• Premiere: John Blek – The Blackwater

    January 3, 2019 - By 

    Cork singer-songwriter John Blek is a master at weaving gossamer tales stemming as much from his own headspace as the lineage of various transatlantic folk traditions. Set for release on February 1, Blek’s fourth studio album, Thistle & Thorn, is set to underscore that repute tenfold. Recorded between Clonakilty and Louisville, Kentucky at the start of last year, the album is a largely collaborative, with Brian Casey, Davie Ryan, Joan Shelley and guitarist Nathan Salsburg among the artists who have lent their own touch to the release. Lead single ‘The Blackwater’ is a delicate and carefully-crated sample of what to expect. Brimming with pathos,…

  • Stream: James Joys – Fugitive Wound

    January 4, 2019 - By 

    Despite existing on a peripheral plain sonically, Belfast producer and composer James Thompson AKA James Joys deserves much more than negligible regard, both at home and much further afield. Beyond his work as one-half of Ex-Isles with vocalist Peter Devlin, his solo output to date is equal parts spectrum-bucking, dense and hugely rewarding. Six minutes of self-proclaimed “deep brain cracking electronica to get sweaty to”, new single ‘Fugitive Wound’ encapsulates this. Mastered by fellow Belfast-based electronic wizard Herb Magee AKA Arvo Party, it’s a heady, warped triumph marrying a slew of staggered beats with ecstatic arpeggios and textures. Placed back-to-back with October’s Super_Tidal, it heavily suggests that James Joys might well…

  • Album Stream: Foolish Mortal – Foolish Mortal

    December 14, 2018 - By 

    Luminously captured in its eponymous, sixteen-track LP, Laurie Shaw’s new side-project, Foolish Mortal, is a blitzing, fuzzed-out traipse through the inner and outer recesses of Shaw’s musical mind. Conjuring everyone from White Fence and Black Lips, to The Wipers and our Lord and Saviour, Ty Segall, it’s a heady, genre-mangling feat of garage rock mastery from the prolific Cork-based Wirral artist. Out now via the brilliant Sunshine Cult Records, you can stream the album in full below. While you’re at it, pop along to Plugd in Cork on Saturday, December 22 to catch Foolish Mortal alongside Mikron and Perish.

  • Premiere: Anto and the Echoes – Hollywood Baby

    December 13, 2018 - By 

    Belfast-based Fermanagh six-piece Anto and the Echoes are a band that have long prided themselves on their live show. It’s something that shines through and then some in the video for their new single, ‘Hollywood Baby’. Running parallel with the track’s rock-pop bombast (good luck finding a catchier chorus this side of Christmas) Declan Ó Grianna’s video – which features the band and some of their fans in the thick of it at the National Club on Queen Street in Belfast – puts cutting loose firmly centre-stage. Have a first look below. Photo by Rebecca Dougan

  • Stream: Eoin Dolan – Quiet Christmas

    December 11, 2018 - By 

    Four months on from releasing easily one of the Irish EPs of the year – the superb, sci-fi-tinged four-tracker Superior Fiction – Galway singer-songwriter Eoin Dolan is back with one of modern music’s big aberrations: a legitimately great Christmas single. Marrying sleigh bells and heady surf melodies with killer indie-pop lo-fidelity, it’s almost certainly the only festive single from an Irish artist that you should bother checking out this year.

  • Stream: Gnarkats – Take Me Away

    December 10, 2018 - By 

    Gnarkats’ knack for blending burrowing, star-shaped melodies with low-end riffs saw them emerge as one of Ireland’s best alt-indie bands this year. Citing the likes of Fidlar, St. Vincent and fellow Belfast-based band, And So I Watch You From Afar, as key influences, Jordan Evans, Stuart Robinson and Louis Nelson are back with their final song of the year, ‘Take Me Away’. A re-recording of an old fan favourite, the single – which comes accompanied with a wonderfully DIY video, which you can watch below – was recorded and mixed by Stuart Robinson from the band.

  • Video Premiere: Junior Brother – The Back of Her

    December 7, 2018 - By 

    Back in January, we featured Kerry experimental folk artist Ronan Kealy AKA Junior Brother as one of our ones to watch in 2018. From making his mark at Electric Picnic, Metropolis, Other Voices and elsewhere, to being lined up for a spin on Cillian Murphy’s BBC 6Music show on December 23, he has made good on the promise and then some Sealing the deal on a very busy year – one that was spun into motion via last year’s ‘Hungover at Mass‘ – is the serene and singular ‘The Back of Her’. It’s a wistful and unravelling heart-stung paean that distils the essence of Kealy’s craft to…

  • Video Premiere: Squarehead – Always On

    December 6, 2018 - By 

    Strange, desperate times call for great, defiant music. Fighting their corner, and sounding the best they have ever sounded, is the re-emergent Squarehead. Comprising Roy Duffy, Ruan Van Vliet and Ian McFarlane, the Dublin indie-rock heroes are back after a lengthy, self-proclaimed “mental-health break” (always a good shout, busy artists) with a brand new album in the can. Featuring sometime fourth member, Ruadhan O’Meara (No Spill Blood/Magic Pockets) on keyboards and synth duties, lead single, the sublime ‘Always On’ sees “the boys now men with crippling responsibilities and a feeling of bewilderment at the world around them.” It’s quintessential Squarehead and a latecomer for one of the Irish singles…

  • Premiere: A Bad Cavalier – On My Side

    December 6, 2018 - By 

    It’s been a while since we’ve heard from Belfast’s A Bad Cavalier. The side-project of the Niall Kennedy – who has been busy once again this year zig-zagging across the world in And So I Watch You From Afar – went off the radar in mid 2016. Now, Kennedy is back with one beast of a  new single – the irresistible, pop-leaning, Weezer-conjuring alt-indie anthem, ‘On My Side’. Have an exclusive first listen to the single, and keep up to speed with ABC’s second wind via a quick Q+A with Kennedy, below. Tell us more about the writing of ‘On…

  • Video Premiere: Any Joy – The Fall

    December 5, 2018 - By 

    Cork indie-psych outfit Any Joy have just unveiled the new video for new single ‘The Fall’. Soaked in reverb, it’s another out-of-focus opiate drip to distract from more pointed undertones. Following the band’s aesthetic & musical thread of reccurent patterns, the video was created by frontman Oisin Dineen. Of the track, the band says “It’s a soundtrack to a potential self-sabotage and ultimate demise. It could be an appropriate theme tune for the current state of affairs across the Irish sea.” ‘The Fall’ comes from Any Joy’s new EP – due out next year – following up on their excellent & hugely underappreciated 2017 debut LP Cycles and this summer’s ‘Sucker‘ from A Litany of Failures…