Last month he released the mixtape Cork City Anthems featuring collaborations with Invader Slim, Fynch and loads more and just a few weeks later he’s back with a brand new track featuring Post Punk Podge (minus the Technohippies). Listen to the pair take aim at the Dublin centered music scene. We count references to Nialler9, The Murder Capital, Samantha Mumba, Daniel O’Donnell, Wyvern Lingo, Louis Walsh, Mathman, The Corrs, D.C Fontaines, BIMM & Breaking Tunes. What a bunch of Dangerous Fellas!
It’s hard to believe it’s only been a year since Kojaque dropped his debut album, ‘Deli Daydreams’. The 12 months since the sold out launch in The Button Factory has been a rollercoaster for the Cabra native, skyrocketing him to the forefront of the Irish hip-hop scene alongside his Soft Boy label mates.
Deli Daydreams is one of the favourites to win the 2018 Choice Music Prize, and the wider world is starting to take notice. After playing a ton of festivals over the summer months, Kojaque embarked on his first solo tour of Ireland and the UK (which completely sold out). Slots at Eurosonic and SXSW are undoubtedly going to lead to much bigger things too.
Collaboration seems to be at the heart of the Soft Boy ethos, complimenting each other artistically and cross promoting all of their releases to an ever growing fan base. Last year’s single Date Night features Luka Palm, another name to keep a close eye on. His performance at the sold out Academy show in December is still fresh in my memory, displaying an ability to hold a crowd that performers twice his age would kill for.
To celebrate the one year anniversary of the album, Kojaque will perform the project in its entirety with a full band in Whelan’s on Saturday February 23, with Kean Kavanagh on support. This could be your last chance to see the Dublin rapper in such an intimate setting. Tickets are €21 and go on sale Monday Feb 11 at 9am.
We’re starting 2019 off with a BANG! Bringing two of our favourite discoveries of last year together this Saturday in Sin É Dublin for a monstrous double headline show.
Bannered Mare is the new moniker of ex-Race the Flux front man Joe Padfield. In June he dropped the first single, ‘My Anatomy’, a sweeping blend of math-rock guitar layers and alt-folk touches. This was just the first taste of what was to come from Octobers ‘Gizzards EP’. Self recorded entirely by Padfield in Mayo’s Mariachi Studios, the EP is a collection of beautifully reflective songs that demands repeat listens.
In the months since, the band has been fleshed out with some of the Wests most prolific musicians. Joining him are Paul Higgins (ex-RTF) on Guitar, Kyle Dee (ex-Ka tet) on Bass, Derek Ellard (DerekEllardmusic) on Synth/Guitars and Dylan Murphy on Drums. With a new EP due to be released later this year, now is the perfect time to check this incredible act out live.
Stevie Darragh Music is perhaps better known as the lead guitarist of the many-headed behemoth that is Overhead, The Albatross. Following the massively successful release of 2016’s ‘Learning to Growl’ and it’s subsequent tours, Stevie wasted no time and released the gorgeous ‘Fragments EP’ in early 2018. An accomplished composer and multi-instrumentalist, Stevie flexes his orchestral muscles on the EP creating lush and emotive soundscapes. He realises these live through a combination of looped guitars, keyboards, vocals and multilayered backing tracks which truly result in an end far greater than the sum of it’s parts.
Psyjance pioneers Vernon Jane are back with a sonic and visual masterpiece in their new video for ‘Push Me’ The track is a brooding atmospheric mix of brass lines, thundering bass, plucked guitars and pained vocals which slowly build up a palpable tension. This tension finally explodes into an earth shattering crescendo in the songs final minute, shaking the listener to their core and making your hairs stand on end.
Rap royalty RA The Rugged Man and his freestyling prodigy AFRO make a welcome return to The Sugar Club on December 12th and Choice Cuts have given us 2 tickets to giveaway to one lucky winner! Check out or profile on the pair from last year here and enter below for your chance to go along on Wednesday.
Dublin Jazz/Punk outfit Vernon Jane play their biggest headline show to date on December 12th in the Button Factory to celebrate their last release of 2018 ‘Push Me’. Support on the night comes courtesy of Kerry singer/songwriter Junior Brother and Dublin psychedelic rockers Fat Pablo (FKA Beach) and we have a pair of tickets to give away to one lucky winner. You can enter below:
Vernon Jane have had quite a year, releasing an ambitious slew of singles, headlining a string of festivals and signing to Ann Marie Sheilds AMS Records. The group are known for their energetic and visceral live shows and December 12th promises to their most immersive and intense performance yet, incorporating visual elements from video director DOCK and photographer Imagery by Ró throughout the night. We can’t wait to go along. Enter above to join us there or visit Eventbrite to get your tickets while you still can!
Conor O’Brien has announced that the fourth Villagers album, their first since 2015’s Darling Arithmetic, will be called The Art of Pretending to Swim and is coming out on Domino Records this September 21st. The record will be imbued with “lyrical themes that embrace existential fears and hopes in this desperate, technologically-centred dystopian age”.
The band have also dropped the albums lead single ‘A Trick of the Light’ accompanied by a stunning surrealist video directed by Bob Gallagher. Check it out below!
Speaking about the collaboration, Conor says “Myself and Bob got together and discussed the song thematically and came to the conclusion that there was no other option but to make a short film in which we follow a disheveled shamanistic protagonist who mysteriously triggers an altered state of consciousness in everyone he meets, or at least believes that he does. We also wanted lots of dancing and to inspire a general feeling of ‘What the hell did I just watch?’ in the viewer.”
The track moves away from the stripped back aesthetic of Darling Arithmetic, introducing R&B style bass and percussion complimented by O’Brien’s rock solid vocal delivery. The album will reportedly reconnect with the multi-faceted approach of Villagers’ 2010 album debut Becoming A Jackal and 2013’s {Awayland}. I can’t wait to hear the rest of the record.
Summer is officially here and we’re getting in on the fun with some fresh new folk acts to catch after the grand stretch in the evening!
Headlining on the night are Wexford twin brothers The Ocelots. With just a guitar, a harmonica and their voices, Brandon and Ashley have created a raw sound that has been generated from years of street performing all across Europe. They have crafted their songwriting and musical experience together to produce a forceful blend of rich harmonies and bare, raw acoustic folk. The Ocelots are known for their ability to capture an audience, with mesmerising melody and variety meeting their charm and wit on stage.
Support comes from folk singer/ songwriter Junior Brother. Hailing from Co. Kerry, he plays sometimes humorous, sometimes heady tunes. Strange stories, poetic and arcane, unfold with reckless abandon upon an idiosyncratic Guitar and Foot Tambourine accompaniment. Unique, experimental yet ambitious, his material draws heavily in tone and subject matter from his upbringing in rural Ireland, demonstrating a wild love of language.
Opening the show on the night is Tullamore native Eoin Martin who has spent the last number of years honing his craft and finding his own voice in the crowded singer-songwriter scene. And what a voice! Eoin mixes percussive acoustic guitar with complex finger picked melodies and rounds things off with a truly captivating vocal style, full of harmony and punctuated rhythms. Think Bon Iver and Newton Faulkner meeting up for a few sneaky pints.
Entry is FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE and doors are at 8:00pm. See you in the front row!
Two of our favourite Irish bands return this week with two wildly different and equally exciting new singles.
Jazz/Punk/Psyjance purveyors Vernon Jane have just dropped a brilliant new video for their single ‘Fragile’, directed by Conor Dockery (DOCK). The track itself is an enigmatic display of songwriting, full of chaotic and disparate sounds that somehow gel together into a deep groove that’s hard to shake once it sticks in your head.
The band said in their own words:
”Fragile explores the darker side of human nature. It captures the constant battle between keeping yourself together, or letting yourself truly fall apart.The water in the video represents the feeling of suffocating under your own expectations. We tell ourselves we have to be stronger. We have to get better, And stay better. We forget to tell ourselves to be our own authentic self. To find strength in vulnerability and fragility. We push ourselves until we break. This video represents a breaking point.”
This may be one of the few opportunities to catch them on such a small stage, Vernon Jane have just signed a worldwide distribution deal with AMS Records as well as a Chinese distribution deal with Pocket Records. Their last single ‘Fuck Me’ has also racked up a crazy 227,000 plays online. Don’t sleep on this one people.
Also launching a new single on the night are Dublin fuzz merchants THUMPER. Explosively energetic live, previous recordings have leaned pretty steeply towards the lo-fi end of the spectrum, failing to fully capture the bands raucous sound. We’re happy to report that this is not the case on the Dan Fox (Girl Band) produced ‘AFL’. The track is a perfectly polished gritty ear bleeder, rocketing through it’s 3:43 and begging to be played again.
The song is about ageing rapidly but gaining no wisdom. Feeling like a child in a man’s suit, desperately playing catch-up in the Imposter Syndrome Champions League. Every Friday night gasping for answers in the smoking area of your nearest terror den. The music thunders on and words fall away like the raving of a calm lunatic. There’s no conclusion, even at the end.
Supporting both bands on the night are one of Ireland’s most promising instrumental bands, BiCurious. Twonys Cosmic Disco Wobbler DJs will finish out the night, hitting the decks til 3am.
Dublin quartet Pillow Queens have released a brand new video for their song ‘Favourite’. Directed by the ever excellent Bob Gallagher (see his previous work with Girl Band and Enter Shikari) and produced by band member Sarah Corcoran, the video is set at an unconventional dog show and features plenty of bathroom dealings (heh) and brown envelopes changing hands. It’s a hoot to watch and kind of reminds me of the King of the Sheep episode of Father Ted.
According to the band the main influences were old episodes of Antiques Roadshow, Sabrina the Teenage Witch and the general look of the 80’s – specifically prom portraits. Many of the dogs featured in the video are friends of Cara Rescue Dogs, so check them out too! They do great work.
The track itself is a super catchy slice of alt-rock goodness that’s been stuck in my head receiving multiple daily listens since it was released on Soundcloud earlier this month. It comes in advance of Pillow Queens new EP State of the State which will be released on March 16th through Bristol based indie label Specialist Subject.
Pillow Queens will be embarking on a UK/Ireland tour to coincide with the release, finishing up with a headline show in Dublin’s Workmans Club on April 21st. Tickets for the show are on sale now price €15.
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