• MINDS Festival

    June 21, 2018 - By 

    On July 5, Belfast venues the Art Department, Blaklist and the Bear and The Doll will play host to MINDS, a ten-hour, one-day festival that will bring unite DJs, artists, musicians and fashion designers in the aim to raise money for local mental health charities. Festival founder Adam Magill has asked those involved to put forward their idas for charities to donate to, with one being PIPS (Public Initiative for Prevention of Suicide), due to the founders personal connection with them. With more to be announced, the DJ roster currently includes Bobby Analog, Jordan, Marion Hawkes and Phil Lucas of Twitch. Running from 6pm to 3am…

  • Open Ear Festival Announces Stage Times

    May 28, 2018 - By 

    One of the most unique and diverse festivals in Ireland, set in the beautiful off-coast sanctuary of Sherkin Island, Open Ear Festival holds its third annual outing from May 31-June 3, and times have just been announced. From avant-garde sound design and ambient music to experimental dance music and groovy electronics, it is a festival that champions the best of the best in the Irish undergrowth. As a festival of forward-thinking musical technologists, it’s nigh-on-peerless in Ireland right now. This year, the Thursday includes an opening concert featuring Dream Cycles, electroacoustic artist Roger Doyle and organist & drone artist Aine O’Dwyer in a hidden location on…

  • Primavera 2018 Preview: A Vibe Guide

    May 24, 2018 - By 

    Another year has come around and despite the weather we’ve been having, the growing thirst for a sunny escape is very much due a quenching. That perennial indicator of what’s both cool and good, Primavera Sound, has rolled around and with it comes that old safety net of acceptability over post-sunrise sleeping hours. We’ve kindly put together a little Spotify playlist of some of our favourites to accompany your preparation. (Heads up – those record stalls can hold onto your purchases until you’re leaving) Thanks to First Contact Music, this year will see five deserving independent Irish acts on the Day Pro…

  • Celtronic 2018

    April 19, 2018 - By 

    Ireland’s leading electronic music festival returns for its eighteenth year across Derry. Celtronic runs from June 27-July 1, featuring concerts, film screenings, workshops, seminars, recording projects and more. Headlining musical proceedings is the iconic veteran Roman Flügel, Steve Bug, Gerd Janson closes events, techno artist DVS1, noisician Paula Temple, Avalon Emerson. Local names include OR:LA, The Cyclist, Ryan Vail and Darren Allen. One of the highlights is sure to be the premiere of new music from Phil Kieran and three local musicians, recorded at Celtronic Studios and performed by the Ulster Orchestra. Priced £59.88 including booking fee, tickets are available to buy…

  • Plain Living & High Thinking: An Interview With Belfast’s Latest Promotion

    January 8, 2018 - By 

    If you’ve been keeping track of the Belfast live music scene lately, you might have noticed – despite well-intentioned pockets and open-minded promoters – that it’s somewhat fractured and currently lacking the infrastructure to cultivate a strong grassroots music community beyond those looked after by management and the likes. Two bands who have organically harnessed their substantial following in a very short space of time are the groove-strewn, endlessly soulful jam trio Electric Octopus – having toured the UK, look to extensively traipse across Europe in Spring following the release of their latest album – and stoner-doom outfit Elder Druid, who released…

  • Forbidden Fruit Festival 2018

    November 20, 2017 - By 

    The June Bank Holiday weekend returns, and with it comes Bulmers Forbidden Fruit Festival, which runs from Saturday, June 2 until Monday, June 4. Amongst the first wave of indie-heavy announcements are Monday headliners, mellowed-out stadium-fillers The War On Drugs. This follows the release of their latest album, A Deeper Understanding. Sharing the bill on Monday are Grizzly Bear – just off the back of 2 tremendously well-received sold-out dates at Vicar Street – Warpaint, Thundercat, Spoon and Superorganism. Stay tuned for more announcements. Tickets for 1, 2 & 3 days are available from Ticketmaster, priced from €64.50, €109 & €162.50 respectively.

  • Preview: Atlantic Sessions 2017

    October 23, 2017 - By 

    Atlantic Sessions returns across November 16-19 with over 60 acts performing in Portstewart, Portrush  and Portballintrae. If 2016 is anything to go by this will be a glorious return. Flogging a festival is hard work, ask anyone daft enough to think they can get away with it. There is a collection of calamities for every Castlepalooza, a box of bankruptcies for every Belsonic and many a chain-smoking, sweary booker languishing in a post-summer lull promising to never, ever, do it again. Let’s face it: there is no shortage of the things as any regular reader of The Thin Air probably knows. Given…

  • I.NY Festival 2017

    October 4, 2017 - By 

    We have no shortage of boundlessly inviting festivals right on our doorstep, but some go that little bit further by excavating the long-standing cultural trends and bonds that ensure Ireland’s creative standing on the world stage remains unique. A festival that celebrates “the relationship between Ireland and New York, one story at a time” I.NY is a perfect case in point. Set to take place at a number of venues in Limerick City across October 5-15, this year’s outing will delve into and highlight the strong ties between the NYC and Ireland, inviting a range of creatives – artists, writers, musicians, educators, entrepreneurs and more…

  • Dublin Art Book Fair: Art and Architecture – Interwoven

    October 4, 2017 - By 

    With its themes of art and architecture, this year’s Henry J Lyons-sponsored Dublin Art Book Fair will take place at Dublin’s Temple Bar Gallery and Studios, with other events at the Irish Architecture Foundation, Tenement Museum and the National Gallery of Ireland, across November 23-26. Bridging the distinct realms of art and architecture in order to engage diverse audiences, a curated programme of talks, tours, workshops, an artist commission and a film screening will traverse contemporary art, architecture, books, design, film, the city and its material histories. Launched at 6pm on Thursday, November 23, highlights of this year’s fair include a…

  • Dublin Feminist Film Festival 2017

    September 11, 2017 - By 

    Returning for its fourth outing, Dublin Feminist Film Festival is a volunteer-run, non-profit event that will take over The New Theatre in Dubin’s Temple Bar across November 16-18. With its central aim of helping counteract the mis/under-representation of women in film, the theme for this year’s festival is “FeministFutures”. Organisers said, “Our programme this year will foreground topics such as: science, the avant-garde, technology and the digital world, contemporary feminist issues and movements, sci-fi, occult, modernity, dystopia, utopia, the future female, aspirations, visionary a/v, globalisation. This blurb is purposefully broad, and not exhaustive. But we have given ourselves the challenge…