Formerly known as nicetry, of all living things is a four piece Dublin based band. Inspired by nostalgia and memories of youth, the sound is reminiscent of 90’s alternative music, with textured guitars complementing delicate female vocals.
Following their debut single release last year, of all living things will be releasing a 4 track EP late October 2021, recorded with Ber Quinn at Sonic Studios in Stoneybatter, Dublin. The first single off the EP, ‘If I Go’ will be released on the 27th August, followed by vinyl release under Any Other City Records in Autumn.
John Francis Flynn is a singer and multi-instrumentalist whose work centres around traditional and folk material from Ireland.
He is a founding member of the band Skipper’s Alley, with whom he has toured extensively throughout Europe and America. While supporting Lankum on their 2019 UK tour he caught the eye of Geoff Travis and Jeanette Lee who quickly signed John to Rough Trade imprint label, River Lea. River Lea will release John’s debut album “I Would Not Live Always” in Spring 2021.
Produced by highly regarded producer, Brendan Jenkinson, this release looks to continue where River Lea last left off; highlighting the enormous talent hidden away in the corners of Ireland’s folk scene.
“Human experience burns ferociously on this extraordinary debut from the uncompromising Irish artist John Francis Flynn. An extraordinary debut” The Guardian
“Double Tin Whistle and Tape-Loops. Revelatory new takes on English and Irish folk songs in the manner of Sam Amidon. A singular and striking clarity of vision” Uncut Magazine
Little John Nee is a writer/performer based in Co. Galway in the west of Ireland. A prolific creator of work for theatre he was recently elected to Aosdána (established by the Irish Arts Council in 1981 to honour artists whose work has made an outstanding contribution to the creative arts in Ireland)
His style of storytelling theatre with music has won him international recognition and his play “Sparkplug” won an Irish Times Theatre Award for his sound design while the RTE radio version won a Special Mention Prize at the Prix Italia 2013.
He has recently published a book of Haiku “The Apocalypse came on a Friday” and previously his “A Donegal Trilogy” was published by An Grianan Theatre. He has released an album of songs from his theatre shows recorded with The Caledonia Highly strung Orchestra. “Songs from the Lough Swilly Delta”
Little John Nee has been commissioned to write plays for Barabbas Theatre Company, Axis Ballymun, Scottish Touring Theatre Consortium, An Grianan Theatre, Earagail Arts Festival, Donegal Co. Council, Leitrim Co. Council, children’s plays for Galway Arts Festival and a radio play for RTE Radio Drama on One.
John Spillane is a musician, songwriter, performer, recording artist, storyteller, poet and dreamer. Rooted in people, place and story, his music transports the listener and his live performances captivate audiences around the world. After 20 years, in April John released his first independent release; 100 Snow White Horses.
Inspired by his travels around Ireland, these new songs are full of poetry, Irish mythology and wonder. 100 Snow White Horses is John’s first independent album in 20 years.
Recorded in London with producer John Reynolds and singer Pauline Scanlon; the trio have previously worked together on John’s albums Hey Dreamer (2005), The Gaelic Hit Factory (2006) and My Dark Rosaleen and the Island of Dreams (2008).
“After 10 years and many adventures we are combining our skills and painting this, our masterpiece.” – John Spillane
100 Snow White horses was released on April 2nd 2021.
In addition, John will lead one of his legendary songwriting workshops tickets for that are available here
9pm // Debarra’s Folk Club // September 16 (ALSO LIVE-STREAMED)
Channeling the music of her ancestors through her deep rooted Irish traditional fiddling and bilingual song, Clare Sands is a unique force in Irish music. A sixth generation fearless feisty fiddler, the singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist is breaking the boundaries of Irish Music. She makes pulsating Folk music, infused with a myriad of influences from around the world to create an invigorating new sound, for the young and the old, brave and the bold.
Sands has been wowing audiences around Ireland and further afield with her groundbreaking style, passionate performance, and infinite warrior-like energy. Performing with the likes of Hothouse Flowers, Mick Flannery, Albert Hammond, The Stunning, Susan O’Neill, Jack L, Niamh Regan, Luka Bloom and many more, as well as selling out dates around Ireland as an artist in her own right, this ‘force of natures’ time has come.
Throughout 2021, Clare has been collaborating with some of Ireland’s finest Folk and Traditional musicians to compose four new songs over the four seasons, inspired by the landscapes and soundscapes of the four provinces. These compositions with Steve Cooney & Tommy Sands, Susan O’Neil, Brídín and Liam Ó Maonlaí will feature on Clare’s highly anticipated self-titled debut album of pulsating Folk, due for release in 2022. Described by Mark Radcliffe on BBC Radio 2 as ‘full of life’ they are a glance into the invigorating new Irish sound to come.
‘AN EMPOWERING, EXCEPTIONAL TALENT, CHANNELING THE MUSIC OF HER ANCESTORS TO CREATE THE SOUND OF A NEW IRELAND’ LYNETTE FAYE, BBC RADIO ULSTER
‘CLARE CREATES BRAVE MUSIC THAT TAPS DEEP INTO THE WELL OF WHAT WE ARE ABOUT, OF TRADITIONAL MUSIC, AND BRINGS IT RIGHT TO THE PRESENT DAY. A PHENOMENAL MUSICIAN’ FIACHNA Ó BRAONÁIN, RTÉ RADIO 1
‘AN IMPASSIONED VOICES AND MUSICAL GENIUS ON STAGE. A UNIQUE FORCE IN IRISH MUSIC’HOTPRESS MAGAZINE
Pretty Happy are an Art-Punk three-piece from Cork. Drawing on a rebellious tradition of Cork Post-Punk, the band has sculpted their own theatre influenced, all-consuming noise rock sound.
Using a combination of spoken word, raw emotion and a demented punk style the band’s latest releases have garnered attention from the likes of KEXP, BBC 6, BBC Introducing, BBC Ulster (Stephen McCauley’s ‘Street Knowledge’), 2FM (Track of the Week), Newstalk as well as The Irish Examiner, The Sunday Business Post, Hot Press Magazine (A+R Department), Nameless Faceless, Nialler9, Golden Plec, The Last Mixed Tape and Entertainment.ie.
The members of Pretty Happy, (Abbey Blake, Arann Blake and Andy Killian), are passionate about their local arts scene. Abbey is founder of Angry Mom Collective, a movement set up to battle the gender divide in Irish arts. All members are also keenly involved in drama and film which bleeds through to their eccentric live performances.
With Abbey’s defined pedal driven guitar sound she was announced as an Earthquaker Devices Artist in 2020.
Pretty Happy kick off their Summer with a set recorded in St. Lukes Church (Live at St Luke’s) as part of Cork’s Midsummer Festival. In a special emerging artist event, Abbey is showcasing her work as a film-maker, activist and musician.
Windings are a 5-piece rock/alt/pop/indie/folk band from Limerick City, Ireland. Over the past few years, windings have had the pleasure of sharing stages, supporting, and touring with the likes of Daniel Johnston, Smog/Bill Callahan, Bob Mould, Okkervil River, Caribou, Iron And Wine, Villagers, Teenage Fanclub, Kurt Vile, and Modest Mouse, amongst others. They have performed at festivals such as Electric Picnic and Forbidden Fruit (Irl), CMJ (New York), CMW (Toronto).
2012 brought the band to Canada to play at Canadian Music Week, Toronto, for the second year running. After a successful run of shows at the festival, they continued north to Hotel2Tango Studios in Montreal where they recorded side One of their 3rd, and most recent, album, entitled ‘I Am Not the Crow’ with Efrim Menuck (Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Silver Mt Zion). Side Two was completed on their return to Ireland, with the expertise of Tommy McLaughlin (Villagers) at Attica Audio, Donegal.
Released (on Limited Edition Picture Vinyl and Digital Download) in October 2012 on Out On A Limb Records, I Am Not The Crow has been lauded by critics both nationally and internationally as one of the top Irish albums of that year, with its lead single ‘This Is A Conversation’ achieving considerable airplay on it’s release.
However, the most exciting part was yet to come when I Am Not The Crow was nominated for the Choice Music Award, the most prestigious Musical Prize in Ireland.
6:30pm & 9pm // DeBarras Folk Club // September 14
(9pm show ALSO LIVE-STREAMED)
“Free wheeling, free spirited and powered by an appetite for traditional music’s outer reaches” Séamus Begley & Jim Murray are among the most dynamic duos in Irish Traditional Music.
Jim Murray is one of Ireland’s finest guitarists and his formidable reputation has been established as a player of traditional music – both as a melody player and as an accompanist. Throughout his childhood, Jim who hails from Macroom in West Cork performed with various groups including his father’s celidh band. In his late teens he formed a group with fellow local musicians which quickly lead him to be invited to play professionally with many of Ireland’s renowned artists. Over the last decade, Jim has combined a wide range of music and influences to create a unique and exciting modern sound in guitar accompaniment bringing it to the ‘now’. Jim plays regularly as a member of Sharon Shannon’s band and has also toured and recorded with Altan, Mary Black, Sinead O’Connor, Steve Earle, Donal Lunny and many other musicians.
Accordion player and singer Séamus Begley is one of the most popular Irish traditional musicians, coming as he does from one of the most musically acclaimed Irish families. He is the quintessential Irish musician, an eager storyteller known for his sharp wit and famous for pumping out tune after tune at all night sessions. He plays with an energy that is alarming, bringing a frisky spontaneity to his box-playing, belting out jigs, slides and polkas with rapid sprays of reckless ornamentation before making a sudden key change into a bitter-sweet air, sung or played on the accordion.
His repertoire reflects his own place and his style of playing is much influenced by a now gone generation of accordion and fiddle players who came to céilí in his family home. Seamus’s style is unique and he is considered by many to be one of the finest players of the dance music of West Kerry and is never happier than when people are dancing to his music. Séamus divides his time between his small holding in the West Kerry Gaeltacht and travelling Ireland and the world playing music. He has toured extensively with Jim Murray, Altan, Steve Cooney and Mary Black to name but a few.
In 2001 Séamus and Jim released their first album, the highly acclaimed ‘Ragairne’ which was winner of the 2001 Hot Press Magazine ‘Folk and Trad Album of the Year’ and The Irish Times ‘Traditional album of the Year’. Their highly anticipated second album, Eiri Go La was released in Early 2009 and has received rave reviews to date.
“They remind me of my first days at ‘Les Cousins’ in Soho in 1965… Ye Vagabonds are a modern expression of a tradition that is truly robust and important to these islands.”– Roy Harper
“Going backwards to go forwards, [Ye Vagabonds] look not to modern day influence to inspire their sound but prefer to absorb and reflect the most genuine leanings of deep tradition, playing folk music that resonates as pure and honest as it has since time immemorial. In an age where styles have a limited shelf life, and musicians so often live by definition of their sell-by date, Ye Vagabonds make music that honours timeless sincerity with acoustic fireside storytelling that will sound as current a hundred years from now as it has a hundred generations past.”– Myles O Reilly (Arbutus Yarns)
Brothers Brían and Diarmuid Mac Gloinn grew up playing music together around their hometown of Carlow, a small town in the southeast of Ireland. After moving to Dublin in 2012, they quickly became a staple of the live music and session scene in Ireland, playing their own original songs as well as folk songs from Ireland, Scotland, England and America.
In 2014 they came to the attention of Arbutus Yarns’ music filmmaker Myles O Reilly, whose videos gained international attention for the brothers for the first time.
After a chance meeting at Electric Picnic in September 2015, the brothers performed onstage with Glen Hansard, who immediately invited them to open for him on his European tour the following October.
Their debut EP Rose & Briar was released on October 7th 2015.
Since then, they have been busy touring Ireland, the UK and Europe, opening for acts such as Villagers, Roy Harper and Lisa Hannigan (whose band they played in for her Irish tour, June 2016). They have also played sold out headline shows in Ireland, Paris, Geneva and Solothurn, Switzerland.
They have made numerous television and live radio appearances in Ireland, and were featured in Ep. II of Myles O’Reilly and Donal Dineen’s music programme This Ain’t No Disco in March 2017. They were also part of ‘Imagining Home’, a live broadcast concert in the National Concert Hall of Ireland, 2016, curated by Glen Hansard, Philip King and Gary Sheehan.
Ye Vagabonds are currently finishing their highly anticipated debut album, due to be released in Autumn 2017.
Lisa O’Neill has a remarkable voice; a Cavan twang, a growl, a song-call. It can be many things. She needed to make an album about that voice. ‘Pothole in the Sky’ is a recording of “the voice”. The voice is everything for the folk singer – a conduit for the words, the emotion, the thought process. This is no ordinary record.
O’Neill’s voice goes to all sorts of places throughout the course of this album, and the music provided by Emma Smith, Seamus Fogarty, Joseph Doyle, and Mossy Nolan follows her like a dark swirling storm, often bringing to mind the loose impressionism of the Dirty Three. On ‘Planets’ O’Neill delivers her most extraordinary vocal and lyrical performance to date. It is remarkable and on this form she could go toe to toe with Nick Cave at his most fire and brimstone. Except O’Neill’s prose is elemental and mysterious, not angry.
As any truly great singer knows, it’s not all about those big reaching numbers. There is some truly brave singing on this record. For instance, the odd high-pitched flourishes on ‘Nasty’, or the shrill parlour style singing on ‘Black Sheep’. The latter features some of the best accompaniment too, a mellifluous psychedelic montage that literally sets sail one-minute-thirty in as Lisa goes off on one of her patented hypnotic stream-of-conscious word-play trips. The album closes out on a succession of brilliant songs. ‘The Banjo Spell’ is a tender ode to the aural folk tradition without being throwback. In fact it has a big lush modern feel to it. And ‘The Hunt’, featuring guest fiddle and banjo from Colm Mac Con Iomaire and Glen Hansard respectively, is just another meandering epic Lisa O’Neill number, twisting and turning and changing its phrasing and tempo to suit the story and accommodate the words. She makes it sound easy. But it’s not.
At a time when sameness threatens to drain the world of charm and surprise, Lisa O’Neill stands tall for difference, as an outlier with a mission to frame the world as she sees it and to perform it accordingly.Joe Breen, Irish Times