5 Leeside artists to watch in 2024

Wed, 10 Jan, 2024 - 11:24

Mike McGrath Bryan

Rua Rí

Your writer has seen this lad a few times in the past year or two, and is frankly bewitched with the Cobh singer-songwriter’s easy, humble presence on a small stage, and the ability with which he summons spectres of rural Cork with music and words, from the distant booming of discos, to the easy company of flowing rivers.

Get and see him - and find 2023 single ‘Wonderland’ on your streaming service of choice.

Twitcher

Longtime heads on the local DIY scene will be more than familiar with musician, DJ, singer and promoter Lisa O’Grady, fka Lisa Lemur - a steady supporter of local weirdness, and a staple of the city’s Sacred Harp Singers group. In recent years, she’s ventured from facilitation into expression under the Twitcher moniker, carefully sharing ambient electronic work crafted quietly over the course of years, in intimate live excursions. A sole recorded piece of music exists online at present, a demo of ‘Baalbek’, inspired by a 2019 trip to the Lebanon and conversations with refugees there.

https://twitcher.bandcamp.com/track/baalbek-demo

Daz-Gak!

Your writer has sung the effusive praises of Leeside math-rock baneens Daz-Gak! in recent times, and rightly so, a streamlined, poppy take on the grandeur and ambition of 2000s genre leaders like Adebisi Shank and Tera Melos, delivered with a sunny disposition and genre-standard smart-aleckry. October-released EP ‘81/82’ is a continuation of early form, including a song title that will surely warrant a mention among the greats - ‘*kickflips into oncoming traffic*’.

https://dazgak.bandcamp.com/album/81-82

idiot.

Your writer spent five years running regular gigs in Fred Zeppelin’s amid the post-recession pallor - from traditional heavy metal, to bleak, blackened onslaughts and the most vicious of grindcore. It took until this October, when heading upstairs to see Cork punks idiot. amid their Jazz Weekend fundraiser for Cork Simon Community, to both finally feel his eardrums rattling in his head, and genuinely fear for the security of the floor under the moshpit. That’ll do, lads.

https://idiot5.bandcamp.com/album/devolve

Muireann Ní Shé

County Cork traditional musician Muireann Ní Shé represents something of a convergence of propositions - part of a wave of female musicians taking the uilleann pipes into the current-day revival, she pairs the instrument’s depth and presence with her own prowess in sean nós-inspired vocal stylings, interweaving their niceties and nuances on debut album ‘Éistigh Liomsa Sealad’.