• Premiere: chxmist – Waiting For You (feat Anna Mooney)

    April 15, 2021 - By 

    Like many independent Irish producers over the last few months, chxmist has found the headspace, and inspiration, to eke out art from strained times. Following on from remixing TOYGIRL and producing for rapper FYNCH, the Dublin-based artist has teamed up with Galway’s Anna Mooney for a slick dose of electropop that filters the promise of much brighter days to come. Bearing the imprint of the likes of Jon Hopkins and Jamie xx, ‘Waiting For You is a forward-pushing earworm that, in the words of chxmist, hopes to strike “a sonic balance between the darkness of a lockdown and the relief,…

  • Premiere: Robin Olly James – Red Tor

    April 14, 2021 - By 

    As the bassist in Galway DIY metal/hardcore five-piece Ilenkus, Robin Olly James has played his part in melting a fair few faces over the years. In more recent times, however, collaborations with artists such as James Lonergan, Eoin Dolan and The BVs have revealed an artist versed in myriad guises and realms. Today, James drives that fact home with ‘Red Tor,’ a slowly unravelling dose of darkly, experimental electronica. A collaboration with James Sheridan, Philip Mc Mahon and Joseph Padfield, it’s a curiously entrancing effort, hitting like the claustrophobic inverse of Föllakzoid’s more recent explorations in cyclical, techno-inflected psych. Created and co-directed by award-winning visual artist James Sheridan, co-directed by Philip…

  • Premiere: Strange Boy – Waiting

    April 14, 2021 - By 

    A self-proclaimed “1000-year-old poet channelling through the body of a young man from Limerick,” Strange Boy (FKA Jonen Dekay) is well and truly a rapper on a mission. Having paired up with Rusangano Family and Naive Ted on his acclaimed 2016 mixtape, Passionate Example, he has since signed with Berlin-based label Welcome To The New World and collaborated with PX Music, as well as Hazey Haze, Citrus Fresh, GavinDaVinci, among others. It’s a forward-moving trajectory that’s been racing head long in one direction: the release of his debut album, HOLY / UNHOLY, in the summer. Working alongside producer Enda Gallery, it’s certain to lay bare Strange Boy’s singular nuance…

  • Premiere: Comrade Hat – Deep Sleep

    March 29, 2021 - By 

    Shapeshifting Derry-based musical polymath Neil Burns, aka Comrade Hat has just announced details of his new album, Old Gods, Vol. 1, which is set for release on April 13. Its final single is ‘Deep Sleep’, which we’re happy to share ahead of its popping on Bandcamp. Part experimentalism, part finely honed pop songcraft, it draws upon the familiar sounds of confessional, lonesome Americana, mystique, and glistening, low-key-yet-expansive 80s-recalling spectral echoes – possibly stemming from a Canadian stint. Equally, its sense of glacial, otherly pastoralism is not unlike that of experimental, avant-pop singers like David Sylvian, Talk Talk and Mary Margaret O’Hara, with his trademark self-deprecation…

  • Video Premiere: Invaderband – I Won’t Remember You

    March 23, 2021 - By 

    One of the most idiosyncratic garage/art-rock propositions anywhere on the island, Invaderband is the music-making moniker of Derry-based Mancunian Adam Leonard. Backed by the likes of fellow Derry artist Chris McConaghy aka Our Krypton Son on guitar, he’s been responsible for some irrestisible punk-pop gems over the last few years. Clocking in at just over two minutes, new single ‘I Won’t Remember You’ is a textbook case in point. The lead single from the band’s second LP, Peter Gabriel, it’s a breakneck burst of garage-pop evoking late-70s English punk immediacy à la Buzzcocks and Wire. Speaking about the track, Leonard said, “It’s not about…

  • EP Premiere: Christopher Hockey – Closed System

    February 18, 2021 - By 

    Bearing the subtle influence of shoegaze and electronic music, Christopher Hockey is a Cork indie-pop artist swiftly on the rise. Tomorrow (February 19th) the 20-year-old unveils his debut EP, Closed System. Off the back of recent single ‘After Dark’ – which features on the release – it’s a carefully-crafted, five-track effort from a singer-songwriter whose knack for a slow-burning earworm is matched by real lyrical finesse. Deftly exploring, in Hockey’s own words, “longing, adolescence, identity and exclusion as well as a guarded hope to improve one’s self for the better,” have an exclusive first listen to the EP below. Closed…

  • Video Premiere: Pretty Happy – Salami

    February 11, 2021 - By 

    We last heard from Cork art-punk threesome Pretty Happy early last year with the release of their single ‘Shmuck’. It was a scintillating four-minute effort from a band promising much more of the same. Fast forward a few months and the band’s new single, ‘Salami’, is the sound of a band very much delivering on that promise. A sub-three minute blitz of full-blown, face-melting Pixies worship, it’s accompanied by a video that extols the virtues (or, if you’re a vegan, iniquities) of the food product in question. Have a first look below.

  • Premiere: An Cárthach – ARBATAX

    January 27, 2021 - By 

    An Cárthach is the music-making moniker of Cork beatmaker and producer Diarmait Mac Cárthaigh. Arriving off the back of debut mixtape Grand In General, which was released at the tail-end of last year, ‘Arbatax’ doubles up as a slick and neatly understated re-introduction to an artist carving out a niche in a thriving South West solo scene. Featuring Brian Dunlea (Moken Troll) on bass, and by a video courtesy of The Lawd Mayor Colm Walsh, it’s a self-proclaimed “goat-inspired” instrumental named for the Sardinian village where much of the video footage was shot. Ahead of new material in the coming months, have…

  • Premiere: Gaze is Ghost – Wild Geese/Feather and Bone

    January 26, 2021 - By 

    We’re calling it now: 2021 is the year of Gaze is Ghost. The recording moniker of Northern Irish musician Laura McGarrigle, the project saw TTA favourite Keith Mannion aka Slow Place Like Home and Casey Miller get on board back in 2018. Two years on, the trio offer up two carefully-woven, wonderfully ruminative gems. Inspired by the “fragile beauty” of the Scottish coastline where McGarrigle currently live, ‘Wild Geese’ is equal parts gossamer and quietly defiant, McGarrigle’s cyclical patterns and recurring refrain of “I’ll try to do better” doubling as a mantra for future days. The full band ‘Feather and Bone’,…

  • Premiere: Boyfrens – Kiss Dance Sweat Move

    January 21, 2021 - By 

    The songwriting and production project of Dublin-based artist Jack Hevey, the music of Boyfrens strikes a slick midpoint between tightly-produced electronica & synth-pop, threaded with deft elements of hip-hop and R&B. Having launched in 2019 while he was completing a Musicology MA in Amsterdam, Hevey on new, the forward-pushing electro-pop gem ‘Kiss, Dance, Sweat, Move’. Speaking about the track, Hevey said, “‘Kiss, Dance, Sweat, Move’ was written and recorded with dimly lit dance floors and cramped smoking areas in mind, where the freedom to brush up against one another, touch, groove and embrace hasn’t been lost. The track meditates on one…