasons (Waiting On You)’, a cut from their forthcoming album Singles. Directed by longtime collaborator Jay Buim, the video features lots of typical cowboy imagery – as well as actual cowboys – and certainly taps into singer Sam Herring’s admission that the song is “…about love, letting go, learning from your mistakes and always feeling that pull….as time goes by and seasons change.” Elsewhere, the band’s trademark waves of pensive electronic sounds shine through, whilst time seems to have softened Herring’s signature rasping vocals – but that seems somehow fitting…

  • Watch: Fox Jaw – Kerosene

    January 21, 2014 - By 

    Coinciding with downsizing their name from Fox Jaw Bounty Hunters, Limerick band Fox Jaw have unveiled the video to their punchy new single, ‘Kerosene’. Released on February 28, the single – taken from the five-piece’s forthcoming album, Ghost’s Parade – is propelled by a strutting alt-rock groove and raspy vocal delivery that combine to excavate wonderfully malevolent undercurrents. Watch the video – directed by Shane Serrano from the band – below.

  • Stream: Ed Zealous – Diamonds For Eyes

    January 20, 2014 - By 

    Belfast-based quartet Ed Zealous have released ‘Diamonds The Eyes’, the latest single to be taken from their forthcoming debut album, Wired. A typically starry-eyed slice of dancefloor-flooding electro-pop, the three-and-a-half minute track comes after the release of the singles ‘Medicines’, ‘Thanks A Million’ and ‘Telepaths’. Check out our exclusive track-by-track preview of Wired here. Wired will be officially launched at Belfast’s Limelight 2 on Thursday, February 20. Go here for the show’s Facebook event page and win tickets to the show here. Stream ‘Diamonds For Eyes’ via Bandcamp below.

  • Watch: Versives – Just Once

    January 15, 2014 - By 

    Having impressed us with their Harpoon EP early last year  – and the top-drawer ‘Two Enemies‘ before that – Cork electronic duo Versives will release their eagerly-anticipated debut album, Prussian Blushes, via Blind Faith Digital in February. This fact has afforded us an opportunity to revisit the pair’s latest single, the majestic yet minimal three-and-a-half minute track ‘Just Once’. Recorded “during some cold and dark afternoons in a little cottage in the countryside” it really extols the virtues of Alan Matthews and Kevin J. Power’s hugging brand of restrained and evocative electronica. Check out the video for the song below and check…

  • Watch: Effy – Move

    January 15, 2014 - By 

    Kildare-derived, Dublin-based electronic two-piece Kieran Craddock and Peter Fleming AKA Effy have unveiled their latest single, ‘Move’, a nigh on seven-minute unravelling electronic odyssey. Speaking to us about the track, the duo said, “The track is actually a couple months old at this stage and as with all of our tracks it came about through messing about and shit in the studio.” “Our Disco’s Dead release [Forth/The Look] should be out real soon and we’ll be announcing details of our next EP shortly after, the pair continued. On top of that we’re trying to gig as much as possible”. Watch the video for…

  • Watch: Phantogram – Nothing But Trouble

    January 14, 2014 - By 

    Taken from their forthcoming new album, Voices, New York electronic rock duo Josh Carter and Sarah Berthel AKA Phantogram have released their intoxicating new single, ‘Nothing But Trouble’. “Don’t listen to me, I’m nothing but trouble,” Berthel warns on the chorus, an ensnaring electro-pop refrain oddly reminiscent of Eels’ ‘Bus Stop Boxer’. Over the course of four minutes, the track’s fizzling, skittering, synth-driven spell imparts a exceptional nocturnal pulse that promises some great things for the pair’s upcoming second studio album. Voices  is released via Republic on February 18. Check out ‘Nothing But Trouble’ via YouTube below.

  • Watch: Bleeding Heart Pigeons – Visiting Myself in Hospital

    January 14, 2014 - By 

    “I’m a tightrope walker over miles of sea/This a frame of mind I’m in will end up killing me.” So goes one of the lines from ‘Visiting Myself in Hospital’ by Limerick experimental three-piece Micháel Keating, Brendan McInerney and Cathal Histon AKA Bleeding Heart Pigeons, a track about the hypothetical ponderings of one of the Columbine killers. Take a step back from the subject matter, the song’s somewhat unexpected no wave-esque outro and the song’s DIY video (below) and you’re left with a wonderfully simple, rather endearing slice of indie/synth-pop. Indeed, as is becoming their custom, Bleeding Heart Pigeons have combined the…

  • Watch: Slomatics – Troglorite

    January 14, 2014 - By 

    Belfast-based doom overlords Slomatics have long been one of our favourite riff-heavy Irish acts. Ten years and a couple of line-up changes into their evolution, the three-piece have just unveiled the video to their latest single, the decidedly crushing ‘Troglorite’ The four-and-a-half minute minute opening track to the band’s forthcoming fourth album, Estron, the creeping, drop-tuned offering evokes the likes of Sleep/early High and Fire and Conan (a band the guys released a split with back in 2011) in equal proportion. Set to be released next month, Estron was recorded and mixed at Belfast’s Start Together Studios and is a concept album…

  • Several Irish Acts Set For SXSW 2014

    January 10, 2014 - By 

    Several Irish acts have been confirmed to play this year’s South By Southwest festival in Austin, Texas. The annual U.S. showcase – now in its 28th year – will feature performances from Unknwn (above), Wonder Villains, RAMS’ Pocket Radio, Foy Vance, and from the south, September Girls, Heathers, Hozier, DOTT, O Emperor, Wounds, The Strypes, The Young Folk and Nightbox. Inaugurated in 1987, South by Southwest 2014 will run from March 11-16 and feature thousands of acts from across the world.

  • Choice Music Prize 2014 Shortlist Revealed

    January 8, 2014 - By 

    Now in its ninth year, the shortlist for the Meteor Choice Music Prize has been announced. Including the long overdue comeback albums from genre-defining shoegaze My Bloody Valentine, the breakthrough second album from Belfast-based four-piece Girls Names and the Mercury Prize-nominated {Awayland} by Dublin’s Villagers, the winner of the ten-act shortlist will be announced at Dublin’s Vicar Street on Thursday, February 27. Check out the full nominations below: And So I Watch You From Afar – All Hail Bright Futures (Sargent House) Bell X1 – Chop Chop (Belly Up Records) Girls Names – The New Life (Tough Love) Kodaline – In…