• Video Premiere: Van Panther – The Cutters

    August 14, 2019 - By 

    With each act imprinting its own singular identity with the backing of a supportive community operating completely in tandem, we’ve already waxed lyrical on how the fecund Limerick music scene is Ireland’s musical petri dish. Van Panther are one such act, marrying technicolour pop immediacy with jagged post-punk revivalism. New single ‘The Cutters’ is as tight-knit and pristinely crafted without losing the warm, lo-fi charm of its predecessors, and is taken from forthcoming EP Overcast, following up on 2016’s Café van Hemel and 2017’s Hark! The EP was played by, recorded & produced by band founder Kieran Ralph. “Musically, the song is basically a look at the meld between guitar-based music and…

  • Premiere: The Rackets – 1-2 FU/Dead Rebel

    July 31, 2019 - By 

    For whatever combination of reasons, Belfast has peerless form for producing first-rate garage bands. From Them and The Wheels back in the 1960s right up to The Groundlings, The Dreads and others in the present era, the city has always reliably churned out bands wielding straight-up rock ‘n’ roll like it’s no one’s business. In the day of our Lord  John Dwyer, you need not look much further than The Rackets. A suitably elusive outfit, with an ever-revolving line-up, the band currently operate as a three-piece of Sunglasses After Dark’s Ryan Fitzsimmons, frontwoman Aileen McKenna aka This Ship Argo and the downright legendary Chappy of the aforementioned The Groundlings…

  • Gruff Rhys Set For Irish Tour

    July 31, 2019 - By 

    Gruff Rhys will play a three-date Irish tour later this year. The Welsh musician and Super Furry Animals main man will Whelans’s in Dublin on December 9th, Live at St. Luke’s in Cork on December 10th and Belfast’s Empre Music Hall on December 11th. Tickets for the shows cost €25.00 and go on sale tomorrow (August 1st) at 10am. Rhys will release his new album Pang! via Rough Trade Records on September 13th.

  • the arts column: July 31st

    July 31, 2019 - By 

    This week we’ve details on a serious of artist talks, studio spaces, international residencies and funding applications. As always, if you have an event, talk, exhibition, or would like to recommend one please get in touch via aidan[at]thethinair.net Talk | VISUAL Carlow This coming Thursday, August 1st sees VISUAL Carlow play host to an artist talk between Bárbara Wagner and Benjamin de Burca. The duo will be in discussion with Dr Caoimhín Mac Giolla Leith, lecturer in Folklore and Celtic Civilisation in UCD. This talk is following the announcement of a new film project involving Wagner and de Burca, with the pair set to…

  • So Cow Announces New Album

    July 30, 2019 - By 

    The brainchild of Brian Kelly – long one of Ireland’s sharpest lyricists and craftsmen of garage pop nuggets – So Cow have announced tracklisting & pre-order details of new album Do Re Me Fa So Cow. Following up on 2016’s Lisa Marie Airplane Tour, the album is available to pre-order on CD & tape now through the So Cow website. The tracklisting is as follows: 1. Now That I Am 36 2. On Time 3. Standard 4. The Exact Order Of Things 5. High Visibility 6. Institiute Of 7. Issue Resolution 8. Two Three 9. Wealth 10. Shorthand 11. Twelve Minutes On Maps 12. Place Of Thickets…

  • Mixtape Preview: Madonna – Truth or Dare @ Oh Yeah Music Centre

    July 30, 2019 - By 

    Let’s face it: honorific nicknames in popular music don’t come any more clear-cut than Madonna and the Queen of Pop. The singer, songwriter, businesswoman, actress, producer, dancer, director, author and humanitarian born Madonna Louise Ciccone in 1958 has ceaselessly shapeshifted and fearlessly reinvented like no other. Her musical output is but half the story. Naturally, such a towering legacy has attracted its fair share of filmed exposés and feature-length accounts over the years. None, however, even flirt with the sheer watchability of Alek Keshishian’s 1991 film Madonna: Truth or Dare (or In Bed with Madonna outside of North America). Filmed…

  • Album Stream: Mark Waldron-Hyden – Stream Segregation

    July 30, 2019 - By 

    Last month, we premiered the cavernous somnambulance of first single, ‘Did You Hide’, and today, founder of Cork-based label Sunshine Cult, and psychgaze act The Sunshine Factory, Mark Waldron-Hyden has released the debut album under his own name. Titled Stream Segregation, and out through his own label, the LP’s source material is a blend of field recording, acoustic instrumentation, synths and tape machines, and was written, recorded & produced by Waldron-Hyden. Its name came from a psychoacoustic phenomenon “in which a sequence of sounds is perceived as more than one auditory stream, each arising from a distinct acoustic source in the environment”. Mark goes on: “That’s what I wanted…

  • Body/Head w/ Heather Leigh & Elaine Kahn @ IMMA, Dublin

    July 29, 2019 - By 

    The end of Sonic Youth’s 30 year career in 2011 was the end of an indie rock era, but it’s been some consolation that the band’s remarkable consistency has largely carried across to each member’s post-SY projects. Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo’s solo careers have both largely carried on where their contributions to the band left off, both even sharing joint custody of drummer Steve Shelley. But it’s arguably Kim Gordon who has remained most in touch with Sonic Youth’s avant-garde roots. Since forming experimental guitar duo Body/Head with Bill Nace, their three albums of freeform guitar exploration so far…

  • Stream: Danny Madigan – Lost Shore

    July 26, 2019 - By 

    You might not know it yet, but Belfast, of all places, is home to a steadily-thriving synthwave scene. Look no further than Transpacifica, the remarkably prolific Alpha Chrome Yayo and Belfast-based whiz Danny Madigan. Today, the latter releases his strong single effort to date.  ‘Lost Shore’ finds Madigan taking inspiration from his homeland, revealing that the song was inspired by, and written whilst sitting beside, Lough Neagh. Abstract, but somehow familiar, this new release is another step forward for the musician and the rest of his fellow synthwave artists, who gather themselves together under the mysterious ‘Club Arnold’ banner. Stream the single – and it’s…

  • Stream: Lonesome George – Stumble Day

    July 26, 2019 - By 

    Drawing influence from artists as mottled as Tinariwen, Tool and Dublin folk miscreants Lankum, Lonesome George have emerged from Belfast’s session scene with a singular fusion of trad and contemporary folk. At the heart of the band’s craft is the songwriting duo of Joe Campbell-McArdle and Myles McCormack, two old friends who approached traditional music at the same time and have learned alongside one another. Stephen Loughran, a celebrated flute player and Dermot Moynagh, whose contemporary style on the bodhran has become the heartbeat of the sound of forward-pushing trad-folk in Belfast, seal the deal. New single ‘Stumble Day’ finds…