Cork producer Kelly Doherty AKA Gadget and the Cloud has returned with her strongest track to date in the form of ‘Continue’. A skilfully layered, emotively dense effort, the intent that underpins the single – which sounds like ‘Ful Stop’ by Radiohead re-imagined with euphoria and release firmly in mind – proves virulent from start to finish. This is a deceptively ambitious slice of downtempo, trip-hop inflected electronica that hits home and then some. Keep an eye out for Doherty’s forthcoming mini-album, Deceased Estate, which is set to drop at some point this summer.
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Dublin’s Fontaines have shared their debut single ‘Liberty Belle’ with the world, set for release this Friday 26 May. The track is as “Dublin” as it gets, with a snarky, heavily accented sensibility and a backdrop that will make fans of Is This It-era The Strokes very happy indeed. With equal measures of English 80s alt-rock lariness and post-punk playfulness, this is one of the most infectious Irish debuts we’ve heard this year, with a lo-fi nostalgic video to boot. The group have a host of live experience under their belt already, having impressed crowds at last year’s Hard Working Class Heroes and The Other…
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Having recently released the wistful ‘Flint Shingle’ – a track we called a “delicately textured, perfectly phantasmal ambient effort” – Belfast-based artist Isobel Anderson has return with its follow-up, ‘Feed Me’. A track that once more sees Anderson’s command of harmony and counterpoint blend with textures and rhythms that weave in wonderful patterns, it makes for an exquisite four minutes from the Sussex-born musician. Better still, the spectral, reverberating meditation that is ‘Effortless Pain Relief’ proves an equally enchanting b-side. Two of her strongest tracks to date, we reckon.
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Set to release their new album, We Rise, on May 26, London-based Dublin duo Morrissey and Marshall know a thing or two about the craft of classic songwriting. With a pop-centric sound conjuring the refined, harmony-driven quintessence of The Thrills, The Charlatans, the duo’s latest single, ‘She’s Got Love’, channels the more earworming – and decidedly sun-kissed – peaks of Britpop’s more discerning exponents, whilst filtering the influence through the prism of their own compositionally slick approach. We’re fans.
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Rejjie Snow has released the first track off of his forthcoming free mixtape The Moon & You, set for release May 18. ‘Purple Tuesday’ is a subtly jazzy cut of laid back G-Funk featuring a verse from Joey Bada$$ and a soulful refrain Jesse Boykins III. The track follows from a sold-out homecoming show in Dublin last month as part of his UK and Ireland tour as well as the overcast homage to the capital that was the excellent video for ‘Flexin’. Speaking of The Moon & You to The Fader he has explained that, more so than a mixtape, the release will be “. .…
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Set to release their Sink The Fat Moon EP upstairs in Whelan’s on Saturday, May 27, Dublin lo-fi indie rock quintet Silverbacks couldn’t be more up our street. With an aesthetic stemming directly from the source U.S. alternative rock’s heyday of the late 80s and early 90s, they weave slack tales with killer Jazzmaster shapes and spirals of glassy melody like few others in these parts. Following on the heels of last month’s ‘Dirty Money’, new single ‘What’s In Your Bag?’ is another stellar effort from probably our favourite Irish band at the minute. Have an exclusive first listen to the single…
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Holy moly! Don’t you dare sit down, gang, this is important. Dublin Jazz-Punk (or, psyjance as they like to call it) collective Vernon Jane are here to kick the living daylights out you and your loved ones and teach you a lesson while they’re at it. Following on from the 2016 EP The Inner Workings of a Damaged Nobody, the group have returned with a vengeance with new single ‘Fuck Me’. The abrasive, merciless track finds the band channelling influences from the brutally hard-rockin’ camps and those of frenzied jazz. Band leader and vocalist Emily Jane bellows lyrics that demand attention and which grapple…
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Insofar as first-rate lo-fi indie rock goes, the island of Ireland is surely right up there with the most fertile. Laying claim to their stake amongst the very best, Dublin’s Silverbacks will release a new EP, the five-track Sink The Fat Moon on May 19 – and if new single ‘Dirty Money’ is anything to by, we’re in for something well worth the wait. A terse, harmonic-laden effort that openly yet rather brilliantly filters the more more reclined efforts of the holy trifecta that is Sonic Youth, Pavement and Pixies, it’s a masterfully languid release betraying real purpose in its disaffected swagger.…
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London-based Cork producer Toby Kaar has returned with the beat-driven, vocoder-heavy strut of ‘Promises’. The follow-up his debut EP, last year’s Gumbrielle, the single – which Kaar said was recorded “some time ago” – is deceptively earworming in its reiterative patterns and woozy, cyborg-like vocals, not least via its closing refrain: “I just want to know, what happened to our love? We used to be best friends, where did it go wrong?” We dig.
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The fourth single from his forthcoming second studio album, There Are Enough Songs In The World, ‘Crossed Out’ by Belfast’s Rory Nellis is – much like the three efforts that have preceded it – a masterstroke of subtle harmonic power and lyrical finesse. Betraying the songsmith’s acutely perceptive take on the everyday and the much bigger picture, there’s something impossibly timely about its earworming refrain: “Getting sentimental over things that never really happened. Sitting here and waiting for someone to hit the panic button.” Recorded and mixed by Phil D’Alton (with mastering courtesy of Stephen Quinn), the single features d’Alton…