Congrats to our old friends Delorentos on their Choice win! An amazingly tough selection of gems to choose from but only one act can emerge victorious! Amongst next year’s contenders is sure to be Cat Dowling’s new long-player The Believer, which gets its official release March 22 in The Grand Social, Dublin. The flagship single ‘Come On’ is accompanied by a wonderful video by award-winning Irish animator Marc Corrigan whose CV also includes Benny Smiles’ ‘Moonlight’, and Ham Sandwich’s ‘Ants’.

Thanks to a newly-signed international and US publishing deal, The Believer will be released
Stateside later in 2013 with an extensive bout of touring to follow.
Play On The Day finalists Protobaby have their double A-side ‘Microchip’/‘Nobody Knows’ single released this week by FIFA Records, the label part-owned and run by the Frank & Walters’ Ashley Keating. The Limerick outfit’s summer engagements include Vantastival, the May Bank Holiday bash in Bellurgan Park, Louth whose 2013 headliners include Damien Dempsey, Altan, Tupelo, Mark Geary and Daithi O Dronai. Music News has the full line-up. Also new to FIFA are The Vincent(s), the Corkonians who recently unveiled debut offering ‘Asked Her To
The Dance’…..
On a harder note, Dublin rockers Shoctopus throw a release party for their Brand New Kind Of Madness debut on March 28 in the Button Factory. Tickets priced €7 are available from www.tickets.ie. The 13-tracker will initially be released as a limited-edition double disc set, with a bonus DVD featuring the video for ‘Too Much Is Never Enough’, along with three unplugged tracks, four remixes and extras. Phew! The album was produced by Stuart Doyle and mastered by Aidan Foley of U2 and Sinéad O’Connor fame. They’re are playing instore on Saturday March 23 in Tower Records, Wicklow Street and the live launch will be followed by shows in Belfast, Cork, Kildare, Limerick, Galway and Waterford. Check hotpress.com for details…
News from the Les Marionettes camp next; after finishing 2012 on a high, with a place in the final of the RTE/RAAP Bursary Competition, the troupe returned to the studio to work on some new material. The first fruits of this is the excellent ‘Engineers’, which is available as a free www.facebook.com/lesmarionettes download. Enjoy!....
A four-track EP is on the way from Anderson, the solo venture of Daniel Anderson formerly of The Rags. As well as making his Dublin bow sans band on March 16 in The Cobblestone, he opens for Villagers when they play the Roisin Dubh, Galway (14) and SET, Kilkenny (18). andersonsongs.com has a load of tunes plus accompanying videos from the multi-talented Colm Russell who was previously part of the Eyebrowy team... Electronic duo Tiny Magnetic Pets are back with a stomping new single, ‘Goodbye, Goodbye, Goodbye’, available on iTunes. TMP are Sean Quinn and Paula Gilmer who have already created quite a stir with debut single ‘Girl In A White Dress’, and its parent Return Of The Tiny Magnetic Pets album...