• Mons Olympus Announce Debut Album

    April 10, 2017 - By 

    Having recently played a Thin Air Tuesday Throwdown at Lavery’s in Belfast, Northern Irish quartet Mons Olympus have announced details of their forthcoming debut album. Produced by their guitarist Stephen O’Hagan and Nathan Murray, (minus single ‘Critical Mass’, which was recorded by Michael Mormecha) the eight-track Vampyroteuthis will be launched and officially released at Belfast Empire Music Hall on May 4. Blending the Rory Dee-fronted foursome’s potent amalgalm of space-rock and neo-prog, it’s sure to establish the band as one of the country’s leading exponents of cosmically-inclined, riff-fuelled alternative rock. With more shows to be announced, Mons Olympus will play the following…

  • Premiere: Cat Palace – Don’t Come Around

    April 7, 2017 - By 

    Last month we had the distinct pleasure of premiering ‘Peddle It’ by Cat Palace, a Dublin act with one David Blaney at the helm. Set to release their debut album Why Don’t You // Why Don’t You, Go Off on Monday, new single ‘Don’t Come Around’ is a reflective, two-minute flicker of throwback garage-rock that sees Blaney waxing delirious on backwashed memories of youth, from WWF to Donkey Kong, and later, the dregs of friendship when it goes little pear-shaped (like, totally, man) heading into adulthood. Cat Palace play alongside Junk Drawer, Autre Monde and Oh Joy at Tivoli Backstage in Dublin on April 21. Have…

  • Stream: Isobel Anderson – Flint Shingle

    April 7, 2017 - By 

    A compelling highlight from her recent live shows, ‘Flint Shingle’ by Belfast-based artist Isobel Anderson is a wonderfully meditative song inspired by the jagged cliffs of her childhood in South East England. The first single to be taken from her fourth studio album, CHALK/FLINT, the track – a “self-proclaimed symphony to the sea” – is a delicately textured, perfectly phantasmal ambient effort written in her birthplace of Sussex and recorded in Belfast. Anderson said, “It is sort of a love song, if only with a nostalgic, almost regretful, sentiment. The idea is that the landscape acts as a sort of sobering force, a marker of…

  • Fox Colony – Patterns

    April 6, 2017 - By 

    Belfast-based emo-tinged indie rock trio Fox Colony release their debut EP, Patterns on May 4. Associates & former bandmates of indie-pop outfit Brand New Friend, the young band recorded Patterns with Start Together Studios’ Rocky O’Reilly and have an uncanny ability to craft a tune without being afraid of wearing hearts – or accents – on their sleeves. The EP takes some cues from the current emo-pop revival of Modern Baseball, with the occasional glimmer of early ’90s alt. rock dischordance seeping in. Patterns will be available from Bandcamp – both digitally on CD – from May 4. Fox Colony launch Patterns at McHugh’s Basement on May 4, with…

  • Stream: Sea Pinks – Into Nowhere

    April 7, 2017 - By 

    Never ones to be shy of new tunes, Belfast-based jangle-pop trio Sea Pinks have just announced their sixth album, Watercourse, and with it, have made new single ‘Into Nowhere’ available to stream. Watercourse is the band’s sixth album since their 2010 inception, the trio, fronted by singer/guitarist Neil Brogan – also of Cruising – started recording the album at Belfast’s Start Together Studios with Ben McAuley – producer with Documenta, Girls Names and Robyn G Shiels – in Summer 2016 through until the Autumn, initially with the intention to write just an EP. You can stream ‘Into Nowhere’ below, and pre-order Watercourse on Bandcamp – due for release on May 26 through…

  • Sea Pinks – Watercourse

    April 6, 2017 - By 

    Dreamy Belfast-based jangle-pop trio Sea Pinks release their new album, Watercourse on May 26 through Belfast-based indie label CF Records. Being their sixth album since their 2010 inception, the trio, fronted by singer/guitarist Neil Brogan – also of Cruising – started recording the album at Belfast’s Start Together Studios with Ben McAuley – producer for Documenta, Girls Names and more – in Summer 2016 with the intention of recording an EP, until they had recorded 16 songs, which ultimately were pared down to 10, for yet another concise Sea Pinks LP, some of which were mixed by Collin Dupuis, known for work on Angel Olsen‘s My Woman.…

  • Premiere: Rebekah Fitch – Another Show

    April 6, 2017 - By 

    We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: we’re not above straight-up pop music here at The Thin Air. For us, a killer chorus and gleaming production can easily be as potent as the the heftiest riff or most left-of-centre experimentalism. And why should it be any different? Steadily established herself as an artist who is honing her strong penchant for hook-heavy pop, Belfast singer-songwriter Rebekah Fitch is a perfect case in point in the defence of music that fully embraces its strengths. Launched at Belfast’s Pavilion tonight (with support from Brash Isaac and Amy Montgomery) her new single, ‘Another Show’, sees commanding vocals…

  • Stream: Beach – Bram Toker

    April 5, 2017 - By 

    In the best possible sense, Dublin five-piece Beach – one of our featured 17 for ’17 acts – have always been one to pin down. Marrying left-of centre psychedelia with the imprint of electronic, Krautrock and indie rock influence, their increasingly earworming craft caught our ear and then some at the tail-end of last year on single ‘Ono Noh‘. With its Goat-like incanted psych, propulsive groove and sub-bass sorcery, its follow-up, ‘Bram Toker’, goes one further, confirming the band as an act to be considered alongside fellow Irish sonic diviners The Altered Hours and Elastic Sleep.

  • Ro Gang – H.E.R.

    April 5, 2017 - By 

    The duo formerly known as Mr Rosso, Dublin lo-fi act Ro Gang release their album H.E.R. on April 12. Channelling Mac DeMarco-flecked, chorus-drenched idiosyncratic in-joke indie pop – and occasionally rap – they’re part of the Herzog TV collective in Dublin, responsible for countless records – check them out on Bandcamp. H.E.R. is released through Little L Records, was recorded by the band, and produced by Bart Boy. Ro Gang launch the album at the Grand Social on April 18, with support from Kean Kavanagh, Dachau Giftshop and 5 to 2. Admission costs €6 and doors open at  7pm.

  • Watch: Elder Druid – Rogue Mystic

    April 4, 2017 - By 

    When it comes to doom and sludge metal, the island of Ireland more than holds it own. Staking their claim in such a healthy scene is Ballymena five-piece Elder Druid, a band who formed in early 2015 via a mutual love of riffmasters general Black Sabbath, the impossibly heavy Electric Wizard, desert masters Kyuss and the almighty Sleep. Lifted from the band’s latest EP, Magicka, the band have unveiled the video to their pulverizing new single, ‘Rogue Mystic’. Featuring suitably warped, arcane archive imagery courtesy of Gryphus Visuals, the six-minute effort conjures the fuzzed-out, hazy heft of everyone from Down at their most vengeful, Come My…