Introducing | Nialler9 Music Blog

Introducing archive

Introducing: Solar Bears

Dublin’s Solar Bears have recently signed up to Planet Mu. Fair play to them for bypassing their locality and going straight to the source.

SB’s music is a mix of old-school electronica, cosmic flourishes, nostalgic sampling and sounds at times like a mish mash of DJ Shadow, Air, ’60s psychedelia, ’80s synths and touches on the same sound sources as the current trend for hypnagogic pop (aka chillwave aka glo-fi aka WTF are you talking about?). Look out for the Inner Sunshine EP coming soon and their debut album, provisionally titled She Was Coloured In in the summer. More tunes at Myspace and a video after the jump.

MP3: Solar Bears – The Quiet Planet

MP3: Solar Bears – Crystaline (Be Again)

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Introducing: Cults

CULTs Appearing out of nowhere last week and straight onto loads of music blogs, Cults are a boy-girl duo from New York whose sweet happy, sunny indie-pop songs have been impressing people at a great rate.

You can add me to that list too. Here’s ‘Go Outside’ – a great intro to their sound.

MP3: Cults – Go Outside

Download their three track digital 7″ at Bandcamp.

Introducing: Owensie

owensie Regular Dublin gig-goers (or Thumped members at least) will know and will have seen Owensie lately. Formerly of Terrordactyl and Puget Sound, Owensie has shorned his trademark dreads and decided to return to playing the classical guitar again after picking one up in a charity shop on Francis St. in Dublin.

The result is a gentle and emotional introspective vibe, somewhere between the American twang of Sam Amidon and the guitar picking of Jose Gonzalez. The dude sings in a falsetto too – you wouldn’t have known he had it in him, especially if you’d seen Terrordactyl or his other band Realistic Train.

He has released a five track demo EP on Bandcamp and I recommend you download it. He has some gigs coming up this month in Dublin too.

Introducing: Apparatjik

I haven’t seen too much about Apparatjik yet considering the spectrum of people involved apart from some coverage on music blogs and online magazines (and Day and Night last week).

It’s an odd one as the band are essentially a supergroup made up of Coldplay’s Guy Berryman, A-ha keyboardist Magne Furuholmen and Mew singer Jonas Bjerre. The resulting music is pretty much better than all their bands combined, certainly more interesting anyway. The Quietus debuted this live video from Berlin of the band performing ‘Snow Crystals’ inside a cube with Silent Shout-esque visuals. They have an album called We Are Here too. Interesting stuff and the songs ain’t half-bad either.

Introducing: No Monster Club

I can’t say I was a huge fan of what I heard of Dublin Duck Dispensary but Bobby Aherne’s new project is infinitely more satisfying to me. Brevity is the key here with No Monster Club. We get 10 lo-fi tropical surf-pop songs in 15 minutes on Tropical Decibels Volume Two par example.

Look out for official releases of Volumes One on Rack and Ruin in March, a song on a forthcoming Popical Island compilation, maybe a cassette release and a 16-track debut album in April. It’s rough around the edges but that only adds to the charm. Homemade video after the jumpyloo.

MP3: No Monster Club – Wish Me Well

MP3: No Monster Club – A Boyhood Scene

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Introducing: The Cast of Cheers

Or say hello to your new favourite Irish band.

Thanks to labels like The Richter Collective and the autonomous sphere of bands around the country making brilliant and mostly loud guitar music again (Adebisi Shank, ASIWYFA, Bats, Not Squares – to name a few) we can now add Dublin’s brilliantly-titled The Cast of Cheers to that list.

They’ve released their debut album Chariot via Bandcamp for FREE DOWNLOAD with a physical release coming in April. The album is a fully-formed 33-minute blast of post-punk, looping post-rock, tightly-wound songs with echoes of touchstones like Battles, Foals and Death From Above 1979.

It’s so good you’d wonder where this band appeared from? Some of them were involved in the band Abam so they’re not total newbies. Chariot is a breath of fresh air from a band I didn’t even know existed seven days ago. They’ll be supporting Super Extra Bonus Party in Andrew’s Lane Theatre on the 26th of February alongside Nakatomi Towers, Enemies and more.

Download their album now. Here’s three reasons why you should.

MP3: The Cast of Cheers – Derp

MP3: The Cast of Cheers – Auricom

MP3: The Cast of Cheers – Tigerfox

Introducing: Egyptian Hip Hop

Egyptian Hip Hop are a young four-piece who are are not from Cairo and don’t make rap. Who would of thought?

Instead, the much-touted yet very young Mancunians make burgeoning…, well it’s almost too early to tell really, but you can include an impressive ability to explore synths, off-kilter guitar music and post-punk rhythms. ‘Heavenly’ is the best thing they’ve done so far but the 12 minute experimental Battles-esque collaboration with LA Priest ‘Nifeo’ is just as interesting in concept. Like with any young band worth their salt these days, the drummer has delved into remixing too by remixing fellow city-dwellers May 68 and their own tunes.

Look out for the debut single on Late of the Pier’s Zarcorp label available for Pre-Order from Pure Groove.

MP3: Egyptian Hip Hop – Heavenly

MP3: Egyptian Hip Hop & LA Priest – Nifeo

MP3: May 68 – The Duke is Dead ( Egyptian Alex remix)

Introducing: Quadron

Danish band Quadron specialise in soulful silky-pop with an emphasis on the soul and pop. They are Robin and Coco and if you dig Lykke Li’s brand of Scanadavian pop you may very well dig these guys too.

Producer Robin Hannibal was worked with Aloe Blacc, Buraka Som Sistema and Omas Keith of Sa-Ra Creative Partners while 21 year-old Coco has sang for the producer collective Boom Clap Bachelors of which Hannibal is part of.

Their recent self-titled record was released in Europe last year and it’s getting a Stateside release in March on LA label Plug Research. Soul Clap!

MP3: Quadron -Sippin’

MP3: Quadron – Average Fruit

Introducing: MEN

Yes, it’s a crap band name. Yes, sub-editors everywhere will default to “Boyz to MEN” for their feature headlines. Yes, they’re based in Brooklyn. Yes, it’s an “art/performance collective” and yes, members of feminist electro-clashers Le Tigre (JD Sampson mainly – that’s her in the middle with the ronnie) are involved.

Regardless of lady moustaches, MEN’s music – is a sweet amalgamation of electro, synths and warm vocal tones. ‘Off Our Backs’ was the immediate ear perkup as it has a killer beat but the Bloc Party-esque ‘Simultaneously’ and the catchy chorus/ funk of ‘Credit Card Babies’ suggest a nice varied approach to things. so far, MEN only have a demo which you can hear below and buy from Amazon digitally. An album is on the way this year.

MP3: MEN – Off Our Backs

MP3: MEN – Simultaneously

MP3: MEN – Simultaneously (Lauren Flax remix)

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Introducing: Toro Y Moi

I had seen the name around and heard snatches of music for the last few months but a whimsical eMusic purchase led me to download Toro Y Moi’s Causers of This and it was a great impulse decision. As it turns out I posted his cover of Michael Jackson before (posted below).

The project of South Carolina man Chaz Bundick, Toro Y Moi could easily be shoe-horned into the non-existent chillwave banner yet Bundick still manages to include a dizzying array of styles on his debut album. From glo-fi ambience to keyboard-led dance-pop to instrumental hip-hop/R&B-influenced jams, it’s a pretty exhilarating release and it has the feeling of being cloaked in a hazy barely-there memory.

It’s out now digitally of course but released properly on Car Park on February 23rd and there’s another full-length on the way too. He’ll be hitting SXSW in March too. A new video for ‘Blessa’ has just appeared which is below too.

MP3: Toro Y Moi – Lissoms

MP3: Toro Y Moi – Low Shoulders

MP3: Toro Y Moi – Human Nature (MJ cover)

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Introducing: Penguin Prison

penguinprison If you follow music blogs closely, you’ll probably have heard this tune. That’s because a) it’s released through Neon Gold Records and b) it’s frickin’ awesome.

I had left it for a bit but I heard it again while Aoife was researching her radio show Right Click Radio (2XM Wednesdays at 5pm, Friday at Noon – listen here) and it’s been on my playlist since. Let’s ignore that another tune on his Myspace ( ‘Animal Animal’ sounds like a corny Caribbean cod-reggae tune with the lyrics “I wish Mike Tyson was my friend”), ‘A Funny Thing’ is a great headphones song with a perky taut rhythm and a poppy chorus. The definitive tune from this lone New Yorker right now.

MP3: Penguin Prison – A Funny Thing

You can buy the 7″ from Pure Groove internationally and for US peeps via the Neon Gold Shop.