Makeshift Art Bar arrive with noise, nerve, and a label deal that makes complete sense. The Belfast quartet sign to cult indie heavyweights Heist or Hit, home to Westside Cowboy and Her’s, and announce their ‘Marionette’ EP, due June 26, launching it today with lead single ‘Chocolate.’ Produced by Daniel Fox (Sprints, MELTS, Psychotic Monks), the track is a post-punk, grunge, and electronica collision about crippling social anxiety and the strange warmth of choosing loneliness anyway. Listen here.
‘Chocolate’ opens on a synth line as slippery and hyperactive as anything Aphex Twin has produced, with crispy offbeat electronic cymbals playing against atonal guitars and pugilistic drumming before collapsing into a nauseating cacophony of euphoria. The band describes the character at its centre as someone who “screams the paradox of saying everything, yet having no desire for anything in return.” It’s dissonant, arch, and completely gripping, a track that earns its chaos.
The single follows their acclaimed 2025 debut EP ‘Lackluster Writing Makes Fundamental Reading’ and arrives with real momentum behind it. Makeshift Art Bar already hold a BBC 6 Music playlist spot and live session, alongside praise from So Young and DIY Magazine. Joseph Sweeney, Callum McGuigan, Alleyah Boulaich, and Callum Sweeney are four musicians operating with a fearlessness that most bands spend years trying to find.
They’re also about to prove it live. The group are currently supporting Chalk on a European tour before their own headline dates in Derry and Dublin, and a 3Olympia show alongside Just Mustard on May 1.
Live Dates:
April 10 – Botanique Rotonde, Brussels, BE
April 11 – Trabendo, Paris, FR (w/Chalk)
April 13 – L’Amperage, Grenoble, FR (w/Chalk)
April 15 – Santeria Toscana, Milan, IT (w/Chalk)
April 16 – Bogen F, Zurich, CH (w/Chalk)
April 18 – Lido, Berlin, DE (w/Chalk)
April 20 – Tolhuistuin, Amsterdam, NL (w/Chalk)
April 23 – Sandinos, Derry, NI
April 24 – Whelans Upstairs, Dublin, IE
May 1 – 3Olympia, Dublin, IE (w/Just Mustard)