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

    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…

  • The Model, Sligo’s Art For Blind Curatorial Residency Kicks Off With Arthur Itis and Tuath Show This Saturday

    Sligo contemporary arts centre The Model is set to host a season of music and events curated by one of the finest imprints on the island, Sligo-based music and art collective, Art For Blind. The series – which will include music, film and printmaking – is part of the collective’s residency at The Model over 2021-2022. The first event is set to take place this Saturday, 11th September with two of the most forward-thinking acts in Ireland’s experimental underground. Making their debut in front of Sligo audiences are Cork-based, shapeshifting artist Arthur Itis, and Donegal-based establishment-bothering outfit Tuath, both of whom eschew easy genre classification. The experimental solo project of Arthur Pawsey, Arthur…

  • Premiere: Arthur Itis – Ahead Of The Curve

    Cork-based being Arthur Itis is back with more of his singular brand of esoteric, experimental bedroom-pop. Deconstructing any number of genres and effortlessly reanimating them in his own image in a lineage that traces lines through Beefheart, Devo, Ween and R Stevie Moore, he never fails to lean into the weirdness, even at his most accessible. Taken from his fifth LP, Occam’s Razor, earworming new single ‘Ahead of the Curve’ is no different, as Arthur’s character-inhabiting post-new wave gem marks his finest pop song yet. Set to feature appearances and contributions from Sam Clague, Altered Hours’ Cathal MacGabhann, Pretty Happy’s Abbey Blake, These Are Atoms’ Sara Leslie &…

  • Shammen Delly Set To Kick Off Notions Series With AV Set

    Set to air tomorrow – Friday, May 21st – at 10pm, ‘Northern Tape Lord’ Aengus Friel, aka Shammen Delly is set to bring his hauntological blend of old VHS tapes, found-footage, reel-to-reel tape loop manipulation, ambience, trip-hop & electronic music to the very first edition of new live series Notions, broadcast from Letterkenny’s Regional Cultural Centre. The Notions series is set to feature everything from alt. rock to jazz, and aims to shine a light on Donegal artists currently pushing the boundaries in their fields to make a singular imprint on music in Ireland. Shammen Delly released his eponymous debut album in 2013, which has…

  • Stream: The Disco Participation Matrix – High Rise [Kevin Blake Remix]

    Taking the DIY ethos into the 21st century are The Disco Participation Matrix, whose singular blend of molten electronics, punk and drone fuse together into what they describe as ‘party drone’. Their excellent Guerrilla Sounds-recorded debut EP, Rave Gravely came out in early 2020, recalling the driving, jolting, dissonant likes of No Spill Blood and Sex Swing. With its release, the band made the unique step of releasing their Elektron synth project files on GitHub as open source, and made stems available on FreeSound.org. The band asked some of their favourite Irish electronic artists to produce remixes with the stems, and The Person, Spectac and Molotov Ape had so far produced tunes. Today, the…

  • Inbound: SORBET

    Over the last few years, you might have spotted Chris Ryan’s name on the credits of any number of Ireland’s most essential musical releases, in just about any capacity. Producer of work alongside the likes of Just Mustard, Careerist & the rising NewDad, and the beating heart of jazz-punk ensemble Robocobra Quartet – most recently namechecked on The Guardian in the same breath as Slint & Tortoise as an influence on ‘post-genre’ outfit Black Country, New Road. Last year, under the SORBET pseudonym, he released the Life Variations EP via Bureau B – home of experimental & electronic pioneers like Faust & Cluster – and…

  • Video Premiere: Arthuritis – My Ass, Around The World

    Cork’s answer to Sun Araw, R Stevie Moore and Ween all at once, Arthuritis straddles the brow of art at its most extreme ends. Perhaps the finest example yet of this is his latest single, the electronic wonk-pop of the rather literal ‘My Ass, Around The World’, self-produced on a four track. “I’ve been really enjoying working with tape”, he tells us. “Once it’s recorded, that’s it. If you make a mistake, it either stays in the song or I record that all over again, I love how confining it is. The ability to endlessly twiddle on a computer sort of takes some of the fun…

  • Stream: This Ship Argo – Hum

    In recent years – and particularly in the last, thanks to Bandcamp – we’ve seen the rise of a wide net of self-produced superlative electronic artists. In the Northern Irish cul de sac, you have the increasingly world-beating Arvo Party, synthwave retromancer Alpha Chrome Yayo, and more recently, Aileen McKenna, AKA This Ship Argo has been cropping up on the radar with her singular brand of experimental electronic pop. At turns earworming, introspective and profoundly moving, TSA strikes a rare midpoint between densely-layered chamber pop, and ruminative minimalism. Her new single ‘Hum’ is out today, accompanied by alternate mixes from Arvo Party & A Cappella, following…

  • Compilation Premiere: The Space Between – First

    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…

  • Video Premiere: Elaine Malone – You [1000 Beasts Remix]

    Back in 2018, Elaine Malone‘s alt. psych-pop ditty ‘You’ was a thrilling introduction to one of TTA’s longstanding favourites, and today we’re pleased to unveil its reimagining by prolific Cork-based producer & multi-instrumentalist 1000 Beasts. Masterfully reframed into an even more warbling, tripped-out slice of lo-fi hip-hop – one of 1000 Beasts’ raisons d’etre – it matches the pull Malone’s trajectory has had toward psychedelic in the past two years. 1000 Beasts told us: “I first discovered ‘You’ way back in 2018, when Elaine first released it ahead of her debut EP Land. It always struck a chord with me so I reached out to Elaine…