• The Thin Air’s Top 100 Irish Releases of 2022

    December 28, 2022 - By 

    As we rapidly approach our 10th birthday in May, it’s safe to say we’ve never been as assured of the game-changing depth and breadth of independent music on these shores. Granted, it could well be a hallucination caused by the sway of the ever-present now, but has it truly ever been better? Spending time with the following albums, EPs & compilations, spanning every sub-genre under the winter sun, we would need some persuading. Your move, 2023. Revisit our Top 100 Irish Tracks of 2022 100. Peng Weng – Six Of The Best Of The Worst Of Peng Weng Six Of…

  • Track Record: Robbie Stickland

    December 22, 2022 - By 

    In this installment of Track Record, Robbie Stickland selects the records that have left a lasting impression on his life from Angel Olsen to Big Star. Photos by Kate Lawlor. Angel Olsen- My Woman It was late 2016, I had just suffered what can only be described as an epic heartbreak. As I walked through this new maelstrom thrusted upon me, this album descended from the heavens, put its hand on my shoulder, looked me in the eye and said “I know.” Angel Olsen is a master of hard truths via delicate expression and this record best showcases that. I…

  • The Thin Air’s Top 100 Irish Tracks of 2022

    December 22, 2022 - By 

    “We’re excessively confident we’re set for another year of genre-spanning, forward-pushing greatness.” It feels like an actual aeon since we signed off our Top 100 Irish Tracks of 2021 feature this time last year. Over the last 12 months, we’ve been positively inundated with sounds that fit that description and then some. The ever-arbitrary designation of 100 – as opposed to, say, 250 or 300 tracks – has felt near impossible to adhere to, but we’ve found it has once again served its purpose. Without that curious limitation, we’d be in the even more frustrating position of having to dump hundreds of streaming embeds below and…

  • Irish Tracks of the Week – 2nd December

    December 2, 2022 - By 

    On this, the final Bandcamp Friday of 2022, delve into the very best Irish releases of the week from Extravision, Krea, Two Nice Catholic Boys, Thumper and more Extravision – Land of a Thousand Unwelcome Advances Land of a Thousand Unwelcome Advances by Extravision Krea – Last Day Of The Year Two Nice Catholic Boys – Seconds Seconds by Two Nice Catholic Boys Hatchet Field – Beneath The Black Mountain Beneath The Black Mountain by Hatchet Field Thumper – Summer Assault Stef and the Sleveens – Give My Regards To The Dancing Girls Moving Statues – You Look Like You’ve…

  • Track by Track: Moving Statues

    December 1, 2022 - By 

    With the release of their debut album, You Look Like You’ve Seen A Ghost, Galway natives Brian Kelly (So Cow) and Keith Wallace (Loner Deluxe) aka Moving Statues provide a track-by-track breakdown of the process behind each song. You Look Like You’ve Seen a Ghost by Moving Statues RUN OUT Brian: It begins. The bass in the chorus is what I think New Order sound like, but I don’t know much New Order beyond Blue Monday and the video where there’s two fellas sitting in bins giving each other slaps. Maybe that’s the way to go, being influenced by something you’re…

  • Track Record: Alanah Smith (Problem Patterns)

    December 1, 2022 - By 

    Alanah Smith from Belfast-based feminist queerpunks Problem Patterns selects the albums that left a huge impression on her life from Bikini Kill to Charly Bliss. Photos by Jane Donnelly. Dark Times – Give Dark Times are a band who reinvigorated my love for punk, and more specifically, made me want to try my hand at it properly again. I’m fairly certain I’ve put them on every single list when anyone asks me about influences for Problem Patterns. I found their song, ‘Girl Hate’ years ago, which just blew my mind when I first heard it. It was just a chaotic…

  • The Mandlebrot Set

    November 29, 2022 - By 

    You know that equation in Fractal Mathematics, The Mandlebrot Set? When a formula is applied, an organic form that looks a bit like a cockroach repeats itself into infinity? Male comics in Ireland today. How these sentient Reddit threads stop masturbating over Meme Stocks long enough to sell out shows at the SSE Arena, is beyond me. The Positive Spide was probably my favourite male comic from Belfast. He would get in his car and shout out the window to people in a working-class, aggressive Belfast accent things like – “What’s for ye won’t go by ye!!” “If you’re feeling…

  • Tour Diary: Leigh Arthur on Spilt Milk Festival 2022

    November 25, 2022 - By 

    Extravision member, photographer and ddr. resident Leigh Arthur reports back from Day One of this year’s Spilt Milk festival in Sligo I stood a Johnny Ramone stance around a pile of drum breakables, guitar cases and overnight bags, as Seán Goucher of the Number Ones pointed over to a shelf in the newsagents of Connolly Station. “There’s Jen Connell”. The former Cave Ghosts singer was not stocking up on train snacks to come with us, but instead was being celebrated on the cover of House and Home magazine. I remember seeing Cave Ghosts in The Stag’s Head years ago with…

  • Irish Tracks of the Week – 25th November

    November 25, 2022 - By 

    Aoife Wolf – The Wetlands EP Alpha Chrome Yayo – Tom Waits is There Tom Waits Is There by Alpha Chrome Yayo Meltybrains? – Space Ghetto Celica – Celica EP 02 Celica EP 02 by Celica AOIBHA – When You Hold Her Christian Cohle – Strength Constant Supply – I Keep Hitting Every Wall, Baby Lobotomy by Constant Supply I Have a Tribe – Teddy’s Song Driven Snow – Flickers of You Willzee – Eclipse   Photo credit: Aaron Cunningham

  • Monday Mixtape: M Stevens & The Ghasts

    November 21, 2022 - By 

    Popical Island founder and M Stevens & The Ghasts main man Mike Stevens reveals some of his all-time favourite songs, from Silver Jews and Weyes Blood, to Wilco and Lankum Birds by M Stevens & The Ghasts Brigid Mae Power – ‘Mother in the Sky’ At the end of a recent gig of hers in the Bello Bar, I said to an embarrassed Brigid Mae Power that it was maybe the best gig I had ever seen. In the cold light of the next morning, I cringed not a bit, realising it wasn’t just the drink talking, that it was…