Getting through some writer's block with a good old-fashioned rant about an interview from 2019... although it's a weirdly optimistic one. With praise for new music by Pippa Molony and RÓIS, among others.
Meeting at the launch of the rapper's mixtape "COMMA, FULLSTOP.", we caught up about pro wrestling, Four Loko, the Irish Hash Mafia, dissing Jamiroquai, Brazillian influences, and more.
AVH is a new live-focused electronic project by Jack Corrigan and Drew Linehan of Hausu Records. Fourth Best caught their first live set on video at the River Runs Round festival.
In front of a live audience in Plugd Records at the River Runs Round festival in Cork earlier this month, I checked in with Dylan from Mabfield as he prepares to re-launch the beloved Irish music platform. We talk about Irish music media and how to make Johnny Giles stop answering your calls.
Thoughts on the festivals I love, including last weekend's phenomenal Féile na Gréine, and why I've gotten involved in the mammoth task of trying to build a new one.
Two wildly different Irish hip-hop cuts and a performance by one of the country's most fascinating experimental groups. All they have in common is that I think they're class.
The best band in the country already has three albums out. Trá Pháidín's music strikes this absolutely gorgeous middle ground between post-rock, jazz and Irish traditional music. Under the surface, landscape, infrastructure and psyche combine.
Sophie Moon's debut single comes with two versions - one a lowercase acoustic pop piece, another in all caps and breakbeats with lxverboy. The low-res video is weaponised nostalgia.
It's a story about the tension between industry and DIY, between going global and putting your friends on, between NEW MUSIC OTW and unexpected zip file. Between major label, indie label, and just hitting upload.
Lessons learned about the archive from a handful of livestreams from empty venues, some shit I have lying around on my SD card, and Limerick's spirit of defiance.
We're so back? From the Bandcamp tapes all the way up to the charts - maybe Irish hip-hop is better than ever? NUXSENSE has been operating at peak efficiency, dropping EP after EP of work that by right should skyrocket them into the international hip-hop underground, Kojaque and
Spotify has an algorithmically generated "daily wellness" playlist that's just clips of meditation podcasts cut with generic-sounding lo-fi hip-hop beats and Bressie interludes. Its local coverage is almost entirely dead.
If you really wanted, you could make the argument that this is the album Enya would make if she knew who Dril was.