• Stream: Slouch – Day Half

    February 20, 2019 - By 

    We’ve been singing the praises of Slouch to anyone who will listen for an age now. Comprising guitarist and vocalist Conor Wilson, bassist Kev Shannon and drummer Malachy Burke, the Dublin trio’s shapeshifting, scuzzed-out sounds defy easy categorisation more than the vast majority of Irish bands all-too-swiftly referred to “alt-rock”. In truth, Slouch have also felt like a genuine alternative – a riff-wielding, face-searing, psychogroove-pedalling flipside – in a scene heavily saturated with FM-flirting, Award-Winning-Music-Blogger-appeasing guitar rock. The lead single from their forthcoming “very nearly finished” debut album, ‘Day Half’ sublimates the very best aspects of Slouch’s craft to five masterfully unpredictable minutes. Marrying dizzying riff…

  • Watch: Rachael Boyd – Blind Spot

    February 18, 2019 - By 

    Having released a string of shorter releases over the years – as well as been the violinist with Irish artists including Joshua Burnside, Ciaran Lavery, Malojian and Overhead the Albatross – Rachael Boyd’s eclectic and intricately-woven craft is laid bare on her debut, Weave. Across twelve tracks, the album (which is set for release this Wednesday) is the pure-cut distillation of the Dublin-based Belfast artist’s singular craft. Having already received support from BBC Radio 1, Clash, TheLineOfBestFit and elsewhere, lead single ‘Blind Spot’ is a masterfully bewitching case in point. Check out its lyric video below.

  • Album Stream: Regret Will Come – Regret Will Come

    February 13, 2019 - By 

    We didn’t know about this until yesterday, but thanks to a rare bit of social algorithmic fortune, we’re sharing with you the new, self-titled album from lo-fi bedroom indie project Regret Will Come. At times a catch-all Bandcamp postcard of a solitary bedroom life unlived in the vein of early (Sandy) Alex G – see: ‘Tainaka’ – and at times vulnerably discordant and slowcore – there’s Duster all over ‘Akari’ – it was seemingly made to fit on the dynamic shelves of Exploding In Sound Records or some other unheard-of indie label out in the American midwest. Regret Will Come is comprised solely of Co. Monaghan auteur Fintan Gallagher, who writes, plays and…

  • 19 for ’19: Lemoncello

    February 12, 2019 - By 

    We continue 19 for ‘19 – our feature looking at nineteen Irish acts that we’re convinced are going places in 2019 – with Maynooth alternative folk duo Lemoncello. Photo by Joe Laverty A duo who formed while studying music and languages in Maynooth University, Laura Quirke and Claire Kinsella aka Lemoncello have carved out a unique, increasingly compelling niche in Irish alternative folk over the last five years. As well as helping to found the Common Grounds Collective – a group dedicated to building a network of musicians of all disciplines and giving them “a platform to create and showcase…

  • Premiere: Mob Wife – Captain Care A Lot & Hellsong

    February 8, 2019 - By 

    Following the release of debut single ‘Warm Water’ in August, Belfast’s Mob Wife are back with new double A-side Captain Care A Lot / Hellsong. Recorded by Chris Ryan at Start Together Studios, with striking artwork by Billy Woods, the release strikes a midpoint between the dissonant fury of Metz or Unwound, and the melodic vulnerability of Pile. A contrasting couplet, ‘Captain Care A Lot’ continuing down the narrative & noise-ridden path of twentysomething angst and confusion laid by ‘Warm Water’, sardonically chronicling mass depersonalisation as a result of social media. ‘Hellsong’ is a more inward-looking exploration of disintegration, through the maelstrom of substance abuse, isolation and depression; in eschewing the…

  • Premiere: Alpha Chrome Yayo – Breakfast In Daytona

    February 7, 2019 - By 

    It’s not every day, but every once in a while, a track will land in our inbox that just instinctively makes us want to punch the air. A textbook case in point is the new single from newfangled Belfast producer and musician Alpha Chrome Yayo. Bursting at the seams with pure-cut throwback goodness, ‘Breakfast in Daytona’ is a synth-soaked, SEGA-leaning gem from an artist who set out to chart the “excitement of one day at a sun-bleached race-track”. The musician put it best when he said, “Waking up with the drivers, crew members and spectators, this synth-wave single starts hazy and hopeful,…

  • 19 for ’19: Rebekah Fitch

    February 6, 2019 - By 

    Though it’s not always easy to pinpoint why, some artists seem simply fated for big things. Of the myriad alt-pop acts that Ireland has produced over the last few years, the fast-moving upward trajectory of Belfast-based artist Rebekah Fitch is no such mystery. Drawing from influences spanning the likes of Björk and Portishead, to Sia and Stevie Nicks, Fitch has, over the last couple of years, emerged as something of a world-beating proposition. Having been nominated for the Contender Award at last year’s prestigious Northern Ireland Music Prize, her self-produced material to date – not least recent single, the emphatic ‘Need…

  • Premiere: TAU – Craw

    February 6, 2019 - By 

    TAU is the collective project of Berlin-based Irishman Shaun Mulrooney, an artist who refers to his psych-soaked, genre-mangling experimentalism as “medicine music”. It’s a term that fits well: also member of Dead Skeletons and Berlin Kraut conjurers Camera, Mulrooney’s sorcerous craft as TAU – which is strongly influenced by his interest in what lies beyond both the eye and the veil – carries with it a strong and slow-burning anagogic air. New single ‘Craw’ is a potent case in point. Featuring a sublime video, co-directed with Kyle Ferguson (who also filmed and edited the accompaniment), it’s a song that traces the dense…

  • Premiere: Ferals – The Low

    February 5, 2019 - By 

    The island of Ireland has always batted out out of its league when it comes to riff-fuelled post-rock. Right up there with the acts flying the flag in the North right now is Belfast-based threesome Ferals. Listing Foals, Biffy Clyro, Deftones and North Coast instrumental machine And So I Watch You From Afar as their main influences, the Zool Records-affiliated band have re-emerged with their new single, ‘The Low’. Doubling up as the band’s strongest single effort to date – and accompanied with a suitably emphatic video – the song strikes a fist-clenched mid-point between low-end riff slinging, gang vocals…

  • 19 for ’19: Larry

    January 30, 2019 - By 

    We continue 19 for ‘19 – our feature looking at nineteen Irish acts that we’re convinced are going places in 2019 – with Dundalk lo-fi alt-rock three-piece Larry. Photo by Aaron Corr When you record an album with Steve Albini (Shellac/Rapeman /Big Black) you get a certain amount of bang for your buck – you get a solid ranking of all the vegetarian restaurants in Chicago. You get recommendations for who best to master your album, i.e. Bob Weston (Shellac). You get to see your music mixed, not only by a master engineer, but also by a World Series of…