The Goo 1
Opinion words: Dan Hegarty STOP, REWIND, CHANGE S
IDES Traditionally the months of September, October and November are busy months for music. Ireland Music Week happens each year in October, and there’s always plenty of new music landing. This year is no different with albums arriving recently from names like Unique Freaks, Just Mustard, Graham Smyth, Sprints, Ash, NewDad, The Redneck Manifesto, and CMAT. Huge congratulations to the latter and to Fontaines D.C. on their respective albums being nominated for the Mercury Music Prize. MOIO has been selected as the first Irish act to the play at the 2026 Eurosonic festival, which will take place in The Netherlands in January. Selected by 2fm, he’s one of a long line of Irish artists to perform at the annual new music festival. Names like Denise Chaila, Cliffords, Hozier, Soule, and The Murder Capital have performed at the events. More acts will be announced over the coming months. The latest A Litany Of Failures album arrived recently on digital and vinyl. Volume five features tracks from I Dreamed I Dream, Elaine Malone, and The PVP. The first in the series arrived back in 2016; since then music from acts as varied as Cherym, The Bonk and Jinx Lennon have featured. If you went along to see The Lemonheads on their Irish tour back in August, you may have got to see the opening act The Sleeveens. Fronted by Stef Murphy (formerly of The Mighty Stef), they straddle sounds reminiscent of The Pogues, The Stooges and MC5. Their recent single ‘Downtown’ is highly recommended. Last stop for this month is a quantum leap back in time to the year 2015 to Roisin Murphy’s ‘Hairless Toys’ album. Tracks like ‘Exile’, ‘House Of Glass’ and the epic nine minute ‘Exploitation’ are three stunning songs from an album that is as thrilling to listen to now as it was a decade ago. 6