• 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…

  • Video Premiere: Songs of Green Pheasant – Lucy Says

    December 8, 2020 - By 

    Over the years Galway imprint Rusted Rail have specialised in putting out a mottled array of homespun sounds. Their latest release is a textbook case in point.  Eight years on from his debut release on the label, Soft Wounds, When The Weather Clears by Duncan Sumpner aka Songs of Green Pheasant is another batch of wonderfully nocturnal paeans that double as a perfect soundtrack to taking cosy refuge from the growing winter cold. Evoking And Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out-era Yo La Tengo, ‘Lucy Says’ is but one highlight here. Have a first look at the video for it below.

  • Video Premiere: Field Trip – Weatherman

    November 27, 2020 - By 

    We’re pleased to present a first look at the video for ‘Weatherman’ by Galway garage-pop band Field Trip. Heartfelt and subtly earworming in all the right places, the single – which is about “drifting apart from friends despite one’s best intentions – was recorded in a primary school at the end of 2019 alongside other tracks that the band will be releasing over the next while. And the video is something special. The band said: “It features clips from a 90s documentary entitled Clear The Streets, a feature on homeless people in Galway. It is co-directed by local legend Mark Kennedy who has since passed…

  • EP Premiere + Q+A: Badhands – Oceans

    November 26, 2020 - By 

    The popularity of the sea, particularly in recent years, has become somewhat of an astonishing phenomenon. Images shared by friends and acquaintances online of their sea swimming adventures are perpetual, even in cold winter climates. There’s no denying that the activity is both restorative and reinvigorating. For many, it has been a consistent companion in finding a release with anxiety and other personal struggles. A huge aspect to the appeal of the sea is its vastness and unpredictability, your eye can only distinguish so much in the distance and so your imagination is allowed to roam.  This is an integral…

  • Premiere: Robbie Strickland – Suffocated

    November 26, 2020 - By 

    Back in January, Dublin musician Robbie Stickland made a strong impression with ‘Lizard‘. Taken from his debut album, Warm Jeans in the Morning, it was a compelling return from an artist who is something of a cult figure in Dublin’s indie scene. Though brief, new single ‘Suffocated’ ups the ante. Clocking in at just over two minutes, it’s a masterfully lax DIY effort that – alongside material that will feature on a forthcoming EP – was recorded in a city centre apartment with a half-functioning four-track tape machine. According to Strickland, the single aims to capture “the experience that many sensitive and…