Month: April 2021

KK Lewis is set to release dreamlike new single ‘First Bus Home’. Following her first offering of 2021 ‘Good Enough’, which is centered around negative body image and gender stereotypes, ‘First Bus Home’ is a reflection on teenage pursuits of love with all the subdued angst that entails. KK’s delicate vocals wrap around dreamy guitarwork and a minimalist beat, set against a carefully crafted, sparse production style. The result is a bedroom-pop triumph.

Influenced by the likes of Amy Winehouse, Arlo Parks and Celeste, the sincerity in KK’s deeply personal lyrics always remains at the forefront of her music. ‘First Bus Home’ is taken from the forthcoming EP where each track will explore a different version of the artist, revealing a new story and a new sound. KK’s music exhibits an overall multiplicity in the artist’s character and a fluidity between her various personas. Having already seen support from leading tastemakers such as Notion Magazine, this Dublin-hailing pop prodigy is certainly one-to-watch for 2021. Discussing the new single, KK explains:

“The song captures a memory in Dublin City in the early hours of the morning waiting for the buses to start running again after a night out. It depicts my later teenage years and explores how isolating love can feel and how quickly these emotions can overtake you and leave you feeling completely lost. Listening to this song now, is like reading an excerpt from my diary, I can visualise the memory in my head so clearly and even though it was such a confusing and lonely time in my life, I can look back now with some clarity.”

Synth-pop grooves and memorable tune are what KinetiX are all about. Recent interviews on iRadio, Irelands well-known youth focused music station, their latest single is another cracker that will get people talking. Its a difficult adventure when you have a message and a talent that needs to be noticed. ‘isaidhey’ is all about the journey.

Described as, “a remarkably talented band” by iRadio’s Louise Clarke and featured on the RTÉ blog, KinetiX are quickly becoming a household name in their local area. The success of the
previous single has seen them played on several stations and make a host of new fans in Ireland and beyond. Now as the world prepares to hear ‘isaidhey’, the band and the fans are genuinely excited about the near future.

This new single, ‘isaidhey’ is the part of a series of singles to be released this year which the band wrote, produced and recorded in their studio, during the multiple lockdowns!  “We were so lucky to have the studio to give us a creative outlet while in lockdown, we are all in the same house hold so there was never a fear of not being able to work in close proximity to each other!”

Their debut single ‘Remember Days’ amassed overt 50,000 Spotify streams, and 130,000 YouTube streams. The band were thrilled to have this song featured on iRadio’s First Play.

Their last single ‘Strive’ secured airplay across several stations including RTÉ 2FM, Cork’s 96FM, PLAYIRISH Radio and DublinCity FM, and is continuously growing on Spotify.

KinetiX is comprised of 3 brothers, Arthur (drums), Ademar (keys/synths), and Theodore (vocals). They amalgamate a variety of elements from differing genres into their music, to create their unique style of pop music.

Arthur, Theodore and Ademar Stonesbegan learning traditional Irish music, on the banjo, fiddle and button accordion. They enjoyed success in the traditional Irish music scene, collectively winning 23 All-Ireland solo medals at Fleadh Cheoil na hEireann competitions. In 2010, they played on the Late Late Toy Show, playing the accordion, banjo and bouzouki – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhGekMz-HDk

Arthur went on to form Irish band ‘Ruaile Buaile’, which he toured with for 7 years, playing festivals across America, Canada, New Zealand, UAE, Europe and Ireland. Arthur also enjoyed seeing their single ‘Maniac’ go viral in 2017, gaining millions of Spotify and Youtube streams.

In 2017 the 3 brothers began work on KinetiX, a project they are determined to see succeed. They put their heads together, writing, producing and recording demos until they came up with their own unique sound. In 2019, they were confident they had a catalogue of songs ready to release. They began work in ‘Diffusion Lab’ studios, with renowned producers, Chris Bubenzer and Marcin Ciszczon. They now work out of their own studio in Offaly, but they say they owe a lot of their learning to these two producers!

KinetiX – Spotify

KinetiX – YouTube

KinetiX – Instagram

KinetiX –Facebook

KinetiX – Soundcloud

‘Better Than This’ is Tracy Bruen’s first new music since the 2020 radio hit ‘Dream Away’

A song about love and loss, ‘Better Than This’, captures the songwriter’s realisation that life’s challenges and heartaches make us who we are and strengthen the bonds of love in the relationships that matter the most.  Galway’s Tracy Bruen is back with a song to soothe the soul and shine a big shiny light of hope on the future. Recorded and mixed by Ray Diamond, ‘Better Than This’ was written by Tracy and arranged collaboratively by the whole band.

The song is accompanied by a heartwarming video directed by filmmaker AMW Visual, who has directed many of Tracy’s previous releases, including ‘Dream Away’. Galway photographer EMJ Camera, has lent a selection of her stunning series of lockdown photos to the video.  She explains… “All of the photos for this independent ‘Self Isolation Portrait’ project were taken during the first lockdown in 2020, the time when people couldn’t see many other faces or leave their houses. People posed at their safe place-at their doorstep, introducing one of the new hobbies they took up since the world went into a shutdown. The agenda was very simple- to show some positive and uplifting news, as well as to link and support each other during the doom and gloom times.”

“As a photographer, I wanted to document that current situation through my own angle that had no negativity and give a bit of a bright spark to the community. The whole process ended up being incredibly fulfilling and heartwarming, revisiting some old friends and even making new ones.”

“This project taught me that every bad situation can be turned into something positive.”

‘Better Than This’ is available on all digital platforms now.

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Bright Falls is the project of Thurles singer-songwriter Eddie McCormack. Typically blending Americana with alternative rock and drawing inspiration from Bruce Springsteen to The War On Drugs, Bright Falls has teamed up with Carlow producer FĒNIX to give a Synthwave dimension to ‘The Widows Homes’.

FĒNIX is the new solo project of former Exiles multi-instrumentalist Darragh O’Connor. Having had initial success with their debut EP ‘Red Lights’ and follow-up single ‘Rearview Mirror’, Darragh has gone solo with his latest project.

“As soon as I heard this track from Bright Falls, the vocal style and melody grabbed me straight away, and I could already hear the remix ideas. I dropped Eddie a mail and asked if I could have a shot at it, and he was nice enough to send me on the vocal track, and it just developed from there.”

With the growth in popularity in Synthwave and retro sounds lately, now seemed like the right time to launch FĒNIX.

“Synthwave is a genre I’ve been immersed in for years, and even with our early success with Exiles, it just felt like people didn’t know what to do with us! With artists like The Weeknd , Miley Cyrus, Muse, etc. now ‘borrowing’ from the sound and aesthetic, and the likes of The Midnight starting to get mainstream recognition, the retro-revolution has well and truly begun!”

‘The Widows Homes (FĒNIX Remix)’ is available on all platforms now.

Bright Falls

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FĒNIX

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The second release by singer/songwriter and musician Martin Leahy is ‘The Wolves In The Valley’. It is a co-write with the great songwriter Mary Greene who is part of the very successful folk group Greenshine. The song is about addiction, metal health struggle and trauma.

In December of 2020 Martin released his debut single as a singer songwriter called ’Song for Kirsty MacColl’. It received great local and national airplay and featured on all of the biggest music shows on RTÉ Radio One (Lillian Smith, Ronan Collins, John Creedon etc) It was very well received in many areas which included coverage on RTÉ Online, Hot Press as well as been shared on many large social media pages.

In the short time since releasing his debut single Martin’s songwriting has been receiving lots of attention. A song of his has reached the final stages of the International Songwriting Competition in the US. It is in the final 16 in the lyrics category out of an overall number of 26,000 entries. The entries that reach the final 16 in their categories are put before the celebrity judges that include Tom Waits, Coldplay and Dua Lipa! The winners are to be announced in May 2021.

Martin has worked as a session musician with some of Irelands greatest songwriters and musicians in the past including John Spillane, Christy Moore (on his No.1 selling album ‘Listen’), Cormac O Caoimh, Ger Wolfe, Jimmy McCarthy, Greenshine, Noel Brazil, Declan Sinnott among many others.

An accomplished multi instrumentalist, he has produced many albums including the most recent very successful album by Cormac O Caoimh called ‘Swim Crawl Walk Run’ which was awarded album of the week by many radio stations including RTE Radio One, RTE Lyric and BBC Radio Ulster. He also produced Ger Wolfe’s well received album ‘I Have Been Loved’. Other productions include Leah Sohotra, Some Rise Some Fall, John Neville and Tim O Riordan.As a member of the traditional Irish group North Cregg he has toured the world playing many major festivals including Glastonbury, Cambridge and Milwaukee. As a songwriter he has collaborated with a number of writers including Leah Sohotra, Mary Greene and more recently with Cormac O Caoimh on his successful single ‘Building My Ark’ which received substantial airplay around the country reaching over 1 million listeners nationwide!

Follow Martin Leahy on Facebook

‘Luke Thomas and The Swing Cats – Live In Dublin’, is being released on Friday April 16^th exclusively online via Golden Discs (dot) IE. The lead track from the album; Luke and the band’s beautiful live version of ‘Mr. Bojangles’.

To coincide with the release of ‘Live In Dublin’, Luke Thomas and The Swing Cats is giving one lucky (over 18) fan the chance to win ‘Live in Dublin’, Live in his/her home (when it is Covid safe to do so). Luke and some of the band will play live in the winner’s home/garden! Luke will be announcing details for the competition across the band’s social platforms so fans should keep their eyes peeled for details on how to enter!

The band’s last album, ‘Dance With Me’, went straight to No 1 in the Independent Irish album chart just over three years ago against the back drop of two sell-out Dublin shows in the space of six months of each other; The National Concert Hall (May 2017) and The Olympia Theatre (Oct 2017) together with numerous regional sell-out shows.

The band’s live shows in 2017 were the inspiration behind Luke Thomas and The Swing Cats independently recording their own live TV special the following spring, a television special picked up for broadcast by Virgin Media Television the same year.

Playing live is what Luke Thomas and The Swing Cats do, it is the band’s hobby and job combined. Releasing a live album after living through more than 365 days without doing a single live show carries an obvious irony, however, this album’s release is by way of a nod to the industry Luke Thomas and The Swing Cats love, the industry which provides them with their livelihood. Luke says; “We were looking at releasing a live album in 2020, however, Covid hit the world and plans had to be put on hold. Once we got over the shell shock of all our shows needing to be cancelled due to lockdown, we gathered our thoughts and decided the album needed to proceed regardless. He continued, it really was a situation of we needing to do this with an even greater sense of importance now than before and we are thrilled we took this step.”

The production and release of ‘Live In Dublin’, is partly funded by The Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sports and Media, to whom the band are very grateful.

‘Live In Dublin’, the track listing

1. What’d I Say

2. Sing Sing Sing

3. Putting’ On The Ritz / It Don’t Mean A Thing

4. Whole Lotta Shaken Going On

5. I’m In The Mood For Love (feat. Gemma Sugrue)

6. Mr. Bojangles

7. Swing Cats Medley

8. King Of The Swingers (feat. Paddy Cole)

9. Dancing In The Moonlight

10. Hit The Road Jack

11. New York New York

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Ian Ashford and & The Solidarity Band have just released the single ‘Ally’ on April 7th.

‘Ally’ is the first single from Ian’s second album due out in the summer of 2021. The project is an Irish- Franco collaboration.

“After releasing my first album ‘Symbols’ I tried to keep moving ahead with new songs. The majority of the songs on the new album were written before the pandemic, however the collaboration with the Solidarity Band took place during the spring and early summer of 2020. My hope was to evolve as a songwriter and also to try a new sound and invite people into the creative process more openly. The collaboration was really enjoyable and helped me to cope with the challenges of last years isolation. The discipline of putting an album together kept us all focused. We are grateful to have had a project to work on and hope people connect with the music. ‘Ally’ is our first single from the forthcoming album.”

https://ianashford.com

https://www.facebook.com/ianashfordmusic

@ianashfordmusic

Karl Nesbitt announces the launch of ‘Return’, his second full length album, and an exciting new release of contemporary traditional Irish music. ‘Return’ is a rounded blend of modern Irish Traditional music that is both freshly innovative and grounded in authenticity.

Hailing from the renowned Tipperary musical family, Karl has been involved in the production of albums and the live performances of various Traditional and Folk music artists on both the national and international stages. A skilled multi-instrumentalist who commands Flute, Bouzouki and Bodhrán, Karl is an accomplished composer and is also engaged in the community as a musical educator in the greater Cork area.

Having previously released his EP ‘The Good News’ and his debut album ‘Vista Point’ to great acclaim, Karl immersed himself in collaborative work, mainly assisting groups and artists in the making of their work such as; Niall Connolly, The Moorings, The Fuchsia Band, Tremolo and The Neff Brothers.

March 2021 sees the release of Karl’s brand new album featuring his compositions and arrangements of Traditional works. A synthesis of acoustic and electronic textures, with melodic weavings and sparkling percussive elements, ‘Return’ showcases the fluidity of instrumentation and the creative architecture that represent Karl’s unique style, all the while underscoring his strong root in the Irish Traditional vernacular.

A polished album mastered by Calum Malcolm with guest appearances from Johnny Kalsi (The Dhol Foundation), Éabha McMahon (Anúna) and GMC (Cork Rap Artist) among others, ‘Return’ signifies a new exciting chapter for the music of Karl Nesbitt and a refreshing perspective on the ‘Living Tradition’ that is Irish music in contemporary Ireland.

“I wanted to find a means of expression that was both Traditional, innovative and listener friendly,” says Karl of the inspiration behind RETURN. “Being influenced by Ambient and Downtempo music as much as Irish music, Jazz and Classical, Rock and Pop, I strived for a ‘sound’ I could put my own ‘stamp’ on that encapsulated my diverse influences, but didn’t alienate the popular music fan; of which I also am myself.”

Follow Karl Nesbitt online:  Instagram | Youtube | Soundcloud | Spotify

1000 Beasts teams up with Alex Tierney again for this 808 laden track combining soulful R’N’B rhythms with oriental influenced samples.

This is the second time we see the pair collaborate, after last years ‘5 Points’ from 1000 Beasts debut EP.

1000 Beasts is the alias of Cian Sweeney, an Irish producer/artist who collaborates with different artists on every track (they are the “beasts” behind the name) to make soulful, indiepop & hip hop inspired tracks. 

His debut EP ‘On A Different Page’ was released in July 2020 through Unity Group (Paris) followed by the runaway success of his remixes for Elaine Malone (You), Joshua Burnside (Noa Mercier) & Pollena (The Pool). 

2021 will see 1000 Beasts release his debut album.

‘For You & I’ is the first release from 1000 Beasts upcoming debut album, due out later in 2021. 

The track sees the return of past collaborator Alex Tierney for an 808 laden track to combine soulful R’N’B rhythms with oriental influenced samples and Tierney’s brooding vocal to make the perfect alt/indie track for summer 2021.

Alex Tierney is a 21 year old singer-songwriter from Dublin, Ireland who’s inspired massively by R&B and hip-hop production with folk and pop songwriting sensibilities. His music is inspired by a broad range of artists across many genres like Bon Iver, The Weekend, Ólafur Arnalds, Dermot Kennedy and everything in between.

Before he had any music officially released, Alex was invited by Lewis Capaldi to open his show at Dublin’s famous Olympia Theatre where the multi-instrumentalist wowed the crowd with stripped back piano and guitar versions of his originals.

Throughout 2020, Alex released his first two singles titled ‘Over The Maybes’ and ‘Painkiller’ achieving worldwide support from the likes of Vevo, MTV and Iheart Radio as well as Apple and Spotify playlisting.

Alex is massively excited for the release of ‘For You & I’ as he feels it shows off a perfect blend of his and 1000 Beasts’ varied styles while also being a fun energetic track. The song came together so quickly and naturally in Alex’s home studio and the sense of enjoyment that he and 1000 Beasts felt making the track can be clearly heard.

“We started out with this Guzheng sample that I had manipulated & built a beat around. When I showed this to Alex he really vibed with it and got the verse and the chorus down so quickly. It was such an easy process, I always feel like the best tracks come together like after. Afterwards I added a soulful brass part to the bridge, it has a classic Jay Z feel to it I think in that it’s a contrast but a perfect counter-balance to the rest of the track. We were lucky enough to play this track a few times over the past year, like at the private live streaming gig we did for a small audience in the Gate Cinema last autumn, and it always goes down so well so I can’t wait to share it properly” -1000 Beasts

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‘Silly Little Games’ is the debut release from Dublin indie-pop duo A Scene From A Break. The track documents the moments of realization that come having moving on from something that is causing you pain, and the sense of growth that comes from such moments. “You see all the things and people and places that used to trigger all the bad feelings within you, but for the first time in a long while they have almost no effect on you anymore” songwriter Ó Dúnlaing notes of the track, “You are a different person than you were before, hence the lyric ‘You wouldn’t know me at all, if you saw me now…‘”

The lyrics, framed as a conversation, between the person walking away and another struggling to keep their sense of control, delves into the contrasting emotions that come from such a moment, and the bravery it takes to take a stand and begin moving on from a traumatic moment. “I just heard a melody in my head and the lyrics poured out of me” Ó Dúnlaing explained, “They were never based on any particular personal experience but just the feeling I got from listening to the music that Luke had created“.

The track is a unique blend of 90’s guitar pop (The Cardigans, Sixpence None), and the 80’s-tinged melodic sheen and aura of bands such as The Cure. The track was recorded entirely remotely, with Foley producing the instrumentation and Ó Dúnlaing recording her own vocals. From there, they got Darragh Nolan (aka Astakalapa) involved to develop the track’s warm, live band feeling. “It was the first time I had ever worked on a track for release like that and it was a great boost to my confidence to have been able to do it” Ó Dúnlaing explained of the production process.

Scenes From A Break is a collaborative project between singer/songwriter Sally Ó Dúnlaing and songwriter/producer Luke Foley. It began as a project when Foley posted online that he was in search of a vocalist to help him demo some tracks. When Ó Dúnlaing reached out and the pair started working together, they found songwriting together so seamless that they decided to form a new band.

Ó Dúnlaing has spent the last number of years releasing music under the moniker of ÓDÚ. In 2016, the Bray native released her debut single under Ódú with ‘Different’. This was followed by her debut EP ‘The Conversations EP’ in 2017, which was widely acclaimed upon its release, with Hot Press remarking that ÓDÚ had a “Non-ironic, unapologetic penchant for crystal clear pop.”

Since then, ÓDÚ has released ‘Roots’ in 2018 ‘Roots’, which was playlisted on RTE Radio 1 and added to Spotify’s New Pop Revolution playlist, and ‘The Feeling’ in 2019, which was chosen as 2FM’s Record Of The Week and saw her play a UK / Ireland tour in June and July.

In addition, ÓDÚ composed music and lyrics for ‘Confirmation’, a musical memoir created and performed by performance artist Xnthony, marking her first foray into musical theatre. Confirmation went on to sell out Dublin Fringe Festival in 2018 and completed a month long run at Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2019.

On deciding to release music distinct from the ÓDÚ name, Ó Dúnlaing said “ÓDÚ has a particular sonic identity whereas Scenes From A Break is a whole new thing where I get to wallow in the sounds and vibes of bands that I would never quite be able to fit into an ÓDÚ production such as The Cure, The Cardigans, Pale Waves, and Tame Impala. It also gives me the opportunity to cosplay different scenarios in my head because the music inspires a completely different response from me.”