setteesounds

Imagine this. You are me, and I’m sitting in some independent Irish coffee shop because I really need an iced oat latte. I’m a sap. Let’s move on. They have signs up in their coffee shop that their beans are from an Irish company that sources them organically, they partake in fair trade. All of their milks, both dairy and non-dairy, are made in Ireland. There is local art hanging on the wall and wouldn’t you know, some of it isn’t absolute drivel. I sit down and put my headphones in, Sell Everything just released a new track. The Spotify radio keeps playing me Irish music, and I love it. I’m overly aware of how proud I am to be part of a scene that makes music so well. I drink my oat latte. I’m a sap. Let’s move on.

Ireland is known as ‘the land of saints and scholars.’ I propose a new one: land of saints and scholars, singers and scintillating beats. Welcome to Settee Sounds. We are always listening.

There’s something going on in Ireland. KNEECAP won a BAFTA, there’s a huge resurgence in Gaeilge and Irish traditional music, even céilís, the local music scene, both bands and DJs, is absolutely hopping. People are buying Irish, eating Irish, speaking Irish, listening Irish. Partially because it’s class but also partially due to the state of music at the minute. Over 60,000 separate tracks are uploaded to Spotify every day; if each one is three minutes, you’re looking at 3000 hours a day. It’s not feasible. However, the Irish music scene is insular and because we are all broke, there is far from 60,000 tunes being uploaded everyday. Maybe like 15 if we are lucky. It’s so much easier to keep up with when you are finding artists who are all self-produced, taking the time to make their music perfect.

Even with performers, there was a couple of years, probably stemming from emo covers of Evanescence, where the Irish acts were unintelligible from American acts because they sounded the same. Thank fuck that’s over. There has been a huge resurgence of people using their actual accents when singing and rapping, especially people like Wexy’ Lil Skag, Cork’s Iona Lynch and Galway’s Niamh Regan. It adds such vibrancy to the scene when everyone doesn’t sound like your man from Blink-182. No hate to them there at all. Where are you?

If you’re looking for more Irish music, listen to the following. Trust me.

1. Mother of Pearl: a Limerick band who are absolutely unbelievable. Here is the skelly recording, shoutout skelly, doing the Lord’s work. mother of pearl (live at sin é 08/02/25)
2. RÓIS: vocalist, composer, creator of the most wonderfully haunting atmosphere, RÓIS hails from Fermanagh and has one of the most sonically intricate albums of the last few years, in my opinion. Listen to MO LÉAN: https://open.spotify.com/album/37jJncJnZUeXk3iZUPpcVp
3. Strap: one of our first interviews was with Strap and with the release of their single, The Man Himself, they are just constantly outdoing themselves. I sense big things coming. Heard it here first. Is this what you want?

Remember. I could be right behind you. Keep an eye out. And watch your mouth.

SETTEESOUNDS ARE ALWAYS LISTENING.