• Video Premiere: Not I – Please, No Kindness, Please

    August 15, 2019 - By 

    Being a consistently arresting two-piece is no easy task – not least when the majority mines along the garage-blues-punk spectrum with little deviation. Dublin duo Not I – formerly Nervvs – take a hard left into something far more sophisticated by virtue of their grasp of minimalism, and seemingly telepathic interplay between vocalist/guitarist Thomas O’Reilly & drummer Ian Meagher. The title track of their debut album is an immediate primer for the band, O’Reilly’s sardonic, kitchen sink worldview screams for meaning in the mundane; “It’s a song about the struggle to make art and not get lost in the swamp of the day-to-day, resolving with an…

  • Monday Mixtape: Elma Orkestra & Ryan Vail

    August 12, 2019 - By 

    In the latest installment of Monday Mixtape, Eoin O’Callaghan aka Elma Orkestra and Ryan Vail – a duo who has recently released one of the Irish albums of the year in Borders – select some of the tracks made an imprint on writing and recording of the project. Catch Borders, live, at the following upcoming shows: Stendhal Festival – 16th August Electric Picnic – 30th August Max Richter – On The Nature of Daylight (Entropy) This has been one of our favourite tunes to date. We’ve been listening to it since its release many years ago. Most recognise it from the…

  • Preview: Féile na Gréine 2019

    August 12, 2019 - By 

    It’s no longer up for debate: right now, the network of promoters, venues and artists that make up Ireland’s extraordinary DIY music scene (singular) is the strongest and most homogeneous that it’s ever been. From Dundalk, Cork, and Belfast to Letterkenny, Dublin, Derry and beyond, incalculable good people are putting on world-beating shows and festivals, featuring acts of every ilk and every conceivable corner of the island. No area or sound is being overlooked. No band is stranded in the arse-end of nowhere after a show. Blind, sweeping reverence for Dublin as some sort of untouchable bastion of Irish music…

  • Chromatic Launches With a Beautiful One-Shot Performance From Saint Sister

    August 9, 2019 - By 

    Over the coming weeks and months we’ll be teaming up with Chromatic, a Dublin-based duo who film performances using unique spaces as visual and acoustic backdrops. The vision of long-time friends Kieran “Sherry” Sheridan and Ror Conaty – who have both been active in the Dublin music scene for years – Chromatic is a series born from a joint desire to “open up music/musician circles to audiences who might not be aware of the artists on their doorstep.” Sheridan and Conaty correlated that with their love of outdoor natural space, as well as unique buildings and history that’s found across the…

  • Line-up Announced for Ireland Music Week 2019

    August 8, 2019 - By 

    The fifty Irish acts selected to perform at this year’s Irish Music Week has been revealed. Formerly known as Hard Working Class Heroes, the festival and conference “is dedicated to showcasing the very best in new Irish music” and will run in various venues in Dublin across October 1st to 5th. Featuring everyone from Autre Monde and Junior Brother to Maija Sofia (pictured) and Sun Mahshene, check out the full line-up (which, to our surprise, features a handful of acts from previous years and no artists from a currently-thriving Limerick scene) below.

  • Watch: MELTS – Seesaw

    August 7, 2019 - By 

    On their new single, ‘Seesaw’, Dublin five-piece MELTS hit the sweet spot between BJM-leaning, lysergic-dappled garage that pushes forward and wonderfully blissed-out psych conjuring old masters including Jefferson Airplane and Syd-era Pink Floyd. Recorded live at the Meadow by the Deaf Brothers, mixed by Rian Trench and mastered by Fergal Davis, the track – which doubles up as the band’s most inspired single effort to date – features visuals courtesy of Gavin Ovoca and the band. Delve in below. Supported by Grave Goods and Fonda, MELTS launch the single at Dublin’s Bello Bar on Friday, September 20.

  • Watch: Ten Ton Slug – Hunting Ground

    August 6, 2019 - By 

    Galway sludge metal quartet Ten Ton Slug have long been masterfully crafting some of the finest riff-led, crushing metal on the island and with international slots amassing, their debut album is set for release next year. The first single to be taken from the LP – and their first release since 2017’s Blood and Slime – is the  ‘Hunting Ground’, and if its sonic pulverisation is anything to go by, 2020 looks to further galvanise the band’s status. The single was recorded & produced by Ciaran Culhane, and its occultist, paranoia-inducing video was filmed at Cavan’s stately See House, directed and edited by Pádraig Conaty. Check out more on…

  • Stream: Sorbet – Born Purple feat. Mícheál Keating

    August 2, 2019 - By 

    One of Irish music’s bona fide polymaths, Chris Ryan – Robocobra Quartet leader and Hot Cops, Just Mustard & Hunkpapa producer – has unveiled his new collaborative project. Aptly titled Sorbet, it offers a fresh palette to a string of musicians upon which they can “write tangentially from their usual process to avoid creeping burnout.” As masterfully understated as you’d hope from its creators, Sorbet’s first iteration is a subtly brooding piece which unfurls with repeat listens. Ryan’s distorted, at-times claustrophobic beats, muted piano, lay  by an incredible falsetto-heavy vocal performance from Mícheál Keating, frontman of Limerick experimental alternative trio Bleeding Heart Pigeons. Mícheál said of his lyrical approach: “The imagery in the verse comes…

  • Video Premiere: Van Panther – The Cutters

    August 14, 2019 - By 

    With each act imprinting its own singular identity with the backing of a supportive community operating completely in tandem, we’ve already waxed lyrical on how the fecund Limerick music scene is Ireland’s musical petri dish. Van Panther are one such act, marrying technicolour pop immediacy with jagged post-punk revivalism. New single ‘The Cutters’ is as tight-knit and pristinely crafted without losing the warm, lo-fi charm of its predecessors, and is taken from forthcoming EP Overcast, following up on 2016’s Café van Hemel and 2017’s Hark! The EP was played by, recorded & produced by band founder Kieran Ralph. “Musically, the song is basically a look at the meld between guitar-based music and…

  • Premiere: The Rackets – 1-2 FU/Dead Rebel

    July 31, 2019 - By 

    For whatever combination of reasons, Belfast has peerless form for producing first-rate garage bands. From Them and The Wheels back in the 1960s right up to The Groundlings, The Dreads and others in the present era, the city has always reliably churned out bands wielding straight-up rock ‘n’ roll like it’s no one’s business. In the day of our Lord  John Dwyer, you need not look much further than The Rackets. A suitably elusive outfit, with an ever-revolving line-up, the band currently operate as a three-piece of Sunglasses After Dark’s Ryan Fitzsimmons, frontwoman Aileen McKenna aka This Ship Argo and the downright legendary Chappy of the aforementioned The Groundlings…