• EP Stream: Eoin Dolan – June Hope

    June 9, 2020 - By 

    A master of carefully-crafted throwback pop, Galway’s Eoin Dolan has steadily emerged as one of the country’s most distinct songwriting voices. Off the back of last year’s sublime Commander of Sapiens – Dolan’s third full-length album to date – new EP June Hope is a feat of minimal, psych-inflected indie-pop. Equal parts focused and optimistic, it’s a release that looks to the horizon with a heart full of hope. Speaking about the EP, which he also produced, mixed and mastered, Dolan said, “Winters are fairly dark in the west of Ireland – what keeps you going are thoughts of a fresh spring and the warmth…

  • EP Stream: The Altered Hours – Immediate Believer

    April 7, 2020 - By 

    If you’re au fait with Cork’s finest The Altered Hours, you’ll likely know that Cathal Mac Gabhann and Elaine Howley from the band have been treating fans to some serious lockdown listening parties over the last while. And as luck would have it, the band are keeping busy in other music-orientated ways, too. A brand new “works in progress” EP, Immediate Believer is a perfectly homespun three-track release that finds the band at their most masterfully minimalist to date. Better still, it’s all for a very good cause. “All of the proceeds from the sale of this EP will go directly to the Simon…

  • EP Stream: Perlee – Slow Creature

    March 27, 2020 - By 

    Late last year, we were pleased to host Maija Sofia’s introduction to Saramai Leech and Cormac O’Keefe aka Perlee. An Irish-bred dream-pop duo based in Berlin, the fast-rising duo’s creative process and broader impetus as a recording duo came to the fore in a revealing exchange. Five months on and the pair have officially released their debut EP, the sublime, and suitably slow-burning Slow Creature. Including new single and opener ‘Conditions to Thrive’, it’s singularly elegiac release, melding minimalist alt-pop songwriting with balmy textures and nigh on filmic lyricism. If you’re fond of artists like Mazzy Star, Julee Cruise, Low, Weyes Blood and Portishead at their most restrained, expect…

  • EP Stream: Vivamagnolia – Queen of the Rodeo

    March 27, 2020 - By 

    If there’s one thing we learned from hosting packed-out tributes to U.S. musician Mark Linkous aka Sparklehorse back in 2017 it’s that there is still a sizable audience for brooding, Americana-tinged indie rock here in Ireland. Better still, beyond the likes of Tom McShane, Pixie Saytar, The Mad Dalton and Heliopause (all of whom faithfully covered the music of Linkous as part of the aforesaid tribute ensemble) there are musicians here crafting equally earworming and inward-peering sounds in a similar vein. One such example is Vivamagnolia aka Belfast-based alt-country singer-songwriter Patrick J. Hodgen. Tipping his stetson hat to lo-fi indie luminaries such as Linkous, Bill Callahan, Will…

  • EP Stream: Aul Boy – Making Strange

    February 28, 2020 - By 

    Everyone’s favourite rural slack power-pop escapists, Ramelton’s Aul Boy are back with new EP Making Strange. As ever, the wry quartet, led by Fionn Robinson, runs the gamut from jangle-pop ditties to experimental pocket orchestras [the masterful ‘Buttercup’]. Recorded at Donegal’s Attica Studios by Orri McBrearty, with some wonderful artwork from Daniel McGarrigle, it’s available on digitally & on CD. Aul Boy launch Making Strange tonight at Bennigan’s, Derry, and tomorrow night at Letterkenny’s Swilly Inn. Making Strange by Aul Boy

  • EP Stream: Gender Chores – Womensplain

    May 27, 2019 - By 

    At the heart of Bangor three-piece Gender Chores‘ fuzzed-out punk craft is ardent political consciousness and incisive activist spirit. Staring down and decimating everything from Northern Ireland’s archaic abortion laws, the patriarchy and more, new EP Womensplain is a self-assured and vital statement that, rather than meekly express the desire for change across the board, positively demands it. Stream the EP in full below.

  • EP Stream: Fox Colony – Fragile

    September 11, 2018 - By 

    Launched at Voodoo in Belfast tonight, Fragile is a statement of intent from Belfast quartet Fox Colony. From the fuzzed-out tangents of opener ‘Supermarkets’ to the synth-driven ‘Don’t Keep Me Here’, the EP is every bit as much about hooks as it is heart. In fact, equal parts impassioned and vulnerable, Fragile finds Darren Hill, Aaron Crowther, Aidan Lavery and Daniel Hoadley-Simpson strike an all-too rare happy medium between slick and lo-fi – something FM-friendly ode to bygone times, ‘Fractured’, and the EP’s title track confirm. Recorded and mixed by Rocky O’Reilly at Belfast’s Start Together Studio, and released via…

  • EP Stream: Eoin Dolan – Superior Fiction

    August 28, 2018 - By 

    Released via Galway imprint Citog Records, Galway singer-songwriter Eoin Dolan’s new EP Superior Fiction is a four-track distillation of his yearning, sci-fi-tinged surf pop craft. Steeped in the imagery and atmosphere of a vintage seaside town, it confines within its minutes Dolan’s remarkable knack for marrying heartbreaking melodies and gentle instrumentation with the sadness and beauty of 1960s surf pop. Featuring an animated video created by Galway songsmith David Boland AKA New Pope, the EP’s lead single and title track – a self-proclaimed “ode to truth” marrying breezy, full-band balladry with Dolan’s incisive lyrics – is a perfect case in…

  • EP Stream: The Altered Hours – On My Tongue

    March 9, 2018 - By 

    Two years on from the release of their triumphant debut album, In Heat Not Sorry, Cork five-piece The Altered Hours‘ brand of snaking, crepuscular psych-rock sounds more more singular and vital than ever. Released via Art for Blind/Penske Recordings on 12″ vinyl and digital, the band’s new EP, On My Tongue, is an equal parts murky and prismatic four-track re-affirmation of something we have have always maintained: the Altered Hours are not merely one of the country’s very best bands, they continue to push headlong into a masterfully dazed realm all their very own. Stream the EP in full via Bandcamp below. On My Tongue by…

  • EP Stream: Rebekah Fitch – Broken Mind

    February 23, 2018 - By 

    Launched with a full band show tomorrow night (Saturday, February 24) at the Belfast Barge, Broken Mind by Belfast-based artist Rebekah Fitch is FM-aiming alt-pop brimming with real nuance and heart. Filtering influence from acts including Stevie Nicks, Bjork and Florence and the Machine, Fitch’s sound betrays real attention to detail – not merely in terms of not only songwriting, but also how, lyrically, each song presents its own intricate emotive world. Fleshed out with some sublime production and burrowing hooks, Fitch has said that the songs on the release are united “on the common themes of internal war, mental struggles and cognitive dissonance,…