• Watch The Vox Set Episode 1: Joshua Burnside & Joel Harkin Live at Lost & Found

    Featuring wonderful individual and collaborative performances from two of our finest alt. folk singer-songwriting talents, the first episode of The Vox Set is out now. Set in the intimate setting of one of Northern Ireland’s finest cups of coffee, Lost & Found, the increasingly world-beating Joshua Burnside – who recently released his second album Into The Depths of Hell – is joined by Donegal’s Joel Harkin – whose debut album Never Happy was shortlisted for the 2020 NI Music Prize. The series is supported by Help Musicians NI and Arts Council NI, with their team comprising Stuart Reid, Sam Kwan and Hannah McPhillimy. Their M.O. is as follows: “The Vox Set is a recorded, live…

  • Video Premiere: Grave Goods – Source

    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…

  • Watch: And So I Watch You From Afar @ The Live Room Belfast

    Having just returned from a mammoth European tour and ahead of their biggest hometown show to date, our very own world-beating instrumental titans And So I Watch You From Afar play the inaugural session at The Live Room Belfast, following the release of their massively acclaimed fifth album, The Endless Shimmering. Having transcended their reputation as not just an internationally-respect math-rock outfit, but one of the cornerstones of contemporary Irish – specifically Northern – subculture, the north coast quartet are in many ways they’re the only band who could’ve fittingly kicked off this series of sessions Start Together Studio‘s Live Room, where four of their five albums have been…

  • TTA Session 11: Hiva Oa (Part 2)

    Ahead of the launch of their new EP, MkII (part 2), at Belfast’s Pavilion tomorrow night (Saturday, April 22) we’re pleased to present the second part of Colm Laverty’s TTA Live Session with Belfast’s Hiva Oa. Featuring the band performing tracks ‘So Many Lies’ and Badger’ the session features sound by Chris McCorry and Matthew Collings, camera by Brian O’Kane and Colm Laverty and editing by the latter. Go here to check out the first installment of the session, featuring the band performing ‘Seskinore’ and ‘Johnny Brazil’, highlights from their previous EP Mk. 2, Pt. 1.

  • TTA Session 11: Hiva Oa (Part 1)

    Tipped by us as ones to watch in this Inbound feature back in December, Belfast’s Hiva Oa released one of our favourite Irish EPs of 2016 in the form of the Mk. 2, Pt. 1. Having recently relocated back to the city from Edinburgh, Stephen Houlihan and Christine Tubridy, along with live member Chris McCorry, are an act to keep an eye out on the live front over the next few months, not least their eagerly-anticipated appearance at this year’s Output at Voodoo in Belfast on Thursday, February 16 Ahead of that show, we’re pleased to present the first of a two-part live session…

  • TTA Session 10: Abandcalledboy (Part II)

    In the second installment of a two-part session, Irish noise quartet Abandcalledboy perform ‘Playdough’, that malleable, positively inedible toy we all worshipped as kids. Go here to check out the first part featuring ABCB playing recent single ‘L.A. Dick’. Filmed and edited by Colm Laverty. Sound by The Chris’ AKA Chris Ryan and Chris Brazier.

  • TTA Session #010: Abandcalledboy (Part 1)

    In the first of a two-part Thin Air Live Session, Colm Laverty captures ever-evolving positively idiosyncratic alt-noise quartet Abandcalledboy performing recent single ‘L.A. Dick’, a track we reckon(ed) calls to mind the likes of The Fall and Tera Melos. Sound by Chris Ryan and Chris Brazier.

  • TTA Session #007: Ciaran Lavery

    We’ve said it a few times before but some things just need repeating: Ciaran Lavery is easily one of the most naturally gifted Irish singer-songwriters of his or any other generation. With an extraordinary voice schooled in heartache and experience, Lavery’s restrained yet fevered acoustic tales harbour some truly wonderful turns of phrase and gently-strummed songwriting brilliance. Filmed/edited by Colm Laverty, and featuring sound by Chris Ryan, we recently captured Lavery performing two of his very best songs – ‘Shame’ and ‘Left For America’ – early in the morning outside Belfast’s iconic Duke of York on Corporation Street. As well delivering two superb renditions of both songs, Lavery…

  • Premiere: Go Wolf – Running (Live)

    Over the last couple of years, Belfast electro-pop band Go Wolf have progressively cultivated a perfectly balmy, synth-driven sound underpinned with an impressive command of subtly brilliant, enamouring melodies. Ahead of their OLD FANG-hosted EP launch at Belfast’s Menagerie on March 6, Scott and Hannah from the band have recorded a stripped-back version of ‘Running’ at OLD FANG HQ – a performance that really captures that aforementioned melodic knack. Watch the performance below and go here to buy tickets to the band’s EP launch right here

  • TTA Session #006: R51

    Following on from our recent live session with Jape, our latest audio-visual snoop falls at Belfast-based alt/gaze-pop five-piece R51. Featuring the band in conversation, as well a performance of the pummelling ‘I Hate That Too’, the session was filmed and edited by Colm Laverty, with sound by Stevie Lennox and Michael Hanvey R51 release their forthcoming EP, Pillow Talk, on March 25. Make sure to check back for our premiere of the release and watch the live session below.