• 21 (Pretty Much Random) Picks For The Belfast Film Festival

    March 29, 2017 - By 

    Time to hunt out your best pair of sitting-down trousers. The 17th Belfast Film Festival kicks off his week, running from Thursday 30th March to Sunday 9th April, boasting a packed programme of new cinema, both local and international, as well as special guests, live events, short films and classic screenings. There’s a lot going on, and any preview is going to be piece-meal. Ultimately, most of the fun will be encountering something totally unexpected once the lights go down. We’ve picked out a handful of screenings and events but encourage you to browse the full programme on their website. Here at The Thin Air we…

  • Interview: Paying Tribute to The Sad and Beautiful World of Sparklehorse

    March 27, 2017 - By 

    On Saturday, April 8 we will co-host a special, two-part event at The MAC as part of Belfast Film Festival celebrating the life and music of the sadly-missed Mark Linkous AKA Sparklehorse. Following a screening of Alex Crowton and Bobby Dass’ new documentary ‘The Sad & Beautiful World of Sparklehorse’, the evening will also feature a Q+A with the filmmakers, as well as a live, one-hour performance ‘A Night of Sparklehorse’ with Tom McShane, Peter Sumadh AKA The Mad Dalton, Richard Davis AKA Heliopause, Pixie Saytar, Jake Lennox and Brian Coney. Ahead of the one-off event, we chat with the organisers and…

  • SXSW 2017 Report

    March 24, 2017 - By 

    Split between fresh-faced and full of expectation to back home and a little jet-lagged, Irish acts Robocobra Quartet, A.S. Fanning, Jealous of the Birds, Ryan Vail, Ciaran Lavery and Birds of Olympus report back from this year’s South by Southwest in Austin, Texas. Chris Ryan (Robocobra Quartet) SXSW: The Land of 2000 Line-Checks I really like watching bands line-check. A line-check is like an extremely stunted sound-check. At festivals there’s literally no time other than 15 minutes before your set for you to plug in and hope everything sounds alright. Watching a band line-check is a true insight to the human condition;…

  • Playlist: World Poetry Day 2017

    March 21, 2017 - By 

    To mark this year’s World Poetry Day we’ve compiled thirteen songs from the likes of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, The Cure, James Blake (above) and Talking Heads directly inspired by poetry. Check out the playlist and accompanying poems/poets below. 1. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – Red Right Hand (Paradise Lost by Milton) 2. The Cure – How Beautiful You Are (The Eyes of the Poor by Baudelaire) 3. Talking Heads – I Zimbra (Gadji Beri Bimba by Hugo Ball) 4. Joni Mitchell – If (If by Rudyard Kipling) 5. Lana Del Rey – Body Electric (I Sing The Body Electric by…

  • Europe. Endless? 40 Years of Kraftwerk’s Trans-Europe Express

    March 20, 2017 - By 

    “At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless; Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is, But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity, Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards, Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point, There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.” -TS Eliot  Nothing gave life to the potential of a common European consciousness, if you let me away with that word, quite like the neurons of railway lines that lie across its…

  • Q+A: Dublin’s White Collar Boy on SPECTRUM & Debut LP Permanent Haze

    March 9, 2017 - By 

    Set to play their first live show of 2017 at new-fangled Dublin festival SPECTRUM on Saturday, “post-nothing” duo White Collar Boy talk to Brian Coney about progression, their forthcoming new album and the importance of festivals like SPECTRUM. Go here to buy Full Weekend Tickets to SPECTRUM or here to buy Tickets to the White Collar Boy gig. Your debut album, Permanent Haze, is set for release later this year. How was the writing process for the release? Most of the tracks on the record have been kicking around for the past few years and slowly developed into more finished cuts at our space…

  • Guiding The Way: An Interview with Russian Circles

    March 9, 2017 - By 

    Ahead of shows at Dublin’s Whelan’s on Wednesday, March 22 and Belfast’s Empire Music Hall the following night, Will Murphy speaks to Brian Cook, bassist with Chicago instrumental masters Russian Circles about touring, politics, their latest album, the ideal audience, the craft of songwriting and more. Hi, Brian. How’s the road been treating you? The next few months look pretty exciting in terms of venues and nations, is there anywhere that you’re all particularly looking forward to? What will you be listening to stave off the monotony of touring? Touring has been good. We took care of our headlining U.S. dates…

  • Playlist: Strike 4 REPEAL

    March 7, 2017 - By 

    Tomorrow – Wednesday, March  8 – The Thin Air staff will be participating in Strike 4 Repeal so we shall refrain from posting and sharing content in solidarity with the Repeal the 8th movement. As the strike also coincides with International Women’s Day, to mark the occasion we have compiled a 100 track, 6-and-a-half-hour playlist celebrating the many incredibly talent female performers our island has to offer from Lisa Hannigan, Heathers, Hvmmingbird, Saint Sister, Roisin Murphy, ELLLL, Naoise Roo, Die Hexen and BARQ to Aoife Underwater, LYRA, Nina Hynes, September Girls, Jealous of the Birds, DOTT, Sleep Thieves, EVVOL, Wounded Healer,…

  • Playlist: Choice Music Prize 2017

    March 7, 2017 - By 

    On Thursday evening, the 12th annual award will once again celebrate and acknowledge the best in Irish recorded music, with one winning act walking away with €10,000 on the night. Set to be chosen by a panel of twelve Irish music media professionals and industry experts, the following ten releases will vie for the prize: All Tvvins – IIVV (Warner Music) Bantum – Move (Self Released) Wallis Bird – Home (Mount Silver/Caroline International) The Divine Comedy – Foreverland (Divine Comedy Records) Lisa Hannigan – At Swim (Hoop Recordings) Katie Kim – Salt (Art For Blind Records) James Vincent McMorrow –…

  • Ain’t No Pity In The Mega-City: 40 Years of Judge Dredd

    March 6, 2017 - By 

    The war to end all wars. Senseless carnage on a scale unimagined. The East-Coast of what used to be the United States lies in ruins, occupied by foreign invaders. In the wastelands of the former Soviet Russia, a group of elite operatives infiltrate a nuclear bunker. Aiming the missiles at their enemies’ capital, a captive pleads for mercy. “Judge Dredd – don’t do it! There are half a billion people in my city – half a billion human beings! You can’t just wipe them out with the push of a button!” Dredd stares at the control panel, battered, bruised, but…