Media and music students at Dún Laoghaire College of Further Education (DCFE) have firmed-up a novel link with Nielsen Music that could see the new Irish music compilation album, Native, featuring artists connected to the college, crack the Irish charts.

The students are kick-starting their chart onslaught on Friday, March 23 with an in-store performance in Tower Records at 6pm, at which a variety of the acts on the record will play. As part of the marketing initiative, everyone who buys the album will be gifted a free pass to the official launch party in the Twisted Pepper on Wednesday, March 28 from 8pm.
The album includes an impressive range of quality homegrown talent spanning alternative rock, rap, jazz and dance. One of the tracks, ‘The National’ by Lethal Dialect, has already got the thumbs-up via RTÉ’s hit show Love/Hate. A graphic rap track over a beguiling lazy beat that seeps easily into your cranium, it is just one of a number of fine cuts brought together by the students for the project.
The deal between the college and Nielsen, which had been under discussion for months, was firmed up at The Music Show in the RDS – at which the college’s John McFadden also made a valuable contribution to the panel discussion on music education.
“Under this partnership,” John explained, “Nielsen Music are introducing students to music media monitoring and digital tracking, which has a value of over €2,000, and this will give our students even more industry data to assist in making the album a success. The project helps them understand the process of releasing and promoting an independent album in Ireland.”
Feidhlim Byrne from Nielsen Music added, “This is an ideal platform for artists and students to see how media monitoring works in a real-life setting. We are delighted to be involved in the project.”
Native is competitively priced at €9.99 and, apart from its physical release, will also be available globally on various digital platforms. If it cracks the charts it will not be DCFE’s first success: in the past, their releases have secured Top 5 places, but this time their eyes are on the coveted No. 1 spot.
Other artists prompting positive comment include Tremoya, whose ‘Orange Eye’ opens with tasty electric guitars; One Of The Boys, whose ‘Gone’ boasts a fine sense of drama; Spinafly and DJ Kann, who take ‘Locas Palmas’ for a high-speed salsa ride over an infectious helter-skelter rhythm; and Que Pezon whose ‘Love’s No Game’ reveals a real find in vocalist Pia Dunne, who delivers a sassy performance over a seductive Latino-jazz backing.
All told, it’s a project – and an album – that’s well worth supporting.
For more, check out the soundcloud.com/dcfe-music teaser.