• Bicep – Isles

    February 2, 2021 - By 

    To create a dance record during a pandemic must be a particularly daunting task. What’s the point of club music when there’s nowhere to dance? Nonetheless, Belfast-bred, London-based duo Bicep rose to take on this arduous task. The duo’s 2017 self-titled debut was lauded upon its release for its sleek, contemporary take on classic UK dance sounds. 2-step, garage and house music were all present, led by the euphoric ‘Glue’, itself now a go-to soundtrack for car advertisements and social media influencer story posts alike. Isles was pre-empted by the duo as a “home listening” version of what was really…

  • IndieCork – Still, Life – Cork’s Lockdown Sounds

    January 26, 2021 - By 

    As the world settled uncomfortably into lockdown last spring, the impulse to document and artistically interpret this cataclysmic moment was felt by many. Still, Life – Cork’s Lockdown Sounds is the IndieCork collective’s contribution to that global documentation, a 17-track snapshot of Cork’s experimental music scene compiled by Tony Langlois and Arty Pawsey. Compiling work created during spring 2020, it shows creative life continuing, confined to bedrooms and houses, with all its joy, fear, anxiety and beauty shining through. It is an eclectic mix, but a consistent thread is found in the electronics that pulse through Cork’s leftfield. The collection…

  • Shame – Drunk Tank Pink

    February 1, 2021 - By 

    London post-punks Shame’s sophomore album, Drunk Tank Pink, had a lot to live up to. After finding breakthrough success with their 2018 debut Songs of Praise, Shame have risen in stature thanks to their accomplished, energetic sound. Drunk Tank Pink builds upon everything that was so impressive from their first album, amplifying their typically whiney guitars, brilliantly erratic drums and rebellious energy, adding new layers to their songwriting talent and a boat load of cheekiness to boot. This time around, the raucous quintet touch on the common anxieties that underlie the transition from youth to adulthood, with frontman Charlie Steen…

  • Sean Being – DEIS

    January 22, 2021 - By 

    Opening with a sharp downpour of prickling synth tones and electrical disturbance, Dublin artist Sean Being’s DEIS wastes little time setting a chilly and discomfited tone, oh so fitting of the EP’s December 28th release date.   If the end of the year was already characterised by damp post-holiday ennui and a cruel and unusual tendency to take stock and pick over our many and varied personal failings, the caustic pall cast by 2020’s concurrent dumpster infernos certainly helped make it all the bleaker this time around. The extended state of emergency and protracted isolation that many of us have become intimately…

  • Frog of Earth – Frog of Earth

    January 23, 2021 - By 

    Part of the wherethetimegoes label, experimental electronic artist Frog of Earth wants to lead you on a journey down the Other rabbit hole: one built from synth keys and effects knobs, and which is as much about the fall as it is about the landing. Frog of Earth, a mystical self-titled record, comes accompanied by a cryptic paragraph, which adds little context, but adds a deep sense of atmosphere to the listening experience. It describes the humble frog as it ponders its environment, overcomes panic in the face of a moving world, and examines the waterways and reeds that make…

  • David Donohoe / David Lacey – Noctules

    January 18, 2021 - By 

    When discussing the merits of canonical composers, the electroacoustic pioneer and arch pessimist Iannis Xenakis declared, “I don’t think music ought to be pleasant all the time. Profound music is never like that. No really great music is tender”. A contentious statement it may be, but with Noctules David Donohoe and David Lacey have made a worthy argument in its favour. Recorded in the summer of 2020, and unveiled in November via Cork tape label Fort Evil Fruit, Noctules trades in the unease of these grim times. Comprising four interlocking compositions, the album is fused together with the ever-present tics and…

  • The Avalanches – We Will Always Love You 

    December 21, 2020 - By 

    On We Will Always Love You, The Avalanches are like voiceless orchestra conductors, sharply gesturing their batons into the air as they direct hundreds of samples,  infectious rhythms and towering vocals into pristinely constructed tracks.  There were 16 years between the Australian outfit’s previous albums: the psychedelic hip-hop classic Since I Left You (2000) and the buoyant Wildflower (2016). It spoke to the monumental effort required to create and clear these sample-filled records. On this, their third album, the duo diverges from its predecessors in tone, structure and sound. Four years after their last album, The Avalanches have found a…

  • Neil Brogan – Weird Year

    December 16, 2020 - By 

    It was only this summer that Belfast jangle pop trio Sea Pinks announced they were calling it quits after ten years, but frontman Neil Brogan has wasted no time in readying solo material, with debut Life Itself already appearing a mere month after his old band’s final EP Crocuses. Not that it should have come as any surprise. During their decade long run, Sea Pinks were always one of the most reliably prolific bands in the country, pumping out an impressive seven albums in that time on Brogan’s own CF Records, initially as the frontman’s bedroom recording project while drumming in…

  • Myles Manley – Cometh The Softies

    November 27, 2020 - By 

    Myles Manley’s new album has been a long time coming. After a series of EPs earlier in the decade, along with ironically titled compilation Greatest Hits 2012-13, the last few years have only seen occasional singles emerge from the hive, though his live shows have promised plenty, with a string of new songs and a sterling three piece band lineup completed by Chris Barry and Solamh Kelly – the former expertly juggling guitar, bass and keys, while the latter takes his place as one of the country’s most impressive drummers, full of jerky, jazz-inflected rhythms across a kit that even…