• Irish Tracks of the Week – 24th February

    It’s been another excellent week for Irish music. Here’s the best singles and albums released over the last seven days, featuring Elaine Malone, David Kitt, Arborist, Mob Wife, The Plastic Ensemble, Pat Lagoon and more. Elaine Malone – Nothing Is Real Arborist – Matisse Mob Wife – The Oil In It The Plastic Ensemble – Light The Spark The Plastic Ensemble · Light The Spark Pat Lagoon – Jungle Cascando – Canyon Music David Kitt – Till The End/Balances Feather Beds – Really Disney Really Disney by Feather Beds Zeropunkt – Bitch Nails Phil Kieran – Atlantic PKR 037 'Atlantic' by…

  • Choice Cuts: The Best Tracks of… June

    June saw the release of a plethora of hard hitting hip-hop and rainy day jazz music, and perhaps more suitably, a wealth of breezy summer jams to dig your teeth into. Below are ten of the month’s best (sifted from a great many more,) culminating in the top three. J Mascis – Every Morning (Sub Pop) No one can deny the impact J Mascis had on rock and punk music in the 80s and 90s, and its nice to see the Dinosaur Jr veteran continuing to release great music. His new track ‘Every Morning’ is a fairly stripped down acoustic…

  • Choice Cuts: The Best Tracks of May

    In the latest installment of Choice Cuts – a feature looking at the very best tracks released in the month previous – Belfast-based writer and voracious sound enthusiast Aaron Hamilton takes us a on an eight-track, cross-genre journey, culminating in his top three tracks of the month. Ben Khan – Youth [Blessed Vice] London producer Ben Khan’s recent EP 1992 sees him furthering his warm funk-pop sounds into even catchier and addictive territory with ‘Youth’. Thick synth pads and squealing guitars moan underneath a stomping beat that will definitely see an abundance of replays in summer 2014.   Little Big League…

  • Choice Cuts: The Best Tracks of… April

    April has certainly been a busy news month – in sports, we had lifetime bans and huge fines for court-side racism, as well as banana throwing (and eating); in entertainment we had Jeremy Clarkson, mostly just being Jeremy Clarkson; in politics we had a series of PR meltdowns for UKIP, many of them revolving around racism as well. Indeed, intolerance and prejudice has been widespread this month. There was no sparing the music world, either, with both Sky Ferreira and Avril Lavigne being branded racists for their respective music videos. It would be easy to be bogged down by all…