• Final Acts Announced for Vantastival 2019

    April 24, 2019 - By 

    Vantastival have announced the final acts to play this year’s festival. Beauty Sleep (pictured), Tanjier, TAU, The Bonny Men, Rebel Phoenix, Amy Montgomery, Ghost Accuser, Coscán, Little Dove, Bajjna, The Roomkeepers, Kelso, Music Generation Louth and The Samba Mamas will play the Drogheda festival’s tenth-anniversary outing across May 31-June 2. The festival has also announced that Repak ELT is the official support of the Glass House Stage, which will showcase singer-songwriters including Australia’s Tailor Birds, The Midnight Union Band’s Shane Joyce, Gemma Bradley, Rachel Grace, Ojo, The Finns, Bayonets, Bawn, Little Oak, Niamh Rebekah, Rosco Flanagan, Kloé and more. Revisit our recent…

  • Edwyn Collins Set For Dublin and Belfast Shows

    April 24, 2019 - By 

    They don’t come much more legendary than Edwyn Collins. The Scottish musician, producer, record label owner and former Orange Juice frontman will play Dublin’s Liberty Hall Theatre on September 14 and Belfast’s Empire Music Hall on September 15. Tickets go on sale on Friday at 9am, priced €30.00 and £24.00 respectively.

  • Final Acts Announced for Knockanstockan

    April 18, 2019 - By 

    Knockanstockan have announced the final names to play this year’s festival. Joining the previously announced Just Mustard, Bicurious, Punk Podge & The Technohippies, Hot Cops, Kitt Philippa, BATS, Slouch, Myles Manley, Rachael Boyd, Tebi Rex and Dowry, amongst many others, are the likes of The Bonk, Arvo Party (pictured), Naive Ted, Zaska, Eve Belle, Chancer, Jinx Lennon and many more. Check out the full line-up below. Returning to Blessington Lake in Co. Wicklow across July 19-21, tickets for the festival can be bought here.

  • Final Acts Announced for Open Ear 2019

    April 17, 2019 - By 

    Hands down one of the must-attend festivals in the Irish summer festival calendar is Open Ear, which returns to Sherkin Island, West Cork across May 30 to June 2. Today, organisers have announced the final acts to play this year’s outing. And true to form, it’s a wonderfully genre-spanning affair. Joining the likes of Radie Peat, Maria Somerville, Patrick Kelleher & His Cold Dead Hands, Woven Skull, T-Woc, Áine O’Dwyer and many more include J Colleran, S>>D, Zeropunkt, Ocean Floor, 101 Beats Per Minute, Donal Dineen, Ordnance Survey, Son Zept, Gadget and the Cloud, Dublin Digital Radio and more. See…

  • Stream: Elma Orkestra and Ryan Vail – Arrival

    April 16, 2019 - By 

    As collaborative projects go, Borders by Derry artists Ryan Vail and Eoin O’Callaghan aka Elma Orkestra is one that fully deserves your attention. Having both been releasing music independently of one another since 2012, the pair have worked together on a release that sees their diverse creative paths meet head-on. Across eight tracks, from opener ‘Droves’ to the beat-laden outro ‘Arlene’, they masterfully blur the contours between contemporary electronic and classical realms. This breaking of new ground – of pushing boundaries and thwarting expectations via attention to detail and a joint penchant for analogue equipment – is what underpins Borders,…

  • Body & Soul Add Fifty Acts to 2019 Line-Up

    April 16, 2019 - By 

    Body & Soul have added fifty new acts to its 2019 line-up. Joining previously announced acts including MODESELEKTOR, Princess Nokia and Kate Tempest are the likes of Confidence Man (pictured), The Black Lips, Post Punk Podge & The Technohippies, TPM, Chymera, Moxie, FEET, Mashrou’ Leila, King Kong Company, Molly Sterling, Junior Brother, Proper Micro VC, Sing Along Social, prYmary Colours, Kitt Philippa, Æ Mak, Just Mustard, Happyalone and EMBRZ. Here’s the new additions in full: Director Avril Stanley said, “Body & Soul’s 10th Anniversary line-up will lift your heart and send your hands into the solstice night sky. As well as presenting…

  • Win a Golden Ticket to Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival 2019

    April 15, 2019 - By 

    It defies logic how Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival consistently deliver on world-class, exceptionally diverse programmes, year after year after year. And yet, it’s something that the festival has managed, once again, for this year. Returning to the city across May 2-12, it will welcome everyone from Teenage Fanclub, Anna Calvi and Spiritualized to Jason Lytle, Lisa O’Neill and Echo & The Bunnymen. And that’s only scratching the surface (go here to delve deep into this year’s line-up, which, as ever, spans music, words & ideas, theatre, comedy, sound & vision, visual arts, and various special events.) It gives us no…

  • Watch: Just Mustard – Frank

    April 15, 2019 - By 

    With their singular brand of miasmic, trip-hop-inspired sorcery, the rise of Dundalk’s Just Mustard over the last few months has been a real pleasure to see. The latest milestone in their ascent is the release of ‘Frank’, a track that has emerged as something of a peak from the band’s scintillating live sets as of late. Accompanying the single release is Tim Shearwood’s video. Frontwoman Katie Ball said, “We thought it would be interesting to use stop motion animation to emphasise the broken rhythms of the song. Every character and prop in the video and their interactions represents a different musical or thematic…

  • Watch: VerseChorusVerse – INTRO (A Bandwidth Film)

    April 15, 2019 - By 

    2018 was a busy year from Belfast-based jack of all trades (and master of many) Tony Wright aka VerseChorusVerse. As well as publishing his first book, the North coast musician, solo artist and ex-guitarist/founding member of And So I Watch You From Afar was made an artist-in-residence at the MAC. During that time, Will McConnell of Bandwidth popped by to capture Wright in his element. The result is INTRO, a candid, 22-minute film that hones in on the nuance and heart of Wright’s craft via stripped-back performance, improvised guitar sounds and snippets from the aforementioned first book. Framed by the…

  • EP Stream: Rebekah Fitch – Lies We Tell Ourselves

    April 15, 2019 - By 

    That Belfast artist Rebekah Fitch has emerged as one of the country’s most promising solo artists propositions over the last couple of years has come as no surprise to us here at The Thin Air. Tracing the fast-rising vocalist and multi-instrumentalist’s increasingly distinctive brand of alt-pop singles like ‘Not Myself’, ‘Need To Feel’ and, most recently, ‘Poison’ brim with momentum, focus and – above all else – pure inspiration. You’ll find this in abundance on ‘Lies We Tell Ourselves’, a new, four-track EP that underscores Fitch’s upward course – one that, as we’ve suggested before, is surely imminently destined for the world stage.