Featuring: Oisin Leech, Telekura, Blimp, Brawni, Brian Ring, K.P Ring, Eithne, The Expert, Robbie Stickland, Orchids, PANIKATAX.
A lot of music from Ireland and Northern Ireland comes our way and every week, we listen through it all, sift the list down to a manageable list and share the best new tracks from emerging artists and some more established acts that deserve to be heard by you.
For more extensive Irish and new music coverage, follow our Spotify playlist or hit up the Irish section for individual track features.
Oisin Leech
Colour Of The Rain
The Lost Brothers’ Oisin Leech, has announced his debut solo album Cold Sea, produced by Steve Gunn and featuring M Ward, Dónal Lunny, Róisín McGrory and Tony Garnier (a long-time member of Bob Dylan’s touring band), is out on March 8th, on Outside Music (The Weather Station, Doug Paisley)/ Tremone Records.
Fans of the classic songwriter style of the likes of Richard Hawley (and indeed M Ward) will find much to appreciate in the acoustic quietude and gentle synths in ‘Colour Of The Rain’.
“My aim with this album was to write a collection of songs that told a complete story, and to record them near the ocean, using the sea as a kind of mirror for the songs. “‘Colour of the Rain’ I spent weeks writing, maybe longer, with each verse addressing a stage in my life. It touches on forgiveness. Looking at the past and moving on.”
Oisin Leech
Oisin Leech gigs
On March 17th St. Patrick’s Day Oisin will do an in store performance at Rough Trade Westoff Portabello Road in London at 5pm.
- March 17 – London, UK – Rough Trade West In- Store (5pm)
- April 4 – Dublin, IE – Sugar Club
- April 5 – Galway, IE – An Taibhdhearc Theatre
- April 6 – Letterkenny, IE – Regional Cultural Centre
- April 12- Kilkenny, IE – Cleere’s
- April 13 – Waterford, IE – Phil Grimes
- April 14 – Cork, IE – Coughlans
- April 18 – Limerick, IE – Dolans
- April 19 – Ballydehob, IE – Levis’
- April 26 – Manorhamilton, IE – The Glens
Eithne
Bad Dream
The Dublin-based, Cork-born singer-songwriter, the mononymous Eithne debuts with a song that laces the track with personal experience of a heartbreak over a piano ballad backing. It’s a song that looks back on a relationship that ended and lets it drift.
The track was recorded and produced with her brother Cian MacSweeny (of True Tides) and is the first song from a debut album forthcoming.
Eithne also features in the Apple TV series Masters of the Air (which stars Austin Butler and Barry Keoghan) where she plays Irish folk singer Ella Walsh in episode 6, which airs February 23rd.
Brawni
Portal
After dropping live modular synth performances shot around the world, the Irish producer Brawni finally commits to tape, a debut single ‘Portal’, which was originally performed in Arches National Park, a wonky minimal electronic track.
“I decided to make music for locations specifically, like writing a soundtrack for the location but with a club influence. I would have all of these photos of the site around me and tried to visualizs what kind of sound this place had.” Crafted specifically for Arches National Park, “Portal” captures the essence of this mysterious and otherworldly location, translating its characteristics into a dub-influenced show stopper.
Brawni.
The Expert, NAHReally
Smarter Than I Am
Irish rap beat producer The Expert is set to release collaborative album with US rapper NAHreally that also features guests Open Mike Eagle, Hemlock Ernst & more.
‘Smarter Than I Am’ is the album’s first single proper addressing the zeitgeist of pop culture consumption, intellectualism and the enjoyment we get from sport, art, wine and how to represents our character.
telekura
clown
Dublin/Stockholm-based duo telekura (named after Japanese phone-based dating services) whose dayglow psych-rock-pop single ‘Clown’ is their second release to date.
The synth wonk-pop track and band is the work of Rachel (formerly of Lost Weekend) and Stephen (formerly of We Should Be Dead).
The tune is out now on Reckless Records.
Robbie Stickland
Waiting For You
Mac Demarco-esque slacker songwriter power pop music from Dubliner Robbie Stickland who has an album called Lastingness, out on February 10th.
“‘Waiting For You’ is a lovesick diddy about the futility of waiting for the one you love to love you back. It’s littered lyrically with small moments eluding to a childhood infatuation that sit in amongst modulation and reverb soaked Big Star-esque power pop guitar lines and warm tape saturated harmonies.”
Blimp
I Don’t Wanna Be Alone Tonight
Blimp does it again, and again. ‘I Don’t Wanna Be Alone Tonight’ is a fine disco-ball spinning groover aching for some dancefloor feels.
Orchids, Sianna
Mannequin
Orchids is a Northern Irish alt-rock full-length album project from songwriter and guitarist Michael Smyth and the rhythm section of featuring Emma Rose on bass and Matthew Milner on drums.
The songs were previously written but left without a purpose so Smyth enlisted different female/non-binary vocalists , and they include Melyssa Shannon (Wynona Bleach), Rebecca Dow (Virgins), Clodagh May, Daisy Johnston and Frances Ellen. The album arrives on January 31st.
Sianna of the band Tramps features on the third single ‘Mannequin’, a track the writer says is “a cathartic scream about the sexualisation, sexual policing, the profiting & the violence towards the feminine. The rage in every lyric surfaces from a deep collective experience. That even the ideal crafted woman; the mannequin – used for selling dreams and maintaining the repression, will never be good enough.”
Brian Ring, K.P Ring
Full Circle
Berlin-based Cork dance producer Brian Ring is back, this time collaborating with his cousin K.P on this expansive percussive chugger, like a softer poppier John Talabot / Pional cut.
The Bandcamp version comes with a 12″ and instrumental and it’s the kind of tune that you could leave on repeat without noticing alright.
PANIKATAX
Rejection
The Dublin four-piece noise band Panikatax feature seasoned players Rob Walsh, Rian Trench, Trevor Keogh, and Robert ‘Scan’ Watson, and today they dropped the searing sonics of ‘Rejection’ a song that lumbers around in its own shadowy fight cloud.
“Rejection delves into the implosion of a fantasy, the ensuing despair, and the quest for approval in the darkest of places.” says vocalist Rob Walsh.
It’s the first single of four from an EP called A Sudden and Unpleasant Change, due on May 16th.
The video is directed by Ror Conaty, also of Chromatic, who says:
“I processed the footage through circuit bent vintage analog vision mixers and rescanned it on a CRT screen. I then combined that material with multi-layered analog feedback loops”
For more extensive Irish and new music coverage, hit up the Irish section for individual track features
For this and more Irish songs, follow the Nialler9 New Irish Spotify playlist.
This week’s playlist updates includes the songs above along with new additions:
- Pillow Queens – Gone
- Melts – Figment
- Villagers – That Golden Time
- Loraine Club – Cheese
- Boku – Fading Echoes
- Blue Niall; Graham – Paddy Daddy
- Birthday Problem; Ailbhe Reddy – E.L.E
- Bless – Outside
- Annika Kilkenny – Tunnel Vision
- Sharkett – Searching for Paris
- Lady Bird Lad – More Than Enough
- David Hedderman – Pokerface
- TV People – Rain
- Megan Nic Ruairí – The Whole of the Moon
- SPIDER – daisy chains
- Burlie Mac; Clairity – Codes of Dance
- AikJ; Dretheghost – Haunted
- Ro Yourell – Dance with You
