June A&R Department: featuring Becky McNeice, The Girl In The Year Above, F3miii, and more

Hot Press’ man with the golden ears, Terry McNally, is all over ‘Mama, My Heart Is Achin’’, the new single from The Girl In The Year Above who look as good as they sound – which is not dissimilar to a Florence Welsh-fronted Mumford & Sons.

It’s a big song powerfully delivered by singer Jennifer Ball who oozes charisma on the accompanying video.

Hailing from both Skerries and Cornwall, they’re being live booked by Solo Agency who also look after the superstar likes of U2, Imelda May, Boyzone and The Corrs.

Chuck in a Peaky Blinders sync and the quintet are seriously cooking at the moment…

Two underground Dublin hip hop heroes for the price of one is the deal as Sloucho and Crutch join forces on the ‘Wondering’/ ‘Catfished’ double A-side single, which is as raw and street as it gets.

“Crutch seemingly came out of nowhere for a lot of people, but if you really dig into the Dublin City lore, you quickly realise he’s always been about, and lauded by Rejjie Snow, Wiki, Papo and countless others,” his partner-in-rhyme tells us. “I made the ‘Catfished’ edit for the Bricknasty tour last year, and it went off at every show, so we decided to get in the studio for real. We made ‘Wondering’ in a day and decided we’d just drop both tracks in the coming weeks. I hate sitting on music forever. The easiest way to not get sick of your music is to just release it and move on”…

Having been described by us as “One of the most interesting voices on Ireland’s alternative R&B scene, thanks to his brilliantly infectious rhythms,” Hot Press Hot For 2026 pick F3miii has broken in to the US Billboard Hot 100 with his ‘Noble’ single.

“I’m charting in a country I’ve never been to in my life,” the Nigerian-Irish singer marvels. “I open my phone and see this. I just finished crying after thirty minutes. I’m going through endless emotions right now.”

Released by Sony UK partner label Robots & Humans, the track makes sense of the Frank Ocean and Childish Gambino comparisons that have been coming his way and initially blew up on TikTok…

F3miii has previously collaborated with Becky McNeice, the Belfast alt. popper whose new Popular 2 EP nods to the likes of Biig Piig, PinkPantheress and Joy Crookes.

“This EP is about reclaiming solitude as power,” she reflects. “Where the first chapter explored isolation, Popular Loner 2 is about finding confidence in that space – turning the bedroom pop ethos into something you can scream live.

“It’s hyper-pop when it wants to be, indie rock when it needs to be, and unapologetically me throughout.”

The pick of the five effortlessly cool tracks is ‘Feels So Wrong’, which features a hook-up with Dubliner-in-Belfast-exile Still Searching, AKA Sam Ferguson.

Catch McNeice Upstairs @ Whelan’s on June 18…

An unholy alliance between Cork and Limerick results in Therapy Horse, a scabrous post-punk outfit whose amps definitely go up to ‘11’.

New single 'MY TONGUE/MY TEETH’ is an absolute gut puncher which singer and guitarist Cormac Donovan O’Neill describes as “our most full-on aggressive track to date, a furious no-wave onslaught in the spirit of Teenage Jesus and the Jerks with a bass-heavy electronic undercurrent. We’ve been painstaking in drawing out the dynamic buildup of our tracks, but here, we wanted to capture the deafening volume and immediate ferocity that ‘MY TONGUE/MY TEETH’ has always brought to our live show.”

It’s very much mission accomplished for the band who play Oh Yeah, Belfast (October 23); Monroe’s, Galway (24); and Upstairs @ Whelan’s (27)…

Dublin four-piece Dose return with ‘Consumed’, the third release from their Sycophantic EP which is also awaiting your listening pleasure.

We’ve Siouxsie & The Banshees, Joy Division, The Cure and Sinéad O’Connor in our notes, and are going to stick with it.

“The song is very intentionally repetitive,” says drummer Nicki Meehan. “We wanted it to capture the toxic cycles that occur in relationships like this. You’re going around and around, and you’re left with your head and heart completely spinning.”

All Things Eve, a German singer based in Dublin and therefore one of us, impresses with stripped down new track ‘Alarm, Alarm’, which is available from her Bandcamp.

Describing herself as “a songbird, over-analyser and mess observer”, she cites early Bob Dylan, Jeff Buckley and Laura Marling as influences and is being championed by the folk at Aiken Promotions who know a good thing when they hear it.

And who are we to argue?