Stephanie Rainey among Cork performers you can support today
Singer-songwriter Stephanie Rainey from Glanmire, Cork, pictured on Richmond Hill in Cork. Picture Dan Linehan
Glanmire's favourite musical export returns after a quiet Covid period with new single 'No Cowboy', a musing from the singer-songwriter on her misgivings with the music industry.
It's no less polished than previous efforts, though, with One Direction/Ellie Goulding producer Ash Howes at the helm, and an accompanying video shot on a teeming Hollywood Boulevard in the US.
“My wish for the new songs,” says the singer, “is they find the ears that need them. If they do that I’ll be happy. All I have to offer the world is my version of my truth. To actually connect with what I’m saying, I have to be honest. People will see through me if I don’t, and I’ll see through myself, which is worse.”
Having seen to unfinished business with the release of debut album 'No Sound Ever Dies', 25 years after the original project was shelved by Sony, Emperor of Ice Cream are tidying up the back catalogue before proceeding.
Remastered from the original tapes, 1993's Overflow E.P. is a slice of immediately-engaging, dreamy indie, plucked directly from the haze between C86's wistful earnestness and Britpop's pre-gold-rush optimism. Its digital release, happening today, is a precursor to a full early-Nineties anthology CD.
Salami - Feb 19th
— Pretty Happy (@prettyhappyband) January 31, 2021
If you can’t wait, tune into @TotallyIrish98 or @Meghann_Scully on @ClassicHitsRdio tonight! Eat Up! 🥓🥓 pic.twitter.com/U8ll1IVvCu
A missive on the dangers of processed meats is the first of three artsy, post-punk broadsides planned for 2021 from Mayfield-originating noisemakers Pretty Happy.
Having made an impression on gig-goers pre-pandemic with a live show that borders between playful, theatrical and unhinged, 'Salami' continues in that vein, marrying Pixies-inspired loud-quiet dynamic to stream-of-consciousness rhyming and vocalising.
Producer and songwriter Jack Corrigan, aka Actualacid, resides at the centre of the Cork-based HAUSU collective, a group of DIY-minded musos, visual artists and designers.
His time in lockdown, following impactful showings at HAUSU's label showcase at Cyprus Avenue and at Quarter Block Party, has been spent wisely - WARM-UPS collects a series of singles, released once-daily in the run-up to Bandcamp Friday, that skirt the boundaries between psychedelia, lo-fi hip-hop and found-sound electronica.
From the floors of Cork gig venues to the pages of Kerrang!, the pre-pandemic world was there for 'sad dancey metal' five-piece God Alone to take.
Working in lockdown, the band's members have decided to go about creating an 'extended universe' of side-projects and once-offs, starting with the emergence of improvised techno duo SHAMS. Their first release, a twelve-minute jam, veers from minimal beats to jagged, serrated noise.
Having returned to stage to reprise their '80s post-punk body of work in bands like Nun Attax and Mean Features, Ricky Dineen and Liam Heffernan weren't content with nostalgia.
The 'fourth in a trilogy' of single releases sees the Cork legends strip it back, providing distinctly Corkonian strangeness underpinned by drum-machine antics.
