Originally published via Blowtorch Records

Dove Ellis’ debut album Blizzard is a curious release in the death throes of 2025. Arriving fully formed with Guardian and Pitchfork reviews set up right out of the gate; Ellis himself presenting as a mysterious Irish-born poet figure with next to no information about him available online, it has all the hallmarks of what the cynic is us might call an ‘industry plant’. Something dreamed up by men in suits in small rooms in London or Dublin. Or is that particular commentary only reserved for female success stories, à la Wet Leg?

Regardless of the context through which Blizzard has come to be, the overriding sentiment for anyone who has soundtracked their December by it is simply appreciation that it is. Much of the reviews for this ambitious debut have rightly, albeit lazily rehashed comparisons to Thom Yorke, Van Morrison and in some instances the late Elliott Smith. Not that I can argue – texting the friend who put me on to Ellis that it sounded like ‘folk-Radiohead’. No bad thing.

The Morrison comparisons certainly highlight the pastoral beauty of Blizzard. Though hard to pin down to any one genre, the folk foundation that seems to set here provides rich soil for Ellis’ impressive and cheeky vocal stylings. A man clearly very comfortable with his instrument and how to use it to best effect. That he cut his teeth in the cauldron of South London’s Windmill both attests to this but also raises an eyebrow as to how these songs would have sat alongside nights of riotous post-punk anarchy in a Brixton pub. Though, loosely, you could say the same about Elliott Smith running alongside the American alternative scene of the mid-1990s.

Ellis is the latest in a swathe of talent originating from the West coast of Ireland in recent years. Artists like Olan Monk, Shampain and Maria Somerville have seen incredible critical and commercial successes; subsequently pushed Ireland to the forefront of an exceedingly experimental and exciting new wave of sounds. That Dove Ellis arrives with such an eclectic and ambitious debut, hued by the Galway-by-London landscapes he inhabits is merely a natural progression of a roaring scene. Like George Houston on the North end of the island, there is a cult-of-personality type of figure that seems to be pushing through in Irish music. Just as Fontaines D.C. make the leap to stadium and festival headliners next Summer, it seems the ground is already fertile for a post Fontaines world.

The songs on Blizzard are considered and frothing with intrigue and warmth. Like how the old Irish jig ‘The South West Wind’ conjures in a fleeting couple of minutes in its ode to the Irish Atlantic weather pattern, Dove Ellis presents to the listener in just over 34 minutes songs of incredible physical heft and awe. But they are warm, mild and inviting.

It is not a perfect album, but it is very close to it.

When DJs Deb Grant and Tom Ravenscroft brought their BBC 6Music New Music Fix Live show to Belfast this time last year, there wasn't a local music lover worth their salt that would have missed the broadcasts dotted around the city that week, or indeed the explosive finale that took place upstairs in the Ulster Sports Club, where post-punkers Enola Gay moved everyone and everything in the room and out in the street (maybe even helping tilt the leaning Albert Clock back into position) as Derry duo Dirty Faces gave the live BBC censorship team a good workout six months before rappers KNEECAP would really make them earn their keep at Glastonbury.

In just over three years, Grant and Ravenscroft have pulled 6Music forward with a trustworthy ear and honest broadcast of new music across all genres and corners of the United Kingdom and Ireland. Today the 6Music brand is competing less so with the likes of its neighbours Radio 1 or 2, and more with real muso stations such as the digital platform NTS, which broadcasts around the clock from London to New York, and Rinse FM, who can now count one Tom Ravenscroft as their latest in house DJ. Luckily for fans of New Music Fix and 6Music, Deb is still pushing buttons alongside new host, the more than capable Nathan Shepherd.

So, when one of the freshest voices on national radio was going to be just down the road, I made sure to do all I could to worm my way in, write about the show and basically beg her to curate a playlist for my silly little zine that I publish online, which I most likely wouldn’t even still be putting out a year down the line. Well, we’re still here, we’re still silly and the lovely Deb has been kind enough to submit a playlist for Mull It Over containing, as she puts it, seven of her current ‘Irish obsessions’.

Upon listening to her playlist, it’s clear Deb is a crate-digger and club DJ by trade. Honing her skills from the young age of 15 in clubs and warehouses in Dublin, she manages in the confines of just seven tracks to capture focus with the gaze sounds of pôt-pot, then take you down to the austere realness of Joshua Burnside before reaching a crescendo with the noise of Makeshift Art Bar and guiding us to the dance floor just as Shampain’s TWEAKER starts, well, tweaking you out.

Thanks so much Deb for sharing this playlist with us. The greenwave of Irish music we’re all on just keeps on giving.

About a month ago I received a fairly innocuous DM on the Mull It Over Instagram account. A short message, politely asking for an email address to send a press package across to. This happens quite regularly, considering the game we’re in. I responded in kind, thanking the sender for reaching out and grateful another young band wanted me to write about them.

Then came the response. “Supercool. I’ll send you some stuff over tonight”.

Supercool. The word obviously grabbed my attention. It immediately usurped the banality of the conversation; not an adjective dispatched regularly in our common vernacular. It instantly made me care more about the person who wrote it; so I started to have a look around.

The Instagram profile didn't give much away. Firstly, it was set to private, which was odd for a musician. It had around 600 followers, which seemed reasonable enough. What struck me though were the notable people who followed the account, despite its apparent low key nature - David Holmes, Tim Wheeler, Joe Lindsay and Rocky O’Reilly amongst others. Somehow this, as yet, unknown artist was already on the radar of a veritable who’s who of Northern Ireland music industry personalities. Except for me.

I remember having a conversation around Irish music with my father in law earlier this year. I had just discovered the Dublin band Whipping Boy, one of a slew of Irish bands I dug out this summer after being hit like a lightning bolt by fellow Dubs A Lazarus Soul’s “Long Balconies” on the car radio after one particularly gnarly run across Glenariffe’s forest park. You could blame the endorphins. I blame Brian Brannigan’s acoustical yearning that specific morning. So, in an attempt to bridge a generational gap I posed the question, (notwithstanding the hugely successful acts emanating from Northern Ireland like The Divine Comedy, Snow Patrol or Ash) - I pondered, “Why have we never had a true scene of bands who bubbled just under the surface, under the aforementioned headline acts, as seen in Dublin with bands like A House, Cry Before Dawn, Bell X1, A Lazarus Soul, Hothouse Flowers and indeed Whipping Boy?”

The answer was frustratingly simple. “We did”.

Barry Peak was the frontman of the Belfast band Backwater. Remembered now, mainly by those who were actually there as they came up alongside acts like Ash in the ‘Ulsterpunk’ scene of 1990s Belfast, they were something of a quintessential ‘also-ran’ outfit. A band that directly answers my earlier question about artists that flourished in the shadow of their more famous peers. You’d be forgiven for thinking the only acts to ever exist in Northern Ireland are those that made it out. Clearly that is not the case. For every Stiff Little Fingers there was an Outcasts. For every Van Morrison there was a Rab McCullough. And for every Ash, there was a Backwater. Not that they went entirely unnoticed. Peak’s song craft and genuine ear for melody resulted in airplay on BBC with “Didactic No” and perhaps their most signature song “Supercool” - a genuine relic of the mid 90s that sounds like somewhere between Nirvana, Sonic Youth and Grandaddy. The end result was Angels Are Cool. A full length release on London based record label Ché and tours alongside the likes of Mogwai and Urusei Yatsura. You’d be hard pressed to find the LP anywhere to stream online, though 16 CDs are available on Discogs.

A John Peel session followed in 1996 but then things soon fizzled. Not that a BBC Peel session is a bad swan-song by any stretch. Peak popped up again with the beloved Torgas Valley Reds who made a dent in the local music scene, this time in the early 2000s and landing somewhere between the pop sensibilities of Alex Chilton and the thumb your nose energy of Blink 182. However, by this time the landscape had changed from the mid-90s. Gigs and CDs no longer the touring band’s bread and butter, musicians and the music industry at large were scrambling to find any way through the advent of online streaming and MySpace profiles and music for free (for better or worse). Barry vanished.

Vanished as much as one can who then dedicates their life to public service. Working as a teacher and alongside Universities as an advocate for social justice issues and climate awareness, Barry was busy. He just didn't make music for over 20 years. Now based in Dublin, he found himself in 2024 and had, as he put it to me, “Started a doctorate, really hated it, quit, and used the money to buy some home recording stuff.” - and since then has been self-releasing music on Bandcamp, for no reason other than a newfound passion for his first love, one that appears to sit neatly alongside his other great love: skateboarding. The natural result of this late-period revival has been the, frankly, excellent Read Like Lisa; Skate Like Bart. A mini-album of six songs ranging from re-workings of tracks from the 90s to one of the best songs of the year in “Shivers & Shakes” which boasts an undeniable melodic thread that surfs the noisy, lo-fi results of recording at home with a guitar, midi keyboard and a computer. That I do not have the Sony Walkman I bought from a neighbour in the year 2000 to experience the extra mechanical heft a cassette tape brings out is something I will have to change immediately.

I can’t recommend it enough. You can access it through Barry’s Bandcamp page which I will link below. After positive reviews from the likes of Hot Press and The Irish News this year, it seems like the start of something all over again for our godfather of indie. Clearly, don’t just take my word for it. Not that there are any delusions of ‘making it’, as it were. Ever the socially aware, Peak has suggested donations to Doctors Without Borders or Extinction Rebellion in lieu of purchasing these songs.

As Barry told me himself, his is a “pretty cool story”. Not everyone gets a second chance to rediscover something they love, and then receive acclaim for it. If anything, it teaches you that for all the U2s and Snow Patrols of the world, they were all just kids at one time, making music purely for the love of it. Hopefully now as adults it’s for the same reason, just like Barry. That’s in essence what made this seemingly “innocuous” overture so interesting to me. It’s a cool story. So to lift from the lyric sheet of the man himself:

What makes you supercool?

Originally published via Blowtorch Records

There was but one place to be this past Friday night in Belfast. Putting to one side the baffling reality of paying almost as much for a pint of Beavertown Gamma Ray as one would have for the night’s ticket - the Ulster Sports Club, in the heart of the city was, for better or worse, the venue of choice for the most anticipated indie gig of the year.

Belfast’s own band, cult-heroes Careerist (formerly Hot Cops, I wonder do we still have to mention this, like X used to be Twitter? I’m sure they’ll love that comparison) are back after six long years away; years that fell away almost in an instant when they took to the boards met with a room packed full of fans, family, friends, peers, scenesters and anyone, really, who has had more than a passing interest in the music of this island over the past 15 years. A triumphant return for our prodigal sons of ‘good rock and/or roll’ indeed. But, and it is a big ‘but’… those pint prices?

The Ulster Sports Club, has, in recent years become the city’s de facto venue for shows of this ilk. Local, national and even international acts will stop here on tour playing to varying sizes of crowds. That the Careerist show was a sell-out comes as no surprise for those who followed the band through the 2010’s as they, comparable only perhaps to And So I Watch You From Afar, fostered the same sort of undying, cult-like worship and genuine affection from Irish music lovers through their specific brand of tongue-in-cheek, idiosyncratic rock and roll. They were and are, still, unendingly cool.

Cool. Unlike the fact 100 Irish music venues, and counting, have closed since the Covid-19 pandemic. Unlike the recent knock-back campaigners in Northern Ireland received from the Stormont Executive – who tore up a report that cost half a million quid to produce; recommending a raft of revolutionary licensing measures designed to take a city like Belfast kicking and screaming in to the 21^st Century. So, while this remains the foundation that our live, independent music scene is built upon, don’t expect an alternative to your £7.80 pint of Beavertown. In fact, learn to enjoy it - and shut up. Don’t shoot the messenger.

None of this takes away from what happened inside the club on this night. With Middler, the latest Belfast band, like Chalk and Enola Gay before them flying the flag for a vital and heavy industrial noise that is the new, genuine beating heart of the city’s underground, kicking off proceedings - and then Dublin-based Dose taking second billing, where they lulled a captive audience into a false sense of security with traditional bass, guitar and drum elements only to subvert with theatrical turns of primal release through spoken-word interludes undermining the capitalist structures that produce, say Fig Rolls. That they played to a packed house as the support is a testament to the raw power of their performance. Utterly illuminating.

And then, six years gone in an instant. Careerist work the stage like no time had passed since I last saw them in this exact space in 2019 in support of their debut Weird Hill. Knowing, perhaps, full well the mountain of goodwill for their band in the room tonight they rollick through old favourites from their days as Hot Cops, and songs from both the debut and their latest release – the magnificently Ulster-coded Silver Birch Lodge, an album of 70s British glam influenced numbers that belies, to a degree, the overarching feeling that this album is an ache. An album that appears to be about life but must be about love, was about love. And what comes next.

It is a potent feeling, that of what comes next. This show feels like a rebirth in this sense. A collective gathering of us who, when Careerist first arrived were still in the ascendence of adolescence, the innocence of ignorance; who might look around now at what was lost and what was gained, not least in the six years since this band has been silent. But as songs like ‘Sicko’, ‘Negative One’ and ‘No Fun’ bounce off the walls with posters of past gigs from Black Midi to Fat White Family, echoes of what might have been for Careerist quickly die out as the congregation joins in a moment of supreme catharsis as the extended encore takes us well into the night.

Into what comes next.

Read the Mull It Over review of Silver Birch Lodge, below.

“I can’t go on. I’ll go on”

- Samuel Beckett, The Unnamable (1953)

This line, taken from Beckett’s postmodernist landmark The Unnamable, echoes throughout Silver Birch Lodge - the anxious and enlightening second album from Belfast cult heroes Careerist, who find themselves adrift here, staring down the realities of an existence that is anything but what was promised.

Six years removed from their remarkable debut Weird Hill, Carl Eccles, Conor Ellison and Nathan Rodgers return with a new album that is all of a sudden the talk of all the weird and wonderful corners of the city. Across a ten day stretch, the band had released - lead single “Walk Away”, it’s glam(glum?)-stomping follow up “Sicko” and then, before we could snap up tickets for the headline Ulster Sports Club show that was deftly announced, the full album dropped. Six years fallen away in an instant, one gets the feeling this was a heavy weight that the band was eager to finally be unloading; lumbered for years by the unrelenting machinery of life, both personal and professional. It certainly comes across that way here in the music. Whether it is successful or not, I doubt they care.

Lifting its name from a nursing home the band passed each day on their way to rehearsals on the outskirts of Belfast, Silver Birch Lodge from the outset must contend with heavy themes of mortality, vulnerability and existential drift. And of what comes next.

Although this certainly colours the listening experience of Silver Birch Lodge, the lyricism from Carl Eccles often crosses the rubicon from the oblique to the acute in ways that can cut through cold. Lines like “Stitch another line and you’re weaving a tapestry, Flame atop the shrine, Though you’re hardly a Kennedy” on album opener “Spirit of the Lake” offers up images so vivid and shimmering that it is a hard-sought landing when you’re faced with the stark nihilism of “Not Bad”, where our exasperated narrator confides: “We must be nearing death, I’m sick of seeing sights and shaking hands, Or was it obvious? I wanna be around but not like this”. This to and fro style is evident not only in the written word, but in the actual, mechanical sequencing of the album. Not quite content in their own existential dread, Careerist are determined to pull you into their world, the world of the Silver Birch Lodge, which, as it moves uneasily through each track is beginning to appear more like some kind of Ulster-coded Hotel California, where instead of a dark desert highway it is the Crossgar Road in Saintfield.

This is no more evidenced than on the fantastic single “Sicko”. A romp semi-indebted to the British glam rockers of the 1970s, which, at the midway point of the album offers up a glimmer of hope in its rock n’ roll fantasy. However, any Sweet the listener is pining for quickly turns sour. Of course we should not have trusted a band like this, on an album like this. The fantasy of the music here again gives way to larger ideas of death and defeat as our broken host now finds himself entirely beat down out in the universe, when on the humbling album closer, “When I Lose” he sings, “You pull the wool down when I lose, Reveal the trapdoor and I lose Twist the knife in when I lose, Come up swinging When I lose”. Words that close out an album of contradictions and confusions. And of a melancholy glamour reminiscent of late-period Bryan Ferry, who mastered this feeling.

Here’s the rub though. Silver Birch Lodge is not about life at all. It is about love. It was about love. And what comes next.

Here we go again. With this year’s Output Conference well behind us and the city currently in the full embrace of its annual Sound Of Belfast showcase, only one date remains circled on the proverbial cultural (music) calendar for 2025 - the Northern Ireland Music Prize. Setting up shop once again at the iconic Ulster Hall on the 12th November, twelve artists are vying for the prestigious PPL Album Of The Year title.

And So I Watch You From Afar, Ciaran Lavery, George Houston, Jordan Adetunji, Joshua Burnside, Junk Drawer, OR:LA, RÓIS, Sister Ghost, Snow Patrol, Taylor Lally and The Wood Burning Savages all boast bodies of work that must be commended for rising above the noise of the other 80+ albums that were submitted for the category this year. Below, I offer my take on each of the contenders, hopefully providing a much needed honest and unfiltered opinion on each release. Something that, in the small world of Northern Ireland’s music industry, can be difficult to tease out sometimes. In addition to choosing my own tip for the winner of this year’s award, I am including the equally prestigious Mull It Over Wildcard pick that unfortunately didn’t make the final list of 12, but absolutely deserved to.

And So I Watch You From Afar - MEGAFAUNA

A piece of work quite unlike anything ASIWYFA have released previously. The knife-like pointed guitar still shreds upon a wall of sound that would have Phil Spector’s wig blow across the North Channel faster than the Rathlin Island ferry, but the slower numbers seem to have proliferated on Megafauna - they each exude a genuine experience and maturity and smooth the edges out just enough that you may even be successful in slipping this on to your next dinner party playlist.

Standout track: Me and Dunbar

Ciaran Lavery - Light Entertainment

A subversive an album if there ever was one - Light Entertainment from Ciaran Lavery belies the dread-soaked undercurrent that traverses through these 11 tidy songs. If you ever wondered what the apocalypse would sound like if scored to lo-fi beats, here you have it. With the courage to still offer up a hook in the middle of the chaos, Lavery offers a career best here.

Standout track: Honeybun

George Houston - TODC

This is the current sound of queer, rural Ireland; the only tragedy is that it has taken until 2025 to hear it. Houston must be commended here for the ambition on this, his fourth full-length release. Although never boring, TODC sometimes suffers under the weight of its sheer reach in sounds and lyricism. Perhaps the most daring of the 12 albums on this list. In with a very good shout of taking the prize on the night.

Standout track: Drag Queen

Jordan Adetunji - A Jaguar’s Dream

With KEHLANI appearing on Barack Obama’s (admittedly performative) end of year music list for 2024 and a Grammy nomination for Best Melodic Rap Performance in the same year, there is nothing I can write here to either hold Adetunji up or tear him down. Personally, I love this debut. It’s eclectic, motivated and fun. It’s a rap album in beats and lyrical content but embraces the somewhat overlooked hook-laden pop-R&B of the late 2000s. A triumph and a welcome ambassador for music from Northern Ireland in 2025.

Standout track: 305

Joshua Burnside - Teeth of Time

Faraway and immediate at the same time, Joshua Burnside brings us Teeth of Time. As ever with our uneasy narrator, the instrumentation seeks to soothe while the spoken word often bludgeons. Feeling somewhat in on the act as Burnside sings of the complexities of countenancing, among other things, bringing life in to this world, this is an essential companion piece to those really growing up. If you know what that really means.

Standout track: Ghost of the Bloomfield Road

Junk Drawer - Days of Heaven

The Mull It Over pick for the PPL Album Of The Year

Junk Drawer arrive tripped out and acid-washed on their sophomore album, Days of Heaven. Losing almost all inhibitions, this is the glorious sound of a band succumbing to the only real inspiration there is anyway - truth. Well, truth and an alternative Ulster, of course. Although preceded by a fantastic debut, this feels like the Junk Drawer that we’ve been waiting for.

Standout track: Nids Niteca

OR:LA - Trusting Theta

Although clocking in at a nippy 35 minutes, OR:LA’s Trusting Theta traverses Irish and Greek mythologies through percussive rhythms and hypnotic synths to elicit something near catharsis on her fabric Originals debut. Showcasing contemporaries like SOAK, Mary Lake and Eliza Rose who only serve to elevate the record, this is a piece of music to be enjoyed as much through headphones, as on the dance dancefloor.

Standout track: Slay The Beast

RÓIS - MO LÉAN

A spiritual experience, to put it lightly. RÓIS presents MO LÉAN - an experimental yet traditional masterpiece. Reviving the ancient Irish tradition of keening, the ritual wailing of grief, atop a soundscape of folk and modern electronic elements, RÓIS pulls Ireland quite happily into the 21st Century. Ireland is rich with talent at the moment; it is also rich with inspiration that pre-dates our pop output. This is the latest, and maybe best proof of that yet.

Standout track: CAOINE

Sister Ghost - Beyond The Water

Astutely mining the 90s alternative rock canon to inspire her debut album on Third Bar Records, Sister Ghost’s Shannon Dolores O’Neill delivers a tour-de-force of hooky rock anthems. A flag in the cap of the Oh Yeah Centre’s youth programme Scratch My Progress, O’Neill brims with assured confidence on Beyond The Water. It is early doors, and more excitement is saved for what comes next, as Sister Ghost learns to take the inspirations and turn them into something completely their own.

Standout track: Dark Matter

Snow Patrol - The Forest Is The Path

Thirty years into a stellar career, Snow Patrol’s eighth studio album The Forest Is The Path saw them top the UK Album Charts for the first time since Eyes Open in 2006. The usual earnest and sweeping alt-rock tunes are buoyed by a slick production, if at times you feel you’ve heard it all before. More than deserving of their place on this list, lest we succumb to the ideals of small-minded gatekeeping that values obscurity over artistry.

Standout track: All

Taylor Lally - Taylor Lally

A honeyed blend of alt-pop, indie folk, and lo-fi textures, Taylor Lally’s self-titled debut album is both mature and fresh-sounding at the same time. It is rare to hear an artist come out so fully formed on a debut, but Lally pulls it off masterfully here. A wonderful listen whether you’re opening a second glass of wine on a rainy winter evening or making pancakes with your daughter on an easy Sunday morning. Leaning on the Americana style sometimes employed here could have been a misstep in the wrong hands. Stunning.

Standout track: Round and Round

The Wood Burning Savages - Hand To Mouth

Anger. Hope. Despair. Ambition. The Wood Burning Savages returned in 2024 with Hand To Mouth, an expectedly political supercharge. Born in the fires of a cost-of-living crisis and far right lean across Europe and America, not to mention the overcoming of a light-threatening illness for frontman Paul Connolly - Hand To Mouth feels like the essential and welcome return of one of our finest rock bands. We can only hope to avoid such another long wait between records. Long live The Wood Burning Savages.

The Mull It Over WILDCARD Pick

Neil Brogan - Neil Brogan Band

“As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster, music journalist” - Henry Hill, Goodfellas (adaptation mine).

Everybody wants to play guitar. Drummers want to play guitar, singers want to sing and play guitar and bass players really want to play guitar. Perhaps an over-simplification but the idea isn’t controversial. The instrument nobody wants to play however, is the bass. So, having come to the newest fad late in school - all of my closest friends had formed bands; I scrambled to find a spot for myself - low and behold a school band seeking (what else) a bass player. I was in. Until the decision was made that the song of choice for the school concert would be Snow Patrol’s Chasing Cars. I now understood why nobody wanted to play bass. I’d rather have chased cars.

But what was I doing that I ended up missing out on the day everyone decided to form bands and hand out all the best jobs? I was nose deep in books - specifically biographies and autobiographies on everyone from Gary Barlow to Led Zeppelin. I couldn’t get enough. So much so, that some time around 2005, as an earnest fourteen year old I emailed the author of the latest Guns N’ Roses biography I had been reading, Paul Stenning, no doubt asking for advice on how to become a really cool adult, writing about 80s American rock bands for a living. I don’t have that email (thankfully), but he does. Almost twenty years later when I finally started to write about music on the side, I decided to send a follow-up.

I was keen to let Paul know I’d finally started writing. As you can see above, he asked for some examples and I sent them back. He responded in kind with some very thoughtful tips on where to submit my work and how to get paid. It felt like a proper full circle moment, something that is rare enough in this life. It was a really dead on move to reply to a clueless 14 year old all those years ago. So, thanks again Paul.

To state the blindingly obvious however, it isn’t that simple. Life isn’t like the film Almost Famous or All The President’s Men - nobody is out here rushing to pay journalists. They aren’t even paying musicians never mind music writers. It is easy, therefore, to find oneself wondering what the point is in putting pen to paper in 2025. I suppose the only answer is, if you have the inclination to do so, then you better follow it.

As mentioned, I’m now on the fiftieth edition of this newsletter. It’s been tremendously fun and I can say with insane levels of modesty that the bands and artists I’ve written about have been massively supportive and appreciative as well. That is what keeps it going. But, as the remit of Mull It Over falls quite neatly and strictly into the world of grassroots music from Northern Ireland, there are times when I find that inclination that I have to write, sometimes needs to climb those self-imposed walls. I haven’t published an article on here for two months, as a very generous 3% of you have pointed out - the reason being, I’ve been writing about other things. The problem is, nobody wants to publish them. I’m now toying with the idea of going full victim mode here. Let’s see.

Seriously though, for a second - I wanted give you all a look at the life of a semi-professional, freelance music journalist. Well, my reality anyway - I’m sure there are (in fact I know there are) far more talented, deserving and successful music writers than me coming out of Belfast. A line of work that Paul Stenning (polite as he was not to re-hash it) clearly tried to steer me away from twenty-odd years ago.

So here’s a snippet of what I’ve been doing in the two months since I last updated the newsletter. In August this year I went to the Limelight in Belfast to see one of my all time favourite bands, The Lemonheads. Fronted by one-time ‘alternahunk’ Evan Dando and now much more of a roving collective of musicians who can stand being around him for the length of a tour.

Without spoiling what comes next, it was probably the worst concert I’ve ever been to, and I saw The Script twice. So, as someone who likes to write as a hobby (that inclination is back) I decided to formulate my confused feelings at seeing one of my favourite artists deliver such a horrible show into a snappy piece of journalism - “Pitchfork will love this”, I thought as I finished the last sentence. It all coalesced nicely with the long-awaited Dando memoir and the first new Lemonheads album in 19 years (or, since the last time I emailed Paul Stenning).

So here’s what comes next. Spelling and grammar check. Find the list of email contacts at my most respected publications. Write a wanky (maybe this is where I go wrong?) cover letter. Attach article. Send. Wait.

And wait.

And wait.

Until… you get a response. And it is usually something like this.

(Names of some have been redacted as they’re genuinely helpful responses)

or this

or this

And the above obviously doesn’t include those that never responded. So, at the risk of launching into my own version of Father Ted Crilly’s infamous ‘Golden Cleric speech’, let’s just say there were a lot of them. Pitchfork was one. I’ll not list the rest. Not yet, anyway.

The Lemonheads article is one of many I’ve written over the past few years, that have been rejected (albeit politely in many instances) by media publications and languished on a hard drive gathering dust. I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong, though I suspect I know deep down. When Irish institution Hot Press has album reviews that contain the word ‘soundscape’ three times over the span of two paragraphs, and the Belfast Telegraph generally just continues to exist, you know you can’t win.

So, that’s where I’ve been - and a look behind the computer of a fairly unsuccessful but enthusiastic freelance writer. Roundly rejected more times than the Box nightclub in Belfast, circa 2009.

And finally, if you care. My August 2025 review of The Lemonheads. See below, if you dare.

A Tuesday night in Belfast, I’m texting my wife to update her on the bizarre developments I’m currently witnessing at The Lemonheads’ show, half in support of the new album Love Chant and half a half-hearted celebration of their imperial era album (it happened) Come On Feel, when I look up to find Evan Dando walking past me at the back of the audience, guitar slung across his back, offering his hand of thanks and then out the well-known clubbers’ path through the backdoors and, presumably up to the beer garden for a smoke. Show’s over, us punters surmised. I’m sure the staff were wondering the same. About a minute later the house lights were up, casting over a (to be fair) packed room of bemused and eventually accepting faces. For a fan of Dando’s or The Lemonheads, which are interchangeable at this point – this was all par for the course, part of the charm.

I walk home nonplussed, flummoxed. I’ve seen my share of car-crash gigs. I’ve been the car-crash at my fair share of gigs. Having recently read Bob Mehr’s encyclopaedic take on the history of The Replacements, I found myself again succumbing to the eternal punk rock glamour of a gig gone awry, owing almost always to the band itself. This one left me feeling empty, not excited. I felt short-changed. That is probably my fault. Like Pete Doherty after him and Shane MacGowan before, many will say - you know what you’re letting yourself in for when you buy a ticket to see The Lemonheads. It’s just been that way for decades.

Yet, I can’t help but feel it’s not cute anymore. It was rather sad watching an era-defining talent like Dando up on stage butchering his classic songs, short of showing outright disdain for them, let alone himself. And classic songs they are. He is 58 now; has spent the better part of the last two decades putting out covers albums, getting kicked off tours and going viral for singing and playing guitar to shop staff during COVID. If he wasn’t Evan Dando, he would be ignored and side-stepped on the street. Yet, there I was – paying money to see him again, perhaps feeding a troubled life and having already pre-ordered the long-awaited memoir ‘Rumours of my Demise’ and on top of all this, unironically and impatiently waiting for ‘Love Chant’ – The Lemonheads’ first album of original material in 19 years. It came out last week, one day after the book. You would have to believe the adults in the room, orchestrating this latest and potentially last wring of the Evan Dando towel have had their work cut out. But it is here: the return of The Lemonheads, and it is good.

Clocking in at a nippy 35 minutes, Love Chant rollicks on with effectual confidence and the trademark Gram Parson’s indebted cadence Evan Dando became known for as the ascendent 90s indie pin-up that was both a safer option for the music press than Kurt Cobain (see: ‘bubblegrunge’) and a less cynical version of his de facto predecessor Johnny Rzeznik. Not that those who know The Lemonheads for their sunny, jangly hit singles off their terrific three album run from 1992 to 1996 – (‘It’s a Shame About Ray’, ‘Come on Feel’, ‘Car Button Cloth’) will have much to chew on here. This is an album that is quite obviously chopped together with riffs and ideas that have likely been languishing in dark corners of Evan Dando’s Martha’s Vineyard residence for almost 20 years, and the result is all the better for it. The trademark wit and realism remain, (“So you’re showing all the symptoms, Coughing up a ghost, Going into treatment, Better double down the dose”) he offers on Deep End. A man who once wrote on cards explaining to journalists how it was a crack binge that rendered his voice all but gone (later to inspire the all-time greatest Lemonheads song If I Could Talk I’d Tell You) Dando retains his naïve honesty and unfiltered approach. This has always been his greatest gift and his greatest downfall.

The best turns on the album come in the aforementioned Deep End, a rock song in 2025 by someone not called MJ Lenderman that I genuinely enjoy listening to and a track called Togetherness Is All I’m After – fervent and melodic, it is the closest song on ‘Love Chant’ that recalls those 1990s salad days.

When I got home from the gig that night in Belfast, I opened my phone to see if I could find any reviews of the tour – to see if this was a one off or a sad reality of the Evan Dando experience in 2025. After reading a couple of rude comments I decided to put the phone down and offer my own benefit of the doubt. After all, its only rock n’ roll - something The Lemonheads (whoever they may be at any given point) are still pretty fucking good at.

“And now, we move on, to liars…”

Welcome to the first ever EMIO - Emergency Mull It Over for those of you uninitiated. To paraphrase the really sound lad over in America - it’s “an old‑fashioned term that we use: groceries EMIO. I used it on the campaign. It’s such an old‑fashioned term but a beautiful term: groceries EMIO. So, it’s a bag with a lot of different things in it. Groceries EMIO went through the roof, and I campaigned on that. I talked about the word ‘groceries’ ‘EMIO’ for a lot of time.”

Culture Night Belfast is back, baby. After a six year hiatus (notwithstanding some scaled down events in between due to the pandemic and other factors) it returns this Friday, 19th September in all its vibrant, vivacious glory. And although it is truly back, with over 100 free events, happenings, workshops, performances and exhibitions taking place all over the city in seven different locations, there has been some considered refining done to help reimagine CNB for a new era. If you frequented Culture Night pre-2020, like me, you will have been all too aware of its not-so-secret reputation for turning into, well, a street drinking piss-up. I know what you’re thinking - ‘sure that is our culture!’, and while you may be right, moves have been made this year to curb the anti-social aspect of the event and to rebrand it as a fully artist-led and venue-driven venture. Really, that’s what it always should and could have been.

Since the pandemic, over 100 music venues have been lost across the island of Ireland and paired with the astronomical economic mountain independent artists must now climb just to put on a local show, never mind a regional tour, the landscape for artists and venues alike, is bleak. I listened to one unnamed local band explain recently how a respected Belfast gig venue wanted to host them for a show, albeit with the caveat that the venue take a cut of merchandise sales on the night. That made me uneasy.

So, along comes Culture Night 2025. Artist-led, and venue-driven. It won’t save the live events industry, but it is a welcome return and certainly a step in the right direction, after a barren six years. So then, on to the fun stuff: here are the coolest Mull It Over musical picks for Culture Night Belfast 2025 -

Bullitt x Culture Night presents: YARD PARTY! with Kaidi Tatham and Kwame Daniels

Goliath Music NI presents: Bossa Nova: Celebrating Brazilian Jazz

Malojian: Songbook (EastSide Visitor Centre)

Beer Garden Reggae Party with Explosion Soundsystem (Ulster Sports Club)

Culture Night at The Black Box across two rooms. Featuring Winnie Ama, Lemonade Shoelace and Conor Schmtz

Soultrane Shuffle feating Leo Miyagee and DJ Kwa

Crilli DNB & Friends (Out of Office Brewing)

That’s it for issue 49 of the newsletter. Catch you on the next one, and enjoy Culture Night 2025 responsibly!

So, after listening to 153 singles and 83 albums for a (not so) top-secret project over the past two months, I’ve finally returned to my previously scheduled listening habit of running through The Beatles’ entire discography and trying to really understand what Burial was doing in 2006; I feel like a changed person. It is possible that all of the 83 albums I just listened to are on a par with, if not better than those first few Beatles records. Don’t ‘@’ me. Or do, I could do with the traffic, frankly.

I found myself halfway through Beatles For Sale listening to a song called ‘Mr. Moonlight’ wondering if it would be worth just deleting Spotify right now or going back to listen to The Rolling Stones’ Hackney Diamonds from 2023 or Ronan Keating’s debut solo album? All three offered a far more alluring prospect than listening to ‘Eight Days a Week’. Which is ironic, considering that’s how long each week feels listening to Lennon and McCartney prang on about holding hands on every other track. Was this really groundbreaking at the time? At the same time as The Kinks?

Current slaps

But I digress. I have indeed been listening to a lot of local music recently. Pretty standard, you’d assume for someone who literally publishes a newsletter focused solely on this exact topic. True, but as mentioned I’ve been on a secret industry mission of which I will reveal all at a later date. And for all my troubles with The Beatles, on the other side of it I have found myself fully immersed in the absolutely brilliant music released this year from our punch-above-its-weight music rich region. From glitch to goth, war-jazz to jangle-pop, I was genuinely taken aback by some of the stuff I’ve been hearing. So, let’s get this thing back to basics and mull over some of the current local artists appearing in my rotation. Dig it -

Mark Hegan - First a Whisper, Then a Shout EP

I don’t know much about Mark Hegan. I do know that when he pops up to self-promote his music on my Instagram feed, it is quite arresting how genuine this young whippersnapper appears to be. This is pop/rock/alternative music with a purposeful polish. As an unashamed fan of the slick adult contemporary ‘product’ that Goo Goo Dolls flogged in the immediate aftermath of Iris across albums like Gutterflower and Let Love In, this hits right down that same middle. A cover of Springsteen’s Stolen Car to close out the record is both bold and fun. And perhaps a nod to something deeper in the arsenal. A true ‘watch this space’ artist.

Neil Brogan - Neil Brogan Band

This album cover has to be terrible in a tongue-in-cheek/Pavement kind of way. As is the slightly subversive album title ‘Neil Brogan Band’ by, you guessed it - Neil Brogan. I only gain more confidence in this assessment of the jarring package I see before me from Girls Names and Sea Pinks alumnus Brogan - after listening to the album inside out on my daily work commute. Ironic, cute, funny, exciting and entirely brilliant, this is another one that just can’t miss for me at the minute. The album has been described as jangle-pop but this on the very loose side. Recorded live in one day at the famed Start Together Studios in Belfast last summer, I’m scolding myself for missing the launch show in McHughs back in May. This flew entirely under my radar - but take my advice and put your AirPod Pros in right now and click the Bandamp link above if, like me, listening to The Beatles made you delete Spotify.

This was The Irish News’ album of the week back when it was released in April. Do they really have their finger on the pulse more than I do?

Franklin - Tiny Chairs (preview)

I love Franklin. I wrote about their last two singles Bebby and B.A.T.O.F. last year with deserved, uncompromising praise. I know this because when I asked ChatGPT to tell me what they had been up to in that time it spat my own articles out back to me. That’s what you get for laziness, I suppose. Touché, Sam Altman. The reason, however that I wasn’t sure what they had been up to is simple - it’s been one full year since they released any music. So hearing from the lads this week, giving a heads-up that they finally have new music on the way, was very welcome.

Tiny Chairs will be the third single from these sad punk (‘sunk’?) rascals and upon listening to it I realised why I like it so much - it’s because I don’t usually like music like this. Pop-punk shouldn’t really be earnest, should it? I know you’re immediately pointing out Green Day’s era defining social commentary rock masterpiece American Idiot! and perhaps Blink 182’s recent single ‘One More Time’. Or even their classic ‘I Miss You’. OK, point rendered invalid. What I’m trying to say is there’s something really beautiful in the way these lads marry happy, guitar driven melodies with frontman Kevin Hillick’s still soaring, emotional knee-to-the-stomach vocal. And it’s LOUD.

You can’t listen to it yet. But let me give you the juice:

Franklin - Tiny Chairs, released 17th September

Live: Franklin with Some Remain and Silk at Ulster Sports Club, Belfast on 20th September. Tickets

Thanks for reading issue 48 of Mull It Over. This edition was meant to be solely focused on the return of Belfast’s Culture Night but I got sidetracked early doors in my off-piste ranting about The Beatles. Don’t fret, however. There will be an emergency newsletter published next week which will feature all the best musical highlights from Culture Night’s return. It is so brilliant to see it back, and I wouldn’t miss it.

I’ll catch you on the next one.

PS. I have begun to update the official Mull It Over Substack Playlist again over on Spotify (I didn’t delete it). So you can find any tunes mentioned in this article added below. Enjoy.

I first wrote about the re-emergence of shoegaze in Ireland way back in January 2024, on only the second ever edition of this newsletter. I can now finally put a stop to the proverbial voice in my head that for 18 months has kept asking “why in the name of Kevin Shields did you title a post about the shoegaze renaissance ‘The Shoe Fits’ and not something infinitely cooler and less footwear related - like ‘Stargazers?’”. Well, a year and a half later, here we are. I will sleep a little more soundly tonight. I think we all will.

The reason I write this newsletter, ultimately, is to add in some small way to the culture and passion of music scenes - a phenomenon that has always existed in the DIY space, from fields as far apart Washington D.C. hardcore and the 1990s Seattle alternative explosion via Hüsker Dü and The Replacements from Minneapolis, in the mid 80s. Everyone was in on the game. Whether you were in the band(s), ran the independent record label, promoted the gig, owned the club, wrote the review or printed the t-shirts, you were a vital part of the grinding gears of a true underground, DIY culture. Celebrating the music was the cathartic blow off, and getting there was all part of the fun.

Which is why it is so exciting for me to be writing about GazeFest 2. Spanning two days with a date at the iconic Grand Social in Dublin on August 29th and then on to the Oh Yeah Centre in Belfast on the 30th, Old Crows Promotions have enlisted London-based fuzz-rock darlings Whitelands as the headliner across the two-day party, with support from Michael Smyth’s Virgins, our spiritual successor to My Bloody Valentine and who are coming off a defining year in 2024 where they headlined the first iteration of GazeFest and released their shimmering debut ‘nothing hurt and everything was beautiful’ to much critical acclaim and an end-of-year spot on the short-list for the Northern Ireland Music Prize’s Best Album award.

For their part, Whitelands began as a solo project from frontman Etienne Quartey-Papafio, who has been releasing music under the banner since 2018. By the time it turned into a fully-formed outfit, their first full-length release on the Sonic Cathedral label came in 2024 and shed some of the more direct sounds of the work that came before it. What you hear on ‘Night-bound Eyes Are Blind To The Day’ (what’s with these album titles?) is a veritable update on the stuff that Ride and Slowdive were doing in the early 90s. Is new always better? That’s subjective. What is not, however, is that to recognise the original wave of shoegaze bands in the early 1990s as being unflinchingly White. With Whitelands, we are hearing similar sounds but with lyrical content that now speaks on themes of race and the Black diaspora. That doesn’t define Whitelands as a band, of course, and many popular guitar bands now write and sing about place and experience, as opposed to say, Cherry-coloured Funk.

And now, to neatly tie back to the aforementioned Mull It Over shoegaze post from last year, let me bring back a feature that nobody has asked for and ran for all of two out of forty-six weeks - please raise a glass for the infamous ‘How to Enjoy’ feature (you love it).

How to Enjoy - Whitelands

Drink: a glass of Bandol Tempier Rosé

Book: Sunstruck by William Rayfet Hunter

Where: the sofa

Tickets will be selling fast for both the Dublin and Belfast shows, with the latter advertised as 14+ so I recommend getting them sooner rather than later. You can find all tickets at the links below.

Dublin Tickets

Belfast Tickets

Breathe in, breathe out

And if you turn your nose up at my, frankly, iconic suggestion of drinking a dry Rosé wine while enjoying your favourite shoegaze band and reading the hottest book of the summer, all from the comfort of your own sofa, well then let me introduce you to Exhalers. The solo project from seasoned Bangor multi-instrumentalist Alan Lynn is currently basking in the two-week old release of its fourth album Enforcer. About as subtle as a brick to the face, Lynn reunites old friends and finds himself turning it up to TWELVE on his latest offering with a ground-and-pound approach to hard rock, that well, just won’t hit the same if lounging on the sofa. This is music to be enjoyed in a sweat-filled bar with a sweat-filled throng. No understated aromas here, thank you. I am perhaps being slightly disingenuous however as the album does take a softer turn about halfway through, and in fact, the slower ‘The Pale’ is a really beautiful work and potentially my favourite of the bunch.

Currently the album is only available through Bandcamp, where if you are so inclined you can pay what you feel and help support your favourite local artist. It will likely end up on Spotify soon enough, but it’s becoming increasingly harder to see, at this level, who that platform even benefits anymore. Find the link to the album below.

Alright, I’m off to see Oasis at Croke Park. Thank you for reading issue 47!

Sitting in the cocktail bar of The Merchant Hotel of a Saturday night in Pride-soaked Belfast makes it hard to be lamentful about anything, really - but I will try. The lack of Guinness on tap? Sure. The small detail of a French excursion cancelled last minute by means beyond my control? Absolutely. The death of Ozzy Osbourne? Tear-to-a-glass-eye stuff. Matty James Cassidy, however, reckons that all that romance is dead on his latest offering, ‘All That Romance’ - decrying the mortality of the proverbial dandy, poet, romantic, drunk, dank and disorderly. “The Wild West has been shamed”, he spits - but is that necessarily a bad thing? Smash that subscribe button to find out more.

Matty James Cassidy seems to be living the life I once envisaged for myself when I first started to realise music would have to become something a bit more than a hobby. Dressed head-to-toe in black, looking like he walked off the set of an L.A. Guns music video; treading the boards with the likes of Spike from the Quireboys, with a low-slung bass - and from Enniskillen, no less. A town in Northern Ireland, where in 2006 it seemed that if you weren't into General Fiasco or Snow Patrol, or listened to the emo stuff favoured by the City Hall kids, there really wasn't much room for you at all. But some of us were wearing out Beggars Banquet and Appetite For Destruction on our Hi-Fi systems, wondering if there was somewhere in between that we could safely land ourselves. That space is exactly where Matty James Cassidy finds himself in 2025.

As mentioned, Cassidy is Northern Irish-born, and after stints knocking around the country in bands either playing drums or singing up front with his bass guitar, he made the pilgrimage to Camden, London - unsurprisingly. Because why would you want to be in Snow Patrol when you could be Joe Strummer? And a fair shake at it he has had - working most of the time as a legitimate cross-country troubadour, Cassidy has thus been relatively quiet on the release front. Such is the reality of the life of a working musician in 2025, if you want to get by as a singer-songwriter, then you need to be on the road. However, this is notwithstanding his 2023 turn with Tyla in from 1980s British glam outfit The Dogs D’Amour, under the name The Balladmongrels - which gifted us this, frankly, lovely single in How the Beautiful Fall.

Which brings us to MJC’s latest offering to the black hole of Spotify and YouTube Music - ‘All That Romance’. It’s a stomping, table-thumping cry that not so much as moves as tumbles along with Cassidy’s distorted vocal offering up an elegy to the tricky space that finds itself in between overt political-correctness, crusading cancel-culture and the romance and poetry of a world where both were at once the rebellious and honest antidote to the sterile politician’s-answer of the theatre that authors, artists, musicians and comics find themselves in today. I think of Allen Ginsberg and the Beat Generation. William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, writing in the 1950s of a culture and way of living so unflinchingly and unapologetically different and offensive to those with conservative values, in both ‘small C’ and ‘big C’ conservatism. Books like Naked Lunch and On The Road and Ginsberg’s opus Howl shocked-and-awed at the time. Now they are published by Penguin Classics. Cassidy isn’t actually thumping the table against ‘cancel-culture’, as it were; he is protesting the obvious end result of those clutching their pearls ever tighter - the neutralisation of art and music and truth. Jack Kerouac was no hero, he told the truth.

So if you’re sick of Ricky Gervais espousing to the point of nausea about the the same topic, or if you’re tired already of my self-indulgent take on it - have a listen to Matty’s track for yourself. It’s a lot more fun than I make it sound. I dare say he’s close to rapping at some points. Coming to the title credits of a gangster TV series near you - here’s Matty James Cassidy with All That Romance.

Next time I’m in London, we’ll grab a pint at The Dublin Castle, man. I have questions about the Quireboys and Spike.

Northern Ireland Music Prize 2025

And just like that, another spin on the axis. The Northern Ireland Music Prize returns for 2025, on Wednesday 12th November at the iconic Ulster Hall in Belfast. It’s early doors but consider this your fair warning that submissions for Album, Single and Live Act are now open at the link below. Submit for yourself or somebody you’re a fan of - I’ll never forget the time someone did it for me when I was releasing music; I still don’t know who it was. No bribes were ever given or received.

Thanks for reading issue 46 of Mull It Over. To all subscribers, thank you for the continued support and to all of my new subscribers who joined undoubtedly after the iconic (my words) KNEECAP article - welcome! Please dig through the archives and spread the word about the ones you like. You might find your next favourite band.

Speak soon x

I’m delighted to introduce the brand new Mull It Over with… feature this week on the newsletter, and what better way to kick it off than with a special selection carefully curated by Charlotte Dryden, CEO of Belfast’s Oh Yeah Music Centre? Trick question - there’s no other way, as Damon Albarn would yowl.

Charlotte has been CEO for the vital Oh Yeah Music Centre in Belfast for nearly a decade. Stepping into the shoes of former CEO and co-founder Stuart Bailie in 2016, Charlotte has overseen massive change for the little-engine-room-that-could for Northern Ireland’s grassroots music scene - from nurturing young artists, providing recording space and industry guidance and safeguarding to hosting the biggest party in the calendar year for Northern Irish music , the Northern Ireland Music Prize.

(of which you can read a slightly impaired 2024 Mull It Over review for below) -

Charlotte’s love affair with music began at university in London in the early 1990s, when the buzz of live gigs - from warehouse raves to Brit‑pop hotspots, sparked a lifelong vocation. She returned to Northern Ireland in the late 1990s and became deeply embedded in music journalism, writing for outlets like The Fly and BBC Radio Ulster before steadily moving into promoting and event-run work across Derry and Belfast. Now, she gets emails from people like me trying to do something similar in the very different landscape of 2025. I’m willing to bet the subjects of her own work weren't always as accommodating as she so kindly was to me.

And she isn’t just the boss, Charlotte has a genuine passion for music that is evident in the intimately small world of local music in Northern Ireland, where you can rub shoulders with her upstairs in a dingy club, drinking a lukewarm pint watching the latest, best offering our small but prolific scene has to offer. I know, because it’s basically how I hounded her to do this feature. A CEO more likely to be found on the middle floor of the Ulster Sports Club, catching a Robocobra Quartet show than, say, caught on the jumbo-tron at a Coldplay concert.

So, thanks Charlotte for taking the time to put this playlist together for Mull It Over, and I’ll see you at one of the bands playing in the town before long. Keep up the amazing work you and all of your volunteers do at the wonderful, wonderful Oh Yeah Centre.

The clue is in the name. As one of the few unofficial after parties for Belfast’s Late Night Art had, at 11pm, still failed to materialise - I had to remind myself that despite my natural, early thirties instinct to believe I was standing in the Ulster Sports Club at some ungodly hour in the middle of the night it was, in fact, only 11pm.

I’m here to see Sophie French, one of Belfast’s brightest young, underground pop stars (yes you can use underground and pop in the same sentence), who tonight has brought all the shine and airlessness of a sunny Saturday morning at the park to a dingy city-centre club at, you guessed it - 11pm. I make a sly comment as we chat a bit about when she might be taking the stage. Ah, but good things come to those who wait.

I’ve arrived at the Ulster Sports Club beaming with inspiration and pride this evening as I had decided to take a stroll through the city’s famed Late Night Art exhibition on my way to the gig; for over ten years this exhibition has run all across the city as a celebration of Belfast’s vibrant, visual arts scene. From venues as varied as The Black Box to the Jobs and Benefits Office on Corporation Street and the old Tesco on Royal Avenue, there is plenty of weird and wonderful art to take in as you make your way through the city like some sort of half-drunk, confused John Ruskin, sipping the free wine and meeting the types of people you wish were always out and about on a weeknight, in the middle of town.

As tonight’s show is billed by NuMaze productions as Late Night Art’s “unofficial after party” I was naturally intrigued to find out where the “official” party was taking place and then instantly less intrigued and perhaps more bemused when I realised it was in fact, happening upstairs. Not that there is any shortage of fun taking place after Late Night Art in the city - often the groups descend on haunts like the John Hewitt or The Sunflower Pub to, I assume, master the art of pretending to know the meaning behind what you were just staring at for five minutes on the wall of a disused bank vault.

I’ve gone for something far more immediate tonight. Sophie French eventually floats on to the stage some time after 11pm and I am now suitably chatty and well-conditioned to boogie. A well-crowded room must be nice to see as she takes the stage - tonight is the first full-band performance for these brilliant, original songs. And the joy from the stage permeates. How could it not? With songs titles like ‘Friday Feels’, ‘To The Moon’ and latest release ‘Good Life!’, the latter wrapping up in just over two minutes all of the strongest elements in Sophie’s bag of tricks - strong, soulful vocals, a relatable and fun lyric and the ever present hooky chorus that rings on in your head long after the show is over. And it is not long before it is. There remains a cute innocence to a young band or artist performing an unusually short set, as that is all their modest collection of songs can command - and something that reminded me of why I still love coming out to see the latest original music on the scene. Two hours full of covers is great, but 40-odd minutes of well crafted originals in a small, intimate setting, well, that’s the good life.

“Riviera” was my first introduction to Sophie French about one year ago after catching her set at the brilliant Sound of the Shore Festival in Ballyronan, Magherafelt. A girl wearing silver, knee-high boots on the beach was actually my first introduction, which, in any setting would catch the eye, much less at the beach. And here is where I finally get to mention Justin Bobby from The Hills on this newsletter.

“Homeboy wore combat boots to the beach” - Lauren Conrad, 2006

But back on track. “Riviera” was my first sonic introduction and was played pretty much incessantly in our house last summer, fuelling some if not all of our kitchen discos. To hear it tonight is a treat and is treated suitably by Sophie and her band as the centre-piece of the set. Its just the type of song that make my ears perk up when I hear it - this person clearly has the chops (she is a vocal coach by day) and talent to do what she wants in the music space, but the pull of a catchy chorus is strong and Sophie is confident and modest enough to harness its simple power as is evident tonight as the middle floor of the Ulster Sports Club sing along, holding up high their latest homegrown pop star. From the beach to the bar, in a time when music from here (rightly so) can be quite statement-led, provocative and political - sometimes it’s lovely just to catch the pop show.

Thanks for reading the latest issue of Mull It Over!

There are two types of ‘reunion’ in this rich, nostalgia-drip-feed world of pop music in the 21st Century. First, The Police reuniting with Sting in 2008: fans and critics alike clamoured for this one, a one-tour-only affair and, crucially - no new music on offer. Gordon Sumner played sexy Rock God once again and then sailed off into the sunset before his Tea in the Sahara had the chance to turn cold. Then there is the type I have been so lucky to witness first hand: S Club THREE performing a mime act in the students union in Belfast back in the late 2000s, or two members of the official Irish Double Denim Wearing Appreciation Consortium - B*Witched lugging through pop jigs? on the late, great Stiff Kitten stage around the same time. Are ye serious? I’ll let you guess which one this return most resembles.

And yet, here we are. Back again with more honest takes on the ever fruitful music scene of Northern Ireland, with just the right amount of sardonicism and mirth baked in. In truth, I was supremely burned out trying to keep up the article-a-week frequency that I had arbitrarily set for myself last year; so unnecessarily hell-bent on sticking to. So, after a couple more pitch rejections from Pitchfork, Rolling Stone and The Guardian for the collection, here I am flogging my wares to you wildly loyal 100 odd subscribers once again, whom I earnestly choose to believe have in no way forgotten you subscribe to this shit.

So, with more fun to come in the following weeks and months, let me kick off the triumphant return of Mull It Over with a quick look at some of the songs in my current rotation:

Junk Drawer - Nids Niteca

The Bonnevilles - Age of Monsters

Sophie French - Friday Feels

AOIBHA - Saturn’s Return

The Wood Burning Savages - 1000 Mumbling Virgins

Thank you for reading the latest issue of Mull It Over, and most importantly sticking with me throughout the long hiatus. There’s plenty more coming down the line so please spread the word and share any articles that may tickle your fancy. Have a fantastic weekend!

Chris

Walking up to Belfast’s SSE Arena the Saturday before Christmas - the energy (and the cold) was palpable. A quick scan of the crowd and you will have found GAA top-sporting youngsters queuing alongside old school punks, ages ranging from 16 to 60; the bitter Belfast air doing little to quell an undeniable sense of joy and celebration permeating amongst the revellers. Across the Lagan the city centre was heaving with last minute Christmas shoppers and the fumes of boozy work lunches, enough to put you off large crowds and shit, expensive Guinness for life. However, just a mile across the river, something altogether more real was happening. Underneath all the thundering there’s magic.

KNEECAP - the riotous West Belfast rap group are wrapping up what has been, quite frankly, an extraordinary 2024. The small matter of releasing their boundlessly fun, fiery and critically acclaimed debut album, Fine Art to one side, they also managed to squeeze in a legal win over the UK Government over withheld arts funding and release the exceedingly boisterous KNEECAP film, starring none other than Michael Fassbender - a show that currently sits on two Oscar shortlists - one for Best International Feature and the other for Best Original Song for their satirically, socially conscious “Sick In The Head”. Not since 8 Mile has a music film with such little distance between the subject matter and the protagonists (all three play themselves) done such an acute job of capturing lightning in a bottle. And much like 8 Mile before it, it is a funny and serious romp. Totally class all round.

So, as they headed to Belfast’s big room with 9000 adoring fans lying in wait, you wouldn’t be surprised to see tragedy and comedy follow these three lads right up to the house lights going down. On the completely on brand, daft side of KNEECAP, their merchandise was, earlier in the day, banned from the stalls at the SSE Arena. No guessing which items resulted in that decision. However, no strangers to spinning a story in their favour - a last minute pop-up market was set up in Belfast’s Telegraph Building, only to be shut down as well, before eventually settling in The Limelight club on Ormeau Avenue, where the band flogged their wares until, apparently, much like the SSE Arena, it was a sell out.

But much like their music, the brutal reality of life sits unnervingly beside the silly anecdotes for KNEECAP, and it was only a mere 24 hours prior that Gearóid Ó Cairealláin, father of the group’s Moglaí Bap and renowned Irish language revolutionary and community activist, sadly passed away. The stories coming out on the day of the show quickly painted a picture of a well loved, important figure in Belfast’s Gaelic speaking community, a man who pushed forward a language that many have sought to deride, ridicule and use as political leverage over the decades. Many wondered if the show would go ahead considering the enormity of the tragedy. The band addressed this themselves, early in the day -

And so it came to be. 9000 strong in the SSE Arena, waiting to see a hip-hop group from West Belfast rap in Gaelic for two hours. Fantastic Irish post-punkers Gurriers kicked off proceedings with Gemma Dunleavy and, notably, Shankill-based rapper Young Spencer. A true sign of time times and a reminder that for all the political edge you might think you find in KNEECAP’s music - if you are not in on the joke, as it were, you might just find yourself scratching your head. Life isn’t black or white or green and orange, there’s a lot of in between, what you might call ‘narrow ground’ - Young Spencer’s presence tonight amongst 9000 ‘fenian cu*ts’ shows that that ground is widening.

But tonight, the city is KNEECAP’s. Bringing their full stacked debut Fine Art finally, to the big stage they deliver a scurrilous set that threads the needle through a hip-hop, rave, rap-rock and folk landscape - a lot of which can be attributed to producer on the album, Toddla T - notwithstanding the vital importance of DJ Provaí behind the decks.

As they careen through their set which includes the aforementioned “Sick In The Head”, ‘3CAG”, “Get Your Brits Out” and “H.O.OD” among others, it is the levity they bring to the stage tonight between the songs which is the glue that holds this provocative and expletive filled night together. A lot of it I won’t repeat, but I’m sure you can give it your best guess. In complete antidotal fashion to, for example, KNEECAP’s noisy neighbours Fontaines D.C. who performed their very own illuminating hometown arena show at the 3Arena in Dublin just two weeks prior - where there was little to no crowd interaction from the moody maestros - KNEECAP chatted pure shite throughout, to the great joy of the crowd and band alike.

And speaking of Fontaines D.C …

Who else but the frontman of what must surely now be the world’s hottest rock band, Grian Chatten graced the stage for a rousing performance of arguably the most popular song the young band have under their belts - “Better Way To Live”. A song about the clarity one experiences when staying off the drink - there was no risk of that tonight as Chatten, adorned in sunglasses and a leather jacket (as if there was any doubt to who the boy was) took a few swigs of Buckfast before departing stage left.

All that remained was an emotional encore that featured a display of the late Gearóid Ó Cairealláin on the big screen as the headliners, support acts and special guests joined in a moving singalong of The Pogues’ ubiquitous Christmas anthem “Fairytale of New York”. Everyone arm in arm, the only person left out was Moglaí Bap, choosing instead to rest one footed on the stage monitor, seemingly taking in what just might be the most affecting moment of the young man’s life so far, as 9000 plus paid tribute to his dad.

And then it was over. A triumphant homecoming for Belfast’s young rappers in a year that has been extraordinary, not only for KNEECAP, but for the arts in Ireland in general.

Next stop, the Oscars.

Má tá tú beannaithe go leor bheith ina Éireannach, tá tú beannaithe go deo.

Thank you for reading issue 42 of Mull It Over.

I’m not a regular gift guide, I’m a cool gift guide.

Slightly worried that this idea is placing me closer to the Substack writers and influencey type people that I generally can’t bear - as my newsletter feed was inundated from American ‘gift guides’ over their interminable Thanksgiving period, I had an idea to take the concept and make it infinitely cooler, which, after all, is the business we’re in here at Mull It Over. You get the inimitable Cool Gig Guide from me each month - so just think of it like that, but with shallow materialistic goods instead of cherished memories with friends. I’ve really nailed the Christmas spirit with this one I think.

To put my own spin on it, I’ve included below some local artists/businesses/products for your perusal. As this is a music-themed newsletter I’ve tried to keep everything in the music/arts/culture world, so you can make that hipster friend of yours very happy this Christmas.

Some housekeeping: Thanks to all of the readers and new subscribers over the past couple of weeks. A manic month for the local music scene with the Northern Ireland Music Prize and BBC Radio 6 Music coming to town. My reviews and recaps of both have been some of the most popular articles on Mull It Over to date. To be able to say that one year in, is fantastic. Thanks again. And if you haven’t caught up you can get them below.

The Cool Gift Guide - December 2024

1. Prints from Ciara McMullan

Northern Ireland’s roving live music photographer-extraordinaire Ciara McMullan is never in one spot for too long. Whether capturing the spirit of the local music scene, as she has been doing for well over a decade now (check out her brilliant ‘oldnimusicscenephotos’ Instagram page for a trip down memory lane) or shooting Tom Odell in arenas all over the world, she is a busy woman. Luckily for you, she has some high quality prints of her work up on her online store, featuring the likes of Billie Eilish, Lewis Capaldi and current Northern Ireland Music Prize winners Problem Patterns. Get ‘em while they’re hot.

https://ciaramcmullan.bigcartel.com

2. Shop Dig With It

Head over to the Dig With It store to stock up on any of the back issues of Northern Ireland’s magazine for ‘Nordy Culture and Beyond’. A fantastic zine spearheaded by iconic industry figure Stuart Bailie, who as well as being a former Assistant Editor at NME, can count co-founding the vital Oh Yeah Centre to his name. Past cover stars include Joshua Burnside, David Holmes and SOAK. Also to be found in the Dig With It store are his last two books - Trouble Songs and Seventy-Five Revolutions. You won’t regret purchasing either, or both.

3. Sound Advice at Banana Block

The coolest record shop in the coolest area of the coolest city in the country, Sound Advice is the beating heart of East Belfast’s Banana Block. Run by Belfast’s own Marion Hawkes, who can be found behind the decks as part of immensely fun duo Ponyhawke or indeed behind the desk at Sound Advice, you will find the absolute cream of the crop here. Less AC/DC and more Warp Records rarities, you can also peruse the fine selection of gifts they have in store, just in time for Christmas.

4. A few cans of And So I Watch You From Afar

With the launch of their latest and greatest LP ‘Megafauna’ earlier this year (Read the Mull It Over review here), Northern Ireland’s band have only gone and launched their own Pale Ale. Packed with bright, fresh tropical fruit flavours is what they’re saying. Beats a Bailey’s, I would say. You can either go down to Boundary Brewing at Banana Block to grab a case or try at this link. Enjoy responsibly.

1. Vinyl from Starr Records

Now located inside the Oh Yeah Centre on Gordon Street in the middle of Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter, call in to the fabulously quaint but absolutely stacked Starr Records for a browse of the shelves. From stone cold classics to local acts, you’re bound to come away with something for your loved one, and yourself.

If you’re going to blow the roof off any venue in Belfast, it might as well be the Ulster Sports Club. Not for any other reason than it most likely does need replacing. Though, such is the charm of Belfast’s newest hip venue: it proudly wears the social club scars of its past for all to see and enjoy. Once a city centre venue celebrating local boxing and Irish league heroes (George Best’s dad Dickie was a member), members from both sides of the community would frequent it after all the other bars in town had called last orders. In 2024, however, the more impressive blending of cultures comes from the cigarette-burned type of cushioned seats your parents likely sat on that now inhabit the same space as über cool beer brand Beavertown and its Gamma Ray American pale ale.

Tonight, BBC Radio 6 Music is in the club, after setting up shop and emitting a festival of live broadcasts from all over the city in the preceding days. New Music Fix Daily is a radio show on 6 Music hosted by Tom Ravenscroft and Deb Grant. Last year they hosted the inaugural live version from Glasgow, and this year was Belfast’s turn. From Monday 25th to Wednesday 27th November their New Music Fix show heard performances from electronic duo Bicep, hip hop trio Kneecap and the self-described queer-punks Problem Patterns, fresh off their big win at the Northern Ireland Music Prize, taking home the coveted Best Album award. Also on offer were unique acoustic sessions, including singer-songwriters SOAK and piglet, recorded in some of Belfast’s most iconic venues, including The Errigle Inn, The Empire and The Sunflower Bar. Ensuring Northern Ireland keeps its name for producing ear bending electronic talent, the daily show on 6 Music also heard sets from some of the region’s most exciting production talent, including genre-spanning producers Sally C and Or:la.

And if that wasn’t enough, here was the big finale, a celebration of some of the finest live acts we have to offer in what has become, since 2018, an internationally recognised hub for gigging in Belfast - the Ulster Sports Club, broadcasting live on BBC radio. On the bill tonight are noise-punkers Enola Gay, garage rock cool kids Jock and the self-proclaimed rant-hop duo Dirty Faces.

First up is Jock. A stripped down three-piece whose boundless youthful energy and vigour can do nothing but pull you in and wipe the smile off your face and replace it with only a bigger grin. Both in sound and energy I am reminded of Julian Casablancas’ comment on fellow New York band Sunflower Bean that I haven’t thought about since 2016 - "Well congratulations, on being cool, young, and free”. Except tonight we’re not in New York City, we’re in Belfast, Northern Ireland - a fact that the next band up, Dirty Faces, weren’t going to let us forget.

If Jock was stripped down, then Dirty Faces were practically naked. A buzzed out Hofner bass and a snarling Derry mouthpiece, this, I can only imagine is how my parents felt the first time they saw the Gallagher brothers on Top Of The Pops in the mid 90s. Except that’s where the comparisons end. Paying no heed nor care to the fact they were being broadcast live on the British Broadcasting Corporation, the Derry twosome buffered their shouty, angry and funny punk tunes with, on one occasion, an a capella version of Irish rebel song The Bogside Man and a less than favourable chant on the recent death of a certain former head of the British Army. We’re not in London anymore. Needless to say, neither of these offerings made it out on the live broadcast - not that Dirty Faces seemed to mind. A blistering set came to an abrupt end and left the stage perfectly set for the Belfast’s newest buzz band (horrible term, don’t you think?), noise-punkers Enola Gay.

A triumphant headline show if there ever was one, it felt like the small upstairs venue on this corner of High Street had almost doubled in size by the time Enola Gay took to the stage. Exuding the confidence and swagger of a band who know just how good they are, I almost lost myself during their ferocious set. I have been following this band only for about a year, the same length of time as this newsletter, and relished this opportunity to catch them live, perhaps before they take the next step on the road travelled most recently by contemporaries Kneecap and indeed Fontaines D.C. Eyes closed for recent single, the emotional Cold, their hour long set seemed to go in a flash, the houselights stinging my eyes as I realised I must have had them closed for at least the last 20 minutes.

Moved beyond belief by the sheer electrifying and carnal punk energy brought by these three bands tonight in this once unassuming social club in the middle of one of the most complicated cities in either the UK or Ireland, there was nothing complicated about what happened upstairs tonight on High Street. Belfast and Derry just planted their flags on the summit of a vital hill - BBC Radio 6 Music. Censored or uncensored, the revolution will not be televised. It will be broadcast live on the radio.

What’s cooler than being cool? Checking out the Mull It Over Cool Gig Guide where each month you will find a list of the coolest gigs happening in and around Belfast, expertly curated by me - mainly as a vehicle to show off (for this month at least) my attempts at capturing the Gen X Soft Club aesthetic (learned about through the brilliantly nostalgic Brit Cult Instagram page) on Apple Preview. It just feels like 2001, doesn’t it?

Your music pairing

Your music pairing this month marks an intentional shift. After running out of songs with the word ‘cool’ in the title after about three months (didn’t think it through), I’ve decided to instead provide a window into my sophisticated and considered listening habits around the time of publishing. So, after binging on the brilliantly wonderful, sad, fun and eye-opening documentary Boybands Forever last week on BBC iPlayer, wrap your ears around this definitive piece of classical composing. The best song ever to feature the words ‘taxi-cab’, and I won’t countenance any arguments that suggest otherwise.

Cool Gig Guide - December 2024

Sunday 1st December

Dom Martin at The Empire, Belfast. Tickets

Thursday 5th December

Duke Special with Beth Rowley at The Empire, Belfast. Tickets

Friday 6th December

Pillow Queens at Mandela Hall, Belfast. Tickets

Thursday 12th December

No Oil Paintings with Connor McCann and The Heroine Choir at The Empire, Belfast. Tickets

Wednesday 18th December

Esmerelda Road with Brógeal at The Limelight 1, Belfast. Tickets

Friday 20th December

And So I Watch You From Afar with Arborist and paranoid void at The Limelight 1, Belfast. Tickets

Friday 20th December

David C. Clements at The Ulster Hall, Belfast. Tickets

Thank you for reading issue 39 of Mull It Over. As we race towards the end of the year be sure to keep checking in with the Instagram page for updates and on here directly, where I’ll be recapping the BBC Radio 6 Music New Music Fix live show at the Ulster Sports Club this Thursday. It’s unfortunately now sold out, but I’ll have you covered on all the shenanigans. Catch up then, and as always thanks for reading/subscribing.

It was a night that got off on the wrong foot almost immediately. Upon the realisation I was 20 minutes early for dinner plans with my friend who would be accompanying me to the Northern Ireland Music Prize that night, I stopped in for a cold warm-up Guinness in, of all places, The Points on the Dublin Road. Not a student in sight, I could hardly believe my luck, or, in hindsight, believe how quickly it was about to run out.

“A beer each to start, please” we excitedly requested from the waiter. Chatting an ungodly amount of shit between courses and glasses of red wine, no stone left unturned as is true when two old friends meet up, we squared up the bill like the good citizens we are and left this very fine establishment indeed with a hop, skip and a jump - on our way to the biggest night of the year for the local music scene.

Brandishing my coveted press pass, it was hitherto a night to rub elbows with the city’s elite, the gatekeepers of such respected institutions as BBC’s ATL, The Thin Air, Chordblossom, Dig With It and countless others. Maybe I’d bump into Phil Taggart outside for a smoke and tell him about my plucky little Substack and if he wouldn’t mind mentioning me on one of his prime time shows. It turns out we weren’t there for any of that. Evidently we were there for the chaos, the strange magnetic pull of intoxication, the thrill of slamming into something absurd, and the promise of god-knows-what in the shadows and potentially the Guinness world record for most trips to the bar in the space of two hours, pun intended.

The Ulster Hall loomed ahead, a dark beast of Victorian grandeur, all stone and brick, dripping with history like a forgotten nightmare of loyalism and Led Zeppelin. The place had been home to so many glitzy affairs in the past, and here we were—two degenerates, barely able to keep our feet beneath us, headed straight into the belly of the beast.

We left as the show drew to a close, or maybe it was after, or maybe it didn’t end at all. The streets were full of local bands, artists, journalists, radio presenters and hangers on. The smell of wet pavement and the sound of our laughter echoing off Bedford Street’s buildings found a welcoming home in Pug Ugly’s pub across the street. A surprisingly hearty pint of Guinness in one hand, this is where we reliably caught up on some of the blanks from inside the venue. Oh well, you win some you lose some. Congratulations to the winners, the losers and the degenerates. See you again next year.

From my best recollection, here’s how it all went down on the night -

Album Of The Year: Problem Patterns - Blouse Club

Music Video Of The Year: Jordan Adetunji - Kehlani

Live Act Of The Year: Huartan

Single Of The Year: JC Stewart - Hey Babe, I’m A Mess, I’m Sorry

BBC Radio Ulster ATL Introducing Artist Of The Year: Esmerelda Road

Legend Award: Eric Bell

Outstanding Contribution To Music Award: Gerry Anderson

Once again, congratulations to all on the night and sincere thanks to the mighty Oh Yeah Centre gang for another absolutely astonishing Northern Ireland Music Prize. It was a joy to be there and witness the immense talent this country has to offer. After writing about this scene all year it was very special to be in attendance.

Here’s to the next one.

Welcome to issue 37 of Mull It Over. Our end of the year series on the Northern Ireland Music Prize rolls on this week with a run through of the thirteen records shortlisted for Best Album at this year’s awards. If you tuned into the radio show last week on Belfast Built you will have heard me natter on about all of these albums as I picked out my favourite tracks from each and chatted a not unreasonable about of shit in between. If that was the oral exam then consider this the written counterpart. It is a sadistic man who gives himself coursework to do for fun, but alas, here we are. The final piece in the series will be my field report from the awards show itself, live from the Ulster Hall in November. Until then, peruse the below list of exceptional albums at your leisure, but listen with intent - and read the whole way to the bottom to find out the Mull It Over pick for Album of the Year. Or if you can’t be arsed - just scroll to the bottom to find out. Or if you can’t be arsed even to do that, just hit subscribe and leave.

Blue Whale - Last Immediate Images

A difficult, fun and intensely chaotic listen at times, Blue Whale’s second album cements their status as Belfast’s preeminent left field noise makers. Sounding like what would happen if you took Boards Of Canada’s Geogaddi and The Libertines’ Up The Bracket and put both in your NutriBullet on the highest setting, the results offer (some kind of) catharsis by the end.

Standout Track: Otic Brawl

Brand New Friend - Grandstand

Brand New Friend’s third offering Grandstand finds a band sounding very comfortable in their own skin. The indie pop hooks are here but they are far more refined, buoyed in no small part by the mature lyrical themes explored throughout the album. Talk It Out, the first lyrical offering from keyboard player Lauren Johnson is a triumph.

Standout Track: Dino

CHERYM - Take It Or Leave It

Pop-punk prowess from these three who make absolutely no apologies for who they are and what they represent on their debut album, Take It Or Leave It. Legitimately the most fun I’ve had listening to an album in a while, even gaining some societal knowledge along the way. A near perfect first release and never boring.

Standout Track: Taking Up Sports

Conchúr White - Swirling Violets

An album that feels like it exists on a completely different plane at times, Swirling Violets, the first full length offering from Conchúr White is a beautiful soundscape that doesn’t eschew the beautiful melodies in place of lo-fi ambience, it instead marries them perfectly. A considered debut album from an artist just getting started. A contender for the Best Album award on the night.

Standout Track: 501s

Dana Masters - Real Good Mood

North Carolina native Dana Masters has set up shop this side of the Atlantic among the bright lights of County Down. And how lucky we are to have her. A jazz singer by trade, cutting her teeth singing alongside local legends such as Van Morrison and Linley Hamilton, Dana has taken her own path and in the process gifted us a soulful, jazzy, poppy record in Real Good Mood, surely to soundtrack any Saturday night kitchen disco worth its salt.

Standout Track: Rising

David Holmes - Blind On A Galloping Horse

A legend, to put it bluntly. Returning to his native Belfast after presumably growing tired of the mundane existence of scoring movie soundtracks and producing records for the likes of Primal Scream and Noel Gallagher - Holmes, here, has offered up his most quintessentially Belfast album yet. Let’s Get Killed, this isn’t. On Blind On A Galloping Horse we are all participants, willing or less so, to his gothic-protest opera. A winner on any day. And great to have him back.

Standout Track: Necessary Genius

Gareth Dunlop - Welcome To The House Of I Don’t Know

A troubadour by his very nature, Gareth Dunlop has nearly done it all in this game. When you have a song featured in iconic 2000s teen drama One Tree Hill where else can you go? To the synths it seems. Channelling The War On Drugs in its very best moments, Gareth sounds like he’s having an absolute blast on Welcome To The House Of I Don’t Know - employing 80s textures throughout and not shying away from the big hook. One of the most fun records on the shortlist by far and too many earworms to mention.

Standout Track: Small Talk

Kneecap - Fine Art

No introduction necessary. Whether you like them or not, you can’t deny Kneecap’s indelible mark on society, in such a short period. Appearances at the Sundance Film Festival and a co-starring credit alongside Michael Fassbender to their young names, you would be forgiven for forgetting how they got here in the first place. Luckily, that is captured on their first full length release - Fine Art. Maybe the most real and tangible street music to reach the mainstream masses since Oasis.

Standout Track - Better Way To Live (ft. Grian Chatten)

Reevah - Daylight Savings

Straddling the line between thoughtful and considered singer/songwriter and indie-pop princess, Reevah asks the listener on Daylight Savings - “why not both?” Arriving with a tour de force debut album, Reevah evidently has the pedigree to back it up. A masters degree in music and the pipes to take her far, Daylight Savings is a joyous listen from start to finish. The honey in your lemon tea, every fucking night. Check out the key change in the title track.

Standout Track - Call Me Up

Problem Patterns - Blouse Club

Queerpunk? Queercore? How about just ‘punk’? Problem Patterns arrive on the scene with Blouse Club, a concept album of sorts holding archaic and institutionalised thoughts and processes to account. Fiery, angry and absolutely vital - there is nothing that sounds quite like this out there at the moment. For all its abrasiveness, there is, importantly, humour here too. For just how real this album is, it is in with a strong shout of taking home the big prize on the night. Expect fireworks, regardless.

Standout Track: Pity Bra

Dungiven’s finest, Cara Dillon has returned with an astoundingly beautiful piece of work here on Coming Home. OK, perhaps well known outside of just Dungiven - this truly global artist feels like part of the fabric now. And how wonderful that she can still stir the same emotions 20+ years after her debut. Part spoken word, part the folk you’ve come to know from Cara, Coming Home is deserving of its place on the shortlist this year after going in as the public’s choice. A vote of confidence in one of our finest exports if there ever was one.

Standout Track: Clear The Path

Virgins - nothing hurt and everything was beautiful

Flying the shoegaze flag for Northern Ireland is Virgins. All pink-hued artwork, fuzzy guitars and what can only be described as a capital letter apocalypse, nothing hurt and everything is beautiful picks up where My Bloody Valentine left off in the early 90s. Catchy, dreamy and slickly produced, this is a near perfect album from a gorgeous band. Led by Michael Smyth, the busiest man on the scene (if there were awards for sheer hard work, he would surely win it). A long odds shout for taking the award on the night, but a shout nonetheless. Glorious.

Standout Track: s l o w l y , l o n g

exmagician - Sit Tight

Mull It Over’s pick for Best Album at the 2024 Northern Ireland Music Prize

Did you ever find yourself wondering what it would sound like if Jackson Browne fronted T-Rex? Well wonder no more. Ex Cashier No.9 alumni Daniel Todd and James Smith are found here on their second album in 8 years blending 60s psychedelia and the flair of 1970s UK glam, à la The Sweet. With producing duties on the album from Chris Ryan of Robocobra Quartet, Sit Tight - for all its golden age references, sits atop all the other shortlisted albums for just how fresh and new it manages to sound in the face of those heavy influences. Similar to how I felt listening to Insecure Men’s self titled offering in 2018 - an influence, perhaps by accident, that can’t be overlooked.

A near perfect album for me and the Mull It Over pick for Best Album at this year’s Northern Ireland Music Prize.

Standout Track: Instinct

Thank you for reading issue 37 of Mull It Over. As mentioned we are rolling on with our Northern Ireland Music Prize series, and next up is a live report of the awards night itself on 13th November at Belfast’s iconic Ulster Hall. I will be there, and you’ll hear about all the goings-on right here on the newsletter in the days to follow. After that it will be back to regular scheduled programming.

If you are new to Mull It Over, firstly - buy the t-shirt. And secondly - welcome! There is a ton of stuff to dig through in the archives, and all new subscribers are greatly appreciated.

Thank you for reading,

Chris.