• Video Premiere: Ferals – Separate

    October 23, 2020 - By 

    As with myriad other bands this year, Northern Irish alt-rock trio Ferals have had to navigate the pangs pitfalls of coronavirus over the last few months. Without question, the sudden reality of severance is right up there with the toughest of all. Today, the self-proclaimed “loudest band in Belfast” have re-emerged to take square aim at what being apart – both in the age of social distancing, but also on a much more personal level – feels like. Accompanied by a video splicing recent news coverage with original footage, new single ‘Separate’ is trouncing and earworming in equal measure. Lyrically,…

  • Details of NI Music Prize 2020 Revealed

    October 20, 2020 - By 

    This year’s Northern Ireland Music Prize will go ahead with an online broadcast on November 12. Due to covid-19, the annual award ceremony celebrating Northern Irish music will take place at Belfast’s Oh Yeah Music Centre and streamed live via their YouTube channel. As well as performances from shortlisted acts Arborist, Careerist, Joshua Burnside, Kitt Philippa, Phil Kieran and Sasha Samara, it will feature live announcements for four awards: Best Album, Best Single, Best Live Act and the Oh Yeah Contender Award. The event is scheduled to take place during the Sound of Belfast 2020 virtual festival, which runs November…

  • Stream: Foolish Mortal – Ghost Wipe

    October 20, 2020 - By 

    “Ectoplasm sleight/Anchored down in your chasm right/Next he’s binning your bones/On the coast by your parents’ home”. Yes, Samhain is upon us once again and, as you can see by the opening lyrics to their new single ‘Ghost Wipe,’ Cork garage rock trio Foolish Mortal are already in the holiday spirit.  Comprising Mark Waldron-Hyden, Dan O’Sullivan and Laurie Shaw, the Cork band’s howling, amp-blown Halloween single delves into “the behaviour of a love rival who sucks the life essence from his partners”. The result is a spooked-out, all-too-short salvo that will have you reaching for that repeat button.

  • Output Belfast Announces 50 Conversations About Music

    October 19, 2020 - By 

    Having established itself as the island’s largest music conference and showcasing event over the last six years, Output Belfast will return early next year in the form of a unique networking and mentoring scheme. With the physical conference for 2021 set aside as a result of the continuing threat posed to the industry by Covid-19, organisers have announced 50 Conversations about Music, an scheme they say will offer a “new way of communicating, connecting and talking about music created that will serve to create networks and relationships between emerging creative and business talent in Northern Ireland and their national and international counterparts.”…

  • Album Stream: The Zang – The Zang

    October 16, 2020 - By 

    Belfast-based musician Chris Molloy aka the Zang has unveiled his long-awaited self-titled debut album. Having won acclaim from the likes of BBC 6Music for singles including ‘Drugs’, ‘Drinking With You’ and ‘Football Sundays’, Molloy’s first first-length – which was recorded at Oiltape Studios in Belfast – underscores his growing reputation as one of the country’s finest alternative pop propositions. From the slow-burning indie balladry of ‘Sick Fantasy’ to the breezy alt-folk of closer ‘Time’, it’s a carefully-crafted, genre-spanning release from an artist on the rise. Stream the album in full below.

  • Dublin DIY Punk Space the Karate Klub Needs Our Help

    October 14, 2020 - By 

    A vital hub within Dublin’s DIY music community, Dublin’s collectively-run punk practice space the Karate Klub is battling for survival. Having existed for 13 years, the member-ran and funded creative space has provided an important HQ for punks and like-minded musicians and artists. Now, facing a 50% rent increase during the pandemic, a GoFundMe fundraiser has been created to raise 8,000 to ensure its doors stay open. “Creative community space is important, now more than ever, as we face a future of ongoing uncertainty and austerity,” organisers said. “Like many spaces during the COVID-19 Coronavirus pandemic, our space has struggled to bring money into…

  • Premiere: Ten Past Seven – Turf War

    October 15, 2020 - By 

    Since 2002, Kerry trio Ten Past Seven have peddled a singular brand of instrumentalism, striking an equal parts nuanced and face-melting midpoint between alternative, math rock and self-proclaimed “bog prog”. On November 27th, the band – comprising Rory O’Brien on guitar, Matt Shallow on bass and drummer Ger Mangan – will release their second full-length LP, Long Live the Bogwalrus, via pre-eminent Irish indie imprint Art for Blind Records. Recorded by two-thirds of TTA favourites Percolator, John “Spud” Murphy and Ian Chestnutt, at Guerilla Studios in Dublin, the album features guest vocals by Landless, fiddle by Lankum’s Cormac MacDiarmada and various other notable guest…

  • Premiere: nimf – Space

    October 1, 2020 - By 

    Kaleidoscopic Wicklow sugar-pop performance artist nimf has returned with new single ‘Space’. Its production is as synapse-firing it is personal, a bricolage that effortlessly conjures the 3D candied earfloss dreamscapes nimf speaks of when discussing its themes of imagination, and “the beautiful worlds within our own minds”, which open up “endless possibilities when overwhelmed by the day-to-day” on when left to our own devices. Certainly, the young singer-songwriter’s singles thus far are not just accomplished as elements of a bigger body of pop artistry, but of an already fully-realised sound world. Listen to ‘Space’: nimf · Space

  • Watch: MuRli – Till The Wheels Fall Off

    September 28, 2020 - By 

    If you told us MuRli didn’t sleep we’d believe you. Hands down one of the busiest heads in the scene, the Limerick rapper, producer, songwriter and Narolane Records co-founder has made lockdown, and the strange no-mans-hand we currently inhabit, work for him. Right off the back of a breathtaking takeover at the National Concert Hall alongisde Denise Chaila and God Knows last night, the video for new single ‘Till The Wheels Fall Off’ is power and joy in inclusivity distilled. Filmed at Dublin’s Dalymount Park, check it out below

  • Watch: Post Punk Podge & The Technohippies feat. TPM – Hard Man

    September 22, 2020 - By 

    If there’s a scene in Ireland right now that best embodies the power of a diverse, unified voice for disseminating positive change, then it’s without a doubt the hip-hop community. An all-star pairing of independent acts, Limerick’s Post Punk Podge & The Technohippies have paired with Dundalk counterparts TPM to give toxic masculinity the acerbic skewering it needs in a collaboration that more than delivers on its ear-watering potential. Podge, no stranger to exploring personal and societal issues without filter or pontification, tells us: “it’s a comedic look at the nature of being a ‘hardman’, and how those who portray machoism in a very direct way are often masking their own vulnerability.…