• Video Premiere: Post Punk Podge & The Technohippies – Heavenly Tones

    June 19, 2019 - By 

    It’s been quite a year so far for Podge. More than delivering on the 19 For ’19 tip we gave him at the start of the year, he’s released a string of singles, made his first English appearances, and is set to play some of the biggest shows of his career to date in the next fortnight. Today, he unveils the video for last month’s single ‘Heavenly Tones’. The video, filmed by DJ Jurassic Park Two and Gavin Lyons, plays out as an HB ice cream-sponsored, ‘Visit Bundoran’ campaign, with a sun-kissed 90s Balearic house beat – feat. late-period Thom Yorke – fit for the optimistic, grey “Bord Failte advert…

  • Preview: Robocobra Quartet & Meltybrains? @ Black Box, Belfast

    May 6, 2019 - By 

    Two of the island’s most unclassifiable and artistically uncompromising – not to mention finest live acts – are set to play a double-headliner at Belfast’s Black Box on Friday, May 17 in what looks to be a contender for Irish Gig Of The Year. Proudly co-presented by Moving On Music and yours truly, it’s the first hometown headline show of the year for Robocobra Quartet, and the first Northern show in years for experimental  Meltybrains?. Perpetually a band of contradictions, we’ve long been one of Robocobra Quartet’s most ardent voices of praise. Their string of EPs and NI Music Prize-nominated pair of LPs – 2016 debut Music For All Occasions and Plays…

  • Video Premiere: Fears – Fabric

    April 19, 2019 - By 

    A few weeks back, we described ‘Fabric’, the latest single from minimalist electronic pop artist Fears, as “an unfurling, self-produced tale of entanglement and escape that finds the Belfast/Dublin musician and producer at her most emphatic to date”. It’s the first collaboration of the year for Constance Keane, who continues down the audio-visual path with the same complete level of authorship that led to support vision justifiably supported by Moving On Music’s – NI’s foremost exponents of culturally vital music – Emerging Artist Programme. The visual component to ‘Fabric’ was directed by Daniel Butler, who had this to say of their partnership on the short film: “The idea came from a…

  • Arthuritis – I’m Great

    November 23, 2018 - By 

    Pan-dimensional (Cork) experimental electronic artist Arthuritis is set to release his sprawling fourth album, I’m Great through KantCope on tape & digitally next week via Bandcamp. Following up on the supremely-titled Neglected Ambient Shirts Vol. 1 and The Worst Of, alongside Arvo Party II, it’s as texturally-rich an Irish album we’ve heard this year. It’s presentation belies the presence of a real vibe here, and like that artist, it deserves to be taken much more seriously than its name & presentation suggests. In Arthur’s own words, it’s “a collection threaded together by themes of confusion and isolation”. An eclectic collection, and an internalised world in itself, where…

  • If I Couldn’t Define it, I Thought I Was Doing Something Good: Introducing Son Zept

    November 7, 2018 - By 

    A couple of weeks ago, we premiered Son Zept‘s 40-minute debut EP, released through Belfast experimental electronic imprint Resist. Ahead of it, we met with Liam McCartan to discuss his involvement in Belfast’s Sonic Arts Research Centre – where he’s currently composing for a PhD – and Resist, where he’s been instrumental in its growth from club night to label, alongside founders Koichi Samuels & Helena Hamilton – where in terms of enabling his prolificity, “it’s a constant dialogue – we already have a 2 or 3 EPs idea”. Being staunchly individual, but instrinsically linked to both institutions, the Q2B EP strikes a midpoint between the bodies he’s most involved with and McCartan…

  • EP Premiere: Son Zept – Q2B

    October 19, 2018 - By 

    Liam McCartan, AKA Son Zept, releases his debut today, and it’s one of the most exciting, forward-thinking electronic releases to emerge from here in some time. Parallels could be drawn with the likes of Autechre or Aphex Twin from an experimental standpoint, as his Q2B EP reveals McCartan as a true polymath, where concern with ideology is tantamount to creating limitless club potential. Brimming with atmosphere punctuated by his dense ‘polypatternism’, the Q2B EP is a work of deconstructed club music that alludes to the memory-triggering aspects of techno, noise, trance, power-ambient and industrial, often falling into umbrella of electroacoustic composition. We’ll have a full interview with Son Zept in the coming…

  • Stream: Hiva Oa – Souvenir

    September 25, 2018 - By 

    Blending electronic complexity with their unique strand of primal noise, one of Belfast’s most engaging live & recorded propositions over the last three years, Hiva Oa, have released new single ‘Souvenir’. It’s experimental, but far from inaccessible. Anchored by its bassline, driven by a Detroit hi-hat-led narrative, its crepuscular groove is that of someone dancing in isolation in a long-abandoned post-industrial dystopia, reluctantly alone. With cover art by Helen Tubridy, the trio – Stephen Houlihan, Christine Tubridy & Chris McCorry, with help from Edinburgh’s Matthew Collings and Daithi McNabb –  mangle fragmented guitar & synthesised textures with borderline glossolalic vocals on the track, contrasting space and claustrophobia – as is…

  • Apartment [Eleven] – Apartment & Sunday Times

    August 6, 2018 - By 

    Dublin electronic label Apartment Records is set to put out its eleventh release on August 13th. A compilation EP, its four tracks are contributions from the ranks of revered Cork-based party-planners, Sunday Times. The tracklisting is as follows: A1: TR One – Afrodiscobeatdown A2: Colm K – Hey B1: Colm K – Rays B2: Static. – Fallen Sky Sunday Times is a monthly all-day party on the cusp of celebrating its ninth birthday. Comprised of DJs Dean Feeney (sometime member of TR One alongside Eddie Reynolds), Colm K (All City / R2 / Bastard Jazz / NTS), John Hennessy (Static.) and Barry Walsh, their parties have become not only a local institute but…

  • Stream: Psank – Ataxia

    July 11, 2018 - By 

    We’re big fans of Feather Beds here at TTA. Now, the project’s Michael Orange has started something completely different in the form of Psank. Teaming up with Adam Browne AKA Plaice, the Dublin based duo delve further into the electronic landscape than either of them have before in this new project. Have played together previously in Autumn Owls, the pair are well used to working together and it shows in their debut EP Fabric which finds them branching into explorative ambience and melancholic dancefloor territory. While Orange has ventured into this kind of territory before with his superb Feather Beds releases, with Psank he and Browne explore even…

  • Open Ear Festival Announces Stage Times

    May 28, 2018 - By 

    One of the most unique and diverse festivals in Ireland, set in the beautiful off-coast sanctuary of Sherkin Island, Open Ear Festival holds its third annual outing from May 31-June 3, and times have just been announced. From avant-garde sound design and ambient music to experimental dance music and groovy electronics, it is a festival that champions the best of the best in the Irish undergrowth. As a festival of forward-thinking musical technologists, it’s nigh-on-peerless in Ireland right now. This year, the Thursday includes an opening concert featuring Dream Cycles, electroacoustic artist Roger Doyle and organist & drone artist Aine O’Dwyer in a hidden location on…