May A&R Department: KhakiKid, Offica, Stratford Rise and more

Hot Press Hot For 2022 pick KhakiKid has gone viral with ‘Pylonz’, which finds the dextrous Dublin wordplayer collaborating with English singer SOFY.

“London indie sleaze meets Dublin rap, the best international collab since Kim Kardashian enjoyed a cold pint of Guinness with a really good head,” is how she describes the summery banger which would sit neatly between Ellie Goulding and Wet Leg on the radio.

Part of the same Red Light Management stable as Belle And Sebastian, Franz Ferdinand, Interpol and Ween, the Crumlin Kid has upcoming shows in The Cobblestone, Dublin (May 22); Forbidden Fruit (June 1); and supporting Denzel Curry in the National Stadium, Dublin (23).

If you caught him recently on the Late Late Show… you’ll know that he loves the camera – and vice versa – and could just be following Jordan Adetunji onto the world stage…

There were industry heads aplenty at the lean, mean thirty-minute showcase gig Delush played last month in the Dublin Distillery.

Among them was our man Terry McNally who says, “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a young band with their energy, swagger and an album’s worth of material ready to go. They really are a bit special.”

Listening to ‘Rio’, ‘Got Sick’ and the other smattering of tunes they have on Spotify, there’s a definite early Arctic Monkeys vibe albeit shot through with their own spiky world view.

Having gigged in somewhat off grid local venues, Delush are now planning to be far more in your face…

After a period of relative quiet, Offica storms back with ‘Go Mo’, which – to quote our New Irish Songs To Hear This Week crew – is “a kaleidoscope of experimental trap, sharp lyricism and club-ready chaos.”

The Drogheda rapper’s flow is as devastating as usual with basslines that could level cities…

We’re loving ‘New York’, the latest indie pop earworm from Dublin’s Crybabyamy who signed when she was just eighteen to BMG Publishing.

The first taster from her forthcoming Superstar EP, it’s produced by Alex O’Keefe who’s previously done the honours for the likes of Lyra, Bobbi Arlo and SISTRA.

It’s got a bit – well, a lot! – of a brattish Charli XCX vibe and could just be the song to help her achieve commercial lift-off.

With over a million TikTok views, the Artist Also Known As Amy Flynn has already built up a sizeable fanbase and gives it serious welly in the accompanying video…

Hania Rani and former Dublin resident Agnes Bernelle are two of the key influences cited by Lōwli, the Galway composer and singer whose ‘Ground Above You’ single is a neo classical delight.

There are also trace elements of Ennio Morricone, Dead Can Dance, Enya and Tubular Bells-era Mike Oldfield, which Roisín Lowry fashions into something that’s entirely her own.

Part of the artist-driven Veta collective which also includes the likes of Maria Kelly, St. Bishop, Jock and Sive, Lowli describes the beautifully recorded song as an attempt “to find purpose and understanding in an often unsettling and disjointed world”…

Dublin-based French-American singer Zoé Basha blends folk, blues, Americana, jazz, ragtime and trad influences to glorious effect on Gamble, her long-playing debut which is The Guardian’s current Folk Album of the Month.

A quick listen to ‘Dublin Street Corners’, which also swings by Dolan’s in Limerick, explains why our English colleagues have clasped her to their broadsheet bosoms.

Having spent a decade thumbing lifts, jumping freight trains and taking the road less travelled in her own rust-bucket van, Basha has no shortage of things to write about and is currently gigging her way around France and Belgium…

There’s definitely something in the Lagan water with Stratford Rise the latest bunch of post-punk noisemakers to burst out of Belfast.

New single, ‘Gunshow’, manages to underpin the quartet’s righteous anger with lots of funkiness and some surprisingly sweet melodies…

“Music’s worst gatekeepers” is how new Dublin grassroots label Loose Lips Records describes itself with tongue planted firmly in cheek.

Run for love rather than money by gig promoter Eddie Rafferty, their first release is ‘Disarray’ by Aspire, a scuzzy lo-fi grunge merchant who’s big into his distortion peddles, Nirvana and Modern Baseball.
Find out more at instagram.com/_looselips__

Barbagianni strike electropop gold first time out with ‘Punch Drunk’, a song written and recorded in Dublin but with its head in the Parisienne clouds.

Having previously worked with the likes of Lydia Ford, Theo Fitzgibbon and Lucy McWilliams, Karl McCrone and Matthew Keating chose Daire Heffernan to supply the vocals which are just as heavenly as the ones to be found on her The Wolf Called Desire EP.