• Premiere: Comrade Hat – Deep Sleep

    March 29, 2021 - By 

    Shapeshifting Derry-based musical polymath Neil Burns, aka Comrade Hat has just announced details of his new album, Old Gods, Vol. 1, which is set for release on April 13. Its final single is ‘Deep Sleep’, which we’re happy to share ahead of its popping on Bandcamp. Part experimentalism, part finely honed pop songcraft, it draws upon the familiar sounds of confessional, lonesome Americana, mystique, and glistening, low-key-yet-expansive 80s-recalling spectral echoes – possibly stemming from a Canadian stint. Equally, its sense of glacial, otherly pastoralism is not unlike that of experimental, avant-pop singers like David Sylvian, Talk Talk and Mary Margaret O’Hara, with his trademark self-deprecation…

  • Watch: Lilac – Remember, No Regrets

    March 25, 2021 - By 

    Scuzzy, unpretentious power-pop with a panache for irresistible jangle, fuzz & hooks is something that’s trickled into the water in Ireland, forming a fine cultural lineage – look no further than Good Vibrations Records and Thin Lizzy, and more recently, Pillow Queens. Trim-based sibling duo Oisín & Cian Walsh form the creative hub of Lilac, and today released their earworm of a new single ‘Remember, No Regrets’, which filters Ty Segall-esque saturated fuzz with 90s indie & psych-pop – completely self-produced in the band’s home studio. Initially set to be released pre-pandemic, they’ve pressed the record to 7″ vinyl, and it’s available…

  • EP Premiere: Poor Petal – zzz

    March 24, 2021 - By 

    After a three year gestation period, Polish-born, Dublin-raised Mateusz Koznik, AKA Poor Petal has only in the last month started to drip-feed his own blend of tripped-out, yet subdued melancholic hip-hop, woozy bedroom pop and lo-fi indie rock, imbued with found sounds and homespun charm. At turns hopeful and inward-looking, debut EP zzz – written, produced & mastered by Poor Petal – horizontally floats and drifts along, picking up, peering at, and ultimately casting aside personal flotsam across its six somnambulant tracks. Mateusz told us more about its creation: “zzz took me almost 3 years to finish. Before this project I was always writing music and making beats, but I felt caged in with my inability…

  • Premiere: Vivamagnolia – 990 Miles

    March 23, 2021 - By 

    Sharing a certain Appalachian sentiment, Ireland’s footing in Americana-steeped rock has traditionally been solid. Someone very much making his imprint on the next generation is Patrick J. Hodgen, AKA Vivamagnolia. The last few years have yielded a string of excellent singles that variously recalled those indie and alt. country masters of the late-90s/early-00s like Mark Linkous, Will Oldham, and Jason Molina, none of whom shied away from experimentation within the form. Following up on his debut EP, new single ‘990 Miles’ sees his work pared back into the kind of soft-focus, vulnerable, Westward-facing indie rock that made Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot an era-definer, elevated by gospel-tinted, George Harrison-worthy slide guitar as Hodgen reflects upon…

  • Video Premiere: Invaderband – I Won’t Remember You

    March 23, 2021 - By 

    One of the most idiosyncratic garage/art-rock propositions anywhere on the island, Invaderband is the music-making moniker of Derry-based Mancunian Adam Leonard. Backed by the likes of fellow Derry artist Chris McConaghy aka Our Krypton Son on guitar, he’s been responsible for some irrestisible punk-pop gems over the last few years. Clocking in at just over two minutes, new single ‘I Won’t Remember You’ is a textbook case in point. The lead single from the band’s second LP, Peter Gabriel, it’s a breakneck burst of garage-pop evoking late-70s English punk immediacy à la Buzzcocks and Wire. Speaking about the track, Leonard said, “It’s not about…

  • Metronomy Set For Olympia Theatre Return

    March 22, 2021 - By 

    Metronomy are set to make their return to Olympia Theatre. Having last played it back in 2014, the Joe Mount-fronted English indie-pop outfit will stop off at the Dublin venue on April 26th 2022 as part of a new UK and Irish tour. Priced from €25, tickets go on sale this Friday (March 26th) at 10am. To mark the news, the band have also announced a special release to mark the 10th anniversary of their breakthrough LP, The English Riviera. Featuring six previously unreleased bonus tracks, The English Riviera 10th Anniversary Edition is out on April 30th. Stream The English Riviera below.

  • Premiere: Loner Deluxe – Tin Foil Hat

    March 19, 2021 - By 

    One of the busiest creators in the scene, Keith Wallace splits his time making music as Loner Deluxe and running West Coast micro-independent label Rusted Rail. Taking in both realms, March 5th saw the release of Field Recordings, a wonderfully genre-spanning, 14-track release – Loner Deluxe’s third full-length to date – that reveals Wallace’s knack for lo-fi songwriting that curveballs at every turn. Today we’re pleased to present a first look at the video for LP highlight ‘Tin Foil Hat’. In Wallace’s own words, The music video for the UFO-paranoia themed-song is a joint-production between Rusted Rail and longtime videographic…

  • Stream: M(h)aol – Asking For It

    March 18, 2021 - By 

    Given the length of time they’ve been around for in one form or another, it’s hard to believe that M(h)aol had, before today, only released two singles – their last being 2020’s ‘Laundries‘, concerning the historic systematic oppression of women in Ireland. The power and economy in saying precisely what to needs to be said, when it needs to be said, is what has seen the five-piece labelled as the most vital voice in Irish punk – and  post-punk, for that matter – pushing discourse forward with songs as razor-sharp as their message. Currently based between Dublin, London and Bristol, M(h)aol’s new single ‘Asking For It’  – originally set…

  • Premiere: Zizou – After It’s Done

    March 17, 2021 - By 

    You might have come across Mathieu Doogan’s Zizou project last year when we waxed lyrical about debut single ‘Living On A Plateau‘. The Dublin-based artist is back with the contemplative ‘After It’s Done’. Charmingly homespun and low-key unpredictable, it recalls the indie folktronica of Chad VanGaalen or something from the early noughties years of Merge & Matador Records. Resplendent with Doogan’s signature baritone, freewheeling indie-jazz guitar noodling, organic keys and a range of acoustic textures, it begs for repeat listening. He told us more: “The song came about when I was experimenting with acoustic and electronic instruments, trying to make banjos, violins and synths complement each other. Lyrically, the…

  • Stream: The Disco Participation Matrix – High Rise [Kevin Blake Remix]

    March 17, 2021 - By 

    Taking the DIY ethos into the 21st century are The Disco Participation Matrix, whose singular blend of molten electronics, punk and drone fuse together into what they describe as ‘party drone’. Their excellent Guerrilla Sounds-recorded debut EP, Rave Gravely came out in early 2020, recalling the driving, jolting, dissonant likes of No Spill Blood and Sex Swing. With its release, the band made the unique step of releasing their Elektron synth project files on GitHub as open source, and made stems available on FreeSound.org. The band asked some of their favourite Irish electronic artists to produce remixes with the stems, and The Person, Spectac and Molotov Ape had so far produced tunes. Today, the…