101bpm is a new initiative from Sunken Foal’s Countersunk Records which enlists 21 different producers (list below) to compose tracks at 101 beats per minute. All the producers made a track each which were shared with the others, in order to inspire and create a dialogue between them (typically each of these producers work alone).
The thing is each track released under the 101 BPM name on Bandcamp will only have the collective name on it like the song here. ‘Victory’ is a beaut of a track made in this way by one of the collective and drops today with a video by Sunken Foal using footage shot in Iceland.
ALAN O’BOYLE (Decal/Legion of Two) AMBULANCE (Planet-Mu) CASKRÉ (Open Ear) DAVE NUREMBERG (Front End Synthetics) DEASY (The Fear) DIAMOND DAGGER (Lunar Disco) DJ FROM ROSEANNE (The Telly) JAPE (Faction Records) JONI & RICHIE (!Kaboogie) JUDITH RING (Ergodos) ELLLL (Art For Blind Records) MARGIE JEAN LEWIS MELJOANN (Boy Scout Audio) MINCED OATH (Countersunk) ROD MORRIS (Underscan) T-WOC (Rudimentary Records) SOMADRONE (Scintilla) SPECTAC (LOAF) SUNKEN FOAL (Planet Mu) THE LAST SOUND (Fort Evil Fruit) WHIRLING HALL OF KNIVES (Ear Wiggle)
It’s New Music Friday so there’s always the chance of some surprises.
Today’s new releases brings us the first new music from Richie Egan aka Jape ahead of his appearance at All Together Now Festival this weekend. It’s his first music since 2015’s This Chemical Sea, and it’s a shimmering track of textured music, largely instrumental in tone – a scape of sounds that is at once, intimate, dreamlike and expansive.
Jape plays the ATN Main Stage at 4:30pm on Saturday August 4th.
Bell X1, Lisa O’Neill and Jape will play a charity gig in Whelan’s Tuesday November 28th in aid of Alone – an organisation that supports housing for older who are homeless, socially isolated, living in deprivation or in crisis.
Tickets are priced at €25+ and are available from Whelanslive.com
Loose Joints is a podcast where we talk to a guest and play music they like new and old. True to the name, the podcast features a loose collection of tunes, tied together by very little logic, just like our chats. Nialler9 and Sally Cinnamon are your hosts.
Another Love Story is the perfect gathering. A festival in a manor house in Meath where the audience was as integral to the vibe as the music and happenings. Lovingly organised with thoughtful programming (it finishes at 6.30 on a Sunday so it feels different to others) with attention to details down to the aesthetic of the bins.
Part of its intimacy extends to the library and front room where talks and performances happen and a sprinkle of spontaneity hangs in the air. Donal Lunny might show up and lead a folk club, your mate might start being a literal windowlicker when you’re recording a podcast as what happened when Loose Joints did a live recording of the pod with guests Conor O’Brien (Villagers) and Richie Egan (Jape).
Giddy tunes, Skin flutes, cowboy trousers, artists who are doses or not, dubstep remixes, being overshadowed by your duet collaborator, how to have a casual conversation with Bjork and outlier electronica are just some of the things we covered in our hour. Special thanks to Siobhan Kane for having us down in the Library and to the Another Love Story audience in the room and beyond.
A song that makes you feel giddy Ponyo Theme Song (Richie) Paul Simon – Wristband (Conor) New music picks Aldous Harding – Imagining My Man? (Sally) Alex Cameron & Angel Olsen – Stranger’s Kiss (Niall) Burnt Out – Dear James (Conor) Lanark Arterfax – Touch Absence (Richie) A song from your favourite festival experience Dungen – Festival (Richie) A post festival comedown song or album Águas de Março by Antonio Carlos Jobim sung by Elis Regina (Conor) A song from your favourite festival experience Solange – Cranes In The Sky (Conor) A song you wish you’d written Bjork – History of Touches (Richie) New music picks Moon King – In & Out (Sally) Wah Wah Wino – Paco’s Ode (Niall) Johanna Warren – Figure 8 (Conor) Lutto Lento – Gyal A Devil (Richie) A post festival comedown song or album William Basinski – Disintegration Loops 1 (Richie) A song you wish you’d written Big Star – Thirteen (Conor) Kendal Johannson – Blue Moon (Niall)
Last week the 202s gave us a listen to the lead track from their EP Up In The Air, “a slice of harmonica-assisted lilting indie pop music.”
Today, the band release that EP which features a retro-electro remix of ‘Who Cares About Sunshine’ by Lights 106 and a remix of the title track by Jape, along with a demo to close things out. Give it a whirl and buy it here:
Mother have announced a Halloween Ball which will feature a Jape DJ set and a Bad Bones live show in their new home of The Hub on Saturday 29th October. Tickets available on Eventbrite.
Following on from the Winter Party taking place in 3Arena on on Halloween Bank Holiday Sunday October 30th with Sven Vath, Hot Since 82, Skream, Jon Hopkins, Matador and Dan Stritch, the organisers have announced a series of after parties for the occasion post midnight.
They include:
Knee Deep in Dublin – Hot Since 82 & Emanuel Satie @ Button Factory
Skream (All Night Long) @ Opium Rooms
Leon Vynehall @ Wah Wah Club (The Grand Social)
Tickets for Winter Party are €60.50 + fees or €79.50 + fees with afterparty entry, both available via Ticketmaster.
Starboard Home is a new album that features new songs inspired by Dublin Port, Dublin City and the River Liffey from the likes of Paul Noonan, James Vincent McMorrow, Cathy Davey, Duke Special, Gemma Hayes, Jape, Colm Mac Con Iomaire, Lisa O’Neill, Declan O’Rourke, John Sheahan (The Dubliners) and Paul Cleary (The Blades). It was recorded in February at Sun Studios with the chosen artists.
Curated and produced by Bell X1’s Paul Noonan and The National Concert Hall’s Gary Sheehan, Starboard Home was commissioned by Dublin Port as part of the Ireland 2016 Centenary Programme. It will be released on June 17th preceding two concerts in the National Concert Hall on June 22nd and 23rd featuring performances of the songs.
‘The Liffey Knew’ by Jape’s Richie Egan was quietly released onto Spotify recently and features “Óró sé do bheatha abhaile” (welcome home) as a key lyric. Have a listen:
Starboard Home tracklisting:
1 Paul Noonan – Steel Ballet 2 Richard Egan – The Liffey Knew 3 Gemma Hayes – Caught In The Rapids 4 Colm Mac Con Iomaire – From The Mountain To The Sea 5 Paul Cleary – Kingfisher Blue 6 James Vincent McMorrow – Down In The Diving Bell 7 Declan O’Rourke – Colossus 8 Duke Special – Button Men 9 Cathy Davey – What Else 10 Lisa O’Neill – Rock The Machine 11 John Sheahan – Liffeysong
Starboard Home is a new album that features new songs inspired by Dublin Port, Dublin City and the River Liffey from the likes of Paul Noonan, James Vincent McMorrow, Cathy Davey, Duke Special, Gemma Hayes, Jape, Colm Mac Con Iomaire, Lisa O’Neill, Declan O’Rourke, John Sheahan (The Dubliners) and Paul Cleary (The Blades). It was recorded in February at Sun Studios with the chosen artists.
Curated and produced by Bell X1’s Paul Noonan and The National Concert Hall’s Gary Sheehan, Starboard Home was commissioned by Dublin Port as part of the Ireland 2016 Centenary Programme. It will be released on June 17th preceding two concerts in the National Concert Hall on June 22nd and 23rd featuring performances of the songs.
Starboard Home tracklisting:
1 Paul Noonan – Steel Ballet 2 Richard Egan – The Liffey Knew 3 Gemma Hayes – Caught In The Rapids 4 Colm Mac Con Iomaire – From The Mountain To The Sea 5 Paul Cleary – Kingfisher Blue 6 James Vincent McMorrow – Down In The Diving Bell 7 Declan O’Rourke – Colossus 8 Duke Special – Button Men 9 Cathy Davey – What Else 10 Lisa O’Neill – Rock The Machine 11 John Sheahan – Liffeysong
‘The Liffey Knew’ by Richard Egan (Jape) will be released on Friday April 29th. as the album’s pre-order track. The second concert on June 23rd will also go on sale on Friday at 10am. Limited tickets are available for the first date on June 22nd.
The focus is on Irish music happening now, emerging and trending. I want this to be the definitive collection of new Irish music throughout the year in one place which I’ll be featuring as it comes on the site. Subscribe below.
Extended explorations into synth, noise, kraut, rock and ambience for the band’s first album in seven years.
Seven years on from album #3 and Master finds The Jimmy Cake, a band apart once again. Lineup changes (seven now: Paul G. Smyth, Lisa Carey, John Dermody, Dara Higgins, Vincent Dermody, Thomas Parke and Patrick Kelleher) and life has occurred since. The album is uncompromising in its delivery, making no concessions to convenience. There are three tracks with the shortest at just over 15 minutes and the longest just past the 32 minute mark. The individual tracks are elongated passages that segue into new movements.
The strongly-titled 32-minute ‘Death Can Fuck Off’ rings out with dangerous intent, building to a wall of galloping rhythm with synth vistas leading the pack of instruments before they are engulfed by a kraut-rock chug. A bassline changes and the track goes off in a different direction and a rhythmic pulse regains control as synth notes spiral above.
‘Observatory Destroyer’ is awash with horror-soundtrack style textures at its most minimal, building to a sonic heavy-rock dirge and piano release, while the final track ‘Teen Mist’ has a space-rock feel that gives way to a diptych of ambient and engulfing noise.
That’s just an overview. Master is about the journey, a multi-movement of a variation of styles and sounds. That’s about the only thing that The Jimmy Cake can be defined by.
9.
Owensie
Dramamine
Former Dublin rocker finds his sweet spot.
Three years on from the Dublin singer-songwriter’s second album Citizens, Owensie has followed it up with a sturdier and more elegant collection of layered folk music anchored by Michael Owens’ brittle falsetto and bright Spanish guitar playing. Conor O’Brien gives his seal of approval by supplying backing vocals and playing drums.
For their third album, the Belfast-based band have transitioned from expansive post-punk to a space between it and their former garage-rock jangle.
The band say they approached the album with a view that they had nothing to lose. “We’ve got nothing. We’ve never had anything. And we don’t expect to. The only person I ever wanted to impress was myself,” said frontman Cathal Cully.
In that regard, Arms Around A Vision is indulgent in the best way possible with the band soaking up the weight of their alternative retro influences and embracing their own visions in the process.
The Cork electronic duo embrace pop dynamics and grander emotion.
After two superb EPs, the Cork pair of Rachel Koeman and Ian Ring carved out their own niche in the electronic pop sphere. Where previous songs, great as they are, were maybe too close to influences like Purity Ring, Birth finds the band creating their own textured world and deepening their songwriting prowess.
Previously-released songs ‘To You’ and ‘Time’ were among the most heartfelt so they fit right in with the new tracks like the airy ‘Intergalactic’ linking the cosmos to the romantic (“feel the rocky planet move / just for us,”), the anthemic electro-pop of ‘Enchanted’ and their most unabashed pop song yet – ‘Sweet Dreaming’.
Ian Ring remains one of the best and most nimble producers in Ireland and Colm O’Herlihy adds live instrumentation with electric guitar work. As the title suggests, this is just the beginning.
The BBC aired a brilliant Julien Temple documentary about the Cavan kids who were thrust into a rock’n’roll major label lifestyle in their early teens. It left no doubt that The Strypes would be able to handle themselves into the future, marking themselves apart from the world of pop. They love retro rock and have no interest in the modern zeitgeist. What’s more they deplored any musician getting off their face over answering their craft. The lads just want to make music, wherever it takes them.
The answer to the question about where the Strypes would go next is contained in Little Victories from the off. Where as the first album Snapshot was exactly that, an account of a band in thrall to the bluesy rock’n’roll of the early ’60s and late ’50s, Little Victories finds the band (oldest member just turned 20) toughing up their sound by incorporating harder-edged rock sounds and rhythms. While they may not have brought their music up to date, they’ve taken a leaf out of the book of the Arctic Monkeys with an album that brandishes a distinct teenage indie/rock energy. Perhaps this is at the expense of what made them stand out in the first place but the band’s youthful vim still shines through.
Derry singer-songwriter releases her Mercury Prize-nominated debut.
It’s easy to forget how far Derry musician Bridie Monds-Watson has come in such a short time. Like the Strypes, the young singer-songwriter impressed from an early age with appearances on Other Voices with effective songs simply-constructed with an acoustic guitar and Bridie’s sweet colloquial voice.
Her Rough Trade debut, produced by Tommy McLaughlin, sheds the simplicity of those early EPs and settles for a multi-layered debut album that adds piano, strings and extra percussion to bolster the songs. Monds-Watson’s appealing simplicity is sacrificed for a more serious atmosphere but her personality and her rounded vocal style shines through on songs like ‘Blud’, ‘B A Nobody’, ‘Reckless Behaviour’ and ‘Shuvels’. Before We Forgot How To Dream bagged the young Derry musician a Mercury Music Prize for her efforts but it’s likely her best is yet to come.
The Dublin electro band have made an album of joyous bangers.
For their second full-length, Le Galaxie enlisted the help of producer Erik Brouchek to solidify what most Irish music-loving people know from seeing the band live, that Le Galaxie are the best band for delivering gigantic song-led bangers built on dance music dynamism with live instruments.
Le Club feels like a victory lap, the band’s retro neon-electro having found new sinewy rhythms and strident sounds. Songs like ‘Put The Chain On’, ‘Streetheart’, ‘Le Club’, ‘Lucy Is Here’ and “Carmen’ already feel like modern Irish classics, the soundtrack to many a great festival night and gig. The new version of the Le Galaxie essential, the uplifting ‘Love System’ adds a sax-solo for extra celebration. A trip to Le Club is always fun.
The third album from Conor O’Brien might just be his most important.
Stripped back to accompaniment that rarely goes beyond piano, mellotron, guitar and voice, Darling Arithmetic is a clear line in the sand for one of Ireland’s best living songwriters and as a result, there’s a sense of a songwriter really revealing and exploring his own self: his sexuality, his feelings, his pain and his love.
The 36 minute album’s opening song ‘Courage’ lays it all out. “Took a little time to get where I wanted / It took a little time to get free / It took a little time to be honest / It took a little time to be me,” O’Brien sings accompanied by guitar, light brushes, bass and some faraway blurry synths.
The stripped down nature of the album highlights what a great songwriter O’Brien is. These songs are captivating enough in their demo-style form because O’Brien is an elegant arranger and musician too; he has things to say we can relate to, and sentiments that comes from a heart, his heart, with an underlying confidence that comes from experience and learning from it.
Richie Egan’s fifth album is a collection of serene electronic songcraft.
For most of his creative endeavours as Jape, Richie Egan has been juxtaposing traditional guitar-based songwriting with electronic synth textures.
The fifth Jape album, This Chemical Sea, made with band member Glen Keating, is the first released since Egan uprooted his life and family to Malmö in Sweden and that distance has encouraged a clarity of vision that translates to these two sides being more suitable bedfellows than ever.
There’s soft transparency to the production helped greatly by David Wrench who mixed and mastered the album, and whose considered imprint can most recently be heard on top notch productions from Caribou, FKA Twigs and Jungle; three of the best sounding records of the last year. Those albums have a clear spaciousness that they share with This Chemical Sea.
This Chemical Sea often feels like its floating above the physical and unmoored from the sum of its parts, that give the songs a unique identity in the Jape discography. It is a collection of serene electronic songcraft: meditative, lucid and unbound.
The Dublin band have made the highly-strung album of the year.
There weren’t more uncompromising sonic albums made in 2015 than this one and while it took its toll on its creators, their efforts have not gone unappreciated.
Holding Hands With Jamie is a bare psychosis, the breakdown of Dara Kiely soundtracked by dissonant, piercing and pulsing noise. Kiely spends howling into the pressurised turbulent wall of noise, fending off life expectations and minutiae.
The band match his intensity spectacularly with guitars that whirr and buzz like nasty synthesizers, drums that engulf the room in a live fashion and low-end that wipes the floor and shits on it afterward for good measure. The harshness of it all is a suitably foil for the discombobulating frame of mind that Kiely displays throughout. It sounds like post-punk, it sounds like garage-rock, it sounds like no-wave, it sounds like dirty bleedin’ techno.
The coiled wrestle between confrontation and escapism, both in the music and in the lyrics, is what makes Holding Hands With Jamie such an uncomfortable yet singularly brilliant album. That it uses the familiar language of rock music to do so makes it one of the albums of the year.
The synth-loving electronic duo of I Am The Cosmos have reimagined ‘I Go’, a track from Jape’s recent album This Chemical Sea and have roped in Cathal Cully of the Belfast-based band Girls Names on vocals.
Their version is built on hard-edged arpeggiated synth notes, which their new music has been delving more and more into, while Cully provides some extra dark punk energy.
The original:
Jape plays Vicar Street next Saturday December 12th with support from Pleasure Beach.
After Lumo’s first two sold-out monthly nights in Bar Tengu, we return for #3 and move things downstairs for the Christmas edition with a bigger bash but the same vibe (dancing is a primary concern) and music (free from genre restrictions). This time around, we’ll a special guest DJ set from Richie Egan, who’ll be fresh off the stage from Jape’s biggest hometown headline show to date in Vicar Street. He’ll be joined by the Lumo regulars Nialler9, Simon Roche and Gavin Elsted for a night of tunes that can include anything we like: The Knife, Caribou, Phil Collins, Hot Chip, Grimes, John Talabot, Robyn and beyond. Lumo is not a house and techno night. It’s a club night where you will dance with friends, old and new.
10pm – 3am. Bar Tengu @ Yamamori Sushi, 38/39 Lower Ormond Quay, Dublin 1 Tickets: €6 in advance / €6 with a Jape ticket / €10 without/on the door
Other Voices have been expanding in recent years, first physically to Derry and London, and this summer, they took to the festival circuit hosting their music haven at Latitude and Electric Picnic.
No surprise then, that the TV series and now so much more, has expanded online by adding a podcast series to its bow. Listen below to the first OV podcast featuring interviews and performances from Nathaniel Rateliff, Jape, The Unthanks and Mahalia with Philip King, Dylan Haskins and Molly King.
.wav goodbye is an 8-track collection of music cut from the demo folders of Richie Egan aka Jape, previously unreleased and available on Bandcamp for pay what you want.
Richie had this to say:
here’s a little home recorded experiment of stuff i wanna move on from, my friends always tell me i never release most of the stuff i do, and that is true to be honest because i see song writing as a gift to help with my mental health..
so when the song is done i feel like in a way it has served it’s purpose.. but i thought i’d show you some of the out casts that thus far haven’t seen the light..
hope you’re good and i hope you dig the roughness and weirdness of these tunes..
