• Watch: Shifting – Spudgasm

    May 27, 2020 - By 

    Post-hardcore noise rock trio Shifting have announced the release of their debut long-player, with a release date of August 24. To accompany the news, they’ve unveiled the first in a line of accompanying videos for debut single ‘Spudgasm’. A triad of highly-respected Dublin heads – also of No Spill Blood, Hands Up Who Wants To Die, amongst others – Shifting are Paul Clynes and brothers Matt & Lewis Hedigan. In line with their other work, and akin to late 80s/early 90s Touch & Go Records, their music is an acerbic blend of gut-wreching yet dynamic repetition, nihilistic cackling, and the unmistakably razorsharp, wiry guitar work. You’d be hard-pressed to…

  • EP Premiere: Licehead – Friends

    May 19, 2020 - By 

    Paul O’Connor – of That Snaake notoriety – has shared with us his latest release under the Licehead banner, which follows up on last year’s Music For Normal People album, and precedes upcoming summer LP Perfect Death Forever, which is set in a modern Ireland and based around a reincarnated lung’s attempts to kill its host. An aural equivalent to peeling-paint walls-closing-in claustrophobic hysteria, Friends at its extremes recalls the torpid squalor of Fat White Family or The Fall in dada-techno mode. Partly written over the last two months, the EP sees O’Connor turns the pen upon himself and loved ones, and societally-ingrained truths; title track ‘fRENDS’ is itself a reworking of ‘I’ll Be There For You’,…

  • Premiere: Not I – At The Beach

    December 20, 2019 - By 

    Dublin indie rock noisenik duo Not I are back with ‘At The Beach’, the second single taken from their forthcoming debut album – reportedly due next year. Produced by Christopher Barry at Ailfionn Studio and artwork from Linden Pomeroy, it conjures the no-peak malaise of The Microphones and Pavement at their most jittery. A singularly voiced lyricist, Thomas O’Reilly’s vaguely-pitched Lee Ranaldo-esque sing-talk has never been more convincing. Listen below:

  • Video Premiere: That Snaake – Dogs 4 Xmas

    December 5, 2018 - By 

    We might’ve just shared the mobile video for ‘Scofflaw // Sisyphus‘, but Dublin quartet That Snaake have upped their satire game with an merry offering of paranoia & nihilism, barely concealed by the Incesticide-era Nirvana & Wipers-recalling sludge-punk it calls a gift wrap. Dripping with references to history & pop culture – high and low-brow – it paraphrases Cabaret’s ‘Mein Herr’, about collective myopia blinding us to the rise of fascism in inter-war Germany, before the narrator takes us through questions of what’s missing in their life, and the Darth Maul costume they wore at Christmas. As the band – some of the most underappreciated burrowers Ireland has of the neuroses of the human…

  • Preview: Peter Brötzmann’s Full Blast

    September 27, 2018 - By 

    For over fifty years, German saxophonist & clarinettist Peter Brötzmann has exemplified European improvised music. His excoriating, volatile style soundtracked a continent ravaged by division & civil unrest, tearing up convention and laying the groundwork for the defiant late 60s European avant-garde. Pitchfork describes him as “one of the most devastating forces to ever touch a saxophone”. In the first of what’s planned to be an ongoing collaboration, we’re delighted to co-present his Full Blast project, in partnership with esteemed Belfast-based tastemakers Moving On Music. Self-taught on saxophone, Brötzmann was originally a painter, schooled in the Cage-influenced Fluxus movement in before moving through Dixieland, ultimately turning his hand to…

  • Blue Whale – Process

    September 21, 2018 - By 

    At long last, one of our favourite bands in Ireland are set to release their debut album. Alluding to their deconstructivist tendencies, Belfast-based experimental rock band Blue Whale release Process on November 9. Recorded with Ben McCauley at Start Together Studios, lead single ‘Shortbread Fingers’ has recently premiered over at The Quietus, and ‘Coitus‘ featured on Irish independent compilation A Litany of Failures: Volume II. Their carefully-constructed chaos has led to a considerable live portfolio, where their potency is as undiminished on the dancefloor as it is with Can’s Damo Suzuki as improvised sound carriers. Oft-compared to Swans, Captain Beefheart, King Crimson and Slint, we’ve described them as “one of the country’s most thoroughly…

  • Watch: Haunch – Twitching

    January 17, 2018 - By 

    The inaugural release from Robyn G Shiels’ new record label, Black Tragick Records, is one of major sonic heft from some of Northern Ireland’s pedigree bringers of the riff. After two years or writing and recording behind closed doors, Haunch release their debut album, Lay My Bones Beside The Others on January 26, and you can watch the video for first single, ‘Twitching’ below. Based in Larne – Larnia, for the rose-tinted – the band comprises Rory McGeown, Michael McKeegan & Willy Mundell, each of whose noisemaking chops are in no doubt, being current & former members of Therapy?, Throat and Dutch Schultz. A seemingly inevitable combination, the trio bonded over a mutual love of…

  • Hands Up Who Wants To Die Announce Lineup Change & Return Show

    December 18, 2017 - By 

    For several years, arguably Ireland’s finest noise rock outfit, Dublin’s Hands Up Who Wants To Die have devastated rooms across Ireland & Europe, led by the singular stage presence of one Barry Lennon. His ominous presence read death knells over the unified metallic discord conjured by Paul Clynes, Matt Hedigan and John Breslin – known for respected DIY-spirited acts like No Spill Blood, Wild Rocket and Vatican II. Two spectacular records rose out of that particular alchemy: Buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo, and Vega In The Lyre. The band have announced Lennon’s unfortunate departure from the band with the following statement: “It’s been a…

  • Le Guess Who? 2017

    November 24, 2017 - By 

    Photo by Tim van Veen You can’t help but admire the audacity of Le Guess Who? After an almost household-friendly 2016 lineup, they made a point of aiming their powers of tastemaking further toward the underground, with a broad range of curators that give as accurate a microcosm of the festival as you’d hope – Perfume Genius, Jerusalem In My Heart, Grouper, James Holden, Han Bennink, Basilica Soundscape & Shabazz Palaces. This comes accompanied by everything a fan of music & the arts could dream of, including the world’s largest record fair, the smaller Le Mini Who? festival. Every festival…

  • Worst – MMXVII EP

    June 12, 2017 - By 

    Featuring members of Wolfbait, Woven Skull, Wild Rocket and other local noiseniks, Worst have just released their debut EP, MMXVII. The five piece are a cauldron into which pours the intuitive esoterica of krautrock, psychedelia, noise and punk. The EP was recorded in the North Strand Centre in late 2016 and mixed by Scan. Limited numbers of cassettes are available from English DIY indie label Riot Season and Swap Meat Records. MMXVII by Worst