• Broods – Don’t Feed the Pop Monster

    February 6, 2019 - By 

    Georgia and Caleb Nott are no strangers to the mechanisms of a perfect pop song. The New Zealand sibling duo – better known as Broods –  shot to recognition with their debut single, ‘Bridges’, in October 2013 and have since managed to cultivate a sound that is at the same time carefully manufactured and authentic. After a brief hiatus, their third studio release, Don’t Feed the Pop Monster is a return to form, a neat presentation of pop songs that are both energetic and lyrically thoughtful. It’s a highly anticipated release from the pair, having both been doing solo projects…

  • the arts column: February 12th

    February 12, 2019 - By 

    In this week’s edition of the arts column we’ve details of the a series of events in the Douglas Hyde Gallery, open calls for writers, studio lets, talks as well as the final call for the LUX Critical Forum. As always, if you have an event, talk, exhibition, or would like to recommend one please get in touch via aidan[at]thethinair.net Talks, Tours and Walkthroughs | Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin There are a number of events taking place this week and next in response to the latest exhibitions in Dublin’s Douglas Hyde Gallery: Jumana Manna’s Wild Relatives and The Artist’s Eye: Haig Aivazian. Tomorrow (Wednesday 13th) sees…

  • Burning

    February 6, 2019 - By 

    True complexity and originality in film is something that is hard to come by these days. Managing to make a film that is entertaining at the same time is something that few achieve but South Korean writer-director Chang-Dong Lee (Secret Sunshine) has made a career out of it, though this is his first film since 2011’s fantastic Poetry. His latest, Burning, based on a short story called Barn Burning by Haruki Murakami — though I suspect William Faulkner’s novella of the same name is something to do with it as well — follows Jong-su, a part-time delivery man, and kicks…

  • 19 for ’19: Rebekah Fitch

    February 6, 2019 - By 

    Though it’s not always easy to pinpoint why, some artists seem simply fated for big things. Of the myriad alt-pop acts that Ireland has produced over the last few years, the fast-moving upward trajectory of Belfast-based artist Rebekah Fitch is no such mystery. Drawing from influences spanning the likes of Björk and Portishead, to Sia and Stevie Nicks, Fitch has, over the last couple of years, emerged as something of a world-beating proposition. Having been nominated for the Contender Award at last year’s prestigious Northern Ireland Music Prize, her self-produced material to date – not least recent single, the emphatic ‘Need…

  • Premiere: TAU – Craw

    February 6, 2019 - By 

    TAU is the collective project of Berlin-based Irishman Shaun Mulrooney, an artist who refers to his psych-soaked, genre-mangling experimentalism as “medicine music”. It’s a term that fits well: also member of Dead Skeletons and Berlin Kraut conjurers Camera, Mulrooney’s sorcerous craft as TAU – which is strongly influenced by his interest in what lies beyond both the eye and the veil – carries with it a strong and slow-burning anagogic air. New single ‘Craw’ is a potent case in point. Featuring a sublime video, co-directed with Kyle Ferguson (who also filmed and edited the accompaniment), it’s a song that traces the dense…

  • Michael O’Shea – Michael O’Shea

    February 5, 2019 - By 

    Look at any street corner in Galway, Dublin, Cork, London or New York and chances are, you’ll be met with crooners, folksters, dancers, trad musicians and poets. Some of the world’s best loved performers came to fruition through busking. B.B King was a busking youth before starting a career in recording and performing on stages worldwide. So too were Tracy Chapman, Glen Hansard and Laraaji. On a quieter end of the spectrum falls Michael O’Shea, the compelling Irish busker who travelled Europe, Africa and Asia, crafted his own instrument and whose singular contribution to recorded music has just been re-released…

  • Every Saoirse Ronan Film Ranked

    February 6, 2019 - By 

    The release last month of Mary Queen of Scots marked the twentieth on-screen role for Saoirse Ronan, who has, especially in the past few years, carved for herself a reputation as one of Ireland’s most talented and versatile actors. Press interviews with the 24 year-old, who first appeared as a 10 year-old on RTE’s The Clinic, often invoke her dual geographical upbringing—born in New York to Irish parents, later raised in Carlow and then Dublin—as a way to talk about the complexities of belonging, a theme which, it will be clear, runs through her work. Here is each of Ronan’s credited films, excluding voice…

  • Premiere: Ferals – The Low

    February 5, 2019 - By 

    The island of Ireland has always batted out out of its league when it comes to riff-fuelled post-rock. Right up there with the acts flying the flag in the North right now is Belfast-based threesome Ferals. Listing Foals, Biffy Clyro, Deftones and North Coast instrumental machine And So I Watch You From Afar as their main influences, the Zool Records-affiliated band have re-emerged with their new single, ‘The Low’. Doubling up as the band’s strongest single effort to date – and accompanied with a suitably emphatic video – the song strikes a fist-clenched mid-point between low-end riff slinging, gang vocals…

  • Album Premiere: Postcard Versions – Postcard Versions

    February 6, 2019 - By 

    Making good on the promise of last year’s debut single ‘Sunday Morning With Nate‘ – which came in at number 28 on our 2018 Irish Tracks of the Year and featured on independent compilation A Litany of Failures Volume II – Postcard Versions‘ debut album is here. Comfortably resigned and pragmatic in its optimism, Postcard Versions looks at a hungover languor as a chance for reprieve. Its 10 tracks never outstay their welcome, clocking in at just short of half an hour, making this another essential breezy indie rock album to add to Dublin canon alongside Popical Island, Tandem Felix & company – and it’s arguably the finest ever not to include a cymbal. Clearly a…