New Irish Music: June 2026

The recent Irish releases featured in this month’s newsletter embody so much of what Anois, Os Ard is all about, so I’m going to just cut to the chase. Below you’ll find immense primordial drones informed by Irish folklore and “archival” electroacoustic experiments from a surreal research lab in Kilkenny. There are downtempo electro and psychotropic dub cuts inspired by UFO sightings in Kerry, Celtic futurist soundscapes derived from Dublin city street life, and frenzied club stuff influenced by John Moriarty’s philosophy of the Otherworld.

You’ll hear improvised lullabies and wonderful alt-folk songs exploring grief, love and the endless complexity of the everyday. You may also hear an Avril Lavigne interview at the centre of a snarling no-wave record. No wonder I immediately broke my new rule about writing less in these round-ups. Oh well!

Anyway, I hope you’re all good. I’m moving house in a few weeks, so it’s all go over here with packing and admin, but July’s newsletter is already looking like a banger crop. In the meantime, stay cool, and I’ll see you on the other side.

Eistigí.

One Leg One Eye - CRONE [AD 93]

When I interviewed Lankum’s Ian Lynch about the drone in Irish music a few years ago, he spoke a lot about the ability of sustained tones to transcend the boundaries of time and space. So it’s no surprise that the second album under his One Leg One Eye moniker, now a fully fledged duo with George Brennan (BB84, Melodica Deathship), would defy chronology in its pursuit of cosmic doom. CRONE was written and recorded mostly in 2021, more or less in tandem with 2022’s debut album ...And Take The Black Worm With Me, with Lynch focussing primarily on that project while Brennan worked on this one.

That first offering was hardly sunshine and roses; its five tracks suffused bellowing uilleann pipes and field recordings with dark ambient intensity and atmospheric black metal textures, all underscoring Lynch’s haunted folk vocals, reverberating as though from across the event horizon. CRONE plunges further still. Over four longform tracks, the pair unearth the heaviest, gnarliest drones from the primordial tar, heaving them up from the sludge of deep time via the fog of ancient folklore and mythology. In brief, it fucking rips.

It starts with a sort of curse, as legendary Irish actor and Operating Theatre member Olwen Fouéré assumes the role of Calib, a cailleach, or divine hag, who prophesies the doomed fate of King Conaire Mór in the The Destruction of Da Derga’s Hostel. In a petrifying death growl over thunderous electronics and shrieking uilleann pipes, she recites ‘Many are my Names Besides’, embodying the wrath of the sovereignty goddess on corrupt leaders who fail the land and its people.

It doesn’t really let up from there. ‘Neither Fell nor Flesh’ is a full-pelt drone opus that’ll blast the synapses of Sunn O))), Kali Malone and Aho Ssan fans. ‘What I Shall Follow, I Shall Hunt’ is a rhapsody and animal snarls and scorched distortion. Fouéré returns once more in ‘Save What Birds Will Bear Away in Their Claws’, this time as both the Morrígan and Feldem, a sovereignty goddess and a seer, who each describe a gruesome battle between Ulster and Connacht in the Táin Bó Cúailnge. “Ravens gnawing men’s necks, blood spurting in the fierce fray, hacked flesh, battle madness,” she howls, before immense gusts of speaker-busting sub-bass and organ-like hums send the whole thing toward a trembling, twitching finalé. “I see it crimson,” she whispers. “I see it red.”

Dublin - Heavy Dublin [wherethetimegoes]

What does Dublin sound like, really? Is it the thrum of a trad session in The Cobblestone? Acid Granny’s trolley rattling down Dame Street? The buzz of a dozen post-punk bands plugging in at once? Is it the blurred memory of pounding dancefloors and DIY spaces shut down and replaced with empty developments? Or a whirring ecosystem of independent musicians and promoters striving to present meaningful art against a backdrop of corporate imperialism and commodified cultural slop? Dunno, depends who you ask. All that and more, I suppose.

It’s a question that’s clearly been scratching the heads over at wherethetimegoes HQ. The accompanying text to this new album from the elusive “postmodern classical” duo known only as Dublin doubles as a sort of manifesto for the label as it marks its tenth year. Rallying against half-baked cultural façade, “consumerist simulacra”, and the “uncritical cheerful acceptance of the city’s repressive forces”, the imprint reiterates its intent to release music that, in its own experimental way, reflects the multidimensional realities of life within the capital.

Heavy stuff no doubt, but you needn’t worry about it all that much while listening to Heavy Dublin. Like 2022’s self-titled debut, these abstract vignettes of improvised electronics and fiddle exemplify the sublime Celtic futurist soundscape that has come to permeate the wherethetimegoes catalogue, from Princ€ss and Mel Keane’s cult hits to the ambient dub odysseys of lastminuteman, Auffthorn and Odd Ned.

Like a leisurely post-two-pints bus diversion down unfamiliar streets at sunset, this music is as dreamy as it is disorienting – it’s no mistake that these numerically (un)titled tracks are arranged out of sequence. It’s a journey-over-destination thing – getting lost in its hazy fugue state of fizzing synthesis, filigreed string drifts and handpan-esque percussion is part of the point, and it’s all the more blissful for it. Fans of the West Mineral extended universe, along with Leif, Ulla, NEXCYIA, Lia Kohl and last year’s stunner from metaxu, will feel right at home in these gauzy electroacoustic jams, all glitching melodic particles and woozy soundscaping. You might feel yourself floating away in the ambience every now and then, but it’s never long before some effervescent sonic sunbeam refracts through the window and dazzles you right back down to earth, to the city, and to the million sounds and stories that make it what it is.

bodies of water - bodies of water [squiggling]

Dublin’s soundscape is often peppered with the guerrilla-style drumming of Jason McNamara, whose antic improvisations in sync with roadworks, seagulls and car horns have clattered across the city for about 16 years now. But, as the releases on his criminally undersung squiggling label so often demonstrate, the mutli-instrumentalist and producer is just as capable of exploring more delicate sonic terrain. I really liked 2025’s Devil’s Glen, a set of “spontaneous forest music” made with guitarist Dave Moran, but this new one under the bodies of water banner is a real doozy.

At the heart of the project is Cara Coyle, whose vocals drift from lullaby hum to lilting jazz croon across six swooning studio jams. Accompanied by McNamara on drums and electronics, Daniel Cregan Whelan on piano and Alex Moore on bass, these songs will hit the spot for fans of Tara Clerkin Trio and Jabu, last year’s gorgeous Eliana Glass LP, or Feeo’s superb Goodness.

From the pulsing ambient fog and muffled keys of ‘stay’ and the lo-fi synth swirl of ‘held under’, Coyle’s voice slowly comes into focus, barely there at first, but rising in reverberant swells. In ‘that way’, muffled studio chatter gives way to candlelit lounge, Coyle’s voice curling like smoke, recalling the most intimate moments in Feist’s The Reminder. The feeling lingers in the album’s second half, not least in the moments where the recordings come off their hinges a little, subsumed in distortion or billowing with fretless bass and softly surging keys. It’s the vocals that hold it all together, like a luminous thread connecting streetlights in the fog.

V/A - Kilkenny Electroacoustic Research Laboratory Anthology Vol. 3 - The Stray Sod [Miúin]

A children’s story told with the help of synthesised sound waves. A failed environmental audio installation from the 1974 World Expo in Spokane, Washington. A post-apocalyptic eco-sci-fi radio play about an Irishman in deep space. New age-y ambient tracks and folk ballads played on early electronic instruments. It’s all here in the third and final instalment of the Kilkenny Electroacoustic Research Laboratory Anthology, a project helmed by composer Neil Quigley that’s helped unearth the surreal and shambolic history of this forgotten experimental arts institute.

Those unfamiliar with the series might wonder why they haven’t heard of this seemingly prolific lab, which supposedly operated in between 1965 and 1985, or why the only record of it exists on Quigley’s Miúin label. I’d recommend not worrying about all that too much. Across 21 tracks – and an accompanying pamphlet packed with illustrations, interviews, flyers and all sorts of uncanny ephemera – we’re introduced to a cast of fascinating characters, from the composers and folklorists Jacinta Delaney and Maeve Skully, to cousins Owen and Tom Kiely, founders of the arts collective-cum-hapless-cult Radagast’s Allotment.

Despite the accompanying notes’ insistence that this music was, historically, a total commercial failure, what matters is how good it sounds now. From oblique sound art pieces through genuinely gorgeous folk songs attributed to Brenda Hickey and The Triskelion, to the immersive ambient electronic tracks by The Small Green Hand, Stevie Larkin and Packie Bolger, the world Quigley and his collaborators have, uhh, excavated is a remarkable one. Suspend all disbelief and dive in.

Lemoncello - Perfect Place [Claddagh Records]

Truth be told, Lemoncello’s music has always been a bit hit or miss for me, but the Dublin-based duo have seriously leveled up on their second album. Building on the stripped-back guitar-cello-vocal foundations of their debut, Laura Quirke and Claire Kinsella’s penchant for braiding various strands of 20th century folk into sweetly-spun contemporary indie-pop songs is fully realised here. Stepping away from pastiche and more assuredly into their own sound, it’s far and away their most enchanting work to date.

Produced by Ruth O’Mahony-Brady, and fleshed out by a full band and subtle electronics, these 10 tracks retain the intimacy that made previous tunes like ‘Michael Furey’ and ‘Sunflower’ work so well, but there’s a painterly precision to the songcraft and storytelling here that demonstrates a newfound maturity. From the psychedelic undercurrents of ‘Articulate Animal’, ‘At The Edge’ and ‘Tomorrow Nostalgia’ to the tender depictions of disconnection, heartache and dread in ‘Karaoke Night’, ‘Meet Me Half Way’ and ‘White Flag’, there’s hardly a note out of place as the pair navigate love, friendship and life’s transience amidst the bewildering drift of their 20s.

Each decision – every up-close vocal inflection, poetic turn of phrase and unexpected instrumental flourish – is handled with care, woven together with silk-on-silk harmonies in the service of narratives that are at once understated and deeply considered. Almost a decade into their journey, it really feels like Lemoncello have finally arrived.

Seamus Fogarty - Ships [Lost Map Records]

Seamus Fogarty’s music had sort of eluded me until now, although I’m really not sure why. Listening to past albums like 2012’s Goddamn You Mountain – a gorgeous alt-folk suite rough-stitched with glitching ambient electronics, unspooling tape loops and field recordings – has felt a bit like being introduced to someone I should have met years ago.

Better late than never I suppose, and I’m more than happy to join the fanclub now alongside the likes of Lisa O’Neill and Cillian Murphy thanks to this new album. Written after his contract with Domino ended, Ships finds the Mayo-born, London-based musician back on DIY terrain with Lost Map Records, though fans of former labelmates like James Yorkston, King Creosote and Avey Tare will surely find a lot to love here, as will those of David Kitt, Damien Jurado and Bill Callahan.

From the observational folk vignettes and bittersweet reflections of ‘Come Down To The Square’, ‘Ships’, ‘Woking’ and ‘I Passed Your House’ to the darkly comic character studies of ‘The Last Days Of Watchmaker Joe’ and sprechgesang album highlight ‘They Recognised Him’, it’s an album rich in influences and ideas, emboldened by collaborators who help give the whole thing an atmosphere that’s both intimate and grand.

I love the way his voice strains over the wavering keyboards and Walthamstow street recordings in the intro, and the tentative hope that hangs in the refrain of motorik-folk cut ‘Fire’. Across the record, you’ll find Fogarty’s lyrics reaching for that feeling again and again as he scours the mundanity of modern living for shards of light, like vessels glimmering somewhere off on the horizon.

MAC GIOLLA GHUNNA - MAC GIOLLA GHUNNA

Paul Gilgunn’s previous releases as MAC GIOLLA GHUNNA revelled in minimalism. In 2014, he composed a longform drone work for electric guitar as part of Tony Conrad and Jennifer Walshe’s “shadow opera”, The Signing. 2019’s Here We Are Now added drums, bass and saxophonics into the mix to conjure a sort of avant-rock ouroboros.

This new self-titled album is a very different beast. Here, the multidisciplinary artist opens a kaleidoscopic wormhole between the West of Ireland and the Otherworld, feeding the influence of philosopher John Moriarty into ten tracks packed with warped electronics, swarming samples, timestretched voices, and tonnes and tonnes of polyrhythmic percussion. There’s thundering club drums, drill & bass mutations, skattergun breakbeats and bodhráns, all propelling the record’s contorted soundscape into new states of spaghettification.

The handheld frame drum isn’t the only Irish folk instrument to feature in this frenzy. Here and there you may detect the trilling trad melody of tin whistle, fiddle, flute or uilleann pipe, bitcrushed, glitched and drowned in reverb. Zooming past these particles as you fly down this records’ cacophonous portal, you may well feel transported to another dimension, but MAC GIOLLA GHUNNA does seem intent on offering a soft landing.

The 11-minute closing track returns to more minimalist terrain, laying the record down on a thick fog of disembodied choral chants, sweeping drones and swirling ambience. It’s an apt-wind down, and an opportunity to reflect on the fact that, in Moriarty’s eyes at least, the Otherworld and this world are often the same, so long as we’re open to witnessing it.

Roisín Gowen - Out Of Grief, Into The Garden

The 13th-century Sufi mystic and poet Rumi once said, “Grief can be the garden of compassion. If you keep your heart open through everything, your pain can become your greatest ally in your life’s search for love and wisdom.”

It’s a quote worth holding onto as you listen to the debut album from Roisín Gowen, whose open-hearted folk songs navigate coming of age in the wake of bereavement. Channelling Joni Mitchell and Joan Baez, Gowen’s lyrics tend to the pain, longing and destabilisation of losing one’s mother with the same gentle hand as they do enduring love and the promise of becoming.

Over softly-strummed guitar, she plants seeds of personal growth in rich mezzo-soprano, reflecting on early adulthood and the guiding, protecting presence of those no longer with us. Beyond being deeply moving, to be able to convey these thorny, complex emotions with such delicate clarity on a first record is remarkably accomplished. I’ll look forward to hearing where the garden path leads her next.

Crying Loser - The Ick [Trapped Animal Records]

What is it in the River Lee that draws so many Cork bands toward discordance? From the frantic ‘80s (post-)punk of Nun Attax and Five Go Down To The Sea? to Dan Walsh’s turbulent avant-jazz experiments with Fixity and “Ireland”, a taste for off-kilter skronk courses through the city’s music scene like murky flood water.

Enter “nah-wave” outfit Crying Loser, whose debut album deals in all those sounds and then some. The Ick is an apt title; this nine-track, 31-minute scuzzfest reeks like a bad nightclub, but one you’ll want to dance in nonetheless. ‘Do the Jerk’ jolts into action with flailing clarinet, skittering drums and caustic blasts of bass and guitar, all underpinning Arthur Pawsey’s feral snarl, inviting us to do as the title says we should. ‘The Weight of Want’ scurries further into the grime, driving down on a motorik noise route into depravity, before ‘Isn’t It Better Than Staying In Bed’ lands like a misanthropic cover of Herbie Hancock’s ‘Watermelon Man’.

Plenty of moments evoke Gilla Band at their most frenetic, but none more than ‘Flesh Interface’, a post-punk acid burn that winds down the album’s first half. Eerie interlude ‘Bad Haircut’ samples an Avril Lavigne interview about being a “punk-rocker”, before the second half sways and swaggers down increasingly raucous avenues, smoked-doused and drenched in psychoactive sweat. An ick has never felt harder to resist.

V/A - Bibliotek: UFO [evenings&weekends]

Ireland has some history with UFO sightings. On 11th July 1947, just days after the mysterious Roswell incident in New Mexico, a flying saucer was reportedly spotted in the sky above Cahirciveen, Co. Kerry. In 1969, another appeared in Mullinahone, Co. Tipperary, while more have cropped up over the years in Kildare, Antrim and, once again, off the coast of Kerry in 2018.

All of this provides a thematic launchpad for this new compilation on evenings&weekends, the experimental imprint of Wicklow-based dub techno label Mines Clarence. The first in a series of releases paying homage to historic library records and film soundtracks, these 14 tracks encompass everything from throbbing kosmische, dub psychedelia and eerie BOC-style downtempo to smoked out big beat, murky footwork and drifty Drexciyan electro.

It all bears the strange static glow of a TV left on at night, beaming old sci-fi flicks and extraterrestrial messages into the shadowy corners of your living room. Listen with headphones on and cast an upward glance out the window. You never know what you might find up there.

That’s all for now! Until next time x