• Gilla Band Announce Dublin and Belfast Shows

    March 28, 2022 - By 

    Gilla Band have announced new dates for Dublin and Belfast. Having changed their name from Girl Band in November last year, the Dara Kiely-fronted Dublin quartet will play their biggest Irish headline shows to date at Dublin’s National Stadium on 9th December and the Empire in Belfast on 15th December. Tickets for both shows go on sale this Friday, 1st April at 9am. It’s been seven years since Gilla Band headlined shows in Belfast, both of which were hosted by The Thin Air. Revisit those here and here.

  • Output Belfast Set For Return

    March 22, 2022 - By 

    Details of the return of Output Belfast have been announced. After a two-year break due to you-know-what, Ireland’s largest one-day music conference and showcasing event will return to various venues across Belfast on Thursday, April 21st. As ever, as well as various talks and panels in the MAC and Oh Yeah Centre throughout the morning and afternoon, this year’s outing will also feature a music trail-like evening of free gigs across the city’s Cathedral Quarter. Line-ups and schedules for those will be announced soon. This year’s Keynote speakers and topics are: ‘Catch 22 – What the music industry needs to do, do better…

  • Premiere: Jake Wallace – Sanguine feat. Clare Kearney

    March 25, 2022 - By 

    Released last June, Lacuna by Jake Wallace marked an inspired solo break from the pure-cut heft of his work with doom/sludge outfit Elder Druid. On 1st April, the Belfast musician doubles down on the five-track EP’s deft, contemplative explorations with the release of his debut solo album, Lustre of the Dark. Featuring seven new tracks alongside remastered versions of Lacuna, it traverses, in Wallace’s words, themes of self-discovery, isolation and the balance between light and dark. Lead single ‘Sanguine’ features one of the album’s two guest vocal appearances. Above a phantasmal weave of cyclical piano and guitar patterns, Clare Kearney…

  • Irish Tracks of the Week – 18th March

    March 18, 2022 - By 

    Here’s the very best music released across the island this week, featuring Problem Patterns, Melts, Sprints, ZOiD, Mob Wife and more Problem Patterns – Y.A.W. Mob Wife – Cutting Teeth on Suburban Curbs Cutting Teeth on Suburban Curbs by Mob Wife Melts – Waltzer Sprints – Delia Smith Myles McCormack – Comfort Zone Daire Heffernan – Skeletons the ghost tapes – barely holding on Dee Fitz – Lucky Lover ​​ A Smyth – Long Night ZOiD – Looking In The Rain

  • Irish Tracks of the Week – 11th March

    March 11, 2022 - By 

    Here’s our round-up of the best Irish music to drop in the past seven days, featuring Pillow Queens, Sprints, Kynsy, Deaf Joe, Naoise Roo, THUMPER, April, Fears, Beauty Sleep & more Kynsy – New Year Pillow Queens – No Good Woman Deaf Joe – Kalachuchi Kalachuchi by Deaf Joe Naoise Roo – Whore (John Agnello Remix) THUMPER – Fear of Art April – Pressure Nine Raths – EP1 EP1 by Nine Raths Beauty Sleep – I Love It Here I Hate It I Love It Here I Hate It by Beauty Sleep Fears – 16 Sprints – A Modern Job…

  • Line-Up Announced For Electric Picnic 2022

    March 10, 2022 - By 

    The line-up for this year’s Electric Picnic has been revealed. Marking its return to Stradbally Estate in Co. Laois after three years, this year’s bill features headliners including Tame Impala, Arctic Monkeys and Megan Thee Stallion, as well as Pixies, Sleaford Mods, Bright Eyes, Wolf Alice and more. There’s a raft of Irish acts in there too, from CMAT, Kojaque and Just Mustard, to Denise Chaila, For Those I Love and Saint Sister.With more acts set to be announced in the coming weeks, check out the full first line-up announcement below. Tickets for this year’s festival go on sale at 9am…

  • SoFFT Nights Reveal 2022 Line-Up

    March 7, 2022 - By 

    Lisa O’Neill and Tolü Makay are among the names set to play this year’s SoFFT Nights. Making its return to Dunderry Park in Co. Meath across 4-5th June, the festival will also play host to Elaine Mai (with MayKay and Sinead White), Pastiche, Moxie, Kíla, and Séan Fitzgerald with Lankum’s Daragh Lynch across the weekend. Beyond live music, there will also be activities including astronomy talks, bat walks, shamanic journeying, reggae yoga, sound baths, active imagination workshops, music for young children, and site-specific theatre. “We put on the very first festival in the midst of covid in October 2020 and over the course of…

  • For Those I Love Wins Choice Music Prize

    March 4, 2022 - By 

    For Those I Love, aka David Balfe, has won this year’s RTÉ Choice Music Prize. Off the back of performing three tracks at the event, which was held live at Dublin’s Vicar Street, Balfe scooped the prize for his self-titled 2021 LP. The Dubliner walked away with the prize – which was presented in association with IMRO and IRMA – as well as €10,000. Balfe beat off stiff competition in this year’s shortlist, which also featured the likes of Villagers, Bicep, Kojague, Saint Sister, Elaine Mai and more. Revisit For Those I Love in full below.

  • Video Premiere: Wild Rocket – Formless Abyss

    March 3, 2022 - By 

    Few bands do obliterating quite as convincingly as Wild Rocket. On releases such as 2017’s Disassociation Mechanics, the Dublin space rock band wed masterful repetition with a slew of bludgeoning riffs to lethal effect. The title track from the band’s imminent new release, ‘Formless Abyss’ takes that unfuckwithable ratio and ups the ante a hundredfold. Across the perfect eternity of ten minutes, the band unshackle one almighty beast that’s equal parts trouncing and – as it crests, a bokeh shot of face-searing sludge – supremely acid-soaked. Big words, yes, but this is a big fucking song. Watch Rian Trench’s aptly tripped-out visuals for the track below. Featuring contributions by Colin Mifsud, Tommy O’Sullivan…

  • Watch: Comrade Hat – From Lost To The River (feat. Inishowen Gospel Choir)

    March 2, 2022 - By 

    Ahead of his first Belfast show in over 3 years for Brilliant Corners Jazz Festival this Friday, 4th March at the Black Box Green Room – and another on the 11th – staple of the Northern jazz scene Neil Burns, aka Comrade Hat is back with his definitive artistic statement to date in ‘From Lost To The River’, the first single taken from his forthcoming album, Old Gods, Vol. 2, the follow up to last year’s Vol. 1. Without straying from the oneiric yearning that’s been threaded through his work so far, the single truly levels up his practice. Starting out with a locked, deep-pocket…