Eoghan O’Sullivan, who blogs about music at The Point Of Everything, takes us through what’s been getting his ears all excited this week. It’s been a good week for Cork with two bands featured below, while a Dublin band are staking their claim for the best party band in Ireland. Further afield, there was a collaboration that made Eoghan weak at the knees and a song which he’s already putting money on for track of the year.
Young Wonder – ‘Flesh’
Cork duo Young Wonder are doing their best to live up to their moniker. Following a glorious introduction to the world with ‘Tumbling Backwards’, ‘Flesh’ struts in and heads straight for the dance floor. The video was shot by Brendan Canty and Conal Thomson, AKA Feel Good Lost, who will release the group’s debut EP in April, the first release on Feel Good Lost Records. What a way to begin it all. Liverpool-based artist SertOne is currently travelling around Ireland as one part of the Lightbox tour, a collection of electronica DJs and producers (tour dates here), and has found time to do a remix of ‘Flesh’. It’s a washed out, chilled take and you can listen to it below.
Hope Is Noise – ‘Let Sleeping Dogs Lie’
Staying in Cork, Hope Is Noise have been knocking around for years, and next month release a new EP, This Used To Be A Laugh. It’s going to be released on Wingnut Records/Fifa Records: the former is a Galway-based record store (a new shop’s just opened in Waterford) while the latter has history under its belt hadng released the likes of Zombie Computer and Dead School among others. ‘Let Sleeping Dogs Lie’ encapsulates everything Hope Is Noise do well: It’s loud, fast and is bound to blow your ears when you hear it live. Listen to the track and download it for free from Bandcamp.
This top Club – ‘Add It Up’
There’s a lot of hype surrounding Dublin band This Club. Having won many a blogger’s ear with ‘I Won’t Worry‘ last year, they return with ‘Add It Up’, the videos of which is below. Formerly Hoarsebox, This Club make simple pop songs. There’s nothing complicated about ‘Add It Up’, but when you sound like Ireland’s answer to Alphabeat, well, how could that fail to put a smile on your face? ‘Add It Up’ is out on March 9, with an album set to follow in the summer.
Gorillaz, André 300 and James Murphy – ‘Do Ya Thing’
I thought I had died and gone to heaven when I heard André 3000, James Murphy (of LCD Soundsystem fame) and Gorillaz were teaming up on a track. Although it’s for Converse, ‘Do Ya Thing’ is everything I wanted it to be. It’s a fun party anthem with some great hooks. Murphy owns the chorus while André 3000 is as ice cool as ever, despite spouting questionable lines such as, “New word – onomatopoeia.” The song’s been on repeat here for 24 hours straight – but I still can’t keep up with André. Download it for free here.
AU – ‘Solid Gold’
Finally, a song you have to open your ears to. ‘Solid Gold’ from AU (not the free magazine from Northern Ireland) starts off as a typical National-aping track before morphing into something jittery. And then it changes direction again. And then again. It’s tough to keep up with the Portland group and well before the end you might well find yourself out of breath. Let’s file this in the all most definitely the song of the year already category, shall we?
Shelton E. Peterson