The best new Irish songs this week feature emerging tracks we’ve selected from artists from the island of Ireland, with more recommendations below.
Nialler9 is an independent publication – support us on Patreon, where you get exclusive playlists, Discord community access and more.
For more extensive Irish and new music coverage, read the Irish section for individual track features.
Banríon
Roseland
Banríon, the solo project of songwriter Róisín Ní Haicéid following her transition from full band to solo artist, shares ‘Roseland’, the first taste of debut album Untarnishing, out in October.
♡ Nialler9 is independent and reader-supported. Support us on Patreon →
The song started life as an assignment during an Adrianne Lenker songwriting workshop in early 2024, where participants were asked to bridge descriptive and confessional lyrics using John Prine’s ‘Far from Me’ as a model. For Ní Haicéid, that exercise led back to Donegal, where her mother’s family has lived for generations.
“My mother’s side of the family is from Donegal, and I spend a lot of time there visiting my grandparents and other family, so I had a wealth of descriptive imagery to work with; the medium sized house, the dog with two different eyes and the abundance of love that flows from there,” Ní Haicéid says. “My grandparents’ house, called Roseland, was my great grandmother’s house before them, a cottage along the Donegal railway line on the south coast. I wanted the song to be quite rhythmic to mirror the sound of a railway.”
She developed the track further with El Kempner of Palehound, and recorded it with Diarmuid O’Connor, mostly in Kildare and partly in a shed in Dublin.
The video, shot at Roseland itself and directed by Ní Haicéid alongside her cousin Kate Gurren, stars another cousin, Aoife, performing the lyrics in Irish Sign Language. “My auntie Michelle is deaf, so we have all grown up with an appreciation for the Deaf community, and the beauty of their culture and language,” Ní Haicéid says. “Irish Sign Language is such a rich language with so much room for metaphor, humour and movement that I thought it would be perfect to use in this music video.”
Sarah Crean
Dreamer
Brighton-based Irish artist Sarah Crean shares ‘Dreamer’, the third single from her second album Heirloom, out Friday September 18th. Co-written with Essence Martins and co-produced by Crean alongside Lina Lou, ‘Dreamer’ is a typically richly melodious song for the songwriter, built around a reclamation of self.
Heirloom is entirely created by women and loosely based on the myth of Calypso, using that story to explore turmoil, life-altering change and the reconciliation that follows.
‘Dreamer’ follows the 2024 single’ ‘Nosebleeds’, the 2023 EP Death by Laundry, home to viral single ‘02:00 am’, and recent singles ’22 Angel’ and ‘Baby (I’ll Always Be the Lead)’, her first releases as a fully independent artist.
Deathtoricky
Lemon Haze
Celbridge rapper Deathtoricky dropped a new EP last week called pre life, and leading that release is this Turnstile-sampling wavy fun track.
I last featured the underground Irish rapper with his track ‘fido’ in February.
Tomococko
Meteor!
This could wreck your head or change your life. Tomococko is Thomas Coughlan, previously known as TCXL who is a one-man industry with three mixtapes under that name who dropped the Leetle mixtape in June.
‘Meteor!’ is your intro but in truth it’s anything but – a fizzy bopping rap song – a Frankenstein’s monster built from a Meteor phone ad music, Enigma and recognisable Irish song samples with bass drops and rewinds, and a beat switch to boot. Oodles of ideas here in three and a half minutes.
SPOOKLET
CARDINAL FURY (feat. silverglass)
Dublin-based experimental electronic artist SPOOKLET gears up to release the EP HAVE YOU SEEN MY BODY? which is out September 4th.
The three-track project sits somewhere between deconstructed club music, ambient, sound design and experimental pop, built around themes of self-erasure, emotional survival and transformation. and as heard on ‘CARDINAL FURY’, leans on fractured percussion, sub-heavy low-end pressure, found-sound sampling and heavily manipulated vocals.
Another tune drops tomorrow.
Morgana
You Are Never Gone From Me
Morgana is gearing up to release debut album The Whole Thing Was Very Very Emotional on Friday September 25th
‘You Are Never Gone From Me’ is dedicated to her former manager Conor Cusack, who is currently undergoing recovery after a life-changing cancer operation.
The song was written after Conor was diagnosed with Stage 4 Cancer. Morgana says “it’s about thinking you have your whole life ahead of you, you’re making bets, throwing parties and then suddenly you hear funeral bells wherever you go.”
It’s not a sad song but an injoke and squeeze of knowing warmth between two friends.
“I wrote this song for my friend and manager Conor Cusack. 2 years ago he was diagnosed with Stage 4 Cancer. For over 10 years we have been like brother and sister (mostly we pretended we were cousins). We have travelled the world together, survived scrapes, arguments, extreme highs and all of a sudden this news brought with it the worst 2 years. Trying to make sense of it all – I did what I always do when things get tough, attempted to process through song. Knowing me well, Conor asked me when he was gonna get his ‘cancer album’. I couldn’t quite muster an album but before he underwent life saving surgery in Brussels a few months ago I brought him You Are Never Gone From Me. He says it’s his favourite.”
Last Apollo
Home
Last Apollo (aka Lucy Rice) has announced her debut album I’ll Walk Towards You, out Friday September 4th, recorded with producer Sergio Maschetzko.
Opening with a solo piano motif, ‘Home’ finds its narrator pleading for time to stand still, a lullaby-like sweetness in the face of darkness. The repeated refrain “Goodbye Baby Blue” carries the track’s final farewell, a desperate wish for time to stop that never quite arrives.
The album was shaped over three years, following Rice’s move to London after her bandmates relocated and she went through her first true heartbreak. After the band struggled to capture the right feeling of the record in London, Maschetzko drove back to Dublin with all his microphones so they could record live, over five days, in the two bedrooms they used to rehearse in.
“This album overflows with love,” Rice says. “New listeners might hear a lot of heartbreak and turmoil but for me, this album is a reminder of my amazing friends and the love they have never ceased to show me.”
Qbanaa
Grande Come Yo
Qbanaa’s first release of the year, ‘Grande Como Yo (Big Like Me)’ is a summery Spanglish funk-pop breathe of fresh air – produced by multi-instrumentalist Adam Garrett (also of Sei Green) and mixed by Adam Shanahan (Shiv, Melina Malone, Kayleigh Noble).
Qbanaa embodies the drop-out ethos with a warm twinkling production and a do not disturb mantra.
“I just want people to feel good about themselves when they listen to this song and take a break from all their worries and responsibilities,” Qbanaa says. “I love the beach; it’s where I go to escape, relax, and recharge. This song is about finding that space where you can let go for a while and simply enjoy being yourself.”
The Cuban-Irish artist wrote the track after four months travelling through Hong Kong and Indonesia, following a period of illness and burnout. Alongside her solo work, Qbanaa runs Soul Juice Jam Sessions, the free jazz, soul and fusion night that’s repeatedly sold out The Sugar Club.
Suzie Gunn
In My House
I don’t know much about Suzie Gunn, the Irish artist with a bunch of singles other than they are all in an ambient synthesised pop space – and ‘Jennifer’ from earlier this year was my way in.
‘in my house’ is typical of the sound, a song that engulfs despite its deceptively simple presentation.
Ezra Williams
Blight
The first single from Cork-based Ezra Williams since ‘Incandescent’ last November. Of ‘Blight’, they say: “A song made by me about a specific situation that is vague enough that you may apply it to your own lived experience.”
It’s an introspective and gently rolling guitar song that is quite magnetic about feeling watched and burdensome in someone’s life, before finding a strange peace in the silence and solitude that follows once that weight is lifted.
For more extensive Irish and new music coverage, check into the Irish section for individual track features…
We are prioritising Youtube / Bandcamp embeds where possible.
More fro New Irish music:
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.
