• Premiere: Brash Isaac – If

    March 30, 2018 - By 

    Set for release on April 7 to coincide with Pop Up’s 3 bands, 3 Cities, 3 Singles tour in Derry, ‘If…’ by Belfast-based, Andrew Cameron-fronted Brash Isaac is a delicately-woven yet impassioned single confronting ambivalence and self-realisation. Recorded at SubZero Studios with Michael McCluskey, Cameron said of the track: It’s a slight departure to what we’ve done before and doesn’t rely heavily on a lot of instrumentation or production. We’ve stripped it back to the sound of a four piece band playing their parts together in a room, and we feel that’s how this track works best It’s a song that tackles feelings of dread and anxiety, addressing the…

  • Stream: Dandy’s Loft – Human Dust

    March 23, 2018 - By 

    We have sang the praises of Belfast-based five-piece Dandy’s Loft for some time now. The band, who call Lurgan home, are set to release their highly-anticipated debut album in the coming months. New single and follow-up to January’s ‘Shadows In Motion‘ is the ‘Human Dust’, a self-proclaimed glimpse into the band’s less guitar-orientated material on the album and a real spectral feat. Via a mélange of strings, submerged vocals, synthesiser and some stellar production work, it single-handedly reveals Dandy’s Loft to be much more than any safe or straightforward genre attributed to them thus far. In short: this is vital, inspired and majestic stuff. Stream below.

  • Premiere: tethers – Television Dreams of Human Beings

    March 22, 2018 - By 

    Formed by friends, guitarist/vocalist Zach Trouton and bassist Dane Kemp, and later joined by drummer Alistair Brattle, tethers are a Northern Irish three-piece whose rock-pop sound bears the imprint of jazz and contemporary classical influence, as well as the lyrical influence of science fiction and folklore. Next month, the band will release their debut EP, Skinwalker, via their own imprint, Swallow Song records. According to the Lisburn-based threesome, they’re re-envisioning the term – which, in Navajo folklore, denotes a shape-shifting with that possesses the forms of animals – “as a future slang for artificially-enhanced humanoids”. Doubling up as both the release’s lead track and tethers’…

  • Premiere: Bosco Ramos – Mayflies

    March 19, 2018 - By 

    Belfast bass and drums punk rock duo Bosco Ramos made a sizable dent with the release of their fuzzed-out debut EP, Signs of Life, last year. Today, they’re back with their most emphatic single effort to date in the form of nuanced, unravelling alt rock blitz ‘Mayflies’. A song about “harnessing that thing which allows you to think for yourself and resist what you know to be wrong” it’s a typically groove-laden assault from Phil Brown (bass/vocals) and Callum McGeown (drums/vocals), rounded off with the pair’s progressively singular brand of melodic-yet-pummelling punk rock. In other words, we fucking love it. ‘Mayflies’ is…

  • Stream: Cherym – Take It Back

    March 5, 2018 - By 

    If you’re not already familiar with Derry threesome Cherym, you will be soon. Hannah Richardson, Nyree Porter and Lauren Kelly – who we featured as one of our 18 for ’18 acts at the start of the year – will release their debut EP, Mouth Breathers, in April. Doubling up as their debut single, the release’s lead single ‘Take It Back’ is a catchy-as-all-hell burst of punked-out noise-pop that demands an instant second listen. Take it Back by Cherym

  • Premiere: Ferals – Brendan Rodgers

    March 2, 2018 - By 

    Counting Foals, Biffy Clyro and the North Coast’s finest And So I Watch You From Afar as their main influences, Belfast-based quartet Ferals  are an act that is spurred on by – and openly nods to – the scene for inspiration. “Watching all our favourite local bands take themselves to heights we didn’t know were reachable in this country has totally inspired us,” the band said. “It gave us a beacon of hope that we could be successful.” Out on Zool Records, debut single ‘Brendan Rodgers’ introduces the band as an act filtering the imprint of the aforementioned influences, while pushing towards a modern,…

  • EP Stream: Rebekah Fitch – Broken Mind

    February 23, 2018 - By 

    Launched with a full band show tomorrow night (Saturday, February 24) at the Belfast Barge, Broken Mind by Belfast-based artist Rebekah Fitch is FM-aiming alt-pop brimming with real nuance and heart. Filtering influence from acts including Stevie Nicks, Bjork and Florence and the Machine, Fitch’s sound betrays real attention to detail – not merely in terms of not only songwriting, but also how, lyrically, each song presents its own intricate emotive world. Fleshed out with some sublime production and burrowing hooks, Fitch has said that the songs on the release are united “on the common themes of internal war, mental struggles and cognitive dissonance,…

  • Video Premiere: Malojian – Beard Song

    January 19, 2018 - By 

    Of the various Northern absentees from this year’s Choice Music Prize, Stevie Scullion’s Malojian (for last year’s This Is Nowhere) was perhaps the most notable. Thankfully, Scullion isn’t one to focus on such things. Having always embodied a forward-moving spirit, his latest album, Let Your Weirdness Carry You Home, is a remarkable effort, confining within its 11 tracks boundless heart and carefully-crafted, collaborative depth. Blurring the lines between wry and sincere, new single ‘Beard Song’ conjures Grandaddy at their most stripped-back and – as we’ve mentioned in relation to Scullion before – the intelligent, economical pop finesse of latter-day Beatles (No one will need reminding that is far from a…

  • Watch: Silences – L.A

    November 24, 2017 - By 

    Set to play alongside Orchid Collective at Belfast’s Bar Sub tonight, Armagh five-piece Silences have unveiled their new single, ‘L.A’. A strong and typically earworming alt-indie effort from the Conchúr White, it shows the band moving into more full-bodied, electric territory, and is something of a departure from their more acoustic efforts of yore. Accompanied by their most pro visuals to date – courtesy of director Julian Moore Cooke – White said the track stemmed from a realisation Stateside: “I’m proud of the work that has been put in to get to this point and I like that a development can be heard in our catalogue. L.A…

  • Watch: Rory Nellis – Wild

    November 6, 2017 - By 

    Unless you’ve been residing under a fairly sizable rock over the last few months, you’ll be aware that Belfast’s Rory Nellis has been releasing a series of singles from his forthcoming second album, There Are Enough Songs In The World. A brave move by anyone’s standards, but Nellis is far from your average songsmith. The final single and closing track from the album – which is launched at Belfast’s The MAC this Saturday, November 11 – ‘Wild’ feels like a fitting, deceptively ambitious crowning touch. Clocking in at just under seven minutes, it’s a masterfully unravelling tale that bursts into glorious, full-band swansonging…