Niall Toner – The Last Wolf On The Mountain

Whither the wolf?

Carlow-based country blues troubadour Niall Toner (top) has written a poignant lament imagining the last days of the noble four-legged hunter on these shores. (The wolf has been extinct in Ireland since 1786).

Maybe [Green Party leader]Eamon Ryan was listening?

The song is written from the point of view of the doomed craythur and would have fit perfectly in Johnny Cash‘s twilight testaments.

Fiaz Farrelly‘s atmospheric video is also visually striking and the use of a drone as it hovers over the Blackstairs Mountains adds a real sense of grandeur.

Nick says: Time for a comeback?

Niall Toner

Shookrah – Notions

Make mine a double.

This inventive promo by Cork Future Soul quintet Shookrah is an object lesson in how to make a gripping video on a budget.

Split-screen camera trickery is used to great effect as singer Senita (top right) is shown having a tiff in a nightclub with her clone.

Meanwhile the funk is pumped up by Emmet O’Riabhaigh (drums), Daniel Coughlan (guitar), Diarmait Mac Carthaigh (keyboard) and Brian Dunlea (bass guitar).

The band release their self-titled debut album on vinyl and CD on October 25.

Catch them live at Cork Kino on November 15 and Dublin Bello Bar on November 17.

Nick says: One notion under a groove.

Shookrah

Gypsies On The Autobahn – Rubicon

Not talking to each other?

That’s the theme of the third single from the album Suspended by Dublin combo Gypsies On The Autobahn.

Communication difficulties abound too in the cryptic video written and directed by lead singer James Smith and starring Laura Brady and Tadhg O Rourke.

Turns out it’s good to talk after all.

Nick says: May the Autobahn rise with you.

Gypsies On The Autobahn

Joey Gavin – Home Sweet Home

Home thoughts from abroad.

Introducing the new single by Berlin-based Dubliner Joey Gavin (top) who explores the concept of place over a chilled-out indie guitar jangle.

The video animation by Joshua DeLanoit is visually striking and effortlessly inventive.

Joey plays Cork Roundy, Castle Street, Cork tomorrow night.

Nick says: Home is a question mark…

Joey Gavin

A Lazarus Soul – Cruelty Man

Anger is an energy.

The latest cut from A Lazarus Soul’s essential album The D They Put Between The R & L deals with the evil of institutional and clerical child abuse.

The cold fury in singer Brian Barrigan’s lyrics over the Tuam babies scandal is tempered by an optimism that the “parish is rising” and a new era of defiance is upon us.

The band have also just released a new single called Funeral Sessions.

You can catch them play a rare headline Dublin gig in Whelan’s on October 30.

Nick says: Soul food.

A Lazarus Soul

Lankum – The Young People

By their feet shall ye know them…

Already causing a stir, this quirky new video directed by Bob Gallagher goes toe to toe with Lankum. The Dublin folk quartet are set to release their third album The Livelong Day on the legendary Rough Trade label on October 26.

The four-part harmonies of Ian, Daragh, Cormac and Radie combine to great effect on The Young People.

Surely a foot-tapping shoo-in for a folk award next year?

Nick says: People power.

Lankum

Laura Elizabeth Hughes – Straight For Tomorrow

Home is where the art is.

For the video to her new single, Dublin singer/songwriter Laura Elizabeth Hughes (top) has rummaged through the cupboard and found some old home videos from her childhood.

Director Peadar Gill has then expertly spliced these with brooding cinematic shots of present day Laura that match the intensity and emotion of the music.

The single can be found on Laur’a’s Ceremony EP.

Nick says: Tomorrow we love you.

Laura Elizabeth Hughes

Úna Keane– Delicate

Kick up your feet and get a load of this gorgeous minimalist piano piece.

Dubliner Una Keane (top) combines the ebony and ivory with found sounds and percussion courtesy of a battered old typewriter.

Though her music inhabits a constellation all of her own making, it orbits close to those of Michael Nyman and Chopin.

Following the quiet masterpiece that was 2017’s As I Wake, Still I Dream comes her new album In The Deep on December 5 which was recorded in an old Victorian railway worker’s cottage in the capital.

The spellbinding Delicate is the first taste of the new record and the archive video revolves around the themes of “communication, connection and flow”.

Nick says: It’s always the quiet ones.

Úna Keane