• Premiere: Malojian – Crease of Your Smile

    December 16, 2015 - By 

    Having released one of our favourite Irish albums of the year in Southlands back in May, it’d be something of an understatement to say Lurgan singer-songwriter Stevie Scullion AKA Malojian has had a busy and quite brilliant year. As well as being nominated for the 2015 NI Music Prize, Scullion has keep us on eager toes with the steady release of three singles, the equally sublime ‘Bathtub Blues’, ‘No Alibis’ and ‘Communion Girls’, over the last nine months. The fourth and final of the year, the masterfully meditative lullaby folk of ‘Crease of Your Smile’ might well be our favourite of the lot, a…

  • Stream: Lie Ins – Love In The Arctic/Go Back To Billy

    December 15, 2015 - By 

    Ahead of the fifth annual Popical Island All-Dayer at Whelan’s on Saturday (more info right here), Dublin’s Lie Ins are streaming their forthcoming double A-side, ‘Love In The Artic/Go Back To Billy’. Respectively described as “a post-apocalyptic hoe-down” and a “pop tune about returning to past follies”, the lo-fi indie trio recorded their tracks straight to tape by the threesome’s new bassist Mark Chester at Popical Island hub The Pop Inn. Officially released on January 25, stream the tracks below.

  • Quarter Block Party Launch 2016 Programme

    December 15, 2015 - By 

    Having delivered and then some at its inaugural outing earlier this year, Cork’s Quarter Block Party have unveiled the music, pop-up performances and community events that will make up 2016 programme from February 5-7 2016. Presented by Makeshift Ensemble and Southern Hospitality Board, QBP is a three-day music and arts festival on the city’s North and South main street with community at the beating heart of its ethos. With much more to be announced, organisers have revealed that experimental folk-rock band Spooks of the Thireenth Lock, Daniel Knox – long known for darkly distorting traditional American popular song styles resulting in…

  • The Thin Air’s Top 50 Irish Releases of 2015 (50-41)

    December 14, 2015 - By 

    Ahead of our annual Top 100 Irish Tracks of the Year countdown later this month, we’re counting down our Top 50 Irish Releases of 2015 (that is to say EPs and albums) every day this week. And rather than giving the game away too soon, we’ve opted for the age-old descending option, starting with 50-41. Dig in. 50. Screamingparent – The Completist Back in April, Dudley Colley of Dublin’s Dudley Corporation AKA Screamingparent released his ten-track debut of “spare-room recorded bedroom classics”. Call it his first solo “misadventure”, it was recorded in between school runs and nappy changes. True story: The Guardian SC somewhere…

  • Irish Tour: Therapy?

    December 13, 2015 - By 

    With words from Conor Callanan at the former, Ste Murray and Liam Kielt capture the mighty Therapy? at The Button Factory, Dublin and Belfast’s Limelight 1 (AAA). The Button Factory, Dublin One of the main qualities of a band such as Therapy? is their pure and unadulterated unwillingness to compromise. During their 26 year career they’ve never shied away from sticking steadfastly to their guns when it comes to releasing what they’ve wanted. No matter what the response may be from fans or critics alike. With the release of 1994’s Troublegum it seemed like Therapy? were on the cusp of something…

  • Album Premiere: A Co-Present Christmas

    December 14, 2015 - By 

    Featuring the likes of i am niamh, Sleep Thieves and Laura Ann Brady, we’re very pleased to present a premiere of the inaugural A Co-Present Christmas, a first-rate, fourteen-track compilation of covers, original tracks and Christmas themed tracks from various Irish artists. To celebration the end of what they rightly have called an amazing year for Irish music (and how) The Co-Present – hands down one of our favourite radio shows in Ireland, broadcast weekly on Radiomade.ie – selected some of their favourite artists to contribute their festive songs to release. Having launched in November 2013, the Co-Present – hosted…

  • Elastic Sleep – Bad Machine

    December 11, 2015 - By 

    We’ve a lot of time for Cork noise-pop wizards Elastic Sleep here at TTA Towers (ok, it’s a singular tower) and never has that been more the case than now, with the release of their rapturous new single, ‘Bad Machine’. Continuing to sound like no other band in the island (at the very least) the Muireann Levis-fronted five-piece the song explores the idea of wilful submission in the face of self destruction, segueing from a hypnagogic groove to full-blown, feedback-drenched ire. Check out Echo Tree’s tripped-out video for the new single (available as a free download from the band’s Bandcamp and Soundcloud pages) and…

  • Monday Mixtape: Jason Loewenstein (Sebadoh)

    December 14, 2015 - By 

    In the latest installment of Monday Mixtape, Jason Loewenstein of lo-fi legends Sebadoh and Fiery Furnaces selects live versions of some of his all-time favourite tracks from the likes of Deerhoof, Unsane and Devo. Dummy Dumpster – Hatchet Sebadoh wandered into the swamps of Louisiana last year where my mind was blown by this band. Chaotic energy is addictive. Deerhoof – Flower Definitely one of the most exciting live bands of all time. This is the “classic lineup” with Chris Cohen still on guitar. NRBQ – Get Rhythm The best bar band of all time. What a rhythm section. Antelope –…

  • Album stream: New Pope – Youth

    December 10, 2015 - By 

    Tapping into the profound and altogether ineffable world of the most powerful of Eternal returns: home, tracing the years back to their source and what it means to belong, Youth by Galway dream-folk artist David Boland AKA New Pope is a seven-track, debut full-length chronicle of youthful reminiscence perfectly balanced between the tender and more pining realms of nostalgia. Released at a perfect time of year, when many of us return home, gradually taking stock of another year just gone, the album – evoking the likes of Red House Painters and American Music Club – offers up a wonderfully re-assuring, immaculately crafted summation of the inner, intersubjective workings of…

  • Watch: Daithí – Mary Keane’s Introduction

    December 9, 2015 - By 

    Shot and directed by Conal Thomson, the video for ‘Mary Keane’s Introduction’ by Daithí is a wonderfully evocative accompaniment to a track featuring the Galway experimental electronic maestro’s 90 year old grandmother reminiscing about romance in her youth in the West coast of Ireland. Back in October, we said the said the single track “fused distinct worlds – that of the old and that of the new – to spawn something so innately joyous that you would struggle to find it anything but wonderfully accomplished.” With Thomson’s video it takes on an even greater sense of resonant context. In a Facebook post today, Daithí said: “Dotted along…