• Bicurious – I’m So Confused

    February 28, 2018 - By 

    Riff-strewn Irish-French instrumental math-rock duo Bicurious release their new EP, I’m So Confused on March 9. Blending looped guitar layers and rhythmic spontaneity & dynamism, they channel the spirit of Sargent House and the sadly-departed Richter Collective. It’s understandable then, that they went over to Cheshire to record the EP with Alpha Male Tea Party‘s Tom Peters – with whom they’re set to tour across Ireland in early May. Their previous release was the ‘T.O.I.‘ single, and as with it, their new material is set to channel the spirit of righteous anger, vocals arriving, as ever, in the form of pointed samples. I’m So Confused holds its launch upstairs at Whelan’s…

  • Watch: Myles Manley – i’m in love w/ myself

    February 27, 2018 - By 

    We’re rather fond of Myles Manley here at the TTA. In fact, we have no qualms saying that we think the English-born, Sligo-raised, Dublin-based musician is one of the country’s most masterfully idiosyncratic artists. Take 2015’s “comprehensively endearing” ‘Pay Me What I’m Worth’, or last year’s ‘Relax; Enjoy Your Night Upon the Town’, a track that featured highly in our Top 100 Irish Tracks of 2017. Manley’s craft doesn’t serve up the odd gem here and there – he consistently delivers the goods, forever finding ways to make music whose points of reference often squarely fall back facing his very own direction. Accompanied by Sebastian MacDermott’s…

  • EP Stream: Rebekah Fitch – Broken Mind

    February 23, 2018 - By 

    Launched with a full band show tomorrow night (Saturday, February 24) at the Belfast Barge, Broken Mind by Belfast-based artist Rebekah Fitch is FM-aiming alt-pop brimming with real nuance and heart. Filtering influence from acts including Stevie Nicks, Bjork and Florence and the Machine, Fitch’s sound betrays real attention to detail – not merely in terms of not only songwriting, but also how, lyrically, each song presents its own intricate emotive world. Fleshed out with some sublime production and burrowing hooks, Fitch has said that the songs on the release are united “on the common themes of internal war, mental struggles and cognitive dissonance,…

  • Watch: Alien She – Death Sentence

    February 23, 2018 - By 

    Released as part of the Art For Blind-supported Goodbye 8 Campaign, ‘Death Sentence’ by Dublin experimental trio Alien She is a track that confronts the crux of the Irish abortion rights debate head on. The closing track on the band’s debut album, Feeler, the band wrote the song after Savita Halappanavar, originally from India, died at University Hospital Galway in 2012 due to complications arising from a septic miscarriage and failings in her care. Accompanying a Bandcamp release – which includes a tote bag/print, proceeds of which go to Repealing the 8th – the release comes accompanied with a video courtesy…

  • Album Stream: Wyvern Lingo – Wyvern Lingo

    February 23, 2018 - By 

    Do believe the hype. Having went straight in to number one on the Irish iTunes charts, the self-titled debut album by Wyvern Lingo is a remarkable, all-killer tour de force from undoubtedly the country’s finest fast-rising band. Set to launch at Dublin’s Button Factory tonight, the first full-length from the Bray trio of Karen Cowley, Saoirse Duane and Caoimhe Barry is a razor-sharp snapshot of a band whose increasingly singular brand of harmony-driven alt-pop has been everywhere recently – and rightly so. Wyvern Lingo captures – and perfectly bookend – the latest chapter in what’s set to be an exciting, far-reaching few…

  • Watch: The Gloaming – The Booley House

    February 21, 2018 - By 

    Ahead of the release of their Live at the NCH on March 2, The Gloaming have launched the video for their new seven-minute single ‘The Booley House’. Speaking of the track – which is taken from the forthcoming release – the band said “We’ve much enjoyed [illustrator] Jacob Stack’s illustrations and videos over the years and so took much delight in his new drawing that celebrates the release of Live at the NCH. Here’s Jacob in action, set to the new live version of The Booley House.” True to form, it’s an unravelling, wonderfully enchanting effort from the band – brought to life…

  • Watch: Landless – Doomsday

    February 15, 2018 - By 

    In what’s one of our most anticipated Irish releases of 2018, traditional vocal quartet Landless have released the video for ‘Doomsday’, the first single from debut album Bleaching Bones. First heard on their eponymous debut EP, the Belfast & Dublin-based outfit’s brief & minimal video highlights the qualities – “Evocative, celestial, ethereal and, above all, extremely resonant” – that make Landless such an important prospect in the current resurgence & contemporary progression of Irish traditional music. Bleaching Bones is out on March 9 through Humble Serpent Records, with the Dublin launch at St Ann’s Church. More details here. Read Dominic Edge’s 18 for ’18 piece on Landless.

  • Paddy Hanna – Frankly, I Mutate

    February 14, 2018 - By 

    It’s been a long time coming, but singer-songwriter Paddy Hanna‘s new album Frankly, I Mutate, is upon us through Strange Brew on March 2. This follows his 2014 debut album, Leafy Stiletto, and the string of strong singles he’s since released – the likes of ‘Unprotected’ and ‘Bad Boys‘. Also the frontman of supergroup Autre Monde, it’s a long-held view of ours that Hanna is one of Ireland’s most accomplished true songwriters; elusive, nuanced, capable of broad truths, while invoking the kind of Elvis Costello, Jarvis Cocker or Scott Walker-esque dark humour & vulnerability that catches one offguard in an otherwise ’70s pop tune. Frankly, I Mutate is filled with rich, retro-current…

  • EP Stream: Perish – Inertia

    February 13, 2018 - By 

    At the start of the month, we shared ‘Terror Swimming’ by Cork-based band Perish. Calling it a “hazed-out trip bursting with submerged, starry-eyed guitar shapes and a wondrous wall of reverb-soaked noise” the single was a first-rate opening gambit from the Ciaran Corcoran-fronted project. The track is taken from the stellar Inertia, a brand new, five-track EP out via Cork imprint Sunshine Cult records, home to TTA favourites The Sunshine Factory. From the blissed-out noise-pop of opener Vision to the Motorik strut and swirling, effects-laden Kosmiche of closer ‘No Time’, it is hands down the strongest EP from an Irish act we’ve heard this…

  • Video Premiere: Eraser TV – NYP

    February 12, 2018 - By 

    One of the finest to sprout from Limerick’s DIY scene, Eraser TV have some lo-fi scuzz for you this lazy Sunday, in the form of ‘NYP’. It’s the first single from the as-yet-untitled follow-up to their 2017 debut EP Buzzfeed Depression Quiz. Sonically, it’s a direct descendent of idiosyncratic 90s guitar rock a la Dinosaur Jr melded with the anxious excitement of the Dismemberment Plan; add that to its modern indie-punk & emo tint and you’re left with a sound that could’ve fallen off the shelves of the Exploding In Sound catalogue. Where the wartime paranoia video for experimental previous epic ‘Golden Boy‘ was steeped in deeply affecting, this kitschy Eurodance throwback visual accompaniment…