• Premiere: Mob Wife – Warm Water

    August 17, 2018 - By 

    In the vein of past noise rock/post-hardcore outfit PigsAsPeople, and following the closure of Chris Leckey’s emo-hued dark alt. country project Via:Barvikha, he returns to the idea of the power trio. Today, we introduce you to Mob Wife, a new project that carries the heft of the former without losing the subtlety of the latter. The band’s caliber isn’t under question, with one of Belfast’s busiest drummers in Gascan Ruckus‘ Mark McDaid and producer & Ghost Office/Pale Lanterns‘ Carl Small on bass. ‘Warm Water’ is characteristic Leckey – blackly comic in its nihilism, the song tackles the 9-5 office grind that Dolly loved so well – stale coffee…

  • Line-Up Unveiled For Hard Working Class Heroes 2018

    August 8, 2018 - By 

    Hard Working Class Heroes have revealed their line up for this year’s festival, taking place on September 27-29 across various venues in Dublin city centre including The Workman’s Club, Tengu, and The Grand Social. The 50 local acts announced in alphabetic order are: 1000 Beasts, A. Smyth, AE MAK, Alan Finan, Awkward Z, Bad Bones, Beauty Sleep, Bicurious, Brenna Carroll, Chanele McGuinness, Crook, Damola, Darce, Evans Junior, Feather Beds, Flynn, Hand Models, Hunkpapa, I Have A Tribe, Jack O’ Rourke, Josh Gray, Joshua Burnside, Just Mustard, Kitt Philippa, Laoise, Leila Jane, Malojian, Maria Kelly, Molly Sterling, New Atlas, New Pagans, Ódú, Owen Denvir,…

  • FairPlé Set To Hold Two Day Festival of Music & Ideas

    August 8, 2018 - By 

    The first of its kind in Irish traditional music, grassroots coalition of musicians FairPlé holds its first festival of music & ideas over Saturday 8th & Sunday 9th September was founded to address gender balance in Irish traditional and folk music, and has been expanding and rolling out an increasing number of important events across the island. A series of panel discussions are set to take place at Liberty Hall on September 8 to address the issue of sexual harassment in the arts and Irish music, with a focus on the self-employed status of musicians. Participants will explore the rights and responsibilities of…

  • Video Premiere: Post-Punk Podge & The Technohippies – Home Is Where The Heart Bleeds

    August 3, 2018 - By 

    If you’ve been on the festival circuit this summer, you might have noticed a couple of masked, sometimes shirtless dad-bod satirists spitting fire in a nearby tent. Mangling and dragging traditional instrumentation all the way into the 21st century, Post-Punk Podge & The Technohippies are the willing, furious voice for a certain voiceless subsection of Irish people right now. Challenging Jobsbridge disillusionment, corruption at the highest levels, and the media’s compliance with that, their latest single, ‘Home Is Where The Heart Bleeds’ returns to another social issue held very dear to the act – homelessness. Oh, and the music? A heady blend of trip-hop, infused with the band’s trademark Irish Tourist…

  • Stream: Kyoto Love Hotel – Still

    July 31, 2018 - By 

    The project of Joe Geaney of Floating Ballroom and former Staring at Lakes member Laura Sheary, Kyoto Love Hotel, we are told, make “songs for thoughts to dance to.” An ambitious M.O. and no mistake, but having stuck their new single ‘Still’ on repeat, we can certainly see the logic. Based in Tipperary, the pair’s latest effort is a sleek trickle of electro-pop that marries low-key trap beats, twinkling synth lines and lyrics courtesy of Sheary which explore “fragmented memories and the disparities that exist between our physical reality and our interior selves.” Delve in below.

  • Watch: EHCO – Éiclips (Live)

    July 31, 2018 - By 

    Back at the start of the year, we tipped Kilcoole’s EHCO as one of our ones to watch for 2018. Headed by ex-Enemies member Eoin Whitfield, the project has hit the ground running via a handful of shows and a brace of slick singles. The most recent of those – and, by our reckoning, the band’s strongest single effort to date – ‘Éiclips‘ now comes accompanied by a new live video. Filmed on location at the Mermaid Theatre in Bray, it was created by Rosie Barrett, with audio recorded and mixed by Eóin Murphy and lighting from Conor Biddle. Catch EHCO at the Ballroom…

  • Album Stream: Kevin Nolan – Absent At the Moment When He Took Up the Most Space (Selected Recordings 1997 – 2005)

    July 31, 2018 - By 

    A selection of recordings that he made between 1997 and 2005, Absent At The Moment When He Took Up The Most Space captures the genesis and creative metamorphosis of Dublin singer, composer and author Kevin Nolan. Comprising thirty-eight tracks, taken from an archive of over 150 recordings during this period, it’s palette-spanning, at times wonderfully inspired collection of music. With many songs clocking in at such over one minute in length – often more than enough time for Nolan to strike earworming gold – Nolan approaches Robert Pollard-like levels of fecundity, all while shapeshifting between downbeat folk musings, a cappella diversions, rock-pop gems…

  • Premiere: Yawning Chasm – Awful Blue

    July 30, 2018 - By 

    The solo moniker of Galway musician and one-half of Mirakil Whip, Aaron Coyne, Yawning Chasm has drip-fed the world some wonderfully ruminative, psych-tinged dream-folk over the last few years. His new album, Songs from Blue House  follows suit, and mines twelve cloistered and candid tales by way of baritone ukulele, four-string electric mandolin, keyboard and voice. Out now on Rusted Rail, the album was mostly self-recorded during a rainstorm in a shed. The album’s lead track, ‘Awful Blue’ is a brisk, major-keyed antidote to a minor-key preoccupation. Have a first peek at its suitably low-key visuals below. Stream/buy Songs From Blue House here.

  • Watch: Fears – Blood

    July 31, 2018 - By 

    From her immersive live shows to recent single ‘h_always‘, Constance Keane, AKA Fears, has grown to become one of Ireland’s foremost creators of ambitious, subtle pop. Her latest in a recent string of audio-visual collaborations revisits her stark, somnambulist 2016 single ‘Blood‘, which has now too met its warped match with the help of director Aodh. ‘Blood’ stars Mark Loughran as father and IFTA-nominated young actor Dafhyd Flynn from award-winning Irish 2017 film Michael Inside as son. Thanks in no small part to the to contrasting camera work from Matthew Rogan & lo-fi footage by Cloda Farrelly, the video is eye-wateringly evocative in its portrayal of the complexities…

  • Sea Pinks – Rockpool Blue

    August 1, 2018 - By 

    Belfast’s foremost purveyors of jangle-pop, Sea Pinks, have announced their latest album, Rockpool Blue, out on September 28. The 28 minute album is their seventh LP since their 2010 inception. Recorded in four days over a six month period by engineer Ben McAuley at Start Together Studios, Belfast. Sonically blissed-out and dripping – moreso than any record before – it thematically tackles the pressure of adult responsibilities against the internal imposter syndrome that comes with it. Following bassist Steven Henry’s departure, frontman & guitarist Neil Brogan has taken on bass duties, with Davey Agnew on drums. Stream first track ‘Watermelon Sugar (Alcohol)’ below: Rockpool Blue…