• Stream: Mantua – Mantua

    October 31, 2019 - By 

    The latest release from experimental Cork tape label Sunshine Cult is Mantua improvised live drone collaboration from accomplished singer-songwriter Elaine Malone (also of improvised group Hex & Land Crabs) and prolific fiddle player Niamh Dalton of Trá Pháidín. Across its two pieces – recorded in Plugd Records, Cork, Malone predominately leads with sepulchral harmonium work, her voice swollen with reverb. From this space, Dalton explores frayed ends with measured portent, attempting to uproot her foundations in traditional Irish & old-time music – and it’s this familiar flavour that makes Mantua’s eponymous debut so beguiling. Like cult collective United Bible Studies, the strength…

  • Watch: Shrug Life – You’re Such a Good Looking Woman

    October 29, 2019 - By 

    It’s true. Indeed, it’s positively ironclad: there is no show like a Joe show, but Shrug Life, we reckon, give him a run for his money. Yes, Dublin’s most incisive and impossibly earworming indie-leaning trio are back with a cover of ‘You’re Such a Good Looking Woman’, the Albert Hammond and Mike Hazlewood-penned song that the one, the only Joseph Francis Robert “Joe” Dolan made his own back in 1970. Now, I know what you’re thinking: on paper, this probably shouldn’t work. But we’re not talking about paper here, are we? No – we are referring, in fact, to the medium of song.…

  • Premiere: Laurie Shaw – Had To Swerve

    October 29, 2019 - By 

    This Thursday, endlessly prolific, Cork-based songwriter Laurie Shaw will release his latest album, Helvetica. The follow-up to the exquisite Weird Weekends (which we premiered last January) the redord, we’re told, “delves deep into the British psyche, taking a poignant and timely look at its history and current society, moving between both fond and satirical tones.” New single ‘Had To Swerve’ edges into more darkly territory. Conjuring a midpoint between Sparklehorse, Department of Eagles and Amnesiac-era Radiohead, it makes for a brilliantly oppressive four-minute burst of scorched vocals and layered, spectral sounds. Have a first look at the Laurie Shaw-directed video for the single, as…

  • Premiere: Eoin Dolan – Sheena

    October 25, 2019 - By 

    Last August, Galway alt-pop maestro Eoin Dolan released easily one of the Irish releases of the year in the form of the sublime Superior Fiction. Over a year on from hailing it a four-track distillation of his yearning, sci-fi-tinged surf pop craft”, we’re very pleased to present a first listen to Dolan’s latest single, ‘Sheena’. Taking from his forthcoming third album, Commander of Sapiens, it’s a trademark carefully-crafted gem from Dolan, woozily blurring the contours of romance, reality and full-blown, spaced-out reverie. Commander of Sapiens is released in association with Citóg Records on Friday, November 22nd and will, we’re told, covers themes such as environmental destruction, mass consumerism and…

  • Watch: Aoife Nessa Frances – Blow Up

    October 22, 2019 - By 

    Co-produced by Cian Nugent, ‘Blow Up’ by Dublin-based artist Aoife Nessa Frances stems from a sonic netherworld inhabited, at different points, by the likes of Nico, Broadcast and Pentangle. Blurring the lines between folk, psychedelia and otherworldly pop, it’s a wonderfully-crafted paean, redolent of bygone times, all while occupying its very own woozy, yet supremely lucid territory. Marrying mellotron, strings and more, the song – which is accompanied by some sublime visuals courtesy of her sister, Anna McCarthy – is taken from Frances’ forthcoming debut album, Land of No Junction. It’s released via Basin Rock on January 17th. Borrowing its title from the…

  • Output Belfast Set For 2020 Return

    October 22, 2019 - By 

    Details of the return of Output Belfast next year have been announced. Ireland’s largest one-day music conference and showcasing event five years running will return to various venues across Belfast on Thursday, February 13th. As ever, as well as various talks and panels in the morning and afternoon, this year’s outing will also feature a music trail-like evening of concerts around the city’s Cathedral Quarter. Line-ups and schedule will be announced in due course. A new addition to next year’s outing is a brand new showcase stage, which is “devoted to new emerging talent that otherwise might be overlooked by…

  • Video Premiere: Rory Nellis – When I Sleep

    October 17, 2019 - By 

    Over the last few years, Belfast artist Rory Nellis has steadily emerged as one of the country’s most respected songwriting voices. On albums Ready For You Now and 2017’s There’s Enough Songs In The World, his thoughtful, earworming craft has garnered comparisons to everyone from Conor O’Brien Villagers to Grandaddy at their most gossamer and contemplative. Nellis’ forthcoming new single, ‘When I Sleep’ is a meditative and delicately-crafted case in point. Released ahead of a new album in the works for release next year – and mixed by and featuring backing vocals from long-time friend collaborator Philip Watts d’Alton (Master…

  • Video Premiere: Arthuritis – Condo

    October 18, 2019 - By 

    The latest thing to emerge from the mind of idiosyncratic polymath Arthuritis is an avant-pop fever dream. The glitchy ‘Condo’ – the sound of a brain puttering out before completing a factory reset – is as decidedly nausea-inducing as its uncanny accompanying video, masterfully shot & edited in three hours by CLAP Media’s Colm Walsh; recalling Twin Peaks: The Return, three selves are dragged down a cold, dark back-path adorned only by barriers and wet grass. It’s a perfect example of Arty’s latest approach, which explores the relationship between rhythm & time. He tells us: “One of the main things that influenced it was I looked at a…

  • Stream: His Father’s Voice – In The Shade

    October 14, 2019 - By 

    Staking their claim as one of the brightest prospects in Irish post-punk & shoegaze with their Context & Perspective EP earlier this year, Limerick’s His Father’s Voice are back with a new single. Written around the same time as their debut EP, the quartet’s A-side goes further down the path trodden down fellow ‘gaze revivalists like DIIV & Cheatahs, without letting the wall of sound envelope what it is – a great pop song that plays on the idea of “how resentment finds room to feed and grow through hiding behind the appearance of a bright and happy exterior”. Meanwhile, B-side ‘Close’ is the kind of miasmic sea of…

  • A Sense of Wonder in the Particular: An Interview with Perlee

    October 4, 2019 - By 

    Perlee are an Irish-bred dream-pop duo based in Berlin. Made up of Saramai Leech and Cormac O’Keefe, their first release ‘Chains of Coral/Feelings of Plenty’ is out today. Saramai sits down with Maija Sofia to discuss her creative process, her inspirations and Perlee’s plans for the future. Catch them tonight in The Grand Social Ballroom as part of Ireland Music Week. So having lived in both rural Ireland and Berlin, do you think both of these geographical locations have influenced your music? Listening to the songs it feels like there’s a sense of rural wilderness but also a kind of…