• Irish Tracks of the Week – May 29th

    May 29, 2020 - By 

    How better to reboot our weekly round-up of the very best new Irish music than with tracks by Denise Chaila, Our Krypton Son, Naoise Roo, Brigid Mae Power, Paddy Hanna, Bantum, Just Mustard and more? Delve in below. Denise Chaila – Chaila C H A I L A by Denise Chaila Our Krypton Son – White Sun Our Krypton Son · White Sun Naoise Roo – Sick Girlfriend Just Mustard – October (Live) Sinead White – The World Stops Spinning Song Sung – Telling Tales Havvk w/ Participant – Operate HAVVK · Operate Ft. Participant Brigid Mae Power – Wearing…

  • Watch: Shifting – Spudgasm

    May 27, 2020 - By 

    Post-hardcore noise rock trio Shifting have announced the release of their debut long-player, with a release date of August 24. To accompany the news, they’ve unveiled the first in a line of accompanying videos for debut single ‘Spudgasm’. A triad of highly-respected Dublin heads – also of No Spill Blood, Hands Up Who Wants To Die, amongst others – Shifting are Paul Clynes and brothers Matt & Lewis Hedigan. In line with their other work, and akin to late 80s/early 90s Touch & Go Records, their music is an acerbic blend of gut-wreching yet dynamic repetition, nihilistic cackling, and the unmistakably razorsharp, wiry guitar work. You’d be hard-pressed to…

  • Watch: Song Sung – Telling Tales

    May 27, 2020 - By 

    Monaghan born, Brooklyn-based twin sisters Georgina and Una McGeough aka Song Sung first came to our attention via David Holmes’ stellar Late Night Tales compilation back in 2016. Along with the likes of Belfast drone-pop heroes Documenta, their take on 10cc’s ‘I’m Not In Love’ proved a wonderfully spectral peak from the release. Four years on, the pair are primed to release their debut album, This Ascension Is Ours, on July 3st. Teaming up once more with Holmes – who co-wrote and produced the album with fellow composer and Unloved bandmate Keefus Ciancia – it promises ten tracks of sublime spectral pop from the Irish sister duo. New single ‘Telling Tales’ is…

  • Album Stream: Bleeding Heart Pigeons – Stir

    May 22, 2020 - By 

    While it’s early days yet, Limerick’s Bleeding Heart Pigeons have just made their claim to one of the Irish albums of the year. Arriving four years on from their debut album Is, Stir was written and recorded in a small converted farm-shed in rural West Limerick and finds the threesome in alchemical form. From opener, the sorcerous ‘Bubble Boy’ to closer ‘Good Dogs Never Die’ – a track that doubles up as one of many peaks on display here – it emphatically consolidates the Michael Keating-fronted band’s forward-pushing alt/indie craft down to twelve tracks. Stir by Bleeding Heart Pigeons

  • Premiere: Tuath – I Am But a Poor Man (But I Have Got Cans)

    May 18, 2020 - By 

    In times of duress, it helps to have a mantra to keep things firmly within the realms of perspective. In the case of the North West’s foremost psych-inflected experimental rock band Tuath, “I am a poor man but I have cans” is an incantation so worthy it doubles up as the title of the Robert Mulhern-fronted band’s new single. Taken from their forthcoming mini-album, the singularly-titled The Fuckening, it’s another sorcerous dose of spaced-out exploration from the Donegal band. Featuring Sega Megadrive MIDI exploits and more, it makes for a suitably shapeshifting effort across three minutes. Have a first look at Kieran Devlin’s video…

  • EP Premiere: Licehead – Friends

    May 19, 2020 - By 

    Paul O’Connor – of That Snaake notoriety – has shared with us his latest release under the Licehead banner, which follows up on last year’s Music For Normal People album, and precedes upcoming summer LP Perfect Death Forever, which is set in a modern Ireland and based around a reincarnated lung’s attempts to kill its host. An aural equivalent to peeling-paint walls-closing-in claustrophobic hysteria, Friends at its extremes recalls the torpid squalor of Fat White Family or The Fall in dada-techno mode. Partly written over the last two months, the EP sees O’Connor turns the pen upon himself and loved ones, and societally-ingrained truths; title track ‘fRENDS’ is itself a reworking of ‘I’ll Be There For You’,…

  • Video Premiere: Hey Jigsaw – Where Do You Wanna Go

    May 14, 2020 - By 

    Hey Jigsaw is the new project from Dublin musician Alan Finnerty – also of punk heroes Guilty Optics – and today, we’re delighted to premiere their first single, taken from their forthcoming debut album Who’s Your Dark Master? Featuring Dave Prendergast on trumpet and Niamh Buckley on backing vocals, ‘Where Do You Wanna Go’ recalls the discordant melodicism of Les Savy Fav or Q And Not U. It’s difficult to avoid every cliche of this trying time, so if you’ll indulge us, the video and song’s unified sense of bittersweet widescreen escapism is exactly what we could be doing with. Watch it below:

  • Album Premiere: Swimmers Jackson – Murmuration

    May 7, 2020 - By 

    Dublin musician Niall Jackson has put the work in. As one-fourth of Dublin indie-rock quartet par excellence Bouts, a pivotal member of London-based Irish punk trio Sweat Threats, and a weaver of first-rate indie-pop in his own right as Swimmers Jackson, he’s never been an artist wanting for motive or inspiration. Tomorrow (Friday, May 8th) sees the release of the long-awaited Swimmers Jackson debut album, Murmurations. From beatific singles ‘Summer’s Here’ and ‘Bliss’ to earworming highlights including ‘Replaceable’ and ‘Pain In The Heart’, Jackson summons a ten-track triumph that runs the gamut from the gossamer, lullaby-like gems to emphatic full-band efforts.…

  • EP Stream: Shammen Delly – The Peoples Temple OV Big Tom

    May 1, 2020 - By 

    Without a doubt our favourite hauntological, psychogeography peddler around, Donegal experimental electronic auteur Aengus Friel, AKA Shammen Delly has released his mythological magnum opus, created in the midst of lockdown. This latest heady, hazy trip-hop-influenced concoction was recorded at his own ‘Red Dunge’, inspired by country & Irish legend Big Tom‘s 70s little-known wilderness years: “This is a vivid reimagined vision of a time when Big Tom and his Mainliners were leaders of ‘The Peoples Temple’ in Monaghan back in the late 70’s and would travel around the country summoning new followers for the sacred dances around stone circles and beaches. His followers…

  • Album Stream: Department of Forever – Flickering Light

    May 1, 2020 - By 

    Last May, we premiered the rapt and immersive ‘A Simulation of Here’ by Irish sound designer and musician Steve Fanagan aka Department of Forever. The closing track from his sublime album, Unseen Pictures, it hit home and then some. One year on, Fanagan’s sublime soundscapes can be heard in Normal People, the TV adaptation of Sally Rooney’s best-selling novel of the same name. New release Flickering Light contains four of those tracks and a couple more. “The original recordings for this release were improvised on a piano one night in late 2018, when I was living in a house share in London, before…