• Premiere: Myles Manley – Aaa Episode 3 and 0

    April 29, 2020 - By 

    Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve been offering a first look at Aaa, a new music video series by Dublin-based artist Myles Manley. A three-part collaboration with various filmmakers, it has honed in on exactly what sets Manley apart as a genre-contorting pop auteur. In Part 1, Myles visited a group of wealthy businesspeople, seeking investment for a new streaming service, www.musiccool.ie. In Part 2, our intrepid hero suffered a bout of depression and seeking some counselling, following the rejection of Music Cool. Today, in episode 3 and 0, he frames his experiences in another way. Watch Bob Gallagher’s…

  • Premiere: Mark Waldron-Hyden – I Can’t See You: Where Did You Go?

    April 27, 2020 - By 

    On Wednesday, Cork artist Mark Waldron-Hyden releases an album that is surely going to go down as one of the Irish titles of the year. Recorded over a two-month period, “in pretty intense solitude” in his studio in the Nagle mountains of rural North Cork, Future Life Continuity is a clear-cut statement of intent, melding singular abstract ambience via prismatic noise and first-rate polyrhythmic forays. Lead single, ‘I Can’t See You: Where Did You Go?” is one of many gems here. Across five minutes, it makes for a masterfully shapeshifting trip, melding widescreen, Kranky-leaning ambience with submerged Brainfeeder-esque textures. Featuring visuals by Con O’Brien, have a first listen to…

  • Premiere: The Mad Dalton – Skeleton Waltz

    April 27, 2020 - By 

    Belfast-based songwriter Peter GW Sumadh aka The Mad Dalton first appeared on our radar back in 2015, via the release of his ruminating, Americana-tinged debut EP The Little Belfry. Five years on, Sumadh’s craft has evolved to a point where harmonic savvy and incisive turns-of-phrase effortlesly take centre-stage. Having finished 2019 with gigs supporting both Malojian and Junior Brother, new ‘Skeleton Waltz’ arrives, fittingly, in surreal times. Recorded at Millbank Studios, this latest offering featuring Michael Mormecha on drums and artwork by renowned Belfast creative Andrew Train (Giraffe Stairs Tattoos), it follows cancellation of recording sessions and ahead of the…

  • Premiere: Myles Manley – Aaa Episode 2:

    April 22, 2020 - By 

    When we launched The Thin Air back in 2013, Dublin-based artist Myles Manley was one of the first Irish artists that we shone a light on. In the seven years since, his shapeshifting, at times downright unpigeonholeable brand of pop has always delivered something that stops you in your tracks. Following last week’s opening installment, today we’re pleased to premiere the second of three videos in a new series by Manley. A collaboration by Seamus Hanly, Sebastian MacDermott and Conor O’Toole, the video features Myles suffering a bout of depression and seeking some counselling, following the rejection of MUSIC COOL .IE seen in…

  • Premiere: Bedrooms – Party Piece

    April 21, 2020 - By 

    Back in February, we flew the flag hard for Dublin quartet Bedrooms. Bearing the imprint of indie rock royalty including Dinosaur Jr, Galaxie 500, Guided by Voices and Pavement, we lauded their ability to bridge the gap between dream-pop and gazed-out indie via a straight-up slowcore sensibility. Recorded with Girl Band’s Daniel Fox in his Stoneybatter studio last November, new single ‘Party Piece’ delivers much of the same, the song conjures Dean Wareham stepping in on a stripped-back Cocteau Twins jam. “We sort of wrote this one backwards,” Devin from the band told us. “We had the second half of the song for a…

  • Premiere: Myles Manley – Aaa Episode 1: I Took on America and Won

    April 15, 2020 - By 

    Were it not for, y’know, the global pandemic laying waste to any semblance of normalcy in our lives, Myles Manley would be setting off on a tour next month. Ahead of those dates, the Dublin artist (who, for our money, is one of the most singular songwriting voices in the country) was also set to release a new music video series. While the planned live dates can’t feasibly go ahead, Manley is – thankfully – still releasing the video series, collectively called Aaa. A masterfully singular triptych, directed by the likes of Bob Gallagher and others, the series encapsulates precisely what has long set Manley apart as…

  • Mixtape Premiere: Acid Granny – Just Be Hoors

    March 27, 2020 - By 

    One of a handful of Irish acts that we recently singled out as being destined for special things in 2020 and beyond, Dublin’s perfectly unpigeonholeable Acid Granny have wasted no time in making their very own brand of face-searing, genre-flaunting shock-and-awe heard. Stocking more bangers than a mid-Ulster fireworks dealer come October, their freeform explorations via the time-untested medium of drum kit and electrified shopping trolley will, if you allow them, yield demented patterns and ecstatic locked grooves à la Afrika Bambaataa on sneachta and Zach Hill being flung down a flight of stairs. Intrigued? Daunted? Barely keeping it together after a couple of weeks in the gaff? Look no further than…

  • Video Premiere: Gnarkats – Dreamers

    March 27, 2020 - By 

    Among the many Irish acts to give us some insight into how they’re coping in this unchartered era of self-isolation, Belfast trio Gnarkats know a thing or two about looking on the bright side. On singles such as ‘Take Me Away’, ‘War Cry’ and ‘Enigma’, the band’s slick brand of indie-pop has always felt unapologetically optimistic and forward-looking to its core. Rather than wallow or peer collectively inwards, Louis Nelson, Jordan Evans and Stuart Robinson instead opt to wield hope via their craft. Which is to say, their thoroughly idealistic new single ‘Dreamers’ couldn’t have arrived at a better time. Distilling Gnarkats’…

  • Premiere: Gaze is Ghost – Abacus

    March 23, 2020 - By 

    It’s majorly reassuring to know that, despite these unprecedented times of lockdown and worldly uncertainty, many Irish artists are, despite facing huge limitations, pushing forward and releasing new music as scheduled. One such act is Gaze is Ghost, comprising classically-trained Strabane composer and songwriter Laura McGarrigle, drummer Casey Miller and Keith Mannion aka Slow Place Like Home. Doubling up as the threesome’s first release with Mannion on backing vocals, synths and electronc production, new single ‘Abacus’ is a gossamer and carefully-crafted alt-pop gem confronting themes of environmental destruction, guilt and responsibility, asking “how the individual can respond to issues that threaten to ovewhelm…

  • Premiere: Ghost Office – The Face of Garbo

    March 19, 2020 - By 

    Arguably Belfast’s finest post-punk pragmatists, Ghost Office are back with ‘The Face of Garbo’, the second single from their forthcoming debut album, set for release later this summer. Marrying propulsive – near King Gizzard-esque – psych-flecked chaos with a macro-anthology narrative of fables spanning across time & disciplines, it’s one of their most artistically complete works thus far. The single was produced by bassist Carl Small, with lyrical duties from guitarist/shared vocalist Joe Gilson, who tells us more: “The song tells three stories, of events that cast their makers into myth. The solar eclipse that proved Albert Einstein’s law of relativity, the opera singer Enrico Caruso being threatened…