• EP Stream: Aul Boy – Making Strange

    February 28, 2020 - By 

    Everyone’s favourite rural slack power-pop escapists, Ramelton’s Aul Boy are back with new EP Making Strange. As ever, the wry quartet, led by Fionn Robinson, runs the gamut from jangle-pop ditties to experimental pocket orchestras [the masterful ‘Buttercup’]. Recorded at Donegal’s Attica Studios by Orri McBrearty, with some wonderful artwork from Daniel McGarrigle, it’s available on digitally & on CD. Aul Boy launch Making Strange tonight at Bennigan’s, Derry, and tomorrow night at Letterkenny’s Swilly Inn. Making Strange by Aul Boy

  • the arts column: January 14th

    January 14, 2020 - By 

    This week we’ve got details on some talks, tours, open calls and last calls for exhibitions around the country. As always, if you have an event, talk, exhibition, or would like to recommend one please get in touch via aidan[at]thethinair.net Exhibition & Talk | Turner @ National Gallery of Ireland Historically, January is Turner Month at the National Gallery of Ireland and 2020 is no different. Continuing the trend over the last few years Turner’s work will be shown alongside other artists, with a selection gleaned from both his contemporaries and those he influenced. Turner’s watercolours, and those of Paul Cézanne, John Singer Sargent…

  • UK Post-Punk Duo JOHN Set For Irish Tour

    August 15, 2019 - By 

    Raw UK garage-punk duo JOHN are set to make their first appearance in Ireland later this year, accompanying the release of their second album, Out Here On The Fringes, set for release on October 4. This run of shows comes at the end of a lengthy spell in France & the UK, following an eleven-country spell in 2018 with Idles. Taking place in conjunction with some of our favourite venues, artists & promoters (Why. Gigs & Drone Mansions) – their three-date run is as follows: Friday, November 29 // Bennigans Bar, Derry w/His Father’s Voice & SHŌTO Saturday, November 30 // The 343, Belfast w/Problem Patterns and Wake House Sunday, December 1 // The Sound…

  • the arts column: August 8th

    August 8, 2019 - By 

    This week we’ve details on a pair of exhibitions that are opening this weekend in Kilkenny as part of the Kilkenny Arts Festival, a live performance in Derry, a new show opening in Dublin and details of a studio residency. As always, if you have an event, talk, exhibition, or would like to recommend one please get in touch via aidan[at]thethinair.net Exhibition Opening | Butler Gallery, Kilkenny This Saturday, August 10th, sees the opening of a new exhibition in Kilkenny’s Butler Gallery featuring the work of New York based artist Amy Cutler. Titled Colloquies, the show is Cutler’s first in Ireland and…

  • Video Premiere: Queen Bonobo @ The Live Room Belfast

    July 11, 2019 - By 

    The Live Room is one of Belfast’s most valuable musical resources – an eclectic, Live At KEXP-esque showcase of the finest artists to pass through Belfast, based in the city’s most welcoming and well-equipped studio, Start Together. They’ve run the gamut from the crushing doom of Slomatics and Conan to the Word Up Collective‘s hotly-tipped R&B voices of Super Silly & Jordan Adetunji. Back after a brief quiet spell, the latest in their series is title track ‘Boom Boom’, taken from the debut album by Derry-based, Idaho-born chanteuse Queen Bonobo, taken from a session recorded during Belfast’s Output Convention in February. We’ve said it before, but Maya’s vocal has the uncanny ability to take the quality of a sine wave, and…

  • Video Premiere: Great White Lies – Fear

    June 18, 2019 - By 

    Led by singer Siobhán Shiels, one of the gems of Derry’s thriving experimental jazz & weirdo pop scene are Great White Lies. They last week tackled Brexit scaremongering with single ‘Fear’, for which we’re pleased to be premiering the video today. Accompanying Shiels in the band are Comrade Hat, aka Neil Burns on keys, incredible young double bass player Jack Kelly, Ruth McCartney on vocals & ukulele, with Luke Beirne on drums, who deftly weave around her composed & repetitive, yet evocatively uneasy vocal. ‘Fear’ is the first single to be taken from their forthcoming debut album, Chrysalis, which is set for an Autumn release. It was inspired…

  • EP Premiere: Comrade Hat – Tuque

    May 3, 2019 - By 

    Derry-based experimental pop auteur Neil Burns’ Comrade Hat‘s latest EP, Tuque, is set for release on May 10, but we’re pleased to say we have an exclusive premiere streaming a week in advance. Following a string of EPs – including his series of Winter EPs – production credits, and a high profile collaboration with Phil Kieran and the Ulster Orchestra at Celtronic 2018, Burns needed a change. In Autumn of 2018, he relocated to Toronto with some musician friends for a recharge that ultimately led to the creation of Tuque, a complete work that spans post-breakup what’s-it-all-about soul-searching to geopolitical observations in under 15 minutes, with cameos from cult musical figures of the area,…

  • the arts column: February 19th

    February 18, 2019 - By 

    In this week’s edition of the arts column we’ve details of this year’s PhotoIreland Festival, talks, workshops studio lets, as well as a walking gallery tour of Temple Bar. As always, if you have an event, talk, exhibition, or would like to recommend one please get in touch via aidan[at]thethinair.net Open Call | PhotoIreland Festival 2019 PhotoIreland returns for its 10th anniversary edition this summer and details have been announced about how to get involved. The festivals two main exhibitions, Luis Alberto Rodriguez’s The People of the Mud and the group exhibition The Invention of Memory in Rathfarnham Castle, have been revealed along with an open…

  • 19 for ’19: Porphyry

    February 1, 2019 - By 

    We continue 19 for ‘19 – our feature looking at nineteen Irish acts that we’re convinced are going places in 2019 – with Derry artist Daryl Martin AKA Porphyry. Photo by Mickey Rooney “To explore the relevance of old philosophies and the art of the past in modern music, with layers of meaning created through leitmotif, musical allegory and literary references”. It’s no stretch to call Daryl Martin a genuine polymath. Based in Derry, Porphyry – named after the Roman Neoplatonic philosopher – is a fully-formed artistic vision, executed unlike anything else in Ireland. When we first 2017 debut EP…

  • the arts column: January 9th

    January 9, 2019 - By 

    For our first edition of the arts column in 2019 we’ve details on an international residency, a national residency, a career opportunity as well as a trio of exhibitions that are opening this week and feature a mix of emerging and established artists – details of all below. If you have an event, talk, exhibition, or would like to recommend one please get in touch via aidan[at]thethinair.net Open Call | TBG+S and HIAP International Residency Exchange 2019 Temple Bar Gallery + Studios (TGB+S) have announced details of the thirteenth annual residency exchange between Ireland and Finland, due to take place later this year. The…