• Watch: Aaron Shanley – My Mind Ain’t Pretty (At The Minute)

    September 8, 2015 - By 

    Lisburn singer-songwriter Aaron Shanley has always operated on the periphery of his music-making peers. With a sound traversing perfectly subtle balladry to abrasive anti-folk forays, he will release a new, eight-track album, Metal Alligator, on September 22. A track falling very much and rather brilliantly under the latter descriptor, ‘My Mind Ain’t Pretty (At The Minute)’ marries scuzzy lo-fi indie rock in the vein of Ty Segall and Sparklehorse with a wall of drone evoking Bardo Pond and early Flying Saucer Attack. In short: a really tidy, very promising taste of things to come from the wanderlust-smitten artist. Check out the suitably…

  • Watch: Malojian – No Alibis

    September 8, 2015 - By 

    One of our favourite Irish singer-songwriters, Stevie Scullion AKA Malojian knocked us for six with his second stdio album, Southlands, back in May. The latest single to be lifted from that, ‘No Alibis’ is a typically Americana-inflected effort from the Lurgan songsmith, conjuring the likes of Elliott Smith, Wilco and – in its more swaggering passages – Tame Impala and T-Rex. Featuring another sublime animated accompaniment by Richard Davis, the track – assumingly named after the Belfast-based bookstore of the same name – was produced by Malojian drummer and Mojo Fury frontman Michael Mormecha. Malojian plays Belfast’s Empire Music Hall on…

  • Watch: Girl Band – Pears For Lunch

    September 3, 2015 - By 

    To say Dublin’s Girl Band are on a bit of a roll would be a towering understatement. Set to play a Thin Air show at Belfast’s Bar Sub on Friday, September 25 as part of a forthcoming new UK tour (full dates below), the Dara Kiely-fronted four-piece have just unleashed ‘Pears For Lunch’, the latest single from their hugely-anticipated debut album, Holding Hands With Jamie. A suffocating, masterfully maniacal three and a half minutes culminating in the the immortal adage “I look crap with my top off…”, the track feels like an epilogue of sorts to last January’s ‘Lawman’. If the…

  • Watch: Abandcalledboy – LA Dick (Keian Remix)

    September 3, 2015 - By 

    Back in May we introduced Lia, the debut EP by Dublin-based Irish-Iranian songwriter and producer Keian Roohipour AKA Keian. Four months on, the Co. Down man has worked his shuffling, unravelling wizardry on ‘LA Dick’, the latest single by Abandcalledboy. Warping the original to a barely recognisable state, it makes for five odd minutes of wonderfully tangential electronic nocturnalism, hinting at some great things in the pipeline. Watch the video for the original track here and check out Keian’s remix below.

  • Stream: Little Xs For Eyes – Funk Island

    September 2, 2015 - By 

    Funk Island: not only where James Brown desperately (possibly) wanted to see in his retirement, but also the tropical-tinged new single by Dublin indie-pop band Little Xs For Eyes. While they’re just a little late in capturing the sound of the great (cough) Irish summer, they’ve certainly fused a whole plethora of sun-kissed sounds on the new release, which is accompanied a remix of ‘Logical Love’ by Rory Grubb. It’s not quite as radiant but we’re fans. Funk Island by little xs for eyes

  • Watch: Girls Names – A Hunger Artist

    August 26, 2015 - By 

    With its wonderfully droll pisstake intro transporting us right back to an age of super-awkward 80s TV interviews, the video for Girls Names‘ ‘A Hunger Artist’ is a sparse, brilliantly realised, perfectly self-contained little no man’s land where their music couldn’t serve any more aptly as a soundtrack. A highlight from the band’s forthcoming third studio album, Arms Around a Vision, the track is a sneering and gallant slab of burrowing post-punk (yes, we went “there”) with a payoff that marries Magazine and Gary Numan at their most utterly resolute. Girls Names kick off another string of Europeans shows at Belfast’s Empire Music Hall on…

  • Stream: Contour – Rearrange & Realign

    August 26, 2015 - By 

    One of our favourite Irish acts at the minute – and arguably the jewel in Belfast imprint Champion Sound’s crown – Dublin’s Contour has returned with ‘Rearrange & Realign’, a six-minute track bursting with the pair’s increasingly distinctive brand of electro-pop. Taken from their forthcoming second EP, the brilliantly titled Blessed With Weird Things, you can stream it below now via the Champion Sound Soundcloud page.

  • Stream: A Bad Cavalier – Moving On

    August 24, 2015 - By 

    Almost two years on from unveiled his debut EP, Ex Libris, Niall Kennedy and his band AKA A Bad Cavalier have went several steps further with with their stupendous new single, ‘Moving On’. A nigh on four-minute slab of deliciously tight, totally triumphant alt-pop, the track is the follow-up to the band’s July single ‘I’m a Wreck’. Judging by the awesome trajectory of his output to date, a forthcoming full-length release is something we would very happily lap up indeed. Stream the single below via Bandcamp. Moving On by A Bad Cavalier

  • Watch: Overhead, The Albatross – Big River Man

    August 25, 2015 - By 

    There’s videos capturing the sheer kinesis and electricity of performance, then there’s the video for ‘Big River’ Man by Dublin instrumental six-piece Overhead, The Albatross. Directed by the band’s guitarist Luke Daly, it masterfully taps into OTA’s inexorable brand of post-rock, capturing the sheer power innate in its pockets of ardor and zeal. We’re big fans. Watch the video below. And again.

  • Watch: Enemies – Play Fire

    August 18, 2015 - By 

    Last month, we featured a special The Record feature documenting the recording of ‘Play Fire’, the sublime new track by Kilcoole math-pop maestros Enemies. Their first release in two (long) years, it sees the band concoct one of their most wonderfully cohesive, deftly arranged and downright catchy tracks to date. Speaking of the single – taken from their forthcoming third studio album – Enemies’ guitarist Lewis Jackson said, “It was this idea of getting as far away from our comfort zone as possible, without losing what makes us Enemies.” And how they’ve succeeded. Watch Finn Keenan’s video for the song below.