An unexpected blast of energy is emanating from my speakers right now. ‘Anti Omerta’ is the name of the new Logikparty song and for 140 seconds is nothing less than exhilarating. After an EP and one or two other songs, Dublin group Logikparty are finally ready to release an album; [Read more]
Galway three-piece Milan Jay blew me away around this time last year when they released ‘We Believe’ on Bandcamp. It featured on the To The Sea And Swim EP, which was followed by To The Night And Sky, all completely different in sound. The trio complete the Philosopher Trilogy, named [Read more]
If you saw the video for ‘Lingering‘ during the summer, or indeed listen to the songs already up on her Soundcloud page, you might know what Tara Masterson Hally’s latest song holds in store. The 18-year-old writes beautiful songs that manage to restrain themselves from being overwrought. ‘In The Silence’ [Read more]
Crayonsmith are one of my favourite Irish bands, mainly due to the near perfection of previous album, White Wonder. But that was over three years ago. So to say I was pleased to hear they finally had new material would be an understatement. ‘Heaven In An Aeroplane’ is one half [Read more]
I had the distinct pleasure of finally seeing Halves play in Cork on Friday night. Debut album It Goes, It Goes (Forever & Ever) was released last year following a number of EPs and led to some support slots in the city; but I never got to see them. This [Read more]
Last Friday in Cyprus Avenue, Antlers played a sold-out show, which saw all tickets gone before I got my act together. Afterwards saw the first in a series of late-night gigs in the Cork venue and you would have thought there’d have been a good-sized crowd for it. But there [Read more]
You never know where a great recommendation is going to come from. It could come from your best friend, who knows your taste and tailors everything to what you can easily digest. It could come from your other half, who may have a polar opposite taste in music and is [Read more]
Remember the girl with the voice that blew away the set of Jools Holland a few weeks back? No, no, no, not Florence and the Machine, who play Dublin’s O2 in March. The relatively unknown Cold Specks, aka Canadian singer Al Spx, needed little more than a mic and an [Read more]
On listening to Burials, the debut album from Dublin/Meath trio the Ambience Affair, the most striking thing is the power of singer Jamie Clarke’s voice. Take the opening track ‘Weeds’: it constantly evolves, growing in stature to the point where Clarke spits out the chorus, “And I’ll wait in my [Read more]
Jens Lekman recorded a session for Huw Stephens’s Radio 1 show last night. It was all acoustic and included two previously heard songs, ‘Waiting For Kirsten’, which appeared on the recently released EP An Argument With Myself, and ‘I Want A Pair Of Cowboy Boots’, which we heard last summer. [Read more]
