• EP Stream: Perish – Inertia

    At the start of the month, we shared ‘Terror Swimming’ by Cork-based band Perish. Calling it a “hazed-out trip bursting with submerged, starry-eyed guitar shapes and a wondrous wall of reverb-soaked noise” the single was a first-rate opening gambit from the Ciaran Corcoran-fronted project. The track is taken from the stellar Inertia, a brand new, five-track EP out via Cork imprint Sunshine Cult records, home to TTA favourites The Sunshine Factory. From the blissed-out noise-pop of opener Vision to the Motorik strut and swirling, effects-laden Kosmiche of closer ‘No Time’, it is hands down the strongest EP from an Irish act we’ve heard this…

  • EP Stream: The Sunshine Factory – Cruelest Animal

    Cork, ever Ireland’s unexpected cornerstone of hazy psych, can boast another fine release with The Sunshine Factory‘s debut EP proper, Cruelest Animal, the title track of which was released last year following a string of extremely promising demos and homemade recordings. Firmly establishing their neo-psychedelic chops with slots alongside the likes of KXP, The Orange Kyte, and tour support to psychedelic legends The Telescopes on their most recent Irish jaunt it is launched tonight (November 30) at a hometown launch at Crane Lane Theatre. The EP is released through their own independent label, Sunshine Cult Records, and was recorded with Chris Somers at One Chance Out Studios. While Cruelest Animal was recorded a year ago, it seems that a…

  • EP Stream: Music For Dead Birds – Nail & Tooth

    Long favourites of ours here at The Thin Air, Galway experimental folk twosome Jimmy Monaghan and Dónal Walsh AKA Music For Dead Birds are a band whose lo-fi craft would not have been out of place on the roster of Sam Berger’s Homestead Records in the early 90s. Having first appeared on our radar back in 2011 via The Pope’s Sister – an album we said conjured the likes of Sebadoh and Polvo – the pair have drip-fed a series of releases in the interim, most recently 2015’s Your Brand New Life. New EP Nail & Tooth both marks the band’s 10th year in…

  • Porphyry – Ursa Minor/Coming Home EP

    Experimental singer-songwriter Porphyry has just released his debut EP, Ursa Minor/Coming Home. Solely performed by Derry multi-instrumentalist Daryl Coyle, it’s an ambitious EP that’s difficult to pin down in genre, with lush arrangements and instrumental flourishes, and truly unpredictable songwriting. Independently released, it was recorded by Start Together’s Niall Doran & Smalltown America’s Caolan Austin, and mixed by Doran. The EP, although could be categorised as baroque pop, or psych-folk, or ambient, or shoegaze or even *gasp* prog rock, it manages the unenviable job of being boldly unpigeonholeable as art, and deeply personal, without approaching any level of bloated grandiosity. Check it out below – we’d…

  • EP Stream: Porphyry – Ursa Minor​/​Coming Home

    A quiet gem comes in the form of Derry songwriter Daryl Coyle’s new EP Ursa Minor​/​Coming Home.  Under the Porphyry monicker, Coyle produces a brand of psych-folk that brings to mind the likes of Midlake and Villagers but that, when least expected, veers into unexpected territory. With vocal inflections that could, at a push, summon Maynard James Keenan (Tool, A Perfect Circle), and with ambitious instrumental reaches into the more colourful expanses of prog, ambient and psych, this EP is subtly surprising and earnestly bold. Have a listen won’t you? Ursa Minor/Coming Home by Porphyry  

  • EP Stream: No Monster Club – Kaluli – Mexico

    Champion of rusty pop production with more than one knack for a catchy hook Bobby Ahern has shared the latest instillment of his encyclopedia collection. Kaluli – Mexico is the seventh EP to come from the No Monster Club camp since January and is yet another serving of witty and infectious indie pop with lyrics that are equally so. Proving once again that he is one of the country’s most precious, odd and necessary musicians, ‘Factor 50’ and ‘Scouts Anthem’ are the perfect accompaniments for the summer days that are not-that-sunny-but-sunny-enough-like. As the man himself has said: “If you have any respect whatsoever for the summertime…

  • EP Stream: Galants – Galants

    In case you missed the memo: Dublin noise-pop quartet Galants rule. Evoking the varyingly shaded, feedback-soaked lulls and barrages of Dinosaur Jr., Teenage Fanclub, My Bloody Valentine, Sonic Youth, Swervedriver and Yo La Tengo, the band have caught our attention on numerous occasions of the last couple of years. Something of a feature-length culmination of this particular phase in the journey to date, their self-titled EP – which sees David Kennedy, James McDonald, Colin O’Dwyer and Ruairi Paxton concoct some real magic over four tracks – has now been release on 10″ via UK imprint Zen Ten. Delve in below. Galants by Galants

  • EP Stream: Silverbacks – Sink The Fat Moon

    Set for a midnight launch at Whelan’s next Saturday night (May 27), Sink The Fat Moon by Dublin indie rock five-piece Silverbacks will sure rank up there with our favourite Irish releases of the year come December. A plinking, squalling five-track sweep of scuzzed-out tangents and lo-fi passages, it marries the patent – yet very impressively wrought – imprint of the likes of Parquet Courts, Sonic Youth and Pavement in fine fashion, revealing a band whose knack for forging something new from the aforementioned influence is really a delight to behold. For a sub-genre oversaturated with clumsily disaffected amour-propre, Silverbacks wield a far more natural…

  • EP Stream: Gumshoe – Sun Kisses The Moon

    Having started to premiere tracks from the EP back in October of last year, Wicklow ambient hip-hop duo Gumshoe have let Sun Kisses The Moon out into the world in full. With previously released tracks ‘yom kippur’, ‘ninbasu’ and ‘forgotten weapons’ being ethereal teasers, the rest of the collection continues in much the same vein with delightfully odd vocal samples, sparse rhythms and brittle melodies coursing throughout its seven tracks. ‘a divisive nature’ is captivating with its stumbling bass throb and Gold Panda reminiscent melodic samples. ‘cherrylane’ is pure hypnosis with its languid keys, trills and swoops, jazz samples and a surreal spoken vocal detailing someone’s…

  • EP Stream: Montauk Hotel – Montauk Hotel

    Formed late last year, Dublin indie-pop quartet Claudia Verdecchia, Shell Dooley, Aoife, Hester and Karima Dillon El-Toukhy AKA Montauk Hotel have hit the ground running via their self-titled debut EP. From opener and lead single ‘Black Dress’  to harmony-driven closer ‘In The Land’, there’s a real earworming charm to the band’s streamlined, chorus-drenched jangle-pop. We expect impressive things from these guys throughout 2017.