James Vincent McMorrow - True Care
A surprise release from an Irish artist who only released his third full-length
We Move
last September,
True Care
is an album five months in construction that feels unburdened by the need to make a large impact or statement. McMorrow is at his most vulnerable, referencing nights spent listening to The National, drinking by himself, spilling wine on someone else’s carpet and sharing his nightmares involving airplanes. Musically his compositions are increasingly harder to categorise but are in the realms of electronic soul with sharp and soft-edged synth notes, rousing self-sung harmonic choruses and spatial arrangements. McMorrow’s journey from folk-style musician to 21st-century balladeer has entered a new phase.
Marlene Enright - Placemats and Second Cuts
The Cork singer and songwriter has released a debut album that puts her on equal footing with well-known artists in folk, indie, roots and Americana.
Placemats And Second Cuts
weaves Enright’s magnetising vocals with organs, handclaps, country-rock swagger and and a spaciousness maturity that draws you in and keeps you close.
Come On Live Long - In The Still
Arriving four years after their debut, Come On Live Long’s
In The Still
reaffirms the talent of a band who deserver more public awareness. The album, recorded mostly while the band were living apart, is a cohesive whole. When they came together, so did the album. So there’s trip-hop indie (
For The Birds
), heart-beat atmospherics (
In The Still
), a glacial trip (
Peak
), minimal folk (
My Love Leaves
) and Radiohead-esque guitar work (
Slipstream
).
In The Stil
l is sonics for the soul. To quote the band themselves on
For The Birds
, “stay together, fall apart, move as one?” They chose the latter.
Fionn Regan - The Meetings Of The Waters
Five years since his last full-length and 11 years out from his breakthrough debut, it sounds like time away has left Fionn Regan with a renewed sense of purpose. Having considered being a visual artist but instead delving into production inspired by electronic music sensibilities,
The Meetings Of The Waters
feels like a stepping stone to a new path for Regan. Ditching the Dylan-influence completely, the album largely features meditative spacious folk music that sustains quietly like smouldering embers and a centrepiece of three songs with more layered rock music-style songs. The album was inspired by its countryside construction, a slower life, also of more space and time.
Ships - Precession
Sorca McGrath and Simon Cullen have been making music together for five years and they’ve really hit a significant milestone with their debut album.
Precession
is one of the most beautiful and dynamic sounding records you’ll hear this year. Its production is detailed with lots of little sonic treats that easy to pick up on but hard to create. Characterised by synthesiser-driven electronic pop, the nine songs here have groove, funk and space, which draws from the past and sounds very much of the now. Whether its the gleaming disco-funk of
All Will Be
, the psychedelic space-rock of
I Can Never
, the deep peaks of
Around This World
or the electro delay of
None Of It Real
, McGrath and Cullen deliver commanding vocal performances too that bury these triumphant tunes deeper.
Talos - Wild Alee
Since appearing with
Tethered Bones
, an emotional electronic ballad three years ago, Corkman Eoin French has been refining and developing that style with every release. Now, on his debut album, produced by Ross Dowling, French makes the case that patience is a virtue for building slow-moving anthem-leaning songs flourished largely with guitar, synths and drums. This is an album of beautifully scaped sounds. Bringing it all together is French's supple falsetto, a brittle, powerful voice that can move between engulfing glacial shades and warm tones.
New Jackson - From Night To Night
The other side to David Kitt finally emerges in full-length form. After some electronic releases on European labels Hivern and Permanent Vacation, he brings it all back home. Not only does
From Night To Night
come out on Dublin’s All City label but the 11 songs featured here were created very much at home in Dublin. Specifically Kitt’s bedroom, overlooking Dublin bay in the small hours of the morning. These analogue night-time constructions have a graceful intimacy to them. The title track could have started on an acoustic and reworked as a rolling synth house number;
Put The Love In It
is loose electronic pop happy to bop along,
Found The One
and
Sp2
represent the dance-workout side while
Anya’s Piano
and the DJ Shadow-referencing
After Midnight In A Perfect World
are both muted headphone electronic that could work at a loud volume.
Michael Hopkins and Andrew Lloyd began back at the tail end of the last decade crafting indie rock but somewhere along the way, progress and experience resulted in a fresh sound, and one that is evident on the duo’s welcome Planet Parade debut album. From the Balearic pop of
Face To Face
and the lounge soul of
Begin Again
to the tropical upbeat summer song of
Blue Sky
and the shuffling jazz of
Zodiac
,
Mercury
is the sound of band who have worked hard to come up with something different.
