• 17 For ’17: Woven Skull

    January 17, 2017 - By 

    Including Woven Skull in our 17 for ’17 list feels like a little bit of a cheat, seeing as they have been producing music together since 2008. The trio have been lurking quietly in rural Leitrim, making music that is as rugged, gnarled and atmospherically captivating as the landscape they operate within. Utilising raw experimental sounds and field recordings from woods, hills and abandoned houses as textural enhancers has given Woven Skull’s output to date a depth of space and size that is exhilaratingly tense. While most of their releases up to this point have been collections of assembled field…

  • Premiere: The Mad Dalton – Oh Marseille

    January 15, 2017 - By 

    Taken from his forthcoming debut album, which is set for release at some point this year, ‘Oh Marseille’ is the latest single from Belfast-based Scots-Canadian singer-songwriter Peter Sumadh AKA The Mad Dalton. Featuring Zarah Fleming on cello and Ciaran “Scruffy” Gallagher on accordion, the track – a gently affecting folk-classical ballad produced by James Lyttle at Lisburn’s Millbank Studios – is something of a delicate, more formalised departure from previous material, including October single ‘The Devil Came To Derry’. Have a first listen to the single and check out Dog Kennel Productions’ video below. ‘Oh Marseille’ is officially released on Saturday, January…

  • Premiere: Feather Beds – ‘Headache Dreams’

    January 13, 2017 - By 

    Back in August of 2015, we premiered Ah Stop, a stellar, four-track EP from Dublin producer Michael Orange AKA Feather Beds. Seventeen months on, Orange has resurfaced with the news that he will release a new album, Blooming, later this year. To tide us over in the meantime, we’re very pleased to premiere its first single, ‘Headache Dreams’, a whirling, tripped-out surge of electronica summoning Porcelain Raft, Jape and Panda Bear. We’re big fans. Feather Beds should and hopefully will be massive. Have a first listen below.

  • Video Premiere: Saramai – Heavenly

    January 13, 2017 - By 

    Having popped up on the likes of Hard Working Class Heroes and Other Voices last year, Co. Meath duo Samarai straddle a wonderfully inviting line between longing chamber pop and straight-up balladry. The third track on their sublime Magnetic North EP, the ‘Heavenly’ distils the duo’s essence to a song conjuring the subtle, gossamer-like emotive power of This Mortal Coil’s ‘Song to the Siren’ and ‘Mysteries of Love’ by Julee Cruise. Currently working on a new single which they will release in the coming weeks with their eyes on a full-length album, Saramai play Dublin’s Workman’s Club on Tuesday for Syrias…

  • Album Premiere: Nomadic Rituals – Marking The Day

    January 12, 2017 - By 

    We’re over the moon – and indeed, the universe and its eventual demise – to premiere the gargantuan second album from one of the heaviest bands on this rock, Belfast-based heavy primal doom trio Nomadic Rituals. In the band’s own words: “‘Marking the Day’ was created as a concept album envisioning the birth and death of the cosmos, and ultimately focusing upon our subsequent place within it. From the formation of physical matter and structure of the universe; to the division of the first single cells and the evolution of the dominant species; to the final and inevitable heat death of the entire…

  • Album Stream: New Pope – LOVE

    January 9, 2017 - By 

    Back in October, we premiered ‘The Claddagh’, a highlight from Galway musician David Boland AKA New Pope’s brand new album, LOVE. Having said “via wonderfully wearied reflections and crushing guitar shapes, Boland sieves gold from the quite literal stoney shore in subtle, masterfully soul-lifting fashion” our verdict of the single could also double up as a summation of LOVE as a whole. Recorded at College Road in Galway, the seven tracks that comprise the release – featuring Colm Bohan, Stephen Connolly, G Tobin and Mosey Byrne here and there – coalesce to re-affirm, once again, that Boland is not merely one of…

  • Stream: Comrade Hat – Go To Waste

    January 9, 2017 - By 

    Having premiered its title track and lead single via The Thin Air in May last year, Old Amsterdam is a forthcoming EP from Derry’s Neil Burns AKA Comrade Hat set for release on January 17. Previously a member of arguably the city’s finest offbeat pop-makers Strength, Burns has released the EP’s second single, ‘Go To Waste’. A wholehearted, deceptively layered slice of experimental pop that knowingly indulges an “adult contemporary” angle, the track puts living in the moment and cutting oneself some slack centre-stage. Old Amsterdam by Comrade Hat

  • Album Stream: Invaderband – Invaderband

    January 9, 2017 - By 

    Bolstered by a band of musicians including Chris McConaghy AKA Our Krypton Son, Gavin McCartney and Rion McCartney, Derry’s Adam Leonard AKA Invaderband first caught our attention back in March of 2015 with his single ‘The Implausible Man’. Now, almost two years on, Leonard has just unveiled his self-titled debut album, a record that – according to the main man – “covers a number of disparate bases: the invasion of Iraq, ectoplasm, alien attack and Alan Rickman, and that’s just for starters. Sonically it’s consistent though – a non-stop stream of dynamic post-punk, brushing Krautrock confetti from its shoulders…” With hints…

  • Premiere: Owen Denvir – Siren Song

    January 6, 2017 - By 

    Taken from an upcoming live EP, Motion Picture Soundtrack, ‘Siren Song’ is the first of five videos being released by fast-rising Belfast singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Owen Denvir on each Friday in the month of January. Featuring a five-piece choir, this first cut from the EP – recorded by Mike Mormecha and filmed by Dog Kennel Productions at Queen’s University – puts Denvir’s vocals centre-stage, making for a masterfully meditative tale of pain, solace and redemption. Have a first look at the video below.

  • EP Stream: Arvo Party – 1/1/2017

    January 4, 2017 - By 

    The electronic music-making moniker of LaFaro and GOONS bassist Herb Magee, Arvo Party first caught our attention back this time last year with debut EPs Beep and Tintinnabuli. With an album in the works, Magee resurfaced on Sunday with the aptly-titled 1/1/2017, a compilation EP of sorts featuring five tracks that wouldn’t seem remotely out of place on say, the soundtrack to Commando, Rocky IV, Kickboxer – and countless other classic 80s action movies besides. Conjuring the likes of Todd Terje, DROKK, John Carpenter, Dog Blood and Floating Points, Magee said of the EP on his Bandcamp page: “This EP is a collection of…