• Watch: Deaf Joe – Shadow Work

    February 23, 2022 - By 

    Over the last few years, Joe Harney aka Deaf Joe has emerged as one of the country’s most consistent and singular songwriting voices. Spanning dream-pop, electronic, indie and far beyond, his deftly-woven craft on albums including 2019’s Love Stories has been nigh on polychromatic and remarkably refined. On 9th March, Harney releases his highly-anticipated fifth studio album, Kalachuchi, via Donegal’s Bluestack Records. Recorded in Scotland, Denmark, and Ireland over three years, it’s a release that, if lead single ‘Shadow Work (Come Help Me Sleep)’ is anything to go by, is set to reveal the full, prismatic majesty of Harney’s talents. Check…

  • Clara Tracey Pays Tribute to Irish Stain Glass Icon Harry Clarke in New Video

    February 22, 2022 - By 

    Pizza Pizza Records’ latest signing and experimental pop auteur Clara Tracey today releases the video for her wonderful latest single ‘Harry Clarke’. The lushly-arranged Daniel Fox production puts the Fermanagh-born, Belfast-based Tracey’s layered, technically superlative vocal range at front and centre, offers fragments of the subtly subversive, highly influential Irish stain glass artist & illustrator Harry Clarke. Initially inspired by window ‘The Eve of Saint Agnes’, Clara tells us more about the song’s inception: “Stained glass windows often bring to mind biblical scenes and churches, they don’t tend to be associated with dark eroticism. While Harry Clarke did receive most of his commissions from…

  • Irish Tracks of the Week – February 19th

    February 18, 2022 - By 

    This week has seen new music, and long-awaited albums from some of Ireland’s finest acts, including David Holmes, Paddy Hanna, Wallis Bird, Clara Tracey, Fontaines D.C., Sinead O’Brien, Ye Vagabonds, Paper Tigers, Dirty Dreamer, Junk Drawer & more. Paddy Hanna – New York Sidewalk New York Sidewalk by Paddy Hanna David Holmes – It’s Over if we Run out of Love It’s Over, If We Run Out Of Love by David Holmes feat. Raven Violet Clara Tracey – Harry Clarke Harry Clarke by Clara Tracey Fontaines D.C. – I Love You Sinead O’Brien – Holy Country Dirty Dreamer – Piano 39…

  • Watch: Junior Brother – No Country For Young Men

    February 9, 2022 - By 

    Ronan Kealy’s evolution as an artist has been a rare delight to behold. The Co. Kerry singer-songwriter known as Junior Brother has all but single-handedly upended the (granted, somewhat kneejerk) conception of experimental folk on these shores. It’s a trajectory, the power of which shines searingly through new single ‘No Country For Young Men’. The follow-up to last October’s inspired ‘Life’s New Haircut’, it’s a masterfully mesmeric effort that explores the culture shock – and straight-up experiential doom – of Kealy’s relocation to the capital. “I wrote this song in response to the tangible feeling of dread and anxiety I…

  • Irish Tracks of the Week – January 28th

    January 28, 2022 - By 

    It’s that time of year again, as many of Ireland’s finest acts release new singles to announce their prospective AOTY contenders, as well as a smattering of singles from exciting emergent acts, including the likes of the Thumper, Soak, Naked Lungs, Willhouse feat. GI, Wynona Bleach, My Tribe Your Tribe, Jossle, Rowan and Wallis Bird. Thumper – Overbite Wallis Bird – What’s Wrong With Changing? Soak – Last July Book of the Dead – Mercury At Greatest Eastern Elongation MERCURY AT GREATEST EASTERN ELONGATION by BOOK OF THE DEAD My Tribe Your Tribe – I Stay Quiet I Stay Quiet by My Tribe Your Tribe…

  • Stream: Big Daisy – Poinsettia

    December 14, 2021 - By 

    Belfast quartet Big Daisy have unveiled a new festive single titled ‘Poinsettia’. Capping off a busy year emerging as one of the island’s first indie-pop propositions, it is – true to form – a wonderfully lo-fi gem from the four-piece, honing in on the true spirit of the season. “‘Poinsettia’ is a Christmas love song,” said the band.” The main lyric “Christmas without you baby, I would be so blue” is sang with heart at the thought of being without your true love at Christmas time.” Stream the song – which was recorded in the attic of Big Daisy’s home by the…

  • Stream: Kineograph – I Can See 3 People

    November 24, 2021 - By 

    On Friday, December 3rd, Cork composer and multi-instrumentalist Mark Waldron-Hyden releases CAPRICORN, his stellar full-length debut in the guise of Kineograph. Following on from the release of Future Life Continuity, a genre-warping feat released under his own name in early 2020, Capricorn walks the line between conventional and experiential, in pursuit of a release that – among other things – tries to emulate rhythms the artist encountered naturally throughout the everyday, be it the countryside or in the city. Speaking about the release, Waldron-Hyden said: “Where Future Life Continuity was about investigating the presence of life after death, CAPRICORN almost…

  • Premiere: Acid Granny – I Love the Brits & I Love the Queen

    November 22, 2021 - By 

    They don’t come more singular than Acid Granny. Over the last couple of years, the trolly-toting dealers of improvised electronic punk and abstract audio art have consistently reaffirmed our faith in the island’s more unapologetically radical sonic auteurs. Set for release via Ecstatic Intervals, a new label founded by Dublin producer qwasi, new single ‘I Love the Brits & I Love the Queen’ is a pure-cut distillation of what sets the group apart. Across two all-too-short minutes, it’s another masterfully mangled effort, rounded off with some of the more memorable visuals we’ve latched our eyes upon as of late. “The song was born…

  • Watch: M(h)aol – No One Ever Talks To Us

    October 27, 2021 - By 

    Year in, year out, the imminence of Samhain tends to bring about some … varying seasonal content. Thankfully, there are always exceptions to that rule. Taken from their forthcoming debut EP, Gender Studies, the video for ‘No One Ever Talks To Us’ by M(h)aol depicts women in scenes of horror, from Barbara Creed’s The Monstrous Feminine and Megan Fox’s Jennifer’s Body, to Julia Kristeva’s Powers of Horror. But it’s far from a kneejerk tie-in to mark the time of the year from the band, who are based between Dublin, Cork, London and Bristol. A fraught meld of buzz-saw textures, bobbing rhythms and Róisín Nic…

  • Premiere: Ordnance Survey – Vico Road, July 1984

    October 19, 2021 - By 

    As one of the island’s most forward-pushing electronic propositions, Neil O’Connor has long intrigued and challenged as an artist over the years. It’s something that comes into sharp focus in his guise as Ordnance Survey. Next month, O’Connor unveils Field Work, a new LP via Scintilla Recordings. Produced mostly at his home in Drumcondra, Dublin, the album was born out of the use of field recordings made in and around the capital, as well as clips from television archives, the Dart, bicycles and vocal samples from Kerry 40 years ago. A simmering blend of understated synth, samples, piano and found sound,…