12 new Irish songs you should hear this week
A lot music from Ireland and Northern Ireland comes Nialler9’s way and every week, we listen through it all and select the tracks from emerging artists and some 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.
Junk Drawer
Tears in Costa
Belfast alt-rock band Junk Drawer have released the great-titled ‘Tears In Costa’, a song from their forthcoming EP The Dust Has Come To Stay, out on March 11th. The EP via Art For Blind Records was recorded with the ever prolific Chris Ryan (Just Mustard, NewDad, Robocobra Quartet).
The song comes with a surreal video by Graham Patterson with a bonus performance of Willie Nelson’s ‘Crazy’.
Stevie Lennox, Jake Lennox, Rory Dee and The Thin Air’s Brian Coney are the members of the band.
“The title stems from a time when I found myself with tears streaming down my face due to a deadly concoction of myself (I get the odd extreme brain reaction from epilepsy) and the over-caffeination native to chain cafe, Costa (where our Rory has completely coincidentally just started working). The general gist of the song comes from the realisation that at any point, we can be flung back to ground zero with nothing but our experience behind us. And that’s tough, but it’s something that needs to be accepted, otherwise, you risk getting pulled down with that reset. The riff idea came from one day when and my partner were cleaning the house, listening to Omni. At the next practice, I presented the riff to the band. They all immediately knew what to do with it, and we more or less finished the song in an hour.”
“I personally owe a lot of the direction of the song, and my melodies lately, to the existence of Martin Newell of the Cleaners From Venus, the weird pop genius, whose music seems to synthesise memories of this idealised version of the 60s by way of the 80s, as though he’s taken it upon himself to invite other people to enjoy the same vibrant nostalgia he’s lived. It has an incredible ability to conjure memories that you’ve never lived, and I think that’s something I’ve become interested in trying to achieve lately.”
Stevie Lennox
2.
Long Island Sound
Memory
Dublin duo’s Long Island Sound’s new pulsating electro synth line-featuring track comes on the Belfast producer Hammer’s label imprint Remmah. ‘Memory’ is from the 5-track EP out on January 28th.
3.
Skripteh
6 Years
The Wexford rapper Skripteh has dropped a new mixtape called 21 to mark his birthday of the same year featuring drill and grime cuts all produced by New Machine.
‘6 Years’ traces the New Ross lyricist’s six years in the rap game and his personal life since starting to rap.
4.
49th & Main, Chameleon
‘Need To Feel Your Love’
The Kilkenny duo 49th & Main released the rodeo doors (COVID TAPES) EP this week, a low-key collection of music made in 5 days. ‘Need To Feel Your Love’ with Chameleon on board is pleasingly reminiscent of Jungle.
5.
Elzzz, TraviS
Logic Flies
Dublin drill rappers Elzzz and TraviS link up on this edifying new track ‘Logic Flies’.
6.
Tara Nome Doyle
Caterpillar
The Berlin-based Norwegian-Irish 24-year old singer-songwriter Tara Nome Doyle is set to release her second album Værmin on January 28th, and ‘Caterpillar’ from the album is an impressive organ-lead example of the artist’s expansive and textured cinematic psych-folk songwriting.
“Sometimes it seems to me as if my depression is actively trying to lull me into a false sense of comfort in times of perceived hopelessness. I wanted to explore my relationship with this state that is at once harrowing and oddly tempting, so I wrote “Caterpillar” from the perspective of personified depression.”
Tara Nome Doyle
Doyle’s middle name, Nome, is pronounced ‘Noo-meh’ in Norwegian and ‘No Me’ in English.
7.
Lucy Gaffney
Easy Come Easy Go
Lucy Gaffney’s latest single ‘Easy Come Easy Go’ channels the vibe of North American indie of recent years. The artist was previously featured here for ‘Send Me Away’.
8.
Fia Moon
Simple
A memorable ballad from Fia Moon, cowritten with singer-songwriter Day_S about moving on from past love.
“The inspiration for ‘By Now’ came from some deep-rooted feelings that I thought I had already processed. When a relationship ends, you can lose touch with the other person, so when you discover they’ve moved on to a new relationship it can come as a surprise – and it can sting! This song was about me figuring out some of those feelings.”
9.
jena keating
Boundaries
The latest track from the Cork R&B artist Jena Keating once again finds her digging deeper into her emotional fabric on a song that she explains:
Boundaries. A word easy to say but difficult to lay down. This song goes through what it feels like to be dripped, dropped and doused in other people’s emotions.
Boundaries is about being the therapist to everybody and realising it’s time to exit the chat.
Unless paid it ain’t my problem kind of attitude for all the empaths out there.
friends, family and loved ones may apply.
10.
Tung In Cheek
Ragbag Púca
‘Ragbag Púca’ almost too perfectly captures the low-key stagnancy of the month of January in its mood and lyrics. It’s a somnambulist indie track, sporting a hangover and a jaded outlook from the Dublin trio Tung In Cheek who are Andy Burke (lead vocals), Chris Brady (drums) and Eoin O’Shea (lead guitar).
It was recorded David Anthony Curly at The Clinic Recording Studios and mastered by Fergal Davis.
11.
find-joy
Best Wishes ft. Matt Ó
Matt Ó from Tebi Rex joins the alt-pop trio Find-Joy (Tadhg Kelly, Colleen Conlon and Mark Allidine) on the late-night candle burner of ‘Best Wishes’. I love the contrasting interplay between all the vocalists.
12.
blondmodel
B L I S S
Blondmodel tease a new single, an “ethereal love song” from their debut album, which drops on February 18th. A gig is planned at The Sound House on the 25th of the month.
For more extensive Irish and new music coverage, follow our Spotify playlist or hit up the Irish section for individual track features.
