• the arts column: August 28th

    August 28, 2019 - By 

    This week we’ve details on performances, exhibition openings and closings, a pair of artists talks and details on some 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 Performance | Project Arts Centre, Dublin This Saturday, August 31st, sees Dance Limerick present a trio of new dance works in Dublin’s Project Arts Centre. The performances are part of the Step Up Dance Project, which is in its 9th year, and features emerging dancers Ambre Twardowski, Juliana Tarumoto, Aliina Lindroos, Claudia Gesmundo, Rosie Mullin & Ginvera Cecere. The performances are curated by…

  • The Hold Steady – Thrashing Thru The Passion

    August 27, 2019 - By 

    Back at the turn of the decade, The Hold Steady were on the top of their game. The self-described “best bar band in the world” had four phenomenal LPs under their belt and were poised to carve out their own niche and achieve the same level of devotion of someone like Bruce Springsteen. Their sound was a fusion of classic arena rock, mid ‘80s hardcore and hip-hop inflected beat poetry about drugs, drunks, and Christianity in Minneapolis. Everything was vital and taut and elevated to these wonderful theatrical heights by off-kilter time signatures, unconventional structures and a veritable hodgepodge of…

  • Video Premiere: Percolator – Freshin

    August 28, 2019 - By 

    Since the release of their debut LP and our runaway album of 2017, we’ve been sitting on our hands waiting on fresh cosmische mastery from Percolator for what fees like eons. At long last, we can breathe, as the Dublin-based trio have just followed Sestra with a video for their next single, ‘Freshin’. More than delivering on expectation, the new single leans further into the slaloming, hypnosis-inducing rhythmic interplay that made their debut album such an exciting proposition. The track was written and recorded for An Taobh Tuathail‘s twentieth anniversary back in May, but the band liked it enough to release it as a digital download single with…

  • Watch: Citrus Fresh (PX Music) – ‘DiCaprio//Antenna’

    August 26, 2019 - By 

    It has been a wild year for Citrus Fresh. Following the release of the acclaimed Somewhere in Ireland series, one of Limerick’s finest performers, under the PX Music label, has been storming around the country in a flair of avant-garde Hip-Hop. After the release of his debut EP Early Days/Late Nights in May the enigmatic artist has garnered a cult status amongst fans due to the intense visceral performances of his deeply personal tunes. With such a buzz surrounding the rapper presently he has chosen today to drop his first music video. ‘DiCaprio//Antenna’ is filmed by Cathal Histon at 126…

  • Watch: Tandem Felix – Making Dinner on Valentine’s Day

    August 29, 2019 - By 

    It’s a truth universally acknowledged that many craftspeople are songwriters, but not all songwriters are craftspeople. David Tapley aka primary songwriter of alt-country maestros Tandem Felix, however, fits the bill and then some. Look no further than the newly-released ‘Making Dinner on Valentine’s Day’. Speaking about the track, Tapley said, “‘Making Dinner on Valentine’s Day’ is the closing song off our upcoming record, Rom-Com. There isn’t really much to say about it that you can’t hear for yourself, the lyrics are almost like a diary entry” – Bed Stuy, New York. 14th of February 2016. There was an official weather warning from the…

  • Villagers @ Open House Festival, Bangor

    August 26, 2019 - By 

    Put succinctly, Villagers make beautiful music. The reason that their songs are quite so beautiful, and the reason that they connect on such a deep level with their audience, is that all of the white noise, static and blasts of Stax horns are anchored by the state of being human and all of the frailty and vulnerability that comes with it. In a scene so often dominated by archness, cynicism and borrowed nostalgia, Villagers are all about heart-on-the-sleeve sadness and fist-in-the-air joy, and this forms the core of what makes tonight’s performance so compelling, and the thread that is woven…

  • Premiere: Careerist – Slasher

    August 26, 2019 - By 

    Doubling up as their first offering as Careerist, the Belfast threesome formerly known as Hot Cops strike a confident tone on ‘Slasher’. The lead single taken from their forthcoming debut album Weird Hill (which is set for release on 12″ vinyl and DSP via Dundalk’s Pizza Pizza Records on November 15th) it’s a typically slick and Malkmus-esque mid-tempo gem from the Carl Eccles-fronted band. Featuring Eccles as an overworked athlete (and more), Hannah Schierbeek’s video – which is below – seals the deal.  

  • Bank Holiday Programming at Cinema Day 2019

    August 26, 2019 - By 

    Off for the bank hols but don’t fancy the North Coast? Film Hub NI have got you covered with Cinema Day, their fourth annual day-long celebration of film across Northern Irish locations. Kicking off in the morning with archived digital film (Newtownabbey), The Greatest Showman and Honey, I Shrunk The Kids (Belfast) and Big (Ballymena), the day will see a raft of free or low-cost programming inspired by the energy, longing and hostility of youth. For the young ones, there’s Jumangi, The Incredibles or The Iron Giant, while adults will get nostalgic kicks out of Heathers, The Commitments, Rebel Without a Cause and Stand By Me. More recent is Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird, which…