After spending the last couple of years below the radar, writing and performing all over Dublin, young Irish singer songwriter Tim Chadwick is an exciting new talent and a name that you are going to be hearing a lot more of. “Blindfolded” his debut single, is as strong a debut single as you are likely to hear this year.
The song draws you in from the opening line and is completely infectious.
Premiering on
Nialler9’s blog earlier today Rusangano Family‘s latest video ‘Lights On’ looks at the idea of being yourself and accepting multicultural Ireland.
Rusangano Family is made up of God Knows, MuRli and mynameisjOhn. 2 MCs and 1 DJ. Based in the West of Ireland, the trio has been steadily building their own unique brand of dynamic bass-led music that owes little to genre clichés and style restrictions. Despite their diverse cultural backgrounds, the group operates first and foremost as a family unit. The trio have been working together closely over the last couple of years exploring issues such as identity and belonging.
Rusangano Family deliver a hefty dose of honest double-edged lyricism over skewed soul samples, 808 beats and sliced-up breaks. Wearing their hip-hop and electronic influences proudly on their sleeves, Rusangano Family aren’t an act willing to conform to the styles associated with their respective backgrounds. Instead of struggling with the idea of being different, they celebrate it. Sure the rules are only there to be broken.
Releases such as the ‘Surface Tension EP’ and the ‘Rusangano / Family’ album have led to support slots with Run The Jewels, Young Fathers, Snoop Dogg and BadBadNotGood, as well as headlining dates at festivals all around Ireland, including Body & Soul, Other Voices and Hard Working Class Heroes. In December 2014, the trio dropped the single ‘Grand Job’, which garnered numerous plays on BBC Radio1, while ‘Rusangano Family’ was listed as the best Irish album of 2014 on Nialler9.com and featured in the overall top ten albums of 2014 in the Irish Times. January has seen the release of MuRli’s ‘Surface Tension EP’ to large acclaim and airplay on the BBC and Indie Shuffle.
Rusangano Family’s previous single ‘Heathrow’ featured in NPR’s ‘Songs We Love’ on December 1st 2015 and their latest release ‘Lights On’ is from their forthcoming album ‘Let The Dead Bury the Dead’ which is being released on April 8th.
The guys are performing shows at the following venues to launch their album:
Cork – Kino – 8th of April.
Dublin – Sugar Club – 9th of April
Limerick – Dolans – 22nd of April
Clonakilty – De Barras – 23rd of April.
Dublin finger-style guitarist and singer ROBERT DOYLE releases his second album Lig Amach on April 22nd followed by an album launch concert on April 28th in Dublin’s Cobblestone. Admission to the concert will be free – as Robert explains as “a special thank you to my fans and supporters for their enthusiasm and support along the way”.
LIG AMACH (Let Out) is the follow up to his well received 2011 debut album Life in Shadows. Mostly recorded in Dublin over the last year the album showcases his distinctive approach to writing & arranging for the guitar. A collection of instrumentals, interpretations and self penned originals, Lig Amach vividly displays Robert’s dynamic playing & singing – stretching from the roots of American folk singing and blues, Irish traditional through to classical & flamenco guitar techniques.
While the album features a number of thrilling collaborations, Robert sets down a challenge for himself when he performs live as he will perform entirely solo at the album launch on April 28th in Dublin’s Cobblestone “It really tests your abilities and you learn a great deal about the music when performing in front of an audience. I choose to play solo so that there’s nowhere to hide on stage. You learn a lot about yourself as a musician when it’s just you in the spotlight”.
Creativity runs in the Doyle family – the album cover photo was taken by Robert’s brother Eamonn Doyle who is an internationally recognized photographer. Previously the brothers worked together – Robert as a studio engineer – on Irish label D1 Recordings run by Eamonn, who also founded the DEAF electronic festival.
Robert began playing guitar aged 8 and is a past student of renowned French-Algerian master musician Pierre Bensusan – “Pierre is one of the top finger-style guitarists in the world but more so he’s also a fantastic musician. By studying with him, I wanted to gain an insight into how he was able to master the instrument and develop his own individual style. After studying with Pierre, my focus changed from being a guitar player to becoming a better musician and to continue developing my own style”. In previous years Robert has performed at Celtic Connections and the Moniaive Folk Festival.
Like the last album, 8 of the 10 tracks were mixed by Marc Carolan who works with Muse. Ross Dowling, who produced the last James Vincent McMorrow album also did a mix – as well as Graham Watson from Floodplain Studios in Dublin. Recording the album was a longer process than initially planned as Robert explains “I recorded the guitar and vocals in my home studio with additional instruments recorded in Dublin, London and Italy. Originally I had planned to record this album, like the first, in a studio with an engineer but I later made the decision to record it myself to have more flexibility. The first sessions for the album took place 3 years ago and didn’t go well so I had to go back to the drawing board. I was only working on the album at weekends so the process was quite drawn out. The guitar parts are all live recordings, something I’ve always tried to do.”
Lig Amach is a departure for Robert in many ways from the first album with a keen focus this time on writing and performing in English. “The songs on the previous EP and album were based around songs sung in Irish but for this release I wanted to explore singing in English more.” ACROSS THE LINE was written in 2014 at the time Islamic State attacked and laid siege to Kobani in northern Syria, causing a massive number of people to flee across the border into Turkey. FLAGS OF BELFAST, which has a traditional air, was written around the time of the Belfast City Hall flag protests while ROUND TWO is a song about a woman who won’t wait too long for a man to make up his mind!
Robert interprets and re-imagines a number of covers on Lig Amach including the opening track AN SEANDUINE, a song he learnt from singing in Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann with this version taking inspiration from recordings by Seamus Begley and Danú. COUNTRY BLUES is a song Robert learnt from Dock Boggs, an old-time banjo player from Virginia, first recorded in 1929.
Another progression on Lig Amach is Robert’s collaboration with a wide number of renowned musicians “After recording the demos I wanted to add some other instrumentation to the songs. The first collaboration was with Chris Haigh, a fiddle player I first heard on an Oumou Sangaré album.” Francessco Ganassin (saxophone) and Magnus Mehta (percussion) also feature along with Aoife Dermody & uilleann piper Eoin Dillon on a collaboration, Flags of Belfast, which came out of a recording session in Floodplain Studios.
Lig Amach will be available from all digital outlets from April 22nd, from Claddagh Records and Robert Doyle Music.
The album launch for Lig Amach will be taking place on April 28th in the Cobblestone Backroom, from 8.30pm with free admission.
You can follow Robert on Facebook to keep up to date with his latest news.
A Soft Morning is the new single from Irish performer Alan Kavanagh. He recorded the song in Donegal with producer and youtube sensation, Mattie Foxx. The song was written by Kavanagh who also plays all instruments on the track. The video was directed by Dublin film-maker Claire Byrne and is starring Czech actress Martina Babisova.
A Soft Morning is the second single off the songwriters debut album which is due for release later this year. Kavanagh has just signed a publishing deal with ARC Music in the UK after his debut single went to number three on the I-Tunes Rock Chart and won IMRO’s Christie Hennessy Song Contest. He has played with artists such as The Coronas, Aslan, Mundy and many more.”
www.facebook.com/alankavanaghmusicpage/videos
itunes.apple.com/ie/album/soft-morning-single
www.facebook.com/alankavanaghmusicpage
Following the runaway success of “Little by Little, Niamh Crowther, releases her new single “I’ll Be” from her self-titled EP on May 20th.
Niamh came to prominence aged 16, when she beat over 15,000 other young people to claim the prestigious Youth Music Awards. The accompanying rave reviews and talk about town earned her “one to watch” accolades from the media. A succession of well received singles further enhanced her reputation. Supported by an extensive radio tour, the last single “Little by Little” was one of the most played independent Irish tracks played across Irish radio last summer. That success continued into the autumn as the song made its way to the US and Europe, getting support countless stations including Janice Long on BBC Radio 2. A success made even more remarkable given Niamh is combining her burgeoning music career whilst studying full time in Dublin.
On the live front Niamh has won new fans whilst supporting PictureHouse, Blink, Mundy and appearing at events and festivals like LeCheile, St Patrick’s Festival and “A Night for Pieta House” in the Olympia Theatre. Then there was the time she was invited to sing onstage with Richie Sambora on her 18th birthday.
The new radio edit of “I’ll Be” was recorded in Westland Studio in Dublin with engineer Colm Finnegan produced by Dermot Lambert (Blink) And mixed by Tim Martin. It comes from Niamh’s eponymous EP which features Little by Little, Origins and new track Painkillers.
M
otions are an alternative rock band based in Dublin, they were formed by Tom Daly and Dave Nulty in 2015. With powerful vocals accompanied by minimalist textures and driving guitars, their sound ranges from shimmering soundscapes to anthemic rock.
2016 sees the release of their debut single ‘Back To Where I Begun’, (which was produced by Philip Magee). It’s a track about contemplating starting over when you’re close to the point of no return.
Back To Where I Begun, is available for general release on iTunes and Spotify from April 28th, but you can pre-order a copy on iTunes from March 31st.
You can Follow Motions on Facebook, Twitter and SoundCloud.
