• Watch: Girls Names – Reticence

    November 30, 2015 - By 

    The cover stars of our final magazine issue of 2015, Girls Names have recently returned from yet another successful trek across Europe, touring their seriously accomplished new album, Arms Around a Vision. Aside from a show planned at Belfast’s Black Box on December 19, the Cathal Cully-fronted band will lay low until the New Year before setting off on another European mini-tour, culminating in three Irish dates and SXSW 2016. Tiding us over until then, the band have unveiled the Matthew Reed-directed video for ‘Reticence’, a highlight from their aforementioned third studio album in four years. Mirroring the song’s turbid bent and clanging power,…

  • Premiere: Chris Hanna – B.K.I.T.B

    November 27, 2015 - By 

    Set to feature on Belfast electronic imprint Extended Play’s EP50: STATEMENT OF INTENT – out Monday, November 30 – we’re pleased to premiere ‘B.K.I.T.B’ by Belfast producer Chris Hanna. Standing for ‘Broken Knuckles In The Bunatee’, Hanna said of the track: “‘Broken Knuckles In The Bunatee’ is my nod to the room in the Queens University Student’s Union. It regularly hosts Belfast’s rowdiest nights. When things kick off in the place the low ceiling always takes the brunt of it and I wanted to make something as a tribute to that exact moment. They’ve happened so frequently now they’ve started repairing…

  • Watch: Myles Manley – Slip Into The Sea

    November 30, 2015 - By 

    A nonpareil artist very much operating on his own creative axis, Myles Manley positively inveigled us back in 2012 with his self-titled debut EP. In the three years since, he has maintained that power to intrigue and ensnare with a trickle of releases including mini-album More Songs, released back in February. The latest single to be released from that, the somnambulant ‘Slip Into The Sea’ is both the closer and our personal favourite track from that release, conjuring a submersing netherworld that Manley can lay claim to as czar. Directed, film and edited by Michael Higgins, watch the video for Slip into the Sea and check out upcoming Myles Manley tour dates supporting…

  • Watch: Wizards Of Firetop Mountain – Ain’t Gonna Lose

    November 26, 2015 - By 

    Some bands – and some considerably better than others of their ilk – are well and truly compelled by the riff. Having recently melted the face of your writer supporting Japanese psych gurus Acid Mother’s Temple at Belfast’s Voodoo recently, Dublin rockers Wizards of Firetop Mountain are one such act. Set to launch their self-titled debut album at Dublin’s Bello Bar tomorrow (Friday, November 27) night, the band are comprised of members of some of the city’s finest pioneering underground bands including Zom, No Spill Blood, Dread Soverign and others. At the epicentre of seismic, hat-tipping craft is a combined worship of the…

  • Album stream: Runaway[GO] – Alive

    November 26, 2015 - By 

    Four years and a string of short releases in, Belfast-based duo Dave Jackson and Fiona O’Kane AKA Runaway[GO] have cultivated a carefully considered, wonderfully delivered pop sound that has grown so innately distinctive that the release of their debut album, Alive, feels every week worth the wait. As much about poise and restraint as it is unabashed, nigh on ridiculously infectious melodic bombast, it’s a consistent and solid release (in both senses of the word) for the hotly-tipped twosome. Stream the album via Soundcloud now below.

  • Stream: MMOTHS – Deu

    November 24, 2015 - By 

    Having long been one of the country’s most curious producers – an artist that has always felt right on the cusp of delivering something that little bit special – Jack Colleran AKA MMOTHS first grabbed our attention back in 2013 with his placating Diaries EP, a release full of restraint and cunning ambient power. Two years and a handful of impressive outings later, the Kildare artist has us smitten all over again with ‘Deu’, a warm, bewitching slice of electronica, taken from his forthcoming LP, Luneworks. Most definitely one for fans of Ulrich Schnauss, Baths and Boards of Canada, stream the track via…

  • King Kong Company @ Roisin Dubh, Galway

    November 24, 2015 - By 

    There is no use in disputing the claim that Waterford’s King Kong Company are one of, if not the, best live act in the country now. In the past couple of years, since their grand comeback after several years off the radar, the five piece band plus dancer Trish Murphy have been crowned as lords of the summer festival, playing almost every one in the country this summer including three sets at Body and Soul. This unyielding capacity that the act have honed in the festival scenario makes it so that the exact same feeling is impossible to avoid at…

  • Premiere: VerseChorusVerse & David Lyttle – Have Some Soul

    November 24, 2015 - By 

    Sticking to your guns and carving out your own path has many payoffs, least of all when it’s rewarded with some much-warranted recognition. Released via Lyte Records on Friday, Say & Do by North Coast singer-songwriter/ex-And So I Watch You From Afar guitarist Tony Wright AKA VerseChorusVerse and jazz maestro/drummer extraordinaire David Lyttle is a wonderfully instinctive and stripped-back collaboration that has seen the pair climb the charts this week, namely currently at 24 in the UK singer-songwriter charts, 28 in the UK new releases and no. 19 in the Irish charts. In an age when of varyingly soul-destroying, blitzkrieg-like PR campaigns, the duo’s…

  • SXSW 2016: Irish Act Round-Up

    November 19, 2015 - By 

    Since its founding in 1987, Austin Texas’ South by South West (SXSW) has been progressively becoming one of the most important platforms for aspiring international artists in the realms of music, film, art and interactive media. In recent years especially it has served as an ideal medium through which Irish musicians and bands have been able to create stages and opportunities for themselves overseas and to perform to a wider audience. Last year saw acts like Girl Band, SOAK, All Tvvins, James Vincent McMorrow and Meltybrains?  benefiting considerably from the work they put in during their time at the citywide festival,…

  • Stream: Vogelbat – Miw (feat. Sad Mermaid)

    November 18, 2015 - By 

    Evoking the likes of Arca and FKA Twigs in equal measure, Berlin-based Kilkenny producer David Sheenan AKA Vogelbat has unveiled a brilliantly burrowing new track, ‘Miw’. Featuring masterfully warped vocals courtesy of singer-songwriter Sad Mermaid – also based in the German capital – it serves as a strong introduction for newcomers to Sheenan’s aesthetic, in which “100% of [his] music created on a laptop with no external MIDI plugins, solid state synths or traditional instruments (as they “all reside [back] in Ireland”). Stream the track via Soundcloud below.