• Stream: Rory Nellis – Casual Discrimination

    February 6, 2017 - By 

    Taken from his forthcoming second album, There Are Enough Songs In The World, ‘Casual Discrimination’ by Belfast singer-songwriter Rory Nellis is a song that wields subtlety like a scythe. With its wonderfully-woven alt-folk brood summoning the likes of Department of Eagles and Grizzly Bear, it’s a very timely song that tackles racism and discrimination with a poise, lyrical finesse and extraordinary harmonic command that we’ve found sets Nellis apart from many of his tale-telling peers. Having already released two singles from There Are Enough Songs In The World (which is set for release on Saturday, November 11) ‘Casual Discrimination’ is the third and latest…

  • Stream: Gadget and the Cloud – And I Told You Something True

    February 3, 2017 - By 

    Outside of her relatively recent music-making as Gadget and the Cloud, Cork’s Kelly Doherty has been an active, respected voice as music writer, critic and campaigner for a few years now. Also an occasional contributor to The Thin Air (full disclosure and all that) Doherty launched the “sad ambient sounds” of GATC in late November, 2015 with October 31st, a debut five-track release of sparse, elegiac drones and bleeping sub-pop. Fifteen months on, released during a period of personal bereavement, ‘And I Told You Something True’ is a similarly minimal effort, bounding with choppy beats, quiet grace and fidgety, shimmering…

  • 17 For ’17: DIE HEXEN

    February 3, 2017 - By 

    Extending from the north of Ireland to the east of Asia, the scope of DIE HEXEN – spatially, temporally, and ideologically – is vast and fascinating, executed in a fashion that marks this enigma of performance art apart from any other musician in the country. DIE HEXEN defies definition or categorisation, an identity and an idea constantly in flux. It’s a marriage of western and eastern concepts; of the unique post-World War II Japanese art theatre, Butoh, the dance of darkness; of myriad twentieth century cinematic, musical and pop-cultural influences; of personal experience and wilful passion. We’ve had glimpses of…

  • Joshua Burnside – Ephrata

    February 2, 2017 - By 

    Experimental singer-songwriter Joshua Burnside has announced the release of his debut album after a few years of silence. Ephrata is due to come out on May 5 through Quiet Arch Records – home also of Ciaran Lavery, Ryan Vail & Tucan – and was written allegedly during a creative spurt in Colombia. His only prior EP, If You’re Goin’ That Way was released in 2013. Despite Burnside playing most instruments on the album, it features a variety of recognisable local collaborators and producers throughout. Stream first single, ‘Tunnels Pt. 2’: Joshua Burnside launches Ephrata at the Duke of York on Sunday, April 30, with support from Alana…

  • Watch: Fionn Regan – The Meetings of the Waters

    February 2, 2017 - By 

    What better way to make a long-awaited return than with a faultless new song and video featuring none other than Cillian Murphy? Having recently been sampled by Bon Iver on ‘00000 Million’, Fionn Regan‘s sublime, slow-burning ‘The Meetings of the Waters’ is the title track from his forthcoming fifth studio album, which is set for release on April 14. To say we’re excited about what the full-length has in store might a bit of an understatement. Get acquainted with the new release from the Wicklow singer-songwriter right below.

  • Droids – Vessels EP

    February 2, 2017 - By 

    After a break of several years, Derry riffers Droids release their new EP, Vessels, on March 27. Recorded at Smalltown America Studios over the last few years, it’s a long time coming after their excellent, raw eponymous debut EP in 2012. Stream the first track to be unveiled from the EP, ‘Burn Down’: Vessels by Droids

  • Wild Rocket – Dissociation Mechanics

    February 2, 2017 - By 

    Eclectic Dublin psychedelic groove-laden space rock outfit Wild Rocket have announced their second album is called Dissociation Mechanics. The five-track album will be released through Irish DIY record label & distro Art For Blind. In the meantime, check out their 2014 debut album, Geomagnetic Hallucinations: Geomagnetic Hallucinations by WILD ROCKET

  • 17 For ’17: TOUTS

    February 1, 2017 - By 

    Three-piece Derry band TOUTS have quickly established a name for themselves in the local music scene and beyond by delivering incendiary live performances, underpinned with an ol-school punk attitude. Still in their teens, Matthew (singer/guitarist), Luke (bassist), and Jason (drummer) have opened for punk rock royalty in Derry’s own, The Undertones.  They’ve also played high-profile support slots and secured upcoming shows with Blossoms and The Coral. As a band, they have been sustained on a diet of stellar mod/punk rock throughout their formative years – who whilst indebted to pioneering artists – have quickly forged an identity of their own…

  • Group Zero – Structures and Light

    February 1, 2017 - By 

    With his primary project currently working on album number 4, Girls Names frontman Cathal Cully is to release his debut solo effort, Structures and Light under his Group Zero pseudonym. Released on February 17 on Touch Sensitive Records, like his bandmate Philip Quinn’s Gross Net electronic side-project, it projects the flip-side of their post-punk day-job, instead channelling the shadowy intensity along the lines of Throbbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire, without ever approaching an over-reliance on nostalgia or pastiche. As Touch Sensitive & Cully himself say: The genesis of this newly discovered musical freedom coincided with a viewing of ‘Pyramid of Light’ by Heinz Mack from the post-war Dusseldorf based…

  • Fecking Bahamas – V. Ireland

    February 1, 2017 - By 

    To say Ireland has an unusually rich track record in the realms of math-rock, post-rock and instrumental music would be something of an understatement. This is something Melbourne music website Fecking Bahamas (assumingly named after the latter-day Don Caballero song ‘Palms Trees In the Fecking Bahamas’) have copped onto, manifesting in V. Ireland, a new, 21 track compilation featuring tracks from the likes of And So I Watch You From Afar, The Redneck Manifesto and Abebisi Shank to lesser-known but no less sorcerous sonic conquistadors in We Are Knives, Val Normal and Psychojet. Their fifth-region specific compilation and their first release…