• Fleet Foxes – Crack Up

    June 16, 2017 - By 

    A six-year break is a fairly large gulf for album releases. Fleet Foxes released their last LP, Helplessness Blues, on May 3rd, 2011. At that point in time, Spotify had barely eked its way into the American market, Mitt Romney was a viable presidential opponent and Osama Bin Laden was dead for less than 24 hours. To say certain seismic shifts have occurred since the group’s previous outing is an understatement. The world in which Helplessness Blues and the self-titled record is long gone, so how does their latest, Crack-Up, fare in this new musical landscape? Not well. This a…

  • Hijack! QFT Mixtape Vol. 1

    June 16, 2017 - By 

    Across July 7-9 we’re teaming up with Belfast’s Queen’s Film Theatre to present Hijack! QFT Mixtape Vol 1, a weekend-long takeover series featuring a selection of some of the very best music-themed films and documentaries. Including NI premieres of Gus Sutherland’s The Unseen: A Detroit Beat Tape, Sarah Price’s L7: Pretend We’re Dead (above), Iggy Pop and Josh Homme doc American Valhalla and John Scheinfeld’s John Coltrane documentary Chasing Trane, the series will also including a Delia Derbyshire Double Bill, School of Rock, Stop Making Sense and more. See below for the full programme. Tickets are available to buy via the QFT website. Chasing…

  • Watch: Rusangano Family – I Know You Know

    June 16, 2017 - By 

    The first single to be unveiled following the release of their Choice Music Prize-winning debut album Let The Dead Bury The Dead, Limerick-based trio Rusangano Family have just unveiled the video for ‘I Know You Know’. Directed, shot and edited by the ever-talented Bob Gallagher “in conspiracy with” some familiar faces in Naoise Roo, Linda O’Connor, Sarah Joy McDermott, Eamonn Elliot, Elaine Mai, Sam Burton, Lisa O’Flynn, Kate O’Shea, David MacNamara, Aoife O’Donoghue and Eavan Brennan, the video is a masterfully understated – yet impressively experimental – visual accompaniment to a track that ‘is about how we all face various challenges in…

  • Stream: Bicep – Aura

    June 15, 2017 - By 

    Hold the phone: London-via-Belfast electronic duo Andy Ferguson and Matt McBriar AKA Bicep are back with one almighty banger. Lifted from the pair’s forthcoming Ninja Tune-released debut album – set to drop on September 1 – ‘Aura’ is a slick, beat-heavy and brilliantly propulsive five-minute effort that aims straight for the sonic jugular.

  • Queens of the Stone Age Set For 3Arena

    June 15, 2017 - By 

    Coinciding with the announcement of their forthcoming, Mark Ronson-produced seventh studio album, Villains, it’s been revealed that Queens of the Stone Age will play Dublin’s 3Arena on Friday, November 24. Tickets are priced from €50.65 including booking fees go on sale on Thursday, June 22 at 9am. Fancy winning a pair of tickets to the show before they go on sale? Simply Like our Facebook page here and send your answer to the following question to info@thethinair.net: What is the title of QOTSA’s second studio album? Speaking about the new album – which is released on August 25 – Josh Homme…

  • Loah – This Heart

    June 15, 2017 - By 

    Sallay Matu Garnett AKA Loah‘s debut EP This Heart is, at it’s core, a magical fusion of folk, soul and R’n’B. An effortless blend that draws on elements of eminent female artists such as Grace Jones and Fiona Apple as well as her own own classical music training. What she dubs ‘ArtSoul’ – soul music, which incorporates the scope of all the musical art that Loah loves, including classical, folk, blues – is a carefully curated mix of different sounds and different cultures. Not only that, This Heart  is a proud artistic celebration of Ireland’s multiculturalism, and an opportunity for Garnett to…

  • Irish Tour: Arcade Fire

    June 16, 2017 - By 

    Canadian indie trailblazers Arcade Fire live at Belfast’s Belsonic and Dublin’s Malahide Castle. Words by Jonny Currie and Robert Higgins; photos by Colm Laverty and Aaron Corr. Belsonic, Belfast Photos by Colm Laverty After previous failed attempts to attract Arcade Fire to Belfast, the Montreal nine-piece kick-off this year’s Belsonic line-up ahead of the release of fifth album Everything Now. The long-overdue visit is acknowledged by frontman Win Butler, revealing that they have chosen to spend the last three days in Northern Ireland. Landfill indie trailblazers The Kooks resurface this evening in support, gurning and yelping through an hour of turgid…

  • Watch: Group Zero – Pyramid of Light/Love And The Present

    June 15, 2017 - By 

    Girls Names‘ frontman Cathal Cully AKA Group Zero recently dropped one of the Irish albums of the year so far in the form of Structures and Light, a release we said “traversed brittle cold wave gems, pre-dawn electro throwdowns and shivering industrial instrumentalism over ten tracks, each as commanding as the last”. Released via Belfast imprint Touch Sensitive, the album has a new single, ‘Pyramid of Light/Love And The Present’ – a double-sided, softly rapt peak highlight now masterfully bolstered by Dublin-based visual artist Dorje De Burgh’s visual accompaniment. Speaking of the video De Burgh said, “The visual that accompanies ‘Pyramid of…

  • National Gallery of Ireland Re-opening

    June 15, 2017 - By 

    After six years of extension refurbishment, tonight sees the reopening of the National Gallery of Ireland’s Merrion Square wings. Starting in 2011 with The Dargan Wing (originally opened in 1863) and continuing with The Milltown Wing (originally opened in 1903) in 2014, the gallery at one stage had an estimated 80% of its floor space closed. This weekend sees the opening of the gallery’s much anticipated Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting: Inspiration and Rivalry exhibition, with the gallery’s main space open to the public from today. Access has been limited to the Clare Street entrance due to the refurbishments,…