• Premiere: The Mad Dalton – Skeleton Waltz

    April 27, 2020 - By 

    Belfast-based songwriter Peter GW Sumadh aka The Mad Dalton first appeared on our radar back in 2015, via the release of his ruminating, Americana-tinged debut EP The Little Belfry. Five years on, Sumadh’s craft has evolved to a point where harmonic savvy and incisive turns-of-phrase effortlesly take centre-stage. Having finished 2019 with gigs supporting both Malojian and Junior Brother, new ‘Skeleton Waltz’ arrives, fittingly, in surreal times. Recorded at Millbank Studios, this latest offering featuring Michael Mormecha on drums and artwork by renowned Belfast creative Andrew Train (Giraffe Stairs Tattoos), it follows cancellation of recording sessions and ahead of the…

  • Watch: Oisín ó Scolaí – Cardboard Cowboy

    April 24, 2020 - By 

    Belfast-based artist Oisín ó Scolaí plays a brand of folk-pop heavily imbued with cutting truths and subtle, burrowing melodies. With an added dash of kitchen sink surrealism, it’s something single ‘Cardboard Cowboy’ taps into and then some. One of a series of songs written whilst in lockdown in his childhood home of Rann na Feirste, Co. Donegal, the song is about arts and crafts written from the perspective of a cowboy fetishist’s wife. Sealing the deal is ó Scolaí’s homespun video for the release, which is out today.

  • Album Stream: Beach Comber – Parting Cuts

    April 24, 2020 - By 

    When he’s not globetrotting with North Coast instrumental titans And So I Watch You From Afar, Belfast-based musician Rory Friers is known to keep busy. From scoring film soundtracks to concocting first-rate electronic sound as Thrash Hat, the musician is as versatile as he is driven. Today, Friers marks a significant new chapter in his mottled sonic journey to date. A very personal project that was was never intended for release, Friers said that perspective gleaned from lockdown has encouraged him to let the album out into the world. A diversion from both face-searing instrumentalism and shapeshifting beats, Beach Comber…

  • EP Premiere: Naoise Roo – Sick Girlfriend

    April 23, 2020 - By 

    With singles drip-fed over the course of the last year, we’ve been patiently anticipating the extended follow-up to Naoise Roo‘s masterful debut album Lilith for some time now. Finally, with the cosmos’ on-brand sense of blackly comic timing very much in tact, the Sick Girlfriend EP is out tomorrow. A fully-formed statement that, across just four snapshots, embraces life in all its ugliness and challenges the accountable norms within the industry. Alongside producer Liam Mulvaney, bassist Daniel Fox & Rian Trench on drums & synth, she ably treads the line between emotionally-driven textural experimentation without forgoing her ability to create gargantuan introvert’s pop banger. Much like the subversive, zeitgeist-capturing album of 2020 in Fiona Apple’s Fetch…

  • Premiere: Acid Granny x Post-Punk Podge – Quack

    April 22, 2020 - By 

    If you’re in any way familiar with what ticks our boxes here at The Thin Air, you’ll know that we have a lot of time for Acid Granny and Post Punk Podge & The Technohippies. Equally representative of what’s downright world-beating about Irish music right now, they’re genre-warping, scene-distilling laws unto themselves. Which is why we’re extra pleased to be able to present a first look and listen to ‘Quack’, a fierce, new collab between Podge and the Dublin experimental trailblazers in question. Accompanied by easily one of the best Irish videos you’ll see all year – featuring Podge and none other than psychiatrist Jack Bluffy…

  • Premiere: Myles Manley – Aaa Episode 2:

    April 22, 2020 - By 

    When we launched The Thin Air back in 2013, Dublin-based artist Myles Manley was one of the first Irish artists that we shone a light on. In the seven years since, his shapeshifting, at times downright unpigeonholeable brand of pop has always delivered something that stops you in your tracks. Following last week’s opening installment, today we’re pleased to premiere the second of three videos in a new series by Manley. A collaboration by Seamus Hanly, Sebastian MacDermott and Conor O’Toole, the video features Myles suffering a bout of depression and seeking some counselling, following the rejection of MUSIC COOL .IE seen in…

  • Premiere: Bedrooms – Party Piece

    April 21, 2020 - By 

    Back in February, we flew the flag hard for Dublin quartet Bedrooms. Bearing the imprint of indie rock royalty including Dinosaur Jr, Galaxie 500, Guided by Voices and Pavement, we lauded their ability to bridge the gap between dream-pop and gazed-out indie via a straight-up slowcore sensibility. Recorded with Girl Band’s Daniel Fox in his Stoneybatter studio last November, new single ‘Party Piece’ delivers much of the same, the song conjures Dean Wareham stepping in on a stripped-back Cocteau Twins jam. “We sort of wrote this one backwards,” Devin from the band told us. “We had the second half of the song for a…

  • Bob Gallagher releases two short films made with Werner Herzog via Patreon

    April 17, 2020 - By 

    Bob Gallagher, the Irish video director who has made videos for Girl Band, Villagers and Myles Manley amongst others has started a Patreon page to share his documentary work. “So far it’s the two shorts that I made in Cuba but I’m still shooting and editing my way through quarantine so the plan is I’ll have a new short documentary each month,” Gallagher said. “I’m just making these for myself so I’m not limited to any specific brief other than finding interesting people and asking them to share a little glimpse into their lives. It’ll be a series of portrait films. At…

  • Stream: Dugout – Topsoil

    April 17, 2020 - By 

    It’s been a couple of years since we’ve heard from Belfast quartet Dugout. Making themselves heard in such a supersaturated indie scene, their carefully-crafted indie rock is equal parts fiercely melodic and masterfully economical. A sub-three minute, starry-eyed burst of stellar refrains and =W=-worthy twin guitar harmonies, new single ‘Topsoil’ is a welcome return penned and recorded over the last few weeks in lockdown. Fingers crossed for more of the same in the not-so-distant future. Topsoil by Dugout

  • Album stream: Alpha Chrome Yayo – 19th Hole

    April 17, 2020 - By 

    As prolific and idiosyncratic as they come, Belfast synthwave artist Alpha Chrome Yayo has spent the last couple of years exploring a whole heap of sonic terrain. Taking in After Dinner Cigar, Komorebi, Twirl, Choke, Grangeweird with fellow Belfast conspirator Danny Madigan and more, he’s long been a surefire bet for curveballing, genre-mutating, one-man retromancy. Which conveniently brings us to 19th Hole, ACY’s latest and arguably greatest LP to date. Across 15 tracks, the “virtual soundtrack to a golf-game that never was” promises (and fully delivers on) chillwave grooves, robot rap, crunchy chip and hot FM funk. As the main man succinctly put…