Release of the week
The Cujo Family – Pigs In The Pen
The Cujo Family are one of those bands whose name you've likely seen on festival bills and listings but their new release this week will give you an impetus to investigate if you've yet to. The Bray band have been going nigh on ten years now and the release of their third album showcases their own 'hard folk' sound. Recorded with Rian Trench in The Meadow Studios in Wicklow over five days, the album perfectly meshes country, folk and blues with an independent spirit and employs a Hammond organ to tie all those disparate sensibilities together with a classic feel. The album is premiering on Goldenplec.
Songs of the week
T.P.M – All The Boys On The Dole
There hasn't been an Irish song this catchy since the Rubberbandits' Bags Of Glue. The Drogheda brothers T.P.M. were captured playing this song busking in the streets of their hometown and the reaction spurred them on to record it and make a video. The result is a song that is comfortably at home with a Specials/rap beat skank while shouting out to the young lads on the social welfare as a result of bleak hometown prospects.
Daithí – Mary Keanes Introduction
From a forthcoming EP from the Clare electronic musician and fiddle player, the song's central spoken word sample is Daithí's own 90 year-old grandmother, who was recorded reminiscing about her early life. Daithí put her words to some euphoric 21st century dance chords and the outcome is a bit emotional. His gran still lives in a thatched cottage in Ballyvaughan.
Paddy Hanna - Underprotected
Since emerging as a more serious singer-songwriter than in his previous band Grand Pocket Orchestra, Paddy Hanna has addressed depression and anxiety and sung in a manner that takes himself more seriously. Underprotected is the latest instalment in moving brittle classic songwriting from the Dubliner.
Rews – Can You Feel It?
Drawing from glam-rock, guitar indie-pop and radio choruses, the Northern Ireland musician Shauna Tohill (previously a member of Silhouette) recently moved to London where she's been singing backing vocals with Snow Patrol and playing bass with Darwin Deez. In between, Tohill has formed a musical connection with Collette Williams. Can You Feel It? is a poppy rock take on a histrionic American rock style.
Warriors Of The Dystotheque - Hashtag
Here's something pleasantly recalling the 1990s chillout revival. Rather than being a calculated move for nostalgia, this music project spearheaded by one called Jonny Mac, whose biography pegs him as a peer of The Happy Mondays, Phil Hartnoll form Orbital and Leeroy from the Prodigy. An Irishman recently returned, Mac makes deep house under another guise but here, as Warriors Of The Dystotheque (https://www.facebook.com/warriosofthedystotheque) with an international cast of mates, Hashtag conjures up a brassy trip-hop haze.
New artist of the week
Frankenstein Bolts
Last year the Wexford singer-songwriter Justin Cullen released his debut album. This year, his partnership with Dan Comerford has proved fruitful with some recording time from the Guinness Amplify and a good wedge of live shows lifting the duo into a fresher category. Their last two impressive singles Up To The Root and Lost Shells have a wispy synthesizer folk feel to them. These two aren't staying rooted for long.
