A Night Walk in The Underground Forest - July 2025
Welcome to A Night Walk in The Underground Forest!🌙
Featuring: The Noisy, Evalyn, Kaoivín, Mae Muller, Coolgirl, Bimini, DJ_Dave, Molly Joyce, Fire-Toolz & Vaticanjail.
This months edition features; a song that sounds like the digital blue skies of the world wide web; a song that has a 2010s pop vibe; a song with an early 00s MTV alt pop vibe that feels like a diary entry; a song that sounds like a Y2k club hit; a phantasmagoric cloud of dreamy electronic that will make you feel like you are hallucinating; a song that recreates the surreal experience of undergoing surgery; and more.
A Night Walk in The Underground Forest 🌙 Synth Pop • Electronic Pop • Alt Pop & Electronic
BORDERLINE - Kaoivín
Cork’s Kaoivín is a rising star - and Borderline is here to solidify this status.
Gentle pop textures with angelic vocal samples ascend towards your ears; before being met with melancholic, gleaming, hyperpop-adjacent vocals, with trap-adjacent percussion. This has a 2010s pop vibe to it that I love; a specific quality that I don’t hear as much in pop music anymore; which I miss.
The lyrics are about the artist dealing with Borderline Personality Disorder; the story unfolding in the artist's early teens and 20s, prior to receiving a diagnosis. A standout lyric is the phrase “I can make you scream or make you cry”.
Connect with Kaoivín
Facebook / Spotify / Instagram / X
DJ_Dave - Hard Refresh
I have been obsessed with DJ_Dave since her 2022 edit of Tove Lo’s No One Dies From Love. DJ_Dave makes her music using code, the lush soundscapes she creates sound like a blissful digital wonderland.
Hard Refresh sounds like the blue of the sky in artwork - a blend of lush 00s trance and electronic with heavenly vocals - put on your headphones and enter a sonic paradise.
Connect with DJ Dave
Instagram / Spotify
Left Outside Alone ( Bimini Diva Boots Remix)
A remix of Anastacia’s 2004 hit Left Outside Alone, by artist/DJ and drag queen Bimini.
This opens with a divine, deeply glamorous bed of strings, swelling underneath the vocals, with some of the original elements of the song entering, creating serious suspense at what is to come, before descending into something new entirely.
A fantastic remix of a classic.
Connect with Bimini
YouTube / Instagram / X
Evalyn - Boys Girls
Opening with some pop punk textures; this descends into deliciously nostalgic addictive pop, before sliding smoothly into y2k club fuelled electronic bliss. It is very hard to blend so many differing genres so well, but Evalyn’s Boys Girls does it seamlessly.
On the song Evalyn shares, "We had so much fun working and reworking production until it felt like it hit right - I wanted to capture that feeling of instagram stalking your ex situationship and then spinning out a little."
Connect with Evalyn
Facebook / Spotify / Instagram / X
The Noisy - Twos
Twos, a new song from The Noisy (a band founded by award-winning poet Sara Mae), opens with a gorgeous blend of dreamy DIY bedroom pop, with some rock elements; all mixed together with a deliciously camp twist.
The music video is divine and pays homage to silent movies. On the music video, Sara Mae Henke says:
“I wrote this song like a pop song but wanted the production to bend towards Mannequin Pussy with sludgy guitars and twinkly keys. The music video literalizes the too much-ness of the story, Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets Grey Gardens meets two dates to the prom.”
Connect with The Noisy
Bluesky / Bandcamp / Instagram
Mae Muller - In My Head
This feels like a day in the life video from your favourite creator; one that fully immerses you into somebody else's world. The music video and lyrics feel like a diary entry, making you feel less alone and less like you have to be operating at full speed and capacity every single day of your life. The vocal melody reminds me of early 00s MTV alt-pop/rock hits.
On the song Mae says “I wrote this song like I was writing a diary entry, more like a stream of consciousness. It comes from a vulnerable place which can be uncomfortable, but also, it’s such a privilege. Now, I’m really able to take control and write my feelings exactly how I want and in my own voice, and I’m really enjoying the power that comes with that. It feels really special.”
Connect with Mae Muller
Facebook / Instagram / X
Ice Cream - Coolgirl
Coolgirl is back and better than ever; a surreal, phantasmagoric cloud of electronic textures floats over a powerful sub bass; inducing the sensation of hallucination, of a dreamscape, of reality, heightened.
The movement of the melodic pads in this drives the rhythm - another masterpiece.
Connect with Coolgirl
YouTube / Instagram
August 13 + 16, 1999 - Molly Joyce (feat. Fire-Toolz)
This new song from composer Molly Joyce finds the artist revisiting the disjointed, wholly surreal sensation of a life-altering surgical procedure. August 13 + 16, 1999 opens with an ominous bassline that throbs like a gargantuan medical machine, with vocals floating overhead.
Joyce shares: "These two operations represent the lower abdominal muscle transfer to left forearm for tissue coverage and skin graft from upper right thigh, and how in the second operation (August 16), they determined that the muscle was nonviable in the left forearm due to poor blood flow and therefore needed to discard it."
"The lyrics include lines such as “dissection in, into me”, “abdominal closed, closed on me”, “skin graft / harvested from me”, and “concluded that / that the flap was / nonviable.” Lyrically and vocally, I was trying to get a more aggressive tone with the subject of a muscle taken one’s body, transferred, and ultimately not sustainable in that same body. I am not trying to get at this for a sense of pity or regret, but more just musically and artistically exploring how that can sound and viscerally feel."
Connect with Molly Joyce
Bandcamp / Website / Facebook / Instagram
Connect with 130701records
Website / Facebook / Instagram / X
Vaticanjail - MIEL
This new song from Chilean-Irish music producer/artist Vaticanjail is gorgeous; the subtle, dark bassline running underneath adds a mysterious quality to the song - the production skills on display in MIEL are those of a master of her craft. Listening to this reminds me of the first time I heard Rosalía - you have to listen to this.
Connect with Vaticanjail
Instagram
Spotify Playlist
About Eimear O Sullivan
Eimear Ann O Sullivan is a multi-genre music producer, audio engineer and vocalist. After receiving a Masters in Music Technology from the CIT Cork School of Music, she went on to operate as a producer under the name Blakkheart. Her releases have received critical acclaim from Ireland's biggest music publications, such as District Magazine and Nialler9, alongside receiving heavy commercial radio airplay. She currently works in Cork recording studio Flashpoint CC. Previous clients of hers include the likes of Comedy Central’s Dragony Aunt star Candy Warhol, rapper Darce and Outsider YP. (Photo credit @Fabian Boros)
Contact Eimear O Sullivan at eimear.o.sullivan@musicngear.com
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