• Malojian – Let Your Weirdness Carry You Home

    October 7, 2017 - By 

    While there’s been no shortage of first-rate albums released on these shores this year, Let Your Weirdness Carry You Home by Malojian is a special kind of triumph. The self-produced follow-up to the Stephen Scullion-fronted threesome’s Steve Albini-produced This Is Nowhere, the album is a masterfully mottled effort, veering between wonderfully wistful folk tales, Motorik rhythms, found sound and a whole gamut of forward-thinking textures and ideas. And featuring the likes of Joey Waronker (Beck, R.E.M., Atoms For Peace, Roger Waters), Gerry Love (Teenage Fanclub), and Jon Thorne of Yorkston, Thorne & Khan, the collaborative backbone of the release runs parallel with Scullion’s open-ended, subtly experimental…

  • The Bonk – The Bonk Seems To Be A Verb

    October 7, 2017 - By 

    Having released a string of stellar singles over the last two years, Dublin & Cork-based experimental, orchestral, psychedelic garage rock project The Bonk released their debut LP, The Bonk Seems To Be A Verb, on October 6. Recorded over the last few years while the outfit have been together, it’s released on cassette through Drogheda arts & culture collective Thirty Three – 45. Although the project is based around the compositions of frontman Phil Christie – of O Emperor, the substantial cast of musicians credited on the album includes some of the island’s most respected artists & virtuosi: Phil O’ Gorman – Guitar Brendan Fennessy – Drums Jim…

  • Stream: Wyvern Lingo – Out Of My Hands

    October 6, 2017 - By 

    We’ve watched the rise and rise of Bray trio Wyvern Lingo with absolute glee over the last couple of years. As well as announcing their first Irish show of 2018 at Number Twenty Two at Dublin’s Grand Social on February 23, the trio have just unveiled the masterful ‘Out Of My Hands’. Brimming with the band’s increasingly inimitable brand of harmony-driven alt-pop, it is also the band’s most political effort to date. Speaking about the track, Karen from the band said, “’Out of My Hands’ was inspired by a man I met in a pub, the night of the Home Sweet…

  • Stream: A.S. Fanning – Never Been Gone

    October 6, 2017 - By 

    Self-produced and recorded in his current home of Berlin, Dublin singer-songwriter A.S Fanning will release his debut album, Second Life, via Proper Octopus Records on October 13. Having made a dent via his debut single ‘Carmelita’ back in late 2015 – a carefully-crafted, almost Cohen-esque track we said “harked back whilst preserving a very present-day resonance” – new single ‘Never Been Gone’ is a deceptively refined effort, whose lilting folk-pop effulgence blends organ, fingerpicked guitar, a sweet little whistle solo and more over three minutes. Few artists can make music with two chords go a long way – Fanning makes…

  • Album Premiere & Interview: The Bonk

    October 6, 2017 - By 

    Having released a string of stellar singles over the last two years, Dublin & Cork-based experimental, orchestral, psychedelic garage rock project The Bonk have released their debut LP, The Bonk Seems To Be A Verb, and we’re delighted to premiere the entire album on its day of release. Recorded over the last few years while the outfit have been together, it’s released on cassette through Drogheda arts & culture collective Thirty Three – 45. Although the project is based around the compositions of frontman Phil Christie – of O Emperor, the substantial cast of musicians credited on the album includes some of the island’s most…

  • Autumns – Suffocating Brothers

    September 27, 2017 - By 

    Since starting out some time ago as a D.I.Y. shoegaze/garage-noise outfit, Derry’s Christian Donaghey has refused to sit in any one place for too long with his ongoing project, Autumns, releasing and echewing subgenre records for breakfast, lunch & dinner. Over the last couple of years, he’s grown into himself, really finding his place with his most recent EP. Finally, he’s released his debut full length, Suffocating Brothers on renowned Glasgow label Clan Destine after being written & recorded in the latter half of 2016. This material sees him continue to bring the intensely visceral Roland-fuelled rhythms of industrial & techno he’s adopted in recent times, melded…

  • Video Premiere: Sue Rynhart – Black As The Crow Flies

    September 29, 2017 - By 

    The follow-up to her 2014 debut album, Crossings – a release that was nominated for Best Jazz Album at the Irish Times‘ Ticket Awards – Dublin vocalist and composer Sue Rynhart’s new album Signals has been receiving a wave of critical acclaim from a wide range of Irish and international voices. Forging an exquisite midpoint between delicate and forceful, jazz and classical, as well as contemporary and canonical sonic realms, her emotionally-dense avant-garde craft rewards an attentive ear and repeated listen. Directed by artist Sophie Merry, we’re pleased to present a first look at the video for ‘Black As The Crow…

  • Album Premiere: Shrug Life – ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

    September 27, 2017 - By 

    Concluding his review of their debut album – the eminently-tilted ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ – just the other day, TTA’s Will Murphy said, “Shrug Life deserve to be heard. Nurture them because fuck knows we’re not going to get another group like them for a long time.” To say those words are representative of our feelings about this release would be a towering understatement. We’ve watched on with glee as the Dublin trio of guitarist/vocalist Danny Carroll, bassist Keith Broni and drummer Josh Donnelly have evolved into one of the country’s most peerlessly engaging acts over the last couple of years – something that ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ confines over eleven tracks…

  • EP Premiere: Ana Gog – Wake

    September 22, 2017 - By 

    Having formed while studying at NUI Maynooth, Dublin five-piece Ana Gog have been on a winding and wonderful journey over the last eleven years. The long-awaited follow-up to 2014 EP Resemblance, Wake marks a significant step in the band’s carefully-crafted aesthetic, with songs exploring themes of loss, inertia and rebirth. Recorded live at K9 and Arad Studios, it’s a candid, harmony-driven release in which the band’s collective talents interweave across four songs, from the gossamer-like sway of opener ‘Better Than Silence’ to the reflective, understated folk-pop of ‘Roze’s Kitchen (Wake)’. Upping the ante on all their previous output to date, there’s an almost voyeuristic intimacy to the…

  • Album Premiere: Eoin Dolan – UBIQUE

    September 22, 2017 - By 

    For whatever combination of reasons, Galway has long been petri-dish for breeding some first-rate solo artists. One that has consistently kept our attention over the last while, Eoin Dolan is easily right up there with the most effortlessly compelling. Something of a whizz in the realm of surf-speckled, throwback indie-pop, Dolan has been drip-feeding tracks some stellar singles as of late, including ‘I Can Make You Hurt At Will‘ and ‘One Girl‘ earlier in the year, and most recently ‘Good Human Being?’ and ‘It Is Good That We Dream‘, which was released just this week. Comprising those four tracks and seven more, Dolan’s…