• Video Premiere: The Wood Burning Savages – I Don’t Know Why I Do It To Myself

    Just over a week from the release of a debut album that’s long been one of NI’s most anticipated, The Wood Burning Savages have just dropped a surprise video for single ‘I Don’t Know Why I Do It To Myself’. The video accompanies another rock anthem from an act seemingly set to posit themselves as spiritual and sonic successors to the proudly socialist, alternative punk torch long-carried by the Manic Street Preachers. Minimal, but effective, we see frontman Paul Connolly stroll from inauspicious, disenfranchised beginnings through to the coke-fuelled neoliberal dream – think Ken Loach taking a shortcut through Jordan Belfort. Debut LP Stability was produced by Start Together’s Rocky O’Reilly and…

  • Video Premiere: Casavettes – Winter Smoke

    Alongside cornerstones of a Limerick DIY scene that’s organically developed over the last few years, threaded with the spirit of independence shared by Anna’s Anchor, Cruiser, Eraser TV and Post-Punk Podge & The Technohippies, Casavettes have shared with us the video for new single, ‘Winter Smoke’. Channelling the similarly independent – and undeniably stronger – recesses of the Biffy Clyro back catalogue and more recent guitar-led post-hardcore & emo, it’s another step up for the outfit who debuted back in 2015. It’s also further evidence of the organic development of an integral, genuine community founded by artists and fans in a corner of Ireland that’s too often overlooked. ‘Winter Smoke’ was…

  • Video Premiere: Eraser TV – NYP

    One of the finest to sprout from Limerick’s DIY scene, Eraser TV have some lo-fi scuzz for you this lazy Sunday, in the form of ‘NYP’. It’s the first single from the as-yet-untitled follow-up to their 2017 debut EP Buzzfeed Depression Quiz. Sonically, it’s a direct descendent of idiosyncratic 90s guitar rock a la Dinosaur Jr melded with the anxious excitement of the Dismemberment Plan; add that to its modern indie-punk & emo tint and you’re left with a sound that could’ve fallen off the shelves of the Exploding In Sound catalogue. Where the wartime paranoia video for experimental previous epic ‘Golden Boy‘ was steeped in deeply affecting, this kitschy Eurodance throwback visual accompaniment…

  • Video Premiere: Any Joy – Avert Your Eyes

    Photo by Silvio Severino Propelled by paranoid immediacy, we’re pleased to unveil the visual feast that is the video for ‘Avert Your Eyes’ by Cork psych-tinged post-punk outfit Any Joy. When it comes to psychedelia, lyrical content commonly takes a vague supporting role, but as we said in our 18 For ’18 piece, it’s the throughline that ties the band’s concise, yet sprawling 2017 debut LP, Cycles together, as well as delineating them from many of their genre contemporaries. Created by New York-based commercial director, animator & collagist Mac Premo, the video is an attention span-grabbing visual overload that could as easily double as psychedelic propaganda masquerading as a Visit Modern Ireland tourist board ad. Borrowing as…

  • Premiere: Tracy Bruen – Fall Away

    The name Tracy Bruen will be a familiar one to many who have spent some time in the heart of Galway. A singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, theatre director and actor, her music blurs the lines between folk, pop, prog and classical, as well as theatrical influences. A keen eye will also know her as the woman behind the Galway’s legendary Roisin Dubh Open Mic night. Set to embark on a national and European tour from tomorrow, Bruen is back with the video for recent single ‘Fall Away’, a highlight from her ten-track debut album, Mirror. Confronting “a woman’s right to bodily autonomy and speaks against…

  • Video Premiere: Blue Americans – Apparition

    Leftfield pop duo Blue Americans have just lifted the cloche on the video for ‘Apparition’, their fourth single in five months, and it’s once more a pristine, self-produced slice of vibing, somnambulant pop that begs to be listened to in a warmly-lit bedroom, well into the early AM. As with the singles that have preceded it, we’ve also found much allure in the genuinely leftfield, exploratory B-side, with Danny Ball production transforming Platt’s vocal on ‘Beetroot (What If I Was 1?)’ into very real moment of yearning. It’s out now on their own label, Oil Tape Records, ahead of the release of their debut album later this year. They’ve nailed it on…

  • Sea Pinks’ Neil Brogan on Minimum Wage – BBC Sessions (& Others)

    Sea Pinks frontman Neil Brogan reflects on the pleasures and slight pitfalls of compiling and releasing new compilation Minimum Wage – BBC Sessions (& Others). See below for video premiere for lead single ‘Minimum Wage’. A few months ago we went into a studio in Amsterdam and recorded three songs. We were on tour at the time and it seemed like a good thing to do on our day off. When I came to think about what to do with these tracks I remembered we had recorded some other songs for the BBC. After being broadcast just once years ago most…

  • Video Premiere: Shrug Life – First World Problems

    In case you missed the memo, Dublin three-piece Shrug Life released one of the Irish albums of the year, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, last month. Directed by long-time collaborator Dave Knox, the video for the album’s opening track and latest single ‘First World Problems’ is – in the band’s own, suitably spot on words – “a schizophrenic split-screen of life’s absurdity – featuring tarot cards, frenemies and “crap corporate coffee” along the way”. And just when we thought we couldn’t dig the track any more. Have a first look at the Knox’s visuals below.

  • Video Premiere: Trick Mist – Fraction

    On last Thursday’s edition of our show on Dublin Digital Radio we debuted the new single from an artist we’ve become rather fond of in the past two years. Gavin Murray AKA Trick Mist‘s blend of skilled songwriting, atmospheric electronics and percussion, and looped violins make him a solo artist whose output has only improved since we first came across it. Now, the newly Cork-based artist who had lived in Manchester for the past number of years, delivers his most mature work to date in the form of ‘Fraction’, a track in two halves that blends echoed vocals and layers of violin and…

  • Premiere: CATALAN! – Alive

    Back in July we presented a first look and listen to ‘OKA’, the debut solo single from CATALAN! AKA Ewen Friers of North Coast alt-punk three-piece Axis Of. What we said of that track (“whilst certainly redolent of the subtly anthemic and nicely bombastic alt-punk of the aforementioned North Coast outfit, explores new, socially-conscious territory) could be directly applied to new single, ‘Alive’. Featuring some great visuals courtesy of Tristan Crowe and Chrissie McGlinchy, it’s a fuzzed-out and perfectly trouncing effort that will almost certainly become something of a live favourite for the project in the coming months.