• Track Record: Gav Icon

    July 8, 2015 - By 

    With his Sixties sensibility and a penchant for garage and punk rock, Gav Icon, DJ and frontman from Gavin and Thee Icons selects his favourite records from the likes of Black Lips and The Cramps to The Sonics and Ramones. Photos by Ste Murray. Black Lips – Good Bad, Not Evil  The Black Lips are one of Garage Rock’s modern greats, with a live show that would make GG Allin stop and say, “Ah, Jesus that’s just too far lads”. They there are what a rock and roll band should be. This album has the tracks ‘O Katrina!’, ‘Bad Kids’, ‘Lock and Key’ and ‘Veni…

  • Watch: His New Atlas – Saints

    July 7, 2015 - By 

    Having confirmed his arrival last summer with his stirring single ‘His Young’, Northern Irish singer-songwriter Eoghan O’Hagan AKA His New Atlas has returned with his strongest single effort to date, ‘Saints’. Accompanied by a video courtesy of Maverick Renegade, the song sees a heartfelt performance from O’Hagan merge with a impressively-layered, almost symphonic backdrop, resulting in four minutes of building and subtly beatific brilliance.

  • Mastodon w/ Bad Breeding @ Ulster Hall, Belfast

    June 30, 2015 - By 

    Treating tonight more like a pilgrimage into the dark heart of sludge-laden, conceptual metal than your typical jaunt to a gig, we’re joined giddily by the sizeable crowd of Mastodon T-shirt wearing fans as we enter the baroque surroundings of the Ulster Hall.  The air, thick with beard and brew, seemingly creates its own atmospherics ahead of any performance so far, but, safe in the knowledge that we’ll be banging our heads soon we file in and stand our ground.  It’s not exactly filled to the brim, but it’s not nearly empty either and the consensus thus far is that…

  • Premiere: Contour Shreds – Remixes EP

    June 30, 2015 - By 

    Having impressed at Body & Soul last weekend, Dublin electronic duo Conan Wynne and Anna Doran AKA Contour are right up with our acts to catch at the Red Bull Music Academy stage at this year’s Longitude Festival in Marlay Park. With just under three weeks left to that slot, we’re pleased to premiere a brand new remixes EP from the pair. A self-described “compilation of remixes, reinterpretations, and general reconfiguration of our musical friends and our sounds” the release features reworkings by Sounds of System Breakdown, R.S.A.G, Fran Hartnett, Emma Nicolai and Contour themselves, as well as an original mix of…

  • Monday Mixtape: Neil Allen (The Emerald Armada)

    June 29, 2015 - By 

    In the latest installment of Monday Mixtape, Neil Allen, frontman with Northern Irish alt-folk band The Emerald Armada reveals some of his all-time favourite songs, including Temple of the Dog, The Eagles, LCD Soundsystem and John Martyn. The Emerald Armada headline this year’s Spectrum Festival at Belfast’s QUBSU on Friday, July 6. Temple Of The Dog – Hunger Strike One of the best team ups of all time. It was the first time Eddie Vedder went vocally head to head with Chris Cornell. Stone from Pearl Jam said, “That’s right, our boy can sing too!’ Great tune. LCD Soundsystem – All…

  • Track Record: Chris Ryan (Robocobra Quartet)

    June 29, 2015 - By 

    If you were to put us on the spot and ask us, “Which Thin Air feature do you enjoy the most?” we’d almost certainly say Track Record.  Next up to select and discuss some of their all-time favourite records is Chris Ryan, frontman with Belfast-based band (just “band” – we’ve used up all our high-falutin descriptors for these guys) Robocobra Quartet. Punk rock ahoy. Photos by Colm Laverty. Sound of Ruby – From Under The Sands of the Desert EP (Tian An Men 89) Saudi Arabia’s answer to Butthole Surfers. Sound of Ruby are one of my favourite bands of all time…

  • Premiere: Travis Is A Tourist – Loosen Up

    June 29, 2015 - By 

    In a land and age increasingly over-saturated with every conceivable ilk and fashion of singer-songwriter, Travis Gilbert AKA Travis Is A Tourist manages to carve his own path of folk-pop, one imbued with a real, almost touchable sense of purpose. The follow-up to his ear-grabbing 2013 debut EP, Gilbert will release the five-track Weakdays on July 6, a release defined by Gilbert’s wonderfully crafted admissions of open-eyed restlessness, doubt and destiny. Seeking to “marry the robust rock of artists such as Ryan Adams with a slice of Prince-esque R’n’B” the EP’s lead single ‘Loosen Up’ distils the essence of Weakdays across three and a…

  • Mastodon w/ Bad Breeding @ Olympia Theatre, Dublin

    June 29, 2015 - By 

    The night begins with a small clan of bemused faces. On the stage is Bad Breeding (frontman, Chris Dodd, below), throwing out fuzzy, mashed agro punk. Clever without being innovative it’s reminiscent of Black Flag, Crass and the noise-rock elements of bands like The Horrors. Not a bad thing, in and of itself, but elements of the crowd are as disinterested as the distortion is unrelenting. This simply seems to be a case of bad booking. So the majority of the crowd hole up in The Olympia’s wonderfully anachronistic bar. The black t-shirts are adorned with tonight’s headliner and the…

  • Front of House: Rocky O’Reilly (Start Together Studios)

    June 26, 2015 - By 

    In the latest installment of Front of House, Laura Carland chats to Rocky O’Reilly of Start Together Studios about the origins of the studio, making music as part of Malibu Shark Attack, his career highlights to date and much more. Photos by Colm Laverty. Hi Rocky! Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? Hi, my name is Rocky O’Reilly and I’m a recording engineer , producer and mixer. I co-own Start Together Studios in Belfast where I spend most of my time recording all sorts of music from doom metal through to indie-pop and rap music. How did you first become involved in music? I guess it was…