You can see the video for DIYSCO here. The new album is really…weird, isn’t it? I have a lot of love for it despite being at a loss to describe it very well. I’ve mostly played it at night to unwind but stay wakeful and it’s really served a purpose in this respect. It feels huge in places, very expansive, lots of cool vocal harmonies and longform, groovy instrumental jams interspersed with playful nubs of dancefloor pop. Check it out on Bandcamp and remember, there’s a free download of Chill Bros from a few weeks back.

The DIYSCO/Horses With Melting Eyes 7″ is released through Soft Power Records on 27 May.

Tieranniesaur play Galway’s Roisin Dubh on 30 May and Forbidden Fruit festival on Saturday 1 June.

Tieranniesaur on Twitter and Facebook.

tieranniesaur.bandcamp.com

What’s interesting about this gig is whether or not these great sounds come across on stage as well as they do on record because Moscow Metro brought in serious skills for the studio, in the form of co-production with Rob Kirwin (Depeche Mode, Glasvegas, U2) and mastering by Richard Dowling of WAV Mastering (Suede, Death in Vegas). As this is the official launch of their new singles, and considering the dedication they’ve shown in getting everything else perfect, I’m sure they’ve rehearsed like mad to get the songs ready for a live airing.

As mentioned in the previous post, both these tracks are free to download. Barry Gruff posted about SOnance HOtel‘s latest video recently, saying Brian Gallagher’s solo efforts are “classic indie”. As Sub Dude shows, his time as a bassist for Humanzi and keyboardist with The Mighty Stef have led to some charming tracks of his own.

Admission to the gig is €8 and doors are 8pm.

Moscow Metro on Twitter and Facebook.

moscowmetromusic.com

If the type of exuberant cheesy beats normally hailed as summer songs aren’t your preference, try this one. It’s truly beautiful dream pop in a new twist from the drums/electronics duo, instantly cheery with an intro that will make you want to mainline this track immediately any time the sun drops behind a cloud. I can imagine this being played to thousands of people in a park by a full orchestra of incredible instruments. Equally plaintive and joyful, it’s built on a warm murmuring bassline with lovely vocals and an appreciable, splendid twirl of euphoric synths. It’s lighter than the previous single Only The Lonely Know The Glow Is Failing, and utterly engrossing.

The Last Sound: Only the Lonely Know the Glow is Failing from Osaka Records on Vimeo.

Sun Forever is taken from the new album Rainbow Xplode which is released through Osaka and launched in Twisted Pepper on 8 June with labelmates Last Days of 1984. You can pre-order the album now and receive both Sun Forever and Only The Lonely Know The Glow Is Failing as immediate downloads.

The Last Sound on Twitter and Facebook.

thelastsound.com

Is Ronan Cherry (shown above with UK rapper Deezy) talking to you? To temper the belligerence that streams out on the EP’s single boastful hip hop staple, the next and last words we hear after he loses his shit on Problem are “I need to calm down like” in an even but strong Belfast brogue. If you’re reading this and basing your opinion on whether you can bring yourself to like an Irish accent rapping, then maybe he is. We can really put the accent issue to rest here: listen to the EP. If you’re not convinced by Jee4ce or other artists from recent years, then you may as well stop trying. I’d ask you to turn your ear to more important aspects. It’s ignorant and unfortunate that there are people out there saying ‘I don’t like rappers with Irish accents’ but it’s true and the worst culprits are in the broader music scene and not amongst the usually-overprotective hip hop community itself. Which is a shame. I enjoy hearing it as an aftereffect but regional flavour ranks low on the criticism scale of hip hop reviews when the material has a lot to say about itself.

There’s certainly a distinctive flavour to My Friend Jack. Is it the whisky or work, ‘work’ being music? Boozing and grafting come in equal measaure on this EP giving Jee4ce a grizzly demeanour of determination and a wry humour, and you’d swear he was out there building railways instead of tracks. But maybe that’s exactly what he’s doing, laying down bar after bar, chasing the sunset west. With the exception of the artwork by excellent Mumptown, every part of the EP is his own work, from the beats to the lyrics, the astute ear for progress that tailors each track with an individual vibe, outstanding sympathy for original production, the ability to rap in various guises and to have some leeway with the rhyme schemes. The result of the hard slog is My Friend Jack, which informs us early on that Jee4ce has worked up a bigger thirst than just mixtapes and through sheer concentration made progress and is ready to put his name to something definitive. This is it.

Join the Club is the proper starter’s shot and hears Cherry’s delivery go cruising off with an ice cool intro, explaining that as a rapper, taking his own path leads to unexpected journeys. The appearance of Jack Daniels here as creative lubrication is thrown into stark relief when the next set of bars take a turn for the worse and Jee4ce waxes lyrical on the loss of self-control. But it’s not a lecture; he’s frank about getting messed up and rather than just admit or accept it, he questions why, examines what makes humans go to such lengths to blow off steam, and the shamanistic nature of seeking inner unity through substances.

Tribal Instinct was given video treatment a few months ago but it sounds even better in its placement as the midpoint of the EP. With a big dub-driven beat, it begs belief that something so smooth could come our way from tropical…Edinburgh. He knows exactly how low to sling the vocals on this track to pull off “R. Cherry you won’t find me on the fruit stand /conoisseur of outlandish futuristic boom bap” without sounding like a caricature reggae singer and it’s the first in a series of shock-and-awe tactics from Jee4ce.

(“I grind to keep the lights on / Lights on” - the main hook of Tribal Instinct, the main theme of the EP, Jee4ce is jacking it and the pervasive subliminal effect is I worked hard on this shit, pay attention.)

Be Alright is my favourite track on the EP. There’s a sample nagging elusively at the fringes of my recall and I feel woefully under-equipped in the words department for this one. It’s an uplifting funk-soul roller that hears Ronan belt out the title chorus with such insistence that it throws an eerie cast on the introductory serenade of “Nuclear HOLOCAUST!!!!” I just have no idea what’s really going on other than it sounds fucking deadly.

And here comes Problem. Don’t mind the snob jibes: they’re clearly not aimed at his listeners. By this point Jee4ce has put the EP through its warm-up paces for the angry outburst moment of truth. The detail in style and direction, the sheer quality of the tracks so far, carefully underpin this number, the fifth and one on which the change of tack is fighting gear. It’s a clean, modern beat with mean bass and fierce overtones of Danny Brown’s scathing tongue-lashing flow. Being given free reign to say it his way, “rampant on the warpath“, Jee4ce lets loose with a semi-stream of consciousness deluge that still stays tight even when teetering close to spite. “Trying to name my album but it’s got a lot of hits / You’re trying to name your album well maybe you should call it quits“: the ‘work hard play hard’ ethic extolled so vociferously all comes back to this track.  It’s the pinnacle of effort, and if I was making music that got overlooked like this, I’d be scornful too. Let the rant slide. He spits invective, identifies the hipsters who presumably dismiss his work, then zones in and declares “I’m in firm contention / to win urban legend at the upcoming inverted commas Fuck Your Life world convention“. Trash talk delivered confidently, armed as he is with the muscle to back up the big mouth. “Aye I make beats / yeah I blow my own trumpets / I play with noises like that / Don’t annoy me cos I’m poised to strike back”.

Moving on with an air of having got something off his chest, My Friend Jack is given a calming pat on the back in the form of last track Bubble. It would be a tricky next move for most songs to have much to offer in the wake of Problem and Bubble seems a bit superfluous and hushed at first but he can’t resist one last surprise, which comes in the form of a rousing audience-responsive send-off. It’s one for the individuals in the crowd: “No one sees the world the way that I do / I do.”

Let’s hope he hurries up and names that album.

My Friend Jack is available to download for £4/€5 from Bandcamp.

Jee4ce on Twitter and Facebook.

jee4ce.bandcamp.com

Lude seems chilled and almost steady but has an underlying theme of worry that never quite loses its composure. The biggie, I-feel-silly-just-typing-this Wut Iz A Gurl 2 Do is a whopping 8 minute humming spree and, in almost a signature invocation of the bass it starts rolling out these celestial deep breaths, before coming right back to the melody’s point.
Peter Lawlor said these two tracks were too downbeat for the EP and so they were kept aside, and it’s quite enlightening to set them up against tracks like Easy Love to show the polarity in his style. Perhaps not as cerebrally taxing as the other stuff Replete’s put out, the stylistic use of extended, chopped rhythms, contrasting digital/organic beats and samples are still in place. However it’s interesting to hear how ‘downbeat’ is used as a criteria for selection, considering that Be Nobody on the prior EP stood out as a super-relaxed sweet point, and listening now, works particularly well with these new tracks.

The Replete EP is €3 to download from Bandcamp.

Replete on Twitter and Facebook.

soundcloud.com/replete-1

A duo whose songs are strung between indie and pop, Anthony Donnelly and Stephen Murray are Floor Staff, a band who’ve just appeared with this five-track EP. There’s something new here to sink our teeth into but it’s a confident debut and I’d wager there were other bands than this.

The music is boisterous but not obnoxious, and seems intent on extracting a reaction right away. They work with characteristics in mind, vocal, instrumental and rhythmic, turning glimmers of potential into fully-costumed, superpowered tunes, the band expanding by up to seven members to achieve it.

With The Guest Floor Staff have hit paydirt in the form of a song that has a simultaneously timeless and nostalgic feel-good quality that makes them sound like the latest band to present contented, stretched-out pop grooves. Second track, the well-crafted Good Luck, brings a different flavour to the mix, a straight-up Noughties indie stormer, complete with ‘chunky’ guitar and vocally harmonic, uplifting synths. But just as I was about to peg them as a sweet and slightly flimsy outfit, Owe Everything comes mid-point and is a catalyst for change, the point at which the instrumentation is taken up a notch. I think it’s my favourite moment of the EP when the echoing vocal gives way to a heavy, shifting drone and fabulous saxophone that come in and strip away the staidness alluded to in its early stages. Though there’s a rhythmic consistency throughout, the tone of the EP changes quickly here and takes on a darker tinct; The Oldest Mind (not a Jape cover as I first expected) has a blues kick to it, sombre and questioning, only for that low end waver to return and the track to finish on an invigorating violin coda. The Good Luck EP draws to a close with Funeral March and to-be-continued tension arises from looping drum echoes while the synths and sax reprise their roles with little fuss, and rather than reach a rich crescendo to outdo every other exerted effort on offer so far, the band equivalently drop arms to their sides and let the music fade to stillness.

It’s an EP that makes the idea of an album appeal, and the band take on some intrigue. While it’s easy to listen to there’s little superficiality: it feels like the band have worked hard to understand where the ideas for fresh pop songs come from. Arrangements and tenets of blues, classical, jazz, krautrock and no wave have left traces deep in the guts of these songs. I hope they’re creating good defences that only the best ideas can pass.

Floor Staff play their first gig and launch The Good Luck EP at Twisted Pepper on Friday 12 July as part of 10 Days In Dublin. The Good Luck EP is €4 to download from Bandcamp.

Floor Staff on Twitter and Facebook.

floorstaff.bandcamp.com

The only Irish producer in this particular field (and disclaimer here, I don’t know much and welcome more recommendations) I’ve come across who puts out consistently outstanding tracks, Major Grave has flair and something up to scratch here to counter the staples of the London subculture.  The compilation, on the grime label home to Roots Manuva, is absolutely massive with 35 tracks on 4XLP, featuring a vast range of vital, urgent beats and synthetic embellishments. It’s a drop-off point for a certain musical headphase that stimulates and informs the rhythmic sensibilities.

Like A G is the featured track from Major Grave that appears on Grime 2.0.

Tomorrow night’s gig at Sin É is a set from Major Grave featuring all his own material, with DJ sets from Aoife NiC Canna of Near FM and Colz and Bob of the Standard crew.

This mix below gives clear idea of what to expect from Major Grave and went up to celebrate the show’s fourth birthday as on Radio NaLife. I haven’t been able to download it through the player and think the freebie allocation might be maxed out. Here’s how Major Grave introduced himself when the mix’s original post went up on SmokeLessFuels.

“I’m a producer from Ireland who goes by the name Major Grave. Im a member of the Standard crew along side DJ Bob & DJ Colz. Standard have been running a weekly radio show every Saturday night on Radio Na Life 106.4FM since 2009. Bringing new, old and exclusive Garage/Grime/Dubstep and lots more from the underground – Standard Radio archives

I got a whole heap of new tracks on my hard-drive and wanted to give people the chance to listen to them so I have put this mix together. I’ve been making beats since about 2007 and only recently started putting my music out there (DJs/MC’s/Singers get in touch).

I mainly use an AKAI MPC 2500 and Ableton Live & Pro Tools for production. My first EP MajorBeatz_Vol.01 was produced and mixed using only the MPC.

I am currently doing some work with a couple of MC’s, some known names and some new ones. Im also in the middle of recording some tracks with a very talented female singer, I’m not going to say much more on that just yet…

I have another EP coming out soon, “Next Ting”.

This is a 4 track instrumental EP and will be available from the MajorBeatz Bandcamp. ”

Standard Radio airs every Saturday night at 8pm. Here’s another mix, this time from Aoife, an R’n'B and hip hop selection from her vinyl crate.

Kicking off at 10pm, upstairs in Sin É, admission tomorrow night is free. Perfect follow-up for those looking to carry on after the All City Jam.

Major Grave on Twitter and Facebook.

soundcloud.com/major-grave

A Lazarus Soul make somnambulistic punk admonishments that channel The Fall and Tricky with a dark-tinted view of trip hop and post punk. Comprised of vocalist Brian Brannigan, guitarist Joe Chester, former Future Kings Of Spain bassist Anton Hegarty and Julie Bienvue who played in Lines Drawing Circles (with Barry Bracken of Bouts).

The Hedge Schools is the nom de tune of Pat Barret who makes spacious folk songs. Chester and Hegarty play in the live band, formed from an alliance that stretches back to Ten Speed Racer and The Ruby Taillights.

The Instructions, I can’t even find a track for. But their Facebook page led me to Eileen Gogan’s older page. How’s this for the contrast in MySpace? Before > after.
“Formed in September 2012, The Instructions is a new project from Eileen Gogan (The Would Bes, Revenants) with backing band featuring Dez Foley (Crumb, The Sewing Room), Niall McCormack (The Jubilee All-stars, Richer Than Astronauts) and Michael Stanley (Richer Than Astronauts).”

It’s a show that’ll have something to say about endurance of bands through different eras but there’s no fuss, just new songs and music. Can imagine a very warm and friendly vibe in the room tonight. Cheap at €7 too.

A Lazarus Soul on Twitter and Facebook.

alazarussoul.bandcamp.com

What to say about TenPastSeven? One of the more unconventional rock bands in Ireland today, multifaceted dark gems of the Out On A Limb label creating rhythmically vast, instrumentally dense music that, borne of a love of prog and metal, fits nowhere and yet sounds so right. They’re practically impossible to square off and box away, with the exception of the Black Box Recordings, a three-track release which was funded by fans of the band and recorded in the legendary French studio of the same name. You can download it free from Bandcamp.

Family Planning now, a different suitcase of condoms all together with more of an abrasive and noisy aspect to contrast with the melodic time signatures of the headliners. Also a trio, it’s also their last gig for a while.

Admission to this gig is free if you put your name down on the event page for guestlist, else you’ll be hit with the €10 club charge for Whelan’s.

TenPastSeven on Twitter and Facebook.

tenpastseven.net