• EP Stream: Pôt-Pôt – Ode To A

    Following their first gig as a four-piece in March for the Port-To-Port festival in Lisbon, we’re delighted to give you a first listen to Ode To A, the debut EP from Cork-based experimental project pôt-pôt. Its four swirling, oneiric songs are based entirely around the note of A, with it being the only musical note used across the whole record. Cork’s Mark Waldron-Hyden (drums, synth, vocals) created pôt-pôt initially as a solo project – with the goal of writing only music that could be recreated as a solo act – during lockdown, before moving to Lisbon, where he met and recruited bassist Joe Armitage and guitarist Michael…

  • Video Premiere: The Bonk – Trying On Oblivion

    Long one of our favourite acts in Ireland, The Bonk‘s modus operandi is endlessly fascinating, playful experimentation in song and improvisation, led by (former O Emperor) songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Phil Christie. Gathering influences from 60’s garage, jazz and experimental pop, the band bring recursive rhythms and improvised melodies together in minimalist song forms. Their first record, 2017’s The Bonk Seems To Be A Verb had a limited cassette run through label thirtythree-45, and was a collection of one-off live studio takes patched together from various sessions over an 18-month period. Today, we’re pleased to announce that for their second long player, the Bonk have again teamed up with the thirtythree-45 imprint…

  • Monday Mixtape: Fixity

    If you’ve not been following, Cork-based Dan Walsh is a fixture across many of Ireland’s most essential improvised and experimental music happenings. Be it on drums, sax, synth or otherwise, his work with – amongst others – Cork Improvised Music Company, The Bonk, Senior Infants, and not least his primary project, Fixity, speaks for itself. Fixity 7, his latest with the latter, came out last week, and continues to push forward his exploratory practice. Get a listen to some of the music that’s informed Walsh creatively over the years, from Johnny Keating and Ivor Cutler to The Hives and Teenage Jesus & The Jerks. Johnny Keating – Listen I…

  • The Model, Sligo’s Art For Blind Curatorial Residency Kicks Off With Arthur Itis and Tuath Show This Saturday

    Sligo contemporary arts centre The Model is set to host a season of music and events curated by one of the finest imprints on the island, Sligo-based music and art collective, Art For Blind. The series – which will include music, film and printmaking – is part of the collective’s residency at The Model over 2021-2022. The first event is set to take place this Saturday, 11th September with two of the most forward-thinking acts in Ireland’s experimental underground. Making their debut in front of Sligo audiences are Cork-based, shapeshifting artist Arthur Itis, and Donegal-based establishment-bothering outfit Tuath, both of whom eschew easy genre classification. The experimental solo project of Arthur Pawsey, Arthur…

  • Stream: Tuath – Research and Development EP

    Following up on their ‘That Looks Like A Good Spot For Some Luxury Apartments‘, out earlier this month, Donegal psych outfit Tuath have turned their focus very much toward the socioeconomic concerns of the day – and today they release their new manifesto of sorts, the Research and Development EP. Recorded and mixed by Tadhg Kelly and Tuath, the Robert Mulhern-fronted band take influence from elements as disparate as Stereolab’s kaleidoscopic experimentalism, the post-new wave audiovisual cultural engineering of Psychic TV, the off-brown anarchy of Ween and Fat White Family and vaporwave. Particularly drawn to the latter’s politics and use of nostalgic motifs as a means to…

  • Monday Mixtape: Tuath

    It’s just two days until the release of Letterkenny psych outfit Tuath’s new Research and Development EP. Frontman Robert Mulhern gives us the lowdown on some key music that has shapes both his sounds, and his outlook on music. Soccer96 – I Was Gonna Fight Fascism I hadn’t seen any lyric-addled S96, but they came out with this track “I Was Gonna Fight Fascism” last year and we just couldn’t believe that someone out there was doing sarcasm so well. We love it – the whole band couldn’t stop listening to it for months. It made lockdown much more craic. It was…

  • Watch: Tuath – That Looks Like A Good Spot For Some Luxury Apartments

    Fresh off the nihilism train and galvanised against unfettered capitalism and government-sanctioned mass property development, Donegal’s finest, Tuath are back with ‘That Looks Like A Good Spot For Some Luxury Apartments’, the final single from their forthcoming Research and Development EP. The band pushing the extremes and cranking tension between glossy production and pointed critique, it’s drawn from all manner of establishment-bothering works – from Adam Curtis’ culture-jamming neoliberal explorations and Mark Fisher’s theory of the ‘slow cancellation of the future’ that’s been happening since around 1994, through to one of the last truly anarchic and anti-capitalist movements in music, vaporwave. The single’s accompanying satirical cover…

  • Video Premiere: Elaine Malone – You [1000 Beasts Remix]

    Back in 2018, Elaine Malone‘s alt. psych-pop ditty ‘You’ was a thrilling introduction to one of TTA’s longstanding favourites, and today we’re pleased to unveil its reimagining by prolific Cork-based producer & multi-instrumentalist 1000 Beasts. Masterfully reframed into an even more warbling, tripped-out slice of lo-fi hip-hop – one of 1000 Beasts’ raisons d’etre – it matches the pull Malone’s trajectory has had toward psychedelic in the past two years. 1000 Beasts told us: “I first discovered ‘You’ way back in 2018, when Elaine first released it ahead of her debut EP Land. It always struck a chord with me so I reached out to Elaine…

  • Premiere: Comrade Hat – Summer of Glove

    Derry’s resident lounge-lizard/experimental pop savant Neil Burns, AKA Comrade Hat returns today with a slinking, sun-kissed, seven minute porta-epic. A marriage of craft and intuition, journeying through louche tropicalia, psych and jazz-pop, it’s taken from his forthcoming two-volume compilation, Old Gods.  Written during an isolation-necessitated creative spree as progress on his studio album went on pause, ‘Summer of Glove’ sees an emergence of a more guitar-led, full band sound as opposed to Comrade Hat’s factory setting as bedroom producer. Burns spoke to us on the development of his forthcoming two albums, named for their spontaneous birth in fairly mysterious circumstances: “Maybe I was channeling the cautious optimism of…

  • Oh Sees Set For Two-Night Dublin Return

    Californian garage/psych outfit Oh Sees are set to return to Dublin for a must-see two-night stint at the Button Factory on May 18th & 19th, almost a year to the day since their last shows here. Unanimously accepted as one of the finest rock & roll bands in the universe, the John Dwyer-led band have averaged around one album per year since 2003 under the Oh Sees name or its various aliases. Tickets go on sale this Friday at 10am at Ticketmaster.