• The Thin Air’s Top 50 Irish Releases of 2020

    December 20, 2020 - By 

    In years to come, when someone asks me what The Thin Air was and represented, I’ll likely direct them to features like the one you have just opened. Much like other publications of our ilk – Nialler9, The Last Mixed Tape, Goldenplec and others – we spend 52 weeks of the year relentlessly championing what truly makes Irish music special and, very occasionally, genuinely world-beating. We all do it in different ways, and to slightly different audiences, but the impetus and desire to shine a light on what we have is one and the very same. Although they’re almost never…

  • Stream: Fixity – Still Still

    August 10, 2020 - By 

    One of the island’s most consistently intriguing musical minds, Dan Walsh is a composer and drummer who has spent the last few years honing and expanding his hyper-explorative craft. Beyond performing with TTA favourites The Bonk and Ireland’s premier rock n’ roll band (their words – but who are we to disagree?) The Tan Jackets, his output as Fixity has been reliably nonpareil. On August 17th, Walsh will push further still via FIXITY 6, a new, seven-track release available on limited edition cassette. Featuring Muireann Levis of Elastic Sleep and Magdalena on theremin, and accompanied by visuals courtesy of David…

  • New Three-Day Irish Underground Festival Alternating Current Announced

    January 28, 2020 - By 

    A new, three-day Irish festival has been announced. Set to showcase Ireland’s underground as part of St. Patrick’s Festival 2020, the inaugural Alternating Current will take over Dublin’s The Sound House from Friday, March 13th to Sunday, March 15th. Curated by Dublin Digital Radio, Enthusiastic Eunuch and Tiny Cosmos, the line-up for the festival’s first outing is absolutely nothing to sniff at it, either. From ELLLL, BB84, Woven Skull, Vicky Langan, Crevice and Fixity, to Maija Sofia, Naive Ted, Post Punk Podge, Robocobra Quartet, Rising Damp and beyond, this is a bill that more than comfortably makes up for the absence of…

  • Kosmische Kristmas 6

    December 20, 2019 - By 

    That most seasonal of Irish underground krautrock supergroups celebrate that special time of the year with a night of “music that never happens again not happening again” for the sixth year running at Plugd this Sunday, 22nd December. The band features Cruiser’s Chris Quigley & The Sunshine Factory’s Jack Horgan on guitar, The Altered Hours’ Cathal MacGabhann on keys, Gilbert & Trá Pháidín’s Micheál Fitzgerald on Bass, Fixity/The Bonk man Dan Walsh on Drums & Flute. For just five euros, you can join them as they seek freedom through repetition until 1am. Walsh and MacGabhan will spin appropriate tunes before and after. Doors open…

  • A4 Sounds Presents: Hands Up Who Wants to Die & Fixity

    August 22, 2019 - By 

    Having brought together some of the country’s very best acts (Silverbacks & Extravision, The Altered Hours & Jogging) in its previous two outings, A4 Sounds returns on Saturday, August 24th with another stellar two-act bill. Kicking off in the St Joseph’s Parade community art hub from 8-11pm, the BYOB show brings together the boundlessly forward-pushing Dan Walsh aka FIXITY and Dublin noise rock leviathans Hands Up Who Wants To Die. Best bring earplugs. Central to A4 Sounds’ ethos as a not-for-profit organisation is “to shift the cultural norm of undervaluing the work of musicians by providing a fair wage.” As such, tickets for…

  • Fixity – No Man Can Tell

    May 27, 2019 - By 

      Cork has fostered a healthy collaborative atmosphere among its musical populace in the last number of years, with an ever-expanding community of fusion groups, side projects, one-off jam sessions and young, experimental collectives sprouting to exchange ideas, explore new creative avenues and perform one-off collaborations never to be played again. One of those at the centre of it all is multi-instrumentalist Dan Walsh, whose monthly Cork Improvised Music Club night (formerly at Gulpd café, now at The Roundy) and previous work at the helm of improvisational outfit, Fixity, have done more than satisfy Cork’s thirst for psychedelic exploration. An…

  • This Month in Irish Music: April

    May 6, 2019 - By 

    Colin Gannon rounds up the very best Irish tracks released of the month just gone, featuring Eomac, Joni ft. The Cyclist, Bitflower Bb, Blusher, Fixity, Repeater, Fynch, Just Mustard, Anna Mieke, Leo Miyagee and more. Eomac — Drawn in Sand / Joni Ft. The Cyclist — Hapsi (DDR2) Last month, in a not-so-enlightened Irish Times article, an Irish music industry figure deduced from her experience that the advent of a new radio station dedicated entirely to playing Irish music is necessitated (in part) by the “fragmented and disjointed” state of independent music in Ireland. At best, this assertion is dumb…

  • Album Premiere: Fixity – No Man Can Tell

    April 4, 2019 - By 

    Of the myriad forward-pushing acts we’ve featured over the years, Cork polymath Dan Walsh’s Fixity remains a singular and uniquely exploratory proposition. Backed by a revolving cast of sonic conspirators, the bandleader and multi-instrumentalist has carved out a uniquely collaborative niche driven by fierce extemporization. Released via the ever-reliable Penske Recordings on April 12, Walsh and an extended cast of Irish and international musicians weave new mastery on Fixity’s second album, No Man Can Tell. Produced by the Altered Hours’ Patrick Cullen, it’s a six-track featuring a veritable dream-team: Emil Nerstrand on flute and tenor sax, Kevin Terry on guitar and…

  • Album Stream: FIXITY – FIXITY 3

    May 23, 2017 - By 

    Over the last couple of years Cork’s FIXITY have established themselves to be one of the country’s consistently intriguing sonic propositions. Composed and steered by Cork multi-instrumentalist Dan Walsh, the project’s explored in collective improvisation with other individuals three different releases, most recently December’s The Things In The Room. Tied together with masterfully loose conviction, new mini-album FIXITY 3 is is solo-produced album is a sprawling seven-track descent into free-form ambient textures, free jazz tangents and psychedelic colour. Performed and produced by Walsh, it’s a release that, in conjuring the more cosmically-inclined reverberations of Albert Ayler, Jessamine, Tortoise, Klaus Schulze and the Residents, offers…

  • Hyperbolex with Ray Wingnut: Introducing Guerrilla Sessions

    January 18, 2017 - By 

    So, here’s the story, right? I like to fuck about with music projects that really turn me on. As someone put it to me recently, “… I want it to freak me out”. Nicely put. I’m just messing around with music projects that fire me up and I guess like any other broadcaster, you try to curate something that is worthwhile, that is new and challenging, and then just maybe you might do the ultimate and capture lightning in a bottle. That probably sounds selfish and indulgent of me. But at least it’s not just me in the media game…