• Playlist: Choice Music Prize 2017

    March 7, 2017 - By 

    On Thursday evening, the 12th annual award will once again celebrate and acknowledge the best in Irish recorded music, with one winning act walking away with €10,000 on the night. Set to be chosen by a panel of twelve Irish music media professionals and industry experts, the following ten releases will vie for the prize: All Tvvins – IIVV (Warner Music) Bantum – Move (Self Released) Wallis Bird – Home (Mount Silver/Caroline International) The Divine Comedy – Foreverland (Divine Comedy Records) Lisa Hannigan – At Swim (Hoop Recordings) Katie Kim – Salt (Art For Blind Records) James Vincent McMorrow –…

  • Watch: Eoin Dolan – One Girl

    March 7, 2017 - By 

    Taken from his forthcoming second album Ubique, ‘One Girl’ by Galway songsmith Eoin Dolan is a breezy slice of surf-pop which – in his own, likely totally spot-on words – will set the tone for the album’s spacey, ethereal and adventurous new world vision. The track features Dolan, as well as James Casserly on drums, Adam Sheeran on bass and Conor Deasy of Tomorrows and Biggles Flys Again on lead guitar. Recorded and produced by Dolan, and mastered by Fergal Davis, Philip K Dick, sixtie/seventies sci-fi, Brave New World and French classic-pop have coalesced to inform the poise and direction of…

  • Premiere: WASPS – Future Endeavours

    March 1, 2017 - By 

    Having bonded over their love of North Coast post-rock machine And So I Watch You From Afar, Belfast-based “math-punk” duo Charlie Cairns and Danny McClelland WASPS released their debut single, ‘Godzilla is Dead’ back in December. Three months on, the pair are back with ‘Future Endeaours’, a three minute burst fusing almost ballad-like heart with zealous, intricate instrumentalism. The single is released on March 17 and launched at their first headline show at Voodoo in Belfast on March 18. Have a first listen below.

  • Premiere: Field Trip – Evening’s Over

    March 1, 2017 - By 

    The title track from their forthcoming, Eoin Dolan-recorded EP of the same time, ‘Evening’s Over’ is a wonderfully restrained slice of jangle-pop from Galway’s Field Trip. All but lullabyesque in its sleepy lo-fi tone and pace, Sean Walsh from the band said, “The song reflects on the scenario of a night of drinking. You’re on the couch, it’s 5am and getting bright, the birds are singing, you’re comrades are passed out around you and now you get the chance to gather your thoughts and reflect on the evening. The song is sort of sigh of relief that the night is…

  • Premiere: Ro Gang – Smoking

    February 28, 2017 - By 

    Having previously went under the name Mr. Rosso, Dublin two-piece Isaac Clarke and Henry Ernest AKA Ro Gang will release their second album, H.E.R. – an album reportedly informed by everything from Young Thug to Burt Bacharach – via Little L Records on March 15. The first single to be taken from that, ‘Smoking’ is a typically riotous affair melding far-out lo-fi tangents with chorus-pedal-soaked tones. We’re sold. Have a first look at the video for the single – a VHS-shot effort featuring Clarke and Ernest trying, and failing, to crash a party – below.

  • Playlist: 12 Irish Acts at SXSW 2017

    February 28, 2017 - By 

    As positively hectic as any festival on the face of the globe, SXSW has long been established as a veritable cornucopia of film, music and interactive media from far and very wide. And with festivals of much smaller scale: where the excess of choice becomes something of a burden, planning ahead and knocking up a makeshift “must-see” guide is next to obligatory to ensure FOMO doesn’t become an all-consuming spectre during your festival stay. Just as important is getting some essential listening in before heading off in said sensory abyss. So if you’re SXSW-bound this year and want to check out some…

  • Watch: Tomorrows – Ricochet

    February 27, 2017 - By 

    Featuring the ever encahnting Laura Sheeran, Dublin “cosmic-pop” quartet Tomorrows have unveiled the video for their new single ‘Ricochet’. Filmed by David O’Carroll of The People We Meet, Sheeran’s nocturnal traipse through the streets of Dublin town strikes a perfectly playful contrast with the track’s buoyant melodic flow. The single is a highlight from Tomorrows’ Trout Records-released album Another Life, which you can stream in full/buy here.

  • Premiere: Jealous of the Birds and Ryan Vail – Love Is A Crow (DIE HEXEN Remix)

    February 24, 2017 - By 

    Whether teased out via whim or intention, collaboration is often the key to unearthing untested majesty. In the case of Jealous of the Birds and Ryan Vail, ‘Love is a Crow’ recently saw two worlds collide in perfectly curious fashion with the former’s spoken word spirals and vocals melding with the latter’s bubbling electronica and chopping rhythms. Taking the collaborative buzz one step further, Dee Lucille AKA DIE HEXEN’s remix of the track is a spectral masterclass, quietly dragging the original through a velvet netherworld of Badalamentian synth-work, heaving textures and warped vocal refrains. Have an exclusive first listen to that below.

  • Album Stream: Group Zero – Structures and Light

    February 24, 2017 - By 

    Written, recorded and mixed intermittently in a Belfast bedroom over four years, Structures of Light by Girls Names’ Cathal Cully AKA Group Zero is an album that bears the hallmarks of an artist slowly unravelling and refining his prowess in a new realm. A project stemming from a deeply-resonant viewing of Heinz Mack’s Pyramid of Light, the album – which is released via Belfast imprint Touch Sensitive – traverses brittle cold wave gems, pre-dawn electro throwdowns and shivering industrial instrumentalism over ten tracks, each as commanding as the last. Order Structures and Light via Touch Sensitive on vinyl and cassette here.…

  • Stream: Bad Sea – Tell Me (What I Mean)

    February 23, 2017 - By 

    One of our featured 17 For ’17 acts, Dublin duo Bad Sea have, as expected, burst into 2017 with a head full of steam. Ahead of supporting Julia Jacklin at Whelan’s in Dublin on February 25 and playing London’s Notting Hill Arts Club on March 5, their swooning new single ‘Tell Me (What I Mean)’ melds Americana-tinged jangle with Angel Olsen-esque pop finesse. Most certainly worth a repeat listen, this one.