Nialler9's New Irish Music: Wallis Bird, Insufficient Funs, Hot Cops and more

SONGS OF THE WEEK

Wallis Bird - Change

Having worked on her new album for the past 20 months, Berlin-based Irish singer-songwriter Wallis Bird has revealed the first track off

Home

, an album that is framed as an homage to her partner and muse.

Change

sounds at first like an anguished song, but it soon reveals itself to be a song of strong resolve.

Everything Shook - I Got A Gun

Somewhere between freak folk, ambient electronica and gothic chanting lies Everything Shook, a three-piece who release their debut album

Drinking About You

this week.

I Got A Gun

brings hypnotic hypnagogic pop to the table while eerily whispering in your ears. The band launch the album in the Dublin Food Co-Op this Saturday.

Le Boom - What We Do

Dubliner Christy Leech spent last summer playing music and DJing in Brooklyn warehouses, a fine time that led to some home-recorded dance music with a broken bass, a gutted guitar and some melodic muscle.

What We Do

is a fine debut single release, informed by the synth-pop of Hot Chip and lo-fi dancefloor atmospherics.

Divan - Shards

Formerly known as The Ambient Affair, Divan are are three-piece of Jamie Clarke, Marc Gallagher and Conor Deasy, whose newly renamed project is inspired by indie-rock of all ilks.

Shards

burns with a thirst for more amidst handclaps and harmonies.

Twin Villains - Short Drop, Sudden Stop

Drogheda three-piece Twin Villains keep things anthenic and post-rock leaning on the lead track from their self-titled EP. They call it Biffycore, thus revealing their main influence.

RELEASE OF THE WEEK
Insufficient Funs - Insufficient Funs

Drummer Matthew Jacobson (Ensemble Ériu, ReDiviDeR) and saxophonist Sam Comerford's (Umbra, AERIE) new cheekily titled project recently returned from the annual experimental jazz festival 12 Points, which took place in San Sebastian this year. To coincide with that concert, the pair released a half-hour long EP that sets out their stall and makes plain why they were a hit this year. The combination of jazz drumming and the low-toned bass saxophone makes for loosely shaking rhythmic excursions and a real sense of exploration, with both players reacting to each other in real-time, switching it up and moving it on in new ways, creating unique textures as they go.

Insufficient Funs

is delightfully unhinged from expectation.

NEW ARTIST OF THE WEEK
Hot Cops

Belfast three-piece band Hot Cops draw their inspirations from raggedy indie and grunge dirges. Live, they are beamed from the original era with withdrawn stares and loose clothing. On record, it's all angst-driven slow rock with spiralling Pavement-esque melodies. New single

Dumbbo

on Paper Trail Records is a prickly song about a baby elephant trying to keep up with the herd.

VIDEO OF THE WEEK
James Vincent McMorrow - Rising Water

Directed by David M Helman

An artist who always has interesting music videos (in which he normally does not appear), McMorrow has drafted in Helman to capture the essence of a song (“the things we will do in order to move through loss”) utilising a beautiful beach, close human interaction and interpretive dancing.