• Porphyry – Ursa Minor/Coming Home EP

    July 24, 2017 - By 

    Experimental singer-songwriter Porphyry has just released his debut EP, Ursa Minor/Coming Home. Solely performed by Derry multi-instrumentalist Daryl Coyle, it’s an ambitious EP that’s difficult to pin down in genre, with lush arrangements and instrumental flourishes, and truly unpredictable songwriting. Independently released, it was recorded by Start Together’s Niall Doran & Smalltown America’s Caolan Austin, and mixed by Doran. The EP, although could be categorised as baroque pop, or psych-folk, or ambient, or shoegaze or even *gasp* prog rock, it manages the unenviable job of being boldly unpigeonholeable as art, and deeply personal, without approaching any level of bloated grandiosity. Check it out below – we’d…

  • Tiny Magnetic Pets – Deluxe / Debris

    July 24, 2017 - By 

    Collecting krautrock grooves, ’70s electronica and oddball pop, Dublin outfit Tiny Magnetic Pets – named after the Japanese collectable toy – release their new album Deluxe / Debris on August 25 through Happy Robots Records. This follows up on their 2009 debut, Return of The Tiny Magnetic Pets and two EPs. Sounded at times like a prime-era William Orbit electronic pop production, featuring the kosmische space race synth sounds of the likes of Harmonia and Neu! – incidentally, the album features two collaborations with Kraftwerk’s Wolfgang Flür. Flür isn’t the only synth-pop fan either, with the band having built support from members of Visage & OMD, as…

  • Stream: An Taobh Tuathail Vol. 8

    July 20, 2017 - By 

    Make absolutely no bones about it: An Taobh Tuathail on RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta has long been something of an institution here in Ireland. Presented by the tireless Cian Ó Cíobháin, the long-running underground radio show – which broadcasts midweek on the Casla-based Irish-language radio service – has cemented that reputation with a series of compilations comprising some ATT favourites of the time. Arriving 10 years after the first collection on CD, Vol 8 – which is available via Spotify below – is 60 tracks in length, traversing electronica, folk, psychedelia, ethereal R&B & neo-classical in typically refined and informed fashion. As…

  • Watch: Comfy Coffin – Content as a Cog

    July 19, 2017 - By 

    The self-proclaimed “lonely one man band” of Utrecht-based Wicklow man Bobby Mink, the music of Comfy Coffin stems from a place slap-bang between instantly accessible and brilliantly left of center. New single ‘Content as a Cog’ finds Milk – who is currently seeking a drummer in the Amsterdam area – in inspired form, layering everything from harp and squeezebox over fuzzed-out guitar and bass to deliver a track bursting with real alt-pop finesse and resourcefulness. Better still, the video kicks several shades of ass. Have a peek.

  • Video Premiere: Floating Ballroom – Wolf Call

    July 19, 2017 - By 

    Tipperary’s Joe Geaney AKA Floating Ballroom has been popping up in all the right places recently via his latest single ‘Wolf Call’. A gentle electro trip of disembodied vocals, skittering melodies, cut-up piano and nicely layered percussion, the single now comes accompanied with visuals whose ethereal, haunting quality matches the tone of Geaney’s electronic tropes perfectly. Have a first look below.

  • Watch: Pillow Queens – Rats

    July 17, 2017 - By 

    Having self-released the debut EP, Calm Girls, back in December, Dublin pop-punk band Pillow Queens have been growing in momentum over the last few months. Coinciding with their first UK tour, the four-piece have unveiled the DIY video to their new single, ‘Rats’. According to the band, the video “takes place on the set of a radical left queer educational programme for children. Despite being severely underfunded and under-rehearsed the show goes on, their aim being to enlighten the youth of Ireland to the wonderful world of leftist politics. Hosted by Snotsey-May Darcy and co-hosted by resident artist Síle O’Surelook…

  • EP Stream: Jon Dots – Impossibly

    July 17, 2017 - By 

    Jon Dots is the solo music-making moniker of Dublin-based writer and musician Darragh McCabe. Also drummer with one of the city’s most compelling alt-punk bands, three-piece Alien She, McCabe has honed brilliantly imaginative, texture-warping brand of indie-pop in the form of his debut EP Impossibly. A four-track release, it marries exquisite, harmony-laden instrumentation and occasional bursts of orchestration with delicately-worded tales that hit home via McCabe’s clear knack for composition in the vein of the likes of Ed Harcourt, Rufus Wainright, Dirty Projectors, Tune-Yards and early Of Montreal. Impossibly EP by Jon Dots

  • Video Premiere: Tuath – Youth

    July 14, 2017 - By 

    Being just about the best thing in Ireland that we could call trip-hop, experimental Donegal psychers Tuath have a new single, and we’re delighted to show it for the first time. Casting an oneiric glimpse back to the years we’ve tossed away, the video is much like Tuath as a band: a ragtag affair that would have you believe everything they do is for kicks, but that belies a feeling that goes much deeper – listen and you’ll hear. ‘Youth’ is the title track from their forthcoming EP of the same name, due for release on August 15, and it echoes everything on the outer fringes from shoegaze, prog,…

  • EP Premiere: KILNN – KILNN

    July 12, 2017 - By 

    A release “stitched together from several late night experiments”, the self-titled debut EP from KILNN presents three bursts of darkly ambient techno that evokes the likes of Surgeon, Paula Temple and LFO at their most tenacious. Here, the pair – comprised of Rían Trench of Solar Bears and Chris Con of BUDU – have blurred the lines between dank warehouse all-nighters and back-alley futurism via a slew of atomizing beats and some brilliantly foggy ambience. With the promise of some “wild improvised hardware sets in the near future – have a first listen to the EP (which is self-released and will be…

  • Video Premiere: Bodies – I’m Waiting

    July 11, 2017 - By 

    The solo project of Dublin’s David Anthony McGeown AKA Bodies was last on our radar back in November with his debut single ‘Nightmoves’ – an opening gambit we premiered and thought was “right up there with the most curious and captivating debut singles from an Irish artist this year”. New single ‘I’m Waiting’ is taken from a forthcoming EP and finds navigate ambitious and rather spirited alt-pop territory. Better still, the track – recorded at Clique in Straffan, Co. Kildare – is very nicely brought to life via a video written by McGeown and created by Shaun Ryan and Jeff Doyle of…