• Watch: Bouts – Allies

    January 26, 2016 - By 

    It’s no secret that we’re big fans of Dublin’s wanderlust-ridden Bouts. Five months on from the release of its lead single ‘Missteps’, the indie rock quartet have reappeared with their forthcoming debut EP’s emphatic follow-up, ‘Allies’. Featuring a brilliantly bizarre video courtesy of Eoin Heaney of Highly Stimulating Productions, the track is classic Bouts through-and-through, marrying urgent, starry-eyed melodies with noise-laced zeal. Bouts’ Unlearn EP will be released on February 29. Check out the artwork for the EP and watch the video for ‘Allies’ below.

  • Donum Dei w/ So Long Until the Seance, The Organ Grinders and Cavehill @ The Pavilion, Belfast

    January 25, 2016 - By 

    If you ever needed proof of just how varied the heavy music scene is in Northern Ireland you need only to check out last Saturday night’s Distortion Project gig lineup. Set in the Pavilion bar, it featured groove rock, punk rock, glam/horror metal and modern metal. Impressive, eh? First up were aforementioned groove rockers Cavehill (below), who are forgiven for their slightly too loud snare mike and late bass issues when we discover that due to the rugby match being shown, only the headliners had time to soundcheck. Rock and roll, man… their catchy brand of groove-heavy bluesy rock is…

  • Video premiere: Tobi The Dog – In Bits

    January 25, 2016 - By 

    Set to play our the first installment of Psykick Dancehall – our new Dublin with the most upstanding Medium Presents – we’re pleased to premiere the positively beatific video for ‘In Bits’ by Dublin’s “self-proclaimed lo-fi” three-piece Tobi The Dog. Set for release via their forthcoming, Little L Records-released debut album, Never Ever Ever, the video for the track captures the band and their friends (the veritable lads, no less) roaming the streets of the Dublin, running joyous rampage on the light rail system and beyond. According to Little L, “Visually, ‘In Bits’ feels like a grime posse cut reimagined through the…

  • Independent Venue Week: PORTS, Robyn G Shiels, Strength and DANI @ Oh Yeah Music Centre, Belfast

    January 25, 2016 - By 

    Along with Belfast’s Oh Yeah Music Centre and Independent Venue Week, we’ll co-host a genre-spanning showcase as part of this year’s Out To Lunch Festival at the Oh Yeah Centre on Saturday, January 30. Derry act PORTS are preparing for the release of their debut album, Devil Is A Songbird. Expect harmonies that are full of glory and songs that drill into the chambers of the heart. Robyn G Shiels is ready to unwrap the follow-up to his award-winning album Blood Of The Innocents. His line is intensity, terse yarns plus banjo. Strength have a lineage back to Derry’s Red Organ Serpent Sound…

  • The Thin Air Tuesday Throwdown: The Wood Burning Savages at Lavery’s, Belfast

    January 25, 2016 - By 

    Currently in the studio working on new material, Derry quartet The Wood Burning Savages have steadily built up their reputation as one of the country’s finest and most frenetic live outfits over the last couple of years. Ahead of what’s set to be a breakthrough year for the band, the Paul Connolly-fronted four-piece will play our next Tuesday Throwdown live show in the Back Bar of Lavery’s Belfast on Tuesday, January 26. Admission is free, doors are at 9.30pm. The Thin Air DJs before and after.

  • Stream: No Monster Club – Sion

    January 24, 2016 - By 

    Set to feature on his eleventh album, I Feel Magic, next month, Dublin lo-fi wizard Bobby Aherne AKA No Monster Club is streaming ‘Sion’, a track recalling an unexpectedly fun Swiss traipse. “I came up with all of the composite parts during the Carnaval parade in Sion, Switzerland last Valentine’s Day,” Aherne said. “The next day, I stitched them all together into a rough, drunken Jack Torrance demo in the ancient and creepy Hotel Europa (where Verdi used to live and Napoleon once stayed) in Ferrara, Italy. The lyrics came later.” Effortlessly earworming and almost boyishly candid in its poise and delivery, it’s exactly the…

  • Savages – Adore Life

    January 22, 2016 - By 

    Revivalism – is that a dirty word? It is if you’re in a band, trying to forge your own sound while folk are sitting there spouting comparisons. As Ought have shown us Stateside, if you’re going to retread well-worn ground, you better lace up your assault boots and do so with conviction, stamping any glib reference points from the mind of the listener. Savages aren’t short on conviction. Nor are they short of muscle in the art of ratcheting up the tension within a track. Post punk was all about tension, though, wasn’t it? The London quartet’s debut, Silence Yourself,…

  • First acts announced for Longitude 2016

    January 22, 2016 - By 

    Kendrick Lamar, The National and Jamie XX are amongst the first acts announced to play this year’s Longitude festival at Dublin’s Marlay Park from July 15-17. With Lamar (pictured) headlining the opening night on Friday, July 15, Major Lazer leads the line up on the Saturday and The National close the festival on the Sunday. With tickets going on sale at 9am on Friday, January 29, Major Lazer, Father John Misty, Chvrches, Róisín Murphy, Action Bronson, Courtney Barnett, A$AP Ferg, MØ, All Tvvins, Rejjie Snow, Otherkin, Pleasure Beach and Saint Sister make up first announcement. Weekend tickets are €159.50 and…

  • Premiere: Strength – Northern Ireland Yes

    January 21, 2016 - By 

    Set to play our Independent Venue Week show at/with Belfast’s Oh Yeah Centre on Saturday, January 30, Derry band Strength are one of sixteen Irish acts we’ve handpicked for our current 16 For ’16 feature. Ahead of a string of shows to mark its 7″ release, we’re pleased to premiere the video for their positively singular new single, ‘Northern Ireland Yes’, along with a revealing Q+A with the band’s main man, Rory Moore. Dig in. Hi Rory. When and how did Strength come about? Strength came about at the tail end of Red Organ Serpent Sound. I felt we were losing a lot of the live, creative…