• The Story Of An Artist: In Memory Of Daniel Johnson

    September 13, 2019 - By 

    On Tuesday, 10th September, 2019, cult singer songwriter and outsider art iconoclast Daniel Johnston passed away at the age of 58 due to a heart attack at his home in Waller, Texas. The singer was best known for his 1983 album Hi, How Are You?, which he recorded alone, on a cassette recorder. The album has gained cult status since it’s release and has been cited by many important musicians (perhaps most notably Kurt Cobain) as being of major influence. In fact, Daniel Johnston has been a major influence on many different people. To some he was something of a…

  • Premiere: Nix Moon – Ceremony

    May 9, 2019 - By 

    Progressive folk meddlers Nix Moon are a more esoterically-inclined proposition than most of their peers. With new single ‘Ceremony’, that compositional ambition is present from the onset. Building from a foundation of exploratory, Eastern-tinged drone, they’ve managed sculpt a darkly layered, progressive piece that’s not tonally dissimilar to the Hail To The Thief or A Moon Shaped Pool-era Radiohead. Their trademark indigenous & mythological allegories point to that sense of otherworldly earthiness – think Jeff Buckley’s more heavy, ethereal work by way of experimental 70s psych pop masters The Pretty Things. This release bodes well for the forthcoming release of the band’s debut album later in the year, recorded in Grouse Lodge…

  • Buntús Rince: Explorations in Irish Jazz, Fusion & Folk 1969-81

    May 2, 2019 - By 

    Indie-punk wunderkinder Fontaines DC drew the ire of many an Irish music fan lately with the neophile claim that until Girl Band’s emergence, “the only way to sound Irish was to be fuckin’ ‘diddly-diddly-aye’”. Perhaps that statement is more telling of the limitations in Ireland on exposure to genuinely forward-thinking music on a grassroots level as it is of the band’s attitude. On an island the size of our own, there does tend to be room only for that lucky few in the bylines of the Great Irish Narrative, but that overlooks the communities of troubadours, session players and ubiquitous…

  • Participant shares sprawling and atmospheric folk single ‘Medicine’: Listen

    February 27, 2019 - By 

    Dublin’s Participant has shared the second single from his forthcoming Modern Retelling EP. ‘Medicine’ is yet another intimate and atmospheric cut from songwriter and multi-instrumentalist – real name Stephen Tiernan – following October’s stirring and string-laden folk number ‘Coast’. Sadly fitting that the patiently emerging artist would release this track this week, just days after news broke that Talk Talk’s visionary Mark Hollis had passed away aged 64. ‘Medicine’ holds a similar ambience and gentle pace to much of the band’s latter day work, with sparingly plucked guitar and up-close vocal delivery building slowly toward a sprawling, rich and climactic peak with lush strings and a piano hook…

  • EP Premiere: Porphyry – Wounded, White Light

    October 26, 2018 - By 

    The term folktronica is just a touch reductionist for what the Derry-born, now Berlin-based Porphyry is doing. While in a more superficial sense, he could be described as an outsider Villagers, nothing in Ireland is attempting to achieve what Daryl Martin has with new EP, Wounded, White Light.  We loved his previous, self-described ‘maximalist’ Ursa Minor/Coming Home EP, not least for managing “the unenviable job of being boldly unpigeonholeable as art, and deeply personal, without approaching any level of bloated grandiosity”. Through minimalistic methods, however, the same result has been reached once more, with effortless finesse. Its cleansing, organic, seemingly breathing compositions weave unexpected synth textures into alternately piano & guitar-led freak-folk-meets-Robbie Basho-ian primitivism. Across its four tracks,…

  • Malojian announces Let Your Weirdness Carry You Home Deluxe Edition

    October 3, 2018 - By 

    The latest NI Music Prize-nominated album from Stephen Scullion, aka Malojian is getting a much-deserved deluxe edition. Released through Quiet Arch Records on November 30, it’s his fourth solo album, and his strongest collection of songs to date, injecting the golden era of 60s pop melodicism he’s known for with the perfect power-pop of Teenage Fanclub & Grandaddy, as well as a more experimental, psychedelic edge than we’d seen from him until this point. Recorded in a lighthouse on NI’s Rathlin Island – in contrast to its Steve Albini-recorded predecessor, it features guest performances from a pedigreed cast of collaborators – Teenage Fanclub’s Gerard Love, Beck/R.E.M./Atoms For…

  • Album Premiere: Katie Kim & Crash Ensemble – Salt Interventions

    September 28, 2018 - By 

    Ethereal Waterford drone-folk artist Katie Kim is one of Ireland’s most enchanting auteurs, and prolific collaborators, having worked on projects with Radie Peat, David Kitt, Milosh & The Waterboys over the last few years. She’s set to drop Salt Interventions tomorrow alongside Crash Ensemble, and we’re delighted to be able to bring you an early listen ahead of its release tomorrow. The album was recorded at the Grand Social back in 2017 in a performance of the same name by Guerrilla Studios’ Spud Murphy, with the show being performed at the likes of the Music Town and Body & Soul Festivals. Based around Katie’s Choice Music Prize-nominated debut album Salt, it…

  • Video Premiere: Bróna Keogh – Sea Witch

    September 26, 2018 - By 

    After a busy year of writing and performing, supporting the likes of David Kitt, I Draw Slow & Wyvern Lingo, singer-songwriter Bróna Keogh’s new single ‘Sea Witch’ has arrived. With a vibrant video by Ed Cleary that accentuates the organic quality of her writing, Keogh melds folk with the hopeful wist of 60s pop, measured in its use of diverse acoustic instrumentation and harmony. It was recorded by Michael Hogerzeil & mastered by Eoin Whitfiled. As with the many Irish music festivals she’ll win hearts and weary minds at, ‘Sea Witch’ possesses the ability to restore basic human functions and feelings…

  • Lisa O’Neill Set to Launch Fourth Album at Vicar Street

    September 10, 2018 - By 

    Unquestionably one of the finest folk voices in Ireland, Cavan native Lisa O’Neill, has announced details of her fourth album, Heard A Long Gone Song. Following a sellout show at Quiet Lights Festival in Cork & ahead of upcoming dates in the UK, New Zealand and beyond, the album will come out on October 19, and will be her first release on Rough Trade imprint River Lea Records. To mark its release, it will be launched at Vicar Street on October 27 in a seated performance. Heard A Long Gone Song was co-produced at Blackbox Studios alongside Dave Odlum. Featuring a broad cast of musicians in Cormac Begley, Christophe…

  • EP Premiere: Elaine Malone – Land

    August 29, 2018 - By 

    Ahead of high-profile performances at Electric Picnic & Quiet Lights Festival, the debut EP that Limerick-born, Cork-based singer-songwriter Elaine Malone has been drip-feeding elements of throughout the year is finally here. Vivid stories manage to sidestep the usual potholes of romantic imagery, as Malone strings together a narrative as well as one can across four tracks. Pop moment ‘You’ warbles its way into existence, glaring directly into the once-beating heart of first love, with its honesty cushioned by psychedelic, oneiric arrangements, going onto explore similar, loose threads of humanity. We made some grand statements some months back about about her last single ‘No Blood’, which “musically recalls some of Tim Buckley’s airy jazz…