Category Archives: Music

Every kind of sound imaginable.

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Oh Boland – new split tape and gigs this week

What you may need to know…

01. Oh Boland are a three-piece indie/pop band from Galway. Jangles and riffs in equal measure.

02. They’re on the road all this week in support of A Litany of Failures, their new split cassette via Little L Records. Also appearing on tour (and on the tape) are Belfast lads Junk Drawer, Broadsheet faves Shrug Life, and That Snaake.

03. Streaming above is the video for most recent single, Where’s the Beach?

04. Tomorrow night sees all the bands involved with the aforementioned release play McHugh’s in Belfast, they’ll be at Sweeney’s in Dublin on Thursday, and wrapping up with a show in Galway at the Roisin Dubh on Saturday night.

Verdict: Straight-ahead, no-nonsense but likeable tunes.

Oh Boland

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A dance-friendly remix of Whiplash by Eclectic Method and Genranon. To wit:

In true respect to jazz this is one of those rare electronic tunes that goes through multiple keys in a 2-5-1 chord progression in 5/8 time signature…… Only joking it’s a 4 to the floor smasher totally disrespectful to jazz as a whole but totally in keeping with the yelling rage of band leader Terence Fletcher.

(Occasional NSFW dialogue samples)

laughingsquid

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Thumper – new EP and festival appearances

What you may need to know…

01. Dublin five-piece Thumper have been carving out a niche in the city’s lo-fi/pop community.

02. Starting as a solo project, Thumper’s debut EP released in March of least year, and led to regular gigging around Dublin, as well as a run of dates with Blades Club.

03. Streaming above is the video for new single Rent is Due, available with a pre-order of their new E.P., magnum opuss, releasing June 17th via Little L Records. A limited run of tapes is also on the way.

04. Appearing next at Knockanstockan, Electric Picnic, and the UK’s Truck fest.

Verdict: Noisy, jagged poppy ruckus covered in tape hiss and overdrive.  No-nonsense action.

Thumper

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King Kong Company – new single Scarity Dan hits the charts midweek

What you may need to know…

01. Waterford-based outfit King Kong Company have become somewhat of a fixture on the Irish festival circuit.

02. The band’s self-titled debut album releases on the 17th of this month, after a build-up of over a year having first been hinted at with single Spacehopper last year.

03. Streaming above is the vidjo for new single Scarity Dan, released last week. As of yesterday, it’s number seven in the Irish pop chart, still an achievement for a DIY release.

04. Upcoming appearances on the festival grind: June 4th at Vantastival, June 11th at BARE in the Woods, June 24 at Sea Sessions, and July 1 at Waterford’s Daytripper fest.

Verdict: Madcap synth-pop, made specifically for going ape. Pun intended.

King Kong Company

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Enemies – playing ArcTangent festival in August

What you may need to know…

01. Wicklow math-rock four-piece Enemies have been knocking about for the bones of the past decade now, making all manner of bright and fanciful noises. They’ve toured the world in the process, including sold-out shows in New York and Tokyo.

02. Currently resident on Topshelf Records, the band were formerly part of the much-missed Richter Collective, on which debut album We’ve Been Talking was released. Follow-up effort Embark, Embrace is arguably one of the best Irish records of recent years.

03. Streaming above is the video for most recent single Play Fire, taken from their upcoming third LP. Directed by Finn Keenan, it’s a fairly handsome piece of cinematography.

04. If you’re hankering for more, they did a live session for Chicago music channel Audiotree in April. Stream it in full, along with interviews, here.

05. Next appearing at ArcTangent, Europe’s leading fest for all things instrumental, noisy and/or in odd timings, happening August 18-20 in Bristol. Among the frankly insane line-up are fellow Irish soundscapers Alarmist.

Verdict: Play Fire represents a turn to broader strokes and a poppier feel. It suits their more blissed-out moments of old, and this next LP might well be the one that puts them in front of a wider audience.

Enemies

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New Jackson – doing the festival rounds in Ireland and Europe

What you may need to know…

01. The man currently known as David Kitt, is also currently known as New Jackson. Yep, the very same.

02. Out with the moody singer-songwriter stuff, in with sunny, disco-y house.

03. Streaming above is Having a Coke With You, from his EP of the same name released in 2014 on Permanent Vacation. Following up with 12″ single Metroflex, he’s since been getting attention for remix work with the like of the xx.

04. Next appearances are this Friday at Cobh’s Sirius Arts Centre, this Saturday at M-NUS (note the on-brand spelling) in Cork, July 1st at Derry’s Celtronic festival, July 3 at Castlepalooza fest. More info on UK and Europe dates here.

Verdict: A big romance with the horizon for Kitt, embracing sunnier sounds and following his own muses.

New Jackson

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Owensie – playing Limerick and West Cork next month

What you may need to know…

01. Michael Owens, aka Owensie, specialises in an alternative-leaning folk, informed by his previous life as part of various DIY bands, including Puget Sound, Terrordactyl, and Realistic Train.

02. First garnering adoring glances in 2011 with debut album Aliens, Owensie has slowly but surely built a quality body of solo work, expounded upon with 2012’s Citizens, and remix album I Saw the Flashing Lights.

03. Streaming above is the promo clip for the title track of third album Dramamine, available for streaming and download via Bandcamp and physically via Out on a Limb Records.

04. Next up for Owensie are appearances in Limerick and West Cork: Friday June 10th sees him play Limrock’s Stormy Teacup, and on Saturday June 11th, he plays Connolly’s of Leap as part of Southern Hospitality Board’s SuddenWestSummer one-dayer.

Verdict: Evocative without being schlocky, relaxed without calling for a halt to your grey matter. A welcome deviation from the standard singer-songwriter schtick.

Owensie

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An interesting musical experiment by musician Steve-san ‘Samurai Guitarist’ Onotera.

What he’s done here is perform an incredibly slow instrumental cover of Here Comes The Sun by the Beatles, taking a full half hour (appropriately, either side of dawn) to pick all the notes. He then speeds up the recording by a factor of 20, approximating the speed of the original.

The result is a strange, not unpleasing modulated violin effect.

Steve-san discusses it in more detail here.

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Pic: Robin Parmar

Roslyn Steer – launching new album You’ll Know next month

What you may need to know…

01. Cork-resident singer-songwriter Roslyn Steer stretches that oft ill-fitting label to breaking point, taking in noise, drone and psychedelia on her adventures.

02. Formerly of Saint Yorda and also currently of Crevice and Morning Veils, she’s been prodigiously busy in recent times solo, releasing last album Still Moving less than a year ago.

03. Streaming above is said debut record in its entirety, released on her own label, Kant Cope.

04. Next appearing to launch You’ll Know as part of her label’s triple album-launch show at St. Luke’s in Cork city, alongside new projects Fixity and Sky, Horse and Death, both unveiling themselves and releasing cassettes on the night.

Verdict: A joy to watch live, slowly becoming more and more entranced over the course of a set, to the point of appearing almost to be elsewhere. Mesmerising.

Roslyn Steer