Songs of the week
New Portals – Do It Right
You've got to admire musicians who have so many ideas they feel like they need separate projects to explore them. For Michael and Ruth Aicken, they had ideas beyond the folk pop music they make as The Jepettos. Despite 10 million Spotify streams for that band, the brother and sister decided to explore an electronic pop style – and it's already sounding like a good decision with the airy and expansive ambient electronic pop of Do It Right capturing industry and online attention.
Áine Cahill – Black Dahlia
Inspired by the morbid murder of Elizabeth Short in Los Angeles in 1947, this Cavan singer's song imagines a fame-hungry starry eyed victim who was posthumously given the title The Black Dahlia by the tabloids. The song's mournful orchestral arrangements recalls another singer who mines Hollywood melancholy, Lana Del Rey.
Anderson – Things We Have In Common
After his band The Rags ran its course, Daniel Anderson took a different approach from their fiery rock'n'roll and took inspiration from a more idiosyncratic style: torch-bearing '70s singer songwriters. The result was a couple of bright pop singles, most notably History which was accompanied by VHS family footage that gave the song an extra nostalgic dimension.
Things We Have In Common continues that thread and is the first song from Anderson's debut album Patterns out on September 18th.
New artist of the week
Kojaque
Ireland is teeming with budding Irish rappers and producers who have little to no access to the industry, who are seemingly content to operate from their bedrooms, rarely playing live and posting videos on Youtube for whoever happens to find them.
Kojaque is a Dublin rapper who has been making music for three years who fits into that mould, long enough to transpose his colloquial accent into something that could conceivably be taken to heart out of his home country. His style is downbeat, jazzy and suited to late-night lounging. A recent track, Midnight Flower has over 200K views on Youtube. Big fish, little pond?
Irish release of the week
Oliver Cole – Year Of The Bird
The former Turn musician's new debut album is a real labour of love: the entire thing was self-recorded and produced by Cole who also played every instrument himself with the exception of some guest help from Gemma Hayes, Glen Hansard, Gavin Fox and Bizer Brennan.What has emerged is a record aglow with acoustic pop landscapes and melody that takes on a hypnotic quality throughout.
