• Album Premiere: Arthur Itis – Neglected Ambient Shirts Vol. II

    July 20, 2022 - By 

    Six years on from Neglected Ambient Shirts Volume 1, and an incalculable amount of transmogrifications later, Arthur Itis is back with the sequel, and sure enough, it’s another belter. Following the glitchy experimental pop of Occam’s Razor and intimate analog hiss of acoustic collection Longhand, it’s his third LP in about 8 months. Recording took place across the last five years, and ahead of its release tomorrow, we’re delighted to reveal it in its entirety today. Another curveball in a career full of them, its downtempo experimentations reveal the one constant across Arty’s not-insignificant body of work: a resolute willingness to document and push his own creative and personal…

  • Compilation Premiere: The Space Between – First

    December 16, 2020 - By 

    Something you might have noticed from our end-of-year lists is that one of the biggest trends of 2020’s imposed isolation has been the willingness of Irish artists to to come together remotely. Be it for a cause or for the sake of maintaining some sense of artistic worth, or simply born out of malaise – it’s that which comes out of the undergrowth that generally leads to the most fascinating results, and indeed, this year has landed us with a wealth of phenomenal compilations and collaborations across the island, giving a pre-built sense of community when things get back to normality. Today, we’re pleased to give you a first…

  • Monday Mixtape: Son Zept

    October 19, 2020 - By 

    Recently championed and playlisted by the likes of by ourselves, The Quietus, DJ Mag and leftfield DJ par excellence Avalon Emerson, “Northern Ireland’s resident electronic compositional polymath” Liam McCartan, AKA Son Zept has just released his second mini-album of 2020, B. Today, he gives us an uncharacteristically abridged mixtape of some current favourite tracks. I tried to keep this as just a stream of thought and not cram in stuff that I’d end rambling about daft things like cheeky hauntological anti-memory sound (*ahem*). Excluded tunes from Aphex Twin + Aphex covers, Mal Waldron, Oneohtrix Point Never, Eprom, Lyra Pramuk, Pinch & Mumdance, Holly Herndon, Chassol,…

  • Album Stream: Mark Waldron-Hyden – Stream Segregation

    July 30, 2019 - By 

    Last month, we premiered the cavernous somnambulance of first single, ‘Did You Hide’, and today, founder of Cork-based label Sunshine Cult, and psychgaze act The Sunshine Factory, Mark Waldron-Hyden has released the debut album under his own name. Titled Stream Segregation, and out through his own label, the LP’s source material is a blend of field recording, acoustic instrumentation, synths and tape machines, and was written, recorded & produced by Waldron-Hyden. Its name came from a psychoacoustic phenomenon “in which a sequence of sounds is perceived as more than one auditory stream, each arising from a distinct acoustic source in the environment”. Mark goes on: “That’s what I wanted…

  • Stream: Zeropunkt – Bitch Nails

    February 26, 2019 - By 

    Long one of our favourites in the (admittedly bereft) Irish free psychedelic improvised scene, Dublin-based outfit ¡NO! have announced a name change to the substantially more Googlable Zeropunkt, and with it have issued standalone single, ‘Bitch Nails’, available as a free download. On the name change, the band are self-awarely oblique: “The 0ught of N0ught is the point of zer0. NO. N. 0. The zer0 Number. The p0iNt. Zeropunkt.” Following a quiet 2018 for the generally prolific – 10 albums since 2014 – outfit, this single comes with the announcement of two forthcoming LPs, Clap Your Hands Say No and Open War, as well as the announcement of…

  • Hilary Woods – Colt

    April 25, 2018 - By 

    Some artists are just destined to wind up on certain rosters. One such act is Dublin’s Hilary Woods, an artist whose solo craft we’ve followed with a certain glee over the last couple of years. On June 8, the musician, ex-JJ72 member and multi-instrumentalist will release her debut full-length album, Colt, via Brooklyn’s Sacred Bones, an indie imprint whose discerning (and, so far, pretty impeccable) penchant for repping acts such as Zola Jesus, Jenny Hval, David Lynch, John Carpenter, Blanck Mass and Marissa Nadler runs directly parallel with Woods’ very own crepuscular craft. Her minimal composition & otherwordly layered atmospherics follow two acclaimed EPs and recent scoring of a horror film for IFI’s Weimar…

  • ¡NO! – Sediments

    October 9, 2017 - By 

    Dublin experimental project ¡NO! have been steadily drip-feeding us their improvised limited edition CDs and cassettes gradually over the last three years, as well as their regular Concrete Soup nights, which feature live collaborations with internationally-renowned artists. Their tenth release in that time is Sediments, released through Little Gem Records. In the same way the late ’60s & early ’70s led Berliners to fluctuate between their own interpretations of psychedelia, jazz & blues, and making experimental, deeply ambient electronic without pause to consider genre restraints and pay heed primarily to creative impulse -leading to the movement known broadly as krautrock, ¡NO! have paid similar heed to expectation and convention. Although…

  • Stream: El Grey – My Names A, Your Names Zed

    April 20, 2016 - By 

    Well this is pretty mind blowing – Bray-based singer-songwriter project El Grey has released an 18-minute stream-of-consciousness odyssey. Despite being known to be one for creating atmospheric pop soundscapes, cinematic in scope, her ambition had never reached heights of magnitude until ‘My Names A, Your Names Zed’ – available to purchase on Bandcamp. The recording was completed with no pre-production or strict composition in place beforehand, and was recorded live in one take. Much like El Grey’s process in writing – alternatively: channelling – the song, it’s one to sit back and let happen to you, as it accomplishes that feat of tapping into something deeper entirely. It’s…

  • Ken Camden – Dream Memory

    July 9, 2015 - By 

    You know, Ken Camden, from Lahndan Tahn? Bit of a spiv, sells knockoff jeans and bootleg t-shirts. Once did CDs n’all, but no one cares ‘bout them no more. No wait, that’s Camden Ken. Better instead to concentrate on the name of the album. Dream Memory as a title, along with the striking artwork, does a much better job of setting the scene for what can be heard inside. However, positioning his listener in a suggestible other-worldly location with a couple of words and a picture only partially paves the way for just how exquisite the next 45 minutes of their life might…

  • Stream: Naoise Roo – For You

    March 9, 2015 - By 

    Alternative singer-songwriter Naoise Roo unveiled yesterday – International Women’s Day – ‘For You’, the darkly atmospheric new single to be taken from her upcoming debut album, Lilith. Having debuted only last summer with powerful alt. rock free-download single, ‘Oh Son‘, Roo’s fire has lit up the local scene impressively quickly, with Lilith set for release on April 27 through Irish alternative & experimental label Little L Records. With only the layered-yet-stripped sound of ‘For You’ to go by, the album’s genre-spanning promises of ambient electronica, indie rock and burlesque could well show Lilith to be one of the great Irish breakthrough albums of 2015. Certainly this early on, her output is…