• Monday Mixtape: John Francis Flynn

    July 27, 2020 - By 

    In the latest instalment of Monday Mixtape, experimental Dublin folk singer John Francis Flynn – who you may have caught on the wonderful inaugural episode of Live From Guerrilla Studios – takes us through some of his favourite recent musical finds, across a wealth of traditional and avant-garde sounds. It’s the year 2020. I’m on a train wearing a mask. Time has been moving very fast recently, and very very slowly. I’m going to Mayo to be alone. I will climb a mountain, swim in the sea and work on some music. When I come back to Dublin I will finish recording my first album…

  • Video Premiere: Shrug Life – Last Gasp Of Summer

    July 24, 2020 - By 

    A timely arrival to cushion the blow of a festival-free summer, perennial TTA favourites Shrug Life are back with the video for new single ‘Last Gasp of Summer’. The track is taken from Shrug Life’s excellent, Daniel Fox-produced second LP Maybe You’re The Punchline which came out in April, available on 12″ vinyl through Bandcamp. Typical of their vision of a DEVO-meets-Thin Lizzy world, it’s a razor-sharp incision into minutia of the make some noise Irish experience, and festival fatigue that starts to set in as one’s twenties edges closer to the finishing line, without ever straying into ‘yells at cloud’ territory. Filmed partly at Arcadian Field Festival 2019, and featuring…

  • Irish Tracks of the Week – July 24th

    July 24, 2020 - By 

    From Kyoto Love Hotel, JyellowL and Uly, to Brién, Sinead O’Brien and Shifting, here’s the very best Irish tracks released this week. Kyoto Love Hotel – Machine Brién – At Night DIY VOL. 1 by Brién Shifting – The Bland Leading the Bland Sorcha Richardson – Don’t Talk About It JyellowL – Doesn’t Feel Like Uly – i don’t need to understand Sinead O’Brien – Strangers In Danger Kilgour – Corners Aislinn Logan – Look, I’m Flyin’

  • Video Premiere: Shifting – The Bland Leading the Bland

    July 21, 2020 - By 

    A month ahead of the release of what will surely be one of Ireland’s essential punk records of 2020, Shifting have just shared with us the video for ‘The Bland Leading the Bland’. An ideal introduction to the trio, who formed in 2016, and include members of No Spill Blood & Hands Up Who Wants To Die, amongst other noisemakers par excellence. The video a sub-ninety second microcosm of their repetitious, yet spontaneous dissonance, and squalid, darkly comic worldview, conjuring everything  from Unwound to Death Grips. The second in a series of videos to accompany their debut LP, it chronicles the time Matt ‘Uncle Dad’ Hedigan…

  • Irish Tracks of the Week – July 17th

    July 17, 2020 - By 

    See in the weekend with the very best Irish tracks released this week, from Silverbacks, Nealo & Uly, to Swimmers Jackson God Knows featuring BONY & MuRli. God Knows (feat. BONY & MuRli) – We Move The Needle Who’s Asking? II EP by God Knows Nealo & Uly – You Can’t Go Home Again Silverbacks – Drink It Down Fad by Silverbacks Swimmers Jackson – Birthday Girl Bitch Falcon – Gaslight The Zang – Football Sundays Comrade Hat – Summer of Glove

  • The Kino in Cork Set To Reopen With The Mary Wallopers, Junior Brother and More

    July 13, 2020 - By 

    The Kino is the latest Irish music venue set to re-open following lockdown. As well as reopening its café from 8pm Monday, July 20th, the Cork venue will host its first live event on Friday, July 24th. Ahead of further gig announcements in the coming weeks, the line-up for the July 24th show will feature The Tan Jackets‘ Rock and Roll Revue Show. Elsewhere, Junior Brother plays the venue on Saturday, July 25th, and Dundalk’s finest The Mary Wallopers will play a two-night stint on July 31st and August 1st. This show will be broadcast live via a multi-camera set-up.  And for the…

  • Premiere: Comrade Hat – Summer of Glove

    July 14, 2020 - By 

    Derry’s resident lounge-lizard/experimental pop savant Neil Burns, AKA Comrade Hat returns today with a slinking, sun-kissed, seven minute porta-epic. A marriage of craft and intuition, journeying through louche tropicalia, psych and jazz-pop, it’s taken from his forthcoming two-volume compilation, Old Gods.  Written during an isolation-necessitated creative spree as progress on his studio album went on pause, ‘Summer of Glove’ sees an emergence of a more guitar-led, full band sound as opposed to Comrade Hat’s factory setting as bedroom producer. Burns spoke to us on the development of his forthcoming two albums, named for their spontaneous birth in fairly mysterious circumstances: “Maybe I was channeling the cautious optimism of…

  • Irish Tracks of the Week – July 10th

    July 10, 2020 - By 

    From The Bonk, Wyvern Lingo, Jehnova and Elaine Mai, to CATALAN!, luthorist, Brién and Gemma Bradley, here’s the very best Irish songs released this week, all in one place. Wyvern Lingo – Don’t Say It The Bonk – Fool Me Twice CATALAN! – Roussillon Serenade Brién – Sundriede Sundried by Brién Jehnova – All In Elaine Mai – Somewhere Else Gemma Dunleavy – Stop The Lights luthorist – kxflip Our Krypton Son – Arbor Bird Vivid Dreamer – This Is Not Living Gemma Bradley – Obsessed

  • “While injustice persists, we won’t shut up.” The Fight Is Not Over – Here’s Why

    July 9, 2020 - By 

    Out today via Belfast imprint Third Bar, The Fight Is Not Over is a fist-clenched snapshot of a scene of artists that insist upon making their voices – and music – heard. Kristen Sinclair gets the full lowdown on the four-track live EP from Problem Patterns, Strange New Places, Sister Ghost and Gender Chores, and digs deep to trace the trajectory of a movement that has no intentions to slow down any time soon. EP artwork by Jacky Sheridan Buy The Fight Is Not Over on 12″ vinyl here. ‘The Fight Is Not Over’ reads the slogan emblazoned across the jackets…

  • Stream: The Bonk – Songs For The Mean Time Vol. 1

    July 8, 2020 - By 

    Ahead of featuring on the first episode of Live at Guerrilla Studios tomorrow night, The Bonk have gifted us a new, typically superb EP, Songs For The Mean Time Vol. 1. Three songs “about good and bad sense,” the release finds the Phil Christie-fronted collective further distil their perfectly unpigeonholeable craft down to eight odd minutes of experimental song. Though it’s never been in doubt, The Bonk’s rep as one of the country’s most forward-pushing acts has just been doubly underscored. Delve in deep below. Songs For The Mean Time Vol. 1 by The Bonk