• Watch: A Lilac Decline – Mountain Rages

    March 31, 2017 - By 

    The anagrammatic musical pseudonym of West Coast-based Swedish visual artist and dreamfolk musician Cecilia Danell, A Lilac Decline’s debut album, The Mountain Rages, has just been released via Galway imprint Rusted Rail. Having come together during sessions in the spring and the wet summer of 2016, the album was recorded via one microphone and a selection of borrowed and found instruments in a Galway attic room and a remote cabin in Norway. Melding Danell’s brittle ruminations with  ‘gazey soundscapes, check out the title track – and its video – from the album below.

  • Bosco Ramos – Signs of Life

    March 30, 2017 - By 

    Fuzzy Belfast-based alt. punk bass & drum duo Bosco Ramos release their debut EP Signs of Life on March 31. Recorded and produced by Jonny Woods of R51 at Start Together Studios, it follows up on their debut double-A-side SNKSWM from early 2016. Phil Brown and Calum McGeown have a knack for an earworm, taking influenced from Death From Above 1979 and Torche-esque aggressively uplifting alt. rock, without hiding behind Americanised accents. Check out the video for lead single, ‘Rolling Sea’: Bosco Ramos launch Signs of Life at McHugh’s, Belfast on Friday, April 7, with support from Junk Drawer, Vulpynes and Gnarkats.

  • Premiere: Autre Monde – Customs

    March 30, 2017 - By 

    We’re delighted to premiere the debut single, ‘Customs’, from Dublin-based indie supergroup of sorts, Autre Monde. The quartet comprises revered songsmith Paddy Hanna on vocals, Ginnels‘ Mark Chester on guitar, Land Lovers‘ Padraig Cooney on bass and Eoghan O’Brien on drums. Harking toward minimal ’80s college rock and esteemed chiming CBGB’s guitar reinventors like Television, Suicide and Pere Ubu, with a saturated Neil Young crunch, it’s an idiosyncratic, dynamic number; it’s also the first of a series of releases planned for spring and early summer, stemming from their time in the studio with Jamie Hyland & Girl Band‘s Daniel Fox. ‘Customs’ will be initially released on their Bandcamp next week, and available on Spotify the following…

  • Stream: Ryan Vail – We Drift We Wake/East Berlin

    March 29, 2017 - By 

    To mark this year’s World Piano Day – an annual celebration of the ivory keys, spearheaded by Nils Frahm – Derry producer and musician Ryan Vail has released two new tracks. As well as a sublime rework of his own ‘East Berlin’ (which was selected for Nils Frahm’s playlist for World Piano Day back in 2015), ‘We Drift We Wake’ makes for a wonderfully meditative, delicately sprawling piece that doubles up as an audio visual collaboration. with artist Hohxx_. Better still, both efforts reveal the sheer tonal and emotional range of Vail’s ever-growing musical palette. Featuring everyone from Martyn Heyne and Olafur Arnalds to…

  • Video Premiere: Oh Joy – So Swell

    March 29, 2017 - By 

    Hands down one of the country’s finest alt-rock propositions right now, Dublin three-piece Oh Joy first caught our attention last year with their single ‘Habits and Recreations’. Having come on leaps and bounds in the four years that have passed, the threesome are back with the video for their latest – and quite possibly great – single effort to date, ‘So Swell’. Accompanied by a perfectly throwback video courtesy of Carrot Gold Enterprises, the track is a fuzzed-out blast of pining indie rock conjuring the likes of Sebadoh via Built To Spill’s more ardent efforts. Have an exclusive first look and listen right below.

  • Guilty Optics – Colossal Velocity

    March 28, 2017 - By 

    Dublin-based riffy post-punk trio Guilty Optics release their long-awaited debut album, Colossal Velocity on March 31 on vinyl & digital download. Colossal Velocity was recorded at Dublin’s Hellfire Studios with vintage gear by San Diego producer Ben Moore, best known for his work with Hot Snakes, Rocket From The Crypt & Ravi Shankar, amongst many others. Tellingly, they’re a dischordant, aggressive burst of noise-rock tinged post-punk by way of the early-to-mid ’90s, à la Drive Like Jehu. Formed in 2008 by Alan Finnerty & Peter Lee as a duo, they played under the name Bend This, Uri Geller, before expanding their lineup and shifting to the band…

  • Watch: Bosco Ramos – Rolling Sea

    March 28, 2017 - By 

    Let be known: Belfast’s Bosco Ramos make a lot of pleasant racket for a two-piece. Taken from their forthcoming Signs of Life EP – which is set for release on March 31 and launched at Belfast’s McHughs on April 7 – Phil Brown and Calum McGeown’s earworming new single ‘Rolling Sea’ is a three-minute burst of fuzzed-out, Death From Above 1979-tinged alt-rock that, pretty rare as it is in the genre these days, doesn’t bury itself behind a veil of Americanised vocals. We’re all for singing in one’s own accent here at The Thin Air. Created by Brendan Seamus and Billy Woods, here’s the single’s video.

  • Tongue Bundle – Peppery Talk

    March 27, 2017 - By 

    Experimental Dublin jazz-punk outfit Tongue Bundle have released their second album, Peppery Talk through esoteric Irish label Unbend Leg Out. What started out as a rework of early EP Salty Language, ended up as the band’s latest album. Evolving their soulful jazz-funk, Zappa-esque work, they’ve delved further, this music a sample-heavy frenzy, reminiscent of The Books, Air and the dark, tripping urbanity of UK dub outlier Burial. This follows up on 2015 debut LP Bungee Untold. Stream Peppery Talk: Peppery Talk by Tongue Bundle

  • Video Premiere: Maija Sofia – Persephone

    March 27, 2017 - By 

    Released last month, we said ‘Persephone’ by Dublin-based Galway artist Maija Sofia was a track that “married a wonderfully cloistered atmosphere with an intimate, lo-fi air”. A month on, Sofia has returned with an evocative, self-directed visual accompaniment. Inspired by vampire mythology and 70s horror cinema, the video was show on a “freezing” morning and edited by Irish filmmaker and blogger Ciarán O’Brien. Have a first look below.

  • Video Premiere: Citizen Nobody – Born Again Primitive

    March 27, 2017 - By 

    Set to release their self-titled debut album via Belfast imprint Ram Alley on April 28, Citizen Nobody are a band that “stand against the dominant culture of corporate fascism and subservience to the psychopathic political, economic and religious systems and their self-serving leaders that have come to dominate the lives of all the creatures on this planet in such a destructive way that has rendered people with a sense of powerlessness and hopelessness.” Drawing influence from influences as diverse as Van Morrison to NEU!, Bartok to Rev. Gary Davis and from Son House to transcendentalist philosophy, the trio’s new single…