• Video Premiere: The Elephant Room – Juniper and Pine

    May 31, 2019 - By 

    Dublin-based indie-noise outfit The Elephant Room are one of a select number of DIY artists in Ireland assimilating a broad range of influences from the 60s through to the present year with complete seamlessness. We’re pleased to be premiering their sprawling new single ‘Juniper & Pine’, complete with the band’s self-made video. The song itself is an almost ten minute marriage of experimental noisecraft and lo-fi pop that somehow never outstays its welcome as ekes out new levels of its conceptual framework. Easing in with a Laurel Canyon-indebted neo-psych groove, its lysergic-soaked corners quickly darken into a clamorous sonic ego-death parallel, before returning to consensus reality as something familiar, yet altered.…

  • Video Premiere: Grave Goods – Source

    May 16, 2019 - By 

    Ahead of only their third show to date, supporting Beak> this Saturday, May 18 at Whelan’s, tri-city post-punk trio Grave Goods have kindly given us a first recorded glimpse of their visceral power. ‘Source’ is the first release from a session filmed by experimental filmmaking platform IMPATV, which records & broadcasts the heavier side of DIY, experimental & underground culture. Featuring members of Pins, Girls Names and September Girls, ‘Source’ forgoes the brooding atmospheres & jangle of the aforementioned in favour of primal urgency. More than delivering on the promise of its constituent parts, Sarah Grimes & Phil Quinn’s Girl Band-recalling rhythmic syncopation lay claustrophobic, anxious loops between which Lois MacDonald’s buzzsaw guitar finds voids to…

  • the arts column: PhotoIreland Special

    May 2, 2019 - By 

    This week sees the launch of this year’s PhotoIreland Festival, with the official opening taking place tonight, May 2nd,at 6pm in their Temple Bar hub: The Library Project. This year is the tenth anniversary of the festival, and to celebrate we’ve a special edition of the arts column focusing on the festival’s extensive programme of events, talks, exhibitions and general celebration of photography in Ireland. Festival Launch Party | Thursday, May 2nd @ The Library Project Tonight from 6pm (PhotoIreland patrons get a sneak peak a few hours earlier at 4pm) the festival kicks off in the foundation’s Temple Bar hub:…

  • Oranges – Hey Zeus

    March 21, 2019 - By 

    Last December, we premiered first single ‘The Way You Look’ by Dublin three-piece Oranges. We said it “recalled the abrasive, minimalist alchemy of The Fall”. The following single, ‘Upside Upside’ was a “skeletal post-punk riposte that, in its simmering climb and surging climax”. Taken from their forthcoming debut album Hey Zeus, they’re both firm hints at something special. A bare-bones approach has been applied to the entire process of Hey Zeus, which saw band members Gavin Duffy, Mici Durnin and Ed Kelly spit the LP out live in six hours with renowned engineer Stephen Quinn in a room on North Frederick Lane, Dublin, with only two of its eleven segments passing…

  • the arts column: March 12th

    March 12, 2019 - By 

    In this week’s edition of the arts column we’ve details of exhibitions that are opening and closing around the country, a pair of residencies and an application deadline. 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 | Eamonn Doyle @ RHA Gallery, Dublin Opening this Thursday, March 14th in Dublin’s RHA Gallery is a new exhibition featuring the work of Eamonn Doyle. The eponymous show is born out of Doyle’s new book titled Made in Dublin, which features images from the artist’s first three books: i, ON and End, as well as previously…

  • Premiere: Angular Hank – I Don’t Always Like You

    March 14, 2019 - By 

    It’s been a pretty sweet year for idiosyncratic Irish indie rock thus far – look no further than releases from Hot Cops, Postcard Versions & Larry for that – and another name you can add to that heap is Dublin-based quartet Angular Hank. Having only played a handful of shows to date, debut single ‘I Don’t Always Like You’ seeps into the signature Popical Island-style Dublin bedroom jangle that comes pre-loaded with chorus pedals, with a wonderfully human baritone vocal from Mathieu Doogan. Kicking back with dissonance at the hint of a melody getting too cosy like its protagonist does at showing too much vulnerability, the single is a…

  • Stream: The Claque – Hush

    March 13, 2019 - By 

    If you’re missing the gaping void in game-changing guitar music left by Girl Band in the last couple of years, here’s something to sate your appetite. The Claque comprises long-time friends in vocalist Kate Brady, Paddy Ormond – of Jet Setter & Postcard Versions, who released their wonderful debut album last month – and and Girl Band guitarist Alan Duggan. Debut single ‘Hush’ and its noise-pop flipside ‘Stray’ immediately bear Duggan’s inimitable, jarring sonic imprint, dragged into humanity by the oneiric warmth of synth layers & Brady’s soulful vocal – which could be incongruous in the hands of less masterful musicians. Produced by Girl Band bassist…

  • the arts column: March 6th

    March 5, 2019 - By 

    In this week’s edition of the arts column we’ve details of exciting new exhibitions opening, a charity event, a pair of residencies and studio memberships. 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 | Jane Fogarty @ MART, Dublin This Thursday Jane Fogarty’s new exhibition opens in MART’s Rathmines space. The exhibition, titled slow motion, sees Fogarty explore themes of time, form, colour and composition through a new body of work. This new work from one of Ireland’s most exciting emerging artists is a combination of painting and sculpture.…

  • Stream: Zeropunkt – Bitch Nails

    February 26, 2019 - By 

    Long one of our favourites in the (admittedly bereft) Irish free psychedelic improvised scene, Dublin-based outfit ¡NO! have announced a name change to the substantially more Googlable Zeropunkt, and with it have issued standalone single, ‘Bitch Nails’, available as a free download. On the name change, the band are self-awarely oblique: “The 0ught of N0ught is the point of zer0. NO. N. 0. The zer0 Number. The p0iNt. Zeropunkt.” Following a quiet 2018 for the generally prolific – 10 albums since 2014 – outfit, this single comes with the announcement of two forthcoming LPs, Clap Your Hands Say No and Open War, as well as the announcement of…