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
Blawan – SickElixir
Jamie Roberts is known for his crushing atmospheres and dark dance music, but recent years have seen the Blawan project move in more experimental sound design directions, and that trend continues here on a collection of gnarled and gritty electronic productions, that buzzes, whispers, distorts and bangs.
Blawan plays Dublin in October.
Maykay – Maykay
The Fight Like Apes singer has long guested on other people’s records. From her time singing with Le Galaxie to regular collaborations with Jerry Fish Mik Pyro and Elaine Mai, MayKay has regularly kept up her singing personality on record and live, as well as developing her hosting duty skills on Other Voices for the last 10 years.
Today, the Irish artist finally releases a debut solo album after 20 years playing music. The record is informed and about relationships in all their forms and musically -it’s a rock record, a pop record, an alternative record, an indie record. It’s a novelty to hear MayKay accompanied with a more traditional band setup than the synthpop of her past.
Maykay plays Whelan’s on December 18th.
A Litany Of Failures – Volume V
A Litany of Failures has releases the fifth volume of its independent Irish compilation series, intended to document the independent alternative music community in Ireland.
The album is released on double vinyl and digital, and features 21 tracks from the likes of pôt-pot, Landless, I Dreamed I Dream, Crying Loser, The Deadlians, Robbie Stickland, Róis, Rùn, Stratford Rise, Muckno and more.
Live gigs
- October 10th – 4:30pm – Steamboat Records, Limerick (Free in-store) – The PVP, Eros Blindfold. licehead
- October 10th – 8pm – Pharmacia (€10), Limerick – Artie Silver, The PVP, licehead, Eros Blindfold
- October 16th – 5pm – Spindizzy Records, Dublin (Free in-store) – I Dreamed I Dream, Robbie Sticklad, muckno
- October 17th – 8pm – Curveball, Dublin (€10) – Swimsuit Issue Presents: Ana Palindrome, Stratford Rise, Hands Up Who Wants To Die
hyperlynx – Rest Energy
The debut album from Swiss/Irish trio of Laurent Méteau (guitar), Philipp Schlotter (rhodes/electronics) –and Matthew Jacobson (drums/synths – ReDiviDeR, Anna Mieke, Roamer) is released on Dublin’s Little Gem Records, an independent label and experimental music night that’s been a going concern of Andy Walsh’s since 2014. Rest Energy trades in jazz, rock, ambient and electronic sounds.
The Antlers – Blight
New York indie downers return with their seventh album on Transgressive. It is inspired bty chief songwriter’s Peter Silberman’s daily walks near his home with climate change in particular being at the forefront of his lyrical mind.
HAAi – HUMANiSE
Australian but London-based electronic producer Teneil Throssell goes big on new album, with grand scale sonics and collaborations with Jon Hopkins, Alexis Taylor of Hot Chip and the Trans Voices choir among the guests, with Throssell’s songwriting and vocals to the fore over club sounds. It was premiered through a live performance from Drumsheds in London that centres the work in a theatrical office space.
Brian Eno & Beatie Wolfe – Liminal
After the release of two albums earlier this year from ambient king Brian Eno and collaborator LA conceptual artists and activist Beatie Wolfe – Luminal and Lateral, Liminal completes a trilogy – somewhere between the vocal-lead Luminal and ambient style of Lateral, “a strange new land with a human living and feeling its way through its mysterious spaces.”
Badlands – Nobody Dies
Swedish producer and composer Catharina Jaunviksna releases a fourth record, which is “inspired by a longing for human primitive musicality”, drawing on folk, ambient, experimental electronic songwriting and sound design analogues. to Grouper, Carla dal Forno and Enya.
In words used in the press release I found worthy of resharing “like a séance of fractured ballads and spectral atmospheres, somewhere between dream-pop haze and post-apocalyptic ritual.”
Madison Cunningham – Ace
The third studio album by Californian guitarist and singer-songwriter follows her Grammy winning second record, the folk album Revealer, a full-length collaboration with Andrew Bird, and comes after a recent divorce at the young age of 27.
Ace is more of a orchestral pop breakup record, with nods to pop, folk and jazz, contained within piano-lead songs, surprisingly so, as Cunningham possesses some lightning guitar skills.
PinkPantheress – Fancy Some More? (remix album)
Electronic pop auteur PinkPantheress releases a “remixtape” of her recent mixtape Fancy That? (it’s an album though isn’t it).
22 remixes come from artists including Anitta, Bladee, JADE, JT, Kylie Minogue, Oklou, Rachel Chinouriri, Zara Larsson; Basement Jaxx, Groove Armada, Sugababes, Joe Goddard, Kaytranada, Kilimanjaro, Nia Archives, and more.
English Teacher – This Could Be A Remix Album
A remix album of the Leeds band’s Mercury Prize-winning debut record, featuring remixes from Fontaines D.C. DJs, SHERELLE, Daniel Avery, Water From Your Eyes, Baxter Dury, Working Men’s Club and more.
God Alone – The Beep Test
Cork post-metal band take their third album title from the physical exercise test you did in school, suggesting speed, stamina and endurance are key elements to this record, as they take their typical eclectic approach to heavy music throughout.
Bannered Mare – He’s Only Sleeping
Bannered Mare is a new five-person project lead by Galway musician Joe Padfield formerly of Race the Flux, which started as a vehicle to explore experiences of substance abuse and mental health issues. Musically, we’re in math-rock, meo and post-rock with power pop choruses territory.
Jamie Duffy – Jamie Duffy
The young Monaghan’s 24-year-old composer Jamie Duffy’s piano compositions have found a significant audience with plays in the millions for his gentle contemporary folk-classical songs. His debut album was recorded over two years between Ireland and Iceland.
“This album was inspired by Ireland – by home, culture, and the journey of life. My pieces are almost like literal translations of my emotions and inspirations into sound, but the beauty of instrumental music is that it can mean something different to everyone. That is a very special thing and part of the reason why I often hold back from explaining the exact meaning and influences behind my work. What I love the most about instrumental music is that it is open to interpretation, and free to align with your feelings, your inspirations, your experiences. So each piece can and should mean something different to everyone who listens.”
Ways of Seeing – The Inheritance of Fear
The album, mixed by Daniel Fox (Gilla Band) is described as “an astute meditation on the reverberations of trauma, loss and anxiety. It confronts the psychological weight of inherited anxieties and how we choose to either overcome or bury past traumas.”
The album title comes from Doireann Ní Ghríofa’s poem An Experiment to Engineer an Inheritance of Fear, about the Irish Famine how its effects are still palpable today.
Sara Miller – Oceanic Dream EP
Berlin-based Irish producer Sara Miller has released a new three-track dance EP on revered label Permanent Vacation, operating in dancefloor euphoria, acid and dreamy synth progressive house.
Also released this week
- Amber Mark – Pretty Idea
- Avery Tucker (Girlpool) – Paw
- DJ Vadim – Uganda 25
- Flock Of Dimes – The Life You Save
- Hannah Frances – Nested in Tangles
- Harvey Sutherland – Debt
- Jay Som – Belong
- Mansionair – Some Kind of Alchemy
- Mobb Deep – Infinite
- Moscoman – Caviar
- Nightbus – Passenger
- Niia – V
- Patti Smith – Horses (50th Anniversary Edition)
- Public Service Broadcasting – Night Flight – The Last Flight Remixes
- Princess Nokia – GIRLS
- Richard Ashcroft – Lovin’ You
- The Besnard Lakes – The Besnard Lakes Are The Ghost Nation
- The Cool Kids – Hi Top Fade
- The Necks – Disquiet
- U – ARCHENFIELD
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.
