• Premiere: Cruiser – Ovaltine

    June 17, 2020 - By 

    At the beating heart of Limerick’s fully thriving music scene as of late are Cruiser, a foursome comprising Ger Devine, Rachael Drennan, Chris Quigley and Steve Savage. Striking a sweet point between supremely candid indie rock and intricately-woven shoegaze worship, the gentler side of the band’s sonic M.O. is laid bare across the four minutes of ‘Ovaltine’. Originally featured on the band’s split EP with Belfast trio Mob Wife late last year (check out our premiere here) it’s a song evoking everyone from Bedhead and early Slowdive, to Codeine and Duster. Today, we’re pleased to present a first look at the song’s brand new video. Doubling up as one…

  • Stream: Goodtime John – Hang On/Black Sunrise

    June 11, 2020 - By 

    Exactly a year on from releasing one of the Irish albums of the year, Beauty & Chaos, Goodtime John (AKA J. Cowhie, GOODTIME) is back with a stellar brace of gently-rolling, psych-inflected pop. Featuring long time collaborators including Richie Egan aka Jape and Ross Turner (Lisa Hannigan, Villagers) ‘Hang On’ and ‘Black Sunrise’ are equally emphatic efforts that place deft harmonies and refrains center-stage. “These songs have never quite fit on an album to my mind, but have always felt to me that they go hand in hand,” John said. “Cut from the same cloth as it were. In the current…

  • Watch: Pillow Queens – Handsome Wife

    June 11, 2020 - By 

    Few bands earworm quite like Pillow Queens. Having been on our radar since 2017, the Dublin indie quartet will release their debut album, In Waiting, in September. If their new single ‘Handsome Wife’ is anything to go by – and it surely is – we’re in for something special. Featuring wonderful visuals shot and assembled during lockdown, it’s a star-shaped and suitably burrowing gem from the foursome. “‘Handsome Wife’ begins with a glimpse into an emotional homecoming, one that intensifies and romanticises the seemingly insignificant,” the band said. “Throughout, the mundane but tender moments are held up and deified, paying…

  • Video Premiere: Dott – Extra Introvert

    June 11, 2020 - By 

    If there’s any band in Ireland who can lay claim to an Earworm Guarantee™, it may well be Galway’s harmony-laced dream-pop quartet Dott, and new single ‘Extra Introvert’ proves that once more in spades. As interactions return to relative normality in time for summer, the gradual reacquaintance with our old friend social anxiety proves much easier when masked in a seasonally-appropriate bop. Dott were in the midst of recording their third album when the Covid-19 pandemic put a stop to things, but mercifully they’ve delivered us a homespun, all-too-relatable video, made for phone. Featuring lead singer Anna and her many attempts to overcome Lockdown Anxiety, it records the day-to-day of using…

  • EP Stream: Eoin Dolan – June Hope

    June 9, 2020 - By 

    A master of carefully-crafted throwback pop, Galway’s Eoin Dolan has steadily emerged as one of the country’s most distinct songwriting voices. Off the back of last year’s sublime Commander of Sapiens – Dolan’s third full-length album to date – new EP June Hope is a feat of minimal, psych-inflected indie-pop. Equal parts focused and optimistic, it’s a release that looks to the horizon with a heart full of hope. Speaking about the EP, which he also produced, mixed and mastered, Dolan said, “Winters are fairly dark in the west of Ireland – what keeps you going are thoughts of a fresh spring and the warmth…

  • Infinitesimal Hinge: Tender With Malcontent

    June 8, 2020 - By 

    In the latest installment of his column, Infinitesimal Hinge, Belfast musician, producer and writer Jamie Thompson aka James Joys reflects on the political and economic realities underlying the momentous times we find ourselves in. Perhaps the salient characteristic of our neoliberal capitalist moment is that the people who benefit most from the orthodoxy of centuries of structurally reproduced inequalities are the ones who present themselves as the only pragmatic, electable solutions to the eruptions of discontent these inequalities spur. That our system – a festering seam of collaborators – of the expensively schooled, of finance lads, of property developers, landlords,…

  • Album Stream: Brigid Mae Power – Head Above The Water

    June 5, 2020 - By 

    Her debut release via London’s Fire Records, and her third album overall, Head Above The Water finds Galway’s Brigid Mae Power at their peak of her powers. Recorded at analogue studio The Green Door in Glasgow, from boundlessly earworming opener ‘On A City Night’ to the release’s closing title track, it makes for a perfectly escapist 45 minutes of first-rate cosmic folk from one of the country’s most distinctive songwriting voices. Head Above The Water by Brigid Mae Power

  • Girls Names Release ‘Demos: 2009​-​2012’

    June 5, 2020 - By 

    For ten years, Belfast’s Girls Names consistently underscored their status as one of the country’s best bands. From 2010’s You Should Know By Now to what would become their feature-length swansong, 2018’s Stains on Silence, Cathal Cully and co. made music that, unlike so many contemporary bands, warranted the albeit loose descriptor post-punk. Having disbanded last year, the band have briefly re-emerged to release Demos: 2009​-​2012. Over 37 tracks, it’s a fascinating, true-to-life release, documenting the creative process of a band whose sound wonderfully evolved over the years. As posthumous, feature-length curios go, this one is worth delving into. “I hear the walls of each…

  • Watch: Shifting – Spudgasm

    May 27, 2020 - By 

    Post-hardcore noise rock trio Shifting have announced the release of their debut long-player, with a release date of August 24. To accompany the news, they’ve unveiled the first in a line of accompanying videos for debut single ‘Spudgasm’. A triad of highly-respected Dublin heads – also of No Spill Blood, Hands Up Who Wants To Die, amongst others – Shifting are Paul Clynes and brothers Matt & Lewis Hedigan. In line with their other work, and akin to late 80s/early 90s Touch & Go Records, their music is an acerbic blend of gut-wreching yet dynamic repetition, nihilistic cackling, and the unmistakably razorsharp, wiry guitar work. You’d be hard-pressed to…

  • Watch: Song Sung – Telling Tales

    May 27, 2020 - By 

    Monaghan born, Brooklyn-based twin sisters Georgina and Una McGeough aka Song Sung first came to our attention via David Holmes’ stellar Late Night Tales compilation back in 2016. Along with the likes of Belfast drone-pop heroes Documenta, their take on 10cc’s ‘I’m Not In Love’ proved a wonderfully spectral peak from the release. Four years on, the pair are primed to release their debut album, This Ascension Is Ours, on July 3st. Teaming up once more with Holmes – who co-wrote and produced the album with fellow composer and Unloved bandmate Keefus Ciancia – it promises ten tracks of sublime spectral pop from the Irish sister duo. New single ‘Telling Tales’ is…