• So Cow Announces New Album

    July 30, 2019 - By 

    The brainchild of Brian Kelly – long one of Ireland’s sharpest lyricists and craftsmen of garage pop nuggets – So Cow have announced tracklisting & pre-order details of new album Do Re Me Fa So Cow. Following up on 2016’s Lisa Marie Airplane Tour, the album is available to pre-order on CD & tape now through the So Cow website. The tracklisting is as follows: 1. Now That I Am 36 2. On Time 3. Standard 4. The Exact Order Of Things 5. High Visibility 6. Institiute Of 7. Issue Resolution 8. Two Three 9. Wealth 10. Shorthand 11. Twelve Minutes On Maps 12. Place Of Thickets…

  • Stream: Danny Madigan – Lost Shore

    July 26, 2019 - By 

    You might not know it yet, but Belfast, of all places, is home to a steadily-thriving synthwave scene. Look no further than Transpacifica, the remarkably prolific Alpha Chrome Yayo and Belfast-based whiz Danny Madigan. Today, the latter releases his strong single effort to date.  ‘Lost Shore’ finds Madigan taking inspiration from his homeland, revealing that the song was inspired by, and written whilst sitting beside, Lough Neagh. Abstract, but somehow familiar, this new release is another step forward for the musician and the rest of his fellow synthwave artists, who gather themselves together under the mysterious ‘Club Arnold’ banner. Stream the single – and it’s…

  • Watch: Tandem Felix – Nightclub (I Sold My Soul To The Devil)

    July 25, 2019 - By 

    Perennial TTA faves and Americana songwriting masters Tandem Felix are back with their first single in two years, ‘Nightclub (I Sold My Soul To The Devil)’. Pristine slide parts and curveballing synth moments accompany the “tale of a boy who makes a Faustian pact; exchanging his soul for the means to spend every remaining night inside a grotty club”. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the band have one-upped themselves once more – ‘Nightclub’ offers a clarity of vision and progression of their country-informed storytelling, exciting us for what’s to come on their long-awaited debut album, Rom-Com. Songwriter David Tapley had this to say of the song: “Over three nights, over three…

  • Video Premiere: Queen Bonobo @ The Live Room Belfast

    July 11, 2019 - By 

    The Live Room is one of Belfast’s most valuable musical resources – an eclectic, Live At KEXP-esque showcase of the finest artists to pass through Belfast, based in the city’s most welcoming and well-equipped studio, Start Together. They’ve run the gamut from the crushing doom of Slomatics and Conan to the Word Up Collective‘s hotly-tipped R&B voices of Super Silly & Jordan Adetunji. Back after a brief quiet spell, the latest in their series is title track ‘Boom Boom’, taken from the debut album by Derry-based, Idaho-born chanteuse Queen Bonobo, taken from a session recorded during Belfast’s Output Convention in February. We’ve said it before, but Maya’s vocal has the uncanny ability to take the quality of a sine wave, and…

  • Premiere: Citóg Records Volume Four – Too Much Can Kill You

    July 9, 2019 - By 

    On Thursday (July 11) Galway independent label Citóg Records will launch its highly-anticipatd fourth annual compilation at the Róisín Dubh. Once again, it’s a prime opportunity to hone in on just how far the label has come. Across eleven tracks, this new installment (which is titled Too Much Can Kill You) offers a remarkably varied and totally inspired snapshot of Citóg as a collective of artists, collaborators and friends. From the woozy sci-fi surf of Eoin Dolan’s ‘Superior Fiction’ and Tracy Bruen’s shapeshifting ‘Mirror’ to the inward-peering indie-folk of ‘Amsterdam’ by David Boland aka New Pope and beyond, it’s full, genre-spanning testament to the importance…

  • This Month In Irish Music: June

    July 5, 2019 - By 

    Was June the strongest month in Irish music this year so far? By way of Girl Band, Yankari, Uly, Roisin Murphy and more, Colin Gannon makes a strong case in his monthly round-up. Girl Band — Shoulderblades Girl Band (pictured) are back. Dara Kiely’s ungodly, contorted howl is back, as exorcistic and scabbed as ever. In the same month that Two Door Cinema Club made their excruciatingly ghastly comeback, Ireland’s revered purveyors of shadowy, techno-informed noise rock arose from their slumber. Kiely’s health problems led at least in part to their lack of visibility over the past few years, creating a…

  • Video Premiere: New Pope – Not Forgotten

    July 5, 2019 - By 

    Over the last while, musician, TTA favourite and Galway institution David Boland aka New Pope has drip-fed a series of sublime videos to accompany tracks from his recently-released (and downright exceptional) 2015 album, Youth. Including the one for the masterfully wistful ‘Not Forgotten’ – which we’re very pleased to premiere below – four of them the handiwork of Ray Ingram, a septuagenarian whose homespun movies from 1964 bound from the past to sync majestically with Boland’s imagined worlds. Revisit Youth in full here.

  • Premiere: Mark Waldron-Hyden – Did You Hide

    July 3, 2019 - By 

    Mark Waldron-Hyden, as a member of cosmic psych outfit The Sunshine Factory & founder of Sunshine Cult Records, has become an integral figure of Cork’s underground music community. Today, we’re pleased to premiere the first release under his own name, single ‘Did You Hide’. Lifted from his forthcoming debut album, Stream Segregation, it’s a somnambulant, sedated piece of experimental electronic music. The song marries the sparse otherworldliness of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop to the cavernous ambience of Pauline Oliveros’ school of Deep Listening, while impressionistic, Thom Yorke-ian vocals draw in something recognisably – just about – of the now. ‘Did You Hide’ was written, recorded and produced by Waldron-Hyden using a mixture of field recording, acoustic instruments, synths and tape…

  • Stream: Alpha Chrome Yayo – Lithobreakin’

    June 28, 2019 - By 

    On the slinky, interstellar ‘Lithobreakin”, Alpha Chrome Yayo confirms our suspicions that he’s a jack of all trades and a master of many. Having emerged as a maestro of stellar synthwave retromancy over the last few months, the Belfast producer’s new single is a first-rate foray into interstellar electro-funk. Inspired, he tells us, “in almost equal parts by the interstellar grooves of Zapp and Roger, vintage Sega Mega Drive title Toejam and Earl, and the surprisingly sexy world of astrophysics”, it’s a bombastic, wonderfully curveballing new effort from the remarkably productive artist. Better yet, the single’s masterfully downtempo, Jean-Michel Jarre-influenced b-side ‘Escape Atrocity’ melds a…

  • Watch: Gross Net – Gentrification

    June 28, 2019 - By 

    If there’s a busier Irish musician than Philip Quinn, please, send them our way. Over the years, the Belfast musician has performed in myriad guises: from releasing music as Charles Hurts and playing guitar in the recently-disbanded Girls Names, to making up one-third of the already hugely-promising Grave Goods, his versatility has always ran parallel with fecundity. Bands, collaborations and the odd side-project aside, it’s in his main solo guise as Gross Net where the full weight and majesty of Quinn’s art comes into view. Taking from his eagerly-anticipated second studio album, Gross Net Means Gross Net, ‘Gentrification’ is one of his most cohesive and assured efforts to…