• Video premiere: Sunken Foal – Barley Stick

    March 10, 2020 - By 

    Dublin’s Sunken Foal will release his seventh album, Hexose, on April 24th. One of the most prolific producers in Ireland, the Countersunk label-founder and synthesist supreme – real name Dunk Murphy – follows 2019’s Ribbon Works and Le Doux Nord albums with a new 10-track collection of rich electronics inspired partially by “a lifelong infatuation with confectionery”. Every track on the album is named after some kind of sugar or dessert. Rich, generative melodies and syrupy atmospheres ooze all over the tracklist, while bubbling percussion keeps things energised. Throughout the album, comparisons to Laurie Spiegel, Cluster and Warp’s early bleep…

  • Video Premiere: Problem Patterns – Gal Pals

    February 14, 2020 - By 

    A silver lining to the three year cloud of political deadlock in Northern Ireland, today marks the first Valentine’s Day with equal marriage laws, with the first same-sex marriages having taken place earlier this week. Belfast punk quartet Problem Patterns have chosen to celebrate that fact with a video for catchiest single to date, ‘Gal Pals’ whose bubblegum exterior belies an incisive social satire – or in their own words: “Part social commentary, part potential theme tune for a cult queer romcom”. Each member of the band – which comprises Alanah Smith, Ciara King, Beverley Boal & Bethany Crooks – leads a verse, each of which deals with various stages in the…

  • Video Premiere: Son Zept – 1D2D RISE

    February 11, 2020 - By 

    Though it’s nigh on impossible to select a highlight from his new, seven-track album, A, ‘1D2D RISE’ by Belfast-based electronic alchemist and all-round polymath Liam McCartan aka Son Zept is very hard to beat. Somnambulant and wistful in equal measure, it’s a slowly unravelling three-minute burst of warped-out ambient, melding broad washes of synth with heart-tugging, Plantastia-leaning synth arps. Speaking about the track and accompanying video – which you can have an exclusive first look at it below – McCartan said: “It came from those dimly lit 3am sessions that happen again and again with the headphones on really tight. Trying to…

  • EP Premiere: Panik Attaks – White Water Rafting

    February 3, 2020 - By 

    There’s timely releases, then there’s White Water Rafting by Dublin five-piece Panik Attaks. Clocking in under 10 minutes, it’s a searing and supremely fucked-off blitz, brimming with full-blown righteous indignation aimed squarely at Varadkar and other such paltry cunts clinging to power. A pay-what-you-like release on Bandcamp, the fury and fist-clenched bombast of tracks like ‘Fear’ and ‘Fire In The Hole’ is nothing short of thrilling to behold. Have a first listen to the release – and have a first look at the video to lead single and outright EP highlight ‘The Boom Is Back ‘ below. White Water Rafting by Panik Attaks

  • Video Premiere: Arthuritis – Left Over Seas

    January 31, 2020 - By 

    Experimental electronic auteur Arthuritis has released his first new music of 2020, the jarringly spacious, let claustrophobic second single from his new Ornament of the World EP, ‘Left Over Seas’. The masterfully edited 3D-animated blend of the real and digital was created by Aodhagán O Riabhaigh, accompanying Arthuritis’ mesmerisingly glitch-laden work to a tee. Continuing on the conversation opened in the abstract anti-capitalistic satire of previous single ‘Condo‘, Arthur says “the single deals with the separation in our society between those in corporate business/celebrities/etc and the average person and how either could easily be in each others position. I like to try to see from other perspectives,…

  • Video Premiere: Gorrister – School Tour

    January 7, 2020 - By 

    Irish experimental label Unbend Leg Out returned in December with its only release of 2019, Gorrister‘s Full Almond.  Comprised of Tongue Bundle and The Barry People’s Warren Pollard and Pob, the album is a typically raucous collection of distorted bass howls, noisy kicks and jarring FX, samples and screams. It’s delightfully frenzied, and not at all for the faint of heart. Below, you can check out the video for album opener, ‘School Tour’, a screeching number that stars the LP as it means to continue. The accompanying visuals are fittingly intense and eerie. Warning: contains flashing images Listen to/buy Gorrister’s Full Almond through…

  • Video Premiere: Aul Boy – Because

    December 18, 2019 - By 

    Slack Ramelton indie rock outfit Aul Boy are back with another intricately crafted lounge-pop gem in new single ‘Because’. We’re delighted to unveil its very much on-brand video, which captures the dressing-gown-clad Aul Boy himself roaming in glorious Super 8. Channelling the interminable wilderness period of the twenty-something in the ‘forgotten county’, it gladly shuts its eyes in the face of reality, escaping into a sea of wonderful Grandaddy-recalling synth arpeggios, melancholy & chord mastery. ‘Because’ is the first single to be taken from their forthcoming Making Strange EP, recorded at Attica Studios [SOAK/Villagers]. Download it on a name-your-price basis here.

  • Video Premiere: Paddy Mulcahy – Sunset Connoisseur

    December 15, 2019 - By 

    Limerick ambient and experimental electronic producer Paddy Mulcahy has shared a video for ‘Sunset Connoisseur’. Lifted from his new album, ‘How To Disappear’, the track is a delicate work of muffled piano motifs, dusty percussion and warm atmospherics. The nostalgic visual pairing comes coutresy of Dublin based director Dave Fox. “The song instantly struck a nostalgic chord with me,” says Fox of the video. “There’s a texture within Paddy’s music that has grit and grain and I thought that shooting on film would be the perfect way to compliment that sound. I recently inherited a super 8 camera that had…

  • Video Premiere: Rory Nellis – When I Sleep

    October 17, 2019 - By 

    Over the last few years, Belfast artist Rory Nellis has steadily emerged as one of the country’s most respected songwriting voices. On albums Ready For You Now and 2017’s There’s Enough Songs In The World, his thoughtful, earworming craft has garnered comparisons to everyone from Conor O’Brien Villagers to Grandaddy at their most gossamer and contemplative. Nellis’ forthcoming new single, ‘When I Sleep’ is a meditative and delicately-crafted case in point. Released ahead of a new album in the works for release next year – and mixed by and featuring backing vocals from long-time friend collaborator Philip Watts d’Alton (Master…

  • Video Premiere: Joey Gavin – Home Sweet Home

    October 17, 2019 - By 

    Berlin-based Irish tunesmith Joey Gavin is back, albeit briefly, for a run of Irish dates to celebrate the release of ‘Home Sweet Home‘, the first single taken from his forthcoming debut album, due in 2020. Where early solo releases had more in common with the slacker or psych work of his old flame, Thumper, he appears now to have found his own voice without losing those hallmarks; rather, they’ve been reined-in, and kneaded – Wilco style – into pastoral, Americana-tinged songcraft. Written in mid-2016 in Greece, Joey told us more about his headspace at the time of writing: “There was a coalescence of ideas about patriotism, homelessness…