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
Rosalía – LUX
The Catalan singer’s latest album is an ambitious orchestral work inspired by the writings of French philosopher Simone Weil presented in four movements – with The London Symphony Orchestra performing across the album, that plays to Rosalía’s operatic and flamenco strengths, and the depth and expression of her voice, in which she sings in 13 languages.
It swells with operatic and orchestral motion – a living, breathing work where you can feel the thrum of instruments and the power of her voice – Rosalía’s is one of the most emotionally-affecting in modern music. The lead single ‘Bergain’ features Björk and Yves Tumor is the album’s grandiose moment.
Rosalía is a master at pulling at various different threads and making them sound whole – as electronic and hip-hop touches are sown in throughout this grand but often intimate-pierced record of huge intention.
Danny Brown – Stardust
Detroit rapper, hip-hop experimentalist and podcaster returns to Warp Records with Stardust, with new found clarity and vulnerability that comes from being his first album written in sobriety.
The album features outsider collaborators including Jane Remover, Frost Children, Quadeca, Femtanyl, JOHNNASCU, 8485, IssBrokie, Nnamdi, Ta Ukraika and Zheani.
Westerman – A Jackal’s Wedding
The third album from Will Westerman was recorded with night with Marta Salogni (The xx, Bjork) on the Greek island of Hydra at arts studio space that was a 17th century mansion.
With the title of the record coming from similar folkloric names that different cultures give a sunshower in a thunderstorm, there is a continuation of a theme of tussling control, letting things happen, embracing chaos and transitions.
The album features nebulous songs that contrast between rumbling orchestrals and plaintive plucked and piano songwriting, and sounds that fall between – with Westerman sounding his most individual after 2023’s InBuilt Fault and Your Hero Is Not Dead (2020).
A Substack for further reading about the album and the artist is available, and Westerman is playing Dublin on February 15th.
Olan Monk – Songs For Nothing
Connemara artist Olan Monk releases an album of gothic and metallic rock, artful songs informed by cloud rap, witch house and trad with tin whistle on AD93 with fellow Galway artist Maria Somerville featuring on two tracks, along with other Irish neo-traditional experimentalistsMichael Speers, Dylan Kerr, Aindriú De Buitléir, Risteárd O’hAodha and Róisín Berkeley.
Songs for Nothing was written upon Olan Monk’s return to the west coast of Ireland. The album is imbued with the influence of sean-nós singing, Irish language songs in the “old style” that often proclaim tales of love, loss and landscape; and also heavily indebted to the late Sinéad O’Connor’s confessional songwriting. Reconstructing these influences through their unique perspective has resulted in a fragmentary album veering between collaged pop, machinic rock and slow airs, “dedicated to Conamara and all who have called it home”. The western, Atlantic-facing edge of Ireland has a particular feeling and energy, one that permeates the release: the granite pulsates, the ocean and sky reflect intensities, seaweed rots on shingle shores, plants bloom, ancient trees come up for air from the drowned forest in Galway Bay, the sun splinters through the low clouds.
Monk plays Bello Bar on December 13th.
Armand Hammer & The Alchemist – Mercy
Armand Hammer and The Alchemist build worlds. Their first was Haram and it remains locked in orbit, equal parts lush and foreboding. Their new one is called Mercy and it’s made out of blood and empire, children’s laughter, unpaid parking tickets, and unkept secrets. Rappers ELUCID and billy woods are joined on the mic by Earl Sweatshirt, Quelle Chris, Cleo Reed, Pink Siifu, Kapwani, and Silka. The Alchemist did everything else.
Gareth Quinn Redmond – Múscailte
Irish ambient composer and fiddle player Gareth Quinn Redmond follows up his recent collaboration as part of the Throwing Shapes trio, with his latest solo work.
Múscailte continues Quinn Redmond’s exploration of sound, silence, and subtlety, blending fragile textures to create space for quiet contemplation. Warm analogue synthesis and the bell-like tones of the Hohner Pianet invite the listener into quiet reflection and gently hold them in stillness. Inspired by the works of Hiroshi Yoshimura, Gareth Quinn Redmond presents an album composed for the soft unfolding of morning—a sound design that embraces slowness and presence. Each piece offers space to dwell in the minute, to notice, to simply be.
The Altered Hours – The Altered Hours
Irish alt-rock / shoegazers The Altered Hours release a third album on Dundalk’s Pizza Pizza Records. Recorded with producer Julie McLarnon, it’s the sound of a five-piece band that bring together vintage rock sounds, psychedelia and fuzzy rock songs, and who know and clearly love their sound so well.
The band are on an Irish tour this December.
Pebbledash – To Cast The Sea In Concrete EP
Cork alternative rock band on the up Pebbledash release their second EP of the year, and it was recorded by Cathal MacGabhann of Altered Hours.
The EP features the shoegaze haze of ‘Cell’, and ‘O The Wind’, the latter which has nods to a traditional Irish music style in the vocals of Asha Egan McCutcheon, while holding a restrained but disquieting arrangement alongside it.
They have gigs in Dublin and Belfast this weekend before shows in London, Manchester and Leeds next week.
Clark – Steep Stims
English producer Chris Clark is back on Warp Records with a new album that marks a back-to-basics approach, invoking his early years of gung ho creativity, enforced by limitations in technology at the time. “Most of the tracks on this album capture the spirit of making music on old samplers, which don’t have much memory time”, explains Clark. “It reminds me of making Clarence Park, my first album, where I would have to finish tunes in the session, as they would be saved on floppy disks and I couldn’t easily go between tracks. This new record is just a few synths and a few choice sounds; the writing is the important thing.”
anamoe drive – thank god it’s friday
The solo project of singer Oisín Leahy Furlong from Dublin psych-pop band Thumper follows up the Breakfast In Bed debut with a new album with a pared back ethos.
‘In the depths of winter last year myself and my friend Ian McFarlane (who plays bass in the anamoe drive live band), sat down and recorded 11 songs in 2 days, almost knee to knee in Ian’s tiny studio. We then mixed everything, and bounced it onto reel to reel tape with engineer Rian Trench. The resulting songs are short, intimate, and lean – a direct reaction to the expansiveness of my first album Breakfast in Bed. I think when I was younger the idea of making epic, sprawling 7 minute songs sounds like the pinnacle of songwriting. It was albums like “Dawn” by Mount Eerie, or “The Bunkhouse Vol. 1” by Fionn Regan that really hammered home the value of something concise and personal.
An album launch show happens at The Grand Social Ballroom in Dublin on Thursday 13th Nov with support from Holly Munro.
Seán Mac Erlaine & Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh – Old Segotia
Sean Mac Erlaine and Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh’s Old Segotia is an album about friendship: both musical and human, the product of two distinctive musicians visiting each other’s worlds with a sense of veneration, and a sense of joyful wonder.
Here, Mac Erlaine (This is How We Fly, Quiet Music Ensemble) and Ó Raghallaigh (The Gloaming, This is How We Fly) meet on common ground developed over 20 years of playing together, with Mac Erlaine’s musical language rooted in jazz and sonic experimentation, and Ó Raghallaigh emerging from an Irish traditional music that he has shaped and reshaped in a deeply personal way.
Zoid – Industrial Wind Quartet
Daniel Jacobson akaa ZOiD launches his seventh album Industrial Wind Quartet in collaboration with Cassiopeia Wind Quintet through his label Zoitrax.
Four of the five talented members of Cassiopeia Wind Quintet performed for the album: Deirdre O’Leary on clarinet and bass clarinet, John Hearne on bassoon, Cormac Ó hAodáin on French horn and Catriona Ryan on flute.
Future live shows will also feature the Quintet’s oboe player, Matthew Manning. The album is rounded out by three remixes from some of the best techno and IDM producers: μ-Ziq (Mike Paradinas), EOMAC (Ian McDonnell) and Dan Curtin, each adding their own creative spin.
Flynn Johnson – Green Box Theory
Dublin rapper Flynn Johnson takes inspiration from his Dublin 15 estate’s green electricity box which served as a meeting point for its residents.
Set in Whitestown in the mid-to-late 2000s, the album uses the estate’s green electricity box as its anchor — a meeting point where reputations form, stories spread, and friendships hold. Across 12 tracks, Flynn moves between bravado, grief and quiet self-reckoning, told in real-time from his younger self.
Described by Johnson as “a love letter to the estate and a thank-you note for the lessons it taught me,” THE GREEN BOX THEORY navigates the estate’s guidance and its hardships, set against production shaped by the textures and memories of that era.
Deathbed Convert – Music For Wave States
Also released this week
- Allie X – Happiness Is Going To Get You
- Aoife Ní Bhriain & Cormac McCarthy – Cosán Casta
- Charlotte de Witte – Charlotte de Witte
- Hatchie – Liquorice
- Juana Molina – DOGA
- Mavis Staples – Sad and Beautiful World
- Midlake – A Bridge To Far
- Muireann Bradley – Rose Dogs EP
- Portugal. The Man – SHISH
- Smerz – Big city life EDITS
- Sorry – Cosplay
- Stella Donnelly – Love and Fortune
- Steve Gunn – Daylight Daylight
- The Dears – Life Is Beautiful! Life Is Beautiful! Life Is Beautiful!
- The Mountain Goats – Through This Fire Across From Peter Balkan
- Toro y Moi & Sam Gellaitry – ANYWHERE HERE IS PERFECT
- Whitney – Small Talk
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.
