• That’s The Story of my Life – The Life and Death of Lou Reed

    October 28, 2013 - By 

    When all is said and done, Lou Reed was never the easiest figure to love. For someone who is so intrinsic to the very notion of what we consider popular music to be, for someone who tore up the rulebook so fundamentally and set us all free, it’s rarely been an easy ride. And now that he has moved on, that journey will only become more difficult. Like all the truly great artists, to be “into” Lou Reed is to be “into” a variety of different personas, of different masks, of different ideologies. The snarling twenty-something, sunglasses strapped permanently to…

  • Do You Still Want To Believe? 20 Years of The X-Files

    October 23, 2013 - By 

    Arguably, television has replaced cinema as the preeminent visual entertainment medium. Shows like Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, and The Wire have stolen Hollywood’s thunder when it comes to dynamic and progressive storytelling. It wasn’t always this way, however, and back in 1993 a strange, cultish show about two mismatched FBI agents struck a chord with the public, tapping into a throbbing vein of pre-millennial angst and paranoia. But twenty years later, just what was the impact of Mulder and Scully’s unflinching look into the paranormal abyss? They said the truth was out there, but what happened when we actually found…

  • Lesser Known Pleasures: Stereolab – Chemical Chords

    October 22, 2013 - By 

    The latest Lesser Known Pleasure is a Stereolab album overlooked in favour of their earlier classics Emperor Tomato Ketchup and Dots and Loops. By 2008, their sound may have shifted, mellowed and lost some edge but not necessarily to it’s detriment. Chemical Chords has LKP criteria in spades. It came late in their career long after their heyday, long after their coolness quotient was no longer a factor. The band had endured numerous lineup shifts, side projects and the end of the personal relationship between the songwriting team of Tim Gane and singer Laetitia Sadier. However in 2002, following the…

  • Track Record: Crayonsmith

    October 23, 2013 - By 

    For the latest installment of Track Record, the Crayonsmith lads arrived at my house armed with their favourite records, brownies and plenty of stories of why these albums mean so much to them. All three of them agreed that Public Strain by Women is one of the best albums ever. We chatted about the others over tea and here’s what they had to say: Women – Public Strain Ciaran Smith: “This record has everything and is a good example of where our three tastes meet. Amazing lo-fi recording job by Chad Van Gallen and loads of killer hooks. ‘Venice Lockjaw’ has…

  • Classic Album: Doll By Doll – Gypsy Blood

    October 11, 2013 - By 

    A flicker of neon light casts shadows on a wet brick wall in Soho. A man, with a special glint in his eye, a glint that suggests danger, romance, and pain, turns his collar up against the rain, and lights a cigarette. This is his time, his moment, and even if no-one ever knows it, Jackie Leven is about to make history. This is the greatest album you have never heard. Doll by Doll released four albums from 1979 to 1982, before sinking further into the obscurity they already dwelt in. Led by the tall, charismatic Scotsman Jackie Leven, the…

  • The First Time: Louise Holden of I Draw Slow

    October 11, 2013 - By 

    In the latest installment of The First Time, Belfast-based photographer Joe Laverty catches up with Louise Holden of Dublin-based roots/Americana five-piece I Draw Slow to pry, ever so respectfully, into the “firsts” of her music-listening, loving and making life. As always, Joe also took the above stunningly nice portrait photo of the vocalist just after her band’s set at Happy Valley Festival in Thomastown in June. Admire Joe’s copious and ever-expanding talents right here and read on to learn about Holden’s rather marked historical appreciation of The Cure. First album you bought? I’d like to say the Carter Family but actually I think it might have…

  • Lesser Known Pleasures: Brian Eno – Music For Films

    October 9, 2013 - By 

    Lesser Known Pleasures is an overdue hurrah for albums that live in the shadow of an artist’s more renowned or successful work. Great records, that for one reason or another, failed to tear up the charts or wow the critics, yet on further inspection are undeniably damn fine indeed. Lesser Known Pleasures are the albums that demand that the scales of justice be re-calibrated. This time around it’s the turn of Ambient pioneer, Art Pop legend and all round musical genius Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno. But you can call him just plain Eno. The album…

  • Playlist: National Poetry Day

    October 3, 2013 - By 

    We’re humongous fans of poetry here at The Thin Air. As far as we’re concerned, the very best poetry is far superior to a very good song or album – the syllabic genius of a handful of rhyming conquistadors down the ages faring in a realm of incisive mastery that has little to no parallel in any other sphere of the arts. As it so happens, today is National Poetry Day and as we are also humongous fans of lovingly-assembled Spotify playlists of pretty much anything under the recordable sun, we have compiled a fifteen-track playlist of poetry (and music containing…

  • Culture Night – Culture of What?

    September 27, 2013 - By 

    Last Friday saw the return of Belfast’s Culture Night, and by all accounts it was complete success, bigger than before both in terms of events and attendance. On the other side of the world, in the North-East of Portland, Oregon is a street called NE Alberta Street and on the last Thursday of every March through to October is an art event called Last Thursday. The police shut 15 blocks (about a mile) of the street, and while it is an “organised” event there is no programme of events, no registration for performers. People just turn up and do what…

  • Trans-Europe Express #2: Austria

    September 9, 2013 - By 

    Austria is a country steeped in rich musical tradition. A couple of hundred years ago it was arguably the very centre of the music world, producing a veritable conveyor belt of classical composers who, to this day, are household names: Mozart, Schubert, Haydn, Mahler, and not one but five Strauss maestros, amongst a lengthy list of others. It’s a history that Austria is rightly proud of, and classical music still has a special place in the nation’s heart. But it is just that. History. Music has undergone countless reinventions since Johannes Brahms last conducted an orchestra at Vienna’s Musikverein, and…