Dinosaur and Alarmist performed a double headline gig at the Black Box in Belfast, closing the Brilliant Corners Jazz festival on Saturday night. Photos by Alan Maguire.
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Dublin four-piece Alarmist’s first full-length album Popular Demain feels like it has been a long time coming. Having released their debut EP in August 2011 followed by the Pal Magnet EP in November 2013 the band have very gradually been growing into their sound, leaving each element to develop without urgency. The result of this patient honing of sound on Popular Demain is a collection of eight tracks that seamlessly combine elements of Math-Rock, Jazz and Ambient music without ever letting any of those sound become overbearing. Instead, the style and atmosphere created is an almost entirely unique one; complex…
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Dropping on the same day of the release of their hugely anticipated debut album Popular Demain (full review coming tomorrow) Dublin instrumental rock wizards Alarmist have unveiled the video for triumphant, kaleidoscopic lead single ‘Petrichor’. With the album now available via Small Pond Recordings on 12″ vinyl, CD and digital download, the opening is comprised of studio footage shot and edited by Afghaniscan AKA Robert Scanlon, who along with Rian Trench of Solar Bears was one of the engineers on the album. Alarmist will launch Popular Demain in association with Ensemble Music this Friday (November 6) at Dublin’s Sugar Club,…
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Few Irish bands defy categorisation so impressively as Dublin instrumental four-piece Alarmist. The closest thing the country has come to (that is: bettering, if not matching) the likes of Battles, Maps & Atlases and Giraffes? Giraffes! – the band’s unravelling, math-tinged tracks are equally parts complex and cunning, meshing effects-laden guitar lines with skittering keyboard lines and consistently engaging percussion. Two years on from it featuring on their Pal Magnet EP, ‘Aztec Dreams’ by the band has finally been released with a fittingly hypnotic video courtesy of Cormac Murray & Daniel Staines. Triangles are very much still in, kids.
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Recorded and engineered by Solar Bears‘ Rian Trench at Meadow Studios, Co. Wicklow last year, Dublin quartet Alarmist have unveiled ‘Morning, Kepler’, the lead single from their forthcoming debut album. A vibrant, suitably sun-kissed instrumental effort for the first day of Spring, the track weaves a sublime patterns over almost five minutes, leaving one with an even stronger impression that Alarmist remain one of the country’s most forward-thinking and distinctive outfits. The follow up to 2013’s Pal Magnet EP, the band’s forthcoming album is expected to drop in the Autumn. With a Belfast date on the cards, check out Alarmist’s forthcoming tour dates…
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Having had a great first year in 2014, Dublin club Seven Quarters returns to Whelan’s, Dublin, for its fifth outing on February, 27 with Dublin instrumental quartet Alarmist (picturedd) and Neil O’Connor AKA Somadrone. Very much setting itself apart from other Irish club nights, Seven Quarters gives away two exclusive tracks on limited edition 7″ vinyl (hence the idea of the word “seven” referring to the vinyl – the “Quarters” part is based on the fact the club will happen four times a year. . Limited advance tickets are on sale now and the first 150 tickets come with a limited edition vinyl. Dig the poster for…
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Sixty-five increasingly exceptional songs in, we’re pleased to round up our first ever countdown of the Top 100 Irish Tracks of the year. Truth be told, this list could have been much, much longesear – such was the extent and quality of the output from our homegrown musical talent over the last twelve months. From unassuming bedroom artists treading the often very thin line between absolute anonymity and mass recognition to genre-defining, decades-spanning bands that fall comfortably under “legendary” status, we’ve been very happily bombarded with some truly extraordinary Irish music over the last year. Until next time… listen, enjoy…
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On the day of its official release, Dublin instrumental quartet Alarmist talk us through each track on their brand new – not to mention exceptionally good – EP Pal Magnet. Read their words and stream each track individually below! Aztec Dreams In this song we were trying to be quite intense but in an unconventional way, with these old-school guitar tones and blippy melodies rather than heavy rock riffs. A couple of us had gotten really into the 1950s producer Joe Meek and his albumI Hear a New World, which is full of these twangy slapback sounds and primitive early synths, and that…
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Having kept their collective head down over the last few months, Dublin band Alarmist have resurfaced in fine style via their new single, ‘Bunda Internacionale’. The lead single from the band’s forthcoming new EP Pal Magnet, the song’s bobbing, shifting instrumentalism strikes a wonderful balance between the warped textures of Tera Melos and the Ethio-jazz groove of Mulatu Astatke. Pal Magnet is available for digital download on November 1st. Stream ‘Bunda Internacionale’ via Soundcloud below.