• 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…

  • EP Premiere + Interview: THVS – Everyday Hexes

    July 15, 2015 - By 

    Forming from the embers of Belfast riff-wielding institution Comply or Die, heavy rock three-piece THVS are on the precipice of completing the first stage of their instantly ear-grabbing metamorphosis. Officially released on Friday (July 17), we’re pleased to present a first listen of their expectedly visceral four-track EP, Everyday Hexes, also chatting to frontman Michael Smyth about the writing and recording of the EP, the formation of the band and their plans for the future. Hi Michael. First thing’s first, how did THVS come about? The band came about after a band practice got cancelled so Matt and I decided to go up and play anyway.…

  • Premiere: Contour Shreds – Remixes EP

    June 30, 2015 - By 

    Having impressed at Body & Soul last weekend, Dublin electronic duo Conan Wynne and Anna Doran AKA Contour are right up with our acts to catch at the Red Bull Music Academy stage at this year’s Longitude Festival in Marlay Park. With just under three weeks left to that slot, we’re pleased to premiere a brand new remixes EP from the pair. A self-described “compilation of remixes, reinterpretations, and general reconfiguration of our musical friends and our sounds” the release features reworkings by Sounds of System Breakdown, R.S.A.G, Fran Hartnett, Emma Nicolai and Contour themselves, as well as an original mix of…

  • Premiere: Travis Is A Tourist – Loosen Up

    June 29, 2015 - By 

    In a land and age increasingly over-saturated with every conceivable ilk and fashion of singer-songwriter, Travis Gilbert AKA Travis Is A Tourist manages to carve his own path of folk-pop, one imbued with a real, almost touchable sense of purpose. The follow-up to his ear-grabbing 2013 debut EP, Gilbert will release the five-track Weakdays on July 6, a release defined by Gilbert’s wonderfully crafted admissions of open-eyed restlessness, doubt and destiny. Seeking to “marry the robust rock of artists such as Ryan Adams with a slice of Prince-esque R’n’B” the EP’s lead single ‘Loosen Up’ distils the essence of Weakdays across three and a…

  • Premiere: My Tribe Your Tribe – Will To Survive

    June 17, 2015 - By 

    Set to play Body & Soul at the weekend, Dublin duo My Tribe Your Tribe really caught our attention back in February with the dreamy, subtly cascading alt-electro of ‘Only a Horizon’. Going several steps further, their new single, ‘Will To Survive’, was obviously written with those imminent summer festival sets in mind. Danceable in all the first places, it looks both inward and outward, evoking the vocals of Ben Gibbard, and a musical marriage between Caribou and early Arcade Fire. ‘Will To Survive’ – produced by James Darkin at Temple Lane Studio – will be officially released on November 6.

  • EP Premiere: Patrick Gardiner – Carcassonne

    April 1, 2015 - By 

    Ahead of its launch at Belfast’s Voodoo on April 9, we’re pleased to present an exclusive first listen to Carcassonne, the second EP from Co. Down singer-songwriter Patrick Gardiner. A subtly eclectic mix of incisive, occasionally wry and consistently considered acoustic tale-telling, the five-track release sees Gardiner’s earnest words drive forth full-band tracks underpinned with some instantly memorable melodic threads and pop nuances. Better still is Gardiner’s guitar-playing throughout, proving very much representative of a craftsman who has played and commanded the instrument from a young age. Go here for the Facebook event page for the launch show and stream the EP below.

  • EP Premiere: R51 – Pillow Talk

    March 23, 2015 - By 

    Belfast-based quintet R51 have come on leaps and bounds over the last couple of years. Having cultivated a perfectly pulverizing live show and an effects-laden, shoegaze-tinged noise-pop craft that continues to surprise and intrigue, the Melyssa Shannon-fronted quartet will launch their debut EP, Pillow Talk, at Belfast’s Bar Sub on Wednesday night (April 25). In his review of the EP for the Thin Air, Will Murphy said, “Each one of the songs has something to recommend, be it the Sigur Ros vibe permeating throughout the EP closer, ‘Seaweed’, the spaced out verses on ‘I Hate That Too’ or the monstrously huge chorus on ‘Pillow…

  • Premiere: White Sage – Way Beyond Our Means EP

    March 8, 2015 - By 

    Beyond running Dublin’s newest record shop, Little Gem, or performing as part of I Heart The Monster Hero and GODHATESDISCO, Andy Walsh has been concocting his own solo sonic wizardry as White Sage. Evoking the likes of Kraftwerk, Cluster and Harmonia, his superb debut EP, Way Beyond Our Means, is a self-proclaimed “sonic exploration of thought, emotion, dreams and imaginings through melody, countermelody and rhythms created using conventional and unconventional recording techniques.” Released via Little Gem Records on March 20, the EP – performed and recorded entirely by Andy Walsh between November 2013 and June 2014 – was layered using an early 20th century Ritzmar…