• Video Premiere: Sullivan & Gold – Guatemala

    April 24, 2017 - By 

    Once a duo, Sullivan & Gold is the music-making moniker of Derry’s Benjamin Robinson, formerly of the Good Fight. Aptly positing his music as “the perfect accompaniment to falling in or out of love”, his output to date has straddled wistfulness and deliverance in fine fashion, something that’s more than apparent on new single ‘Guatemala’. A heart-rending ballad taken from a new full-length set for release in late 2017, the track “tells the tale of a long distance relationship between a young couple; a newly qualified primary school teacher teaching in the north coast of Northern Ireland and a young Northern Irish…

  • Basecamp Launch Night

    April 24, 2017 - By 

    It’s always great to see a new regular live gig night crop up. Launching at Belfast’s McHughs on Saturday, May 22, BASECAMP is the a new venture from Four Acre, the brainchild of Neil Allen of all but revered NI alt-folk band The Emerald Armada. For its first outing, the night – which is calling itself “the home of emerging artists – will see sets from Brash Isaac, Jamie Neish and Benjamin Hamilton. Admission is £5, doors are at 8pm.

  • Watch: BP Fallon & David Holmes – Henry McCullough

    April 20, 2017 - By 

    Look as far and wide as you so please but you’ll struggle to find a more positively unique, perfectly fitting and cosmically-inclined musical obituary than ‘Henry McCullough’ by BP Fallon and David Holmes. A peak on the latter’s exceptional Late Night Tales release from last year, the six-minute sonic eulogy is a sorcerous tribute of semi-mystical proportions, weaving Fallon’s beautiful offering to the late, great McCullough with keyboards and drum programming from Holmes, guitar work from Noel Gallagher, additional drums Emre Ramazanoglu and backing vocals from Nina Holmes and Lisa Di Lucia. Ahead of the release of ‘Henry McCullough’ – The Andrew Weatherall…

  • Stream: Pat Dam Smyth – Juliette

    April 12, 2017 - By 

    Ask a selection of the country’s most well-regarded and successful singer-songwriters who their own favourite Irish songsmith is and there’s a very strong chance that Pat Dam Smyth will crop up. An artist whose candour, lyricism and musicianship leaves affectation and hubris at the door, his long-awaited new single ‘Juliette’ is a masterfully mournful cut, concisely relaying the tale of a woman attempting to escape an abusive relationship. Cut from the same cloth of Nick Cave and John Grant, the full-band effort also conjures Dark Side-era Pink Floyd in its braying brass and portentous, swaggering pop élan. The first single to be taken from…

  • Inbound: Foreign Owl

    April 11, 2017 - By 

    Foreign Owl is a band whose members have found their musical home in Derry by way of a protracted route through the Southern prefecture of Fukuoka, Japan and the mean streets of Burt, Donegal. Members, Eoghan Donegan (Guitarist/Singer), along with brothers Míchéal (Bass/Singer) and Ciarán McCay (Drums/Singer) struck up a friendship after meeting at Japanese drumming (Taiko) classes in Derry. What started out as a mutual appreciation of film, soon germinated into a real desire to express themselves through music, inspired by their surroundings, art and Japanese culture. Along the way, Radio Foyle’s Stephen McCauley has championed the band by…

  • 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…

  • Stream: Ryan Vail – We Drift We Wake/East Berlin

    March 29, 2017 - By 

    To mark this year’s World Piano Day – an annual celebration of the ivory keys, spearheaded by Nils Frahm – Derry producer and musician Ryan Vail has released two new tracks. As well as a sublime rework of his own ‘East Berlin’ (which was selected for Nils Frahm’s playlist for World Piano Day back in 2015), ‘We Drift We Wake’ makes for a wonderfully meditative, delicately sprawling piece that doubles up as an audio visual collaboration. with artist Hohxx_. Better still, both efforts reveal the sheer tonal and emotional range of Vail’s ever-growing musical palette. Featuring everyone from Martyn Heyne and Olafur Arnalds to…

  • Watch: Bosco Ramos – Rolling Sea

    March 28, 2017 - By 

    Let be known: Belfast’s Bosco Ramos make a lot of pleasant racket for a two-piece. Taken from their forthcoming Signs of Life EP – which is set for release on March 31 and launched at Belfast’s McHughs on April 7 – Phil Brown and Calum McGeown’s earworming new single ‘Rolling Sea’ is a three-minute burst of fuzzed-out, Death From Above 1979-tinged alt-rock that, pretty rare as it is in the genre these days, doesn’t bury itself behind a veil of Americanised vocals. We’re all for singing in one’s own accent here at The Thin Air. Created by Brendan Seamus and Billy Woods, here’s the single’s video.

  • Watch: ‘Document: A Film About Malojian’

    March 20, 2017 - By 

    If there’s one thing we could all take from Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky’s 2004 Metallica film Some Kind of Monster it’s that fly-on-the-wall, “in-the-studio” documentaries can – given the wrong variables – capture a very unique kind of tension and uncomfortable atmosphere. Something of the polar opposite of that (in more ways that one) Colm Laverty’s exceptional Document: A Film About Malojian captures a band whose chemistry and compatibility as a unit is, in itself, endearing, entertaining and hugely watchable. Featuring the Stevie Scullion-fronted band recording their exquisite third studio album This Is Nowhere with the towering Steve Albini at his Chicago studio…

  • Video Premiere: PORTS – The Few and Far Between

    February 7, 2017 - By 

    Having been busy in the studio recording new material, PORTS are currently gearing up for a trip to Kansas to showcase at the prestigious Folk Alliance International festival. A soaring peak from the Derry band’s debut album, The Devil Is a Songbird, ‘The Few and Far Between’ is a song that precisely distils the Derry band’s anthemic alt-pop craft. Marrying soaring crescendos with finely-woven instrumentation and sublime harmonies, it’s become something of a highlight from the Steven McCool-fronted band’s live shows as of late. Released as a single at the tail-end of last year, the song now comes accompanied with…