BANDCAMP is all the rage here at Noise Annoys towers, as it's the most user-friendly digital music platform out there for emerging artists wanting to get themselves heard on the information superhighway (as I believe the kids are referring to it these days).
The site's pleasingly uncluttered layout never bombards you with 'suggested listening' from other acts, with its always ad-free listening offering prospective punters an enjoyable try-before-you-buy experience.
While artists don't generate any revenue from streaming on Bandcamp, you only have to examine Spotify's pitiful payback rates for this to realise that it's no great loss for your average up 'n' coming independent slogger whose main aim is to just get heard by as many ears as possible.
I mention this because two Noise Annoys regulars who've been all up in Bandcamp for years now have just made their complete digital discographies available via the site as discounted bundles.
Right now, you can scoop an impressive 11(!) virtual releases by Belfast indiepop maestro Heliopause AKA Richard Davis for a mere £9.45 at Heliopause.bandcamp.com, a whopping 65 per cent discount over buying them as individual items.
And, while Meath rockers Large Mound might be in a state of inactive limbo right now (bass man Hugh McCabe is now part of experimentalists Spook of The 13th Lock while singer/guitarist Anthony Mackey is rocking with The Middle Agers), you can keep their classic rock and metal-literate slackercore flame burning by availing of an attractive 25 per cent discount when mopping up three full length studio releases in downloadable form for the paltry sum of €11.25 via Largemound.bandcamp.com.
What's that in real money, about 25p or something?
This bargain bundle includes their last two 'proper' albums Raised on Rock and My Whole Life Is Have To plus Another Year of Rock, a compilation of the quartet's fine run of monthly download singles from 2011.
As for Mr Davis, he's offering you more beautiful sadness than is probably healthy to absorb in one go, including the excellent early EP Dark Matter, the superb albums Dark Matter, The Lumo Tape and Walk Into The Sea and the feast of atmospheric listening that was his recent EPs/mini-LP 'quadrilogy': Sounds Make Shapes, Light Fades, Echoes and Eden.
Basically, it's your ideal Heliopause starter kit for getting right up to speed in preparation for the official release of the new crowd-funded album How Can We Laugh After This? in the early New Year.
Indeed, the Brighton-based Heliopause has just announced a rare hometown gig in Belfast – his first since 2011, rather amazingly – on New Year's Eve, supporting acclaimed acoustic gloom-monger Robyn G Shiels at The Hudson's tellingly christened Alternative New Year's Grieve Party.
Mr Shiels has just released the Sky Drew Near LP, a new collaboration with fellow muso Steve Nolan (not to be confused with BBC big man Stephen Nolan) under the moniker Rs.sN.
You can hear/buy this collection of haunting piano and keys-based deathfolk laments now via the suspiciously Bandcamp-looking Rssn.co.uk.
On the subject of new releases and indeed new releases available via Bandcamp, Belfast doom fuzzers Tusks are launching their debut LP Embers with a show at Voodoo tomorrow evening.
Stoke the Embers at Tuskstheband.bandcamp.com right now – don't miss the riff-tastic psychedelia of their lumbering loser dirges Why I Dream and Wicked Whispers – where you can also buy the limited edition coloured vinyl.
Some of these LPs will be on sale at tomorrow's gig with cosmic crushers Venus Sleeps from Dublin (whose Titanically heavy new LP Dead Sun Worship can be sampled at Venussleeps.bandcamp.com) and screamy Belfast punkers Small Hawk Orchestral (Smallhawkorchestral.bandcamp.com), so be sure to stuff more than just the £5 door tax into your sky rocket
Before that, Belfast folksters The Emerald Armada celebrate their new EP Made for More at The Limelight tonight: lead anthem This House is streaming now at Theemeraldarmada.bandcamp.com.
You know what to do.
