Ride live at the Olympia theatre in Dublin. Photos by Paul Moore.
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Krautrock/shoegaze-loving cosmic voyagers Percolator release their long-awaited debut album Sestra on Penske Recordings on April 14. Taking cues from My Bloody Valentine, Stereolab, with hints of progressive rock and the late ’80s indie label scene to boot. Their textures and atmospheres are well ahead of most contemporaries. The trio were formed in 2009 by former members of Dae Kim, with the current lineup existing since 2012 and comprising singer/guitarist Ian Chestnutt, drummer & singer Eleanor Myler & producer John ‘Spud’ Murphy on bass – founder of Guerrilla Studios in Dublin, where the album was recorded. They’ve put out a steady string of releases, available on Bandcamp. <a href=”http://percolator.bandcamp.com/album/sestra”>Sestra…
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Belfast drone pop outfit Documenta release a split CD through Tim Burgess’ OGenesis Recordings, tying in with a short Independent Venue Week tour alongside the collaborating bands. The EP consists of an original song by each of the three acts, as well as a cover of one of the other band’s songs. The cosmically-inclined trio of Documenta, Welsh dream-pop act Yucatan, and Manchester’s glistening, kaleidoscopic Horsebeach all met while playing Tim Peaks Diner in Manchester over the summer. They eventually decided to collaborate on this Independent Venue Week UK mini-tour, which kicks off at Belfast’s Voodoo tomorrow night – Friday, January 27 – with Documenta headlining, followed by Welsh &…
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R51 are amongst the hardest working bands on the island right now; they’re taking this seriously. Falling broadly into a nu-gaze sound without ever losing sight of their carefully crafted & thoughtful pop sensibility, they’re a five piece with all the right components. In the studio, they’re all about pop perfection and live, it’s a padded mallet of sound. They’re led by the power coupling of frontwoman Mel Shannon’s soaring vocals – also band photographer & craftsperson – and lyricist & guitar wizard Jonny Woods – who records & produces everything in their studio – with the punk edge coming from…
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Mythologies is an appropriate name, with the London-formed Americo-Germanic-Canadian quartet Cheatahs once more harking back to subgenre worship of their indie rock, psych, Krautrock and, most prominently, shoegaze forefathers. Not even two years removed from the last record, things are getting more ethereal, with the emphasis on the psych and Krautrock, drastically reducing their tendency towards the more straightforward rockers. Mythologies’ level of gratification, as opposed to the instantaneity of their eponymous 2014 debut, comes in – appropriately enough – gushing waves. A lush production with a greater grasp on dynamics, it’s a record as much about textures as songs, even moreso than…
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Recalling heavily the reverb-soaked bombast of the Creation Records roster, GALANTS, the brainchild of Dublin man David Kennedy, have unveiled the first part of a triptych of summer singles in the washed-out tumult of ‘This is Heaven’, a hefty beast of a broadside that sets the tone nicely for their upcoming output. Featuring artwork by Barry White, the new single comes at the start of a spate of Irish dates, including the Workman’s in Dublin on August 2nd, and on the 8th at Cyprus Avenue in Cork, in support of local indie-pop power-trio HAGS. Stream the new single exclusively in the…
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The video for ‘Idle Hands’, the first track from the new record by space-oriented drone pop outfit Documenta is now online. The rarely seen ensemble, led by singer, guitarist and songwriter Joe Greene, has already announced that there will only ever be three Documenta LPs, with only Drone Pop #2 having been given a full vinyl release so far. Their next album is to be called Drone Pop #1, and features songs – some of which are re-recorded – from the first CD-R the band released. The record should be available in July through new label Touch Sensitive Records. Watch the video for ‘Idle Hands’ below.
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Cork dream-pop quintet Elastic Sleep have just unveiled the video for new single, ‘Slip’, following their debut EP, Leave You, which came out in April; and with fellow shoegazers The Altered Hours also hailing from the county, it seems to be fast-becoming a minor hotbed for all things psychedelic. ‘Slip’ – released through Big Tea Records as the second of their Winter Trio of singles – is available now from iTunes and Bandcamp for just £1. Watch the video below:
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The first thing that slaps you about the face about the debut E.P. from Elastic Sleep, is not the shimmering, foggy beauty they can conjure, hinted at in their dream-pop debut bijou, ‘Anywhere’, but the weight and conviction behind its execution. Cork shoegazers with a serious pedigree gleaned from their time in popgaze supermachine Agitate the Gravel/Terror Pop and synth-poppers Superblondes, the band’s collective experiences, disappointments, and refined vision have crystallised here in the form of six tracks that quickly embody a wide palate of influences, that not so much form the next stage of an ongoing evolution for the…
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Back in the early nineties, when grunge was king and the Britpop cloud had yet to cast its boorish shadow over the nation, indie was a much more interesting minority concern. The Stone Roses and Happy Mondays’ pilled-up baggy; the fey jangling of Suede and early Blur; shoegaze swaying between the plangent ache of Slowdive and the speaker-threatening cacophony of My Bloody Valentine and the Jesus and Mary Chain – few could have predicted that by the middle of the decade, Ocean Colour Scene would be shifting units by the truckload. Many an ageing hipster will still get misty-eyed…