• 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…

  • the arts column: lockdown

    April 3, 2020 - By 

    Whilst art is almost always intended to resonate in non-physical ways, sparking inspiration, challenging perceptions, eliciting responses and generation debate, it is almost always delivered in person in specific spaces be they galleries hosting shows or talks, museums showcasing collections, libraries inviting people to browse books, etc. In these uncertain times, we have the double blow of losing access to these institutions at a time when escape to them is most needed. That said over the last number of days and weeks we have seen the art community in Ireland pivot to its new online world providing platforms for digital…

  • Music Photography Exhbition @ Bloody Mary’s, Dublin

    February 20, 2020 - By 

    Opening tonight in Dublin’s Blood Mary’s is a new exhibition featuring the works of four Irish Music Photographers: Leah Carroll, Kieran Frost, Colm Kelly and James Murray. Titled What We Did in The Shadows, the show will feature work by the four photographers over the last ten years of live music in Ireland, taking in gigs of all sizes from local venues through to international festivals. Artists featured include The Fall, The Strokes, Green Day and Billie Eliish, as well as native acts such as The Murder Capital, Lankum, U2 and The Undertones. Tonight’s launch kicks off from 7 pm running until…

  • the arts column: February 27th

    February 27, 2020 - By 

    This week we’ve got details on a host of new exhibitions opening around the country from Dublin, Sligo and Cork; as well as details on artists’ talks taking place, an open call for a series of studio spaces and residencies and a public art commission. 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 | The Walker Plinth, Derry VOID Derry have announced details fro an open call that is seeking work to appear on The Walker Plinth in Derry which has been funded by the Department of Foreign Affairs…

  • the arts column: February 6th

    February 6, 2020 - By 

    This week we’ve got details on a number of new exhibitions opening, a pair of artists’ talks, an artist in residency programme as well as the launches of some yearly artistic programmes all happening in events across Cork, Dublin, Sligo, and Carlow. 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 Closing| Backwater Artists Group, Cork Today and tomorrow are your last chances to see Cara Farnan’s work in Cork’s Backwater Artists Group. The exhibition, which is Farnan’s first solo show, is titled Sometimes the river flows backwards – drawn from the…

  • 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…

  • Premiere: Not I – At The Beach

    December 20, 2019 - By 

    Dublin indie rock noisenik duo Not I are back with ‘At The Beach’, the second single taken from their forthcoming debut album – reportedly due next year. Produced by Christopher Barry at Ailfionn Studio and artwork from Linden Pomeroy, it conjures the no-peak malaise of The Microphones and Pavement at their most jittery. A singularly voiced lyricist, Thomas O’Reilly’s vaguely-pitched Lee Ranaldo-esque sing-talk has never been more convincing. Listen below: