• Avenues For Belonging: David Berman soundtracked the strangest and saddest parts of life, but also the most beautiful

    August 8, 2019 - By 

    Songwriter and The Thin Air contributor Maija Sofia reflects on the profound and unwavering influence of  late Silver Jews frontman David Berman, and remembers a peerless, uncompromising artist who not only comforted the lonely and lost, but brought them together. I remember very clearly the first night I ever heard Silver Jews, I was sprawled out on the carpet in a big curved room in North London, lying on my stomach with my laptop open and a bottle of Sainsburys’ wine half-finished beside me. It was early summer and I had the window open to the hot dust and the sound…

  • Sometimes It Snows In April: Remembering Prince.

    April 21, 2016 - By 

    There will never be another artist like Prince. And ‘artist’ is the only word that one can use to describe him. Whether it be in his visionary approach to recording music, his concept of himself as a multi-media master, conquering the stage and screen, or his almost perfect grasp of song craft, Prince approached every aspect of his life as if it were art. First garnering attention as a boy wonder, writing, producing and performing every instrument on his debut album, the first signs of Prince’s genius were exposed when he performed the incredible trick of unearthing the very magma…

  • Lou Reed: A Tribute Playlist

    October 27, 2013 - By 

    Arguably punk’s greatest ancestor, Velvet Underground founder and uncompromising solo artist and collaborator for the last five decades, Lou Reed has passed away the age of 71. One of the finest songwriters of the twentieth century (and, for many, beyond) his songs and art traversed genre, sentiment and style, dividing critics and fans from his 1972 self-titled effort right up his notoriously at odds collaboration with Metallica in 2011. From heroin and the NYC underground to Diet Coke and t’ai chi, Reed came a long way from the sixties, constantly re-affirming his right to be restless and fearlessly re-inventing his musical manifesto…

  • Death Of The Naturalist: Seamus Heaney (1939-2013)

    August 30, 2013 - By 

    How do you write words for the master? Is it possible to pay tribute in language to a man whose legacy is to have captured the very essence of our soul in words? Perhaps not, but for all the words that Seamus Heaney put to paper, it’s a safe bet that over ten times that will be written about him in the years to come. The Castledawson born poet has been hailed as the greatest Irish poet since William Butler Yeats, an iconic figure, sitting comfortably in a pantheon of great Irish voices alongside Beckett, Joyce, Behan, Shaw, Wilde, and…