Tag Archives: music

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Lighght – Oddball electronic noises from Cork

What you may need to know…

01. Cork musician Éamon Ivri makes sounds under the moniker of Lighght.

02. The project has been in development for about a year, working on it when not sessioning for 12-15-headed funk monster Quangodelic, or running Cork community nightclub Diffract.

03. Streaming above is free-download single What U Need, available now via Lighght’s Soundcloud.

04. The next Diffract night happens on the 28th at the Kino in Cork, headlined by a live appearance by YMLT featurees ooSe.

Thoughts: Off-kilter soundings from the fringes of a booming Leeside electronic scene.

Lighght

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Bisect – multicultural hardcore outfit releasing new split 12″

What you may need to know…

01. With band members of Polish, Italian and Irish backgrounds, Bisect’s no-nonsense, d-beat rage is fuelled by a diverse range of outlooks and musical influences.

02. Gigging around Ireland the past few years, the band emerged in earnest with debut full-length We Are The Migrants, self-released in 2013, a sturdy, socially-conscious hardcore broadside with unusually polished production.

03. Streaming above is their half of a split extended-player with fellow Cork-based destroyers Horse, co-released in December through the band’s self-release label, Almost Records.

04. The other half, including Horse’s YMLT-featured single Dragging, can be streamed on that band’s own Bandcamp.

Thoughts: Since being slimmed down in a personnel shift, Bisect have moved to focus their sound, and it shows.

Bisect

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The Cork Quarter Block Party festival’s second round of acts has just been announced, following on from their announcements before the Xmas break.

Among the additions are YMLT-endorsed noisemakers Le Boom, Wastefellow, ooSe, Dowry and Myles Manley, as well as Not Earth, Ganglions, Super Silly and a bunch more.

Also added to the bill – the return of zero-commitment choir The Sing Along Social, Cork hip-hop legend Stevie G’s Vinyl Love night, and Bum Notes Dragaoke.

The live art portion sees the addition of absurdist third-wave feminist performance piece SNAKE TALK, and a DJ set/performance in The Rave Space, assembled by UK performance artist Will Dickie, while the street art/public engagement bill is added to with Alternative Routes, a sculptural installation on Coleman’s Lane; Volxkuche, a community dinner party, and circus artist Darragh McLoughlin’s live performance in the now-former Dunnes’ Stores shopping centre, exploring the space and with it themes of the current property and rental crises.

All happening February 3rd-5th on North and South Main Streets, Cork.

More here.

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Sillk – String-laden alt-folk from Cork

What you may need to know…

01. Sillk are a Leeside three-piece, and while at their heart a folk band, exhibit noirish/chamber-pop tendencies in places, due mainly to a dense undercarriage of cello and violin in their tunes.

02. The band’s debut E.P. Time is a Clock, recorded by Elastic Sleep/African Fiction man Chris Somers, releases this week on CD and digital download.

03. Streaming above is the video new single Switchblades Don’t Sleep, taken from the extended-player, directed by Eadaoin O’Donoghue and shot by Enrique Carcinero.

04. Launching tomorrow night at the Village Hall venue on Patrick’s Quay, Cork at 8.30. More info here.

Thoughts: A dichotomy of light-hearted play and heavy subject matter, balanced, bearing a wide, irreverent grin.

Sillk

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The wax continued to rule all in 2016, as 3.2m LPs were sold last year in Britain, outstripping the number of downloads and matching streaming revenue.

This is the format’s best year since its initial decline became apparent in 1991, and a 52% increase on 2015’s total UK LP sales, according to the BPI.

Why? Apparently, it’s down to two things: the migration of older former enthusiasts and ‘young people’ driven to own the physical record after discovering music on streaming services.

READ ON: Record sales: vinyl hits 25-year high (Guardian)

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Naive Ted – Limerick weirdo beat don returns

What you may need to know…

01. Co-founder of the Community Skratch Games festival, and founder of the Unscene label/collective (see yesterday’s YMLT), Naive Ted is arguably one of the cornerstones of independent music in Ireland, in addition to his own ever-expanding body of increasingly experimental beat-tapes and production credits.

02. We’re reliably informed the follow-up to 2015 magnum opus The Inevitable Heel Turn is on the way.

03. Streaming above is a video released on the quiet over the post-Xmas/pre-New Year fug, for single Post-Factual (That Old Chestnut).

04. Appearing next at Quarter Block Party on North Main Street, Cork, from February 5th to 7th, where he’ll be performing all-new material which may or may not be new-LP-related. More info here.

Thoughts: More oddball beats and pieces with a reliably lo-fi feel, albeit a tad more ’90s-feeling in places. Looking forward to hearing where this might lead.

Naive Ted

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Mankyy – Clare beatmaker gets in with the first new release of the year

What you may need to know…

01. Mankyy is the beatmaking pseudonym of Clareman Daithí MacCrúitin. At a tender eighteen years of age, he’s already been up and down the country, sharing stages with This Side Up and the Cuttin’ Heads Collective.

02. Debut extended-player Character Development guest appearances from a litany of Irish hip-hop leaders, including Limerick trio Same D4ence, fellow prodigy Jonen Dekay, and Spekulativ Fiktion.

03. The E.P. is available for streaming and download in the widget above.

04. Technically the first release of the year in Ireland, the E.P. dropped in the early hours of New Year’s Day, via Limrock beatgods The Unscene.

Thoughts: Some absolutely scorching guest bars are the cherry on top of a well-developed, dense and eclectic collection of beats.

Mankyy

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Off the heels of the news that the UK Official Charts Company will be taking over the running of the various music sales charts in Ireland,..

…is the frankly much better news that sales from bandcamp.com, the main online music delivery service utilised by a vast majority of independent artists and labels in Ireland, will be counted as part of the overall tally on a weekly basis.

This is massive news for independent & DIY Irish artists and labels despite the fragmentation of the music market and the resultant changes in relevance the charts have undergone.

Fight!

IRMA

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2016 has has been a pivotal year for Irish music.

‘sheet music editor Mike McGrath Bryan writes:

This year has been the strongest in recent memory for Irish music, managing so despite the dissolutions of a great many leading outfits in the community in times of yore, among them this year Fight Like Apes, Enemies and Funeral Suits.

In the eight months your writer has been doing daily explainers on Irish independent music, there’s never been a morning where we’ve been without content, a story to tell, something that’s exciting to put in post and press ‘publish’ on.

What a lot of us figured would be a passing golden era a few years back has become the foundation for something far more sustained – without so much as a look from daytime radio or television, and with minimal coverage from our country’s mainstream media (all this despite good people in each, fighting the good fight, might I add).

Ireland’s music scene is easily the equal of any other offering, anywhere in the world, and arguably, pound-for-pound, the best in terms of quality of releases.

With that being said, let’s dig in to the list.

The divisively-named Top Ten Irish Records of 2016 does come with a caveat, though – joint winners (both ranked #1, with the #2 spot vacated, for the pedants among you).

It’s been that good of a year. Enjoy.

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