• EP Stream: Hvmmingbyrd – Know My Name

    September 19, 2016 - By 

    Counting Cocteau Twins, Portishead, Wilson Phillips, Lorde and the Staves amongst their key influences Kildare/Dublin duo Deborah Byrne and Suzette Das AKA Hvmmingbyrd originally started out as a folk-based quintet back in 2013. The confident culmination of their steady and steadily impressive evolution to a self-described “harmonic alt-pop duo”, their new EP, Know My Name, is a polished, hook-laden affair that sees the duo’s weaving vocal interplay dance above carefully-composed, FM-friendly electronic pop passages. Where it’s occasionally a shortcoming for certain acts of their ilk, Byrne and Das ensure simplicity and melodic linearity are at the root of each track on offer here.

  • EP Stream: Girls Names – Revisionism

    September 19, 2016 - By 

    Ahead of setting off on yet another European tour, Belfast’s Girls Names have released Revisionism, a five-track remix EP featuring re-workings of recent tracks including ‘A Hunger Artist’ and ‘Reticence’ by Mikey Young of Total Control, Group Zero, Broken English Club, Shift Work and Tom Furse. Traversing skeletal, deconstructed electro, synth exorcisms and droning post-punk incantations, the EP is now available via Tough Love Records. Stream it via Spotify and check out the band’s forthcoming European dates below. SEPTEMBER 21st – SE – Gothenburg – Pustervik 22nd – SE – Stockholm – Bar Brooklyn Debaser 24th – FI – Helsinki – Bar Loose 25th –…

  • EP Premiere: Paper Dogs – The Lost Art of Conversation

    September 19, 2016 - By 

    If there’s one thing the island of Ireland has no shortage of it’s straight-shooting rock bands. But one such act that has developed that foundation to skilfully – and often very convincingly – accomadate the influence of blues, funk, indie rock and much more besides is Belfast quartet Paper Dogs. Counting such heavy-hitters as Pink Floyd, Miles Davis, Thin Lizzy and Black Sabbath, amongst their key influences, the Chris Rooney-fronted band – an increasingly established staple on the live scene up North over the last while – doth their collective cap to a certain grade of genre-defining greats whilst very consciously framing that imprint with their…

  • Video Premiere: Malojian – I’ll Be Alright

    September 16, 2016 - By 

    Featuring footage of the Stevie Scullion-fronted band recording their forthcoming new album, This Is Nowhere, with Steve Albini in Chicago early this year, the video for ‘I’ll Be Alright’ by Malojian captures a band very much in their element. Also featuring Joe McGurgan on bass and Michael Mormecha (also of Mojo Fury et al.) on drums, their journey was fully captured by Belfast-based photographer and The Thin Air contributor Colm Laverty; make sure to keep an eye out for the full-length reveal of that soon. The lead track from This Is Nowhere, ‘I’ll Be Alright’ is Malojian at their sharpest. With beautiful harmonies…

  • Premiere: Hiva Oa – mk2 (part 1) EP

    September 15, 2016 - By 

    With core members Stephen Houlihan and Christine Tubridy having recently returned to Belfast from Edinburgh Hiva Oa are an outfit currently experiencing a well-earned revelatory upswing. Drawing from the limitless realms of fear, loneliness, abandonment and awakening, their new EP, mk2 (part 1) is an emphatic, wonderfully-realised dose of experimental electronica that wears the influence of Radiohead, in particular, on its sonic sleeve. Where this would perhaps prove a hindrance for other acts of their ilk, Tubridy and Houlihan filter that imprint via a much vaster palette of sound, conjuring everyone from The Twilight Sad, Interpol and Jeff Buckley across the release’s four tracks. Though still…

  • Album stream: Oh Boland – Spilt Milk

    September 14, 2016 - By 

    While the West of Ireland’s favourite garage-rock, sloppy pop trio Oh Boland commence their travels across America over the next three weeks, those of us at home wait with baited breath for the release of their debut LP Spilt Milk on September 30th via San Diego label Volar Records  (at long last I hear you cry!) In anticipation for the official release you can now stream the album in its entirety over on Volar Records’ Bandcamp. With lyrics rooted in boredom, apathy and vague tragedy, Niall Murphy’s vocals are playfully sardonic while the rhythm section of Eanna MacDonnchadha (bass) and Simon McDonagh (drums) keeps things…

  • Watch: I Am The Cosmos – Letting It Go

    September 13, 2016 - By 

    Masters of the oblique, Dublin electronic duo Ross Turner and Cian Murphy AKA I Am The Cosmos have never been in the trade of empty self-promotion. Have grew up in the suburbs of the city together before forming in 2010, the pair have just unveiled their first ever music video for galvanic new cut ‘Letting It Go’. Directed by long-time IATC collaborator Dorje De Burgh – himself a masterful photographer with an eye for wonderfully cabalistic imagery – it’s a mesmerising accompaniment drawing inspiration from rare footage of Arthur Russell. Touching on the track’s subject matter, Turner said, “The lyrics are a reaction to social dynamics – people playing games with…

  • Stream: Robocobra Quartet – Correct

    September 13, 2016 - By 

    There was a while there that the would-be implication that we were receiving some sort of financial injection from Belfast’s Robocobra Quartet to regularly fly the flag of their sonic wares wouldn’t have been entirely without reasoning.  After all, a quick search on TTA reveals that we have shared news specifically about the Chris Ryan-fronted project at least a dozen times in the space of a year. Frankly, normally, that kind of thing would border on – if not positively encroach – overkill, were they not such a consistently intriguing proposition. As we bide our time for their long-awaited cheque to clear (disclaimer: we jest), the…

  • Preoccupations – Preoccupations

    September 13, 2016 - By 

    What’s in a name? For Toronto’s Preoccupations, their previous moniker ended up presenting more trouble than they could have anticipated. Releasing an EP and self-titled album as Viet Cong in 2015, their name seemed only to compliment the dark, unsparing and even brutal music that they played, with few reviews drawing any attention to the group’s political insensitivity (it had done little harm to their post punk forbearers Joy Division and Gang Of Four). However, as the band grew in stature so too did internet protests, questioning how four white westerners found it fit they should name themselves after violent Asian paramilitaries in search of some…

  • Stream: Vogelbat – Ovl (feat. Sad Mermaid)

    September 13, 2016 - By 

    Berlin-based Kilkenny producer David Sheenan AKA Vogelbat last caught our ear back in February with ‘Banx’, a track Eoin Murray called “a jittering slice of melodic trip-hop reminiscent of Bonobo or FKA Twigs, or the less jarring parts of Oneothrix Point Never’s catalogue”. Seven months on and Sheenan’s latest track ‘Ovl’ – featuring vocals from Berlin’s Katharina Burchin AKA Sad Mermaid – also slots very nicely into that particular description. Sheehan said, “It’s influenced by the likes of Portishead and Massive Attack. I’ve been working on it for quite a while, struggling with the mix, aiming for a lush sound without…