• Premiere: Petty Youth – You Make Me Feel Good

    August 31, 2017 - By 

    A regular fixture in the city’s live scene over the last couple of years, Belfast three-piece Petty Youth are a band whose straight-up, no-frills brand of rock n’ roll aims straight for the jugular. A two-minute burst of breakneck garage rock, new single ‘You Make Me Feel Good’ – a single whose Bandcamp tags include “Buckfast” and “The Hives” – is a textbook case in point. Framed by their influence of various unaffected rockers of yore, this is music that, rather making excuses for itself, invites you to cut loose and leave the thinking to later. Have a first listen…

  • Premiere: Pale Rivers – West Point

    August 29, 2017 - By 

    One of our must-see Irish acts at Electric Picnic this weekend, Cork five-piece Pale Rivers released one of our favourite Irish tracks of 2016 – debut single ‘August 6th‘ – back in October last year. Having arrived in such promising fashion, the band have doubly confirmed with new single ‘West Point’. Accompanied by visuals Kevin McGloughlin and Mike Lee, it’s a wonderfully earworming effort betraying the band’s knack for combining inward-looking lyricism with their own brand of instantaneous alt-pop. Wrangling with spectres of the past as framed by the present day, this is a refined primal scream that broods as much as it…

  • Watch: Video Blue – Magpies at Dawn

    August 24, 2017 - By 

    We’re big fans of Video Blue here at The Thin Air. The London-based, Dundalk native’s brand of DIY indie-pop has rarely been far from our respective speakers since the release of his debut album Love Scenes in March of this year. Now the solo-crooner – real name Jim O’Donoghue Martin – returns with yet another single to be lifted from the album, and with some charming visuals to boot. Following the snappy minimalism of  ‘Hold Muzik’ and the scratchy insecurity of ‘Dust Moves’, ‘Magpies at Dawn’ is the LP’s slow-burning closer, all woozy guitars, layered vocals and subtle, glittery synths. We’ve said it before…

  • Premiere: Autre Monde – Village of Loomers

    August 22, 2017 - By 

    Without the faintest shadow of a doubt, Dublin quartet Autre Monde are one of the very best bands in the country at the minute. A stellar live proposition to boot, the Paddy Hanna-fronted foursome funnel their myriad influences in magnificent ways; bearing the imprint of but never kowtowing or passing off bygone sounds as their own. Concluding and very nicely capping off their opening four-track offering, ‘Village of Loomers’ – a self-proclaimed “indie ballad” of sorts – was recorded with Daniel Fox of Girl Band in Spring. Here, as with their previous material to date, Hanna, Padraig Cooney, Mark Chester…

  • Video Premiere: Chirps – Pink Noise

    August 21, 2017 - By 

    It’s been seven years since their debut album, Future Static Prologue, but Ballina-formed, Dublin-based shoegazey alt. rockers Chirps are finally gearing to follow it up with a second LP, from which we’re delighted to premiere first single ‘Pink Noise’. Featuring members of esteemed noisemakers like Hands Up Who Wants To Die, Wild Rocket, Crowhammer and Oilbag, their new album has been in the works over the last few years, gradually recorded by John ‘Spud’ Murphy – who’s also behind many of the finest independent Irish releases in recent years. A definite progression from previous work, Chirps have clocked up an astounding number of nods toward underground subgenres – most evidently shoegaze,…

  • Premiere: the 202s – Dash For The Exit (Real Love Doesn’t Lie)

    July 26, 2017 - By 

    Dublin trio the 202s have shared the third single from their forthcoming third album. Following from ‘Up In Thin Air’ earlier this year and ‘Oh My My’ in January 2016, the band’s own brand of indie-pop shines through once again on ‘Dash For The Exit (Real Love Doesn’t Lie). With a healthy dose of krautrock’s percussive clatter, coupled with ambient, melodic textures and a distorted vocal, the track is one that rests in your mind for hours after listening, tickling the nerves in head that nudge you back to it again and again. Our Will Murphy described the 202s as a band…

  • EP Premiere: KILNN – KILNN

    July 12, 2017 - By 

    A release “stitched together from several late night experiments”, the self-titled debut EP from KILNN presents three bursts of darkly ambient techno that evokes the likes of Surgeon, Paula Temple and LFO at their most tenacious. Here, the pair – comprised of Rían Trench of Solar Bears and Chris Con of BUDU – have blurred the lines between dank warehouse all-nighters and back-alley futurism via a slew of atomizing beats and some brilliantly foggy ambience. With the promise of some “wild improvised hardware sets in the near future – have a first listen to the EP (which is self-released and will be…

  • Premiere: Lie Ins – Loose Lips Are For Losers/Sweet Galway

    July 10, 2017 - By 

    We’re pleased to present a first listen to the new double-single from one of the country’s finest indie-folk pop propositions, Dublin three-piece and Popical Island bunch Lie Ins. The fourth in a series, ‘Loose Lips Are For Losers’ (backed with b-side ‘Sweet Galway’) is a digital-only release, recorded completely on four-track cassette by Mark Chester and Ruan van Vliet and written by Mike Stevens. In typical Lie Ins form, the A-side – which is a track that “bemoans the loss of youth and of youthful friends” – is a catching burst of first-rate lo-fi indie-punk that will, if you let it, burrow in the…

  • Premiere: Arvo Party – Null Set

    July 6, 2017 - By 

    Although many of you won’t need told, Belfast-based musician and producer Herb Magee is a jack of all trades, master of many. A current or past bassist for several stellar Northern Irish acts including three-piece GOONS and riffmasters general LaFaro, Magee has also been drip-feeding us varyingly-shaded electronic and ambient sounds as Arvo Party since early last year. A handful of original efforts and various first-rate covers later, Magee will release his brilliantly inspired, self-titled debut album on Friday. Traversing ambient, drone, neo-classical and experimental electronic sounds – as well full-on, straight-up electronica – the release is an 11 track, 50-minute masterstroke from an…

  • Premiere: Gnarkats – Something To Say

    July 5, 2017 - By 

    We’ve been closely following & supporting the rise of Belfast-based quartet Gnarkats over the last couple of years. Having proved real contenders via the fuzzed-out alt-rock of their Waves Collide EP back in November, the foursome are back with a stellar new single, ‘Something To Say’. An equally earworming and riff-fuelled effort, have an exclusive first listen to that and learn more about the track – as well as the band’s plans for the rest of ’17. Hi guys, the release comes off the back of last December’s Waves Collide EP. Was it written before or after that release? It…