• Video Premiere: Any Joy – Avert Your Eyes

    February 13, 2018 - By 

    Photo by Silvio Severino Propelled by paranoid immediacy, we’re pleased to unveil the visual feast that is the video for ‘Avert Your Eyes’ by Cork psych-tinged post-punk outfit Any Joy. When it comes to psychedelia, lyrical content commonly takes a vague supporting role, but as we said in our 18 For ’18 piece, it’s the throughline that ties the band’s concise, yet sprawling 2017 debut LP, Cycles together, as well as delineating them from many of their genre contemporaries. Created by New York-based commercial director, animator & collagist Mac Premo, the video is an attention span-grabbing visual overload that could as easily double as psychedelic propaganda masquerading as a Visit Modern Ireland tourist board ad. Borrowing as…

  • Watch: The Altered Hours – Over The Void

    February 8, 2018 - By 

    The second single taken from their forthcoming EP On My Tongue, ‘Over The Void’ by Cork five-piece The Altered Hours is a swirling blitz of gnarling haze from a band who continue to break brilliant new territory. Directed by Helio Leon, with cinematography from Izabela Szczutkowska & Leon, editing by Afghaniscan (Robert Watson) and creative input/style from Sarah Corcoran, the single’s video is a suitably abstracted, lysergic-laced accompaniment to a short song that really rewards the repeated listen. On My Tongue is released for Art For Blind/Penske on March 9. The Altered Hours will play the following dates over the next three…

  • Watch: Stoat – Dog King

    February 7, 2018 - By 

    Heroes of the city’s underground music scene, Dublin three-piece Stoat are perfect testament to the power of playing the long-game. Having been making music together for the best part of 20 years, the threesome’s wonderfully wry, masterfully incisive brand of genre-warping indie-pop will come to the fore once more via their highly-anticipated second album, Try Not To Think About It. Ahead of the launch of the album at the Underground on Dame Street in Dublin on Saturday night (February 10), the band have unveiled the video for new single ‘Dog King’. A homespun visual accompaniment, it perfectly parallels the band’s increasingly singular brand of lo-fi…

  • Video Premiere: Blue Americans – Apparition

    February 7, 2018 - By 

    Leftfield pop duo Blue Americans have just lifted the cloche on the video for ‘Apparition’, their fourth single in five months, and it’s once more a pristine, self-produced slice of vibing, somnambulant pop that begs to be listened to in a warmly-lit bedroom, well into the early AM. As with the singles that have preceded it, we’ve also found much allure in the genuinely leftfield, exploratory B-side, with Danny Ball production transforming Platt’s vocal on ‘Beetroot (What If I Was 1?)’ into very real moment of yearning. It’s out now on their own label, Oil Tape Records, ahead of the release of their debut album later this year. They’ve nailed it on…

  • Stream: New Pagans – Bloody Soil

    February 5, 2018 - By 

    On Thursday night, we’re teaming up with Rally to co-host one of several free showcases as part of Output 2018. Taking place at Babel (rooftop of Bullit) the gig will feature four stellar Northern Irish acts: the mighty Robocobra Quartet, fast-rising singer-songwriter Callum Stewart, headliners Blue Americans and hands down one of our favourite acts here at TTA, New Pagans. Ahead of the show (which, as with all other Output showcases, is absolutely free) New Pagans have unveiled a new single. A typically slick effort from the Lyndsey McDougall-fronted alt-rock foursome, ‘Bloody Soil’ is a jagged earworm aiming straight from the jugular. Speaking of…

  • Stream: Perish – Terror Swimming

    February 1, 2018 - By 

    While Cork has no shortage of hazed-out, psych-leaning rock bands at the minute, the new-fangled – and potentially quite brilliant – Perish have instantly grabbed our ear here at TTA. Led by Australian musician and producer Ciaran Corcoran, the band – which started as a recording of Corcoran’s – will release a four-track EP, Inertia, on download and cassette via Cork’s Sunshine Cult Records on February 4. Lead single ‘Terror Swimming’ hints at something special in the making. A hazed-out trip bursting with submerged, starry-eyed guitar shapes and a wondrous wall of reverb-soaked noise, the single conjures Flying Saucer Attack…

  • A Slice of the Action: Meet Ireland’s Newest Record Label Pizza Pizza Records

    January 31, 2018 - By 

    With their aim of filling the void of independent bands having their music released on vinyl, Cal Byrne talks to Shane Byrne of Dundalk’s new-fangled Pizza Pizza Records about wax, big plans, keeping it DIY, world domination and – very important – favourite pizza toppings. What’s your favourite pizza topping? Plain cheese with a garlic dip is always a good call. Difontaines, Dark Horse Pizza (who sponsored our recent fundraiser by the way) or Tonys in Dundalk. Their garlic dip is class. That, or spinach & feta. 10/10 What inspired you to make Pizza Pizza records? I really like vinyl, and…

  • 18 for ’18: Cherym

    January 31, 2018 - By 

    We conclude 18 for ’18, our feature showcasing eighteen Irish acts we’re convinced are going places in 2018. Throughout January we’ve previewed each of those acts, accompanied by words from our writers and an original photograph from one of our photographers. Last up, Cherym. Photo by Mickey Rooney Though Derry-Londonderry has never experienced any dearth of first-rate punk, recent times has seen something of a renaissance on the banks of the Foyle. Set to emerge as its crowning achievement in 2018 is Cherym, a noise-pop/punk band consisting of guitarist/vocalist Hannah Richardson, bassist/vocalist Nyree Porter and drummer/vocalist, Lauren Kelly. Formed in college back in late 2016 through…

  • Ciaran Lavery – Sweet Decay

    January 30, 2018 - By 

    From inauspicious beginnings in Aghagallon, one of Northern Ireland’s most talented and celebrated songwriters, Ciaran Lavery, has announced details of third album. Launched in Belfast’s Empire Music Hall on the same day, Sweet Decay is released on April 13, following on from his 2016 NI Music Prize-winning LP, Let Bad In. Totting up well over 80 million streams on Spotify, he’s one of our most poetically-gifted singer-songwriters, not to mention one of the most wilfully eclectic. As well as scattering soul, hip-hop or R&B on top of what was once a bread & butter strain of heartfelt, earnest indie-folk & chamber-pop, his short collaborative album with electronic producer Ryan Vail won high…

  • Tuath – Youth

    January 29, 2018 - By 

    We’ve called them, among other things, the North’s foremost purveyors of hepped-up-on-goofballs psychedelia, but the Letterkenny outfit Tuath release their latest EP, Youth on February 24. Primarily recorded & produced by the band mastermind Robert Mulhern, it follows almost a year on from Things I Don’t Know. Featuring a string of steadily-released singles they’ve been fastidiously putting out over the last 6 months accompanied by videos, they’re peering out gingerly from their their darkened corner of ‘gaze-hued trip-hop for dalliances with post-punk and indie rock, without losing that claustrophobic, nihilistic sound that puts them in a category of just one on the island. Check out their previous material on Bandcamp. Watch the…