• Video Premiere: Jake Regan – Unfair

    September 25, 2019 - By 

    When Jake Regan‘s debut single ‘Over It’ came out, we said he’d “instantly staked his claim as one of the country’s most promising and distinctive songwriting voices”, and new double A-side ‘Unfair / Stay’ compounds that fact – with the former’s video out today. It’s a perfect 3 minute, scuzzed-out power-pop song about the would-be artist’s reality crash-landing that deftly navigates the tightrope between sincere & pointedly self-aware. Based on the oh-so-relatable D.I.Y. artist’s perspective, Regan tells us more: “The song came from frustration at the stratospheric recent success of the Fontaines, and the weird flurry of identical bands that followed them. There are so many angry young men…

  • Video Premiere: The Bonk – May Feign

    September 25, 2019 - By 

    The first of ten commandments that Captain Beefheart drilled into guitarist Moris Tepper upon joining the band in 1976 was: “Listen to the birds – That’s where all music comes from. Birds know everything about how it should sound and where that sound should come from. And watch hummingbirds. They fly really fast, but a lot of times they aren’t going anywhere.” If you’ve caught The Bonk live, then you’ll know what it is to be hypnotised by exactly that pendulous meditation on a single groove, as each of their seven(ish) members instinctively weave around each other, while time falls away. Today, we’re delighted to premiere ‘May Feign’,…

  • Album Premiere: Barry Wilson – Portrait

    September 18, 2019 - By 

    Never more than in the past few years has our national affinity for groove-laden jazz, funk & soul become something whose re-evaluation was overdue, what with Vulfpeck becoming one of Ireland’s adopted sons, and traditional offshoot, The Ollam. Over that same timeframe, multi-instrumentalist and composer Barry Wilson has been steadfastly crafting debut album, Portrait. Recorded across a multitude of studios in Ireland and Portugal, and featuring over 20 collaborators, it’s a focused, but eclectic collection of funk & neo-soul which feels emblematic of the spiritual ties between modern Ireland and soulful, intricately composed fusion. Portrait‘s initial recordings took place in Grawa Sound Studio in Porto, with…

  • Watch: Malojian – DIRT

    September 18, 2019 - By 

    It’s a truth universally acknowledged dark, strange times always yield the best art. Which conveniently bring us to the new single from one of the country’s very best singer-songwriters, Stevie Scullion aka Malojian. Honing in on the towering shitehawkery of Johnson, Trump & co., media corruption and more, it’s a masterful, major-keyed riposte to the worldly forces that conspire to make fretting, sleepless wrecks of us all. Featuring animations by Michael Winchester, check out Colm Laverty’s accompanying video for the unexpected but very happily-received new single below.

  • Supergrass Set For Dublin and Belfast on 2020 Reunion Tour

    September 9, 2019 - By 

    Supergrass are set to play two Irish dates as part of their forthcoming reunion tour. The Gaz Coombes-fronted Britpop legends will play Dublin’s Olympia Theatre on February 12th and Belfast’s Ulster Hall on February 17th. Tickets go on sale this Friday (September 13th) morning. Band member Danny Goffey said, “Everything aligned for us to make this happen for 2020. It was the first time that we collectively felt the buzz to get back in a room together and play the songs. “We’re extremely excited to get out there and bring a bit of Supergrass joy to all our fans… and…

  • Lankum Announced New Album, Release ‘The Livelong Day’

    September 5, 2019 - By 

    It’s official: Dublin folk miscreants Lankum will release their new album The Livelong Day via Rough Trade on October 25. Coinciding with the announcement is the unveiling of the band’s masterful take on ‘The Wild Rover’. The band said of the single, which is accompanied by a video by Ellius Grace: “There are countless renditions of this tune, it is a song very much rooted within the dirt and peat of Ireland, but the revelation of a little known final verse takes it from a jovial pub tale to one of sadness and destitution. The actual crux of the song becomes…

  • Stream: Myles McCormack – Merry Go Round

    August 29, 2019 - By 

    Belfast-based musician Myles McCormack occupies a very special place within the Northern Irish music community. Beyond his work as a founding member of forward-pushing trad-folk outfit Lonesome George, the songwriter and multi-instrumentalist crafts considered, reflective tales under his own name. It’s something that comes into sharp focus on McCormack’s forthcoming twelve-track debut album, Real Talk. Set for release on September 13th, it’s a gossamer and quietly emphatic first gambit from an artist who continues to set himself apart. From ‘Lifeline’ and the wonderfully-woven melancholia of opening track ‘When’ to the throwback folk phantasm of new single ‘Merry Go Round’ and beyond,…

  • Watch: Hatchet Field – Jolene

    August 29, 2019 - By 

    Once a riff-wielding Goliath in Belfast instrumental rock wizards The Continuous Battle of Order (and, before that, WeAreKnives) the musician known as Hornby is as shapeshifting and wonderfully unpredictable as they come. Nowhere is that more apparent than on his current solo project, Hatchet Field. Wielding darkly and masterfully sparse tales, the odd live performance has revealed an artist whose visionary prowess, though significantly more muted than previous full-band efforts, is no less compelling for it. Last week, Belfast imprint Black Tragick offered some insight into that world by unveiling a new Hatfield Field cover. Dedicated to his mother on the tenth anniversary of her passing, a stark and slow-burning Dolly Parton…

  • Stream: Father! – Desire Lines

    August 29, 2019 - By 

    From The Stars of Heaven, Sea Pinks and Fixed Stars to Dott, Postcard Versions and any number of Popical Island bands, Ireland has always held its own when it comes to first-rate jangle-pop. On the more prismstic and forward-pushing end of the spectrum is Dublin quartet Father! (their exclamation mark, not ours – though we do speak with considerable enthusiasm here.) Woozy and warped-out, the Sean Brunswick-fronted foursome’s new single ‘Desire Lines’ is feedback-drenched and star-shaped in equal measure. That it shares a title with a straight-up Deerhunter classic may or may not be a coincidence. Either way, it certainly embodies a certain sonic…

  • Video Premiere: Percolator – Freshin

    August 28, 2019 - By 

    Since the release of their debut LP and our runaway album of 2017, we’ve been sitting on our hands waiting on fresh cosmische mastery from Percolator for what fees like eons. At long last, we can breathe, as the Dublin-based trio have just followed Sestra with a video for their next single, ‘Freshin’. More than delivering on expectation, the new single leans further into the slaloming, hypnosis-inducing rhythmic interplay that made their debut album such an exciting proposition. The track was written and recorded for An Taobh Tuathail‘s twentieth anniversary back in May, but the band liked it enough to release it as a digital download single with…