• Video Premiere: Arthuritis – Let’s Touch

    You might have missed idiosyncratic Cork auteur Arthuritis inconspicuously dropping one of the best Irish releases of 2018 at the end of November. Released through Cork independent label KantCope, I’m Great pulled off that rare balancing act of being equal parts opaque and inviting, its shards of influence – electronic, minimalism, drone, R&B, psychedelia, dreams (presumably) – painting vividly abstract images of an alien, dissociated consciousness, and one that’s all the more human for it. Following on from his wealth of releases – that include the deservedly-titled Neglected Ambient Shirts Vol 1 – lead single ‘Let’s Touch’ and its accompanying video are as good a Rosetta Stone for his output as you’re likely to…

  • Video Premiere: Junior Brother – The Back of Her

    Back in January, we featured Kerry experimental folk artist Ronan Kealy AKA Junior Brother as one of our ones to watch in 2018. From making his mark at Electric Picnic, Metropolis, Other Voices and elsewhere, to being lined up for a spin on Cillian Murphy’s BBC 6Music show on December 23, he has made good on the promise and then some Sealing the deal on a very busy year – one that was spun into motion via last year’s ‘Hungover at Mass‘ – is the serene and singular ‘The Back of Her’. It’s a wistful and unravelling heart-stung paean that distils the essence of Kealy’s craft to…

  • Video Premiere: Any Joy – The Fall

    Cork indie-psych outfit Any Joy have just unveiled the new video for new single ‘The Fall’. Soaked in reverb, it’s another out-of-focus opiate drip to distract from more pointed undertones. Following the band’s aesthetic & musical thread of reccurent patterns, the video was created by frontman Oisin Dineen. Of the track, the band says “It’s a soundtrack to a potential self-sabotage and ultimate demise. It could be an appropriate theme tune for the current state of affairs across the Irish sea.” ‘The Fall’ comes from Any Joy’s new EP – due out next year – following up on their excellent & hugely underappreciated 2017 debut LP Cycles and this summer’s ‘Sucker‘ from A Litany of Failures…

  • Video Premiere: Post-Punk Podge & The Technohippies – NEU!wave!

    The hottest independent revolutionary hip-hop team in Ireland, Post-Punk Podge & The Technohippies have just produced a video for instrumental tune ‘NEU!wave!’ in celebration of their first truly excellent year, and the anniversary of the Kick Against The Pricks EP. In the space of a year, with no management or label backing, the duo have had managed a great deal of upward mobility, playing Electric Picnic, Body & Soul, and selling out upstairs at Whelan’s, earning plaudits from satirical antecedents The Rubberbandits along the way – although, in their own words the real highlight was “Limerick pulling ahead of Cork in extra time during our set at Knockanstockan”. Very much concerned with art as…

  • Video Premiere: DJ Nervou$ x Post Punk Podge – Never Coming Home

    Note: content contains themes of domestic violence. Two of Ireland’s most exciting independent prospects have teamed up for new single ‘Never Coming Home’ to raise funds for Limerick’s ADAPT House, which helps families suffering domestic abuse. Following on from homelessness charity single ‘Home Is Where The Heart Bleeds’, Post Punk Podge is posited once more as the conscience of modern Ireland, backed by claustrophobic beats from Just Mustard guitarist/vocalist David Noonan, aka DJ Nervou$. Factoring toxic masculinity, substance abuse and mental health into its weighty fable, the vitriol of its final refrain will leave you like you’ve just blitzed through The Butcher Boy, staring into nothingness, as Podge manages to decry perpetrators of domestic…

  • Premiere: Trick Mist – Abroad In The Yard

    We’re pleased to present a first peek at the video for ‘Abroad in the Yard’ by Dundalk songwriter, electronic musician and multi-instrumentalist Gavin Murray AKA Trick Mist. The follow-up to ‘Two Doors Down’ – a stellar acapella effort released back in August – the single is a self-proclaimed song about letting go of cynicism, comprising samples Murray picked up while in India. Featuring archive footage of simpler times, when kicking a ball with the lads in the sun was responsibility enough, Graham Patterson’s video for the release makes for an inspired accompaniment. Murray said of the single: “Abroad in the yard…

  • Video Premiere: VerseChorusVerse – Chord (Gunn Laws)

    Tony Wright is going through the most fertile creative stretch of his career right now. Unanimously positive reviews have accompanied the release of the third VerseChorusVerse album, outro, while his new, much-anticipated memoir Another Dickhead (On The Road) is to be launched at Belfast’s The MAC on October 17 – more details on that here – where he also currently happens to be the resident artist. Oh, and he just put in an organic performance co-starring in the heavily relatable Belfast-based short comedy series The Also Rans, the (only partly-fictionalised) tale of a pair of failed musicians. And after all that preamble, we’re today premiering the video for possibly the LP’s finest cut, ‘Chord (Gunn Laws)’. Something…

  • Premiere: Sun Mahshene – Tales of Fiction

    Eight months on from being featured as one of our 18 for ’18 acts, Dublin collective Sun Mahshene are back with the video for their strongest single effort to date, ‘Tales of Fiction’. Blurring the lines between the band’s hazy brand of psych-speckled indie, the July single is brought to life via director Gerard Walsh’s narrative-driven video, which stars Ieva Grigaite and Desmond Eastwood. Have a first look below.

  • Watch: Fears – Blood

    From her immersive live shows to recent single ‘h_always‘, Constance Keane, AKA Fears, has grown to become one of Ireland’s foremost creators of ambitious, subtle pop. Her latest in a recent string of audio-visual collaborations revisits her stark, somnambulist 2016 single ‘Blood‘, which has now too met its warped match with the help of director Aodh. ‘Blood’ stars Mark Loughran as father and IFTA-nominated young actor Dafhyd Flynn from award-winning Irish 2017 film Michael Inside as son. Thanks in no small part to the to contrasting camera work from Matthew Rogan & lo-fi footage by Cloda Farrelly, the video is eye-wateringly evocative in its portrayal of the complexities…

  • Video Premiere: Solkatt – Nocturne

    In 2017, Peter Lawlor (AKA Replete) and Leo Pearson (whose worked with David Holmes, Shit Robot, more) were commissioned to create 90 minutes of original music for a 46-speaker geodesic dome at Electric Picnic. The installation, a part of Red Bull’s Soundome Stage, found the pair embracing sounds on a grand, cinematic scale that nonetheless maintained a danceable groove. Now, having release a couple of stellar singles over the past couple of months, the duo are readying the release of their debut album. With their third single ‘Nocturne’, the pair revive themes that gleamed through on first single ‘Je Suis’:…