• Video Premiere: Post Punk Podge feat. TPM – Government Security

    January 25, 2019 - By 

    One of our 19 for ’19 featured artists, Limerick’s Post Punk Podge and the Technohippies are back with another establishment-botherer in the form of ‘Government Security’. Tackling the insidious danger of their hapless rep, given what they’ve been at recently, it’s another timely number from one of Ireland’s foremost Zeitgeist-catchers. Mixed by Theodore Vain and featuring a cameo from Dundalk duo TPM, this single precedes his forthcoming EP, Post Millennium Tension – out February 15. One of the most engaging live performers and prolific acts on the isle, Podge is currently working on his debut album, a mixtape, and astonishingly, ‘Government Security’ won’t even feature on the new EP. Grab the track…

  • EP Premiere: Fierce Pit Bosses – Sharks In The Bathtub

    January 17, 2019 - By 

    The seed of Donegal emo-tinged alt punk trio Fierce Pit Bosses has been growing the North West for a while now. Starting out as the folk-punk vessel for Eoin Gillespie’s kitchen sink small-town listlessness, he hit early the emotional notes of the likes of Jeff Rosenstock, before the project grew into a righteously fierce (sorry) live outfit. With Tuath’s Robert Mulhern at the helm on production, their debut Sharks in the Bathtub EP captures the raw, fizzing energy of Hüsker Dü, as buzzsaw guitars, snare & cymbal clatter collide with pop sensibility, and the irresistible sound of a young band with a beating heart on their sleeves. The EP is launched at Letterkenny’s Central Bar this Saturday, January 19, with support…

  • The Antlers Set For Dublin Show

    January 16, 2019 - By 

    Making their first appearance in Ireland in five years, The Antlers are set to play the Sugar Club on April 30 in what will be an appropriately intimate, subdued setting for the cinematic outfit. Having not played together since 2015, following the release of their last album, Familiars, the band has announced a vinyl reissue of their career-defining album, Hospice, on its tenth anniversary. The album, which featured Sharon Van Etten on vocals, was one of the finest to come from the emotive rock movement of the noughties. Of the reissue, primary songwriter & vocalist Peter Silberman said: “We’re reissuing the Hospice LP on March 8th, 2019, in honor of…

  • Video Premiere: Arthuritis – Let’s Touch

    January 8, 2019 - By 

    You might have missed idiosyncratic Cork auteur Arthuritis inconspicuously dropping one of the best Irish releases of 2018 at the end of November. Released through Cork independent label KantCope, I’m Great pulled off that rare balancing act of being equal parts opaque and inviting, its shards of influence – electronic, minimalism, drone, R&B, psychedelia, dreams (presumably) – painting vividly abstract images of an alien, dissociated consciousness, and one that’s all the more human for it. Following on from his wealth of releases – that include the deservedly-titled Neglected Ambient Shirts Vol 1 – lead single ‘Let’s Touch’ and its accompanying video are as good a Rosetta Stone for his output as you’re likely to…

  • Quiet Arch Fourth Birthday Party

    December 20, 2018 - By 

    Belfast independent label Quiet Arch celebrate their fourth birthday this year, and to celebrate, they’ll be holding a concert featuring some of their foremost artists at Belfast’s Elmwood Hall on December 21. The bill is as fittingly eclectic as the label itself, and NI Music Prize-winning singer-songwriter Joshua Burnside, Derry electronic wizard Ryan Vail with Arco String Quartet, power-pop/folk craftsman Malojian, indie-pop quartet Beauty Sleep, with spoken word artist & poet Stephen James Smith as compère for the night. Tickets, priced £12, are available from Ticketsource. Doors open at 8pm.

  • Premiere: Oranges – The Way You Look

    December 20, 2018 - By 

    Holding out throughout Oranges have held on until now to reveal the first single from their debut album, Hey Zeus, set to come out next year through arguably Ireland’s most consistently stellar independent label, Sligo’s Art For Blind. Recalling the Fall’s abrasive, minimalist approach to the rock’n’roll palette, ‘The Way You Look’ was one of 11 tracks captured in 6 hours with Stephen Quinn in a room on North Frederick Lane, Dublin in 2017 – and it sounds it, in the most immediate, alchemical fashion. Oranges comprise three musicians who’ve been involved in Ireland’s underground scene for years: G. Duffy on vocals & guitars, M.T. Durnin on bass, synth & vocals, and E. Kelly on drums. Stream ‘The Way You Look’…

  • The Thin Air’s Top 50 Irish Releases of 2018 (#25-1)

    December 14, 2018 - By 

    Each December, when we sit down to compile, order (and re-order) our end-of-year lists, a few familiar patterns emerge: though an undeniable bastion of forward-moving sound – and despite what the UK’s more kneejerk music press have been sold as of late – Dublin is not Ireland; there’s always enough feature-length curios released across the calendar year to warrant, if we were so audacious, a Top 200 Releases; and, more than ever, the self-released EP continues to hold its own in the face of even the most monied, PR-wielded long-player. This year was no different. In fact, it was a textbook…

  • Video Premiere: Any Joy – The Fall

    December 5, 2018 - By 

    Cork indie-psych outfit Any Joy have just unveiled the new video for new single ‘The Fall’. Soaked in reverb, it’s another out-of-focus opiate drip to distract from more pointed undertones. Following the band’s aesthetic & musical thread of reccurent patterns, the video was created by frontman Oisin Dineen. Of the track, the band says “It’s a soundtrack to a potential self-sabotage and ultimate demise. It could be an appropriate theme tune for the current state of affairs across the Irish sea.” ‘The Fall’ comes from Any Joy’s new EP – due out next year – following up on their excellent & hugely underappreciated 2017 debut LP Cycles and this summer’s ‘Sucker‘ from A Litany of Failures…

  • Video Premiere: That Snaake – Dogs 4 Xmas

    December 5, 2018 - By 

    We might’ve just shared the mobile video for ‘Scofflaw // Sisyphus‘, but Dublin quartet That Snaake have upped their satire game with an merry offering of paranoia & nihilism, barely concealed by the Incesticide-era Nirvana & Wipers-recalling sludge-punk it calls a gift wrap. Dripping with references to history & pop culture – high and low-brow – it paraphrases Cabaret’s ‘Mein Herr’, about collective myopia blinding us to the rise of fascism in inter-war Germany, before the narrator takes us through questions of what’s missing in their life, and the Darth Maul costume they wore at Christmas. As the band – some of the most underappreciated burrowers Ireland has of the neuroses of the human…

  • Sleaford Mods Set for Irish Tour

    November 30, 2018 - By 

    In support of their forthcoming fifth album Eton Alive, Nottingham electronic punk duo Sleaford Mods return to Ireland for a run of four shows: February 7 – Limelight 1, Belfast February 8 – The Academy, Dublin February 9 – Róisín Dubh, Galway February 10 – Dolans Warehouse, Limerick Comprised of Jason Williamson’s words & voice, and Andrew Fearn’s beats, they are, in the words of Steve Albini, “the greatest band in the world”. They manage to be one of the most engaging live acts in the world without frills, lacking so much as a proper stand for their laptop – beer crates, normally. Here’s ‘Jolly Fucker‘. Tickets go on…