• Track-by-Track: Chalk – Conditions II

    March 5, 2024 - By 

    Ahead of what looks primed to be a breakthrough year for the fast-rising electronic/noise rock Belfast trio, Chalk vocalist and producer Ross Cullen takes us on a track-by-track tour of the diverse influence and inspiration behind their brand new EP, Conditions II The Gate Conditions II by Chalk ‘The Gate’ is all about pressure and the pressures of being in a band. It began with a drum and bass loop I found on Splice alongside some 1/16 notes from a preset called Demented Percussion on Logic. Combining those two sounds set up the energy of the track fairly quickly. There’s a…

  • Track by Track: Moving Statues

    December 1, 2022 - By 

    With the release of their debut album, You Look Like You’ve Seen A Ghost, Galway natives Brian Kelly (So Cow) and Keith Wallace (Loner Deluxe) aka Moving Statues provide a track-by-track breakdown of the process behind each song. You Look Like You’ve Seen a Ghost by Moving Statues RUN OUT Brian: It begins. The bass in the chorus is what I think New Order sound like, but I don’t know much New Order beyond Blue Monday and the video where there’s two fellas sitting in bins giving each other slaps. Maybe that’s the way to go, being influenced by something you’re…

  • Track-by-Track: Arborist – A Northern View

    February 10, 2020 - By 

    Released last week, A Northern View cements Mark McCambridge aka Arborist’s rep as one of the country’s most distinctive songwriting voices. Whether you look to opener ‘A Stranger Heart’, the sublime ‘Here Comes The Devil’ or, in fact, any one of the album’s eleven carefully-crafted tales, it’s a filler-free feat of mottled, forward-pushing folk-pop from the Belfast-based artist. Let’s go one further: for our money, it’s the Irish album of the year so far. Ahead of its official launch at the Menagerie in Belfast on February 28th, McCambridge gives us generous track-by-track breakdown of the release below. A Northern View by arborist A…

  • Track-by-Track: Villagers – The Art of Pretending To Swim

    October 4, 2018 - By 

    Ahead of recording a session for Radio Ulster’s Across The Line at Belfast’s Start Together Studio, Villagers’ Conor O’Brien sits down with Brian Coney to talk through the writing and recording of his stellar, self-produced new album, The Art of Pretending to Swim. Listen back to the ATL Live Session here. 1. Again The underlying beat on ‘Again’ gives a real subtle, nocturnal club vibe. Did you intend that or was it accidental? It was probably a bit of both. I wrote the riff and realised that it was basically 120 BPM, and I was like, “Cool, that will work…

  • Track-by-Track: Feather Beds – Blooming

    October 26, 2017 - By 

      Ahead of the release of his second album Blooming, Dublin’s Michael Orange AKA Feather Beds has been kind enough to give us a track by track rundown of the record. Set for release this Friday 27 October on Montreal-based label Moderna Records, Blooming is a dreamy alt-folk venture written and recorded when the songwriter was living in Canada. Following his debut LP in 2015, The Skeletal System, Blooming is mixed and co-produced by Stephen Shannon (Adrian Crowley, Strands) and is a dreamy, multi-layered a that evokes the likes of The Antlers and Mutual Benefit‘s Love’s Crushing Diamond in its ambient folk atmosphere, but owes just as much to the hypnotic, minimal compositions of Steve Reich and to the…

  • Track-by-track preview: Ed Zealous – Wired

    December 17, 2013 - By 

    In advance of its release on February 3, we have the honour to bestow upon your lovely eyes a track-by-track preview of Wired, the momentously-anticipated debut album by Belfast-based indie/electro-pop quartet Ed Zealous. Having released ‘Thanks A Million’, ‘Telepaths’ and ‘Medicines’ from the ten-track release, over the last couple of years the band have given us a steady taste of what their full-length debut album has in store. Let’s just say: if you enjoyed any of the aforementioned singles to date, there’s a very good chance Wired will leave you intent upon an immediate second listen. Check out the artwork and our track-by-track preview…

  • Alarmist – Pal Magnet EP track-by-track interview

    November 1, 2013 - By 

    On the day of its official release, Dublin instrumental quartet Alarmist talk us through each track on their brand new – not to mention exceptionally good – EP Pal Magnet. Read their words and stream each track individually below! Aztec Dreams In this song we were trying to be quite intense but in an unconventional way, with these old-school guitar tones and blippy melodies rather than heavy rock riffs. A couple of us had gotten really into the 1950s producer Joe Meek and his albumI Hear a New World, which is full of these twangy slapback sounds and primitive early synths, and that…