Month: December 2011

Dublin songwriter, RuthAnne Cunningham, is enjoying considerable success at the moment with songs featuring on recent albums by Westlife, Pixie Lott and Professor Green. Based between London and LA, the unstoppable singer/songwriter has an impressive line-up of tunes behind her created for pop-artists including Jojo's hit single with Billy Steinberg, "Too Little too late," which skyrocketed from number 66 to number 3 on the Billboard hot 100 chart in just one week in the US.

RuthAnne has written songs for chart-topping artists including Katharine McPhee, Leona Lewis, winner of Finnish pop idol Anna Abreu and winner of South African idol Jody Williams and Australian band Shakaya. In 2007, RuthAnne had songs on three platinum albums in the US and Europe, and officially became Ireland's youngest songwriter ever to achieve these honors, also winning an ASCAP Award for Best Pop Song in 2007. More stellar cuts and singles written by RuthAnne, including album title track "Turn it up", album track "My Love", and hit single “Broken Arrow”, recorded by British platinum-selling popstar Pixie Lott, followed in 2010.
 
Recently, she collaborated with Grammy winning producer John Shanks to co-write with Westlife for their ‘Greatest Hits’ album, released November 2011. They have three songs on the album including an upcoming single ‘Beautiful World’. RuthAnne has yet another upcoming single, ‘Love You to Death’, for Pixie Lott, penned with US hit-maker Toby Gad.
 
After honing her skills over the past four years writing for, and collaborating with, many of the UK’s hottest stars and producers, (Leona Lewis, Sugarbabes, Labrynth, Ben Hudson, Ed Drewett, Devlin, X-Factor winning artist Alexander Burke, Cher Lloyd, JLS, Loick Essien, Tinchy Stryder, Professor Green, Westlife, among them), and having worked extensively with many internationally renowned producers (John Shanks, Julian Bunetta, Jeff Bashker, Red One, Toby Gad, JR Rotem to name a few), RuthAnne is putting all of that experience and creativity into her own album of infectiously catchy soulful-pop, currently being recorded in Los Angeles.

Web: http://www.iamruthanne.com/

The annual IMTV Awards took place recently in The Sugar Club, with the award for Video of the Year going to Lisa Hannigan for the video, “Little Bird” directed by Myles O’Reilly.

The awards acknowledge the best independent Irish music videos of the year.

The awards were hosted by Daniella Moyles, with live music on the night coming from The Peakin’ Trippers, Ham Sandwich, The Gorgeous Colours, The Riptide Movement and The Hot Sprockets. 

ECHOGRAM capped off a busy few months winning the award for Sexiest Video for “Conspiracy”, directed by Shaun O’Connor. The Minutes picked up two awards for Best Group Video, “Black Keys” directed by Biba Logan, and Best Live Video, “IMTOD” directed by Simon Eustace. Lisa Hannigan also picked up a second award with “Knots”, directed by Myles O’Reilly, being voted Best Female Video.

Other awards on the night went to Ham Sandwich for Most Original Concept (“Ants”), James Vincent McMorrow for Best Male Video (“Sparrow and the Wolf”), I Draw Slow for Best Styled Video (“Goldmine”) and Funeral Suits for Best Production/SFX (“Florida”).

The Viewers’ Choice Award went to King Kong Company for “Acetate”, directed by John Loftus. Vincent Gallagher was voted Best Director. 

http://irishmusictelevision.com/
 

The band hailing from Tuam Co Galway, who shot to fame by immortalising the N17 could hit No.1 this Christmas – singing about the merits of city life with the one and only Petula Clark- singer of the original 1960’s No.1 hit: Downtown.

Ms Clark (79) agreed to join them in the studio for the recording session in London late this year.
She also appears in the songs official Music Video which was revealed last month and has gathered over 50,000 views already.

The video was Produced by Philip Tennant, Mixed by Cenzo Townshend and was Directed by Eugene O’Connor.
With the backing of many well known dj’s in both the UK & Ireland for The Saw Doctors single ‘Downtown’ to go to No. 1, infamous Irish Bookmaker Paddy Power have placed 7/1 odds on them making the Christmas no.1 and beating the Xfactor finalists Little Mix.

The single Downtown Ft. Petula Clark is out on iTunes on Dec 16th.
For more info on the Saw Doctors please visit www.sawdoctors.com
 

“Éalú – Foreign Links”, the new album from Cormac Breatnach, will be released on Mandala Discs and available for download in early 2012. The album, co-produced with Gavin Ralston, can be purchased in physical format through Cormac’s website www.cormacbreatnach.com from 20th December 2011.

DELORENTOS are delighted to announce the forthcoming release of a 12-track album, Little Sparks, on 27 January 2012 along with a full electric tour to co-incide.
 
Recorded with Mercury Music Prize Award Winner Rob Kirwan (PJ Harvey), the 12 tracks are the fully-fledged fruits of the band’s recordings over 2011 and display a depth of songwriting prowess that ably eclipses the band’s first two albums and offers a real insight into the ever-growing potential of the band.
 
It follows hot on the heels of the recent 4-track EP (of  the same name) which came packaged with a full colour, 40 page magazine that the band devised and edited – with the help of their friends – and was accompanied by a successful acoustic tour of Ireland (the band’s first ever).
 
All of which signals a new approach by the band who are keen to embrace and share all aspects of their interests and skills from here onwards.