Month: May 2017

In the same week that YRMu was announced for the upcoming album ‘Johnny Mathis Sings the Great New American Songbook’, produced by 11-time Grammy winner, Kenneth ‘Babyface’Edmonds, the song is set to get another major American outing in this Sunday’s National Memorial Day Concert from the West Lawn of the White House in Washington.

http://www.pbs.org/national-memorial-day-concert/home/

You Raise Me Up will be performed by Russell Watson with the US National Symphony Orchestra to hundreds of thousands of a live audience and a PBS Special which will attract many millions of American viewers (2016 viewers were 11 million+) and other millions around the world.

The line-up also includes Renee Fleming, Gary Sinise (CSI NY), Joe Mantegna (Criminal Minds), Colin Powell, Vanessa Williams and Laurence Fishburne.

This is the second time that You Raise Me Up, written by Irish songwriter and novelist, Brendan Graham and Norwegian composer, Rolf Lovland has been performed at the National Memorial Day Concert and follows on from performances of the Irish/Norwegian song at 9/11 Official Commemorations, Nobel Peace Prize, Opening of the Northern Ireland Assembly, Re-opening of America’s Civil Rights Museum, Superbowl, Olympic Games, World Championships…and a host of other global events.

Three Underneath are set to release “Can I Be”, the lead single from their explosive sophomore EP “Something Pure” on June 10th 2017.

The trio decamped to the studios of Stephen Robinson (Laundry Shop, Angels of Mons) to record the exciting three-track Nirvana-esque “Seven”, haunting and heavy “His Last Words” and lead single “Can I Be”, mastered by Tony Cousins (Bat For Lashes, Kaiser Chiefs).

First breaking onto the Irish scene in late 2015, Three Underneath have since established themselves as a widely sought-after live act. The band’s explosive hit single “Buddy Yeah” was included on RTÉ 2FM DJ Dan Hegarty’s Top 20 Irish Songs of 2016.

A busy 2017 has seen Three Underneath announce their first festival bookings, perform at Whelan’s Full-Irish showcase and share the stage with Le Galaxie and Apella at the Dublin Tech Summit afters. The trio’s second EP “Something Pure” is out on June 10th and will be available at the show, online and in Tower Records.

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Tara Lee is a rising singer/songwriter/producer and actress from Wicklow. Citing influences ranging from Blondie to Massive Attack to heartfelt songwriters like Tori Amos to Diane Warren, Tara has the unique ability to write raw emotional and connecting ballads to contemporary edgy pop songs.

Tara recently signed a worldwide publishing deal with BMG after first coming to attention of Thomas Scherer and his team at BMG in LA when she was the special guest performer at the ‘International Music Industry Awards’ presentation to esteemed songwriter Diane Warren.

Tara has just released her debut single ‘Paradise’ taken from Paradise EP (co-produced by Jonas Quant (No Doubt/Hurts/Kylie)

Tara will be performing at Forbidden Fruit on Saturday June 3^rd.

Tara was recently asked to compose the theme tune (‘If I Burn, You Burn Too’) for the hit International TV series ‘Jack Taylor’.

Tara also played starring roles in two critically acclaimed movies over the past year – ‘A Date for Mad Mary’ (which won an IFTA award for Best Picture) and ‘Moon Dogs’ directed by Philip John (Director of Downtown Abbey) which has just won a slew of International Awards and she also featured in series two of ‘The Fall’, the BBC drama where she starred alongside Gillian Anderson and Jamie Dornan.

https://www.facebook.com/TaraLeeArtist/

Seventeen years into an astonishing career, Damien Dempsey releases his seventh studio album, his most exciting work to date, “Soulsun” tomorrow, 26th May.

The lead single and opening title track gets straight to the point. “Soulsun” is accompanied by a colourful and life-affirming video directed by legendary rock photographer Steve Gullick, who has shot iconic images of Nirvana, Beck and Nick Cave over the years, just to mention a tiny few.

http://damiendempsey.com/

Limerick (via Brighton) band Warsaw Radio return with their latest single ‘Still Have You To Hold’. This new single engages listener from start with big cinematic strings and big vocals.

McNamara’s story telling style envelopes the listener creating a vivid scene with a powerful tale of ageing, love and loss. This is ultimately an uplifting love song that pulls on the heart strings.

The BBC Introducing 2017 and BBC 6 Music featured band are currently in studio finishing off their debut album, in their adopted home of Brighton, with Mercury Nominated Producer Jag Jago (The Maccabees and Florence Welch). This latest single was mastered by John Davis (U2 and White Lies) at Metropolis in London and follows up on their critically acclaimed single ‘After Eve’.

The W.R sound takes influence from Fleetwood Mac, Arcade Fire and Wilco. W.R are Brían McNamara (Vocals/Guitar), Nikki Bates (Violin & Vocals), Laurence Bridge (Bass Guitar), Chris Webber (Lead Guitar) & Paul Lennox (Drums).

See Warsaw Radio live;
Thurs. 22 June Sofar Sounds, London

“Rich vocals and sublime strings” – BBC Introducing
“One of those bands that you discover and you wish you’d known them longer” – Chris Hawkins, BBC 6 Music
“This is the definition of quality music and songwriting” – Music News Today
“All the hallmarks of a classic in waiting” – XYZ Magazine, UK

http://www.warsaw-radio.com/

‘Wanna Love’ may be Robert’s debut single release, however, this all rounder from Graignamanagh in Co. Kilkenny is no stranger to the studio, or the charts!

Robert’s debut EP ‘Talk To Me’ released in May 2016 reached No 2 on the Irish iTunes charts and was the most played song on RTE Radio 1 during June 2016.

Robert’s new single ‘Wanna Love’ is currently A Listed on Beat FM and is also on high rotation on 2fm and iRadio.

In recent years Robert has developed into a songwriter/producer/performer of note. Robert wrote three and co-produced four tracks on Hometown’s recent chart topping album released on Sony Music. He has also co-written with some of the best-known songwriters in the UK including:

Dan McDougall (The Wanted/The Shires)
Blair MacKichan (Paloma Faith/Sia/Lily Allen)
Phil Thornalley (Natalie Imbruglia/Pixie Lott)
Josh Wilkinson (One Direction/5 Seconds of Summer)
David Munday (Tina Turner/Pixie Lott/Belinda Carlisle)

In his capacity as writer and producer, Robert has helped other artist’s music achieve chart success.

Robert performed at Electric Picnic last September and had his own headline gig at Whelan’s last November. He will be performing at the Ruby Sessions on June 6th and at the Indiependence Music Festival on August 5th.

Robert grew up in a house immersed by traditional Irish music; his father plays in well-known local trad band ‘Keltic Cats’. Before long Robert was learning the guitar and wrote his first song aged 12. By aged 18 Robert had won a number of national & International songwriting awards including the Glinsk International Songwriting Award.

“It’s a cracking pop song – as good as any of the international artists on our playlists” Niall Power Head of Music at Beat 102-103.

Live Dates:
Tues June 6th: Ruby Sessions, Doyles, Dublin
Sat Aug 5th: Indiependence Festival (Beer Hall Stage)

Watch the video ‘Talk To Me’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZ9afUMEkTQ
Twitter.com/robert_grace
Facebook.com/RobertGraceOfficial

Sharon Shannon has announced the release of her latest single “The Machine” featuring vocals by Alyra Rose.

Taken from her 10th studio album “Sacred Earth”, “The Machine”, with a new radio edit, comes out of the touring experience in New Mexico, where Sharon met Alyra Rose. The Machine is a song political in nature and a musical hybrid of hip hop and a traditional Irish style reel.

2017 has already been very busy for Sharon. Her album “Sacred Earth” hit the Top 5 in the Irish Independent Albums Chart on the week of release. She’s travelled to America, France, Spain and Australia…and it’s only May! To add to that she was special guest on the sold out 3Arena show for Nathan Carter in April!

There is nothing like a Sharon Shannon live show to get you tapping a toe. This summer catch her in concert:

June 16th – Doolin Festival
July 15th – Theatre Royal, Waterford
July 20th – Crossmolina Festival, Mayo
August 17th – National Concert Hall, Dublin
August 19th – The Dome, Ennis (Fleadh Cheoil 2017)

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sharon.shannon1
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Gaffalo
Spotify: https://play.spotify.com/artist/6gABJRqeRV4XW6T8vP9QEn

Stoat are back with a just released new single and video “Try Not To Think About It”, ahead of their new album, also called “Try Not To Think About it”, due later in the summer.

Right now, “Try Not To Think About It” is the tune Stout most like to play live due to the combination of a big rolling groove and a heavily harmonised chorus.

As always, it’s not easy to say exactly what it sounds like – but there are shades of Beastie Boys,The B-52s and Talking Heads. Just to show Stoat are not living entirely in the past, you could also compare it with Ezra Furman or Courtney Barnett. Lyrically, Cormac zeroes in on the downside of fatherhood. Nobody really talks about that kind of thing.

Try not to think about it being the third single to be taken from their upcoming album. It’s already picked up airplay on 98FM, Cork 96FM, Somer Valley FM in England, and been featured on the AAABadboy blog.

The first single taken from the album was “Talk Radio Makes Me Feel Alone”. Pure M Zine said it was “as infectious as anything currently in the Top 10“. Bobby Green at Musician.ie said it was “by far the greatest thing I’ve heard this year“.

Nice things were also said about the second single from the album – “Trampolina”. Nialler9 named it video of the week in March. Those nice people at 8Radio have been giving it tonnes of airplay and said it filled their hearts with joy.

Twitter @StoatMusic
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/stoatmusic/

The upcoming CD – Johnny Mathis Sings the Great New American Songbook, produced by 11-time, Grammy-winning singer and producer, Kenneth ‘Babyface’ Edmonds, will feature You Raise Me Up, written by Brendan Graham & Rolf Lovland, as well as Mathis’ classic take on contemporary hit songs from Whitney Houston, Pharrell Williams’ Happy, R. Kelly’s I Believe I Can Fly etc.

Mathis, who had his first No.1 hit ‘Chances Are’ 60 years ago in 1957, told CBS’ Nancy Giles ‘I’m happy that now I’m doing some contemporary music that was written less than 50 years ago. Now that I am 81 years old, I can bust loose and have some fun’.

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Wexford Singer/Songwriter Gordon Barry has won this years top prize for lyrics at The International Songwriting Competition in Nashville for his song ‘Devil & St. Jesus’. An annual event judged by Tom Waits, the late Chris Cornell, Lorde, Rickie Lee Jones, Donovan and many more, The ISC is considered the most prestigious songwriting competition in the world and according to the New York Times, “is the songwriting competition to take note of“.

Previous ISC winners include Gotye, Passenger, Gregory Porter and Bastille, and Gordon now joins Cork Songwriters Mick Flannery and Jack O’ Rourke as the only other Irish artist to win the award. Speaking of Gordon’s win, Founder & Director of The International Songwriting Competition, Candace Avery remarked that the judges really rated Gordon’s lyrics and had this to say of the win “Irish Troubadour Gordon Barry’s lyrics show that classic lyric writing is alive and well in the 21st century. With vivid imagery and the deft turn of phrase, Gordon’s lyrics are certainly worthy of winning First Place for lyrics at this year’s International Songwriting Competition.”

Speaking of his win Gordon said “I am really honoured to win the award knowing how much regard the ISC is held in and i’m obviously really proud of the song itself. I was notified last week that over 20,000 artists from 137 countries had entered and I had won the award so that is something else when you really think about it. Some of the judges are huge influences on me, none more so than Tom Waits, who I consider one of the greatest lyricists of our time, so for him to have a say in the win is very very pleasing and to think that the words stand alone as a solitary piece and are recognised by my peers is something i am really grateful for.”

Gordon is set to release his single of ‘Devil & St. Jesus’ in the coming weeks.

https://www.facebook.com/Gordonbarrymusic/