Future Island celebrate what has been the rock 'n' roll year of their lives with Road Dawgs, a seven-minute short that makes you love Samuel T. Herring & Co. even more. "Everything that I do I do to get closer to my family, but all of it just takes me physically farther away from them," the singer reflects.

The Original Rudeboys treat fans to an early Christmas present with 'The Takeover', one of their most overtly hip hop tracks yet, which was originally earmarked for the chaps' All We Are album but didn't make the cut. Why is a bit of a mystery 'cause it's a real banger!

Mundy has debuted the first track, 'Window Shopping For Faith', from his forthcoming PledgeMusic album, which is due in the spring. "It's about needing faith regardless," says Mr. Enright of the Tom Waits-ian tune, which is accompanied by a hard-hitting black and white video shot in various Dublin locales.

Those nice people from ATO Records treat us to a bounteous Winter Sampler that includes free tuneage from the likes of Brandi Carlile, Benjamin Booker, Fly Golden Eagle, Mariachi El Bronx, Two Gallants, Rodrigo y Gabriela and the mighty Stars!

Also new and free – but you're welcome to tip – from the Noise Trade stable is If You Look For My Heart, a cockle-warming album from country purist Ben Arthur, and Virginian purveyor of electronica cool, Lauren Hoffman, whose Becoming The Secret Storm sounds like Lana Del Rey smooching with The xx.




Jeff The Brotherhood, who ought to be a hell of a lot bigger on this side of the Atlantic than they are, treat us to new single 'What's A Creep'.

There's some quality Welsh psychedelia to be had courtesy of The Pale Blue Dots, AKA Super Furry Animal Huw Bunford and composer Richard Chester.

Macca will swap you an extended version of Wings' 'Letting Go' in return for furnishing [link]www.paulmccartney.com/downloads[/link] with your email address and solving a simple maths puzzle to ensure you're not a robot. Ah, the band The Beatles could have been...
FMF is much enamoured of 'Book Of Love', a quirk-pop gem from the pen of Aussie singer-songwriter Fraser A. Gorman who recently supported Damon Albarn.

It's fairly quiet this week on the streaming front with Swamp Dogg, Dr Perception, The Knife and The Drink hanging at [link]3voor12.vpro.nl/luisterpaal/albums.html[/link], and Fall Out Boy, Max Frost, Laurel, Of Montreal, Anna Of The North, Salems Lott and Coldplay the quality over quantity offerings at [link]albumstreams.com[/link]
Our favourite Carlow electronica merchant, Auxiliary Phoenix, treats us to a live performance of new tune 'Four Hours' from his shed. As impressive as the tune is his ability to both drum and play keyboards at the same time.

Dublin power poppers The Stoles get plungered up for the vid accompanying their 'Man In The Cave' single, which is due in January.

The whole of The Black Keys' Austin City Limits set last month is available for your streaming perusal, as is a short sharp shock of a Queens Of The Stone Age performance.


Festive Cover of the Week goes to Rae Morris who does gorgeous things to the already rather huggable 'Stay Another Day'.

Coming in a very close second are The Stunning who originally gave away their take on 'Merry Christmas Baby' on a 1990 freebie 7". Otis Redding, B.B. King, Elvis, Bruce Springsteen and Christina Aguilera have also lavished love on the song, which first hit the festive charts in 1947 courtesy of Johnny Moore's Three Blazers.

Progressive metal fans can feast on this free seven-tracker from Vile Regression, a muscular Dublin quintet whose name is being dropped in all the right cult circles.

To celebrate racking up 19 million Facebook fans, Tiësto is giving away his ace remix of Beyoncé's 'Drunk In Love'.

And that, sniff, is where, sob, we have to leave you for this week and, indeed, this year. A huge thanks to everybody who's kept us in links during 2014. Have a fab Christmas and we'll do it all again in '15!