• Irish Tracks of the Week – March 12th

    March 12, 2021 - By 

    It’s been another stellar week for new releases in every corner of the island. Delve into the best of the lot, featuring Maria Somerville, Sorbet x Maija Sofia, Invaderband, New Pagans, Amerik x Little Rivers, A Ritual Sea and more. Maria Somerville – Seabird SORBET – I Heard His Scythe feat. Maija Sofia Invaderband – I Won’t Remember You I Won’t Remember You by Invaderband New Pagans – Harbour A Ritual Sea – Desire Lines Neptune M. – AA AA by Neptune M. Sprints – Swimming Amerik x Little Rivers – Apricot Captain A & Ciara Ní É Queen Bonobo…

  • Maria Somerville – All My People

    March 25, 2019 - By 

    It’s quite rare to encounter a debut album as self-assured as Maria Somerville’s All My People. The Galway native has crafted 27 minutes of impossibly tight and well constructed music that possess a confidence which is seldom encountered so early in a career. Drawing from the deep wells of everything from folk and ambient to doo-wop and post-punk and the experiences of Irish youth, Somerville mixes these elements into a beautiful concoction of dream pop goodness. What’s so striking about these seven cuts is how well defined each actually is. By its very nature, the sort of ethereal mood that…

  • Maria Somerville @ Bello Bar, Dublin

    March 25, 2019 - By 

    Maria Somerville’s on the edge of something big. The dreamy, soft-focus pop of her debut album is unlike anything else you’ll hear this year, and she’s picking up attention across Europe. So it’s not exactly a surprise that the Bello Bar is wedged this evening: it’s wall-to-wall hipster, the barman’s sweating and under pressure as the orders come in faster than he can serve, and there are local journos, scenesters and musicians bouncing from one side of the venue to the other to meet and greet. The Bello Bar’s a small basement room, with a low-ceilinged area near the bar…

  • This Month In Irish Music: January

    January 31, 2019 - By 

    In the first of a new regular series, Colin Gannon rounds up the very best Irish tracks released of the month just gone, featuring SOAK, Arvo Party, ELLL, Problem Patterns, James Joys, Sister Ghost, Gadget & The Cloud , Maria Somerville and more. Problem Patterns — Allegedly In a month where the R&B musician R. Kelly—after painfully long years of swerving accountability for persistent, unsettling claims of heinous abuses—may finally have his day of reckoning in a court, new Belfast-based feminist punk group Problem Patterns’ snarling debut single, ‘Allegedly’, lands a certain potency. The word allegedly—itself a necessary adverb used in copy…