• Watch: Paddy Hanna – Frankly, I Mutate

    April 25, 2019 - By 

    When it was released early last year, Frankly, I Mutate doubly underscored Paddy Hanna’s status as one of Ireland’s greatest ever songwriters. Brimming with incision, melody, pathos and heart, the album’s title track confined all of that, and more, across its four minutes. Something of a live favourite at Hanna’s full-band shows since the album’s release – not least an especially memorable rendition at Primavera in Barcelona last summer – the song now comes accompanied with one of the Irish videos of the year. Directed by Niall McCann, it features Hanna and a boom mic navigating skylights, back gardens, leafy streets, front rooms, promenades and shallow seashores. Confused?…

  • Inbound: The Claque

    April 18, 2019 - By 

    Girl Band’s incendiary LP Holding Hands With Jamie found itself landing on Albums of the Year lists far and wide in 2015, but health issues have seen the band lie dormant for the last two years. Cue the excitement then that guitarist Alan Duggan has convened a new group, The Claque, alongside Paddy Ormond of jangle-pop maestros Postcard Versions and vocalist Kate Brady. Debut single ‘Hush’ sees the trio pool their talents, combining Duggan’s brutal mechanical noise with Ormond’s distinct sense of melody and Brady’s pop sensibilities. With a debut Dublin show pencilled in for 27th April and summer dates…

  • Video Premiere: Fears – Fabric

    April 19, 2019 - By 

    A few weeks back, we described ‘Fabric’, the latest single from minimalist electronic pop artist Fears, as “an unfurling, self-produced tale of entanglement and escape that finds the Belfast/Dublin musician and producer at her most emphatic to date”. It’s the first collaboration of the year for Constance Keane, who continues down the audio-visual path with the same complete level of authorship that led to support vision justifiably supported by Moving On Music’s – NI’s foremost exponents of culturally vital music – Emerging Artist Programme. The visual component to ‘Fabric’ was directed by Daniel Butler, who had this to say of their partnership on the short film: “The idea came from a…

  • Stream: Peter J. McCauley – Anywhere My Love Will Go

    April 15, 2019 - By 

    Under both his given name and previous moniker, Rams’ Pocket Radio, Peter J. McCauley has been responsible for some emotionally dense and finely-woven balladry. Right up there with his most potent efforts to date is the brief but brilliant ‘Anywhere My Love Will Go’. With its delicate ebb and flow, it’s a masterfully minimalist, yet deceptively intricate tale of love and longing. ‘I wrote this song at a time when I was working on music projects with two groups of older people in Belfast,” McCauley said. “One in a centre in the West of the city and one in an Alzheimer’s unit…

  • Stream New Irish Grassroots Compilation: Live @ Fennor Lane

    April 10, 2019 - By 

    Tucked away amongst castle ruins and relics of history on the outskirts of Slane town, Mark Carolan runs the intimate Fennor Lane Studios. Like the encouraging number of grassroots Irish compilations and splits that have graced our Bandcamp accounts in recent times to act as connective tissue between previously-disparate scenes, Live at Fennor Lane was made with the same philosophy of shared elevation in mind, as Mark tells us: “The idea behind this album was simply to create a record worth listening to, and the live method of recording gives a characterful and natural feel to it. I hope we can bring new music to all the followers of each band involved in this project and help everyone to expand their audience. Aaaand it was great craic making it!” Featuring several of our favourite bands in the land, each more idiosyncratic than the last, contributions range from Slouch‘s submerged psychogroove, to the…

  • Album Premiere: Fixity – No Man Can Tell

    April 4, 2019 - By 

    Of the myriad forward-pushing acts we’ve featured over the years, Cork polymath Dan Walsh’s Fixity remains a singular and uniquely exploratory proposition. Backed by a revolving cast of sonic conspirators, the bandleader and multi-instrumentalist has carved out a uniquely collaborative niche driven by fierce extemporization. Released via the ever-reliable Penske Recordings on April 12, Walsh and an extended cast of Irish and international musicians weave new mastery on Fixity’s second album, No Man Can Tell. Produced by the Altered Hours’ Patrick Cullen, it’s a six-track featuring a veritable dream-team: Emil Nerstrand on flute and tenor sax, Kevin Terry on guitar and…

  • Stream: Uly – Redlight

    April 1, 2019 - By 

    Uly is the pseudonym of Dublin-based astrophysics graduate-turned multi-instrumentalist Rafino Murphy. Having found his feet playing with some of Dublin’s finest acts, such as Nealo, INNRSPACE and Over Being Under, Murphy started Uly as a solo project in 2018. This project combines lo-fi bedroom beats with hypnotic sonic landscapes to create hypnagogic tracks that are as groovy as they are dreamy. Having recently signed a deal with Dublin-based Faction Records, Uly has dropped his first single with the label, ’Redlight’. The track is a perfect example of Uly’s unique blend of funk and lo-fi, taking the listener down a rabbit hole…

  • This Month In Irish Music: March

    April 1, 2019 - By 

    In the latest of a new regular series, Colin Gannon rounds up the very best Irish tracks released of the month just gone, featuring The Claque, Uwmammi, Invader Slim, James Joys, Cassavetes, Jafaris and more. The Claque — Hush Hush, the transfixing single from The Claque — the newly reinvented trio comprising of Alan Duggan (Girl Band), Kate Brady and Paddy Ormond — was this month’s most wiry, propulsing listen. Miasmic textures, beautiful, veiled melodies and bristling, febrile noise collide, ensuring the group avoid immediate categorisation. The eardrum-splitting tautness of Girl Band does come to mind, but the group are…

  • Stream: Pat Dam Smyth – Dancing

    April 1, 2019 - By 

    When we last spoke to him, back in March of 2016, we reasoned that London-based Northern Irish troubadour Pat Dam Smyth stood tall as one of the country’s most distinctive and vital songwriting voices. Three years on, that theory needs underlining. Having recently signed to Belfast’s Quiet Arch, Smyth is back with a new single – the first for a forthcoming album – called ‘Dancing’. Reflecting on his life as a teenager in Belfast, it’s a pensive, full-band affair, bursting with pathos and Smyth’s singular melodic knack. Stream it below. Smyth’s second album is out in July 2019.

  • Bats – Alter Nature

    March 28, 2019 - By 

    At long last, one of Ireland’s finest, most singular time-signature-wielding visionaries are back. One of the figureheads in the Richter Collective sound that sculpted independent Dublin music some years ago, BATS are set to release their third album later this year. Titled Alter Nature, it’s been 7 years in the making. The album was recorded by Rian Trench and Robert Watson at The Meadow in Delgany. Frontman Rupert Morris says “It’s fully in keeping with BATS ethos of promoting science and reason over superstition and features songs about CRISPR technology, artificial intelligence, Christian science and a legendary giant hammerhead shark called Old Hitler.” Slated for release…