• Process of Becoming: An Interview With New Pagans

    February 28, 2023 - By 

    Ahead of playing Belfast alongside Extravision later this week, Lyndsey McDougall, lead vocalist of fast-rising Belfast five-piece New Pagans chats to Ciara Byrne about process, parenthood and pushing forward at the helm of one of the island’s most dynamic rock bands New Pagans and Extravision play Belfast’s Ulster Sports Club on Thursday, 2nd March. Go here to buy tickets Your wonderful new album Making Circles of Our Own brings to life the inner experiences of being a parent, and the juxtaposition of being a mother in particular while being in a band. What brought you to explore these themes through music? When we wrote…

  • The Lay of the Land: A Catch-Up With Landless

    January 24, 2023 - By 

    Ahead of their highly-anticipated headline slot at Letterkenny Trad Week this Friday (27th January) we chat to Landless about their upcoming second album, ten years of their world-beating unaccompanied traditional folk and the contemporary trad folk landscape of Ireland. Hi Landless. We last talked back in 2018, off the back of featuring you as our 18 for ’18 artists. Lockdown notwithstanding, you’ve covered some sizable ground in the in-between. Can you sum up how the last five years have been for you, collectively? Ruth Clinton: The last five years have been a blur of house moves, babies, study, work, and then of…

  • The Nyahh made me do it: an interview with Willie Stewart

    October 25, 2022 - By 

    This interview originally appeared in The Thin Air’s summer 2022 print edition It’s spring in Leitrim. The sky is full of birdsong, trees and plants are coming back to life, and Willie Stewart has been mixing cement. Alongside his partner, the sound artist Natalia Beylis, he’s converting his backyard and old stone outbuildings into what he describes as a “future habitat for creative explorations”.  The pair’s life revolves around these explorations, which they frequently let out into the world via shared and respective projects. Both are members of the experimental psych band Woven Skull, and have a wide array of…

  • Winnie’s Got a New Hobby: An Interview With Winnie Ama

    September 14, 2022 - By 

    Northern Irish-Ghanaian artist Winnie Ama grabs a chat with Josh Henry about the power of pastimes, performing for royalty and prioritising positive energy Words by Josh Henry Photos by Jane Donnelly “I feel like if you’re having a good time and things are going well, if there’s a crack in the door, get that door open and run through”. Winnie Ama is certainly out the blocks. The Belfast-born, Northern-Irish-Ghanaian artist’s brand of poppy electronica, combined with her own rich and distinctive voice, is seeing the light of day due to her penchant for hobbies like hula hooping. “Every year I…

  • Reigning Supreme: An Interview with Pillow Queens

    June 14, 2022 - By 

    Blue balls, deep fakes, and good clean fun with the flourishing Dublin indie rock quartet Words by Addison Paterson // Photos by Loreana Rushe Pillow Queens are still for a rare minute. The Dublin four-piece just got back from touring their second LP Leave The Light On in the US, and it’s a couple of weeks before they head to the UK. Then Europe, then festival season. It’s quite the change from the album launch they experienced with 2020’s In Waiting — a virtual listening party with fans, all sat in their respective kitchens. Nought to one hundred.  For now, they’re…

  • Worship the Grounds: A Chat with Imbibe

    May 1, 2022 - By 

    On their fourth birthday, Zara Hedderman talks ethics & community with Gary Grant, the music-obsessed driving force behind Dublin’s finest – and soundest – coffee roasters, Imbibe Get your fix via Imbibe.ie During the depths of the pandemic, a handful of my friends started a monthly virtual coffee and music club. On a Sunday morning, sometimes Saturday afternoon, the six members would discuss albums unfamiliar to everyone spanning the 1960s to 2010s whilst enjoying a specialty coffee, or two over Zoom. Before delving into the chosen records, everyone described what roast they were drinking; their brewing method and the flavour…

  • Wall of Sound: Marion Hawkes of Sound Advice

    April 7, 2022 - By 

    Belfast’s newest record store is far from your usual fare. With DJ Marion Hawkes at the helm, Sound Advice is helping set the pace for a city brimming with fresh possibility Photos by Darren Hill It’s only a few short years since Belfast was hit with a succession of independent record shop closures that left something of a wilderness unbefitting a city of its stature. Thankfully, with city centre joint Starr Records making strides, recovery has been swift. The latest store to open its doors is east Belfast’s Sound Advice, owned and run by Marion Hawkes, DJ and co-founder of…

  • Son of the Session: An Interview with John Francis Flynn

    April 7, 2022 - By 

    “There were people that shouldn’t know who I am coming to see me.” If there’s one thing you quickly learn when speaking to John Francis Flynn it’s that he’s not exactly prone to entitlement. Speaking over Zoom from his home in Dublin, the singer and multi-instrumentalist is reflecting on his recent debut UK headline tour. It was a run of 15 shows that, if a few glowing reports are anything to go by, were more than a bit special. Not that Flynn would tell you as much himself. “It was kind of mind-blowing,” he tells me. “After two years of…

  • The Art of Slowing Down: An Interview with FRMR

    November 16, 2021 - By 

    Last month, Northern Irish folk songwriter and poet Andrew Farmer aka FRMR unveiled one of the year’s finest LPs from these shores, Amelanchier. As well as offering a short piece on the making of the album, Farmer talks to us about songwriting, self-belief and the art of slowing down. Making The Record ‘Amelanchier’ by FRMR Amelanchier was recently launched into the world. But before we touch on the album, can you tell us a little bit about how you got to where you are as a songwriter today? In 2009 I took a year out to take part in a creative programme based…

  • Listening To Our Heads: An Interview With Cherym

    May 27, 2021 - By 

    CHERYM are on the precipice of a monumental Summer. Hannah, Nyree and Alannagh have been locked away in their Derry practice space, crafting the tracks that will make up their new EP, spearheaded by new single ‘Listening To My Head’. It’s a short, sharp guitar attack, as immediate and exhilarating as the drink their record label, Alcopop! takes its name from. Taylor Johnson caught up with the pop-punk trio just days after their new single dropped to talk resilience, Blink-182 and the fight for their signature. Listening to my Head by CHERYM Hi gang! Thanks so much for talking to us today. Somehow…