• Irish Tracks of the Week – June 12th

    June 12, 2020 - By 

    Including premieres of brand new singles by Not I and James Anderson, we round up the best Irish tracks released this week, from Jafaris, Everything Shook, Tebi Rex and Alpha Chrome Yayo to Dott, Goodtime John, Pillow Queens, Susie Blue and Unbelievable Lake. Not I – Please Be Kind [Premiere] James Anderson – Peace [Premiere] Jafaris – Glue Everything Shook – Stand Ajar Stand Ajar by Everything Shook Tebi Rex – I Got My Whole Unbelievable Lake – Forgive Unbelievable Lake · Forgive Susie Blue – Daughter Alpha Chrome Yayo – Tomb Dive Skylight Sessions by Alpha Chrome Yayo Dott –…

  • The Thin Air’s Top 100 Tracks of 2019 (#75-51)

    December 17, 2019 - By 

    In the second of a four-part series, we continue our island-spanning, genre-leaping countdown of the best Irish tracks released in 2019, from Belfast alt-pop trailblazer Rebekah Fitch to a truly stellar track courtesy of Ordnance Survey. Miss out on 100-76? Go here to catch up. 75. Rebekah Fitch – Poison 74. New Pagans – Charlie Has the Face of a Saint 73. Casavettes – Imposter Syndrome Imposter Syndrome by Casavettes 72. Not I – Please, No Kindness, Please 71. Sorbet – Born Purple (feat. mickeykiiatein) Born Purple by SORBET 70. Autre Monde – On The Record 69. His Father’s Voice – In…

  • Premiere: Not I – At The Beach

    December 20, 2019 - By 

    Dublin indie rock noisenik duo Not I are back with ‘At The Beach’, the second single taken from their forthcoming debut album – reportedly due next year. Produced by Christopher Barry at Ailfionn Studio and artwork from Linden Pomeroy, it conjures the no-peak malaise of The Microphones and Pavement at their most jittery. A singularly voiced lyricist, Thomas O’Reilly’s vaguely-pitched Lee Ranaldo-esque sing-talk has never been more convincing. Listen below:

  • Video Premiere: Not I – Please, No Kindness, Please

    August 15, 2019 - By 

    Being a consistently arresting two-piece is no easy task – not least when the majority mines along the garage-blues-punk spectrum with little deviation. Dublin duo Not I – formerly Nervvs – take a hard left into something far more sophisticated by virtue of their grasp of minimalism, and seemingly telepathic interplay between vocalist/guitarist Thomas O’Reilly & drummer Ian Meagher. The title track of their debut album is an immediate primer for the band, O’Reilly’s sardonic, kitchen sink worldview screams for meaning in the mundane; “It’s a song about the struggle to make art and not get lost in the swamp of the day-to-day, resolving with an…

  • Pas Moi/Not I @ Happy Days Enniskillen International Beckett Festival

    August 5, 2019 - By 

    A broken mind is a terrifying notion. Once gone, so too, has a large slice of the humanity. Isn’t that why we hurry past the insane, with their babbling interior monologue, on the street? It’s a brave playwright who subjects an audience to the mad jabbering of a fractured mind, delivered relentlessly  at the speed of thought for a dozen minutes. And in the pitch black, with only the speaker’s mouth illuminated. Samuel Beckett, who was many things, was nothing if not a courageous writer. Beckett’s Not I, a powerful and unsettling portrait of the isolation of madness, returned to…

  • Lisa Dwan @ Samuel Beckett Happy Days Festival

    July 28, 2015 - By 

    Talks related to Samuel Beckett are an integral feature of the Happy Days Enniskillen International Beckett Festival. This year, the inaugural Billie Whitelaw Memorial Lecture in the Southwest College commemorated the late Beckett actress who passed away in December 2014. Lisa Dwan, in a very real sense the heir to Whitelaw, had the honour of delivering the first Billie Whitelaw Memorial Lecture and gave a talk every bit as captivating as the interpretations of Beckett’s plays that have won her unreserved international acclaim. In introducing Dwan, the festival’s Deputy Artistic Director Liam Browne quoted a New York Times review of…

  • Not I, Footfalls & Rockaby @ The Mac

    September 10, 2014 - By 

    In theatrical terms, Lisa Dwan’s trilogy of playwright Samuel Beckett’s celebrated short plays at The MAC represented a significant first, and in all likelihood, a last. The actress’s stated intention to retire from performing ‘Not I’ by the end of 2015 means that these handful of Belfast shows had an added spice. It’s hardly surprising that Dwan can see the finishing line for her role as Mouth, as the emotional, technical and psychological demands must surely exact a price. Head strapped to a board, eyes and ears covered, arms immobilized, enveloped in total darkness – this is sensory deprivation taken…

  • Not I/Footfalls/Rockaby by Samuel Beckett @ The MAC

    July 28, 2014 - By 

    From September 2 to September 6, The Mac, Belfast, will present three classic plays by Samuel Beckett, executed in just one-hour long, rarely performed, piece. Not I is an intense monologue, set in a pitch-black space lit by a single beam of light. A disembodied female mouth floats eight feet above the stage and delivers a stream of consciousness, spoken, as Beckett directed, at the speed of thought. Footfalls tells the moving story of May, a ghostly figure who paces back and forth like a metronome outside her dying mother’s room. Completing the trilogy is Rockaby – probably the most famous…