Irish electronic artists unite under the Ice Machines banner to aid The Musical Youth Foundation

Five friends. One passion. Countless synths. Many plans are made over lunch among friends. Most don’t come to fruition. Here is an exception.

Irish artists Circuit3, Empire State Human, PolyDROID, Amalgamated Wonders of the World and 100 POEMS embracing the DIY ethic made their plans real under the banner of Ice Machines.

The live gig came first: “let’s do it but let’s make an album to show what we collectively sound like… one cover version one original track”.  In the space of a month, they booked a venue and recorded an album.

Seeing an opportunity to give back, they’re donating all proceeds from the ‘pay what you can’ Bandcamp release to the Musical Youth Foundation whose mission is to provide every child on the island of Ireland with access to a musical education and equal opportunity to have the truly life changing experience that learning an instrument can provide. 

Ice Machines: The Album is a 10-track collaboration showcasing five artists exploring many sides of electronic music. It moves from bold reinterpretations of classics by Depeche Mode, The Carpenters, Simon & Garfunkel, and The Normal, to original tracks spanning synth-pop, ambient, and experimental electronica. This compilation is a love letter to the genre.

On the 9^th of August they’re launching the album with at The Racket Space in Dublin, where they’ll be joined by Chi Ming Lai – founder of electricityclub.co.uk – for a pure electronic DJ set.

AnalogueTrash artist Circuit3 said, “We’ve got something quite wonderful here: a group of friends sharing a passion each approaching our art from different perspectives.  I am energised by our DIY approach to making live electronic music events happen in Dublin.

I chose Ice Machine as my cover version because it represents the simple beauty of synthpop. I may have borrowed some samples of Mr Gahan’s vocal when I rebuilt the track bringing it into the 21st century.  Recorded ‘as live’ in my rehearsal studio it was originally intended as a surprise for a show we played earlier this year. The crowd took over the vocals and there it was: our album opener.  My new track Digging In The Dirt hints at an album-in-progress injected by electro funk and disco. “

Who are the Ice Machines?

PolyDROID is an electronic artist producing melodic, cinematic electronica, created using inorganic beats and vintage synth noises. With influences from early German electronica, John Carpenter soundtracks and Science Fiction Cinema.  

When not twiddling the knobs of his vintage time machines, Brian O’Malley works full time as a Film and TV director.  His work includes the feature films Let Us Prey and The Lodgers as well as the TV series Nine Bodies in a Mexican Morgue, That Dirty Black Bag, The Ex-Wife, and Alex Rider.

AMALGAMATED WONDERS OF THE WORLD (AWW) make bent out of shape sounds for late nights, early mornings and looong journeys.  AWW experiment and produce at UNIT20 in Dublin where they also host parties, exhibitions and demonstrations.

From a studio packed with analogue synths – not because it’s cool, but because it’s necessary Circuit3 builds electronic pop that looks firmly to the pre-digital past to find futures we never quite got. Influenced by the golden age of synth music (1978–82), Circuit3 mixes vintage machinery with “five-minutes-into-the-future” lyrics that flicker somewhere between memory and invention.      

Circuit3 first arrived on the radar with siliconchipsuperstar in 2016, followed by The Price Of Nothing & The Value Of Everything in 2019 —a record Martyn Ware called “excellent,” which isn’t bad coming from one of the architects of the genre.    

His critically acclaimed 2022 album, Technology For The Youth released on the AnalogueTrash label borrows its name from a Soviet-era magazine and imagines what space-age optimism might sound like if it had survived.

It’s a record built like a downed satellite: fragile, metallic, shimmering. Think Cold War collaborations, moon shots, flickering cathode-ray images of Apollo launches—moments that shaped a young Peter Fitzpatrick’s imagination and later fed into Circuit3’s lyrical orbit. Sparse layers give the songs room to breathe, with textures like scorched aluminium and melodies drifting in zero gravity.

Now, as 2025 draws to a close, Circuit3 is charting new coordinates. A new album is in the works—something that ventures beyond the familiar constellations, exploring a different quadrant of electronic music while staying true to the spirit of invention that runs through it all.

100 POEMS is a project of tunes, remixes and collaborations, written & produced by musician and DJ Mike Wilson. Electronic, Acid Americana, Cosmic Country, Dub Blues, Psych, Downtempo, Sundowners, Balearic and Blissed out beats.

Aidan Casserly / Empire State Human has released over 40 albums since 2002, not only as a solo recording artist but with many projects such as Empire State Human, KuBO, Silver Moon, Ferrochrome, and The Garland Cult.

He’s worked with numerous artists, notably Steve Bronski from Bronski Beat, Wolfgang Flur from Kraftwerk, Annie Hogan from Marc and the Mambas and Martin Watkins from Marc Almond’s band.

With Empire State Human he had a number one in the US iTunes dance charts with John Carpenter’s Halloween film theme, as well as playing live with Empire State Human in the legendary Batcave in New York City.

You can pick up tickets for the event on the 9^th of August at The Racket Space over on Skiddle. The Ice Machines album is available to download on Bandcamp. You can find out more about the work of Musical Youth Foundation on their website.