Grim Pickinz – troublesome tunes from Dublin and the UK
01. Kynz-Illa from Dublin and DateOne from Peterborough are the constituent parts of Amsterdam-based project GRIM PICKINZ.
02. December of 2014 saw the duo release The Troublesome Sound E.P. independently, and they’ve since been regulars both around Amsterdam’s venues and on guest appearances for Irish rappers and producers.
03. The remastered edition of their extended-player is available for streaming in the widget above, and for download from their newly-setup Bandcamp. Kynz-Illa is also streaming his instrumentals (and licensing them to interested musical parties) from his own new Bandcamp.
04. Comes to Broadsheet offices Karl’s den via the recommendation of Limerick beat dons The Unscene.
Thoughts: Heavy-hitting boom-bap for those partial to same, topped off by deft Dub-accented wordplay.
01. Last time we checked in with GUILTY OPTICS (their all-caps, not your writer’s), they’d just released their first single in a while, ahead of completing work on their debut album.
02. While we await more news/noise on this topic, the band are currently planning more national touring in 2017.
03. Streaming above is And So It Goes, the follow-up to last year’s streaming single The Kayapo Ghosts, premiered last week at The Thin Air after a prolonged wait, judging by the given upload date on the band’s Soundcloud.
04. Headlining a gig at the Tivoli Backstage tomorrow night at 8pm. We covered the other two veteran bands on the bill this week, also – Ten Past Seven and Elk supporting.
Thoughts: Punky, angular noises, delivered with earnestness and aplomb. Grand.
01. Returning from a prolonged hiatus are Leeside live faves of the mid-late aughts, pop/heft outfit Elk.
02. Releasing debut album We Should Start Our Own Gang in early 2009, the lads went quiet shortly thereafter, re-emerging live periodically, including for the launch of a split 7″ single with Crayonsmith in 2011. It’s been a busy few years, with the boys keeping the fires burning in, offhand, No Spill Blood, Hands Up Who Wants to Die, All Tvvins and Guilty Optics.
03. That long-player of theirs is streaming above, and available for free download via Bandcamp.
04. Elk return on Saturday night at Tivoli Backstage in Dublin, supporting GUILTY OPTICS alongside Ten Past Seven. Ridiculous lineup.
Thoughts: Straightforward pop lurches into dreamy sounds, lurches back out into heft and distortion. Something for everyone, and a welcome return.
01. At long last, an excuse to talk about Ten Past Seven. That genre of theirs in full: “Kinky Kerry Sex Metal Trad Scat Gael Core Bog Prog”. Das’ right.
02. Assembling in the early 2000s, the band released debut long-player Shutupyourface in 2006, via the venerable Out on a Limb Records, followed by a split 7″ with Los Langeros that was launched atop Carrantuohill, a string of EPs and intermittent live activity.
03. Streaming above is most recent extended-player Black Box Recordings, crowdfunded and recorded in Black Box Studios in France in 2011.
04. Playing Dublin’s Tivoli Theatre on the 28th, supporting Guilty Optics alongside fellow veterans Elk.
Thoughts: Loathe as your writer is to revert to old tropes, ye olde “if you have to ask” applies to Ten Past Seven. Listening yields more noisy insanity than we have room for in this column.
01. Last we heard of Cork-based hardcore outfit Horse, they were getting riled up for Lodgefest II, at the now-defunct Pine Lodge venue, late last year.
02. In the months since, the band has released a split 12″ single alongside fellow Leeside rabble-rousers Bisect. We featured that band’s side of the record not too long ago.
03. Their half of it is streaming in the widget above and available for download as a stand-alone release.
04. Next live excursion is another bus out of town, this time to Connolly’s of Leap, on February 24th, for the Leaping-ton show. Hope is Noise and Horse are joined by new lads The Liminals and, in their first Cork show in years, post-metallers Rest.
Thoughts: Having firmly settled into a new line-up, Horse’s weighty, downtuned hardcore is newly focused, and somehow even more abrasive.
01. Behind the mic, he’s Gavin DaVinci, but under his own name, Tipp man Gavin Doyle is fairly handy at putting a beat together.
02. At nineteen years old, he’s only after getting kicked off properly in the last year, with a string of single releases.
03. Streaming above is Doyle’s new single Dead Rabbits ‘n’ Humans, a collaboration with fellow Tipp wordsmith Mychee.
04. The pair have also set up Broken Jaw Records, a net-label for their beats and instrumentals. Warning: banner pic is probably NSFW.
Thoughts: As a rapper, there’s inflections of Irish accent and well-tested grime patter, but it’s his rapidly improving beatmaking that’s the story here.
I Have a Tribe – crooning, low-key indie from Dublin
What you may need to know…
01. Patrick O’Laoghaire is the man behind I Have a Tribe, releasing the project’s debut album Beneath a Yellow Moon last year via Groenland Records.
02. Taken from the same LP is new single After We Meet, newly re-recorded with the addition of backing vocals from Mary-Kate Geraghty, TAFKA MayKay of Fight Like Apes.
03. Streaming above is the video for the single, with visuals by Arbutus Yarns/This Ain’t No Disco man Myles O’Reilly.
04. He’ll be playing Whelan’s in Dublin on Friday March 3rd, in support of the new release.
Thoughts: Textured and interesting, definitely feeling the benefit of a sonic revamp, yet comforting and reassuring.
The Redneck Manifesto – back catalogue reissues for Dublin post-rockers
What you may need to know…
01. Last we checked in with Dublin instrumentalists The Redneck Manifesto, they’d taken to stage at Clonakilty Guitar Fest ahead of getting in shape for a new record.
02. While there’s no further announcement on that front as of yet, the band have released their complete discography to date on streaming services as of this week, as announced through a post (and with a special playlist) on Nialler9.
03. Streaming above is the title track from 2005 long-player I Am Brazil. The band’s music is available now across Apple Music/iTunes, Spotify, Google Music and Tidal.
04. Live dates are happening next month. February 15th and 16th at Whelan’s, the latter being sold out; the 17th at the Roisín Dubh in Galway, and the 18th, at Dolan’s in Limerick.
Thoughts: A distinguished body of work that helped set the precedent for a generation of instrumental music from this island. Well worth the revisit ahead of new tunes.
Nomadic Rituals – gravestone-heavy doom metal from Belfast
What you may need to know…
01. Purveyors of downtrodden, doomy, slow-crawling filth are Belfast trio Nomadic Rituals.
02. Second full-length album Marking the Day releases next month, on handmade CD (with art-cards) and digital download. An ambitious piece, the LP is a concept record taking on the birth, life and death of the Cosmos, as well as the purpose of humanity. Perfect for summer barbecues.
03. The album is streaming in its entirety in the widget above, and available for digital and physical pre-order via their Bandcamp.
04. The record launches on the day of release, February 17th, with a gig at the Voodoo in Belfast, with support from Cork’s Soothsayer, War Iron, and MAW.
Thoughts: An hour-long odyssey whose heaviness and heft is matched by its scale.
Pictured above: Scullion, My Bloody Valentine, Therapy?, James Vincent McMorrow, Rusangano Family… and the Joshua Trio
Last week, in our weekly, week-ending €25 Golden Discs voucher bonanza, we asked YOU to pinpoint your all-time favourite live Irish music moments. The specific format for the answer went along these lines…
‘The best live performance from an Irish act I have ever witnessed was_________________________at_____________________because____________’
It was a serious struggle this time around to pin down a winner, which just goes to display the breadth and depth of our little island’s talent over the years (so support it where you can, please).
But there can only be one winner…
Wait for It… is the poster’s name. Talking My Bloody Valentine at SFX (unfortunately, no bootlegs of the event are in embeddable format online, so we’ve included Only Shallow from their Vancouver gig that year above).
“The best live performance from an Irish act I have ever witnessed was My Bloody Valentine at the SFX in May, 1992 because to this day, I have never had a more visceral experience of live music. Including seeing the band themselves again twice, indoors, since they came back in 2008, I have never heard anything so loud. Ticketholders left the venue to listen from the footpath outside. Even wearing earplugs, people still had to cover their ears, especially during ‘You Made Me Realise’.
Added to this was a light show that seemed specifically designed to disorient and confuse (such as the blindingly bright lights turned on the audience during YMMR’s ‘holocaust’ section). I stood by the sound desk and saw staff from the SFX begging for the volume to be lowered, met with firm headshakes. I can’t say it was an entirely pleasant experience, but it was one I’ll never forget, which is what makes it the best.”
That’s what you want, in fairness.
Other runners from the shortlist, in (near-)chronological order…
Fiach: ‘The best live performance from an Irish act I have ever witnessed was: Scullion, at O’Flaherty Theatre UCG 1981, because of the sheer passion, talent and pleasure in performance that was so obvious from each of the members of the group. They had just released ‘Balance and Control’, so some of the songs were new to me, and each one blew my young mind. Sitting in the front row, I was agog at the veins in Philip King’s neck pulsating through the tragedy of ’18’, the energy of ‘Tension’ and the fun of ‘Can I Have My Money Back’ by Gerry Rafferty. The sheer range of emotions from the whole group was enthralling. Greg Bolan’s fingers flying all over the frets, and Sonny Condell’s quirky comments all helped to make this my favourite gig by any group ever.’
Frilly Keane:‘Hot Press Battle of the Bands thing in Henrys. 88’ish. A Nordie Crowd called Trenchtown (no streaming audio to link to – Mike). That lead singer would have given Thatcher an orgasm. I know they came second in their heat so didn’t progress. If anyone has a clue, please let me know what happened to them. Anyway around the same time, like that same year, An Emotional Fish, Trinity Ball – Arts Block. Incredible, and probably one of their very early gigs. Also the support that night, Cypress Mine, who had a great track : ‘Sugar Beet God’. Zig and Zag used ta’ sing it. Anyway, all long forgotten. Pity about Trenchtown, we missed out.’
Lorcan Nagle: ‘The best live performance from an Irish act I have ever witnessed was Therapy? at Sunstroke ’94, because they didn’t let up from the moment they hit the stage, and blew every band there out of the water – including the Chili Peppers at their height. I saw some guy wander out of the moshpit holding one of his shoes with a big cut on his head, telling everyone who asked if he was alright that it was all just good fun.’
Liam Deliverance: ‘The best live performance from an Irish act I have ever witnessed was The Jimmy Cake at the Tivoli, around 1996 because it was a smallish gig and it was easy to get up front. The band consisted of around 12 members playing a wonderful variety of instruments including accordion and clarinet. They were described as experimental rock which didn’t mean a whole lot to me at the time plus I had no expectations as to what a band called the “Jimmy Cake” would be like, I thought it was a silly name but was to quickly learn not to judge a book by it’s cover. They played a set with each member giving their all and producing a wonderful experience, your head would be going from one musician to another, songs were 7/8 or minutes long and the audience was left feeling they had seen something special and unique. Have a Jimmy Cake CD somewhere, must have a look for it.’
HyperGlobalCompuMegaNet:‘The best live performance from an Irish act I have ever witnessed was James Vincent McMorrow upstairs in Whelan’s before he was signed circa 2008/09. His songs weren’t as ‘produced’ as they are now, it was just him, his guitar, and a ridiculous voice that kept the small crowd captivated.’
Miriam: ‘The best live performance from an Irish act I have ever witnessed was Rusangano Family at Dolans, Limerick because they are an unbelievable live performance of Irish hip-hop. They do loads for promoting multiculturalism and always support young and upcoming acts. Their energy is top class and frankly they are one of the best live acts I have ever seen.’
James Chimney:‘The Joshua Trio in the Baggot Inn sometime in the late 80’s. They knew what the little scut was up to!’
