• Running the Gamut: Introducing Orby Chase

    November 30, 2016 - By 

    One of many shining lights being championed by our friends at BeKreativ, Orby Chase are a recently-formed Belfast outfit on a mission. We catch up with the alt/indie quartet about the past, present and auspicious future of the band. Photo by Adam Martin Hi guys. First up: for the unacquainted, how and when did Orby Chase form? We formed in early January 2016. Josh had been doing the rounds as a singer/songwriter since the split of his previous outfit The Blindies and to reasonable acclaim. As his writing developed so did the textural palate he found himself reaching for and…

  • Premiere: Conor Mason – On The Surface

    November 23, 2016 - By 

    Conjuring the wistful wanderlust of both Grandaddy and Villagers ‘On The Surface’ by Derry singer-songwriter Conor Mason is a song that “looks at feelings that arise when considering things that we can’t yet explain, the mystery of the unknown”. Taken from a forthcoming EP set for release at the end of January, it’s a real gem, too: mining solace from uncertainty, culminating in a call to recognise the beauty outside the static in our heads, it makes for a wonderfully crafted five minutes, revealing Mason to be a master of hook, harmony and heart.

  • Swimming With The Stream: An Interview With Callum Cairns AKA Little Rivers

    November 23, 2016 - By 

    Photographer Ruth Kelly shoots and discusses new music, time management and sonic progression with Belfast indie folk singer-songwriter Callum Cairns AKA Little Rivers Hi Callum. First off, what inspired you to start writing music? I suppose I started wanting to write music when my dad brought Damien Rice’s first album ‘O  home. For some reason, I don’t remember listening to a lot of music growing up, so I’m pretty bad at my parents’ era of artists, but I’d never heard anything like that album and it fascinated me. Particularly because it started off my fondness for poetry. Do you have…

  • Album Premiere: Walpurgis Family – Live Your Life Around It

    November 21, 2016 - By 

    Following a hiatus of a few years, Dublin indie pop quartet Walpurgis Family are back with a new full-length album – their third record to date – in the form of Live Your Life Around It. A self-proclaimed “eclectic, energetic and upbeat roller coaster trip through various scenes, all centred around the theme of how mental health is absorbed into everyday life”, the album touches on everything from panda surgeons, War and Peace, the thin line between reality and delusion, Don Quixote, the panic caused by a breakup and more. Recorded by Mark Chester (Ginnels, Grand Pocket Orchestra, Lie Ins, No…

  • Video Premiere: Son of the Hound – I.O.U.

    November 22, 2016 - By 

    Not an artist to get too comfortable in one guise, Belfast-based musician Michael McCullagh AKA Son Of The Hound resurfaced back in August with quite possibly the darn catchiest song we’ve heard from an Irish artist this year, ‘I.O.U’. Something of a curveball when compared with the Omagh artist’s previous, more trad and folk-leaning output to date, its 50s swagger and twang revealed yet another colour on McCullagh’s wonderfully varied sonic palette. Whether you missed it the first time around or fancy a fresh listen, check out the single via Colm Laverty’s brand new video for the track – culminating in…

  • Stream: Deadman’s Ghost – Unsaid

    November 21, 2016 - By 

    Back in April we shared ‘Insula’, a new cut from Belfast musician and producer Jason Mills AKA Deadman’s Ghost. Betraying some sonic lineage to the likes of Beak> and Tortoise, it promised the unravelling of new territory and – we hoped – some new material from the multi-instrumentalist artist. Now, seven months on, Mills has just announced details of his forthcoming third full-length release, Hypocritical Oath, which promises to be an album in which “dark tales, ambient swells, field recordings, ominous electronics and banjo twangs form part of a sonic tapestry”. Featuring additional production by David Baxter, Barry Lynn and Simon…

  • Watch: Hot Cops – Dumbbo

    November 14, 2016 - By 

    Ahead of their debut London show at the Islington on November 30, Belfast trio Hot Cops have resurfaced with the suitably spaced-out video for recent single ‘Dummbo’. Featuring age-old visual hallmarks like burning marshmallows, pink bedsheet ghosts and some field ironing at dusk, it makes for a curious, uniquely realised four minutes for the threesome.

  • Watch: Robyn G Shiels – If I Were Thy Demon

    November 14, 2016 - By 

    Unveiled with the launch of a brand new website, Kilrea doom folk master Robyn G Shiels has teamed up once again with Belfast illustrator (and musician) Richard Davis for the funeral video for the former’s exceptional new single, ‘If I Were Thy Demon’. Having worked together on singles ‘Underneath The Night of Stars’ and ‘Hello Death’, it marks the third in a long-running series of collaborations between the two artists. Great as they all are, this might well be our favourite of the three to date. Get lost in the pair’s darkly netherworld.

  • Video Premiere: Hannah McPhillimy – Ruins

    November 14, 2016 - By 

    For many in the North (and quite a few others further afield) the name Hannah McPhillimy is synonymous with a very particular brand of delicately-woven, jazz-tinged indie-pop. Bearing the imprint of the likes of Feist and Daughter, the Belfast-based North Coast singer-songwriter has been on our radar for a few years now, with EPs Freedom Songs, Seeing Things and new four-track Wind Machine tracing the bloom of an artist whose craft and confidence have segued in sublime fashion. The second single to be taken from Wind Machine, ‘Ruins’ takes a philosophical look at a disintegrating relationship with both its musical and visual backdrop…

  • Premiere: Mojo Fury – Trying To Get Free

    November 10, 2016 - By 

    As of noon today, it’s been 6,717,600 minutes since the first ever Mojo Fury band practice. Having released three EPs and two stellar studio albums over the space of 12 years, the Michael Mormecha-fronted band have long established themselves as one of the country’s most commanding alternative rock acts, always progressively pushing their craft into new, uniquely bombastic terrain, most recently on 2013’s The Difference Between. Ahead of headlining Spectrum Festival at Belfast’s Elmwood Hall on Saturday, we’re very pleased to present a first listen to ‘Trying To Get Free’, the long-awaited, typically emphatic new single from the Lisburn quartet. Making for…