• the arts column: September 10th

    September 10, 2020 - By 

    In this week’s edition of the arts column we’ve details on new exhibitions opening in Dublin, Kilkenny and Navan, as well as details on an open call and an artist talk. If you’ve an event, talk, exhibition, etc., please do get in touch via aidan[at]thethinair[dot]net. And as always – Stay Safe, and Support the Arts x Exhibition Opening | National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin This coming Friday sees the opening of a new exhibition in the National Gallery of Ireland featuring the works of George Wallace. While Wallace may be better known on the other side of the Atlantic, he spent the…

  • the arts column: September 3rd

    September 3, 2020 - By 

    In this week’s edition of the arts column we’ve details of a number of new exhibitions opening in Northern Ireland, a double-launch in Dublin, information on an open call for 2021 and links to online artists talks. If you’ve an event, talk, exhibition, etc., please do get in touch via aidan[at]thethinair[dot]net. And as always – Stay Safe, and Support the Arts x Exhibition | ArtisAnn Gallery, Belfast A new exhibition featuring the works of recent graduates has opened in Belfast’s ArtisAnn Gallery. All three, Saffron Monks-Smith, Lauren O’Hara and Irene Sweeney, graduated from Ulster University in June and all work with oils –…

  • the arts column: August 13th

    August 13, 2020 - By 

    In this week’s edition of the arts column we details on open calls and funding applications, as well as details on a exhibitions to see. Keep safe and support the arts x Open Call | HALFTONE Print Fair The gang at b have announced submissions details for the sixth edition of the HALFTONE Print Fair. The month-long event is slated to take place later this year from October 29th to November 22nd. As well as HAFLTONE we also have Tsundoku – named after the wonderful Japanese word for accumulating books and not reading them – to look forward to which will see events related to the…

  • Album Stream: Postcard Versions – Remote Viewing

    August 10, 2020 - By 

    In case you missed it, Friday saw the surprise, name-your-price release of Postcard Versions‘ new LP, following up on their debut –  one of Ireland’s finest indie rock albums of last year. Messrs Paddy Ormond and Ross Hamer – of The Claque, Music City, Oh Boland and more – are back with another ten warming, bite-size gems, adding to the city’s not-insubstantial bedroom-pop canon – born not out of aesthetic, but economic necessity. Stream below: Remote Viewing by Postcard Versions

  • Video Premiere: Shrug Life – Last Gasp Of Summer

    July 24, 2020 - By 

    A timely arrival to cushion the blow of a festival-free summer, perennial TTA favourites Shrug Life are back with the video for new single ‘Last Gasp of Summer’. The track is taken from Shrug Life’s excellent, Daniel Fox-produced second LP Maybe You’re The Punchline which came out in April, available on 12″ vinyl through Bandcamp. Typical of their vision of a DEVO-meets-Thin Lizzy world, it’s a razor-sharp incision into minutia of the make some noise Irish experience, and festival fatigue that starts to set in as one’s twenties edges closer to the finishing line, without ever straying into ‘yells at cloud’ territory. Filmed partly at Arcadian Field Festival 2019, and featuring…

  • Video Premiere: Shifting – The Bland Leading the Bland

    July 21, 2020 - By 

    A month ahead of the release of what will surely be one of Ireland’s essential punk records of 2020, Shifting have just shared with us the video for ‘The Bland Leading the Bland’. An ideal introduction to the trio, who formed in 2016, and include members of No Spill Blood & Hands Up Who Wants To Die, amongst other noisemakers par excellence. The video a sub-ninety second microcosm of their repetitious, yet spontaneous dissonance, and squalid, darkly comic worldview, conjuring everything  from Unwound to Death Grips. The second in a series of videos to accompany their debut LP, it chronicles the time Matt ‘Uncle Dad’ Hedigan…

  • the arts column: July 15th

    July 15, 2020 - By 

    July has seen a number of arts organisations across the island of Ireland reopen, with more scheduled to reopen in the coming weeks. As the arts community begins to embark on this new kind of normal, a normal that sees bookings, limited access and reduced space, our support is more vital than ever. That said safety is still of paramount importance, so for this first edition of the arts column since lockdown restriction have begun to ease we have highlighted events that promote social distance in offline events and those with online aspects to ensure that people can engage with art on a…

  • Watch: Shifting – Spudgasm

    May 27, 2020 - By 

    Post-hardcore noise rock trio Shifting have announced the release of their debut long-player, with a release date of August 24. To accompany the news, they’ve unveiled the first in a line of accompanying videos for debut single ‘Spudgasm’. A triad of highly-respected Dublin heads – also of No Spill Blood, Hands Up Who Wants To Die, amongst others – Shifting are Paul Clynes and brothers Matt & Lewis Hedigan. In line with their other work, and akin to late 80s/early 90s Touch & Go Records, their music is an acerbic blend of gut-wreching yet dynamic repetition, nihilistic cackling, and the unmistakably razorsharp, wiry guitar work. You’d be hard-pressed to…

  • Watch: Fears – two_

    May 19, 2020 - By 

    Content note: self-harm Fears, AKA Constance Keane, has consistently used her voice to further the conversation on the importance of the arts in mental health, so we could think of no more apt artist to open up the Northern Ireland Mental Health Arts Festival. Taking place remotely for the first time, running through until May 24th, the festival could hardly happen at a more pertinent time, with online-only commissioned music, art, film premieres, talks & workshops from esteemed doctors and comedians, with many innovative ways to navigate ‘the great unprecedented’. Commissioned by the festival, the self-produced single and its visual companion depict the non-linear recovery from trauma, using repurposed footage shot by Constance and her family during the last…

  • 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…