The best thing about EPs (when they’re done right) is that it gives bands a chance to put their best songs right up front, with no filler. Don’t get me wrong, I love albums as much as the next guy, but a very good EP can be just as strong – if not stronger – than a decent album. Take this one, for example, the first for these four Irish fellows: it’s only got four songs, but all of them are complete winners. It’s seriously hard to pick out a single favorite on this disc, as each one is a perfect example of hard-hitting shoegaze/noise-pop in the vein of Ride, Swervedriver or the Brother Kite (particularly the latter, who have also perfected the blend of shoegaze and noise-pop). Not bad for a first outing, eh?
Members
David Kennedy, James McDonald, Colin O’Dwyer & Ruairi Paxton
Jigsaw Records is the label/record shop/mailorder that sticks up for the little guys, specializing in indiepop, janglepop, lo-fi pop, indie rock, powerpop, twee, punky pop and pretty much any other kind of fun music that we fancy.
Laura Ann Brady is a Dublin-based singer-songwriter whose music moves between acoustic folk and ambient styles aided by the zither and autoharp. She also sings live with Ocho.
Her newest single ‘Masterpiece’ is an ambitious six minute single that never loses the listener’s interest. Its long running time suggests a turmoil of emotion, that doesn’t recede easily or gracefully as the song reaches a crescendo and resolves. The cinematic video by Aga Maru only heightens that feeling.
Of the song, Brady says:
‘Masterpiece is a song about the pain of heartbreak,and also the darker side of perfectionism. Why do we try to sabotage our own happiness a lot of the time? How do we deal with the bleakness that permeates the end of a relationship? How do we come to know ourselves more fully through that heartbreak?
Indie four-piece OTHERKIN go 0 to 100 on their first single of 2016. Recorded in a shack outside of their native Dublin, “I Was Born” will feature on the band’s forthcoming EP, The New Vice. Driven by energetic riffs and euphoric, sing-along vocals (“It’s alright!/It’s okay!”), this high-octane chugger is best listened to while cruising along the freeway – windows rolled down, volume cranked up.
Dublin based ‘Grunge Pop’ band Otherkin wear the influences pretty obviously on their sleeves, vocalist DavidAnthonys swagger bares instant similarities to Julian Casablancas but writing them off as a Strokes rip-off would be unfair. Tight guitar riffs, catchy baselines and earworm choruses show skill and insight beyond their years.
This young band from Dublin doesn’t seem the slightest bit concerned. Otherkin are a quartet that makes no-nonsense, two-to-three-minute garage rock/punk tracks born for rock radio. If this were 2004, they’d be gracing the cover of every rock zine. Otherkin released their mouth-watering debut album, OK, via Rubyworks last year, and hopefully 2018 is the year the ‘Kin play in the states. They’re in their true element when they play live, particularly frontman Luke Reilly, who’s one of the finest crowd-surfers you’ll ever see.
Members: David Anthony / Luke Reilly / Rob Summons / Conor Andrew Wynne
If you hold to the increasingly reasonable opinion that indie rock has become too nice, too soft, too precious, too upwardly mobile and obsessed with pop, Girl Band are one of today’s finest antidotes for your woes. And even if you like nice, soft, precious, poppy music, you might find yourself bowled over by the Dublin combo’s relentless abrasion anyway. Like early Liars, their songs mostly just bombard you with aggressive repetition topped off with snarling rants and raves. The pummeling will only amplify your bad vibes, but you’ll come out the other side feeling like a supervillain.
Few live acts are as capable of recreating the feeling of watching the napalm invasion from Apocalypse Now as this Irish quartet, whose megaphoned shrieks, guitar squalls, bass bombs, and drums of death combine for a uniquely visceral and violent experience.
Formed four years ago, Girl Band (Adam Faulkner, Daniel Fox, Dara Kiely, Alan Duggan) have taken their time to get to this point, but the truism of good things coming. Much has been made of Girl Band’s influences. With touchstones such as Washington DC hardcore act Bad Brains, New York’s No Wave scenesters James Chance and the Contortions, and Britain’s Chemical Brothers and The Fall, there is firm evidence here of musicians that have checked out the majority of other Irish acts and found them lacking in grit and adventure. There really is no other Irish band around at the moment that can channel No Wave disharmony as well as Girl Band, but what distinguishes them on record, as on stage, is a subtle sense of melody that infiltrates everything they do.
Why They’re Not bigger they’ve created one sublime LP of noise-rock cacophony Holding Hands With Jamie and one collected EP of nihilist-disco superjams The Early Years, but the album that fully integrates their strengths into one nation-leveling masterwork will be what puts them over the top.
Their finest moment to date The eight-minute cover of Blawan’s “Why They Hide Their Bodies Under My Garage,” making a brilliantly inscrutable post-garage banger even more perplexing and enthralling
The band Cruising unites some of Dublin and Belfast’s finest indie groups: Girls Names, September Girls, SeaPinks and Logikparty. The quartet have been together since 2013, releasing the odd track and playing occasional, chaos-filled gigs between their endeavours with their main bands, but now they’re sharing something fuller in the form of their debut self-titled debut EP. Cruising’s debut will be released by Tough Love on 14th August 2015 in a limited edition of 300 units on 12”, with the first 100 on hot pink vinyl (sold out). A leather jacket with the band’s name written in studs adorns the record’s sleeve, and its contents are full of spiky tunes to match. Opener ‘The Spectacle’ is howling post-punk in the vein of Savages, ‘Lifting’ blends dashes of psych into their shadowy sound, and ‘Woman’ softens singer Benni Johnston’s snarl with a poppier sheen. In short, ‘Cruising’ is equal parts brooding and buoyant, and one not to be missed. Cruising are a four piece made up of Benni Johnston (Vocals), Claire Miskimmin (Guitar/Bass) Neil Brogan (Guitar/Bass) and Sarah Grimes (drums). With previous/ongoing experience in bands such Girls Names, September Girls, Sea Pinks and Logikparty, Cruising began in 2013 as a side project for all four. Named for William Friedkin’s gay exploitation shocker from 1980, the debut single You Made Me Do That (taken from the killer’s line in the film) dropped in early 2014 on Soft Power records and was recorded live as it was written. Practicing sporadically and playing a string of incendiary/chaotic live shows when schedules allow, CRUISING have now miraculously recorded their debut EP proper for Tough Love. Recorded in two days in a freezing railway arch studio (Dublin’s Guerilla Studios) in January 2015, and mixed at Belfast’s Start Together, the self titled EP shows the band in various guises, morphing between popper’d up Agit-Punk (the re-recorded You Made Me Do That, Woman), psyched out post-punk (Lifting), and riff driven bangers (Safe Corridor, Cutlass, The Spectacle).
2014 was an incredible year, I’m so grateful to anyone who came to a show, bought/listened to Post Tropical, stopped me on the street to say hello and take a photo, or generally just made my life better.
I wanted to say thank you. So I thought, what would I want to get as a present?…. A video of a cat in a clown costume driving a ride along lawnmower?… umm, yes please. But it turns out it’s real difficult to get a cat into a costume. Plus cats are heavily unionised now.
So, thats not happening (yet). But, as a back up plan, we did have some great people come down to my last show of the year, at the Ace Hotel Theatre in Los Angeles. They recorded the entire show, it came out great, so here it is below, free to download for everyone who wants it. All I ask is that if you’re feeling it, that you share it. I’m incredibly proud of this show that we took all over the world for the last 12 months, and I want as many people to hear it as possible.
So yeah, you guys are the best, thank you again, i’ll see you in 2015. I got plans. James…..
The Irish blues-rock guitar icon made strong, often great albums in the Seventies. But he was at his best, always, on stage. Rory Gallagher‘s present to the home country, at the turn of ’74, was seven shows in three cities, including Belfast, where sectarian violence had scared off most touring bands. A fantastic 1974 double LP was taken from riotous gigs in Cork, where Gallagher grew up. This boxed set is the tour complete, with similar set lists but vigorously different performances each night by one of rock’s most reliantly electrifying guitarists.
Rory Gallagher was also growing increasingly frustrated at not being able to capture the energy of his live shows in the studio. During one session, he threatened to “chuck the tapes in the dustbin”. It was no ideal threat – he would go on to shelve whole albums in the future.
“He was a live performer,” said keyboard player Lou Martin. “He didn’t like the studio because he was playing to the walls and wasn’t getting any feedback from the audience. But he had to do the albums for the record company.” But onstage, it was another matter entirely, and Gallagher understandably jumped at the chance to record another live album. But this one would be different: it would be recorded in Ireland. Although his previous live album Live In Europe has a more raw, one-take sound,Irish Tour ‘74 showcases Rory’s growth as a songwriter and shines where he explores his then-most recent studio album, the very musically varied Tattoo. Opener Who’s That Coming, Tattoo’d Lady and the lengthy, looser version of AMillion Miles Away show a man who’s enjoying his talent to the fullest musically.
“We were one of the only bands to play Belfast,” says Lou Martin proudly. “Thin Lizzy were not doing it because of the aggravation. But Rory insisted on it. I was from Belfast, Gerry was from Belfast and there was co-operation from ‘The Organisation’ to make sure the concerts went OK.”. “We were taken care of very well,” said drummer Rod de’Ath. “The hotels that we stayed at were carefully chosen, without going into too much detail.” (Neither man was willing to go into more detail about ‘The Organisation’, though we can presume that they’re not talking about the British government).
The resulting album, “Irish Tour ’74”, remains the highlight of Gallagher’s career. Recorded in Belfast, Dublin and Cork, it finally nailed his live performances on vinyl. While the sound quality is variable – partly due to the fact that they couldn’t get insurance for Ronnie Lane’s Mobile Studios in the more troubled areas – the album never loses its primal, raw urgency. It’s the sound of a band leaning out over the precipice – something Gallagher deliberately encouraged, making up the show as he went along.
A DVD of Tony Palmer’s eyewitness film, “Irish Tour ’74”, captures the soft-spoken Gallagher defying the bloodshed in Belfast, determined to play for fans on both sides of the Troubles with no guns drawn except for the one in Blind Boy Fuller’s “Pistol Slapped Blues.” The 40th anniversary expanded deluxe edition release of one of Rory Gallagher’s most celebrated recordings. The most expansive edition to date, of this landmark album. Featured for the first time on record, all three shows. Packaged in a special deluxe edition 8 cd, 10” boxset and including previously unreleased tracks, remastered audio, photos, extensive liner notes, feature length documentary, memorabilia and more.
“Irish Tour captures some of his finest known live recordings and, while it’s impossible to tell which songs were recorded where, across nine in-concert recordings (plus one after-hours jam session, Back on My Stompin’ Ground), the energy crackling from stage to stalls and back again packs an intensity that few live albums – Gallagher’s others among them – can match.” (AllMusic)
“Unlike many other of his contemporaries, he lived long enough to see his legacy and influence take hold and flourish in the musical world. This display of one man’s ability to unite a people and a country in turmoil through his music is an essential listen for all rock fans, young and old, and is a crucial part of Irish musical history as well as the very legacy of blues rock.” (Sputnik Music)
“From the moment the music starts, Rory Gallagher: Irish Tour ’74 more than justifies itself. Gallagher played like his guitar was plugged straight into the universal source, and it probably was. That Gallagher was on his home turf for this tour only increases the sense of some sort of direct connection with his sound. Every note played, every string struck and every song sung vibrates with all the passion and intensity of a spiritual experience, which this surely was.” (Pop Matters)
Nothing compares to the fear and the force of Girl Band. All-nighters filled with American Horror Story episodes and the faint soundtrack of a creeping back door? That won’t do it. Taking a trip to the woods in pitch black, with nothing but a terrifying HEALTH record for company? It’ll come close. But the beauty of this Irish group is just how unprepared they look to jump out of their own skin. They’ll arrive on the average stage dressed in smart attire, clean jumpers completely free of beer stains. But deep within lies a dark edge, and out it bursts in full ghastly colours every time they play. On record, too, they have the phenomenal effect of stretching out grizzly, industrial notes across several harsh minutes. Either that, or they’ll release a single that’s 25 seconds long. Girl Band like to fuck with preconceptions, and 2014’s seen them achieving this with plenty more round the corner.
Girl Band are a four piece noise rock band from Dublin, Ireland. They are made up of Dara Kiely, Alan Duggan, Daniel Fox and Adam Faulkner.
They formed in late 2011 with influences ranging from bands and acts such as Bad Brains, Swell Maps, James Chance and the Contortions, Neu, The Birthday Party, Ben Frost and a lot of minimal techno. Girl Band structure their songs with sparse, shouty vocals, over intense noise textures and sounds capes which develop around repetitive groves. The band have released an EP and 3 singles with Any Other City Records to much critical acclaim. They have just signed to Rough Trade Records and will be releasing their debut album in late 2015. Their live show is known for being loud, intense and energetic.
The Fat Angel Sings 