Featuring Balordabreen, Rory Sweeney, Toby Kaar, EMBY, Yard, Keanu The Pilot, Curtisy, Fee Gray, Dream Boy, Stomptown Brass, exmagician, Crutch, Lucy Robinson.
A lot of Irish music 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.
Balordabreen, Curtisy
Ni Thuigim Na Ceist
Fódhla is the debut 9-track mixtape from the Wicklow rapper Balordabreen and it’s an immediately impressive listen, a confident world-building debut with beats by Maxwell.
Alan McKee, Curtisy, Mags and AymanL are the guests on the 25 minute release that smoulders with smart rap flows, swerving beats and sticky hooks, and draws comparison to Kojaque without aping his style directly.
I’m highlighting the Curtisy featured track but I could have picked nearly any track on this one.
‘Green Breen’ also slaps.
Toby Kaar
Conceiving Two
Cork electronic producer Toby Kaar pops up every now again with a must-listen tune or two, and ‘Conceiving Two’ is his latest – a twilit textured Four Tet-esque tune that soundtracks some Leeside skate footage.
Rory Sweeney, EMBY, Keanu The Pilot
Pull Up
Producer Rory Sweeney has an Irish hip-hop mixtape coming out May 17th, set apart from his more sonic electronic focused work.
Irish Hash Mafia pulls together some of the best voices in Irish hip-hop under Sweeney’s pseudonym Carlos Danger.
It features ‘Pull Up’ with Emby and Keanu The Pilot and tracks with Curtisy, E The Artist, Owin, Ahmed, With Love; Yeire13, Lonely Chap and more.
“Irish Hash Mafia mixtape is a love letter to the DIY sound and ethos of 90s Southern hip hop, as well as a time capsule of the left field DIY sounds being explored by the Irish underground. Myself and a lot of the artists here are starting to get caught up in the cogs of the music industry and I think its important to put out this mixtape as an archive of the free spirited sounds we’ve been exploring together over the past 2-3 years. The mixtape, While primarily being southern trap, also explores other fringe sounds, such as experimental grime and abstract hip hop amongst others. Heavily inspired and indebted to Tommy Wright iii, Princess Loko, Ten Wanted Men, Lil Noid, DJ Paul, Lo Key, Lil Yo, SpaceGhostPurpp, Lil Ugly Mane, Shawty Pimp, too many to even list here. Their groundbreaking art, attitude and disregard for the music industry is an endless inspiration and I would encourage everyone to dig deep into this beautiful sound. Youtube channels such as Psychopathicsavage and SouldjahFromTheNorth have done an incredible job archiving the tape only releases from the time.”
Dream Boy
Crying Wolf
A somnambulist debut track from Dublin alternative band Dream Boy who take inspiration from shoegaze touchstones My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive and contemporary alt acts Men I Trust and NewDad.
exmagician
Sharpen These
Two members of Belfast band Cashier No.9 – Danny Todd and James Smith released their debut album Scan The Blue as exmagician back in 2016, and they’re back with news of a second album Sit Tight, ‘Sharpen These’ encapsulates their smart psych indie pop songwriting chops. A welcome return.
Sit Tight is released on June 21st.
Stomptown Brass
Ask Noel
The Dublin-based 8-piece urban funk brass band Stomptown Brass released their long-awaited debut album It Did Went Down this month, marking 10 years in existence.
“Two Drummers, two Trombones, two Trumpets, sixteen hands, one Sax and one big filthy Tuba,’ is their modus operandi, as heard on the tubular vista of ‘Ask Noel’.
Lucy Robinson
Everlove
A Northern Irish Leeds-based folk-pop artist, Lucy Robinson’s ‘Everlove’ is a gently sweeping singer-songwriter-style song with soul.
Crutch
WYA?
A relative new voice on the Dublin rap scene, Crutch takes inspiration from Detroit and Florida rap music, with a braggy rap tune produced by Tylianmtb, with a video by LukeFly.
Crutch:
Yard
Big Shoes
Beats, bludgeoning vocals and dark-edged production is the order of the night from the Dublin-based band Yard, who are on the showcase trail this year with upcoming shows in London (May 3rd), The Great Escape, and Primavera Pro.
‘Big Shoes’ is wall-shaking electro-noise with a nod vocally to Gilla Band’s unique brand of punk.
YARD vocalist Ben O’Neill says the song “is about the desperation that comes with being broke and the sense of hopelessness and lack of self-worth that can manifest itself during hard times.”
A Dublin & Belfast techno/noise/rap collab from Yard & YinYang – ‘Ecdysis’
YARD’s Upcoming Shows:
- April 27th: SHARPE Festival, Bratislava
- May 3rd: Shacklewell Arms, London (debut London headline – free entry)
- May 4th: Stag & Dagger Festival, Edinburgh
- May 5th: Stag & Dagger Festival, Glasgow
- May 16th-17th: The Great Escape, Brighton
- May 30th: Primavera Pro, Barcelona
- August 9th: Haldern Pop, Rees-Haldern
- August 16th: ArcTanGent, Bristol
- August 23rd: Another Love Story, Meath
- August 24th: Future Yard, Birkenhead
Fee Gray
I Might Be Drunk But At Least I’m In Love
Non-binary pop singer-songwriter Fee Gray (they/them), explores open-hearted declarations of love through the lens of inebriation on this soft electronic pop tune.
‘I wanted it to feel like you’ve just left the club at 3am and you can’t walk in a straight line, but you’re going home with your partner so you’re drunk in a content and euphoric kind of way!’
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.
New additions not featured above:
- Fontaines D.C. – Starburster
- SLOUCHO – Super Maramu 2000
- Niamh Regan – Nice
- New Jackson – With The Night at Our Feet
- Curtisy; Ahmed, With Love.; Lonely Chap – Wok To Blackrock
- Ezra Williams – Socks
- Bálordabreen; Curtisy – Ní thuigim an Ceist
- DREAM BOY – crying wolf
- Louise Gaffney – Slow Violence
- Stomptown Brass – Ask Noel
- Lucy Robinson – Everlove
- Flynn Johnson; Wallfella; hikii – MULA
- KYLYPSO – Garden
- Crutch – WYA?
- Tidah – Need to Know
- Death Milkshake – Francophone
- Ryan Vail – Repetition
- Stray Planets – I Liked You Better Before
- MathMan; Ayah Marar – Home
- Dreamer – Suit Yourself
- James WLDE – DIZZ // THE OPHELIA COMPLEX
- svhymns – COASTING
- Le Boom – Class
- 7th Obi – FILA
- JyellowL – RIZZLAS
- Bálordabreen – Green Breen
- Hammer; ABSOLUTE. – Red Alert – ABSOLUTE.’s High Alert Remix
- The Love Buzz – Wild One
- The Cliffords – Shattered Glass
