• Playlist: Hooked On Classics

    September 1, 2015 - By 

    The death of James Last earlier this year highlighted the often strange relationship between “pop” and “serious” music, Diarmuid Kennedy writes. Last’s weird function seems to have been to take easily digestible popular music and make it even blander – the musical equivalent of a chip milkshake.  Mercifully there are other approaches. David Lang’s version of the Velvet Underground’s ‘Heroin’ makes it an even darker, more haunting song.   The Alarm Will Sound ensemble has knocked out a complete album of Aphex Twin arrangements.   The percussionist Joby Burgess’ Powerplant project has taken on some of Kraftwerk’s canon for their…

  • Brian Eno: Ambience For One

    December 8, 2014 - By 

    In a year when much has been written about the return of the Aphex Twin it is easy to forget its been a vintage year for that other studio super boffin, Brian Eno. His excellent collaborations with Karl Hyde, Someday World and High Life were released in May and June respectively. Someday World is an intelligent pop record – full of catchy, intricate melody lines, while High Life with fewer longer tracks sounds more improvisational – some of the best bits sound like out-takes from My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. June also saw the release of the expanded version of Jon Hassell’s City: Works of Fiction. Hassell, an American…

  • Trains and Music: From Hank Williams to Afrika Bambaataa

    December 18, 2013 - By 

    Last month our esteemed editor got his mellow well and truly twisted by Translink. I offer a short meditation to ward off the bad vibes next time you’re waiting on a train. First off the train is the rock ‘n’ roll form of transport. Planes, cars and even spaceships are nothing in comparison. As Ian Carter has written “the blues characteristic yearning tone arose from enslaved blacks’ hopeless response to passing trains – freedom and a better life glimpsed far away, then gloriously present, then receding once more into the distance…The insistent rhythm of railroad wheels on fish-plated railroad tracks…

  • An Introduction to: Wendy Carlos

    November 14, 2013 - By 

    Wendy Carlos, musician and arranger, is 74 today. If you haven’t heard of her then you will certainly have heard her work on the soundtracks to A Clockwork Orange, The Shining and the original Tron. It was her 1968 triple Grammy winning Switched-On Bach that established her reputation. Like so many great ideas the work was based on a simple notion – arrange JS Bach for the synthesiser. Having worked as an adviser to Robert Moog, she was uniquely qualified for the task. The album sold over a million copies and was influential in all kinds of ways. Vince Clarke…

  • Twenty Months, Twelve Photos, One Glass Eye

    September 11, 2013 - By 

    If you’re a regular gig-goer in Belfast, chances are you will at least know amateur music photographer Diarmuid Kennedy to see. Having worked tirelessly on his own initiative to capture  pretty much every single local gig worth going to over the last twenty months, he has very kindly selected a dozen of his favourite distinctive black-and-white photographs during this period, offering a snapshot of a small but thriving scene and the thoughts of a true champion of homegrown live music. Take it away, Diarmuid. “It is very flattering to be asked to select my favourite photographs for Thin Air.  I am a complete amateur…

  • A Fight You Can’t Win, Dutch Schultz, Bellos @ Voodoo, Belfast

    August 14, 2013 - By 

    The massively talented Diarmuid Kennedy captured Edinburgh alt-rock quartet A Fight You Can’t Win stop off at Belfast’s Voodoo Bar recently in what turned out to be an unforgettable show (particularly for an otherwise unremarkable Sunday night). With the Matthew Bakewell-fronted foursome delivering a storming – highly entertaining – set, the equally riff-fuelled wrath of Bellos and Dutch Schultz proved themselves to be perfect support at either end of the travelling band’s raucous set. Check out Diarmuid’s photos below!