Irish duo Long Island Sound (Rob Roche and Tim Nolan), craft euphoric yet introspective electronic music, balancing emotional depth with club-ready energy via their own Signs of Space imprint.

They have gone from strength to strength since their 2022 debut album, Lost Connection, praised by Resident Advisor as “glorious, heart-tugging sunset techno,” resulting in a string of festival appearances and headline sets at clubs including Fabric. Their releases have remained a staple on BBC Radio 1, with releases being championed by the likes of Pete Tong and Jaguar. 

We sat down with them both to discuss their production process, formative years, the state of the scene and more.  

Could you introduce yourself for those that don’t know?

We are Rob and Tim, from Dublin. We’ve been great friends for a long time and making music together for 12 years now. We DJ together and play live too. We also run our own label, Signs of Space, and put on nights together.  

Does being a duo make things harder or easier for you in the studio? 

We love being in the studio together and the more time you spend together producing, the easier it becomes. We have learnt over time to read each other when things are going well and when it’s not. 

Making music on your own can be isolating so it’s great to have someone there to bounce ideas off, and bring ideas to life that we might have had separately. It’s second nature to us now, we can’t imagine it any other way and we have a great time doing it! 

We have been obsessed with your track ‘I Still Love You’ for a while. Talk us through the reception it’s received.

This was a bit of a slow burner at the start, but it keeps getting more and more new listeners over the years. Maribou State selected it on their Fabric Live compilation in 2020, which helped introduce it to more people and since then it’s just compounded. Now it seems to be firmly in the algorithm! 

It’s funny as we actually nearly didn’t put it out, as it’s different from our usual sound, but our friend Lee (AKA Bobby Analog) pushed us to put it out and we’re thankful he did! 

What was your first introduction into dance music and wanting to make music? 

We were introduced to electronic music through friends, one being Finn Merrins (AKA Toni Maroni), who was making music and DJing at the time. We just started going out to local nights around Dublin when we were 16 and it grew from there. 

We used to go Trainwreck and Housewerk religiously which inspired us both to dabble with DJing and then giving it a go together. We like the same music and have similar inspirations sound wise which makes things easier. 

Dream B2B?

Theo Parrish, even though he’d absolutely school us! Obviously he’s a legend and super entertaining to watch play, we love his active approach to sets, including engaging the crowd on the mic last time we saw him. 

How does the Irish nightlife scene compare to the UK at the moment? Are club closures also a big issue?

Dublin has definitely lost a fair few clubs in the last 5-10 years, including some iconic names, due to rising rents etc. so I think it’s a somewhat similar story to the UK at the moment. 

Saying that, we still have plenty of great spots including Index, Tengu and Centre Point which are still doing their thing really well, so it’s not all doom and gloom. 

What is your favourite record to play in your sets right now? 

Liquiddity by Aurora Halal on Mutual Dreaming. It was released in 2019 but we’ve recently rediscovered it and it’s a perfect tension builder in our sets.

Finally, what have you got in the pipeline?

We are currently on an Irish tour and have 3 dates left this month. We then play Fabric on June 19 and then our label is doing a stage takeover at Funk in the Forest festival in Wales in July.  We’re super excited for that and we’ve got a sick lineup to announce for that shortly. 

We also have our 6 track EP of our singles from the last 12 months or so dropping on vinyl very soon, so keep an eye out for that. You can already pre-order it on our Bandcamp. 

You can find Long Island Sound on Bandcamp here, Soundcloud here and Instagram here.