Junior Brother, Girlfriend, Paddy Hanna, Elaine Malone and Pebbledash

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Following both a global pandemic and an acclaimed, landmark debut album, inimitable Irish Alt-Folk act Junior Brother returns with his new album The Great Irish Famine, and a new single titled No Snitch. The album comes on the heels of his lauded 2019 album Pull The Right Rope and is out 2nd September via multidisciplinary Irish label Strange Brew.

An idiosyncratic, challenging and richly lyrical singer/ songwriter, Junior Brother is the pseudonym of Co. Kerry, Ireland singer Ronan Kealy. Chosen as The Irish Times’ Best Irish Act of 2019 and nominated for the 2019 Choice Music Prize for Album of the Year, Junior Brother has built a rabid following thanks to unmissable live shows, and music both excitingly forward-looking and anciently evocative. His strange stories unfold with reckless abandon upon a distinctive guitar and foot tambourine accompaniment, influenced as much by the avant-garde as music from the Middle Ages and his home place in rural Ireland.

“Wry songs of anxiety and frustration.” – The Guardian ****

girlfriend. is a 5-piece alternative rock band hailing from North Dublin, who have been self releasing emotional and experimental music since 2016. Channelling the sounds of early grunge and slowcore, the band has a distinctly raw sound, creating compelling and cathartic shows. The group made an explosive return to the live music circuit in 2022, including sold out headline shows in Dublin’s Workman’s Cellar, Cork’s An Spalpín Fanách and a packed out headline slot at Féile na Gréine festival in Limerick. girlfriend. have also supported acts such as the acclaimed Mannequin Pussy, Dream Wife, Divide and Dissolve, and more recently opening for Just Mustard in a sold-out show at the Button Factory. Their latest singles Repent and Trust are just a taster for what is yet to come.

There are few artists who could count Burt Bacharach and Fontaines DC amongst their fans but Paddy is one of them. The Dubliner has long eschewed passing fads in favour of timeless melodies and fine songwriting, prompting indie music bible The Quietus to call him “a songwriter with a propensity for wildly infectious hooks and choruses that burrow into your brain with no intention of leaving.” Imagine I’m Hoping, his fourth album and the much-anticipated follow-up to 2020’s The Hill, has already gained acclaim with lead single New York Sidewalk proving one jangly, jovial chord at a time that it is possible to climb the radio charts with a song that as far from generic as they come. Nialler9 wrote that it “bursts with shimmering piano notes, parps of brass and gorgeous backing” and Stereogum speculating that the “wistful, lush song, all plinking piano and cooing background vocals” may be signalling a new direction for Hanna.

Drawing from an eclectic array of influences – stemming from an early exposure to the rattling impact of 90s grunge and the visceral inventiveness of The Velvet Underground and Nico, to a later appreciation for shoegaze’s immersive soundscapes and storied country music by Lee Hazlewood – these elements colour Elaine Malone’s brilliantly expansive psych-rock material. Across Malone’s body of work, her magnetic presence, evocative lyricism and exhilarating instrumentation culminates in endlessly inventive compositions. In the subsequent years, whilst writing songs for her forthcoming debut record due later this year via Pizza Pizza Records, Malone has been prolific as Mantua; a commanding improvisational folk-horror project that she has produced two visceral albums, released by Sunshine Cult Records. This project, which Malone began in 2019, has seen her open for revered Australian experimental duo, HTRK and UK doom-metal group PIGSx7. Also in 2022, Malone joined Just Mustard on the Irish dates of their tour in support of their Heart Under LP.

Pebbledash are a 4 piece indie shoegaze band from Cork. They formed in early 2022 and took the year to develop their sound and writing. They have arrived at something influenced by the raw power of shoegaze, their background in Irish traditional music as well as the catchy ear worm ability of indie rock. Having released three singles so far with a fourth on the way the band plan to continue to gig around the country whilst working on writing their debut EP, which will show off how they stand out from the crowd.