• Stream: Captain A – Dark Matter Mariner

    August 10, 2020 - By 

    Galway’s Captain A has shared his second new track of the summer, ‘Dark Matter Mariner’. The shadowy instrumental, as eerie and vast as its title suggests, follows July’s ‘Meaning Obscure’, and finds Captain A continuing his ventures away from psych rock and gnarled folk into the world of electronic music. Where 2019’s ‘Dog In The Woods’ was tender and inward-looking, ‘Dark Matter Mariner’ confronts much loftier subject matter, but with a similarly poignant sense of isolation. “It is the soundtrack to the first voyages made by humans into the realms of dark matter and dark energy,” he explains. Drifting, muffled…

  • Bing & Ruth – Species

    July 27, 2020 - By 

    It is that time of the year, when the sun beams with underestimated intensity and humidity creeps upward, smearing the world with a thin veneer of moisture. Everything keeps ratcheting up, it gets harder to think, harder to focus, harder to breathe almost. Cognitive space is required, something to give your brain enough room to remain active and alert but not so much as it gets overwhelmed in this delicate atmosphere. What you need is some sweet, laid back Vibey Synth Shit, or VSS. It’s an umbrella term. It encompasses a vast array of sub-genres and ideologies from film soundtracks,…

  • Nadine Shah – Kitchen Sink

    July 9, 2020 - By 

      Nadine Shah’s 2017 release, Holiday Destination seethed with fiery indignation and deep despair as the artist reckoned with the inhuman horror of the Syrian refugee crisis. Her remarkable follow up sees the Tyneside musician turning her lens inward and focuses her incisive attentions on more personal, but no less political, frustrations. Taking aim at everyday racism, feckless men and, most pointedly, the concept of identity and the weighty societal expectations that go with it, Kitchen Sink delivers some of Shah’s most keenly observed performances to date. These songs push Shah’s macabre sound into exhilarating new terrain, oozing dark glamour…

  • Sir Bobby Jukebox – Friendship Gift

    June 23, 2020 - By 

    Until pretty recently, Bobby Aherne was one of the most prolific of Ireland’s DIY musicians. If releasing a steady stream of EPs and LPs through the 2010s with No Monster Club (and a few more as Dublin Duck Dispensary before that) wasn’t quite enough, Aherne also spent years as bassist for hire for friends like Paddy Hanna and Ginnels. After that, even found time to write a book (D’You Remember Yer Man?, about the eccentric local characters of Dublin) and co-write a musical loosely based on Jedward (Trial of the Centurys, described by the Irish Times as “adorably awful”). Although the…

  • Arvo Party – Devotions

    May 12, 2020 - By 

    Space truly is at a premium right now. Overnight it became a commodity almost more valuable than gold; a resource which should never be a resource. Yet here we are. From the air bubbles in our sourdough starter kits to distancing ourselves from the bountiful overnight epidemiologists on social media, obsessively we are seeking the sweet release it brings . Mercifully, Belfast-based musician and producer Arvo Party – real name Herb Magee – has delivered true audio escapism in this surprise ambient album, Devotions. Preceding a full length set to land in June, Devotions is Magee’s deepest exploration into the…

  • Stream: The 343 Vol 1

    May 1, 2020 - By 

    In virtually no time at all, Belfast’s 343 has established itself as a vital part of the city’s creative community. An artist-focused, feminist-led, queer art-space in East Belfast, it’s one of many venues fighting to survive during the current COVID-19 pandemic. Currently fundraising as part of a national initiative launched by the Music Venue Trust, the 343 are going one further with the release of the aptly-titled The 343 Vol 1. Across fifteen tracks, it’s an endlessly listenable, perfectly genre-traversing compilation, featuring TTA favourites Rising Damp, Natalia Beylis, Elaine Howley, Gross Net & Fears and more. Best of all, seeing as Bandcamp…

  • Shrug Life – Maybe You’re The Punchline

    April 28, 2020 - By 

    It’s strange how an unprecedented large scale pandemic can lend some records a greater level of significance. Obviously when Shrug Life were recording their second album, Maybe You’re The Punchline, they could not have foreseen that the entire global economy would have stopped and we’d all be trapped in our houses facing existential threats in the form of an invisible killer. We’ve left with an ever increasing uncertainty about what the hell happens next. Society is essentially being rebooted and there’s no telling what shape things might come back in. Then there are Danny Carroll’s words, these twitchy anxiety riddled tomes…

  • Rising Damp – Petrol Factory

    April 22, 2020 - By 

    So what exactly is punk? It’s a question that probably goes back at least as far as when The Damned released ‘New Rose’, and tends to get easily muddied in issues of purity and pretension. It was addressed again recently through a tongue-in-cheek, classroom-style approach on Declan Synnott’s  Ain’t You on Dublin Digital Radio. While following along with specially prepared Powerpoint slides and track selections from artists as diverse as Special Interest, Rites of Spring, and Dustin the Turkey (!), Mr.Synnott and his class mused on the punk credentials of various topics. And while there were occasional unambiguous declarations (cats:…

  • Premiere: Angular Hank – On Your Shoulder

    March 17, 2020 - By 

    Thankfully, the other main immunity we don’t have is to sweet jams, and ahead of their hotly-anticipated forthcoming debut album, Brand New Angle – out this Friday – Angular Hank have shared new single ‘On Your Shoulder’. As ever, they’re as taut with subtly-induced discordant tension as they are free-flowing with slack-pop hooks, springing to mind the likes of masterful craft of Irish peers like Postcard Versions & Careerist. As it stands, Angular Hank are set to hold their album launch at the Workman’s Club on April 3 with support from Skinner – keep posted here.