• Stream: Solar Bears – Gravity Calling

    March 2, 2016 - By 

    This time last month we were rather giddily raving about Solar Bears‘ ‘Wild Flowers’, a track we said seen the Dublin duo “as prismatic and sorcerous as ever”. Very much following in that vein, ‘Gravity Calling’ is the latest track to be streamed from their forthcoming third album, Advancement, which drops via Sunday Best Recordings on March 18. Inducing yet another neon-lit netherworld of lambent retro-futurism, it’s a superbly synth-driven, soundtrack-like four minutes of flawless mastery from the twosome. Solar Bears play Belfast’s Lavery’s on Friday, March 18. Pre-order Advancement here.

  • Watch: New Secret Weapon – You’re Still Losing (Live)

    March 1, 2016 - By 

    Few Irish alt-rock bands command their own sound quite as convincingly as Dublin’s New Secret Weapon. Counting The Fear, The Late Late Show and OJ Simpson as their many influences on their Facebook page, the David Griffin-fronted trio have unveiled a live version of ‘You’re Still Losing’, a riff-fuelled, multi-part ode to the interminable, Sisyphean strife of The Everyday. Evoking everything from Jeff Buckley’s more tenacious efforts to the backwashed urban doom of Enablers and Incubus’ earlier, more emphatic material. Created by Scan and recorded by Deaf Bros, watch the video below.

  • Watch: Bad Bones – Games

    March 1, 2016 - By 

    Set to play the next installment of Psykick Dancehall – our new night with Medium presents at Dublin’s Bello Bar – Dublin producer Sal Stapleton AKA Bad Bones released her shadowy, wonderfully cloistered first gambit last month in the form of ‘Beg’. Going one better, her new single ‘Games’ is a delicious slice of darkly electronica weaving perfectly-spliced beats, bobbing bass and modulated vocals in a fine, cimmerian mesh of noise. Check out the video for ‘Games’ – also created by Stapleton – below.  

  • Ciara O’Neill – The Ebony Trail

    March 1, 2016 - By 

    The modern folk music scene is all too often seen as the playground of minimal imagination. In recent years it has divided opinion more than most and rightfully so, suffering as it does from sub-par input with lazy, introspective lyrics and generic instrumentation. Such is the dilution of the genre, it takes something special to stand out and demand attention. Ciara O’Neill’s album, The Ebony Trail is a largely sparkling piece of work with inventive themes, ideas and directions yet it is also an album which occasionally fails to match its own high standards. Ciara takes a worn out trope and twists it into something…

  • EP Premiere: Bouts – Unlearn

    February 29, 2016 - By 

    Self-described as a “pop-grunge noise rock band with an inherent, unashamed attachment to big pop hooks” Dublin indie rock quartet Bouts have well and truly lived up to that explication over the last few years. Having fully arrived with their stupendous debut album Nothing Good Gets Away back in 2013, today marks the release of a five-track EP that sees their craft as downright convincing as ever, in spite of two members living overseas. Recorded at various points in 2015, at no point during the process where all members present together – a fact that both underlines the studio efforts of John Murphy and Shane…

  • Stream: Extra Fox – Lunar Float

    February 26, 2016 - By 

    Having premiered his subtly euphoric single ‘Palm of Gold’ back in November (stream it here) Dublin’s Neil Adams AKA Extra Fox has returned with nigh on onomatopoeic new track, ‘Lunar Float’. A drifting, typically synth-driven effort full of mellow restraint, it induces a netherworld of loose, burrowing oblivion over three and a half minutes. Stream/download ‘Lunar Float’ via Soundcloud below.

  • Daithi – Tribes EP

    February 25, 2016 - By 

    With each passing release in the past couple of years, Galway based electronic producer Daithi has showcased a gradual but very definite increase in competency, confidence and determination in the music he is making; overtly melodic and bubbly electronica that has never failed at being colourful. The fault with his releases up to this point however always seemed to lie in his reliance on letting the equipment claim almost total ownership of the music. While the tracks were always evidently loaded with talent and careful construction, there was often too much of a feeling that the artist was clamouring for…

  • Watch: Ryan Vail – Wounds

    February 24, 2016 - By 

    Dropped when we were at crazy peak deadline for the latest issue of our magazine three weeks ago, we’ve been all but waking up in cold sweats in the middle of the night, terribly shame-ridden and sunken of pallor having missed the chance to share our thoughts on ‘Wounds’ by Derry’s Ryan Vail. Set to release his long-awaited debut album, For Every Silence, this Spring, Vail’s balmy, synth-laden electronica has long ensured his rightful ranking as one of our favourite Irish acts; each release betraying a confidence and command of his craft that always hinted at something sensational in the making. Essentially confirming that fact, ‘Wounds’ is classic Vail but with…

  • Stream: My Tribe Your Tribe – Garden Song

    February 23, 2016 - By 

    Having released one of the best Irish tracks of 2015 in ‘Will To Survive‘, Kildare trio My Tribe Your Tribe have returned with the daydreaming indie-pop of ‘Garden Song’. Once again tapping into some wonderfully subtle melodic glory, it’s a curiously abstracted, typically infectious effort from the fast-rising George Mercer-fronted threesome. MTYT play the following Irish dates in February and March: February 26: Sin É, Dublin March 3: Monroes, Galway March 12: The Village Pump, Rathangan, Kildare March 13: Crane Lane Theatre, Cork ‘Garden Song’ is the first track to be taken from My Tribe Your Tribe’s forthcoming four-track debut EP, which is set for release in…

  • EP Premiere: The Natural History Museum – Manmade

    February 22, 2016 - By 

    Following quick on the heels of their well-received debut LP, Attenborough, Dublin duo The Natural History Museum are all about momentum on their stellar new five-track EP, Manmade. Comprised of vocalist/writer Carol Keogh of The Tycho Brahe/The Plague Monkeys and producer/composter Dunk Murphy of Sunken Foal and Planet-Mu’s Ambulance, the duo’s pastoral compositions brood and placate in brilliantly musing unison. From lo-fi, funk-inflected opener ‘Jeweller’ to Kate Bush-esque closer ‘Little March Girl’, it’s an all-killer, immersive release that doubles up as a clear statement of intent. Stream our premiere of Manmade below and purchase your copy (out not on Countersunk) here. Manmade…