• The Thin Air Lockdown Movie Lock-In: 100 Films of Solitude (Week 2)

    April 9, 2020 - By 

    Now trapped in the house, some of us have suddenly been granted that elusive free time that had previously prevented us from digging into that renowned auteur’s back catalogue, or watching that film that everyone you know was recommending you see, but you didn’t because of some stubborn, rebellious impulse. And yet, in spite of the fact that the mythical free time tree has now been proven real, we still find ourselves in the virtual equivalent of shuffling around Xtra-vision, browsing through the same half-dozen shelves of films, absolutely refusing to make a decision. Here’s your weekly nudge in the right…

  • A Problem Shared: How The Irish Music Community is Navigating Self-Isolation

    March 25, 2020 - By 

    A wise man once said, “The country’s cowped”. And you know what? He wasn’t wrong. But in strange, unprecedented times – in totally unchartered territory such as this – it doesn’t take long for the best of us to come together. Even now, as we’re all adapting to being cooped up in our own liminal little worlds, a sense of solidarity in numbers grows stronger by the day. For many of us self-isolating like it’s nobody’s business, the last week-and-a-bit has felt more than a little dream-like. And yet, loitering in the forefront of my mind, demanding to be heeded, is…

  • 10 for ’20: Rachael Lavelle

    March 10, 2020 - By 

    Jack Rudden predicts exciting things for Dublin’s Rachael Lavelle in 2020 and far beyond. Photo by Kevin Hennessy Gothic, bewitching and haunting, Rachael Lavelle is all of these things and many more. The Dublin musician is as multifaceted as she is enchanting. A competent songstress and interesting producer, Lavelle creates music that exists somewhere between Baroque compositions and ambient experimentations. She is the intersection of Bjork and Laurie Anderson. In Lavelle’s music there are countless layers of sonic peculiarities. Found sounds dissolve into oceans of ambient electronics, which are counterpointed by assertive piano lines and a strikingly idiosyncratic vocal tone. She…

  • Video premiere: Sunken Foal – Barley Stick

    March 10, 2020 - By 

    Dublin’s Sunken Foal will release his seventh album, Hexose, on April 24th. One of the most prolific producers in Ireland, the Countersunk label-founder and synthesist supreme – real name Dunk Murphy – follows 2019’s Ribbon Works and Le Doux Nord albums with a new 10-track collection of rich electronics inspired partially by “a lifelong infatuation with confectionery”. Every track on the album is named after some kind of sugar or dessert. Rich, generative melodies and syrupy atmospheres ooze all over the tracklist, while bubbling percussion keeps things energised. Throughout the album, comparisons to Laurie Spiegel, Cluster and Warp’s early bleep…

  • 10 for ’20: Grave Goods

    March 9, 2020 - By 

    In the latest installment of 10 for ’20 – our feature series previewing ten Irish acts we’re sure are set for great things in 2020 and beyond – Cathal McBride says 2020 is post-punk trio Grave Goods‘ for the taking. Photo by Moira Reilly It’s difficult enough to get a band off the ground when you all live in the same location, but what about when your three members are spread across three different cities, one of which is separated by water? Somehow Grave Goods have managed to make such impossible circumstances work. First conceived by Lois MacDonald and Sarah…

  • 10 for ’20: His Father’s Voice

    March 4, 2020 - By 

    In the latest installment of 10 for ’20, Christine Costello tips Limerick quartet His Father’s Voice for massive things in 2020 and beyond. Photo by Aaron Corr Blurring the lines between post-punk and shoegaze, His Father’s Voice are just one of many enterprising outfits to come out of DIY LK music collective. Since the release of their self-recorded EP Contexts and Perspectives in 2018, the group have met high critical acclaim, been awarded support slots with Viagra Boys and Cherry Glazerr on their Irish tours and will support Dream Wife at their upcoming Whelans show this May. In 2019, the band bounced…

  • Monday Mixtape: The Bonk

    March 2, 2020 - By 

    The Bonk recently released hypnotic garage psych-jazz single ‘May Feign‘. Spanning primitive computer music to postmodern art rock, frontman (and former O Emperor member) Philip Christie takes us through some recent key influences. “These are a few tunes that I have been coming back to over the last while. Turns out I haven’t made it past the late seventies. I am not with it.” Annette Peacock – I’m The One I came across Annette Peacock’s music two or three years ago and since then it has been something I’ve come back to over and over. There is a lovely playfulness in the…

  • 10 for ’20: Rising Damp

    February 28, 2020 - By 

    In the latest installment of 10 for ’20 – our feature looking at ten Irish acts we’re sure are set to do great things in 2020 and beyond – Eoin Murray profiles genre-warping musician and visual artist Michelle Doyle aka Rising Damp. Photo by Peter O’Hanlon One of the Irish undergrowth’s most febrile live acts, Rising Damp, makes music to be shook to. We first heard her at Banger Cliff, on the Sunday of Open Ear 2019, when she played an appropriately head-scrambling live set of ravey electronic punk and EBM. The Dublin artist’s effect-soaked howls and propulsive rhythms injected…

  • Preview: Borders

    February 27, 2020 - By 

    If you’ve caught only a fleeting second of the visuals accompanying the music of Borders, you’ll know that it carries with it a huge weight of visual import. Spanning symphonic ambience and widescreen electronica, the record – which scooped last year’s Northern Ireland Music Prize – was a remarkably filmic meeting of the minds from two of the country’s most innovative artists, Ryan Vail and Eoin O’Callaghan AKA Elma Orkestra. It checks out, then, that such a naturally scopic, wonderfully-wrought statement on belonging and the universal power of nature and our place within it would translate well to the documentary format.…

  • Monday Mixtape: Gender Chores

    February 24, 2020 - By 

    From Mitski and Kitt Philippa to Lucy Dacus and Maija Sofia, Belfast punk trio Gender Chores wax lyrical about some of their all-time favourite tracks. Photo by Chris McCann Kitt Philippa – ’68 2/4′ Sam: This is the closing track of Kitt’s incredible first album, and it’s my favourite one on there. It has a real steady, sure pulse that supports the refrain “Keep me going ’til the morning light”. Its gravitational pull allows the swirling arrangements of woodwind and piano to orbit out into the distance and then be gently guided back to the forefront which beautifully reinforces the…