• Premiere: Malojian – Crease of Your Smile

    December 16, 2015 - By 

    Having released one of our favourite Irish albums of the year in Southlands back in May, it’d be something of an understatement to say Lurgan singer-songwriter Stevie Scullion AKA Malojian has had a busy and quite brilliant year. As well as being nominated for the 2015 NI Music Prize, Scullion has keep us on eager toes with the steady release of three singles, the equally sublime ‘Bathtub Blues’, ‘No Alibis’ and ‘Communion Girls’, over the last nine months. The fourth and final of the year, the masterfully meditative lullaby folk of ‘Crease of Your Smile’ might well be our favourite of the lot, a…

  • Album Premiere: A Co-Present Christmas

    December 14, 2015 - By 

    Featuring the likes of i am niamh, Sleep Thieves and Laura Ann Brady, we’re very pleased to present a premiere of the inaugural A Co-Present Christmas, a first-rate, fourteen-track compilation of covers, original tracks and Christmas themed tracks from various Irish artists. To celebration the end of what they rightly have called an amazing year for Irish music (and how) The Co-Present – hands down one of our favourite radio shows in Ireland, broadcast weekly on Radiomade.ie – selected some of their favourite artists to contribute their festive songs to release. Having launched in November 2013, the Co-Present – hosted…

  • Premiere: The Irish Youth Music Awards Volume 8

    December 4, 2015 - By 

    Back in April, we took part in the voting process of this year’s Irish Youth Music Awards at Dublin’s Aviva Stadium. A hugely encouraging, jam-packed day of genre-spanning music and performance from some of our country’s best budding talent, it fully reinforced the importance of grassroots educational programmes that extend a platform to homegrown artists in the making. Eight months on, we’re pleased to present a premiere of The IYMAs Volume 8, a five-track release featuring participating acts from Louth – Jake Mc Ardle, Kate Rogers and Bobby Bankole – the recipient region of this year’s IYMAs. The album also features a track from…

  • Album Premiere: Imaginary People – Dead Letterbox

    November 30, 2015 - By 

    Produced by Kevin McMahon (Swans, Real Estate) we’re very pleased to premiere Dead Letterbox, the debut album from New York band Imaginary People. Marrying straight-up garage rock with a synth-laden, instantly infectious impetus, the Dylan Von Wager-fronted five-piece have forged an eleven-track release bursting with darkly, impassioned zeal tantamount to David Byrne and Protomartyr concocting all kinds of bunker-resigned sounds in the cold dead of night. You can stream the album in full via Soundcloud now below. Keep up to date with Imaginary People right here.

  • Premiere: VerseChorusVerse & David Lyttle – Have Some Soul

    November 24, 2015 - By 

    Sticking to your guns and carving out your own path has many payoffs, least of all when it’s rewarded with some much-warranted recognition. Released via Lyte Records on Friday, Say & Do by North Coast singer-songwriter/ex-And So I Watch You From Afar guitarist Tony Wright AKA VerseChorusVerse and jazz maestro/drummer extraordinaire David Lyttle is a wonderfully instinctive and stripped-back collaboration that has seen the pair climb the charts this week, namely currently at 24 in the UK singer-songwriter charts, 28 in the UK new releases and no. 19 in the Irish charts. In an age when of varyingly soul-destroying, blitzkrieg-like PR campaigns, the duo’s…

  • Premiere: Extra Fox – Palm of Gold

    November 2, 2015 - By 

    Having played in various outfits including The Cast of Cheers and Abam over the last decade, Neil Adams has also been concocting his very own sounds as Extra Fox. Mastered by Mati Schwartz – who has recently mastered material from the likes of All Tvvins – Adams’ sublime new single, ‘Palm of Gold’, sees the Dubliner marry wonderfully propulsive rhythms with retrofuturistic electronica over five subtly euphoric – all too short – minutes. ‘Palm of Gold’ is available for download from November 12. Stream it below.

  • Premiere: SlowPlaceLikeHome – Cesare’s Principle

    September 25, 2015 - By 

    One of our must-see acts at this year’s Hard Working Class Heroes, Donegal producer Keith Mannion AKA SlowPlaceLikeHome has summoned some spectacular sounds over the last few years. “Finally the album it as supposed to be,” Mannion will released a rebooted version of his sublime debut album, Romola, on October 27. A largely re-recorded version of the original, Mannion says it will close the chapter on the album, with new material planned for early next year. The penultimate track on Romola, we’re very happy to premiere the latest incarnation of Cesare’s Principle, featuring guest vocals by the Masterson sisters. SlowPlaceLikeHome play Dublin’s…

  • Video Premiere: Kate Quinby – Jack and Jill

    September 23, 2015 - By 

    Having recently resided in Belfast by way of Chicago and New Orleans, Kate Quinby is an artist who effortlessly marries jazz, soul and folk to create a sound very much her own. With her instantly striking vocals at the forefront of her craft, new single ‘Jack and Jill’ is one of the highlights from her sublime debut album, Tribute to Water. Filmed in Chicago – namely the beach at Lake Michigan during sunrise and an urban abandoned lot – the video for the track is a wonderfully radiant accompaniment featuring professional dancers and performers from the Chicago area. Better still, it’s all entirely improvised. Have…

  • Premiere: Music For Dead Birds – English Weed/What a Waste

    August 24, 2015 - By 

    Ahead of the unveiled of an EP for September, we’re pleased to premiere a pre-release double-single of sorts from Galway/Mayo duo Music For Dead Birds. Brimming with the band’s distinctive brand of lo-fi indie “anti-folk”, ‘English Weed/What a Waste’ clocks in at just under seven minutes but still manages to pack an emphatic punch. Seemingly operating outside of any strong semblance of a scene in Connacht, Jimmy Monaghan and Dónal Walsh continue to embody the outsider spirit that they drove home on the likes of 2009’s And Then It Rained For Seven Days, the sublime The Pope’s Sister and their album, Vitamins,…

  • Premiere: Robocobra Quartet – Mizaru

    August 13, 2015 - By 

    Set for their first touring traipse to the UK next month, Belfast-based jazz-punk quartet Robocobra Quartet will also make their debut Electric Picnic appearance in Co. Laois at the start of next month. Do your very best not to miss them if you’re bound there this year. “Lyrically exploring two of the three proverbial ‘wise monkeys'”, the latest self-produced release from the Chris Ryan-fronted band, ‘Iwazaru/Mizaru’, “finds the personal tangled with the social. This comes in the form of Mizaru’s melancholic re-appropriation of an MP’s 1932 speech and Iwazaru’s self-deprecating look at “speaking no evil” that brashly pairs a lyrical call-back…