Here’s a rundown of new releases out today, including new albums and EPs on DSPs and physical releases in record shops this week.
Nialler9 keeps a rolling list of Irish album releases for 2025.
New Albums and Releases
New Albums
Just Mustard – WE WERE JUST HERE
The third album from Dundalk alternative rockers Just Mustard is released on Partisan Records. Katie Ball, David Noonan, Mete Kalyoncuoğlu, Rob Clarke, and Shane Maguire recorded and produced the album at Black Mountain in Dundalk and it was mixed by David Wrench.
WE WERE JUST HERE is the follow up to 2018’s Wednesday and their 2022 Partisan Records debut Heart Under. Lead single ‘Polyanna’ was the band’s first song in three years.
The band’s trademark metallic and monochrome sonics are very much in place, along with a wider emotional depth, in contrast to the preoccupations of grief and longing. WE WERE JUST HERE is “inspired by club spaces and physical joy, the songs strive for immediacy and feeling.”
The band will also play 3Olympia Theatre on May 1st 2026 and there is an extensive tour schedule ongoing now for the band, who also do an outstore with Spindizzy at the Grand Social on October 30th.
Rory Sweeney – Old Earth
Rory Sweeney follows up last year’s Carlos Danger Irish Hash Mafia Irish rap mixtape celebration with a second solo album made over five years – a followup to 2022 debut Trash Catalogue, and this is also stacked with some of the same rappers along with contemporary songwriting peers.
Old Earth is not a club record – its ambient and electronic explorations are inspired by Stone Tape Theory, a residual haunting theory that supernatural phenomena such as ghosts and unexplained activity imprints itself on physical places and materials.
Old Earth is said to be “a meditation on time, decay, memory, and myth in the digital age. The album maps a dream logic that connects the natural world, early internet mysticism, Irish folklore, and the quiet violence of technological evolution.”
Guests include RÓIS, Saoirse Miller, Emby, Curtisy, Ahmed, With Love.; Ushmush, Roo Honeychild, Risteárd ÓhAodha, Emily Beattie and Julia Louise Knifefist.
With influences drawn from the output of Autechre, Enya, The Haxan Cloak, Steve Reich and Oneohtrix Point Never, there are expression of supernatural breakbeat experimentations on the changeling of ‘Old As Time Itself’ with RÓIS, bells and synths prettiness on ‘Morning Song’ with ÓhAodha, sprawling ambient dreaminess on opener ‘Entrance Places’ Saoirse Miller, and contributions from RÓIS and ÓhAodha and the as Gaeilge banger in ‘Ruh Roh’, with Aran Islands rapper Ushmush and Club Comfort DJ and producer Roo Honeychild.
It’s a timely release, coming out as the piercing of the veil of Samhain is at its fullest.
Imaginational Anthem vol. XIV: Ireland – compilation
Imaginational Anthem vol. XIV : Ireland is curated by Irish guitarist and songwriter Cian Nugent who has released music on the San Fran label Tompkins Square.
This fourteenth edition of the compilation series is released on the label’s 20th anniversary of the compilation when it launched the first volume of the series in October 2005, and subsequent releases were curated by Ryley
Walker, Hayden Pedigo, Sam Moss and more.
Imaginational Anthem vol. XIV : Ireland features Junior Brother, Brendan Jenkinson, Damian O’Neill from The Undertones, steel guitarist David Murphy, NC Lawlor, Caoimhe Hopkinson, Sean Carpio and curator Cian Nugent among others.
Dave – The Boy Who Played the Harp
New 10-track third album from English rapper Dave features James Blake, Jim Legxacy, Kano, Tems and Nicole Blakk, and is his first album since We’re All Alone in This Together in 2021. Dave produces nine of the 10 tracks on the record.
An extensive UK and European tour accompanies the release.
J Smith – I Stood there Naked…
Irish singer-songwriter J Smith has a penchant for writing about personal and intimate topics of family, fatherhood, relationship shifts and losing a child as on his 2021 debut album (…) And you chose not to laugh.
In contrast, I Stood there Naked… is inspired by his first daughter Connie.
“This record is a sister album to my first, …And You Choose Not to Laugh. That one was about the child I never met; this one is about the child I feel I’ve always known—Connie. She’s held my life together, strengthened my marriage and family, and given me a sense of purpose and self-love I never thought I’d find.”
The album was recorded, mixed, and produced entirely by Smith at Hellfire Studios, with ten musicians including ORA Quartet, Paul Kiernan, Hannah Miller, and Krists Liepa contributing.
Tortoise – Touch
Tortoise’s first music in nine years is an attempt to create cinematic vistas from the five-piece multi-instrumentalist band that features John McEntire, Jeff Parker, Dan Bitney, John Herndon and Douglas McCombs.
“They’re elaborately appointed and carefully mixed to enhance a familiar feeling — a distinctly cinematic uneasiness. Close your eyes and you might see cars swerving around unlit rural roads, or cityscapes at night with bells clanging in the distance, or some abandoned warehouse where spies chase each other between towering stacks of boxes.”
Björk – Cornucopia Live
The full unedited concert film of the recent globally film screenings of Björk: Cornucopia. The performance is of Björk doing Cornucopia from Lisbon, a one of a kind digitally animated show with moving curtains, a modern lanterna magica for live music, where 21st-century VR visuals are brought into a 19th-century theatre.
Hit-Boy & The Alchemist – GOLDFISH
The dynamic rap production duo enlist Conway The Machine, Havoc, Boldy James, Jay Worthy, Hit-Boy’s father Big Hit and multi-instrumentalist Johnathan Hulett. Mostly it’s the pair in the limelight rapping for the win.
Lily Allen – West End Girl
For her first album in seven years, Lily Allen takes us through the dissolved story of her marriage to actor David Harbour with an album of diaristic confessional songwriting with electronic and orchestral songwriting that feels partly inspired by Brat. The album was made in 10 days with musical director Blue May and features production from Chrome Sparks, Kito, Leon Vynehall and Seb Chew. Albert Hammond Jr of The Strokes also plays guitar on ‘4Chan Stan.’
Daniel Caesar – Son Of Spergy
Named for his gospel-singer father, Son of Spergy is a moment for Caesar to recalibrate after years of whirlwind success, and reconnect with family, old flames, and the church. The Canadian singer’s fourth album features Bon Iver, Sampha, Blood Orange and yebba.
Delac – Close To Midnight
The London/Irish duo of ames McAdam and Stephen Dooley bring songwriter / club atmospherics with softer electronic textures together as Delac and their debut album builds on early releases of that ilk.
Close To Midnight features that pleasing sunny indie electronic explorations the duo are known for with touches of Balearic pop, chillout and bright dance music. The album is out on vinyl too.
Lōwli – Window In the Woods
“This album also acts like an internal response to the outside world. Themes of identity, mortality and detachment are balanced with themes of acceptance, belonging and connection. The music evokes a contemplative and otherworldly mood, alongside dark and ominous elements. I hope the subjectiveness of these themes allows the listener to interpret this music in their own individual way.”
Lōwli plays Unitarian Church, Dublin on November 15th.
Yazmin Lacey – Teal Dreams
London singer-songwriter Yazmin Lacey’s second album comes after her recent feature on Ezra Collective’s ‘God Gave Me Feet For Dancing’ and this new collection finds the artist at the forefront of the Uk soul scene with Afro jazz influence, along with blues and reggae.
Also released this week
- Alice Phoebe Lou – Oblivion
- Amadou & Mariam – L’amour à la folie
- Circa Waves – Death & Love, Pt. 2
- Crayon – Home Safe
- Hannah Jadagu – Describe
- Horse Jumper Of Love – Disaster Trick
- Imogen Heap – I AM _ EP
- JayaHadaDream – Happiness From Agony
- JPEGMAFIA & Danny Brown – SCARING THE HOES: DIRECTOR’S CUT
- Miguel – Chaos
- Nell Mescal – The Closest We’ll Get
- Niall Breslin – The Place That Has Never Been Wounded
- Pulp – Different Class (30th Anniversary)
- Kraak & Smaak – Velvet Seas
- Sigrid – There’s Always More That I Could Say
- Super Furry Animals – Love Kraft (20th Anniversary Edition)
- The Lemonheads – Love Chant
- Various – Fabric presents salute
Niall Byrne is the founder of the most-influential Irish music site Nialler9, where he has been writing about music since 2005. He is the co-host of the Nialler9 Podcast and has written for the Irish Times, Irish Independent, Sunday Times, Totally Dublin, Cara Magazine, Red Bull and more. Niall is a DJ, co-founder of Lumo Club, event curator, Indie Sleaze club promoter, and producer of gigs and monthly listening parties & events in Dublin.
