• Will Self

    May 3, 2013 - By 

    As much renown for his towering intellect and vocabulary as he is for his increasingly ambitious literary work, 51-year-old writer and journalist Will Self is, equally, widely recognised as “that clever guy from Question Time and/or Shooting Stars“. Ahead of his talk at this year’s Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival, Brian Coney happily risks becoming fully aware of his own intellectual impotency in discussing Self’s beloved London, the oft-misunderstood approach ‘psychogeography’ and the author’s latest, arguably most accomplished novel, the Man Booker Prize-nominated Umbrella. You have, of course, recently published Umbrella. At the risk if being too general, what type of…

  • Label Lessons: SST Records

    May 3, 2013 - By 

    The wonderful thing about a deplorable culture like that of the 1980s is that the counterculture is sure to be interesting; this brings us to SST Records, one of the landmark independent record labels filed away in the lower, yet equally storied recesses of popular music. Originally purposed as Solid State Transmitters – a small electronics business formed by a 12 year old soon-to-be founding member & guitarist of pioneering hardcore act Greg Ginn – SST Records opened for business in 1978 as a way for Ginn to release and distribute his own material with Black Flag, and shortly thereafter…

  • Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival 2013

    May 3, 2013 - By 

    Having gone from strength to strength over the last decade and a bit, Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival has all but cemented its reputation as the most versatile and wholly immersive arts festival in Northern Ireland, if not the whole island of Ireland. As it prepares once more to dominate Belfast night-life and enthrall thousands across ten days of lovingly-selected, boundlessly exciting music, art, comedy and everything in between, Brian Coney sits down with CQAF organiser from day one, Sean Kelly, to discuss what’s in store and how the country’s most loved annual arts festival came to be. ______ Hi Sean.…

  • In Focus: Sean Conroy

    May 3, 2013 - By 

    In the first of our weekly profile features on our current staff photographers, we bring you the work of Sean Conroy who is based on the Northside of Dublin. Working with the newly founded Revolver Project in Abbey Street’s Twisted Pepper, Sean specializes in portrait, fashion and event photography. He came third in the 2011 worldwide NME photography awards, won the HTC photojournalist competition in 2012 and self published a book on the independent Irish music scene. Ryan Tubridy heralded him as the ‘Future of Irish Photography’, We Are Scientists dubbed him ‘Not the worst photographer we’ve met, but possibly…

  • The Record #001: Jape

    May 3, 2013 - By 

    In the first of our regular The Record feature, photographer Ian Pearce captures Dublin electronic-rock Jape writing and recording in Malmö, Sweden in January and March of this year. We’re reliably informed that writing and recording process is still taking place and that as soon as it’s ready it will be released – in fact two albums could possibly sprout from the sessions. The studio is situated in what Pearce describes as “a sort of industrial estate near the central station in Malmö. You have to walk over a bridge to get to it. Pretty grim in the winter especially when…

  • Instatour: Squarehead

    May 3, 2013 - By 

    Squarehead do America! In the first of what will be a regular feature here on The Thin Air, we asked Roy, Ian and Ruan from the Dublin-based garage pop band to share their Instagram photos from their recent American tour, which saw them taking in NYC, Boston, Austin and oodles of cats and pizza. Our favourite image is of bassist Ian’s thoroughly awesome jacket, in which the band now refer to him as ‘The Day-Glo Cowboy’. Have a look for yourselves!

  • The Japanese Popstars

    May 3, 2013 - By 

    Irish electronic act The Japanese Popstars may not quite be household names yet, but they’re surely not far off. Having supported legendary electronic duo Orbital last year on their UK and European tour, Gary Curran and Gareth Donoghue were but adding to their list of admirers after they had recruited a host of high profile collaborators for 2011’s Controlling Your Allegiance, which included the likes of Jon Spencer and Robert Smith. As Donoghue goes on to explain, one of his biggest inspirations during his formative DJing years would come to be intimately involved with the release of the band’s upcoming…

  • Photo Essay: Austin Psych Fest

    May 3, 2013 - By 

    James Goulden, our eyes in Austin, captured the Psych Fest for your visual pleasure. Check out his fantastic photo essay on the event with highlights from Deap Vally (above), Warpaint and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club to mention a few!

  • The Tell Tale-Hearts: Desert Hearts

    May 3, 2013 - By 

    Seven years since they last released an album, Desert Hearts return, vision undimmed and armed with a magnificent new record. And, as Francis Jones discovers, the passing of time has not tamed them. I’m sitting downstairs in Voodoo bar in Belfast awaiting the arrival of Desert Hearts. I’m here to interview them about their new album, Enturbulation=No Challenge. The last – and only previous – time I interviewed this band was back in 2006, around the release of their second album, Hotsy Totsy Nagasaki. My memories of that evening are not altogether pleasant. Drummer Chris Heaney had recently departed the…

  • Classic Album: Boards of Canada – Music Has The Right To Children

    May 3, 2013 - By 

    Having finally announced Tomorrow’s Harvest – the follow up to 2005’s magnficent The Campfire Headphase – Steven Edward Rainey casts his mind’s eye back fifteen years to revisit Edinburgh duo Boards of Canada’s landmark 1998, Warp-released debut album Music Has The Right To Children. _____ Gazing out at us, stand seven figures. Two are turned away, whilst the remainder are directly facing us. Against a mountain background, this sexless group of adults and children pose for a photograph, immune to the effects of time or geography, their faces rubbed away to reveal a smooth, featureless surface, betraying nothing. In a realistic…