LATEST NEWS

Critically acclaimed Irish artist Niamh Regan recently shared her second album ‘Come As You Are’ on vinyl, CD, and digital via Faction Records.

“Come As You Are has Niamh Regan in total control of her artistic faculties and at the top of her game; she will be one to watch in the coming years… this is an album that needs to be heard, a project teeming with quiet intensity and resonance…” 9/10 The Line of Best Fit

“A powerful second album…Come As You Are’ is a delightful album full of delicate vocals, subtle hooks and exquisite instrumentation.” CLASH Magazine

“A beautiful, breathtakingly candid indie folk record of self-acceptance, Niamh Regan’s ‘Come As You Are’ is an intimate, emotionally charged invitation to embrace ourselves for who we are and lean into our light – even when it’s dark outside.” Atwood Magazine

“There’s a touch of Laura Marling in her voice, something of John Martyn in her intonation and Nick Drake in her guitar picking, the influence of everyone from Jeff Tweedy to Josh Ritter in her crafted storytelling…”

8/10 UNCUT Magazine

“…one of the most formidable forces in the Irish indie-folk scene… a pristine record which deals with faltering relationships, self-doubt, and love with exactitude and fearless candour.” 9/10 Hot Press

“There’s hypnotic late-night deep synths, plus a woozy, bespangled hidden track. In all, intelligent and beautifully idiosyncratic” 4/5 Mojo Magazine

“Come As You Are is a brutally authentic work from a songwriter of the highest order.”- KLOF Mag

Critically acclaimed Irish artist Niamh Regan recently shared her second album ‘Come As You Are’ on vinyl, CD, and digital via Faction Records.

NIAMH REGAN

Niamh Regan’s 2020 debut album ‘Hemet’ introduced her as an artist with a gift for crafting folk-tinged songs with a quiet, reflective intensity. The release started to make waves and achieved over 1 million streams on Spotify and led to nominations for both the RTÉ Folk Awards and the Choice Music Prize ‘Album of the Year’. 

Since its release, Niamh has embarked on headline tours from Ireland, to UK, Australia, Spain + more. Pairing this with many festivals and a variety of support opportunities with artist such as CMAT, Villagers, John Grant, SOAK, Patrick Watson, Sam Amidon, Cormac Begley, and Sorcha Richardson.

In between her performances, Niamh began to write her second record in Attica Studios with producer Tommy McLaughlin. She says, ‘I arrived in Donegal to meet Tommy for the first time with a bunch of demos, half-baked ideas and feeling not ready, it was scary. But I’m so glad that I did it that way. Trusted the process and came into the studio with the intention of capturing exactly where I was with it all and Tommy helped me build from there.’ 

And here we are, with the release of that second album, titled ‘Come As You Are’. It’s an album full of acutely observed vulnerabilities and introspection. Its themes are the issues that many of us find loom large in the small hours: questions of self-doubt, uncertainty about your life’s direction, whether relationships are flourishing in the way you’d hoped and determining priorities. 

“A lot of it is about being in your late twenties and kind of realising we’re all running out of time,” she ponders. “I’d have bouts of massive self-belief in the studio, and then in the next breath I would be like, ‘This is the worst piece of music I could have even imagined.’ It was a rollercoaster. But through that I found self-acceptance; this is where I’m at and making peace with that. That’s what the album essentially is, just making peace with where I’m at and being realistic with myself.” 

Niamh’s goal for the record was to achieve a richer, full live band sound, inspired by her love of Julia Jacklin, Caroline Rose, and especially Wilco. While there are moments of intimacy, the songs on ‘Come As You Are’ are far grander in scale and ambition than those on ‘Hemet’: the rousing, string-assisted majesty of ‘Waves’, subtle electro-pop beats dancing at the base of the mix in ‘Nice’, the dreamy Petty-esque melancholic swirl of ‘Blame’, and standout track ‘Music’, which, if not for the expressive feminine elegance of her voice, could feel like a lost classic from Jeff Tweedy and co.

Niamh has a contagious passion for performing live, having recently completed tours of Ireland, Switzerland, Spain, the UK, and supporting CMAT in the EU. Niamh explains the joy of releasing new music for her is performing it to a live audience, “It’s the best feeling and I think I’ll be chasing it for the rest of my life.”

And that’s a feeling that ‘Come As You Are’ will help her tap into. It’s an album which is a confident step forward, full of songs with the spark to come alive on stage and with the immediacy to beckon newcomers into her world.

IE TOUR DATES 2024

16^th July – Galway International Arts Festival (full band)

25^th July – Song Room, Wexford (solo)

20^th July – The Everyman, Cork| The Everyman after Dark: Ye Vagabonds, Iarla Ó Lionáird, Cormac McCarthy, Matthew Berrill and Niamh Regan

26^th July – Donegals (solo)

2^nd August – All Together Now

12^th August – Kilkenny Arts Festival (solo)

17^th August – Electric Picnic (full band)

20^th + 21^st September – Clonakilty International Guitar Festival (solo)

“Oh my gosh, you are all so rad, you sound great,” That is how American singer-songwriter Sharon Van Etten described The Kates. Formed with a mission to highlight the need for more women in music, exciting five-piece The Kates, from West Cork, are due to release their upcoming debut EP Pictures Here Of Dreams at CIGF this September.

Preston Reed

Internationally recognised as one of the world’s most influential guitarists and a ground-breaking innovator, Preston Reed revolutionised acoustic guitar playing in the 1980’s and 90’s. His invention of integrated percussive guitar playing – an approach that incorporates a live percussive groove on the guitar neck and body with other techniques – continues to captivate audiences and inspire new generations of musicians around the world.

Reed’s evocative compositions – from driving rhythmic grooves to intimate blues to melodic ballads – are as compelling in live performance as his eye-opening guitar techniques. Rock, folk, metal, jazz, funk, country, bluegrass, world music and classical styles all come into play in creating Reed’s signature sonic landscape that tells stories without words.

Since the launch of his first album Acoustic Guitar in 1979,  Preston Reed has released seventeen critically-acclaimed albums of original music and performed on six continents.

He has taught a master class at Berkeley College of Music. Participants in his summer guitar workshops at his home in Scotland have included Ed Sheeran. His live performances, including his 2012 performance at TEDGlobal with Usman Riaz, have had millions of internet views, and his music has received numerous awards and accolades over a career spanning six decades.

“Widely thought of as the world’s most gifted acoustic guitarist” Total Guitar

“Spectacular…the best one-man show this reviewer has seen since Bruce Springsteen…” The Irish Independent

Stanley Super 800 are a four-piece indie-rock band from Cork. The band formed in 2003 and toured all over Ireland, the UK and Europe until 2010. During that time, they released 4 records including ‘Louder & Clearer’ which was nominated for a Choice Music Prize, for Irish Album of the year in 2007.

Since 2010, the 4 members have all been busy working on other musical projects but have decided to dust down the gear and reform for the Clonakilty International Guitar Festival, where SS800 featured in the lineup for the inaugural festival back in 2005.

Méabh Ní Bheaglaoich (accordion,vocals), Nicole Ní Dhubhshláine (concertina, flute), Niamh Varian-Barry (fiddle, viola, vocals), and Kyle Macaulay (guitar, bouzouki), came together in early 2023 to form Cuas, a collective that performs and celebrates the wild and diverse musical traditions of West Kerry. Inspired by the emotive songs and the vibrant dance traditions of the area, the group puts the intrinsic link between listener and performer at the heart of the performance.

Steve Ryan is a songwriter, guitar player and educator.  A founding member of Giveamanakick and currently of Windings, Steve has also collaborated with the Rusangano Family, Denise Chaila and Naive Ted among many others. Steve is currently Course Director of the MA Songwriting in the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, University of Limerick.

the next new low

everything is nearly always falling apart when the next new low play, but somehow the well-crafted songs save us and we all leave with a comfortable glow.
the next new low refers to the journey from a terminal diagnosis to its inevitable end. alot of the songs directly reference this journey and its aftermath but don’t be misled, the music is a celebration of life, with humor, pathos and wit abound.

the next new low have been busy recording in 2024 and played National Concert Hall as part of the Metronome series and appear on RTE’s Music from Ireland series.

“They’ve got the precision of Vulfpeck, the coolness of Parliament  and the energy of James Brown” HotPress Magazine 

Grooveline: one of Ireland’s most dynamic and exciting upcoming bands. The 6 piece  style bending band rooted in funk blend (High energy Funk, Groove, hip-hop, Rock ,Jazz and trad) to make a completely refreshing sound that is “unlike anything in the Irish music scene “ (Rua media)

This captivating sound comes together with their raw and explosive energy to create an “exhilarating live show” (HotPress) and with the ability to “encapsulate the crowd into an immersive bubble of ultimate fun” (TradFest).

Grooveline are becoming one Dublins most electric and saught after acts. Since December 2022  they have sold out headline shows in Whelans, the workman’s club and the Róisín dubh, the Grand Social, Supported Kíla in the National Stadium. Won Dublin battle of the bands, played at Whelans Ones to watch and played at the St Patrick’s day Festival Dublin, went on a festival tour around Ireland and headlined Dublin culture night in temple bar. 

Do You Believe In The Power Of Rock & Roll?
An afternoon Of Spoken Word With John Robb

This is a brand new spoken word show currently on tour. John Robb talks about a life in music, his best selling book ‘The Art Of Darkness/The History Of Goth’, being the first person to interview Nirvana, coining Britpop, his adventures on the post punk frontline and so much more.

JOHN ROBB:

John Robb is a many-faceted creature.

Not just a well known face from TV but also a best selling author, musician, journalist, presenter and pundit, music website boss, publisher, festival boss, spoken word artist and frontman of The Membranes/Goldblade.

John Robb is all these things and more.

His recently released book ‘The Art Of Darkness – The History Of Goth’ is a worldwide pop culture best seller.

He grew up in Blackpool before punk rock came along and saved his life and he formed The Membranes – the highly influential post punk band whose current albums keep pushing forward with added choirs and textures and are critically acclaimed.

He was one of the leading post punk fanzine writers in the UK with ‘Rox’ before he went on to write for the rock press with Sounds in the 80s. He was the first person to interview Nirvana, and coined the expression Britpop and was instrumental in kick starting and documenting the Madchester scene with his writing.

His music and culture website louderthanwar.com is currently the 5th most read music and culture sites in the UK and at the front of diverse modern culture.

He is a constant on TV and radio commenting on music, culture and politics and one of the UK’s leading in conversation hosts who has his own successful youtube channel and his own books & music festival in Manchester every year called ‘Louder Than Words’.

He has written many books such as best sellers ‘Punk Rock – an Oral History’ and ‘The Stone Roses and the Resurrection of British Pop’ and in 2021 wrote a book about the leading eco energy boss Dale Vince from Ecotricity called ‘Manifesto’.

Current projects include a new book with Alan McGee as well as his own autobiography and a collected works of journalism (Do You Believe In The Power Of Rock & Roll?).

Do You Believe In The Power Of Rock & Roll? is a history of alternative rock from John Robb, with the music still ringing in his ears. This collection follows John’s journey from the late 1970s, when he was first caught up in punk’s high-octane thrill, to the present day, via the early days of the rave scene, the birth of electronic and techno, and myriad bands that spun off on their own idiosyncratic paths.

John was the first person to write about Nirvana, he coined the term Britpop, and he documented the Stone Roses’ rise out of Manchester before anyone else was interested. He was at every pivotal gig, and has interviewed every key player in the business, including Jordan, the queen of punk, founding father of new American rock Steve Albini, goth-rock guitarist Daniel Ash, infamous Oasis co-founder Noel Gallagher, and music greats like Lemmy and Poly Styrene.

Few others have witnessed first-hand so many important moments of the last forty years of rock history. Here, they come together to form the essential history of a personal quest to document the ever-changing soundtrack of the modern world.