The New Irish Music Playlist: Really Good Time, Still Blue, banríon, Bream & more.

Cordless

Beautiful Burden

Cordless are a dub/trip-hop duo from Youghal in Cork and ‘Beautiful Burden’ is the band’s debut single, and it seems to recall ’80s falsetto classic ‘Precious Little Diamond’, with electronic production, percussion and a sweet bassline.

Pebbledash

Carraig Aonair

Staying in Cork, with the six-piece shoegaze alternative rock band Pebbledash, from side two of their recent ‘Killer Lover’/‘Carraig Aonair’ double single.

‘Carraig Aonair’ is on the current wave of Irish trad and noise music as Gaeigle, and it dashes its pebbles gloriously against that particularly sandy beach.

Thanks to Lankum and their ilk for encouraging more bands to draw together noise and trad.

Buy on Bandcamp.

Bream

She Played Mary

Bream are the core Wicklow trio of Ailish Ní Ghrádaigh, Dylan Ó Muineóg, Kelvin Barr, with friends. In the case of double single ‘She Played Mary’ and ‘Greatest Dream’ that includes Adam Redmond (additional production, mixing, guitar), Kelly Kehoe (vocals) and Kevin Corcoran (piano).

‘She Played Mary’ is the highlight, an alt-folk stomper of a tune with chorus vocals, violin and gentle electronics.

Bream have spent nearly two years writing and recording in home setups and studios in Clare, Wicklow and Berlin, and there’s more to come including live gigs.

Banríon

17 Egg

Phibsborough native Róisín Ní Haicéid signals a change from the previously established-indie rock sound band of Banríon, and is now a folk-leaning solo project, with occasional collaborators such as Stephen Star, Henry Earnest and Passersby contributing.

With the latter producing (and Henry Earnest on the banjo and bass), ’17 Egg’ isa song written as a love song to home, moving out and getting egged. It was written this January as an assignment for a songwriting course taught by Adrianne Lenker, a core musical inspiration.

Bedrooms

Crusher / Birds Of Prey

Dublin alternative band Bedrooms tease a song from their forthcoming album Perfectly Still, which is out on September 20th and is produced by Bill Ryder Jones.

‘Crusher / Birds Of Prey’ is a fine slowcore-influenced melodic indie track.

Really Good Time

Pension Fund

The latest in a line of Really Good Time alt-rock bangers.

The video was directed by Ronan Nissenbaum on anamorphic 16mm featuring the band “as four dorks tired of being bullied, who put to use their knowledge of science to become the ubermensch and defeat the punks.

Still Blue

Brush Strokes

Dublin indie-pop band Still Blue take it down a notch on a song written by frontwoman Nicole Lyons about seeing a relationship for what it is, not what you want it to be.

“It was one of those songs that just flowed. I wasn’t really sure what I was writing about until I let the song rest and came back to it a few months later. I wasn’t ready to accept what I was writing. I think a lot of times in relationships we want to ignore that ugly side and only choose to see the good. But that’s not love.

It was recorded withw Alex Borwick in Black Mountain Studios and features Kait Cullen-Verhauz on
cello.

Pat Lagoon, Rikshaw

Posture

Waterford represented with Pat Lagoon and Rikshaw on the verses of this Cassell Beats production.

The track marks the duo’s return to recording together joint EP Recess from 2018, and the track signifies their ethos of sticking to your own artistic lane and following it wherever it goes, no matter who is paying attention or not.

S P A C E, cyrtra

orihime

We started in Cork, so we’ll finish in Cork with S P A C E, the Jena Keating-collaborating producer aka cyrtra, whose productions often have that cosmic neon Fly Lo feel, as heard on this new one ‘orihime’.