• Watch: New Jackson – Romancecar (Homeway)

    July 24, 2019 - By 

    New Jackson has shared an abstract, nostalgic video for ‘Romancecar (Homeway)’. The track, which closed the Dublin artist AKA David Kitt‘s recent Romancecar EP on Permanent Vacation with a gorgeous ambient flourish, piqued the interests of filmmaker Jack Ashley, who has created a collage-like video comprised of images of two amateur dancers he filmed in south London, as well as the bric-a-brac that filled their home. It’s a touching, minimal affair and makes for a perfect companion for the track’s synth swells and weaving chimes. “I heard David’s EP and was super keen to reach out to him,” says Ashley of the video.…

  • Watch: Gross Net – Gentrification

    June 28, 2019 - By 

    If there’s a busier Irish musician than Philip Quinn, please, send them our way. Over the years, the Belfast musician has performed in myriad guises: from releasing music as Charles Hurts and playing guitar in the recently-disbanded Girls Names, to making up one-third of the already hugely-promising Grave Goods, his versatility has always ran parallel with fecundity. Bands, collaborations and the odd side-project aside, it’s in his main solo guise as Gross Net where the full weight and majesty of Quinn’s art comes into view. Taking from his eagerly-anticipated second studio album, Gross Net Means Gross Net, ‘Gentrification’ is one of his most cohesive and assured efforts to…

  • Watch: Captain A – Dog In The Woods

    June 23, 2019 - By 

    Captain A has returned with a more reserved affair than usual. Better known for his Tom Waits-y rasp and dreamy psyche-rock ventures with the Commercial Monsters, the Galway-based, Donegal-born songwriter contributed a new track, ‘Dog In The Woods’, to Cian Ó Cíobháin’s An Taobh Tuathail as part of the beloved RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta show’s recent 20th anniversary broadcasts. Composing with electronics for the first time, ‘Dog In The Woods’ is a delicate, touching affair with glistening synth lines and keys allowing his frank and deeply personal lyricism, delivered with an affectingly cracked vocal. “It was an acoustic track originally but as I’ve been exploring…

  • Watch: No Oil Paintings – Something Like The Truth

    June 14, 2019 - By 

    Two years on from the release of their well-received second EP, Too Close to the Sun, fast-rising Belfast quartet No Oil Paintings have returned with their most emphatic single to date, ‘Something Like the Truth’. Across four minutes of ascending, fist-clenched intent, the harmony-driven ‘Something Like the Truth’ firmly positions the four-piece as one of Ireland’s finest, most forward-pushing alternative folk outfits. Accompanied by a stellar video courtesy of By Elephant, the single is equal parts equal parts socio-political and earworming gem focusing on the increasing lack of humanity in modern society. Bolstered by the soaring backing vocals courtesy of brothers…

  • Girl Band Announce New Album, Live Dates & Video For Shoulderblades

    June 6, 2019 - By 

    Earlier today, we rather giddily shared ‘Shoulderblades’, the emphatic new single from Dublin quartet Girl Band. Now, comprehensively sealing the deal on the release is long-time collaborator Bob Gallagher’s new accompanying video, featuring Oona Doherty. Mirroring the song’s erratic and frenzied push-and-pull, not least viva frontman Dara Kiely’s trademark expulsions, Doherty’s performance is an accomplished, at times suitably brutal accompaniment to hands down one of the Irish tracks of the year thus far. Better still is the news that many Girl Band fans have been hoping for. The band will release their second album, The Talkies, via Rough Trade on September 28. Produced…

  • Watch: Sissy – Not In My Head

    May 27, 2019 - By 

    Dublin threesome Sissy know a thing or two about breakneck lo-fi punk. Take new single, ‘Not In My Head’. Racing out of the traps, almost bursting at the seams with pure-cut gusto, it’s a four-minute romp of stellar guitar shapes and feverish refrains. And what a video. Shot at Dalymount Park – the Phibsborough home of Bohemian F.C. – it captures Leigh, Michelle and Eoin well and truly in their element.

  • Watch: Bouts – Passing Through

    May 17, 2019 - By 

    Not that you need reminding, but Dublin indie quartet Bouts released one of the Irish albums of the year (thus far) back in January. Released today, the fourth single to be taken from Flow is ‘Passing Through’ and what a timely, sun-drenched cut it is. Bounding with starry-eyed hooks, it’s a brisk but brilliant effort that faces down “the transience of life – friendship, music and attachment.” Move over ‘Get Lucky’ – this is the sound of the (Irish) summer. Check out Teresa Weikmann’s video for the single below.

  • Watch: Stefan Murphy – Dry Cider

    May 1, 2019 - By 

    We’re very lucky to call Stefan Murphy one of our own. Based in Atlanta, GA, the Dublin artist’s mottled career to date has taken in the triumphant garage rock of The Mighty Stef, exploratory solo sounds as Count Vaseline and far beyond. Murphy is now performing under his own name, making music that he tells us “aims to reconnect with the art of earnest, heartfelt songwriting, while also flirting with his back catalog in the live setting.” If lead single ‘Dry Cider’ is anything to go by, success is both realms is assured. A self-proclaimed tale of youthful misadventure, dedicated to…

  • Watch: Paddy Hanna – Frankly, I Mutate

    April 25, 2019 - By 

    When it was released early last year, Frankly, I Mutate doubly underscored Paddy Hanna’s status as one of Ireland’s greatest ever songwriters. Brimming with incision, melody, pathos and heart, the album’s title track confined all of that, and more, across its four minutes. Something of a live favourite at Hanna’s full-band shows since the album’s release – not least an especially memorable rendition at Primavera in Barcelona last summer – the song now comes accompanied with one of the Irish videos of the year. Directed by Niall McCann, it features Hanna and a boom mic navigating skylights, back gardens, leafy streets, front rooms, promenades and shallow seashores. Confused?…

  • Premiere: Ordnance Survey – Chrome feat. Sean Mac Erlaine & Kate Ellis

    April 25, 2019 - By 

    Next month, Dublin’s Neil O’Connor aka Somadrone will re-emerge with a new collaboration album titled Relative Phase. Recorded at the National Concert Hall Studios in Dublin throughout 2017 and 2018, the album – which is released under the collaborative moniker Ordnance Survey – features O’Connor on various instruments (see the full impressive list below), Kate Ellis on cello, John McEntire (of Tortoise, The Sea & Cake et al.) on drums, Sean Mac Erlaine on alto sax, bass clarinet and electrics, and Linda Buckley with vocal processing. Across eight tracks, it’s a fully-realised, synth-worshipping triumph of dense textures and widescreen extemporization that attempts…