• Group Zero – Structures and Light

    February 1, 2017 - By 

    With his primary project currently working on album number 4, Girls Names frontman Cathal Cully is to release his debut solo effort, Structures and Light under his Group Zero pseudonym. Released on February 17 on Touch Sensitive Records, like his bandmate Philip Quinn’s Gross Net electronic side-project, it projects the flip-side of their post-punk day-job, instead channelling the shadowy intensity along the lines of Throbbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire, without ever approaching an over-reliance on nostalgia or pastiche. As Touch Sensitive & Cully himself say: The genesis of this newly discovered musical freedom coincided with a viewing of ‘Pyramid of Light’ by Heinz Mack from the post-war Dusseldorf based…

  • Stream: That Snaake – Go Bricker [AKA At Swim One Stone]

    September 14, 2015 - By 

    Dublin post-punk quartet That Snaake have just released their debut EP, Go Bricker (AKA At Swim One Stone). Channelling wry, socially surreal lyrical content in the vein of Future of the Left’s Falco through apathetically snarled vocals evocative of some of the classic indie rock bands. Papally-named guitarists John & Paul contrast angularity & density in the kind of guitar interplay heard from Wire, Milk Music, Slint and Fugazi. The self-aware foursome launched the EP in Dublin autonomous social centre The Barricade Inn on Friday with a selection of great underground Irish acts. The title of the EP comes from a YouTube video of what the…

  • Stream: Cruising – Cruising EP

    August 11, 2015 - By 

    One of our collective favourite Irish bands, post-punk supergroup Cruising – featuring current and former members of Girls Names, September Girls, Sea Pinks & Logikparty – have unveiled their eponymous debut EP. Released through Tough Love Records on August 14, the first 100 of the 300 12″ pressings have been printed on hot pink vinyl, available to pre-order here. The EP was recorded across two nights in Dublin’s Guerrilla Studios and mixed in Belfast’s Start Together, where much of the Cruising membership have previously recorded. Blending garage & psych riffery very much through the filter of early ’80s post-punk – à la Joy Division, Magazine…

  • Premiere: Gross Net – Gross Net EP

    November 27, 2014 - By 

    Recently-arrived post-punk/neue Deutsche welle-influenced duo Gross Net – comprised of Girls Names‘ Philip Quinn and Autumns‘ Christian Donaghey, completed by programmed drums – have announced a brooding, excellent new three-track self-titled EP in the form of a cassette, recorded by the band themselves over the course of a day. The EP is out on Sligo label Art For Blind, who have accommodated releases from The Altered Hours, Hands Up Who Wants To Die, Perfect Pussy and more. The limited edition coral red cassette is available to pre-order for just £3.50, with a free download code – or simply only £2 digitally – from the Gross Net Bandcamp. You can…

  • A Brief History of Post-Punk

    October 10, 2014 - By 

    Unlike many genres of music susceptible to the prefix ‘post-’, post-punk stems from largely traceable foundations. Just as the first wave of punk rock formed via so-called ‘protopunk’ pioneers in Velvet Underground, The Stooges and MC5, post-punk represented the inevitable manifestation of punk rock’s reaction against itself. In other words, despite what it apparently implies, post-punk did not arrive ‘after’ punk: it formed and co-existed alongside it, mirroring its DIY values whilst looking towards a more rigorous aesthetic of artistic complexity beyond punk’s stripped-back musical revolution. Whilst not exactly an outright ‘Year Zero’ or some pre-determined period of rebirth at…

  • Elastic Sleep – Leave You E.P.

    April 29, 2014 - By 

    The first thing that slaps you about the face about the debut E.P. from Elastic Sleep, is not the shimmering, foggy beauty they can conjure, hinted at in their dream-pop debut bijou, ‘Anywhere’, but the weight and conviction behind its execution. Cork shoegazers with a serious pedigree gleaned from their time in popgaze supermachine Agitate the Gravel/Terror Pop and synth-poppers Superblondes, the band’s collective experiences, disappointments, and refined vision have crystallised here in the form of six tracks that quickly embody a wide palate of influences, that not so much form the next stage of an ongoing evolution for the…