Better than Newry Prices! FREE Jewellery Gift worth 40 Get a FREE GIFT worth 40 when you spend 100 or more this Christmas Cannot be used in conjunction with any other offer Stephens Green Shopping Centre Tel: (01) 478-5336 house Rich tapestry: Etienne Tron and Johan Karlberg draw on African rhythms for their latest album is Hello, how are you? Fine, thank you, he says. Its so simple, nobody would ever think about putting that in a song. What we tried to do with Radioclit events was to bring the local crowd who have lived through this music, whether its African, Asian, South American or whatever, along with hipster kids, adds Karlberg. You can see all these cultures connecting. Club music is a really new phenomenon when you think about it, says Tron. It only started 30 years ago or so. Disco turned into house music, and I think now its going back to its older and more organic roots, to the essence of the drum beat, and the trance that creates. Basically its going back to where it started: Africa. That blast of musical traditions is what makes Radioclit sound so fantastically timely: its the whole world getting together on the dance floor. Radioclits Secousse EP (Mental Groove Records) is out on Monday. Herm: Monsters Catchy Go Go Records Former El Diablo strummer Herm aka Kevin Connolly (pictured) finally got round to releasing his solo debut earlier this year: the inventive, free- wheeling rock-out Monsters. A delightful mish-mash of jangly indie pop with a serrated edge (Rosemary, The Long Way Down, Heads) and raucous floor-fillers (Monsters), the album also boasts two of the years most inspired duets: Herm collaborated with Nina Hynes on the aching ballad Year Of The Horse and with Michelle Considine on the goose-pimple inducing Cellar Door. Imagine a young Tom Waits with a finely-honed pop sensibility and youre halfway there. Daragh Reddin ONE TO WATCH COUNTRY CHOICE Thursday, December 17, 2009 metrolife 15 Staying In Irish Albums of the year If you were judging by the hype you might think only two Irish records were released in 2009: U2s No Line On The Horizon and The Swell Seasons Strict Joy. Both were bland updatings of a formula we were already bored silly of although U2s three-night Croker stand showed there was life in the old warhorses yet. Away from the spotlight, however, it was a remarkably fertile 12 months for Irish music, as this rundown of the years best albums shows. The Holy Roman Army: How The Light Gets In Collapsed Adult Some of the years most engaging new music originated in Irelands vibrant electronica scene. Steering a course between 1990s shoe-gaze and laptop bleepery, Carlow brother-sister duo Chris and Laura Coffey made an early bid for album of the year with How The Light Gets In. Granted, it meandered a little towards the end, but stand-outs Dublin In The Deadlight and Caught In The Wire brimmed with pop savvy. Bell X1: Blue Lights On The Runway BellyUp Records Bell X1 were accused of doing a Radiohead with this diffuse and introspective foray. However, it would be a disservice to dismiss it as a homegrown Kid A. Talking Heads-go- electro single The Great Defector was their best pop moment to date elsewhere Amelia and A Better Band combined brave experimentation with masterly songwriter chops. Valerie Francis: Slow Dynamo VF Records Sound engineer-turned-downbeat-chanteuse Francis delivered one of 2009s most charming surprises: a mopey, bedsit record you actually wanted to sit all the way through. And then listen to all over again. Extra marks awarded for the luminescent video accompanying the single Punches. The Duckworth Lewis Method: The Duckworth Lewis Method Setanta Released in the run-up to the Ashes, this irony-free valentine to cricket from Neil Hannon and Pugwashs Thomas Walsh flew in the face of received wisdom and demonstrated you could actually make a decent concept LP about sport. We await with bated breath Lisa Hannigans musical tribute to the Meath footballers. Adrian Crowley: Season Of The Sparks Tin Angel From snarky music bloggers to Whelans scenesters, everybody, it seems, loves Adrian. Dont be put off by his reputation as Irelands moochiest singer-songwriter. In fact, Season Of The Sparks is a spry country pop record, not a zillion miles away from early Wilco the crucial difference being the eerie power of Crowleys heartbroken croon. David Turpin: Haunted! Kabinet Its about time someone got around to making an Irish gothic synth-pop record. Two-thirds Pet Shop Boys ballad, one third Sheridan Le Fanu ghost story, Haunted! was a tongue in cheek gloomfest, ripe with baleful imagery but also with tunes you could hum in the shower. Patrick Kelleher: You Look Cold Osaka Lock Glen Hansard in a Berlin recording studio, turn the heating off and take his guitar away and the results might sound like this: a glitched-up folk album which veered between coffee-house angst and woozy nu-gaze. And So I Watch You From Afar: And So I Watch You From Afar Smalltown America Unfairly castigated as an Irish Mogwai (that would be God Is An Astronaut youre thinking of), the Belfast noize-bringers showed that sometimes its what is left unsaid that counts the most. Instrumental rock has seldom sounded so visceral and politically charged. David Kitt: The Nightsaver Self released He used to be the future of Irish rock. Now hes something far more interesting: a fireside balladeer in the process of re-inventing himself as minimalist electro-popster. Self- released and shamefully overlooked, The Nightsaver was the sound of an artist in glorious mid-transition. Legion Of Two: Riffs Mu While it would be hyperbolic to describe Legion Of Two as a Dublin supergroup, this collaboration between Alan OBoyle of Decal and Pet Lamb drummer David Lacey certainly raised a lot of eyebrows. Together, the pair conjured a glorious din a fitting soundtrack for a year of political and social turmoil. would make for a good sing-along, which it always did. I never imagined that ten years later Id be ruining peoples karaoke forever. On trying to get to a gig in Wick, in the far north of Scotland: It was a journey from hell, and one hell of a journey. No matter how far we drove the place seemed unreachable. I felt like the mother in Poltergeist in the scene where shes trying to get to the childrens bedroom and no matter how hard she tries it just keeps getting further away. Sharon Lougher Saturday Night Peter (Century) is out now, priced 24. Bowling us over: The Duckworth Lewis Methods Thomas Walsh and Neil Hannon The Sick And Indigent Song Club: Punch Drunk Millennium It might not have made breaking news on MTV but when The Sick And Indigent Song Club ended their five-year weekly residency at Dublins Hapenny Bridge Inn a few months back, fans of the sextet certainly shed a few tears. The good news is that the group have not disbanded and Punch Drunk, their third album to date, is also their most impressive. Singers/songwriters Angie McLaughlin and Gary Fitzpatrick come across at times as wry and world weary (Whiskey Is A Girls Best Friend), at others starry-eyed and upbeat (Thinking About Your Love). A neat stocking-filler for anyone who likes their Americana bourbon-soaked and boisterous. index.html2.html3.html4.html5.html6.html7.html8.html9.html10.html11.html12.html13.html14.html15.html16.html17.html18.html19.html20.html21.html22.html23.html24.html25.html26.html27.html