• Lesser Known Pleasures: Stereolab – Chemical Chords

    October 22, 2013 - By 

    The latest Lesser Known Pleasure is a Stereolab album overlooked in favour of their earlier classics Emperor Tomato Ketchup and Dots and Loops. By 2008, their sound may have shifted, mellowed and lost some edge but not necessarily to it’s detriment. Chemical Chords has LKP criteria in spades. It came late in their career long after their heyday, long after their coolness quotient was no longer a factor. The band had endured numerous lineup shifts, side projects and the end of the personal relationship between the songwriting team of Tim Gane and singer Laetitia Sadier. However in 2002, following the…

  • Playlist: Literature In Music – From Mastodon to Kate Bush

    October 16, 2013 - By 

    On what would have been his 159th birthday (pending a range of frankly inconceivable factors), the status of Oscar Wilde as one of literature’s greatest wits and stylistic visionaries is one completely set in stone. Having permeated the music and lyrics of innumerable composers bands from Prokofiev to the Smiths down the ages, it got us thinking: “Hey, wait a minute! There’s tonnes of songs written about (or that reference) novels and books not necessarily written by Oscar Wilde. That justifies a Spotify playlist, surely?” Admittedly, not the greatest “Eureka!” moment in history but perservere we did in the name of…

  • Smoke And Mirrors: The NI Music Prize

    October 16, 2013 - By 

    Award ceremonies are a strange beast, a curious mixture of the repellently naff and the irresistibly enticing. Regardless of what they might claim, everyone loves a pat on the back, the feeling of being vindicated in front of one’s peers, and the opportunity to revel in a sense of achievement. There ain’t nothing wrong with that, and when someone wins an award, they can be humble and bashful, or belligerently arrogant, but the result is the same – you feel good. On the other hand, if you don’t win, it’s all gravy, you never respected the thing in the first…

  • Classic Album: Doll By Doll – Gypsy Blood

    October 11, 2013 - By 

    A flicker of neon light casts shadows on a wet brick wall in Soho. A man, with a special glint in his eye, a glint that suggests danger, romance, and pain, turns his collar up against the rain, and lights a cigarette. This is his time, his moment, and even if no-one ever knows it, Jackie Leven is about to make history. This is the greatest album you have never heard. Doll by Doll released four albums from 1979 to 1982, before sinking further into the obscurity they already dwelt in. Led by the tall, charismatic Scotsman Jackie Leven, the…

  • The First Time: Louise Holden of I Draw Slow

    October 11, 2013 - By 

    In the latest installment of The First Time, Belfast-based photographer Joe Laverty catches up with Louise Holden of Dublin-based roots/Americana five-piece I Draw Slow to pry, ever so respectfully, into the “firsts” of her music-listening, loving and making life. As always, Joe also took the above stunningly nice portrait photo of the vocalist just after her band’s set at Happy Valley Festival in Thomastown in June. Admire Joe’s copious and ever-expanding talents right here and read on to learn about Holden’s rather marked historical appreciation of The Cure. First album you bought? I’d like to say the Carter Family but actually I think it might have…

  • Lesser Known Pleasures: Brian Eno – Music For Films

    October 9, 2013 - By 

    Lesser Known Pleasures is an overdue hurrah for albums that live in the shadow of an artist’s more renowned or successful work. Great records, that for one reason or another, failed to tear up the charts or wow the critics, yet on further inspection are undeniably damn fine indeed. Lesser Known Pleasures are the albums that demand that the scales of justice be re-calibrated. This time around it’s the turn of Ambient pioneer, Art Pop legend and all round musical genius Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno. But you can call him just plain Eno. The album…

  • Exclusive EP stream: Best Boy Grip – Runaway

    October 7, 2013 - By 

    Ahead of its official release on Monday, October 21, we have an exclusive stream of Runaway, the new EP by Derry singer-songwriter Eoin O’Callaghan AKA Best Boy Grip. The follow-up to his terrific second EP The Clerk – released back in January – O’Callaghan’s new release shows marked progression from the songwriter whilst retaining his hallmark melodic flourishes. The artwork for the EP features an illustration of a breathing device patented in 1892 that supplies a hotel guest and/or fireman with fresh air until he can be rescued in the event of a fire. Lovely. Stream the EP via Bandcamp…

  • Revisted: Our Krypton Son – Our Krypton Son

    October 5, 2013 - By 

    In the second installment of Revisited – a feature looking back at some of the finest Irish album and EP releases of the last few years – we return to the spectacular self-titled debut album by Derry singer-songwriter Chris McConaghy AKA Our Krypton Son. Released via Smalltown America Records in 2012, the album is an eleven-track masterstroke of supremely wistful songwriting veering between internalised romantic afterthoughts, extroverted folk-rock forays and some of the finest lyricism and compositional work from a songwriter to ever hail from these parts. A self-proclaimed album about “memory, time, love, death, work, jealousy – the usual shit…

  • Playlist: National Poetry Day

    October 3, 2013 - By 

    We’re humongous fans of poetry here at The Thin Air. As far as we’re concerned, the very best poetry is far superior to a very good song or album – the syllabic genius of a handful of rhyming conquistadors down the ages faring in a realm of incisive mastery that has little to no parallel in any other sphere of the arts. As it so happens, today is National Poetry Day and as we are also humongous fans of lovingly-assembled Spotify playlists of pretty much anything under the recordable sun, we have compiled a fifteen-track playlist of poetry (and music containing…

  • Exclusive stream and Q+A: Ed Zealous – Thanks A Million

    October 2, 2013 - By 

    Ahead of its official release on October 21, we are pleased to do a one-day stream of the expectedly exuberant ‘Thanks A Million’, the forthcoming new single by Belfast electro-pop quartet Ed Zealous. Taken from their giddily anticipated debut album – set to finally drop at the start of next year – the track is an effective distillation of the band’s well-honed electronic rock shtick. Stream ‘Thanks A Million’, check out its excellent artwork and read our  quick catch-up with the band’s guitarist and sampler Andrew Wilson below. Hi guys. The (brilliant) ‘Thanks A Million’ is taken from your forthcoming…