• Stream: James Joys – Fugitive Wound

    January 4, 2019 - By 

    Despite existing on a peripheral plain sonically, Belfast producer and composer James Thompson AKA James Joys deserves much more than negligible regard, both at home and much further afield. Beyond his work as one-half of Ex-Isles with vocalist Peter Devlin, his solo output to date is equal parts spectrum-bucking, dense and hugely rewarding. Six minutes of self-proclaimed “deep brain cracking electronica to get sweaty to”, new single ‘Fugitive Wound’ encapsulates this. Mastered by fellow Belfast-based electronic wizard Herb Magee AKA Arvo Party, it’s a heady, warped triumph marrying a slew of staggered beats with ecstatic arpeggios and textures. Placed back-to-back with October’s Super_Tidal, it heavily suggests that James Joys might well…

  • Stream: Eoin Dolan – Quiet Christmas

    December 11, 2018 - By 

    Four months on from releasing easily one of the Irish EPs of the year – the superb, sci-fi-tinged four-tracker Superior Fiction – Galway singer-songwriter Eoin Dolan is back with one of modern music’s big aberrations: a legitimately great Christmas single. Marrying sleigh bells and heady surf melodies with killer indie-pop lo-fidelity, it’s almost certainly the only festive single from an Irish artist that you should bother checking out this year.

  • Stream: Rory Nellis – The Fear

    November 2, 2018 - By 

    Around 1990, a small boy saw Matthew Broderick miming to a Beatles song on a carnival float. Shortly afterwards, he started writing songs, and he’s been doing it ever since. Fast forward a few years and Belfast singer-songwriter Rory Nellis is currently working on his third album, the highly-anticipated follow-up to an LP widely considered one of the strongest Northern Irish albums of 2017, There Are Enough Songs in The World. Capturing an artist whose music stems from carefully-crafted musings on life, death, relationships and – occasionally – politics, forthcoming single ‘The Fear’ finds Nellis at his most musically earworming,…

  • Album Stream + Interview: Woven Skull

    October 31, 2018 - By 

    Photo: Colum O’Dwyer Back at the end of 2016, we included Leitrim experimental/psych outfit Woven Skull in our 17 for ’17 round up of acts to watch in the coming year. We like to think we were fairly on the money with the trio, who both on an individual level and as an outfit delivered dividends throughout 2017 and well into this year… Mondola player Natalia Beylis, for one, developed her breathtaking field recordings and drones project with the release of The Sunken Hum Vol 1: Field Rhythms & Drones and Scchh​.​.​.​phh. Guitarist Aonghus McEvoy, meanwhile, continued his solo and…

  • Stream: Documenta – The Blue Sleep

    September 6, 2018 - By 

    We recently snuck a sneak peek of the forthcoming new EP from Belfast’s drone-pop septet Documenta and let it be known: we’re in for something very special indeed. Featuring the inimitable Will Carruthers of Spacemen 3, Spiritualized et. al, the five-track Lady with Ring will be released on vinyl EP and digital formats via Touch Sensitive Records on Friday, October 12. A release that doubles up as a departure from the band’s Drone Pop trilogy, the EP revolves around the story of Margorie McCall. We’re told: “McCall lived in rural Ireland in the early 18th century. She succumbed to a fever and…

  • Stream: Kyoto Love Hotel – Still

    July 31, 2018 - By 

    The project of Joe Geaney of Floating Ballroom and former Staring at Lakes member Laura Sheary, Kyoto Love Hotel, we are told, make “songs for thoughts to dance to.” An ambitious M.O. and no mistake, but having stuck their new single ‘Still’ on repeat, we can certainly see the logic. Based in Tipperary, the pair’s latest effort is a sleek trickle of electro-pop that marries low-key trap beats, twinkling synth lines and lyrics courtesy of Sheary which explore “fragmented memories and the disparities that exist between our physical reality and our interior selves.” Delve in below.

  • Premiere: Peter J. McCauley – Where Do We Belong

    June 22, 2018 - By 

    We last heard from Belfast singer-songwriter Peter J McCauley when he released his five-track EP Liminals back in 2016. Two years on, the multi-instrumentalist and vocalist — who previously released music under the moniker Rams Pocket Radio — is back with one of his most nuanced and carefully-crafted single efforts to date. Threaded with some subtle electronic ambience, it’s a wonderfully sparse piano-and-vocals paean to the eternal conundrum of not knowing where one is going, but taking solace in both perspective and faith in que será, será. Have a first listen to the single below.

  • Stream: SPIES – Uriah

    June 20, 2018 - By 

    Three months on from making a triumphant return with ‘Young Dad’ – a single we eagerly deemed “the band’s strongest single effort to date” – Dublin five-piece Spies are back with its follow-up ‘Uriah’. Propelled by Motorik groove, it’s a four-minute gem layered with balmy synth textures and the band’s evolved widescreen alt-pop. Mirroring themes of friendship and betrayal, vocalist Michael Broderick called the song, “A reflection on the story of Uriah and King David.” ‘Uriah’ is taken from Spies’ forthcoming debut album, Constancy, which is expected to drop later this year.

  • Stream: Silverbacks – Dunkirk

    June 12, 2018 - By 

    Six months on from featuring them as one of our 18 for ’18 acts, Dublin five-piece Silverbacks are back with their strongest single effort to date, ‘Dunkirk’. Released on Friday (June 15) via their own PK Miami Records, the track – which was produced by Girl Band’s Daniel Fox – is a swiftly sprawling three-minute raid melding art-punk tangentialism with purified indie rock sensibility (the latter of which is something we’ve happily banged on about for some time now.) Speaking about the track, the band said: “It is about a character who is questioning the life they have been dealt. They find…