• Album Stream: Frankenstein Bolts – Aglow & Spark

    August 11, 2017 - By 

    Wexford duo Frankenstein Bolts are a rare breed indeed. Released off the back of a successful crowdfunding campaign, their new – second full-length studio – album Aglow & Spark finds the pair invoking subtly enraptured brilliance across nine tracks of slickly-produced, wonderfully-realised dream-pop that evokes everyone from Cocteau Twins, Slowdive and The Radio Dept. to fellow Irish acts exmagician, Documenta and SlowPlaceLikeHome. From the streamlined Motorik groove and intoxicated reminiscence of opener ‘Land & Water’ to the balmy electro-pop of closer ‘Short Term Memory’, the album is a confident and bewitching release that will surely rank up there with the best Irish releases…

  • Album Stream: Blake’s Fortune – Hello World

    July 6, 2017 - By 

    In March of this year, Dublin based musician John Lennon aka Blake’s Fortune quietly released Hello World, a modest collection of contemporary folk that is at once charming and nostalgic for summers long past. Aptly described by the man himself as a “road trip” album, there is more than a light dusting of the quintessentially “Dublin” early naughties folk trend in this album, a tone that soundtracked many’s the gravelly, bumpy drive in a packed Ford Fiesta along the Irish coast. Think drinking cheap tins while your mate scrambles to build a dodgy fire on a beach, all to the tune of David Kitt‘s The…

  • Album Stream: The Jimmy Cake – Tough Love

    July 4, 2017 - By 

    Experimental kosmiche post-punks The Jimmy Cake have released their sixth album Tough Love through respected Irish indie label Penske Recordings. Formed as a 10-piece in Dublin back in 2000 from the ashes of experimental noiseniks Das Madman, they’ve had a revolving lineup, recording – the last being 2015’s Master. Tough Love was written for a one-off performance in Dublin arts space The Joinery in 2015, with two distinct movements and styles – blending their usual Krauty psychedelia with some stoner groove. Delve into the ambitious and brilliantly realised forty-two minute masterstroke below.

  • Album Stream: Sea Pinks – Watercourse

    May 26, 2017 - By 

    Just off the back of the release of their fourth album, Dreaming Tracks, Belfast three-piece Sea Pinks graced the cover of the second issue of our magazine back in November, 2014. Almost three years on, album number six, Watercourse, finds the Neil Brogan-fronted band at the peak of their most ruminative, surf-dappled and jangle-popped best. Striking yet another keen balance between dream and power pop, the album’s ten tracks slot into a half-hour running time – testament, not that it’s necessarily needed, to the refined punch and finesse of the band’s craft to date. Speaking of the album, Brogan said, “The…

  • Album Stream: FIXITY – FIXITY 3

    May 23, 2017 - By 

    Over the last couple of years Cork’s FIXITY have established themselves to be one of the country’s consistently intriguing sonic propositions. Composed and steered by Cork multi-instrumentalist Dan Walsh, the project’s explored in collective improvisation with other individuals three different releases, most recently December’s The Things In The Room. Tied together with masterfully loose conviction, new mini-album FIXITY 3 is is solo-produced album is a sprawling seven-track descent into free-form ambient textures, free jazz tangents and psychedelic colour. Performed and produced by Walsh, it’s a release that, in conjuring the more cosmically-inclined reverberations of Albert Ayler, Jessamine, Tortoise, Klaus Schulze and the Residents, offers…

  • Album Stream: Guilty Optics – Colossal Velocity

    April 20, 2017 - By 

    Dublin-based riffy post-punk trio Guilty Optics have just released their long-awaited debut album, Colossal Velocity, on vinyl & digital download. Recorded at Dublin’s Hellfire Studios with vintage gear by San Diego producer Ben Moore, best known for his work with Hot Snakes, Rocket From The Crypt & Ravi Shankar, the album is a discordant, aggressive burst of noise-rock tinged post-punk by way of the early-to-mid ’90s, à la Drive Like Jehu. Formed in 2008 by Alan Finnerty and Peter Lee as a duo, they played under the name Bend This, Uri Geller, before expanding their lineup and shifting to the band they now are. The album is available through Bandcamp.…

  • Album Premiere: Paddy Mulcahy – The Words She Said

    March 1, 2017 - By 

    In the midst of the blues inflicted by these cold, wet and blustery days, there are few remedies quite like hearing music that emanates warmth and candour. As luck would have it, that is exactly what we are presented with on The Words She Said, the brand new LP from Limerick based neo-classical producer Paddy Mulcahy.  The seven track collection is a venture through ambient soundscapes and deft piano. Combing its expansive synth drones with nimble, dusty melodies, Mulcahy paints an atmosphere that is reposeful and comfortingly dark. Fans of the likes of Nils Frahm, Ólafur Arnalds, Bing & Ruth and Conor Walsh will find a lot to love…

  • Album Stream: REPLETE – Zizek At The Discotheque

    January 6, 2017 - By 

    Released via Minneapolis-based imprint Always Human Tapes, Zizek At The Discotheque is a new, eight-track release by Kilkenny producer Peter Lawlor AKA REPLETE. Doubling up as his first ever physical release, the cassette – featuring some of his strongest material to date – is a compilation of sorts, bringing together older tracks with new material. Stream it below and pick yourself up a copy of the limited run release for next to nothing right here. Zizek At The Discotheque by Replete

  • Album Stream: Ralph Cola – Cosmic Joke

    October 24, 2016 - By 

    Dublin based label Little L Records have released the debut album Cosmic Joke from Coventry based musician Aidan Leather aka Ralph Cola. The LP is an assortment of crisp, jaunty cuts, incorporating into the psyche-pop foundation more jazz, funk and soul tropes and tricks than you could throw your hat at. Tracks like ‘Sundial’ and ‘Are You’ are psychedelic gems to put smiles on the faces of Connan Mockasin fans while ‘Floating’ and ‘Must be Tiring’ lean gleefully into the soul and jazz realm while maintaining the lo-fi pop charm. ‘COMMAND’ is a stand-out interlude, splitting the album down the middle and providing an electronic spin…

  • Album Premiere: So Cow – Lisa Marie Airplane Tour

    September 16, 2016 - By 

    Recorded in the small coastal town of Spiddal in the west of Ireland, Lisa Marie Airplane Tour by Brian Kelly’s So Cow – his fifth full-length under the name to date – features “12 songs about anxiety; written in the midst of it, but before actually being aware it was the issue. OCD thoughts making a bus journey to town increasingly impossible, social anxiety making ordering a pint at the local bar a drawn-out task of Herculean proportions.” While influenced by the likes of Game Theory, The Chills, Nick Lowe and The Soft Boys, the album’s primary impetus is – according to Kelly –…