Welcome to Anois, Os Ard

(Re)introductions, and music from Roslyn Steer, Mohammad Syfkhan, Neil Quigley and more

Hi!

Welcome to Anois, Os Ard, a newsletter about underground Irish music. I’m Eoin, and every month I’ll publish a round-up of some new albums, EPs, compilations and DJ mixes I've been enjoying. All going well, there will also be semi-regular essays, interviews and who knows what else, all exploring the past, present and future of the island's sonic undergrowth.

Anois, Os Ard – meaning “Now, Out Loud” as Gaeilge – began as a bi-monthly column for The Quietus back in 2019, and ran until 2022. You can still read all of those articles on their website; I’m particularly proud of these ones on Operating Theatre, North Kerry Noise, Nun Attax, Choice and MuRli. 

The column was born out of a frustration with how the (predominantly) English music press was covering a handful Irish bands who were becoming very popular at that time. The music itself was mostly fine, but it was being packaged and sold abroad without a scrap of context, as though it had emerged from a vacuum where no other good or interesting shit was happening. It was a novelty, PR’d within an inch of its life and reduced to lazy talking points and nauseating stereotypes.

The landscape feels very different these days, and a new wave of Irish musicians are gaining serious momentum on an international scale. From Lankum and Kneecap to The Mary Wallopers and CMAT, these acts are introducing themselves to the world in their own voices, and firmly on their own terms. That initial crop of Big Name bands even seem to have shaken off the contrivance for the most part, and some have gone on to help raise the visibility of other, lesser-known artists in the process.

But, as ever, there's much more to explore just beneath the surface. Just look at events like Ar Ais Arís in Galway, Ponyhawke in Belfast, or Honeypot in Dublin; sift through the line-ups of festivals like Féile na Gréine in Limerick, Open Ear in Cork, or DDR’s Alternating Current. There, you’ll find a teeming ecosystem of musicians, DJs, curators and labels who are working together, in the midst of backwards licensing laws and vulturous property developers, to build a scene that’s as vibrant as anywhere else in the world. This is what I plan to document in this newsletter. I'd love it if you joined me!

I've lived in London for almost eight years now, and have spent the past six of those writing about dance music for DJ Mag. Before that, I was in Galway, where I’d moved to for college from Tipperary in 2011, and where I first started writing about local music goings-on in early 2015, under the wing of Brian Coney at The Thin Air.

It’s probably quite clichéd to say it, but keeping an ear to the ground for what’s happening in Irish music has helped me maintain a sense of connection to home since moving away. When artists and bands make the trip over, and I find myself in a venue surrounded by familiar accents and faces, that feeling intensifies to the point where I’ll notice my own intonation switching gears.

Earlier this month, I gorged on the dopamine rush I got from seeing four of Ireland’s ambient all-stars  - Gadget & The Cloud, Declan Synnott, Eamon Ivri and Rising Damp - play in Dalston's Cafe OTO. Just last week, I saw Rachael Lavelle - whose album Big Dreams is a baroque pop jewel for fans of Julia Holter, Jenny Hval et al - perform to a packed out Waiting Room in Stoke Newington, wielding a voice with the power to enchant as much as knock you sideways. 

Anyway, I've really missed having an outlet to talk about this stuff, so I’m looking forward to getting back to it. The monthly newsletter is, and will remain, free, but if you did feel compelled to sling a few quid my way, you’d be helping to sustain this thing while I get it off the ground. I’m still working it all out, but eventually there will be some exclusive bonus bits for paid subscribers too. Exciting! 

I’ve also set up a dedicated email for all things newsletter related, so please direct yr bangers to AnoisOsArd@gmail.com. I’m wide open for suggestions and feedback on how to make this as strong, informative and enjoyable as it can be.

Right then so. Now that we’re all settled in, dive in below for a fresh batch of new Irish music. I hope you find something you love. Eistigí.

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Roslyn Steer - Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird  [Fort Evil Fruit]

For an artist whose PhD thesis explored the aesthetics of screaming, Roslyn Steer often conjures the most power from the quietest moments. Her 2020 album, Someone’s Yesterday, was filled with hushed ruminations on endings, and the uncertainties that come with untangling oneself from the past; its stark themes were portrayed in a mist of reverb, frosty guitars and aching vocals.

The Cork artist's new album is gentler still, and is directly inspired by the 1917 Wallace Stevens poem from which it gets its title. Like the stanzas of that poem, these abstract compositions are less interested in conveying clear thoughts than they are in exploring moods and sensations. Sparse arrangements of pump organ, double bass, keys, guitar and woodwinds weave around whispered singing and concrète sound collages, at points pastoral and serene as a walk in the morning sun, at others dark, disquieting and strange. 

It’s never less than enticing, and fans of Steer’s Crevice bandmate Elaine Howley, Broadcast and The Focus Group’s Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age, and Félicia Atkinson’s oeuvre will all find a lot to sink their teeth into. Much like its titular blackbird, this album is open to numerous interpretations that will depend entirely on the headspace you bring to it. It reveals new scenes and feelings each time.

Mohammad Syfkhan - I Am Kurdish [Nyahh Records]

Steer’s album was mixed in Leitrim, in the home studio of Natalia Beylis and Willie Stewart, whose Nyahh Records’ label has just released this wonderful debut album by the Kurdish/Syrian singer and bouzouki player Mohammad Syfkhan. 

The story of how Syfkhan and his family ended up settling in Ireland in late 2015 is one steeped in a tragedy that few of us here could even begin to grasp; I’d really encourage you to read his recent interview with John Doran for The Quietus to get a fuller picture. Having spent many years in pre-civil war Raqqa playing in The Al-Rabie Band, renowned for their performances encompassing Arabic, Kurdish, Turkish and Western songs alongside original compositions, Syfkhan kept his bouzouki with him on this journey, and has continued to build meaningful connections across communities through music.

Syfkhan, who now lives in Carrick-On-Shannon, has, in recent years, collaborated with the likes of legendary fiddle player Martin Hayes, while also playing at weddings and events for Kurdish and Syrian communities in Ireland. Having first met Lankum’s Cormac MacDiarmada while still housed in Mosney’s direct provision centre, he went on to support the band at their sold-out show at the Cork Opera House in 2023. I Am Kurdish features accompaniments from saxophonist Cathal Roche and cellist Eimear Reidy.

These songs are, quite simply, gorgeous: lively, complex arrangements that fuse musical styles and standards from across the Middle East, Mediterranean Europe and North Africa with Syfkhan’s expressive vocals and playing at their core. The title track, an original composition, “possesses sadness with hope”, Syfkhan told tQ. Traditional and contemporary covers like ‘Do You Have a Lover or Not?’ and ‘Do Not Bow’ are dancefloor-primed love letters, while the Baligh Hamdi classic ‘A Thousand And One Nights’ and ‘Wasted Years’ take on a more reflective timbre. Superb.

Dylan Kerr ‘Live At Unit 44 02​.​09​.​23’ [3 X L]

“I would describe the music that I make as sacred music,” Dylan Kerr told me recently, explaining their proclivity for performing in churches. “The music itself is spiritual, but I guess I’m looking at the different types of spirituality that can emerge from this sort of sacred space: different ideas surrounding worship; what it means to be sacred.”

More of this conversation will be published as part of a longer essay next week, but for now, you can tide yourself over with this gorgeous live set. Although it took place in Dublin DIY venue Unit 44 instead of inside a church, all the qualities that make Kerr's music – both under their own name and as Baptist Goth – so special are here. Overlapping layers of incantatory spoken samples and choral singing slowly morph into a panoramic thrum; its hypnotising drones are augmented with glitching pitch shifts and twisting frequencies. It grips the soul like a ritual, it licks the brain like a hallucination.

Neil Quigley ‘Live In Plugd’ [Miúin]

Part improvised live set, part radio play, this new one from Kilkenny’s Neil Quigley pulls off that rare trick of making ambient music funny. Recorded live in Cork’s beloved Plugd venue last September, the performance centres around ‘Brainstorming With A Friend’, a 13-minute piece that features a synthesised text-to-speech AI model of Quigley’s own voice in conversation with a bard-like character, all played out over a woozy electroacoustic backdrop. 

What begins as a monotone mix-up regarding what sort of improv this even is, ends up moving through riffs on Cork stereotypes and the potential offence they might cause to the audience, and an extended bit about a Great British Bake Off spin-off starring Roy Keane and Celtic Tiger-era Brendan O’Connor. As we sink further into the set’s uncanny soundscape, the chat turns meta, with the pair examining the authenticity of their own dialogue. Did an AI Chatbot write this? Did Quigley? Does it matter? With new technology, what lines are blurred between fiction and reality? As AI becomes a more prevalent tool in music and performance, does it assume the role of an instrument or collaborator?

As with other figures in the Irish experimental music sphere, like Jennifer Walshe and Eamon Ivri, Quigley handles these sticky queries with a dry, unpretentious wit. Like his Kilkenny Electroacoustic Research Laboratory Anthology projects, through which he sought to “preserve” the works of a completely fictional group of composers who operated in rural Ireland between the ‘60s and ‘80s, Live In Plugd exemplifies the yarning humour that permeates this scene. All work and no play makes things a bit dull, bai.

Áine O'Dwyer ‘Turning in Space’ [Blank Forms Editions]

Okay look, this one came out in November, but I couldn't not mention this three-volume cassette collection from found sound aficionado Áine O'Dwyer. Here, the East London-based artist splices, twists and overdubs recordings captured from inside her studio – a former hospital – and its surrounding environment to create a transfixing work of “post-collagist” music. Across 17 pieces, she experiments with the “klangfarbenmelodie” technique, in which melodies are split between different instruments to create unique, ever-shifting timbres.

The instruments in question in this case are the naturally occurring creaks and acoustics of the building, as well as distant sirens, rain, traffic and chatter. These sounds are surgically manipulated and embellished with sinewy synthesisers and expansive passages of improvised “found tune” piano. It’s a compositional method that is guided above all by the act of listening, and by forming an intimate familiarity with a place. By turns, it encourages deep, attentive listening from us, both to it, and the world around us.

E THE ARTIST ‘EeE’ [Bitten Twice] 

Dublin’s Bitten Twice collective has been blowing speakers out around the capital for a few years now. Having originated during lockdown, it specialises in particularly frenzied strains of rave-adjacent music – digital hardcore, gabber, breakcore etc. Both its label catalogue and party series are home to explosive music born of pent up energy and feverish frustration. 

Its May 2022 V/A, 'Magic The Gabbering' (lol), comprised three tracks from core members Rory Sweeney, Fomorian Vein and Julia Louise KnifeFist, all brutal breaks, screeching distortion and snarling punk vocals. Now, fourth member Daranijoh Sanni, aka E The Artist, steps up with an equally fired up four tracker. 

The Nigerian-Irish multidisciplinary artist is not fucking about here. Opener ‘OF INFERIOR ROOTS’ makes its point in just 90 seconds of pummelling digital drums played at a million BPM. Julia Louise Knifefist flails, jolts and spits all over a convulsing beat on ‘ISMISM’ –  there’s about half a second’s respite thanks to the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it guitar sample from ‘The Sound Of Silence’, but it plays out more like a brief, melancholic joke. 

‘FURTHER CONSIDERATIONS ON AFROPUNKISM’ lunges and thuds with dubstep pressure, before ‘ALHAMDULILLAH’ pushes a call to prayer through layers of tremolo and digital fog. It’s a stunning flourish at the end of a release that’s over before you know it, but will pull you straight back in.

Eoin DJ ‘Total Body’ [Radiant Records] 

When it comes to dancing, I owe Eoin DJ a lot. Between 2014 and 2016, when I still lived in Galway and was tumbling my way clumsily into club music, they ran a handful of parties around town. I have some very happy – if hazy – memories of sets from artists they’d booked to play at Electric, like Tama Sumo, Leon Vynehall and Pender Street Steppers. (Incidentally, that club is finally reopening this year after shutting down during the pandemic.)

Their own sets were pretty great too; I occasionally get flashbacks to another party they ran called Tome at the The Vic, where they played alongside fellow Galway native Byron Yeates, whose Radiant Records label has now released Eoin’s latest EP. Ten years later, I’m dancing around my living room with the same abandon I felt then, practically coming up to the classic trance-meets-techno pulse and pumping prog bass of the title track. ‘Ultrasoft’ goes deeper – you can practically feel the strobe lights bouncing off your eyeballs, in sync with the rushing beat, the hot sweat in the air, the acid bass fizzing in your chest, sending ripples of euphoria through your limbs. 

For more Eoin DJ, I’d recommend listening to their recent mix for Truants, and reading the accompanying interview, which charts their musical journey from Galway through Glasgow to London, where they’ve been making a splash for the past two years. 

a multitude of everything ‘abbscessesssso01’ 

According to one Bandcamp release description, the work of Berlin-based Irish artist a multitude of everything comes from a “desire to listen to all the music at the same time”. It’s not hard to hear what they mean. From plunderphonic skronk and scrambled lo-fi folk to “atmospheric gloom pop” and battered bedroom trance, their catalogue is a hectic collage of oddly intoxicating sounds, smashed together in a “discordant data dump of multiple streams and crumbling realties”.

Their latest release is no different. Across six tracks produced between 2016 and 2020, they war, stretch and vaporise Ed Sheeran and Phil Collins samples into a glitchy ambient mist; a children’s choir sings ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ against an eerie backdrop of pitched-down found sounds; a looping snippet of Clannad’s Celtic mysticism mingles with a pack of yapping dogs.

It’s overstimulating and deeply strange, but as with much of their catalogue, there are moments of sweetness buried in the static that tie the whole thing together kind of beautifully. Plus, all the proceeds are going toward “anti repression costs for Palestinian Solidarity in Berlin”, so you’d be as well to jump in.

Peng Weng ‘an auld lad sung peng weng. low crows nest’ [Black Tragick Records]

The gaff party’s gone on far too long. Somewhere on the north coast, a kitchen is filled with bad hash smoke and the smell of spilt cans. Your beardy pal in a Trout Mask Replica t-shirt’s just hooked up to the aux, and is queuing up a playlist called “BONG!!1”. 

An aul lad’s in the corner, perched next to a dodgy speaker. Over the sound of what could be a Dopesmoker demo, a forgotten Can track caked in distortion, or an anguished acoustic busker recorded from across the road, he’s keening: “In the evening sky above there's a constant staggered thud and a puss coloured sun weeps onto a blanket of blood.”

This is what you’re in for with this new one from Peng Weng: a dark and scraggly five tracker that relishes in its battered palette. It’s rough around the edges, sure, but like all the best stragglers at the afters, you’ll struggle to ignore it, and you’ll be thinking about it for weeks after it's over. 

That’s it for now. Thanks for reading! Keep an eye out next week, when I’ll be publishing the first Anois, Os Ard essay.