• Stream: Hot Cops – Decay/Six

    May 20, 2015 - By 

    We’re going on the record here: Belfast trio Hot Cops are one of the best up-and-coming bands in the country at the minute, and easily the most satisfyingly spot on indie rock power-triptychs Ireland has probably ever produced. “Aye, right!” cries out an ill-informed, anonymous voice in the proverbial crowd. And we refute that refutation with the following link to the Carl Eccles-fronted trio’s blisteringly brilliant new double single, ‘Decay/Six’. Familiar in all the right places, with a carefully-considered lack of affectation (paradoxes are “in”, man), both tracks are outright highlights from the band’s ever-impressive live show – one that you shouldn’t pass…

  • Inbound: Oaks

    May 21, 2015 - By 

    When he’s not drumming for the likes of Matua Trap and Kasper Rosa, Belfast-based drummer and producer James ‘Tree’ Bruce is concocting some sublime electronic sounds as Oaks. Having just released his consistently impressive, hugely promising debut release, L’etoile Mysterieuse, Brian Coney chats to Bruce about the project. You’re a drummer in a couple of different bands – what inspired you to branch out (no pun intended) into Oaks? I’ve been making music on my own for years but it was always just for the pleasure of doing it, seeing what I could come up with. It was actually a…

  • Stream: Sorcha Richardson – Petrol Station

    May 14, 2015 - By 

    Having first caught our attention back in October, 2013 with the delicate, confessional folk of her wonderfully understated EP, Last Train, New York-based Dublin songstress Sorcha Richardson has just released a new track, ‘Petrol Station’. A simmering, nocturnal slice of electro-pop which sees Richardson’s lyrical gymnastic take centre-stage, the track was recorded by Gian Stone. Stream it below.

  • Stream: Cry Monster Cry – Atlas

    May 11, 2015 - By 

    Having received quite the response for their album, Rhythm of Dawn, Dublin alt-pop brother duo Richie and James Martin AKA Cry Monster Cry have an uncanny knack for melding superb vocals harmonies with simple yet burrowing and quite brilliant alt-pop melodies. The second track to be taken from their aforementioned debut album, ‘Atlas’ is a song almost definitely written for the radio. Combining two-part harmonies with a bewitching mishmash of organs, piano, drums and mandolins, the single was recorded and produced in Dublin by Keith Lawless and mixed by Guy Massey, who has worked with the likes of Ed Sheeran, Manic Street Preachers and some dude called Paul McCartney. Cry Monster Cry…

  • Watch: Malojian – Bathtub Blues

    May 11, 2015 - By 

    The follow-up to the sublime ‘Communion Girls’, released back in February, Stevie Scullion AKA Malojian has unveiled the video for jaunty new single, ‘Bathtub Blues’. A brilliantly breezy effort, the video for the track features Scullion and his music-making cohorts Joe McGurgan and Mike Mormecha performing the track in a bathroom. We see what they did there. Malojian launch their new album, Southlands, at Belfast’s No Alibis on May 29 and 30. Buy tickets here and watch the video for ‘Bathtub Blues’ – directed by Tommy Keery – below.

  • Stream: Rams Pocket Radio – Resevoir

    May 6, 2015 - By 

    Having laid low for a few months, Lisburn singer-songwriter Peter McAuley AKA Rams Pocket Radio has re-emerged with ‘Resevoir’, a strong, electronica-infused effort hinting at some very promising things in the making. Driven by McAuley’s immediately recognisable vocals and a wonderful string trio, the track was mixed and engineered by Rocky O’Reilly at Belfast’s Start Together Studio. Stream/download ‘Reservoir’ below. Reservoir by RAMS’ Pocket Radio

  • Stream: DAÄG HUR – Buried My Head

    April 30, 2015 - By 

    Evoking the likes of Bardo Pond, Black Angels and early My Bloody Valentine, Dublin psych rockers DAÄG HUR have really caught our attention with new track, ‘Buried My Head’. Opting for hyper-hyphenation over self-myopia, the band call themselves a “dream-pop-doom-rock band” – a fitting descriptor for a sound that straddles the balance between dread and ecstasy. ‘Buried My Head’ embodies that very nicely indeed, proving an all-too brief, psych-soaked traipse into the nether regions of the psyche, bound by cirrus streams of reverb and release. This is the theme from a soundtrack to emerging from a bad trip in a friend of a friend’s shite…

  • Stream: OneKnown – Jektify

    April 30, 2015 - By 

    The latest in a spate of new material, Belfast electronic producer Chris Hanna AKA OneKnown has unveiled a new track, ‘Jektify’. Speaking of a forthcoming EP, titled Blue Galaxy, Hanna said, “I might just release it on Bandcamp as a Pay What You Want thing. I wanted the EP to be a bit spacey and weirder. Maybe I’m hanging out with Jack (Space Dimension Controller) too much.” Stream the track via Soundcloud below.

  • Stream: Pleasure Beach – Go

    April 23, 2015 - By 

    Belfast dream-pop bands are few and far between. Deeming themselves just that – exactly 3,339 miles to the east of Baltimore’s Beach House – are Pleasure Beach, a new-fangled five-piece who met whilst working in the “estimable coffee shops of Belfast”. Featuring members of Northern Irish acts including Yes Cadets and In An Instant, the band’s debut single, ‘Go’, takes its cue from “pounding stadium Americana, hypnotic krautrock and blurry-eyed Scandinavian pop”, forging a self-assured and decidedly mesmeric four-and-a-half minutes of sun-kissed, wanderlust-driven pop. A self-proclaimed “part bruised break-up song, part existential post-apocalyptic horror story”, you can stream the track below.

  • Watch: Sleep Thieves – You Want The Night

    April 21, 2015 - By 

    A masterclass in woozy, nocturnal electro-pop, You Want The Night by Dublin three-piece Sleep Thieves is easily one of our favourite debut albums by an Irish band in… well, forever. A year on from its release, the Sorcha Brennan-fronted band have unveiled the video for its title (and arguably best track) ‘You Want The Night’ – and what a distance director Mike P. Nelson has gone to wonderfully, rather cinematically capture the song’s dark, marauding tangents.