Featuring Aby Coulibaly, Soda Blonde, Cartin, Natalia Beylis, Blood Donor, Autre Monde, Joel Harkin, Dreamer, Galvo, A Lethal Black Ooze, K3lu, Boyfrens.
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.
1.
Aby Coulibaly
DYWS?
Aby Coulibaly dropped ‘DYWS?’ (‘Don’t You Wanna Stay?’), along with news of the EP At The End Of The Day … It’s Night, due October 6th on AMF Records.
‘DYWS?’ is typical of Aby’s confident R&B bolstered by fine production, over a short two-minute running time.
Aby Coulibaly has been announced for a headline show in Dublin this October.
2.
Soda Blonde
Midnight Show
Soda Blonde release the second single from their forthcoming album Dream Big after recent single and video ‘Bad Machine’
‘Midnight Show’ is the album opener, the scene-setter from the album out September 8th.
3.
Cartin
Smasha
Derry producer Cartin’s latest tune ‘Smasha’ barges into August with a rush of euphoria and a Lone-esque synth build. A big fizzy tune for the dancefloors that writes “OOF” in big capital letters as it goes.
4.
Natalia Beylis
Afloat In Fog And Feathers
The Irish musician and sonic artist Natalia Beylis will release Mermaids on September 1st, an album inspired by a CRB Elettronica Ancona keyboard salvaged from a Leitrim recycling centre and an old family photo of her mother and two friends (which is also the cover for the record and informs the title).
‘Afloat In Fog And Feathers’ is the record’s opening gambit, a transportative slow dive into a subaquatic ambient world, rich with detail and tone.
“The sounds that come from her when I play always move me like water; swimming in rivers and floating in the murk beneath the surface,” Natalia said of the keyboard
5.
Blood Donor
Thru With
Former Otherkin frontman Luke Reilly has announced the debut album from Blood Donor, the project he’s been working on since that band’s closure.
Autofiction is the title of the debut album, out October 20th, and ‘Thru With’ imbues the song with a summer breeziness underscored by the video shot on the Italian island of Ischia.
Blood Donor’s album release show happens at The Sound House, Dublin, on October 20th.
6.
Autre Monde
Strictly Come Dancing
Deeply pleasant weirdness from the reliably edifying Dublin band Autre Monde who have been feeding us good things in the lead up to the release of second album Sensitive Assignments, due September 15th on Popical Island, a label reanimated.
‘Strictly Come Dancing’ sounds like a big early 90s 12-string acoustic pop number with Paddy Hanna and Pádraig Cooney sharing vocals. It’s a song with an interesting back story.
“It is very representative of our writing process for the album, in that it emerged out of a fog of improvisation one day, all hanging around Eoghan’s synth riff. Eventually it took in elements of the electronic tension in Robert Palmer’s Woke Up Laughing, something strangely reminiscent of the Stone Roses in the rhythm and a big yacht rock chorus. Superficially, the lyrics are inspired by the story of the parents in Anna Burns’ Milkman who abandon their family for a life of full-time ballroom dancing. I thought that was ripe for a song. There’s a change of perspective between verses and chorus, indicated by the change of lead vocalist. Less specifically, it’s about the enjoyment taken in your wrongdoer’s demise. I think there’s a German word for it”.
The band’s tour dates look like this:
15/9 – Dolan’s Kasbah, Limerick *
16/9 – Fall Right Into Place Festival, Claregalway Castle
19/10 – Coughlan’s, Cork +
20/10 – Prim’s Bookshop, Kinsale
21/10 – Casey’s, Wexford
27/10 – Bello Bar, Dublin #
28/10 – Black Box, Belfast #
Support: * Steve ón Dings, + Laurie Shaw, # Grave Goods
7.
Joel Harkin
Is Iomaí Lá Sa Chill Orainn
Northern Irish alt-folk artist Joel Harkin released a song that an imagined conversation between George Lucas and the Star Wars novel author made with Ciaran Lavery last month.
His newest, ‘Is Iomaí Lá Sa Chill Orainn’ is also a collaboration with vocals from Aoife Wolf. The Bright Eyes comparison is further evident.
“The title directly translates to “there are many days in the churchyard,” which doesn’t mean much without the context. It’s supposed to be like the Irish answer to carpe diem but instead of focusing on the positive of seize the day it’s more like “you only have finite time now, whereas you have loads of time in the grave”. I like it. It’s like the looming abyss of death spurring you on to find meaning in your life and do something with your time. It doesn’t always work, mind you.”
“The first verse of the song is about trying to conceive the death of a loved one and how I’d react to the situation. It’s not a nice thing to write about. I have a lot of intrusive thoughts about it I thought might help to get them on paper. So far I’m not sure that it has.
The second verse is about the loneliness of city living, the isolation and how one can feel disconnected from people. Quantifying in the worry that time is being wasted instead of spent.”
Joel Harkin
8.
Dreamer
Marrow
Formerly known as EMR, Eimear O’Sullivan aka Dreamer recently featured her with the song ‘Boy Moon (Version 2)’.
The artist’s new song ‘Marrow’ reminds me of the style and tone of songwriting of Maija Sofia, no bad thing.
9.
Galvo
I’m Not Lost
Dublin singer-songwriter Galvo released an EP called Maybe this month from a debut album entitled The HeARTist, out September 26th.
While the title track is doing good numbers, I’m enjoying track two ‘I’m Not Lost’ from the EP, a melodic acoustic number.
Galvo came to music after a period of being homeless and living out of his car, in his twenties, and was formerly in the alt-rock band September Sun who released an album in 2006. Later on, while living in Spain, Galvo rediscovered his love of the acoustic guitar before returning to form the band A Dark Horse, which I featured 11 years ago! His bandmates play with him on his Galvo solo material.
Galvo:
Website | Instagram | TikTok | Spotify | YouTube | LinkTree
10.
A Lethal Black Ooze
All The Same
Dublin trio A Lethal Black Ooze released a new single to tie-in with supporting the band Chinese Football on Monday. The garage punk track ‘All The Same’ was masterminded by Andy McGurk (formerly of Spies) along with M(h)aol’s Jamie Hyland and Iain Faulkner.
“All The Same wasn’t the first Black Ooze idea we ever jammed, but it was the first finished song that stuck. An idea which gave us a glimpse into what A Lethal Black Ooze would sound like. It’s about dealing with big life changes, deciding to take everything off the table all at once and the fall out that comes with doing such a thing.
I had ended a long term relationship, moved out for the first time, quit my job and two bands I had been in for five years previously, all in a bid to have some space to grow. Ultimately, you lose contact with friends when you make grand changes like this ‘…and when you wait, you know they’re just doing it all the same.’ is what I used to say to myself while waiting for the Dublin bus and wondering how my old friends were doing.”
Andy McGurk
11.
K3lu
Arc Of The Rising Sun (Jonny Miller remix)
Cork artist Patrick Hatchett K3lu (pronounced curlew after his favourite bird he sees locally in West Cork) has been dropping remixes of songs from his self-titled album of late, and this remix from London-based Jonny Miller stood out to me this week. It’s an expansive version, that uses a vocal hook to anchor the track as it rolls along its bass, percussion and synths, with tribal flourishes.
12.
Boyfrens
Soft And Mindless
Jack Hevey is the producer behind the electronic project Boyfrens, which featured here twice last year, with an electro song inspired by the closure of Jigsaw and a wonky synth pop tune.
‘Soft And Mindless’ moves his sound into a deeper club territory with nods to Baltimore club on the breaks and bass-featuring track.
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.
