• The Thin Air’s Top 100 Irish Tracks of 2013 (50-35)

    With 2014 fast approaching, we’re very itchy underfoot to wrap up our countdown of our top 100 Irish songs of 2013. A veritable wealth of great music of practically every shade of genre featured in the first and second installments of the list and we very much continue on that trend on from tracks #50 to #35. Check back next week for tracks #34 to #1 and have a very merry festive period from us in the meantime! 50. Linebacker Dirge – Words Are Missing Fronted by Jason Gibson, Belfast-based alt-rock quartet Linebacker Dirge are comprised of members of bands including…

  • Trains and Music: From Hank Williams to Afrika Bambaataa

    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…

  • Track-by-track preview: Ed Zealous – Wired

    In advance of its release on February 3, we have the honour to bestow upon your lovely eyes a track-by-track preview of Wired, the momentously-anticipated debut album by Belfast-based indie/electro-pop quartet Ed Zealous. Having released ‘Thanks A Million’, ‘Telepaths’ and ‘Medicines’ from the ten-track release, over the last couple of years the band have given us a steady taste of what their full-length debut album has in store. Let’s just say: if you enjoyed any of the aforementioned singles to date, there’s a very good chance Wired will leave you intent upon an immediate second listen. Check out the artwork and our track-by-track preview…

  • The Thin Air’s Top 100 Irish Tracks of 2013 (74-51)

    Love, hate or merely tolerate them, end of year lists come in all different shapes and sizes. From the finest EPs of the last twelve months to the most questionably-named bands to emerge throughout the year, there is currently no shortage of lists and countdowns around to remind us of what went down in the world of music, both international and much closer to home, in 2013. This is our humble little offering – the Top 100 Irish Tracks of 2013. Feel free to go here to check out the first installment of the countdown, featuring tracks 100-75. 74. The…

  • Interview: A Fight You Can’t Win

    Four months on from their most recent breathtaking performance in Belfast, Edinburgh alt-rock four-piece A Fight You Can’t Win return to Voodoo this weekend to plays alongside Hornets and riffmasters general LaFaro. Having just released the brilliantly accomplished video for their latest single ‘Jerusalem Crickets’, we talk to the band about its creation, the obstacles they face performing in their own city and what the next few months hold in store for the band. Hi guys. You’ve just unveiled the ridiculously impressive video for your new single, ‘Jerusalem Crickets’. Firstly, how did the idea for the video come about? Thank you!…

  • Interview: Katie Richardson on HATCH! @ The Mac

    Not content playing as part of Katie and the Carnival, Salt Flats and in various other collaborative musical endeavours, Belfast-based musician, singer and musical director Katie Richardson is the epitome of a tireless, committed and boundlessly passionate artist. From December 4 right up until January 4 (and many weeks in advance in preparation) her current creative occupation is composer and musical director of HATCH! Adventures of the Ugly Duck at The Mac, Belfast. With the production having already smitten hundreds of attendees and several critics, we speak to Katie about the ins and outs of the biggest production she’s been…

  • The Thin Air’s Top 100 Irish Tracks of 2013 (100-75)

    It’s that time of year again: End Of Year” lists are steadily rolling in from every conceivable direction, many of us are still debating the BBC Sound of… verdict for next year and we’re all silently pondering our own favourite albums and EPs of the last twelve months. Closer to home, it’s been yet another ridiculously impressive year for Irish music, both North and South. Since January 1, right up until the writing of this article (December 10), a single week hasn’t gone by that wasn’t soundtracked in some way by the very best in new, homegrown music. As such –…

  • The First Time: Steven McCool (Little Bear)

    In the latest installment of The First Time, we ask Steven McCool from Derry band Little Bear to divulge the “firsts” of his music listening, loving and making life. Thanks, as ever, to the upstanding and excruciatingly talented Joe Laverty for the wonderful accompanying portrait photo of Steven. Nice, isn’t it? Check out more of Joe’s photography right here. First album you bought? Excluding the dodgy rave tapes that I bought from the local market, I think it might have been Radiohead – Pablo Honey, and/or Gomez – Bring It On.   First single you bought? The Hed Boys – ‘Girls…

  • The End of an Era? How a Generation Got Beat Pt. 2

    Over the years, ATP has become a watchword for a certain kind of classicism, an “accepted history” of what ‘good’ music is over the last 30 years. In this version of events, punk is good, rock is largely bad, unless it doesn’t take itself seriously, although “new” metal is ok. Electronica is generally given a by ball. Bands like Mission of Burma, Yo La Tengo (below), and The Flaming Lips are regarded as in the same way Mojo readers regard The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and Eric Clapton, and many of the younger people there are aware they’re seeing something…

  • The End of an Era? How a Generation Got Beat Pt. 1

    I looked down at my wrist. I held the scissors in my other hand, almost trembling with excitement. Or was it fear? I couldn’t say. Closing my eyes, I felt the pressure in my fingers, and heard the gentle sound of metal slicing through ribbon. After three years of wearing my ATP 2011 wristband, I removed it, like a surgeon operating on a tumour. I still hadn’t slept properly since The End of an Era Part 1, the first half of the festival’s great farewell, but the magic had been broken. If this was the end, then it was a…