• Katie Richardson: Getting Lost In Belfast and Berlin

    September 4, 2013 - By 

    “Trying to find a time of no regret, my hungry heart has seen nothing yet.”  They say everything happens for a reason. As a real life grown-up I have found myself trying to make sense of lots of difficult and disappointing situations by using that very phrase. My reason for getting the hell out of Belfast this summer wasn’t just to escape the prospect of another couple of months of drizzle and grey skies (though it was definitely a big part of it), but to go on an adventure. I wanted to discover new creative lands, to challenge my boundaries,…

  • Gig of the week: Tweed Fest 2013

    September 3, 2013 - By 

    Our gig of the week this week was a bit of a no-brainer. Headlined by North Coast three-piece Axis Of (above) Ballymoney riff shingdig par excellence Tweed Fest returns for its fourth outing this weekend. Set to feature twelve performances from the likes of fast-rising hardcore band Lantern For A Gale, Belfast-based three-piece PigsAsPeople and sludge/doom five-piece 7.5 Tonnes Of Beard, co-organiser and freelance photographer Ciara McMullan said of the event: “It’s basically just a party. Back in 2010, Matthew Tweed and all his mates in one week managed to organise a gig in his barn while his folks where on holidays. His parents weren’t angry. In fact, his dad…

  • Recap: Tim Hecker, Frankie Rose, September Girls, etc.

    September 2, 2013 - By 

    In the latest installment of our weekly recap of the best in brand new music just released right across the world, we eagerly traverse and contrast urgent Northern Irish punk rock, Canadian drone, kaleidoscopic English lo-fi, American garage rock, delirious Swedish synth-pop and all kinds of everything in between. As ever, if you want to get in touch about great new music – either yours or someone else’s – hit us up at newmusic@thethinair.net and we will get listening, stat. In the meantime, sit back and enjoy our top ten tracks of the week. ___ Mons Montis – Swept Swedish trio Herman Båverud Olsson,…

  • Obituary: Seamus Heaney

    September 2, 2013 - By 

    ‘Earth receive an honoured guest..’ The opening of Auden’s famous tribute to Yeats, with its distinctive rhythm which Heaney dubbed ‘Wystan Auden’s metric feet’ seems appropriate as the poet makes his final journey back into the landscape that inspired so much of his best work. For Heaney was a poet formed out of the claggy clay of his home, not just an Irish poet, or a Belfast poet, but a mid-Ulster poet. In his work I recognise the expressions and above all the accent that I grew up with, its mix of the clumsy and the lyrical, ‘demesnes stalked out in consonants’, flooded by…

  • LAD.I.Y: Investigating gender imbalance in Northern Irish rock music

    September 2, 2013 - By 

    “Recently I had a sound engineer explain to me how to use a microphone. He told me he didn’t know how the girls on TV did it, but it wasn’t ‘the way they do it in the real world.’” Katie Richardson, Katie and the Carnival. I’ve been aware of a quiet phenomenon in the Belfast music scene for years, but it wasn’t until recently that the full picture was revealed to me. In my day job, I do PR and artist development for several local musicians. We were building a band around one of the artists and required a new…

  • Electric Picnic 2013: 10 must-see acts

    August 30, 2013 - By 

    Celebrating its tenth anniversary this very weekend, the organisers of Electric Picnic have, once again, pulled out all the stops to come up with a colourful line-up worth every penny (or indeed cent) of a weekend ticket. Despite Giorgio Moroder pulling out at the last minute, there is still a boundlessly diverse three-day showcase in store, headlining by Björk, Fatboy Slim and Arctic Monkeys. Running a fine comb through this year’s line-up, we have compiled a ten-track Spotify playlist featuring our must-see acts. If you’re bound for Stradbally Estate this weekend, do take note. See below for the acts (in no particular…

  • Death Of The Naturalist: Seamus Heaney (1939-2013)

    August 30, 2013 - By 

    How do you write words for the master? Is it possible to pay tribute in language to a man whose legacy is to have captured the very essence of our soul in words? Perhaps not, but for all the words that Seamus Heaney put to paper, it’s a safe bet that over ten times that will be written about him in the years to come. The Castledawson born poet has been hailed as the greatest Irish poet since William Butler Yeats, an iconic figure, sitting comfortably in a pantheon of great Irish voices alongside Beckett, Joyce, Behan, Shaw, Wilde, and…

  • REM: Maps and Legends – A Simple Case of Geography

    August 26, 2013 - By 

    The story is a sad one, told many times, the story of their life and trying times. As much as the musical climate of the times, REM are a product of geography, rooted in the landscape and traditions of the American South. In the same way that The Clash will always be intrinsically linked to London, The Doors to Los Angeles, or Joy Division to Manchester, REM could only have crawled from the South. Athens, Georgia is a college town. People come and go, some stay, some don’t. So it was back in 1980 when the four men that made…

  • Recap: Holy Ghost, Julia Holter, Cloud etc.

    August 25, 2013 - By 

    In the first installment of our weekly feature looking back at the best tracks that emerged the week previous, this week’s Recap features a lovely slew of swooning electronica, shady lo-fi pop and the latest, rather interesting metamorphosis of a noise-rock demigoddess (go on, take a guess). As always, we’re interested in what’s been catching your ear from the world of new music full-stop: inform us of your favourite things new-fangled and magnificent via newmusic@thethinair.net. In the meantime, there’s these… RY X – ‘Vampires’ The wonderfully spectral new single by Australian songsmith RY X, ‘Vampires’ is taken from his forthcoming Berlin…

  • Pre-murmurings: REM and Chronic Town

    August 22, 2013 - By 

    Some records become bigger than the music contained on them. The infamous Exile on Main St. sessions are more mythologised and discussed than the music they produced. Chinese Democracy will always be better remembered for its protracted development than for its songs. REM’s debut release, Chronic Town, brings its own baggage to the table: the birth of college-rock as we know it. The record that breathed new life into the electric guitar as a creative instrument in an era awash with New Wave synths. A reputation for being enigmatic and inscrutable, with secrets hidden in every groove. The stories surrounding…