• Watch: Alien She – Death Sentence

    February 23, 2018 - By 

    Released as part of the Art For Blind-supported Goodbye 8 Campaign, ‘Death Sentence’ by Dublin experimental trio Alien She is a track that confronts the crux of the Irish abortion rights debate head on. The closing track on the band’s debut album, Feeler, the band wrote the song after Savita Halappanavar, originally from India, died at University Hospital Galway in 2012 due to complications arising from a septic miscarriage and failings in her care. Accompanying a Bandcamp release – which includes a tote bag/print, proceeds of which go to Repealing the 8th – the release comes accompanied with a video courtesy…

  • Stream: Group Zero – Pursuit (Black Bones Dreams Mix)

    February 23, 2018 - By 

    A highlight from last year’s Structures and Light, ‘Pursuit’ by Belfast’s Cathal Cully AKA Group Zero has been reworked by production and DJ duo Black Bones. Extroverting the inward-looking subtlety of the original, the track has been re-woven as an early-morning dancefloor gem. Speaking of the track, Black Bones said, ““We wanted to lean the track more towards the club without losing it’s essence. Familiar noises mixed with an unfamiliar end. A sort of lost on the dance floor fog at 5am when you should have really gone home a long time ago. The joy of being there slightly mixed with…

  • Watch: The Gloaming – The Booley House

    February 21, 2018 - By 

    Ahead of the release of their Live at the NCH on March 2, The Gloaming have launched the video for their new seven-minute single ‘The Booley House’. Speaking of the track – which is taken from the forthcoming release – the band said “We’ve much enjoyed [illustrator] Jacob Stack’s illustrations and videos over the years and so took much delight in his new drawing that celebrates the release of Live at the NCH. Here’s Jacob in action, set to the new live version of The Booley House.” True to form, it’s an unravelling, wonderfully enchanting effort from the band – brought to life…

  • Stream: Simon Herron – For a Minute

    February 15, 2018 - By 

    Hailing from Derry, alternative-folk singer-songwriter Simon Herron plays, in his own words, “quiet, creaky, melancholy songs. Mostly.” It’s a wonderfully terse, and therefore very apt description for an artist who clearly chooses his word carefully in song. Taken from his forthcoming EP Now I’ve Closed My Eyes, ‘For a Minute’ is a wonderfully-woven tale of fingerpicked guitar patterns, sparse percussion and Herron’s evocative lyricism. Speaking of the track, the Liverpool-based musician said, “’For A Minute’ is essentially a tribute to the life and work of my late Grandfather, the Irish poet and playwright, Francis Harvey. His work deals with both the people and…

  • Stream: Come On Live Long – Sum Of Its Parts (Rian Trench Remix)

    February 15, 2018 - By 

    Whether you look to his work as one-half of Solar Bears, his solo project Trenchurian, making up one quarter of Leo Drezden, or co-heading recording and production duo The Deaf Brothers with Robert Watson aka SCAN, Rian Trench is constantly finding new ways to demonstrate his remarkable versatility. Currently making his way through Mexico, the Wicklow producer and musician has recently released a suitably blissed-out re-imagining of ‘Sum of its Parts’ by Come On Live Long. Marrying flourishes of shapeshifting synth and a host of reposed beats, it’s a sublime effort that forges completely new from the original.

  • Album Stream: Stoat – Try Not To Think About It

    February 14, 2018 - By 

    As an album title, Try Not To Think About It by Dublin underground rock heroes Stoat goes a considerable distance in summing up one of its prevailing themes, i.e. things may not be the greatest they’ve ever been but, collectively, we could do a whole lot worse than trying to see the good and absurdity in things. Having been making music together for the best part of 20 years, the threesome’s wry, masterfully incisive brand of indie-pop is on full display on the album – their second – which was released on Saturday in Dublin. From to-do lists that never seem…

  • Paddy Hanna – Frankly, I Mutate

    February 14, 2018 - By 

    It’s been a long time coming, but singer-songwriter Paddy Hanna‘s new album Frankly, I Mutate, is upon us through Strange Brew on March 2. This follows his 2014 debut album, Leafy Stiletto, and the string of strong singles he’s since released – the likes of ‘Unprotected’ and ‘Bad Boys‘. Also the frontman of supergroup Autre Monde, it’s a long-held view of ours that Hanna is one of Ireland’s most accomplished true songwriters; elusive, nuanced, capable of broad truths, while invoking the kind of Elvis Costello, Jarvis Cocker or Scott Walker-esque dark humour & vulnerability that catches one offguard in an otherwise ’70s pop tune. Frankly, I Mutate is filled with rich, retro-current…

  • EP Stream: Perish – Inertia

    February 13, 2018 - By 

    At the start of the month, we shared ‘Terror Swimming’ by Cork-based band Perish. Calling it a “hazed-out trip bursting with submerged, starry-eyed guitar shapes and a wondrous wall of reverb-soaked noise” the single was a first-rate opening gambit from the Ciaran Corcoran-fronted project. The track is taken from the stellar Inertia, a brand new, five-track EP out via Cork imprint Sunshine Cult records, home to TTA favourites The Sunshine Factory. From the blissed-out noise-pop of opener Vision to the Motorik strut and swirling, effects-laden Kosmiche of closer ‘No Time’, it is hands down the strongest EP from an Irish act we’ve heard this…

  • Stream: Ryan Vail – As It Tears

    February 14, 2018 - By 

    Earlier this month, Derry producer Ryan Vail revealed that after two years of recording and mixing, his new album Distorted Shadows is set for release in April. The second single be lifted from that, ‘As It Tears’ is a woozy, deep electronica gem, full of skittering beats, cello courtesy of Laura McCabe, Rachael Boyd on violin and Vail’s trademark hushed vocals. Fancy catching it live? With more TBA, Vail plays the following shows in February, March and September. Sebright Arms – London – 26th February AVA festival – London – 16th March Oscillations And Modulations Festival – 21st March Kantine Am Berghain – Berlin –…

  • Video Premiere: Any Joy – Avert Your Eyes

    February 13, 2018 - By 

    Photo by Silvio Severino Propelled by paranoid immediacy, we’re pleased to unveil the visual feast that is the video for ‘Avert Your Eyes’ by Cork psych-tinged post-punk outfit Any Joy. When it comes to psychedelia, lyrical content commonly takes a vague supporting role, but as we said in our 18 For ’18 piece, it’s the throughline that ties the band’s concise, yet sprawling 2017 debut LP, Cycles together, as well as delineating them from many of their genre contemporaries. Created by New York-based commercial director, animator & collagist Mac Premo, the video is an attention span-grabbing visual overload that could as easily double as psychedelic propaganda masquerading as a Visit Modern Ireland tourist board ad. Borrowing as…