Five Leeside records for 2023's best-of playlists

ELAINE MALONE - PYRRHIC (LP, PIZZA PIZZA)

The many creative faces of Elaine Malone have been a joy to witness manifesting themselves over the years, from Land Crabs’ punk daring, to projects like solo drone outlet Mantua, and collaborations like HEX, Soft Focus, and most recently, Pot-Pot.

Her debut long-player under her own name, Pyrrhic, is at once, a personal history, a distillation of influences, and an observation of the present, wrapping up songs from nearly a decade of singing and writing in a body of work that’s at once gentle, considered, ambitious, heartfelt — and free.

FISH GO DEEP -WHAT I MEAN BY BEAUTIFUL (LP, GO DEEP)

After over three decades of being bywords for house music in a city tied to the genre in large part by their own hand, Greg Dowling and Shane Johnson’s most recent excursions into sonic exploration have marked a brave and thrilling departure.

But while 2020 LP This Bit of Earth wandered far and wide across electronics, ambience and jazz, providing unexpected grounding amid the most tumultuous of times, What I Mean By Beautiful picks up the pace a little bit, underpinned by live-looped, reverby beats that, in a way, match the pace of a year that saw many of us try to get a start on making fuzzy-headed lockdown-era dreams real.

I DREAMED I DREAM -WHY SAY A LOT? (EP, SELF-RELEASED)

“The EP is a challenge to every teenage girl in Ireland: I dare you to start a band. I absolutely dare you,” wrote guitarist Elle O’Leary-Kelleher in a press release accompanying noisemakers I Dreamed I Dream’s debut extended-player.

One of those lines that makes you consider the efficacy of music journalism, so hard does it make the task of trying to encapsulate the music therein any further.

A sean-nós-inspired koan to the 214 bus wishes a fiery death on a former lover, janky Corkonian post-punk gives way to a swift sonic beating about sending troublesome youngfellas away in ‘Tintin Haircut’, and a one-note bassline forms the foundation of snarling critiques of musical convention on The Bass — but it’s on Apparition, wrought from grief, tumult, hurt and healing, and as texturally vast as the sky above the city, that the band’s vision and potential are revealed.

This isn’t hype — keep your ears peeled for these ‘five feral women, making horrible noises’.

CAOILIAN SHERLOCK -TEENAGE JESUS (LP, SELF-RELEASED)

Nearly two decades of the push and pull of life as a musician, gig promoter and artistic facilitator have thankfully done little to dim the light of Leeside institution Caoilian Sherlock, from relentless gigging with The Shaker Hymn, to frankly heroic work done for the city as part of Quarter Block Party, The Good Room and other live-event ventures.

His debut long-player under his own name was a while in the making, too, but no more succinct a summary of his creative raison d’etre there could be — Sherlock’s voice is a permanently lovelorn swoon, joined ably by vocal collaborator Leah Hearne, while his lyrics wrestle endlessly with the nature of existence in modernity, and the seemingly mid-generational plight of the ‘elder millennial’ archetype — making for a listen that’s sweet and profound in equal measure.

MOSSY -1990 (EP, SELF-RELEASED)

Part of the trouble is making a list of records themed around a city, or a year, is the value-judgement that happens nearly despite yourself - how do you narrow down what great young bands like Pebbledash, The Cliffords, Iris, and Mirrors are accomplishing, working, jamming and building their own layer of something great on their doorstep?

So take this particular recommendation of Northside dream-poppers Mossy’s debut extended-player as your cue to lend your ear to an emerging generation of bands and artists in the city - there’s plenty of the joys, hurts, and anxieties of youth across its four-track running time, from the layered haze of Trouble, to the deftly-sprinkled hope of Subbuteo, and its various nods to post-punk, shoegazing and indie-pop could only fail to warm the coldest of music-nerd hearts.

In the hands of bands like these, the city’s eclectic and idiosyncratic sonic legacy becomes part of an exciting future.