Northern Ireland Tunes - Round-Up #37

It has been quite a while since we've done one of these, but we've been absolutely inundated with interesting new songs from Northern Ireland in the past few weeks that we couldn't just leave them floating around on the interwebs unloved, so we have pulled some great songs together in one lovely post. Enjoy - 

Invaderband - Not Alan Rickman

Invaderband is the project of Derry based Mancunian artist Adam Leonard (formerly of The Owl Service), and features a host of local musicians in the band, including Chris McConaghy of Our Krypton Son.

Their self-titled debut album has just been released, and is a great collection of garage-rock tunes with a spiky, off-kilter sense of humour. Our highlight from the album is most definitely "Not Alan Rickman", a song build around a deceptively simple yet effective guitar riff which pays homage to four of the late actor's most famous roles in under 2 minutes.


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Porphyry - Rip Current

And we stay in Derry for Porphyry, the near unpronounceable project of self-professed freak-folk & synth lover Daryl Coyle. His debut single "Rip Current" is a bit of a cerebral one, and one that very much defies characterisation, being very difficult to tie down to just one style. There's elements of Zero 7's chilled-out acoustronica, there's bits of post-grunge self-appraisal, and the outro goes into full electronic noodling mode. It's an interesting combination of styles, although one suspects that it might be somewhat of an acquired taste. It precedes a debut E.P, "Ursa Minor/Coming Home", which is due to be released on March 1st.


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Oisín ó Scolaí & The Virginia Slims - Intoxicated Waitress

The Derry-based folk collective Oisín ó Scolaí & The Virginia Slims have just released "An E.P Full of Water", a collection of songs that cover many different facets of the folk spectrum in all its forms. Our favourite track from the E.P is "Intoxicated Waitress", a tender, string-swept acoustic tune that seems to be something of an homage to fellow Derry musician Soak. A lovely little tune.


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Electric Octopus - Disenchanted Creative Response

And finishing us off this week is something a bit different. Electric Octopus are a Belfast based trio psychedelic-blues band, and have seemingly became something of a big deal among aficionados of the sub-genre over the past 12 months, even if they remain under the radar in their hometown. Their debut album "This Is Our Culture", has been a surprise success, with over 700,000 streams of the album on YouTube, and a horde of supporters on Bandcamp.

Such has been the success of the album that a new pressing of the album came out a few days ago, so there's still some steam in it yet. Taken from that album is the stoner-rock opener, "Disenchanted Creative Response", which although it is nearly 20 minutes long, is a very rewarding listen if you've got the patience for it.