• Stream: exmagician – Job Done

    January 8, 2016 - By 

    If there’s one Irish album we’re nigh on pant-wettingly excited for this year it’s Scan The Blue by Belfast’s exmagician. A titular (and slight member) shift from the embers of Cashier No. 9, the project has had us quietly agog since the release of their debut EP Kiss That Wealth Goodbye via Bella Union in November. A perfectly crafted, psych-laced alt-pop gem, the band’s new single ‘Job Done’ distils Danny Todd and James Smith’s prismatic mastery to four all-too-fleeting minutes. As you might have guessed, we’re big fans. WordPress code More options

  • Video Premiere: Bosco Ramos – SNKSWM

    January 8, 2016 - By 

    Previously called GIRL, experimental Belfast duo Bosco Ramos are just one of a number of acts in the city making some first-rate fervent noise at the minute. Recorded with R51’s Jonny Woods at Start Together studio in late 2015, the pair’s seismic new single ‘SNKSWM (Sink Swim)’ – their first official release – is accompanied by a video courtesy of Niall Lawlor and Brendan Seamus. Have an exclusive first look at that below.

  • EP Streams: Arvo Party – Beep/Tintinnabuli

    January 5, 2016 - By 

    From Joy Orbison, Camper Van Beethoven and Chet Faker to Truman Peyote, Ringo Deathstar and Joanna Gruesome, punny musical monikers range from the positively inspired to the downright cringeworthy. Falling very much into the former camp, Arvo Party is the new-fangled electronic-leaning appellation of Belfast’s Herb Magee of kaput riffmasters general LaFaro and three-piece GOONS. Diametrically at odds to said heavydom, Magee has unveiled two EPs of sublime throwback minimalist electronica: four-track release Beep and the five-track Tintinnabuli, which features two re-imaginings of (the actual) Arvo Pärt’s ‘Für Alina’ and ‘Solfeggio (Excerpt in C Major)’. Back to back, it’s an exceptional double curveball from the Belfast-based bassist and…

  • Stream: Sea Pinks – Yr Horoscope

    January 4, 2016 - By 

    Launched at Belfast’s Lavery’s this Friday night (January 8) Soft Days by Sea Pinks sees the Neil Brogan-fronted trio in rudest of health. A highlight from the album – their fifth to date – the band have unveiled single ‘Yr Horoscope’, a twanging, surf-laced earwormer. Read our review of Soft Days here. Stream ‘Yr Horoscope’ below.

  • Album stream: Allez Bartoli – Everything.Forever

    January 4, 2016 - By 

    Almost two years on from their last release, three-track EP Space is an Ocean, Belfast-based experimental electronic twosome Allez Bartoli are back with Everything.Forever, a mini-album very tidily imbued with the pair’s penchant for post-rock leaning soundscapes. DIY at its beating heart, the seven track release was recorded throughout 2014 and 2015 and further reveals AB’s reluctance to aspire to anything even remotely resembling linear imitation. Ahead of our review of the release, stream/download it now via Bandcamp. Everything.Forever by Allez Bartoli

  • Stream: Kowalski – The Kowalski Archives: 2007-2009

    December 30, 2015 - By 

    Having been quiet since the release of their long-awaited debut album, For The Love Of Letting Go, back in the Summer of 2013, London-based Bangor indie-pop quartet Kowalski have returned with The Kowalski Archives 2007-2009, a stellar fifteen-track digital release capturing various performances from their early days. As well as its release, the band revealed their reason for absence was due a serious illness within the band: “Hello you lovely folk! I’m sorry we have been very quiet over here in Kowalski land but we thought it was time to update you on what is going on. Unfortunately our bass player Tom has been very ill for…

  • Irish Tour: Ash

    December 22, 2015 - By 

    In the latest installment of Irish Tour, we go on the road to capture NI alt-rock royalty Ash in Dublin, Galway and Belfast. Words by Conor Callanan, photos by Isabel Thomas, Sean McCormack and Alan Maguire. Olympia Theatre, Dublin It’s hard to believe that Downpatrick’s favourite sons Ash have reached the twenty-third year of their career. It doesn’t seem all that long ago when the teenage trio of Tim Wheeler, Rick McMurray and Mark Hamilton appeared on Top of the Pops, had some of their earliest tracks appear in US movies, and got to record a live album in one of Australia’s…

  • Sea Pinks – Soft Days

    December 22, 2015 - By 

    With five albums in little over five years, Neil Brogan’s work ethic is admirable. And that’s just with Sea Pinks – add to that the albums and EPs he drummed on with Girls Names before his 2013 departure, an excellent recent EP with post-punk quartet Cruising and a low key solo EP as Winterlude early this year and you wonder where he finds the time. With more and more small bands operating part-time in today’s unsteady music business, longer gaps between releases are increasingly common, but the release of Dreaming Tracks in late 2014 still feels like only yesterday, and…

  • The Thin Air’s Top 50 Irish Releases of 2015 (30-1)

    December 31, 2015 - By 

    In the third and final installment of the feature, we count down from 30 to 21 in our annual Top 50 Irish Releases of 2015. Miss the first two installments? Check them out here and here. 30. Morning Veils – Her Kind Released at the tail-end of 2015, Her Kind by Cork outfit Morning Veils was a deserved late addition to the top-end of our countdown. We said: “Her Kind a release that channels bedroom solipsism, backwashed thoughts and psychic corners in perfectly phantasmal fashion. Comprised of members including Elaine Howley of The Altered Hours and Roslyn Steer, the band’s brilliantly burrowing bonerand of…

  • Inbound: Apartments

    December 15, 2015 - By 

    Belfast’s very own two-piece emo/punk band Apartments are a rare breed in the music scene around Northern Ireland. Hosting influences from many underground bands in the punk scene, there a few bands across Ireland that mix the apathetic lyricism, the emotive vocal delivery and the fast paced, aggressive tones of the two piece. The duo have two releases behind them, the latter being a 6-track EP entitled Rush and have been slowly winning people over with their honest, almost self-depreciating music. We caught up with the pair recently to find out about their background, their plans and the music scene…