The end of an era has just been marked by the closure of Abbey Discs in Dublin after 25 years. Billy Murray’s emporium on Liffey Street was the country’s leading dance vinyl specialist for much of that time, and it spawned the Abbey Dance label which scored more than a dozen top thirty hits including Mark McCabe’s ‘Maniac 2000’ which is the second-biggest selling Irish single of all time.

It’ s worth noting that Billy doesn’t blame the closure on ‘the death of vinyl’ but on the ‘death of CDs’. In fact, he hopes to return in 2009 with a small store selling vinyl only, focusing on his talent at sourcing rare and old skool dance classics.
Dublin electronica outfit Sunken Foal (aka Duncan Murphy with occasional friends and collaborators) has just released its debut album Fallen Arches on Mike Paradinas’ internationally renowned Planet Mu stamp.
The label was, of course, the home of Decal’s inspirational 2002 long-player 404 Not Found, an album whose stature could well be matched by Fallen Arches.
Murphy’s canvas contains sketches of sweetly plucked acoustic guitars and gently haunting pianos alongside chaotic rhythmic experiments and calming atmospherics. It’s an uncompromising but beautiful piece of work, and has been given BBC radio support by Mary Anne Hobbs.
Nice and Nasty’s next outing is with TR-One, aka techno trio Eddie Reynolds, Paul Reynolds and Dean Feeney. The Mystery Train Remix EP features three versions of the title-track along with ‘Sleeptown’.
One of the most talented new Irish producers in recent times is Dublin’s Des O’Leary aka Def-Disko. Having had tracks released by Piston, Omnis and Bellarine Records, he resurfaces on Liam Dunne and Edwin James’ techno stamp seedyR next month with ‘In Your Arms’. It’s coupled with a superb Corrugated Tunnel remix.
Old skool acid house is back in favour at Darren Nugent’s Elevation Recordings. Milestone release number 25 sees King Cosmic (aka Cosmic Groove Transmission aka Leigh Williamson from Leeds) dust down the 303 on ‘Acid (In My Soul)’.  It’s a fantastic tune remixed by Kink, Bubba & T-Bone and Roland Bassline, and is on sale now.
The sixth in Dublin hip-hop stamp All City’s limited edition seven-inch singles comes from Mike Slott of Heralds Of Change fame. ‘Flunky’ is an instrumental jam, while ‘Deux Three’ features New York-based Muhsinah on vocal duties.
Barry Dempsey’s VIRTU Studios now run their Ableton Live, Cubase and Pro Tools sound training programmes in a purpose-built programming room off Camden Street in Dublin city, and they restart at the end of the month; phone (086) 1032742 for more details.
“This programming room was specially designed, acoustically and aesthetically, to provide the best possible mixing and production environment both for electronic and live instrument based recording,” Dempsey proffers.
Congratulations to Northern Irish DJ, Justiy, who won the recent Corona Movida DJ Competition. He’ll be representing the North in the world final in Vienna at the end of the month. In 2007, the North’s Mark Cowan, aka Afro Thunder, won the world title.
Another Northern Irish DJ on top form is Mog, whose recent cheeky electro remixes of MGMT’s ‘Kids’ and The Killers’ ‘Human’ have been receiving regular rotation on BBC Radio 1FM. His next single, ‘Tarantula’, will be out in December on his own Ego Records imprint armed with a remix by John Gibbons & Scimon Tist.
And finally, Christmas parties loom large, with the biggest of these already on sale. At King’s Hall in Belfast, the annual Planetlove Winter bash will cater for 8,000 revellers on St Stephen’s Night. Entitled Dance Against the Machine, it features World No. 1 DJ, Dutchman Armin van Buuren, Lisa Lashes, Alex Kidd and Navan native John O’Callaghan.
Planetlove also hosts a December 26 spectacular in Dublin’ s Tivoli Theatre with the aforementioned Lashes, John Gibbons and Agnelli & Nelson among the DJs. On the same night at Tripod, Dutch hero Sander van Doorn will be joined by David de Valera, the resident DJ at PoD’s new Saturday night club, Download. Tripod has also announced its New Year’s Eve party will be hosted by Hed Kandi.
Meanwhile in Cork, High On Life’s Christmas beano will feature Scot Project and a number of other DJs. High On Life is also running a Kiddfectious extravaganza with Alex Kidd and guests at Galway’s Leisureland on December 29
Ahead of all of that, the 12 Nights of Christmas festival takes place between December 12 and 23 in various top Dublin venues and clubs and featuring more than 50 artists.
These include indie rockers Delays, reggae legend Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, Jonathan Moore from Coldcut, former Orbital star Phil Hartnoll, Belfast’ s David Holmes, turntablist DJ Vadim, and ambient pioneer Mixmaster Morris. See 12nightsfestival.com for full details… THE BEAT GOES ON!