Featuring: Shiv, Niamh Bury, Anamoe Drive, Eamon Harkin, GNS, Boyfrens, Winemom, Mr Myth, Dark Tropics, lxverboy, The New York Salsa Company
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.
Girls Of The Internet, Shiv
Never Ever Ever
UK house group Girls Of The Internet draw on soul, disco, dub and garage, and here with are with site regular, the Irish vocalist Shiv on lead on new song ‘Never Ever Ever’, released on Luke Solomon’s label Classic Music Company.
The track also features singer-songwriter Oscar Jerome on guitar and Olugbenga from Metronomy on bass.
Niamh Bury
Budapest
Folk singer on the rise, Niamh Bury announced a debut album Yellow Roses will be released on Friday March 29th via Claddagh Records.
With production by Brian Brían Mac Gloinn (Ye Vagabonds), we’ve heard a few tracks to date – ‘Budapest’ is a folk song adorned with fine colour touches of piano and violin.
“Budapest was written during a cold February in Dublin. It’s about the places we escape to in our imaginations – outer space or a city we’re dreaming of packing up and leaving to. It’s about the yearning to step outside of your own story to chase that feeling of being a small part of a bigger picture.”
Anamoe Drive
The Finder’s Keeper
The solo project of Oisín Leahy Furlong of Thumper, Anamoe Drive, has grown in sonic stature with recent releases, as the missives rise to meet the release of the debut album Breakfast in Bed out March 8th on Faction Records and produced by Rian Trenc
‘The Finder’s Keeper’ runs like an introspective inner monologue of a song as the demo feel of the beginning gives out to a full-band sound that remains gentle and lilting as it expands.
Eamon Harkin
Surrender
Mister Saturday Night/ Mister Sunday New York/Irish party-starter Eamon Harkin dropped a “four-track meditation on the lifelong search for a deep personal connection through spiritual practice,” last week, and the pinging synths of ‘Surrender’, the opener, are a fine way into a short varied release that takes in house, acid and ambient.
The New York Salsa Company
The Day The Worms Came
HAMMUU is the debut album from songwriter and producer Adam Smyth (of Dublin noise-punk band Tribal Dance) as The New York Salsa Company, ‘The Day The Words Came’ gives a sense of the acid percussive and minimal electro workouts waiting within.
See also: You’re A Fucking Loser
Winemom
Blood Moon
The debut single from Dublin four-piece Winemom, comes across as a Strokes-esque jam before settling into a classic-rock groove in the melodic style of Fleetwood Mac and the expansive folk-rock sound of the band America.
A novel set of influences for a new band who are singer Rosanna Harrington, Matthew Marshall on lead guitar, bassist Millie Molony and drummer Reese Martin.
GNS
IMadeYouAboutYou
Dublin artist GNS goes meta with a song addressing the person at the centre of his recent EP You, in case that wasn’t clear. It’s the hook that lifts this one.
Incidentally, there’s some fine alt-pop on that EP.
lxverboy
love so rare
A debut single from the classically-trained percussionist turned producer / singer lxverboy, which has a switchup that is fused from a draggy neon electronic production with pitched vocals to a square-waved upbeat banger and a sung hook.
Boyfrens
I’m On My Time
Dublin producer Jack Hevey ak Boyfrens is in the middle of releasing three tracks that will make up his third EP on February 15th. Middle child ‘I’m On My Time’ fizzes with low-end, shimmering melody and percussive swing.
Dark Tropics
I Bet You Can (Mr Myth’s ‘I Bet You’ Dub)
Remixer Graham Smyth aka Mr Myth took inspiration from the finest of the remixing ilk by taking the Belfast duo Dark Tropics’ original track and giving it a Weatherall-style makeover – particularly his take on St. Etienne’s ‘Only Love Will Break Your Heart’.
“Rio & Gerard were clearly inspired by ‘Screamadelica’ era Primal Scream for this single so I decided to follow suit by referencing the sublime skills of Bobby Gillespie & Co.’s producer extraordinaire, Lord Saber… Lone Swordsman… The Guvn’or… The late Andrew Weatherall.
Andrew often created remixes through ‘dub’ mixing, an approach birthed in Jamaica in the late 1960’s with engineer Osbourne Ruddock, aka King Tubby. The idea is for the engineer (in this case, me) to become the musician and use mixing techniques and effects as an instrument.
Typically in a ‘dub’ mix, rhythm sections are accentuated, lead vocals are removed and then it is time to go wild on effects and get hella weird with delays, phasers and reverbs! I laid down an 808 drum loop, chopped the original bassline into a groover of a riff and really focused on the quieter side of the vocal takes from the original stems.
After having a bit of (…way too much) fun with effects, the ‘I Bet You’ Dub version of Dark Tropics’ ‘I Bet You Can’ was born!”
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.
