• Exploding Eyes – Exploding Eyes

    January 16, 2017 - By 

    With an eye cast to longer days, warmer weather, and the promise of a new year, the self-titled debut LP from Dublin’s gritty blues- rock trio Exploding Eyes greets you with a welcoming invitation to something a little less serious and a lot more fun. The album is scattered with callbacks to some of the more classic and legendary rock outfits from the golden age of blues pop culture, such as Cream, Janis Joplin, and even some Lynyrd Skynyrd in some of their softer tracks. Opening up the album in stellar form is the single ‘We Need Love’ – a track…

  • Half Japanese – Hear The Lions Roar

    January 13, 2017 - By 

    You know when you’re at a party, enjoying a group conversation and a member of your gaggle makes a private joke, the meaning behind you’re not privy to? It creates this terribly awkward and uncomfortable feeling as you’re left wondering what is so funny. From context and reaction, you can infer that something enjoyable, or at the very least interesting has occurred, but you’re completely at a loss as to what that is or what it even could be. Half Japanese is the musical equivalent of that sensation. Within their repertoire, you can hear the stylistic hints from the likes…

  • The XX – I See You

    January 13, 2017 - By 

    The XX are a band that harness negative space within music to create an atmosphere so chillingly retrospective that in most cases it need only be listened to underneath moonlight. The trio slid anxiously into the industry with their debut, XX, an album that, unbeknownst to them, would become an international success. The suave blend of spacious indie-electronic beats provided by Jamie (xx) Smith and the minimal vocals of Romy Madley Croft and Oliver Sim proved them to be the perfect vessel for conveying the vernacular of heartbreak and loss. Following this was 2012’s Coexist, an even more stripped back, sparsely…

  • The Thin Air’s Top 100 Irish Tracks of 2016 (#49-1)

    December 22, 2016 - By 

    Well, there we have it: twelve months, innumerable tracks, and – despite the mild trauma it has incurred having to do it all over again – our top 100 Irish tracks of the year. It wasn’t easy but we got there, y’know? Go here for #100-75 and here for #74-50. Your move, 2017. 49. Roisin Murphy – Ten Miles High 48. Ships – Around This World 47. Jealous of the Birds – Tonight I Feel Like Kafka 46. R51 – Elephant 45. Hiva Oa – Seskinore mk ll (part 1) by Hiva Oa 44. Galants – Evergreen 43. Saint Sister…

  • The Thin Air and Moving On Music present: Damo Suzuki (CAN) with Blue Whale and Robocobra Quartet

    December 9, 2016 - By 

    Presented by The Thin Air and Moving On Music, the legendary Damo Suzuki, vocalist of pioneering Krautrock group CAN, will return to Belfast for a fully improvised show with experimental rock maestros Blue Whale, and Californian improviser, sound artist, inventor and writer, Paul Stapleton. Support on the night comes from one of the country’s very best bands, Robocobra Quartet. This is set to be an unmissable event for anyone with even a passing interest in experimental and improvised music. Featuring “an assembly of sound carriers to communicate with each other and the audience”, Damo Suzuki has performed as ‘Damo Suzuki’s…

  • Video Premiere: Son of the Hound – I.O.U.

    November 22, 2016 - By 

    Not an artist to get too comfortable in one guise, Belfast-based musician Michael McCullagh AKA Son Of The Hound resurfaced back in August with quite possibly the darn catchiest song we’ve heard from an Irish artist this year, ‘I.O.U’. Something of a curveball when compared with the Omagh artist’s previous, more trad and folk-leaning output to date, its 50s swagger and twang revealed yet another colour on McCullagh’s wonderfully varied sonic palette. Whether you missed it the first time around or fancy a fresh listen, check out the single via Colm Laverty’s brand new video for the track – culminating in…

  • A Tribe Called Quest – We Got It From Here, Thank You 4 Your Service

    November 18, 2016 - By 

    While Bowie’s Blackstar is no doubt the most important musical epilogue of 2016, A Tribe Called Quest’s final chapter, featuring the sadly departed Phife Dawg, is a minor triumph in itself. The group have a legacy in hip-hop like few others: their one-two of landmark records, 1991’s The Low End Theory and 1993’s Midnight Marauders, are as close to perfection as the genre gets. Arriving when rap was dominated by Dr Dre led West Coast gangsta rap, NYC’s Tribe rejected the violent posturing and casual misogyny of the former while paying homage to the more abstract, arty influences that informed…

  • Meltybrains? – Kiss Yourself

    November 16, 2016 - By 

    Meltybrains? have been a staple on the live circuit in Ireland for a few years now, gaining a cult following through their Dadaist stage show and irreverent sense of humour. While marrying a post-rock base with a mix of styles on top hasn’t necessarily made for the most compelling of musical statement in their previous recorded works,  Their latest EP Kiss Yourself looks to make amends and move the band forward artistically. Opener ‘Know My Name’ opens with auto-tuned vocals over synth before settling down into the Melty’s now signature sound. It’s a track that promises a lot but that…

  • Douglas Dare – Aforger

    November 16, 2016 - By 

    Whelm, the 2014 debut album by London-based songwriter Douglas Dare, was a bold opening statement. It was held together by Dare’s powerful voice in spite of its musical idiosyncrasies; a voice that was immediately striking in its delivery and cadences, but which later revealed a fragility that suggested it was the tenor of a man in emotional distress. He has always written from a personal place, but his second album, Aforger, amplifies that to the nth degree. It’s an album in which the music is complex (almost to a self-conscious degree) and whose lyrics speak of deep personal strife; a struggle against…