• Stream: Orchid Collective – Winter’s Pass

    March 7, 2018 - By 

    Marking the onset of Spring from a long Winter, Dublin-based indie-folk quartet Orchid Collective‘s latest single, ‘Winter’s Pass’ could hardly have come at a better time. While retaining the serene, atmospheric sound they’ve been developing over the past few years through the harmony-led influence of Fleet Foxes, there’s an evolution in its composition that has, in our view, defined it as the outfit’s best work to date. A product of home recording, as opposed to more produced previous releases, ‘Winter’s Pass’ has a substantially more organic quality, without sounding in any way lo-fi. In any case, it’s a sparse and measured arrangement that subtly utilises the kind of electronic manipulation that’s seen folk music’s contemporisation in recent years, in…

  • Stream: Cherym – Take It Back

    March 5, 2018 - By 

    If you’re not already familiar with Derry threesome Cherym, you will be soon. Hannah Richardson, Nyree Porter and Lauren Kelly – who we featured as one of our 18 for ’18 acts at the start of the year – will release their debut EP, Mouth Breathers, in April. Doubling up as their debut single, the release’s lead single ‘Take It Back’ is a catchy-as-all-hell burst of punked-out noise-pop that demands an instant second listen. Take it Back by Cherym

  • Stream: The Sunshine Factory – Exploding Head/Negative Light

    March 5, 2018 - By 

    One of our must-watch Irish acts for 2018, Cork five-piece The Sunshine Factory have been on a major roll recently. Having released Cruelest Animal, their four-track EP of first-rate slow-burning neo-psych, back in November, the band are back with a killer double-single, ‘Exploding Head’ and ‘Negative Light’. Recorded by Chris Somers live in Cork’s Crane Lane on October 30 last year, the new tracks – released via their DIY label Sunshine Cult and produced by Mark Waldron-Hyden from the band – present a masterfully claustrophobic brace of urgent, hazed-out sounds from the fast-rising Cork quintet. Negative Light/Exploding head by The Sunshine Factory

  • Premiere: Ferals – Brendan Rodgers

    March 2, 2018 - By 

    Counting Foals, Biffy Clyro and the North Coast’s finest And So I Watch You From Afar as their main influences, Belfast-based quartet Ferals  are an act that is spurred on by – and openly nods to – the scene for inspiration. “Watching all our favourite local bands take themselves to heights we didn’t know were reachable in this country has totally inspired us,” the band said. “It gave us a beacon of hope that we could be successful.” Out on Zool Records, debut single ‘Brendan Rodgers’ introduces the band as an act filtering the imprint of the aforementioned influences, while pushing towards a modern,…

  • Video Premiere: Casavettes – Winter Smoke

    March 1, 2018 - By 

    Alongside cornerstones of a Limerick DIY scene that’s organically developed over the last few years, threaded with the spirit of independence shared by Anna’s Anchor, Cruiser, Eraser TV and Post-Punk Podge & The Technohippies, Casavettes have shared with us the video for new single, ‘Winter Smoke’. Channelling the similarly independent – and undeniably stronger – recesses of the Biffy Clyro back catalogue and more recent guitar-led post-hardcore & emo, it’s another step up for the outfit who debuted back in 2015. It’s also further evidence of the organic development of an integral, genuine community founded by artists and fans in a corner of Ireland that’s too often overlooked. ‘Winter Smoke’ was…

  • EP Premiere: Tuath – Youth

    March 3, 2018 - By 

    As we’ve said before, Letterkenny’s Tuath are one of the most genuine purveyors of hepped-up psychedelia on this island, with band leader Robert Mulhern having, as we’ve said before, drawing a consistent thematic throughline throughout the band’s extensive output; one that’s about questioning accepted ideals, organised ideology, and what it means to be, if anything. Once more, they effuse their worldview with a half-maniacal cackle, half-nihilistic-shrug, helped along by its kitchen sink absurdist imagery. Since midway through last year, they’ve been drip-feeding singles from their latest EP, Youth, which we’re delighted to exclusively premiere here today, on its day of release. It’s launched upstairs at Galway’s Roisin Dubh tonight,…

  • Premiere: Somadrone – Juniper & Lamplight

    March 1, 2018 - By 

    The second single from his forthcoming sixth studio album, Wellpark Avenue, Juniper & Lamplight by Neil O’Connor AKA Somadrone is a sublime, genre-warping reworking of Simon and Garfunkel’s 1969 song, ‘For Emily Where I May Find Her’. According to O’Connor, what began as a simple reworking, soon turned into a fully orchestrated soundscape where simple electronics weave to and fro. Referencing acts like Scott Walker and Air, harpsichords drive the instrumentation into a lush and psychedelic pool of sounds. Wellpark Avenue is out on April 10. Have a first look at the suitably cosmic visuals for the single below.

  • Bicurious – I’m So Confused

    February 28, 2018 - By 

    Riff-strewn Irish-French instrumental math-rock duo Bicurious release their new EP, I’m So Confused on March 9. Blending looped guitar layers and rhythmic spontaneity & dynamism, they channel the spirit of Sargent House and the sadly-departed Richter Collective. It’s understandable then, that they went over to Cheshire to record the EP with Alpha Male Tea Party‘s Tom Peters – with whom they’re set to tour across Ireland in early May. Their previous release was the ‘T.O.I.‘ single, and as with it, their new material is set to channel the spirit of righteous anger, vocals arriving, as ever, in the form of pointed samples. I’m So Confused holds its launch upstairs at Whelan’s…

  • Watch: Myles Manley – i’m in love w/ myself

    February 27, 2018 - By 

    We’re rather fond of Myles Manley here at the TTA. In fact, we have no qualms saying that we think the English-born, Sligo-raised, Dublin-based musician is one of the country’s most masterfully idiosyncratic artists. Take 2015’s “comprehensively endearing” ‘Pay Me What I’m Worth’, or last year’s ‘Relax; Enjoy Your Night Upon the Town’, a track that featured highly in our Top 100 Irish Tracks of 2017. Manley’s craft doesn’t serve up the odd gem here and there – he consistently delivers the goods, forever finding ways to make music whose points of reference often squarely fall back facing his very own direction. Accompanied by Sebastian MacDermott’s…

  • EP Stream: Rebekah Fitch – Broken Mind

    February 23, 2018 - By 

    Launched with a full band show tomorrow night (Saturday, February 24) at the Belfast Barge, Broken Mind by Belfast-based artist Rebekah Fitch is FM-aiming alt-pop brimming with real nuance and heart. Filtering influence from acts including Stevie Nicks, Bjork and Florence and the Machine, Fitch’s sound betrays real attention to detail – not merely in terms of not only songwriting, but also how, lyrically, each song presents its own intricate emotive world. Fleshed out with some sublime production and burrowing hooks, Fitch has said that the songs on the release are united “on the common themes of internal war, mental struggles and cognitive dissonance,…