Skip to main content

Month: April 2021

Peter Doran Releases Title Track ‘Voices’

Following his first two releases ‘Nothing New Under The Sun’, and ‘Blue Mountains’ featuring artist Haley Heynderickx, Peter Doran will release his third and final single ‘Voices’ before his album release of the same name. The single ‘Voices’ will be released this Friday, 23rd April. Peter’s long-awaited album ‘Voices’ will be released, 7th May 2021. 

Peter Doran explains: “‘Voices’ is a song about someone going through a manic period. Feeling the rapture, the ecstasy, feeling bathed in a golden light, hearing the voice of God in his/her ear. It is also about the other side of the manic-depressive coin. The song is sung from the perspective of someone looking on at a friend suffering from manic depression, wanting so badly to offer comfort but not knowing how to reach them.

Peter Doran is an independent Irish singer-songwriter and musician. ‘Voices’, the fifth studio album from the Mullingar native, was awarded a MISP grant to help fund its release. 

Recorded and Co-produced by Hally at Arthouse Studios in Naas throughout 2019/20, ‘Voices’ features extensive contributions from multi-instrumentalist Lenny Cahill (Piano / Drums / Bass / Organ) and special guest vocals from US Songwriter Haley Heynderickx and Emmett Tinley (The Prayer Boat). String duties were shared by Dublin-based composer/arranger Mary Barnecutt and Peter’s long-term collaborator Gerard Toal.

‘Every Little Thing’ from his 2012 album ‘Overhead the Stars’ has been played over 1,300,000 times on Spotify and is the theme tune for the American podcast series ‘The Minimalists’.

In recent years Peter has headlined shows in Holland, Germany, England, Ireland, Belgium and New York and opened shows for Mick Flannery, The Lone Bellow, Declan O’Rourke, Fionn Regan and Duke Special.

Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Website

Debut Single Announced from Jack Vanderklauss

Jack Vanderklauss releases his first official single ‘Doodlebird’ on June 1, 2021.

Former frontman of post punk band The Salad Circus and indie rock band Canaries, Jack has been writing and recording music for over 10 years and will be releasing at least 4 new singles this year. His first, ‘Doodlebird’ is a sinister, bass driven cock rooster strut down to the fields while keeping well within the 5 km limit!

Favouring a vibrato laced guitar hook over the more traditional song chorus ‘Doodlebird ‘sees Jack Vanderklauss blissfully detached in a lockdown world. 

Fears to Release Debut Album

Following her performance at this year’s Musictown, Fears is delighted to share with you her album ‘Oíche’. The album is due for release Friday, 7th May 2021.

‘Oíche’ will be the first full length release on TULLE, a new label founded by Constance Keane and Emily Kendrick, women-led independent record label focussed on working with and for underrepresented voices in music.

‘Oíche’, meaning ‘night’ in Irish, was recorded and produced in three bedrooms, hospital, and most recently in the Domino Recordings studio in Brixton.

Pieced together over five years, ‘Oíche’ chronicles growth through challenges, instability, and relationship changes, both with one’s self and others.

An intimate depiction of discovery, ‘Oíche’ unearths internal dialogue, and makes peace with uncertainty.

Track listing:

  1. h_always
  2. Bones
  3. daze
  4. Fabric
  5. vines
  6. dents
  7. Brighid
  8. tonnta
  9. Blood
  10. two_

Connect with Fears Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify

Photo: Bríd O’Donovan

Villagers Announce New Single, Video and Album

Today, Conor O’Brien is pleased to announce Villagers’ fifth studio album ‘Fever Dreams’ which will be released on August 20th via Domino. Escapism is a very necessary pursuit right now, and ‘Fever Dreams’ follows it to mesmerising effect. It works like all the best records – it becomes a mode of transport; it picks you up from where you are and sets you down elsewhere. There will be an Irish special format of the album physical version.

Coinciding with the announcement, O’Brien has also shared the first song from the forthcoming album, ‘The First Day’. It was inspired by a trip to the fabled Another Love Story festival in County Meath – beginning as a snatched electronic doodle, it morphed into a widescreen, lushly cinematic evocation of the joy in human connection.

Director Daniel Brereton says of the video “The whole process was pretty collaborative with Conor. I think we both imagined a floatiness to the video, and obviously the title conjures up a lot of imagery and ideas, ‘The first day of the rest of your life’. What does that look like? How does that feel? We were very lucky to shoot on film and have great casting and styling. Shooting during a pandemic is not easy, so I feel fortunate that we got to make it happen.”

O’Brien says on the gestation of ‘Fever Dreams: “I had an urge to write something that was as generous to the listener as it was to myself. Sometimes the most delirious states can produce the most ecstatic, euphoric and escapist dreams.”

These are songs with the strange, melted shapes and the magical ambivalence of dreams. The intent of the songs is both mysterious and as clear as a bell. With ‘Fever Dreams’, there is a sense of a deepening mastery and an expanding reach by O’Brien. Inspiration for the album was found in many places and came in from all angles, from night swimming on a Dutch island to Flann O’Brien, Audre Lorde, David Lynch, L. S. Lowry via the library music of Piero Umiliani and Alessandro Alessandroni and jazz from Duke Ellington and Alice Coltrane.

Written over the course of two years, the main bodies of the songs were recorded in a series of full-band studio sessions in late 2019 and early 2020. During the long, slow pandemic days, O’Brien refined them in his tiny home studio in Dublin, and the album was then mixed by David Wrench (Frank Ocean, The xx, FKA Twigs).

Alongside the album announcement, Villagers have confirmed a string of live dates for later this year taking in the UK and Ireland.

‘Fever Dreams’ follows ‘The Art Of Pretending To Swim’, ‘Darling Arithmetic’, ‘{Awayland}’ and ‘Becoming A Jackal’. Conor O’Brien also has a string of accolades under his belt including two Ivor Novello Awards, two Mercury Music Prize nominations and is a previous winner of Ireland’s Choice Music Prize. Additionally, Villagers’ music has featured in the BBC/Hulu series Normal People and their Spotify session of ‘Nothing Arrived’ has hit over 165 million streams.

Tracklisting:

  1. Something Bigger
  2. The First Day
  3. Song In Seven
  4. So Simpatico
  5. Momentarily
  6. Circles In The Firing Line
  7. Restless Endeavour
  8. Full Faith In Providence
  9. Fever Dreams
  10. Deep In My Heart

2021 live dates

Tues 12th October – SWG3, Glasgow

Wed 13th October – Rescue Rooms, Nottingham

Fri 15th October – Albert Hall, Manchester

Sat 16th October – SWX, Bristol

Sun 17th October – Junction, Cambridge

Mon 18th October – The Glee Club, Birmingham

Wed 20th October – Chalk, Brighton

Thurs 21st October – Roundhouse, London

Tues 2nd November – Opera House, Cork

Wed 3rd November – Set Theatre, Kilkenny

Thurs 4th November – Dolans Warehouse, Limerick

Fri 5th November – Black Box, Galway

Sun 7th November – Empire Music Hall, Belfast

Sat 11th December – Vicar Street, Dublin

 

Tickets on sale here from 9am Fri 23rd April.

 

Fever Dreams is available to pre-order on Dom Mart exclusive coloured vinyl (with one-sided 7” and signed 4 postcard set), indies exclusive coloured vinyl, Dinked Editions exclusive coloured vinyl (with flexi disc), Irish exclusive coloured vinyl, vinyl, CD and digitally. Pre-order: Dom Mart | Digital The initial press of all vinyl formats features a die cut sleeve with 4 interchangeable album covers. View all the album covers here.

 

Photo credit – Rich Gilligan

 

Villagers Online:

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram

Smoothboi Ezra Releases New Single ‘Stuck’ & Video

From their poster-covered bedroom-meets-recording studio in sleepy Greystones, a small coastal town in Ireland, Smoothboi Ezra has developed a world class flair for emotive songwriting. Their songs are catchy but subtle; self-deprecating but never sombre; always utterly charming. They offer an often overlooked take on emotional relationships, as Ezra is writing as a person who is gender non-binary and on the autism spectrum. They are helping people who don’t often see themselves represented in the media to hear themselves in music and to know that there are songs which speak to their experience. They are moving the needle on what it means to write a love song.

Ezra’s latest EP ‘Stuck’ takes a closer look at the intricacies of relationships. Written during lockdown to a soundtrack of Angel Olsen, Soccer Mommy and Haley Heynderickx, the EP recalls a formative relationship with sensitivity and maturity scarcely attributed to young people. Speaking about the title track, Ezra says: “‘Stuck’ is a song about being in a relationship with someone you care a lot about but you know it’s not going to work out. It’s an unsaid mutual agreement that you can feel the relationship ending but you’re both waiting on the other person to end it.” The single is accompanied by a touching, lo-fi music video, starring non-binary couple El and Lauren.

Smoothboi Ezra is a 19-year-old songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer. Their recent single ‘My Own Person’ garnered widespread acclaim from the likes of BBC Radio 1, NME and The Irish Times for its candid exploration of gender dysphoria and depersonalisation, something many young LGBTQIA+ people deal with. Their musical influences range from contemporaries like Phoebe Bridgers and Mitski, to legends like Elliott Smith and Kate Bush. In their short career, they have amassed over 10 million Spotify streams, despite releasing their music independently. They have supported Orville Peck at Dublin’s Grand Social and also sold out their first headline show at Whelan’s, Dublin.

The ‘Stuck’ EP will be released on 11th June, featuring the below tracks.

  1. Stuck
  2. Without Me
  3. You
  4. Palm Of Your Hand

Smoothboi Ezra will play the below live dates. Tickets available here.

22nd September Dublin, Whelans, Eastbound Festival

24th September Manchester, YES (Basement), So Young Magazine presents Mood Swings

Declan O’ Rourke Announces Vicar Street Show for 2022

Award-winning Irish singer songwriter Declan O’Rourke celebrates his brand new album with a show at Vicar Street, 13th March 2021. Tickets are available from Ticketmaster from Friday, 23rd April at 10AM. 

Declan’s album ‘Arrivalswas produced by Paul Weller, the most emotionally raw and affecting album of his career.

Recorded over six days at Black Barn studios in Surrey, with Weller producing (“he was there every moment, before, during and long after, discussing ideas about this and that, even down to the artwork. It was hugely impressive…”), ‘Arrivals sees Declan O’Rourke present his art in a different yet wholly distinctive manner. The sound is stripped back to Declan’s soulful and resonant voice, the virtuosic acoustic guitar playing for which he’s renowned and only the occasional sparse arrangement of strings and late-night drums bringing colour and light to the LP’s 10 songs. Weller, a fan of Declan’s songwriting for some years, also adds his multi-instrumental abilities to the recordings, including a beautiful piano accompaniment to the closing track.

Proffering reassurance in the face of inevitable sorrow” is what New York Times music writer Jon Pareles has said about Declan O’Rourke. Not many people would have thought that such praise would have so significant a purpose during a prolonged time of global turmoil, but – as his many admirers know only too well – O’Rourke has been spreading hope, love and emotional clarity for over 15 years.  

‘Arrivals’ deftly balances the personal and the political. The personal – it is assuredly his most emotive and intimate work to date – comes from O’Rourke’s admission that he has always been guided by family.   

Alongside a vision of seeing the personal and political run in parallel and occasionally intersect on ‘Arrivals, is the way in which textural layers have been stripped away.

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Spotify 

Lydia Ford Shares ‘Feel It For You’

Summer has come early as Lydia Ford returns with alt-pop single ‘Feel It For You’. Sleek production and anthemic choruses are nothing new for the Irish artist and this track builds further on her reputation for infectious pop gems. ‘Feel It For You’ combines Ford’s glossy, synth sound with bitingly honest lyrics of self-reflection. Her deeply personal words are at the forefront of the music throughout, and the emotional realisation is amplified further still with the chorus’ intricate layering.

‘Feel It For You’ continues Ford’s stellar list of releases. She has received national airplay in Ireland and performed at prestigious events such as Other Voices, but this enigmatic artist also has some serious international reach. There has been support from major US sites such as Uproxx and Billboard, UK airplay on BBC radio, and additions to global Spotify playlists including New Music Friday and Fresh Finds: Pop.

Having previously spent time in Brooklyn to immerse herself in the NY music scene, Lydia also collaborates with producers in London and Tokyo, and these days see her based in Berlin no less. The new single ‘Feel It For You’ is a pop track with attitude – a raw, upbeat track from this intriguing pop artist. Lydia Ford is taking on the world, and the world is listening!

Instagram   //   Spotify   //   Facebook   //   Twitter

Debut Album from Limerick’s Shane O’Neill

‘No More Clones’ is the debut album from Limerick-born artist Shane O’Neill.

Shane grew up in a house filled with music, regularly falling asleep to the sound of his father playing guitar, his mother singing. Close harmonies and finger-picking guitar style forming the soundtrack to his childhood.

When his father bought him a guitar for his 12th birthday, that was it! Shane taught himself to play and has been writing and singing songs ever since.

After taking time out to cycle round the coast of Ireland in aid of the RNLI, Shane decided it was time to record an album.

The result is ‘No More Clones’; a really rich sounding album that weaves through a wide range of current themes from climate change to true love.

One of the most poignant songs on the album is ‘Video Dreams’, dedicated to a friend who became homeless on the streets of London and was stolen from the world far too prematurely. While the title track is a reminder to all of the need for self-care in the midst of a global pandemic.

But love, positivity and optimism have the last say in the album’s anthemic finale ‘Stars Burn Out’.

‘No More Clones’ was produced by Bill Shanley at Cauldron Music and is available on all the usual digital platforms.

Twitter: @shanecpon
Facebook: shane.oneill.3591267

 

NCH and International Literature Festival Dublin Presents Breaking the Silence

The National Concert Hall and International Literature Festival Dublin present an evening of words and song responding to the ongoing legacy of Ireland’s Mother and Baby Home Institutions on Saturday May 29th. This free event featuresElaine Feeney, Loah, Terri Harrison, The Mary Wallopers, Majella Moynihan, Noelle Brown, Philomena Mullen, Jess Kav, Alison Lowry plus more to be confirmed.

This extraordinary collaboration presents personal responses from artists to the ongoing dark legacy of Ireland’s mother and baby home institutions. Until recently, religious orders and the Irish state are deemed to have operated a network of institutions for the concealment, punishment and exploitation of women called ‘fallen’ and ‘offenders’, a secretive system that forcibly separated families. Through breaking silences and sharing testimonies, survivors of Ireland’s religious-run institutions have become catalysts of change. In the search for answers, their voices must continue to be heard.

Working with generational survivors of the institutions, this one-off live event is curated by author of the acclaimed Republic of Shame, Caelainn Hogan.

Robert Read, CEO of the National Concert Hall commented:

“We hope this event – which presents an array of artistic responses from survivors, artists and writers – will create a platform for reflection and healing that helps us to shape a path forward. I would like to thank The Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media for their ongoing support in making these events possible.”

This special evening includes creative responses from poet, novelist, playwright and Creative at Tuam Oral History Project Elaine Feeney, and musician and survivor Terri Harrison, who was forcibly separated from her son through the religious-run institutions. Also contributing is actor, writer and adoption rights activist Noelle Brown, who co-wrote and performed in the play Postscript about searching for her origins.

Additional spoken word responses come from writer and academic Philomena Mullen, who grew up in Ireland’s institutional system and is working on a book for Skein Press. Also, author of A Guarded Life Majella Moynihan, who was forced to give her son up for adoption and charged with breaching Garda regulations for being pregnant outside of marriage and singer, writer and poet Jess Kav, who speaks about the generational impact of the institutions.

Musical responses on the night come from Irish – Sierra Leonean performer Loah, who starred as Mary Magdalene in Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s Jesus Christ Superstar and Dundalk folk outfit The Mary Wallopers.

The night also features the exceptional work of award-winning and internationally-renowned glass artist Alison Lowry from Co. Down. She uses an ancient technique called ‘pate de verre’, casting antique christening robes to recreate them in glass.

Presented by the International Literature Festival Dublin and the National Concert Hall.

International Literature Festival Dublin is a Dublin City Council initiative, kindly funded by the Arts Council.

A Free Livestream from the National Concert Hall 

Saturday 29th May 2021, 8pm GMT

View on National Concert Hall Youtube/Facebook or Crowdcast.io/ilfdublin

The concert will be available for 7 days following the performance.

This event is supported by The Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media.

Producer YURN Reimagines the Tracks of his Own Debut Release

Following the release of the lead singles from J Smith’s debut album ‘(…) And you chose not to laugh’, YURN creates a new and exciting take, giving fans of both projects, a new way of experiencing these emotive songs. Although Blood Orange hints that “passion ain’t built to last”, the creative avenue that YURN provides artist James not only keeps his fervour alive, but has led to new and amazing opportunities.

When talking about the EP, YURN reveals, “Art should be about the listener’s own experience and interpretation. So much of what we consume ourselves with is what the artist was trying to say, how they were feeling or what they wanted us to know. But often the feeling we attach, the conclusions we come to are more powerful and meaningful than when given the specifics of the artist’s experience. The parentheses gives power to the listener to attach their own meaning, and strive to place themselves rather than someone else.

YURN’s last collaboration with ambient artist Gareth Quinn Redmond saw the duo feature on Nialler 9, Hotpress and District Magazine and have had regular plays on Irish radio. YURN was also pegged as an artist to watch for 2021 by Hotpress Magazine.

Throughout his career, YURN has sought opportunities to create in new directions and has delved into diverse mediums such as film, writing, and art. The name YURN comes from a screenplay Smith wrote, about a child’s longing for love from an absentee father. It seemed like the perfect name to begin a new artistic direction as Producer YURN.

‘Parentheses’ EP is out 23rd April.

You can find YURN on Spotify and Apple Music.

https://linktr.ee/yurnmusic

Keep up to date with IMRO news and events

Please select login