• Irish Tracks of the Week – May 6th

    May 6, 2022 - By 

    On this, the fifth Bandcamp no-fee Friday of the year, here are the very best Irish tracks and releases of the week, featuring Katie Kim, Aoife Wolf, The Department of Energy, J Cowhie & Bonnie Prince Billy, Arvo Party and more Katie Kim – Mona   Hour Of The Ox by Katie Kim J Cowhie & Bonnie Prince Billy – New Life New Life by Goodtime John & Bonnie Prince Billy Aoife Wolf – The Woman Who Shot Andy Warhol Screaming Waltz (Instrumental) by Aoife Wolf The Department of Energy – May Day (Landscape Mixtape) May Day (Landscape Mixtape) by…

  • 19 for ’19: Porphyry

    February 1, 2019 - By 

    We continue 19 for ‘19 – our feature looking at nineteen Irish acts that we’re convinced are going places in 2019 – with Derry artist Daryl Martin AKA Porphyry. Photo by Mickey Rooney “To explore the relevance of old philosophies and the art of the past in modern music, with layers of meaning created through leitmotif, musical allegory and literary references”. It’s no stretch to call Daryl Martin a genuine polymath. Based in Derry, Porphyry – named after the Roman Neoplatonic philosopher – is a fully-formed artistic vision, executed unlike anything else in Ireland. When we first 2017 debut EP…

  • EP Premiere: Porphyry – Wounded, White Light

    October 26, 2018 - By 

    The term folktronica is just a touch reductionist for what the Derry-born, now Berlin-based Porphyry is doing. While in a more superficial sense, he could be described as an outsider Villagers, nothing in Ireland is attempting to achieve what Daryl Martin has with new EP, Wounded, White Light.  We loved his previous, self-described ‘maximalist’ Ursa Minor/Coming Home EP, not least for managing “the unenviable job of being boldly unpigeonholeable as art, and deeply personal, without approaching any level of bloated grandiosity”. Through minimalistic methods, however, the same result has been reached once more, with effortless finesse. Its cleansing, organic, seemingly breathing compositions weave unexpected synth textures into alternately piano & guitar-led freak-folk-meets-Robbie Basho-ian primitivism. Across its four tracks,…

  • 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…

  • EP Stream: Porphyry – Ursa Minor​/​Coming Home

    July 19, 2017 - By 

    A quiet gem comes in the form of Derry songwriter Daryl Coyle’s new EP Ursa Minor​/​Coming Home.  Under the Porphyry monicker, Coyle produces a brand of psych-folk that brings to mind the likes of Midlake and Villagers but that, when least expected, veers into unexpected territory. With vocal inflections that could, at a push, summon Maynard James Keenan (Tool, A Perfect Circle), and with ambitious instrumental reaches into the more colourful expanses of prog, ambient and psych, this EP is subtly surprising and earnestly bold. Have a listen won’t you? Ursa Minor/Coming Home by Porphyry