Having re-emerged back in January with their first single in two years, ‘Make It Rain’, Waterford five-piece O Emperor have just gone one better and released one of our Irish tracks of the year in the form of ‘Girl’. Featuring some first-rate dreamscape-like visuals courtesy of director Paul Savage, it marries doo-wop croon and psych-tinged dream-pop textures with slack hip-hop influence. Ahead of full details about the band’s forthcoming new album, due this year, delve in below.
We recently snuck a sneak peek of the forthcoming new EP from Belfast’s drone-pop septet Documenta and let it be known: we’re in for something very special indeed. Featuring the inimitable Will Carruthers of Spacemen 3, Spiritualized et. al, the five-track Lady with Ring will be released on vinyl EP and digital formats via Touch Sensitive Records on Friday, October 12. A release that doubles up as a departure from the band’s Drone Pop trilogy, the EP revolves around the story of Margorie McCall. We’re told: “McCall lived in rural Ireland in the early 18th century. She succumbed to a fever and…
Released via Galway imprint Citog Records, Galway singer-songwriter Eoin Dolan’s new EP Superior Fiction is a four-track distillation of his yearning, sci-fi-tinged surf pop craft. Steeped in the imagery and atmosphere of a vintage seaside town, it confines within its minutes Dolan’s remarkable knack for marrying heartbreaking melodies and gentle instrumentation with the sadness and beauty of 1960s surf pop. Featuring an animated video created by Galway songsmith David Boland AKA New Pope, the EP’s lead single and title track – a self-proclaimed “ode to truth” marrying breezy, full-band balladry with Dolan’s incisive lyrics – is a perfect case in…
A self-proclaimed play on words and emotions, ‘Equal and Opposite by Portadown folk singer-songwriter Ciara O’Neill was written during a trip to Nashville back in 2015. Revolving around the idea that “one man’s trash is another mans gold”, O’Neill said of the track: “I was feeling a little unsettled within myself and unsure of what direction I was going in both personally and musically. For every one thing, need or emotion there’s an opposite. It’s a reminder that we are all different and unique and that’s ok.” A reflective, carefully-crafted effort, ‘Equal and Opposite’ is a highlight from O’Neill’s newly-released album, Arrow, which was…
Comprising members of Dublin bands Sissy, Surge and No Spill Blood, Extravision offer up something special via the sum of their parts. As the city’s finest forward-moving post-punk proposition, the threesome recorded their debut demo with ex-drummer Legs – who, we learn, was lost to the Vancouver punk scene – at the start of the year. With No Spill Blood sticksman, the mercurial Ror Conaty on board, the band are leading the charge, with the aforesaid demo set for release via Sligo imprint Art For Blind imminently. Ahead of that, we have for you an exclusive first listen of ‘Repeat It’ from the demo. Stick…
You know what’s lovely and accomplished to nth degree? The debut single from Co. Wicklow’s Tristan Howard AKA Tristan Da Cunha. A woozy, snug-as-hell swell of homespun bedroom-pop, it marries sleepyheaded hip-hop instrumentalism via intent-drenched, longing lo-fidelity. Long story short: it’s one of our Irish songs of the year so far. Directed by Howard and Leslie Sharpe, and edited by Sam Zarrin, check out its video below.
Off the back of their debut single ‘Takes So Long’, Paul Shevlin of London-based Belfast quartet ABQ (AKA Albuquerque) talks process, pressure, the power of the right producer and keeping up with the scene back home. Hello ABQ. You have been playing together in different guises over the last few years, but the band still feels very new. For those of us not in the know, what’s the backstory to ABQ and what’s changed? It was a fairly natural transition from previous projects to ABQ. We’ve all played in and around the NI music scene for years and when an…
Ahead of the release of his fourth album, The Art of Pretending How To Swim, Conor O’Brien’s Villagers have unveiled the video for new single ‘Fool’. A self-proclaimed “romantic battle-cry from the centre of a technological dystopia”, the video – which was directed by Bob Gallagher, the whiz behind the video for Villagers’ previous single ‘A Trick of the Light’ – takes the lyrics (“So here is my bleeding heart. Will you take the pain away?”) as a starting point for the narrative. “The video is a surreal take on a marriage proposal, which is the ultimate gambit in love,” says Gallagher. The scenario pushes how…
Made up of Joey Edwards, Aoife Ward and David Noonan, Dundalk three-piece Larry knocked our hungover, quietly contemplative socks off at Arcadian Field festival earlier this month. Filtering the imprint of the likes of Ryan Adams, Pixies and Wilco, the threesome’s brand of lo-fi alt-rock brims with burrowing pop sensibility and wonderfully-wielded lyrical pathos courtesy of frontman Edwards. Ahead of recording their debut album in Electrical Audio, Chicago with our Lord and Saviour, Steve Albini this September (keep your eyes peeled for a 12″ vinyl via Pizza Pizza Records) we’re pleased to present a first look at the video for the band’s new single ‘WAH’. Like the song – and…
Dublin alt/indie quartet Bullet Girl have shared the video for their sweat-laced new single, ‘Wasted’. Directed by Raymond Kenny, with additional camera by Dean Flynn, it captures the quartet cutting loose and performing the track at a show in Whelan’s back in July. Sound up your street? Have a peek below.