• Sounds Of The Undergrowth: Open Ear redefines what an Irish festival can be

    June 11, 2019 - By 

    If there was ever a space to disprove the absurd notion that the world of Irish independent music is disjointed or lacks community it would be Open Ear – Not that it needed disproving. For the past four years, the small festival on Cork’s Sherkin Island has shone a light on a countrywide scene that has, for some decades now, been quietly growing – thriving in the undergrowth. Expanding this year to a capacity of roughly 600 attendees, Open Ear’s celebration of Ireland’s experimental music scene, from its stalwarts to its adventurous young artists, is a testament to the unity and…

  • Video Premiere: Elaine Malone – My Baby’s Dead

    June 7, 2019 - By 

    The Cork music community is a bricolage of fascinating idiosyncrasy, but if there’s one through-line, it’s a hint of lysergic, and Limerick-born, Cork-based Elaine Malone‘s latest single is no exception. Where Malone has long been followed by the psych-folk tag, the psychedelia on her debut Land EP was implicit, bubbling under the surface in textural and compositional choices, as well as Sam Clague’s airy restraint on production. With Altered Hours’ Cathal MacGabhann engineering this time around, she’s accomplished her first bona fide electric wig-out in ‘My Baby’s Dead’ with spectacular finesse. We had a chat with Elaine about this hard left turn and how it came about.…

  • the arts column: June 4th

    June 4, 2019 - By 

    This week sees a host of exhibitions opening across the island of Ireland, with shows in Belfast, Cork, Navan and Dublin; as well as the launch of this year’s Belfast Photo Festival. We’ve details of some of the festival’s highlights below, along with information on four openings happening nationwide. As always, if you have an event, talk, exhibition, or would like to recommend one please get in touch via aidan[at]thethinair.net Exhibition Opening | Platform Arts, Belfast This Thursday (June 6th) sees the opening of a new collaborative exhibition in Belfast’s Platform Arts. Titled Bedeck, the show features the works of David Lunney and Eleanor McCaughey, two artists who…

  • Premiere: Any Joy – The Sea

    March 25, 2019 - By 

    One of the great hidden gems in Irish independent music today are Cork’s Any Joy. Sublimating varied strains of psych, post-punk & indie rock, they manage to recall the quintessential Deerhunter-esque pop-conscious, experimentally-natured sound of internalised dreams. Their 2017 debut album, Cycles, was a minor triumph, and was followed up last year with ‘Sucker’, a track that was included on last year’s Irish compilation A Litany of Failures: Volume II. Their new single, ‘The Sea’, bears all the Any Joy hallmarks: alpine guitar lines, tension, an impenetrable, masked vocal, and a wall of sound, all imbued with tape adulation. It’s their finest work to date. Another self-recorded effort in…

  • the arts column: March 12th

    March 12, 2019 - By 

    In this week’s edition of the arts column we’ve details of exhibitions that are opening and closing around the country, a pair of residencies and an application deadline. As always, if you have an event, talk, exhibition, or would like to recommend one please get in touch via aidan[at]thethinair.net Exhibition | Eamonn Doyle @ RHA Gallery, Dublin Opening this Thursday, March 14th in Dublin’s RHA Gallery is a new exhibition featuring the work of Eamonn Doyle. The eponymous show is born out of Doyle’s new book titled Made in Dublin, which features images from the artist’s first three books: i, ON and End, as well as previously…

  • the arts column: February 26th

    February 25, 2019 - By 

    In this week’s edition of the arts column we’ve details of this a spoken word event, a proposal for a new arts space in Dublin, studio lets, exhibitions and funding deadlines. As always, if you have an event, talk, exhibition, or would like to recommend one please get in touch via aidan[at]thethinair.net Event | Performance @ IMMA, Dublin Tomorrow, Wednesday 27th, sees IMMA After, a collective of artists and young art professionals based in IMMA, are due to host a spoken word event in the museum. Titled Spoken Realties and hosted in association with Poetry Ireland, the evening sees poets Maighread Medbh, Chiamaka Enyi-Amadi, Padraig Regan and…

  • the arts column: February 12th

    February 12, 2019 - By 

    In this week’s edition of the arts column we’ve details of the a series of events in the Douglas Hyde Gallery, open calls for writers, studio lets, talks as well as the final call for the LUX Critical Forum. As always, if you have an event, talk, exhibition, or would like to recommend one please get in touch via aidan[at]thethinair.net Talks, Tours and Walkthroughs | Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin There are a number of events taking place this week and next in response to the latest exhibitions in Dublin’s Douglas Hyde Gallery: Jumana Manna’s Wild Relatives and The Artist’s Eye: Haig Aivazian. Tomorrow (Wednesday 13th) sees…

  • the arts column: January 29th

    January 29, 2019 - By 

    In this week’s edition of the arts column we’ve details on a film screening, studio spaces, talks, commissions and job opportunities. As always, if you have an event, talk, exhibition, or would like to recommend one please get in touch via aidan[at]thethinair.net Screening| The Memory-Image + Mark Leckey @ IFI, Dublin Tonight (January 29th) the IFI and aemi continue their joint series of screenings with The Memory Image + Mark Leckey. Leckey, who won the 2008 Turner Prize, is showing his 2015 film Dream English Kid 1964-1999 for the first time in Ireland, a work created using found footage on the internet that explores the…

  • 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…

  • the arts column: December 18th

    December 18, 2018 - By 

    In this week’s arts column we’re looking at shows that will be on over the festive period, featuring shows in Cork, Dublin, Belfast and Roscommon. Be sure to check out last week’s edition which details of two shows closing this week in Belfast and Dublin. [In]Visible: Irish Women Artists from the Archives @ The National Gallery of Ireland. Dublin 2018 was a year packed with anniversaries and centenaries, notably the 100-year anniversary of the end of ‘The Great War’. In Ireland it was also the centenary of the first time women were granted suffrage, in an election that also saw the begins…