• Fears: h_always

    April 6, 2018 - By 

    Content note: Suicide & self harm.  Under the Fears moniker, Constance Keane hasn’t ever shied from making music that challenges pervasive feelings of anxiety, just as her previous outlet, the sonically-opposing M(h)aol, used primal, abrasive noise-punk as its own vehicle to address greater issues. And, as with anyone who holds complete autonomy over their creativity, it’s often assumed that it’s just one aspect of someone in tune with themselves. By her own admission, Constance has worked hard to accept, utilise, and channel that into a busy and fulfilling professional & artistic life. However, following a traumatic event in Autumn 2017, Constance fell into a suicidal state, and following several trips to A&E, she was admitted to a psychiatric…

  • EP Premiere: Ghost Office – Desire Lines

    April 6, 2018 - By 

    Almost certainly Belfast’s most promising post-punk prospect, Ghost Office, have just made available their second EP, Desire Lines. With new bassist Carl Small in tow and new material to be unveiled in coming months showing further songwriting spark, Desire Lines is just the beginning of what will be Ghost Office’s defining year so far. With each cut an under 3 minute short burst of undistilled creative flourish, throbbing bass & jagged Fender attack the band – both live and on record – bursts with vitality, while the confluence of musical & literary influences conjure acts like Parquet Courts and Protomartr‘s knowing self-loathing, lent broader purview with vocals from former-bassist MK Maguire, and…

  • Tethers – Skinwalker

    April 4, 2018 - By 

    Lisburn-based post-hardcore outfit Tethers are set to release their debut EP Skinwalker via Swallow Song Records. While retaining the kind of pop inclination that made Biffy Clyro household names, the trio channel Derry’s Jetplane Landing, and mathier elements of the post-hardcore sound – the likes of which made Faraquet such an incredibly instinctive, yet compositionally complex outfit. Recorded by Chris Ryan, the EP gets its title from a term in Navajo folklore that denotes a shape-shifting witch, which they’re re-envisioning as ‘a future slang for artificially-enhanced humanoids’, an aspect of the band’s outlook, which – in a way that would please Philip K Dick, Neil Gaiman or Warren Ellis…

  • Stream: Gnarkats – Enigma

    March 30, 2018 - By 

    Belfast three-piece Gnarkats recently teamed up with Paul Mahon of the Answer to record a new track, ‘Enigma’. Released this week, the single is a starry-eyed burst of gazey alt-indie with a lyrical undercurrent of feeling isolated in toxic relationships. Speaking of the recording said, “Paul was amazing to work with, he loved the songs and we all got on really well. He put so much effort in to our music, had great suggestions and got the best performances out of us. We are very proud of the two tracks we worked on with him and it was truly a dream come true for [guitarist] Jordan…

  • Premiere: Brash Isaac – If

    March 30, 2018 - By 

    Set for release on April 7 to coincide with Pop Up’s 3 bands, 3 Cities, 3 Singles tour in Derry, ‘If…’ by Belfast-based, Andrew Cameron-fronted Brash Isaac is a delicately-woven yet impassioned single confronting ambivalence and self-realisation. Recorded at SubZero Studios with Michael McCluskey, Cameron said of the track: It’s a slight departure to what we’ve done before and doesn’t rely heavily on a lot of instrumentation or production. We’ve stripped it back to the sound of a four piece band playing their parts together in a room, and we feel that’s how this track works best It’s a song that tackles feelings of dread and anxiety, addressing the…

  • Stream: MELTS – Skyward

    March 30, 2018 - By 

    A new-fangled Dublin comprising ex-members of Ghost Estates, The Things, The Mighty Stef and The North Sea, MELTS are bassist Colm Giles, drummer Gary Earle, vocalist Eoin Kenny, guitarist Hugh O’Reily and Robbie Brady on organ, synth and theremin. Having recently announced that they’re set to appear at this year’s Castlepalooza, the five-piece have unveiled their debut single, ‘Skyward’. A Motorik-driven burst of nuanced, interlocking psych worship, the track was recorded at the Meadow in Co. Wicklow with Irish Duo the Deaf Brothers, who have worked with the likes of Mmoths, Cloud Castle Lake and Come On Live Long in the past. MELTS will release ‘Skyward’…

  • Lunch Machine – Alt Facts

    April 3, 2018 - By 

    Letterkenny garage indie rock trio Lunch Machine have just released their debut EP, the five track Alt Facts, produced by Fugue State & Tuath. The band is led by Jude Barriscale, whose laconic delivery recalls earlier (and best) Courtney Barnett, Barriscale’s knack for injecting personal, universal truths with a detached sincerity elevates what could be slack meanderings into idiosyncratically-woven pieces, that veer from frustration at rural isolation, political outrage and, in the evocatively smoky, poignant-in-the-AM closer ‘Obi Wan for the Road’, love and loss. Take, for example, the 7> minute highlight ‘Yellow Door’, which is, in her own words “about me being humbled by my past mistakes and about how…

  • Premiere: Elaine Malone – No Blood

    March 30, 2018 - By 

    Musically recalling some of Tim Buckley’s airy jazz inclinations, and the gently percussive Weltschmerz of Nick Drake, Elaine Malone‘s new single cranks tension between folk music as a vehicle for aural pleasure and folk music as a vessel for crushingly human storytelling. It’s fitting then, that this Good Friday marks the release of the vital ‘No Blood’. That ‘No Blood’ was written & recorded long before Wednesday’s Laganside Court verdict, and the fact its trenchancy of its sentiment is in no danger of fading any time in the near future is a testament to our need to collectively address & confront these issues that pervade every level…

  • Stream: Spies – Young Dad

    March 28, 2018 - By 

    Following a string of well-received releases via Trout Records since forming back in 2009, Dublin band Spies disappeared off the face of the earth back in 2016. Or so it seemed. Frontman Michael Broderick explains: “We felt in order to write something we were really proud of, we needed to distance ourselves from the outside pressures of being in a band. It’s easy to get distracted by all the things you think you should be doing and overlook that your primary objective should be to write great music”. Having re-emerged today with the inspired ‘Young Dad’ — arguably the five-piece’s strongest single effort to…

  • Watch: The Altered Hours – On My Tongue

    March 28, 2018 - By 

    Having zig-zagged around Europe over the last few weeks, Cork’s finest The Altered Hours will play three highly-anticipated shows in Dublin, Letterkenny and Belfast this weekend. Ahead of those, the five-piece have unveiled Breda Lynch’s visuals for new single ‘On My Tongue’, an incandescent peak from their excellent new EP, Over The Void. Striking yet another killer midpoint between garage, noise and mottled psych manoeuvres, the track is a rousing, nigh on lustful ode to cutting totally fucking loose. Those shows: Thursday, March 29: The Grand Social, Dublin Friday, March 30: Regional Cultural Centre, Letterkenny Saturday, March 31: The Menagerie, Belfast