The Thin Air Magazine: Issue 1 by The Thin Air

Feature The Rise and Rise of Sick Records // Not Gospel Cork Music - Collaboration, Experimentation and Drive // Primer Street Artist Dermot McConaghy AKA DMC

PLUS

ASIWYFA: Rebirth and Resilience SEA PINKS // RAINY BOY SLEEP // HANDS UP WHO WANTS TO DIE // GROSS NET // CULTURE NIGHT BELFAST // CARRIAGES // HOT COPS // HAÜER // WOMEN’S CHRISTMAS

ISSUE #001 | OCTOBER 2014 | FREE

magazine

Foreword / Contents

Editor Brian Coney brian@thethinair.net @brianconey Photo/Visual Editor Loreana Rushe loreana@thethinair.net @loreana Art Director Stuart Bell @stubell_ Reviews Editor Andrew Lemon andrew@thethinair.net @_andrewlemon_ Guide Editor Stevie Lennox stevie@thethinair.net @stevieisms Advertising, Marketing & Creative Co-ordinator Richard Crothers @CRUTHCAT Tune In Editor James Magill james@thethinair.net @jamesjmagill Cork Editor Mike McGrath Bryan mike@thethinair.net @vilifier_ Contributors (in this issue): Brian Coney Loreana Rushe Stevie Lennox Mike McGrath Bryan James Hendicott Will Murphy Aaron Drain Michael Pope Alan Maguire Tommy Greene Shannon O’Neill Anna Jankowska Joe Laverty Dave Timlin Jonathan Wallace Laura Carland Peter McCaughan Conor Smyth Richard Davis Aoife Dooley Ross Thompson Luke O’Neill Isabel Thomas Colm Laverty

Print is dead. Long live print. It fits in your back-pocket, you know?

age-like, Olivia Newton John once pronounced, “Let’s get physical. I wanna get physical.” She was, of course, specifically referring to what you’re currently holding, having the extraordinary foresight to see three decades into the future, honing in on this particular corner of the world, enamoured by the possibilities of Irish music and culture. We share her ideal: the innate, deeprooted desire to be able to feel, bend - and stain with coffee that which we choose to read.

Last May, The Thin Air was born in a Belfast bar via the brain-racking of a few eager heads. Our website soon came into existence and content started to flow. Contributors pitched (and pitch in still) from throughout Ireland and further afield, and we love it so. But this is, we hope, the beginning of something special; a rebirth, of sorts, of what came before. I hope you enjoy the content as much as we enjoy the process. Let us, indeed, get physical. Brian Coney

Contents Photo of the Month �� 4 Projection �� 5 Inbound �� 6 The First Time �� 9 Feature: Sick Records �� 10 Indoors/Outdoors �� 13 Feature: ASIWYFA �� 14 thethinair.net

Exit Plan �� 17 Primer �� 18 Reviews �� 20 Live Reviews �� 22 Not Gospel �� 24 88mph �� 26 Agony Uncle �� 27

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October 2014

– Photo of the Month

Photo: Alan Maguire

Andre 3000 Electric Picnic 2014

ach month our photo editor Loreana Rushe selects one stand-out gig image from our fantastic team of hard working photographers. The photographer gets the opportunity to showcase their pic and share a few insights into how they captured it. Loreana: This was a really difficult choice as

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Alan Maguire’s entire set from Electric Picnic was solid gold (trust me, check out the gallery on thethinair.net!) but I feel like he completely nailed it with this action shot of Andre 3000. Here’s what he had to say about it: “Headlining the Main Stage on the Sunday night and closing Electric Picnic 2014, Outkast was my last act to shoot.

Arriving onstage in heavy rain, Big Boi, with his leisurely pace, was fairly easy to photograph; André 3000 was much more lively, running and sliding across the wet stage. This was my best shot in capturing some of that energy.” SHOT WITH CANON EOS 6D, 70MM, ISO 1600, 1/320SEC AT F/2.8.

Projection

– Projection Days of Fear and Wonder

t’s 2014. We’re living in the future now. We’ve bypassed Terminator’s ‘judgement day’ of 1997, Kubrick’s 2001 and even Blade Runner’s hellish vision of a rain-drenched, neon Los Angeles is only five years away. These classic films and more will be returning to venues across the country as part of the BFI’s Days of Fear and Wonder season of science fiction. Running from October until December, the season encompasses cult films like Tetsuo: The Iron Man, 80s treasures like Mad Max 2 and Brazil and modern gems like Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind and Inception. Other highlights include Dungannon Film Club’s themed screenings of Alien and THX: 1138 and the QFT’s bug-themed sci-fi all-nighter on October 10. From Rutger Hauer’s poetic “Tears in rain” speech at

the end of Blade Runner to 2001: A Space Odyssey’s summation of the evolution of human technology in one elegant cut between a bone tool and a space station, science fiction has delivered many of cinema’s most iconic moments, and it will continue to do so far into the future. Details for individual screenings can be found at www.bfi.org.uk/ sci-fi and programmes are available from local venues. Richard Davis

October Releases

t’s a good time for fans of twisted antiheroines. Novelist Gillian Flynn’s debut Sharp Objects has been optioned for a television series, and this month her Gone Girl gets the screen treatment. It’s a marital thriller with acid in its veins. Girl-nextdoor Rosamund Pike is the wife who vanishes without a trace and Ben Affleck, who knows a thing or two

about unwanted public attention, is the hapless husband who falls under police suspicion. Word has it that director David Fincher is bringing some of his sick sense of humour along with his trademark sombre stylishness. Elsewhere, tank platoon commander Brad Pitt heads up a strong cast in Fury, shelling Nazis and giving speeches about war. It’s well-trodden and muddy ground, but Training Day and End of Watch have already demonstrated David Ayer’s talent for combining masculine bravado with tight genre action. And finally, at the month’s end, the ghouls come out. Daniel Radcliffe gets back into the dark arts as a murder suspect who sprouts unfortunate forehead appendages in the blackly comic whodunnit Horns. Less tongue-incheek is Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook, a low-frills horror piece about a haunted storybook, which has been terrorising the festival circuit with its domestic grief and efficient scares. Conor Smyth October 2014

Photo: Isabel Thomas

– Inbound –

Inbound Carriages

Carriages

ublin duo Carriages call themselves a folk act: stylistically accurate, perhaps, but their writing process has as much in common with the world of heavily sampled dance as it does with the likes of Guthrie and Dylan. Harry Bookless - also the bassist in increasingly impressive alt. pop act Little Xs For Eyes - builds the backdrop to the pair’s songs around a collection of Dublin city field recordings. Recent release ‘Roots’, for example, as Harry explains, is “based around the natural rhythm of an antique printer at Dublin Print Museum doing what it does. Rather than melding the field recordings into the song, they give the very foundation. I only play sounds from a single trip, 6

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usually with someone close to me, in a single track. For me it evokes a particular memory”. “Aaron [Page, a singersongwriter at the heart of another local act, Water Cycle] might write lyrics about something completely different, but the memory remains.” It’s an intriguing combination. ‘Iron & Fire’ - a simultaneously jangly and emotionally charged track from 2013’s self-titled debut EP – is the duo’s self-proclaimed stand out. The EP has an organic, delicate undertone, but July’s Roots/ Signiﬁcant Others arguably offers greater hints at their true potential. ‘Roots’ surprises with the jarring fuzziness of the poppier edge of Four Tet’s sound, overlaid with an electro-folk vocal. These are simple tracks lent

depth by their nuanced construction and the hidden, textured detail brought with it. In dripping, smart synths, mellow layered rhythms and some less than conventional lyrics - not least the gloriously bumbling and indistinct oral sound effects of ‘Significant Landscapes’ - Carriages have a wonderful oddity to them, one that might keep them out of the mainstream, but could easily foster a happy cult with their debut album, expected sometime next year. James Hendicott

“They have a wonderful oddity to them, one that might keep them out of the mainstream, but could easily foster a happy cult.”

Inbound Gross Net

Gross Net

Photo: Niamh Roberts

soaked, guitar-bass-anddrum-machine-driven duo of monochrome, murky proportions, primed to lure with their lurid concoctions. The sonic spawn of Suicide and Big Black, the pair evoke influences including Birthday Party, The Telescopes and Cabaret Voltaire with their vehement post-punk overtures. Via throbbing bass deluges and agog incantations courtesy of Quinn and restless, effects-laden guitar ambushes spewing from Donaghey they meld to induce a powerful, raw live experience

harking back to a distant age and land. Hinting at something bigger and more impenetrable than the status quo evoking sweltered, street-lain shelters of industrial menace and darkly noise - the immediacy, conviction and esoteric doom of their craft is poised to instantly infect. Whilst two shows do not a band make, Gross Net plan to release a Cassingle (dig the most contemporary compound word) via Art For Blind in November and a 12” EP on Downwards Records in early next year preceded by a 7” with Autumns, also on Downwards. With new shows set to be confirmed, such heady plans are only to be expected, Donaghey and Quinn being two members of a small, sonically incestuous (anti-) scene that branches out over several acts across the country. That said, to suggest Gross Net are likely to regurgitate prior efforts elsewhere would be a gross injustice to what is something both very singular and hugely promising. Brian Coney October 2014

– Inbound –

omprised of Philip Quinn of Girl Names/ Charles Hurts and Christian Donaghey of Derry noise-pop trobadours Autumns, Gross Net have only played two shows to date: one supporting Group Rhoda in Dublin in May and another making their Belfast debut supporting Blue Whale back in August. Having been physically privy to the latter, your writer can confirm that the word on the street is indeed reputable: Gross Net are something of a fully-formed revelation; a pulverizing, feedback-

Inbound Hot Cops / Haüer

– Inbound –

Photo: Joe Laverty

Hot Cops

band whose influences include the likes of Pavement, Weezer, and just about any notable nineties rock band are going to have a tough task of distinguishing themselves from the throng of copycat acts up and down

the country, but that’s just what Belfast power trio Hot Cops are starting to do.

Haüer

that we at The Thin Air think is most definitely boss. Neon rimmed sunglasses adorned, Rooney’s musical style isn’t to be dismissed as purely indulgent nostalgia though: his compositions imply that inspiration comes from more complex beginnings; Vangelis, Tangerine Dream and Sci-Fi soundtracks immediately come to mind. His second second EP, Esperbyte, contains sounds that

rguably one of the country’s more interesting and unique electronic acts these days, Haüer (John Rooney) is a talent whose sonic inclinations champion a familiar yet distinctive retro-futuristic sound. The Dublin native’s blend of synthesisers, drum machines and cinematic timbres make for a hot-pot of cool 8

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Having been hotly-tipped on BBC’s Across the Line and selected for the Oh Yeah centre’s artist development scheme Scratch My Progress, the

alt-rock threesome are preparing to release their debut single – recorded in Belfast’s Start Together studio with producer Ben McAuley – this October. The frenetic ‘Origami’ is a snapshot of the hookladen, radio-friendly bursts that the band have been showcasing during live gigs recently, nodding to their heroes of 90’s rock but also bringing to mind modernday contemporaries such as Surfer Blood and The Strokes. With their single launch expected to take place around midOctober and a debut EP in the works, Hot Cops are an arresting prospect (sorry). Andrew Lemon reflect a modern mindset contented in the melodies of a future envisioned some decades ago. Definitely one to watch. Aaron Drain

Photo: Loreana Rushe

The First Time Rainy Boy Sleep

– The First Time Ph o

Photographer Joe Laverty shoots and delves into the music-making, listening and loving firsts of Northern Irish singer-songwriter Stevie Martin AKA Rainy Boy Sleep to: J

oe L

avert y

First album bought Mechanical Animals by Marilyn Manson. That album changed my life. God knows what I was listening to before that. Spice Girls probably. First single bought ‘Right Here, Right Now’ by Fatboy Slim. Back when Woolworths was still alive. First show attended Amazingly, Red Hot Chili Peppers at Slane. Foo Fighters, QOTSA and PJ Harvey were on the bill too. Not too shabby! First album loved The Animal Years by Josh Ritter or Final Straw by Snow Patrol. I can’t decide which. They were both my movingaway-from-home albums so they’re together as one in my memory. Josh was the soundtrack of mucking about in halls, then Snow Patrol has this sense of awakening that still gives me shivers just thinking about it.

Brian Houston as the mentors that I knew I wanted to make music. I owe a lot to those guys.

First act to change life Glen Hansard. After seeing him play live, I knew that music was the only thing that I wanted to do. His show is so dynamic and his between-song banter is just as good as the music!

First instrument learnt Bass. I wasn’t really into the technique thing though, so I got on to an acoustic guitar pretty soon after that. Three single notes on ‘Teenage Kicks’ wasn’t enough for me. I needed to make a bigger noise.

First favourite local band I saw Panama Kings play in The Cellar Bar once and they absolutely knocked me out! I don’t think I’ve been to a local gig as exciting as that since.

First song learnt from start to finish The first song I could play was ‘Complicated’ by Avril Lavigne. I didn’t have a choice because it was group guitar lessons so I just got on with it.

Band t-shirt/jumper A Korn Issues hoodie. I got beat up on the street for wearing that. Maybe I deserved it. First song to make you cry ‘Fake Plastic Trees’ I’d say. I had a really shite day at school. First time you knew you wanted to make music I knew from an early age that I wanted to play music. It wasn’t until doing a residential music course with Foy Vance and

First musical hero /idol met Cyndi Lauper. I was supporting her on tour. I hadn’t seen her at all until the final night at the Hammersmith Apollo when she came up and asked me to sing ‘Time After Time’ with her that night. I was a mess. But I think she knew the craic. It went down a treat in the end-up. October 2014

Feature Sick Records

The Ascent of a Belfast Institution

t’s surprisingly easy to find yourself at the entrance to Sick Records. Often it is the case with record stores that they hug the peripheries of cities, holed up in their discrete little nooks and crannies, but this one – whilst not proving a wild exception to the rule - requires a lot less scouting and navigation skills to track down than one might expect. If you take a turn just down the top of North Street, it won’t take you long to find Belfast’s newest independent music emporium, run by the duo of relaxed, affable owner Kenny Murdock and his son, Matthew. Of course, one is naturally curious what compelled Murdock to initially open Sick Records - and why at this time. Recalling the dearth of locallyrun record stores and music shops when I first came to the city as a student three years ago, he nods in agreement at the appearance of this previous gap in the market, outlining how, since the closure of Dr. Roberts in 1999, there had been a hole within the Belfast music community for independent shops that he had been frustrated at and, subsequently, was 10

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happy to fill. With its stock made up almost completely of new, often less readily-available vinyl releases, Sick slots quite nicely into a niche market that avoids stepping on the toes of the other independent music businesses in the city, which he sees as important to the fairly leftfield ethos of the store, as well as its survival in a competitive market. Having been open only since March, the store went through a baptism of fire of sorts, being plunged headfirst into the madness of this year’s Record Store Day, less than four weeks after setting up. When he lists the impressive feat of having doubled the shop’s stock in the space of six months, I ask him whether he has a target buyer in mind when he curates his selection of music, with vinyl now holding the twin appeal of both a high-quality playing format and a vintage chic for various consumers. While saying he doesn’t really have any specific customer

The honourary sickest of all: Kenny Murdock

Feature Sick Records

“A place where you can feel comfortable just hanging out”

Photos: Dave Timlin

in mind, he does make it clear that he dislikes the idea or category of the ‘collector’s item’ record, since it implies the commercial value of the music outweighs its experiential value. Quite rightly, he points out that the vinyl on sale exist to be played, not showcased or kept in aspic as a mint condition artifact. Kenny makes a point as well, during our conversation, of explaining the rationale behind the clean, modern, white lines décor and layout of the shop. He waxes lyrical about how he wanted to make the store more universally customer-friendly, trying to dislocate it from the tired stereotype of the old, musty and dusty record shop that invites an exclusively middle-age male clientele. His inclusive vision for the place is instead for it to be a part of the wider community, and a “place where you can feel comfortable just hanging out”. He stresses the importance of this kind of atmosphere when he talks about a couple of people who currently

call into the shop once or twice a week without necessarily buying anything. And yet, the million-dollar question - the one on the minds of everyone who visits or has heard of the place: why ‘Sick Records’ as the name for the shop? “Because it’s the worst possible name for a record store”, Kenny’s son offers. Kenny laughs and admits that this was true, but only some of the story. He reveals that it was partly inspired by his love of The Cranks and their album Stay Sick!, as well as by the ‘Keep Portland Weird’ movement (he foresees a time when Belfast undergoes its own ‘Keep Belfast Sick’ campaign, with T-shirts included and all). Whether this will catch on or not, the shop appears to have started out on a strong foot, which is extraordinarily positive – here’s hoping it remains a successful, vibrant part of Belfast‘s music community even when the Americanism that partially inspired its name has fallen out of usage. Tommy Greene October 2014

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Indoors / Outdoors

– Indoors /Outdoors

nd rla rde

Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel!

f er... lan ed o Bo r

d? Don’t go

outs i de

-p l ay

“There’s no time like downtime.” Barry Chuckle

(2K, MULTI)

Indoors The Evil Within (BETHESDA SOFTWORKS, MULTI)

Barbed wire. Corridors of blood. Broken lifts. Operating theatres. Spidery things. Spinning blades. Shattered glass. Human pin cushions… no, it’s not a night out with John Barrowman. Rather, it is the nightmarish sights featured in the latest release from Shinji Mikami, the industry legend famed for his work on Resident Evil and Dino Crisis. More reminiscent of the hellish atmospherics of Silent Hill than the high camp horror of Resident Evil, this game spirals out from a murder investigation in an asylum (where else?) before events really take a turn for the horrible and strange. Ross Thompson The Evil Within is released on October 14.

Before the multimillion dollar Destiny brashly stole its crown, Borderlands was the king of the open world games. Blending first person shooting with stat grinding and looting, it was driven along by a wacky sense of humour and a dayglo colour scheme. In other words, a breath of fresh air in a genre overcrowded with dumbly repetitive action games. The Pre-Sequel! promises more of the same, which will no doubt please fans of its irreverent humour and cyberpunk art style. Ross Thompson Borderlands: The PreSequel is released on October 17.

Outdoors NFL International @ Wembley Stadium 1.30PM (GMT) KICK-OFF

This month the NFL returns to Wembley, with

the most enticing of this year’s International Series matchups. The Detroit Lions take on the (Moe Szyslak voice) Atlanta Falcons in what promises to be one of the most spectacular matches played on this side of the Atlantic in quite some time. With the NFL’s ever increasing popularity on these shores, a 1.30pm GMT kick-off will provide a unique window of opportunity to witness the spectacle that is American Football, for both hardened fans and newcomers alike. The sport’s combination of tactics, size, speed, skill, and pageantry mean there will be something for everyone, and the indescribably brilliant wide receivers for either team Detroit’s Calvin “Megatron” Johnson and Atlanta’s Julio Jones are guaranteed to provide huge plays, and huge entertainment. The match will be broadcast live on Channel 4, whose coverage is always tilted to help those less familiar with the sport, while keeping more knowledgeable fans interested. Luke O’Neill October 2014

– All Hail – Brighter Futures And So I Watch You From Afar talk rebirth, resilience and their highlyanticipated fourth record.

nd So I Watch You From Afar are nothing if not resilient. To date, they’ve put out three albums and a number of EPs, they’ve had their well-documented lineup change - having reverted to a three piece for their 2013 LP, All Hail Bright Futures - and a fine afternoon in the homely Graham House Studio sees the foursome looking relaxed and chipper, following erstwhile touring guitarist Niall Kennedy’s fulltime creative employment in the band for the completion of their fourth LP, to which they now find themselves putting the finishing touches. Bassist Johnny Adger explains the evolution of their recording process: “For the first record, we just got the sounds and tracked it, but because the songs were a collection over a couple of years it was more haphazard, then with Gangs, we wanted to write an album 14

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so more time was spent keeping it continuous. The third record was different; it was the first we’d done as a three piece and we wanted to do something different but still very much us. We went into the studio with some bare bones, so most of it came together in there.”

“It was very much ‘get up at 9, head to the room, spend the whole day and if it’s dark outside, it’s probably time to go home.’” New ground has been made with this one, with guitarist Rory Friers detailing the 25-30 songs written from January this year: “With All

Hail it was ridiculous - some Pink Floyd shit, in there with kazoos, saying ‘Let’s try this, let’s do this’, which was so much fun, but it’s not free to be in a recording studio every day. This time, we wanted to know what it was we were making, whereas with All Hail, it was very much a lifting-off-the-tablecloth moment. So this time we just wanted to be more prepared, even if that meant not going to gigs, not going out, not even seeing our family too much. It was very much ‘get up at 9, head to the room, spend the whole day and if it’s dark outside, it’s probably time to go home.’ This was the first time we’d written with Niall too, so it was awesome to have a different perspective on things and a fresh pair of hands, ears and eyes.” So, from those aforementioned fresh ears, how does

Feature ASIWYFA

“If you put us on a desert island and there was nothing from the outside getting in, this is the record we’d have made.” the record sound? “It feels very much like a mix of all three albums that they’ve done before, with some fresh new ideas. There are definitely elements of the first record – the elements of the grand and ambient stuff, there’s some of the rawk from Gangs, and some of the joyous stuff from All Hail but there are new elements.” “Yeah, I think the freshness is the way it’s all been put together” clari-

fies Friers. “It feels like there’s a lot more atmosphere; it’s got ambience, but it’s not ambient. It feels like it was recorded in one world. If you put us on a desert island and there was nothing from the outside getting in, this is the record we’d have made. It’s a very pure representation of what we make; we all had ideas – less sonically, but conceptually; descriptions that were less about technicality and more about a part of the album that does ‘THIS’.”

(l-r) Niall Kennedy, Jonny Adger, Rory Friers, Chris Wee. Photos: Joe Laverty

October 2014

Feature ASIWYFA

Creativity has its cost: “We have over an hour of music recorded, which needs to be cut down, and dependent on how it’s picked and ordered, the album could leave a very different lingering taste. There’s an album we could release that’s a progression from All Hail, there’s a darker album we could put together…but what we want is to make, as always, a statement with the record. Songwise, it’s the best we’ve written. The thing I’m looking forward to most is playing it live, which was the hardest thing about All Hail, but these songs definitely lend themselves well to performance.” Signs point to an early spring release. It’s fairly incredible that one of Ireland’s greatest exports is a north coast-based instrumental group, but a look at conditions contextualises

Set Guitars to Kill: ASIWYFA talk to Stevie Lennox

16 16

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things. The scope has gotten increasingly panoramic with each release, from Gangs’ ‘Homes’, to the entirety of All Hail… Chris Wee states, “If we were a stay-at-home band who didn’t tour, it’d be very different music” - a notion Niall reinforces: “Lots of little riffs that ended up on the album were written in hotel rooms in far-out countries, and it feels like a lot of those were inspired by that day or week”. On the touring experience, Friers explains: “it changes how everything looks; to go and see the world just makes the trivial nonsense bickered about and the awful things which unfortunately happen - not just in NI - seem so silly and frustrating. We’re extremely fortunate to have been able to see, even for a moment, anything else just for playing some music.”

He recalls a show in Minsk less than two years ago at the end of a Russian tour: “The promoter sat us down and expressed his gratitude at us coming to play there, and he very sternly explained to me, “No, you don’t know what it’s like here. There’s going to be a war here in the next 2 years.” And this is just a dude with an Iron Maiden t-shirt who we’re drinking with. And now everything that’s happened there since, it’s crazy. So that’s the polarisation you get. On one hand you really see how nonsensical a lot of the stuff here is, but on the flipside, you get to see how fortunate in many ways we can be for the other things.” The room falls silent. It seems the initially-local idea of their early, life-affirming ‘A Little Solidarity Goes A Long Way’ was merely a microcosm of And So I Watch You From Afar’s purpose. Stevie Lennox

Exit Plan

– Exit Plan

Seven comprehensively Thin Air-approved Irish happenings taking place in October

Slow Skies The Sugar Club, Dublin OCTOBER 8

Having released their slick, elegiac Keepsake EP at the tail-end of last month, fastrising Dublin dream-pop duo Slow Skies will surely spellbind Dublin’s Sugar Club on Wednesday, October 8. Catch them before they go positively stratospheric. DSNT Presents: Karenn (Live), Sunil Sharpe, DSNT Residents The Limelight 1, Belfast OCTOBER 10

Illustration: Shannon Delores O’Neill

Celebrating three years of pioneering techno in Belfast, DSNT hosts a stellar bill at Limelight 1 on Friday, October 10: Karenn - comprised of influential producers Blawan and Pariah, fellow Sheworks label artist Sunil Sharpe and the DSNT residents. It’ll be suitably filthy.

Skint recording artist Martin Corrigan, experience the fist-clenched majesty of their propulsive, intent-drenched craft at this, supported by Belfast DJ duo Schmutz. The Thin Air presents: The Altered Hours & Autumns Output: Black Box, Belfast OCTOBER 16

We’re (rather excitably) hosting Cork psych-rock wizards and Derry noise-pop three-piece Autumns at the Black Box on October 16 as part of Output, Northern Ireland’s largest ever one-day conference and showcasing event. Miss at your peril. Belfast Festival Queen’s OCTOBER 16–NOVEMBER 1

With highlights too numerous to mention, Belfast Festival at Queens returns from

mid-October for another genre-spanning, wonderfully scheduled fortnight of music, theatre, dance, film, art, talks and much more besides. Lee Ranaldo Bello Bar, Dublin OCTOBER 24

Legendary Sonic Youth guitarist Lee Ranaldo needs little introduction. A true alternative icon and six-string pioneer, he will be performing a rare solo acoustic show in the altogether intimate setting of Dublin’s Bello Bar on Friday, October 24. This will sell out so nab your ticket quick. Bram Stoker festival Dublin OCTOBER 24–27

For the third year running, Dublin will go gothic for the Bram Stoker Festival, which boasts everything from a gothic ball to intimate performance in unusual spaces and a whole range of film and literary events. Get your teeth into... actually, no - we’ll leave that metaphor right there.

Skymas, Schmutz Bar Sub, Belfast OCTOBER 11

Belfast electro-rock trio Skymas have wasted no time in staking their claim as one of the country’s best new live acts. Fronted by former October 2014

Primer Dermot McConaghy (DMC)

– Primer

I find it easier to work large scales - it’s very free. I think it would take longer for me to finish a canvas three foot by three foot than this. It’s almost like the bigger it is the easier, it’s weird.

Dermot McConaghy (DMC)

he sun is splashing down over Belfast perfect conditions for fast-moving, independent artist Dermot McConaghy to work. Just off Royal Avenue, at Kent Street, I meet him and it’s surprisingly quiet; the only sound being spray paint dosed off every few seconds. Some people pass by and raise their heads to see the artist on the top of a cherry picker, covering the side of a building in a purple-yellow haze, shaped into a satisfied, valiant and youthful looking man. That same face seems to express the confidence circulating amongst young artists around the country at the minute – something much needed in this type of work. McConaghy has just finished another wall; a

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piece of art in the centre of his hometown of Lurgan titled “Hope”, voluntarily created for suicide prevention charity PIPS. Gracefullly lowering the cherry picker so I can shake his blue hand, McConaghy opens up about his work. So, how long does it take to finish a painting like this? It’s my second day, although due to the change of plans technically it is my first day. This should be done in two more days. I had a friend who was painting with me earlier you always get a wee helping hand somewhere. Why do you choose this method so often? You do paint on canvases as well is there something addictive in street art?

Looking at the size of this building it really does seem weird. Was that how you started in the art world? Was something you wanted to do as a kid? I always have been interested in art. It’s probably the only thing that I’ve ever really been good at. I’m not into sports, nor am I into music. My older brother is an artist but we’re very different. He went to the Art College before me and I kind of followed, but I always had something different in my head. He was more into graphic novels, almost comic sort of stuff I was more into painting, I suppose.    Did you ever paint each other walls in the house just to annoy each other? Was it a challenge between you? No (laugh). He’s very good at what he does and he’s quite a laidback person - so am I - so it was never a competition between us. He doesn’t do art much anymore, he stopped which is a shame. He is more into music now.

Primer Dermot McConaghy (DMC)

Speaking of music: you visit many festivals - I think I might have seen you at Electric Picnic two years ago? I like to party (laugh). I’ve been at a few festivals this summer and I did a lot of painting. I get to enjoy them while doing what I love. I painted in Body and Soul at Electric Picnic this year and last year. You are partly based in Dublin. What drew you to that city? I always loved the city. It’s very international, there are just so many different cultures and it’s colourful. A lot of friends of mine who are artists are from Dublin and it has a really nice vibe about the place. I like to go into the city and see what’s going on. Belfast has that too – for

example, last year Culture Night was amazing, so much new graffiti and street art. You like to encourage people to get involved in painting. You also do projects with young artists. What do you think of their work? There’s something about spray cans. I would do workshops with young people - there are certain ways of painting and if you break it down to them they start to see it in a different way and might follow. Sometimes people just grab a can of spray and just go ‘Aaah!’ blazing it all over (laugh). It would be extremely hard for you to sneak in here with all of this in the middle of the night to paint a piece… For the kind of art I do and the style that I do I need time

and it’s essential to plan it. You couldn’t do it at 2am. I also think getting a criminal record isn’t going to benefit my career in any way. You’ve two more days to finish this painting - all the framework seems to be done. Are there any new projects we can expect from you and where can we see your art? Yes, there is a new project coming at the end of the month. There’s also White Lady Art Gallery in Dublin and Millennium Court Arts Centre in Portadown where you can see my work. Also, Seedhead Arts are doing some brilliant work in Belfast. Anna Jankowska Follow Dermot and his artistic endeavours at www.manchini.co.uk

One of DMC’s many wonderfully vibrant wall pieces. Photos: Joe Laverty

October 2014

Reviews Releases

– Reviews

Hands Up Who Wants To Die Vega In The Lyre   After a protracted absence following their Richterreleased 2011 debut, Dublin bruisers Hands Up Who Wants To Die re-emerge from the ether with a veritable accostment of noise-rock, post-/-gaze and slam poetry. To be blunt, Vega in the Lyre does not fuck around. ‘Now Beacon, Now Sea’ lurches in and levels all in its path in true Hands Up fashion, while the tension of ‘Burnt Yesterday’ betrays a spacey post-rock dynamic. The whomping grooves of ‘No Big Deal’ set like hounds under all the sonic panic ongoing - create a titanic sense of scale, a prime example of the album’s positively enormous production. Lead-off single 20

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‘Dreft’ wanders into postpunk territory, a traipsing, bass-clanging study of recession-era misery verging on harrowing. Elsewhere, ‘Beauts Malone’ summarises the whole enterprise perfectly, a winding beast of many sections that veers from doom-band-playing-math to taut post-hardcore. This album will leave you battered and confounded, as is HUWWTD’s wont, but it’s another step you’ll gladly take into the fray. Mike McGrath Bryan

Sea Pinks Dreaming Tracks   Neil Brogan’s Sea Pinks have always felt like something of a regional anomaly, concocting firstrate, surf-tingled jangle-pop

over three progressively solid albums and a handful of EPs. The follow-up to 2012’s stellar Freak Waves, Dreaming Tracks conjures brooding, sun-split coastal trawls and imminent Autumnal solipsism over ten tracks, each track as masterfully melodic and considered as the next. As is Brogan’s custom, the album isn’t exactly concerned with verbosity or thematic meandering, the Belfast-based frontman meditating on the perfect simplicity of love, loss and daydreaming, not unlike the terse, efficient taletelling of J Mascis, Times New Viking and Beat Happening. With opener ‘Dreaming Happening’, the wonderfully jaunty ‘Waiting For You (To Go)’ and ‘Wasted On You’ - a superb, melancholic masterstroke proving peaks, the perfectlyjudged presence of cello throughout Dreaming Tracks seals the deal on a release that bears the hallmarks of experience and intent, comprehensively confirming Sea Pinks’ repute in the process. Brian Coney

Reviews Releases

Women’s Christmas

White Male Actors Ghosts EP

Polyglove Dialler EP

Too Rich For Our Blood

White Male Actors have got some pretty high expectations to meet. Having already been given the thumbs up from R.E.M. the expectation around their debut EP is considerable. Sadly, even without this pressure, the record never approaches anything more than average. Ghosts is five simple straight-shooting hits of post-punk-Pixiespop with the looming spectre of Twin Atlantic. This isn’t to say it’s bad. ‘Before The Sun Goes Down’ builds itself a very good hook and the strings on the title track are a welcome touch. It’s an EP with few surprises which you’ll struggle to remember anything about. Will Murphy

Polyglove are the Dublinbased duo of Niall Conroy and Stephen Maguire. Diallier, their debut EP, is an impressively confident journey through analogue synths and sci-fi-like atmospherics. The keeneared will note Solar Bears’ Rian Trench on mixing duties, whose distinctive yet light touch lends the EP an otherworldly feel. Lead single ‘Cynthia’ showcases the pair’s gift for tactile orchestration and slowly built up grooves, whilst the hard-hitting ‘Cruzer’ was surely written with packedout sweatboxes in mind. At nearly forty minutes it’s a lengthy session of purely analogue, lo-fi house music – but there’s enough craft here to warrant repeat listens. Andrew Lemon

With members of Villagers, Jogging and I Heart the Monster Hero in tow, Women’s Christmas’ debut LP comes laden with a certain expectation coming off a cracker of a demo tape released earlier this year. It marks a moment of transition for Ireland’s resilient lo-fi culture, as much as the medium allows. Too Rich For Our Blood is marked by “big” production (or at least a “big” sound), in ample evidence in opener ‘Thumbs Up to the World’. The shift is subtle enough not to detract from the charm of movers like ‘Summer Born, Winter Bred’, but adds layers of density to the songs that stand to benefit. An enjoyable excursion into the pop sensibilities of its constituent parts. Mike McGrath Bryan

October 2014

Reviews Live

– Live

This page top: The Monotonous Tone; bottom: Belfast Circus School. Overleaf: Thee Dreadfuls Photos: Colm Laverty

Culture Night Belfast 2014 of St Anne’s Cathedral, we sway in a crowd of hundreds during the carnival style finale of five hundred dancers and drummers playing Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Tusk’.

y the time the sun sets we’ve already become terrified of the Belfast Women’s Roller Derby Team, horribly lost a Slow Bicycle Race and argued with some small children about what our chalk drawing was supposed to be. It was an elephant, for the record. The sixth year of Culture Night Belfast delivers a relaxed but chaotic atmosphere and, as was only expected to be the case, we struggle to fit everything in. Despite the Black Box being several degrees hotter than the sun, Pocket Billiards induce a huge crowd to bounce happily in unison to their ever 22

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popular brand of ska-punk. Wandering down Hill Street Sideways Up and The Fuck Sakes deliver some classic, dirty rock n’ roll where next door, we watch, like goldfish in a bowl, the talented folk behind the excellent Culture Night Radio plug busily away. Elsewhere, in the shadow

With innumerable streets and venues transformed into theatre spaces, gig venues and everything in between, the bustling and brilliantly busy evening draws to close inside the Oh Yeah Centre. For those of us lucky to get in at all, Cruising offer up thrashing guitar riffs, wailing vocals and bursts of grimy, angry chords via their very own brand of scuzzy garage-rock, making for an interesting Belfast/Dublin collaborative endeavour.

Reviews Live

At the end up, headliners Go Wolf treat us to their polished, nostalgia tinged electro-pop. Instant favourites like ‘Talk To You’ and ‘One More Night’ inspire immediate dancing and celebratory whistles, the band’s short but sweet synth-driven set bursting with catchy hooks, strong vocal melodies and infectious rhythms. ‘Voices’ in particular is wonderfully received, proving a masterful little piece of pop. The band veer off down a slightly downtempo road with the beautifully written ‘Even

Carcass

they’re set for big things - just as we’re absolutely convinced that Culture Night continues to get better every year. Laura Carland

God’ assuring us that there is much more to Go Wolf than the canny ability to make us dance. As an undisputed highlight, we’re certain

THE LIMELIGHT, BELFAST

arcass are nothing if not excellent value, being that the giggoer essentially gets two bands for their buck. In their first decade they pioneered goregrind, combining bowels-of-Hades grindcore with ludicrously lurid lyrical content, with a medical slant. Who could turn their nose up at a track like ‘Vomited Anal Tract’? However, come ‘93 the original sickboys of metal pulled their most shocking trick to date and released Heartwork - a seminal album which helped kick-start another subgenre, the shredding-heavy melodic death metal which was to

find its spiritual home in Gothenburg, Sweden. Ever the diplomats, Carcass make sure to feature plenty of jams from both sides of the gorestrewn fence, although from a personal point of view I’m happy that the more recent stuff dominates. A chiaroscuro backdrop serves as a counterpoint to the Argento-esque red and blue lighting just as the chestrattling drums and guttural vocals compliment Bill Steer’s soaring shredding. Fists gleefully punch the air with every pinched harmonic.Vocalist Jeff Walker also punctuates the evening with endless ‘rock

tales’ and weird gags, served in his cheery Merseyside ‘real’ voice. He’s like the most fun wedding DJ ever, and I mean that as a sincere compliment - metal should be fun and Carcass keep it so without compromising on brutality or talent. Peter McCaughan

Photo: Liam Kielt

October 2014

Not Gospel Cork

– Not Gospel

Deep Down South W

hen your writer was asked by TTA’s powers-that-be to point out the strengths of Cork’s scene and how it relates to the rest of the country, he had to think long and hard on the latter. While we’re bursting at the seams with talent and our numerous genre groupings are experiencing booms to varying degrees, from our psychedelia and shoegaze to hip-hop, funk and soul, it’s still hard to nail down precisely that intangible quality that not so much ties us to Irish music, but makes Cork music culture in 2014 what it is. It’s that second-city feel, smaller but cooler than its capital counterparts. It’s the feeling of being packed into the mass of humanity at the back room of Mr. Bradley’s at any of its gigs, hub as it is of so many small but faithful communities, from metal, to folk, to Oi!, to rockabilly. It’s the feeling of walking into the Triskel and feeling like being part of something bigger than yourself, whether it’s getting an unmerciful slagging off Albert at PLUGD Records, or night-time musical dalliances at its cafe cousin, Gulpd. It’s being in the 24

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middle of Camden Palace Hotel and watching the place move and come to a life of its own with the passions of its residents and visiting acts, or the ground-floor vitality of the Cork Community Print Shop on a Second Sunday, or during a record fair. It’s the small-venue survivors, like Fred Zeppelin’s and The Roundy, institutions on their own.

It’s the camaraderie between people involved; the constant collaboration, experimentation and drive for creating something unique. It’s the lack of industry presence, the free reign. It’s the resilience and strength that this town’s music community has, even in the face of the loss of iconic venues like The Pavilion and The Quad, to drive forward and find new spaces to create and exhibit said passion. It’s the successes of bands like Elastic Sleep, The Altered Hours and The Vincent(s) in blazing their own trails and further validating the DIY ideal, showing us all that it can be done. It’s all of these things, and so much more, that make us who we are, that tie us to a strange, eclectic and often-overlooked part of the national picture, and ultimately set us apart. Mike McGrath Bryan

Not Gospel Cork

October 2014

88mph Suede Dog Man Star

â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 88mph Suede â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Dog Man Star

rom needle drop to closing cymbal crash fade, Dog Man Star displays a grandeur and effortless confidence that only a group at the zenith of their power can pull off. And yet, as it was being created, Suede were close to dissolution. The recording sessions were fraught with clashes between vocalist Brett Anderson and guitarist Bernard Butler, so much so that before it was finished the latter was no longer part of the band and by its release he had been replaced. Suede weathered the hype surrounding their arrival in â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;92, delivering a stream of quality EPs and an album that was to become the fastest selling debut album 26

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(OCTOBER, 1994)

in British history and won the 1993 Mercury prize. The pressure to follow that success combined with the interpersonal problems did not bode well for Dog Man Star but what we the listeners get to experience displays little evidence of turmoil.

some positives, but laces everything with hints of angst and theatrical violence. Vocally, where the first album suggested he could be prone to yelping self parody, here he emotes assuredly, spanning a restrained baritone, poignant falsetto and guttural sneer.

Having already married The Smiths with Glam-era Bowie, Suede immaculately blend in an orchestral feel, a new more soulful angle with a smattering of horns and even elements of prog rock, which, at the time, was still very much a dirty word. They use every trick in the book to forge the most sophisticated epic they could muster and yet still found room to experiment. An instant classic, but with legs.

Musically, everything is awash with pomp. Dog Man Star is symphonic in its vision and delivery and while it can evoke the vastness of an epic, ocean-bound movie score, it can just as easily place the listener in claustrophobic loneliness. Butler, as always expressing himself best with his guitar, vents his frustrations by slashing and wrenching at it savagely throughout and yet still extracts only sensational riffs, each tailor-made to enhance their surroundings.

Anderson, adopting a drug induced stream-ofconsciousness approach, develops his sleazy bedsit glamor with a maturity befitting the lush musical environment. Touching on obsession, isolation and endless other dark themes, he occasionally oozes

Though the band did not split and went on to greater commercial successes, this dark epic remains their masterpiece and, 20 years later, the immensity of its artistic triumph remains intact. Jonathan Wallace

Agony Uncle Marriage

Agony Uncle Agonising? Le Galaxie mainman Michael Pope is here to help.

riage

This month: Mar

Illustration: Loreana Rushe

arriage is not better than Star Trek. Marriage never removed Spock’s brain and had his shipmates travel across the galaxy to put it back in his head. Marriage never fought one-on-one with a lunatic manlizard on a deserted planet. MARRIAGE DOESN’T HAVE WILLIAM SHATNER. But for some reason a lot of you jerks want to get married instead of watching Star Trek. So I’m here to answer your questions about marriage and not Star Trek. If you had to marry one of the Beatles to one of the Spice Girls who would you choose and why? EDMUND HELMET I’d pair up the lead singer of Maroon 5 (I don’t know his name, there is no information about him on the internet) and Racist Spice - the Asian one with the bald head. What’s your favourite marriage themed joke? MARK EARLEY

Why did the man get married?

He didn’t, he lived to be 83 and died at home with his gently sobbing brother Brendan holding his hand. Should we allow animals to marry each other? Sure they are living in sin, no? FINBAR

Dinosaurs were the most divorced species on planet earth until humans came along. I happen to think same-species unions are an abomination so I’d like to see couples of all types: an ocelot and a tuna, a rhino and a hummingbird, or Paul Gascoigne and that little dog from Frasier. I’m getting married in 3 weeks but I hate my ﬁancé’s cooking, what should I do? WAYNE O’CONNELL

Wayne, your mouth is clearly gay. You should make your own meals and get a boyfriend. My husband’s mother-inlaw pinches me when he’s not looking. I feel like I’m going mental. RACHEL NOLAN

Trust me, Rachel, you’re not mental. Take a breath and calm down. You need to literally

set her on fire next time you see her. Will my overgrown manchild of a husband stop watching wrestling any time soon? KAREY SPELLMAN

Yes, I think it’s over at 10pm. What’s the longest any married couple has ever gone without having sex? DAVID MCCANN

I’ve actually conducted several studies in this area. My findings were thus: your ma has been having sex with me for a good fifteen years but hasn’t shagged your da since 1991. So lets split the difference and say their marriage is a disgrace? Why did Kurt Russell never marry Goldie Hawn? ED He did. It was rocky at first, she had amnesia after falling from her yacht and, as payback for skipping out on payment for carpentry services rendered, he got her to do loads of household chores by pretending they we married. But then they built a mi nature golf course and fell in love for real.

NEXT MONTH’S SUBJECT IS... BRUNCH (OF COURSE IT IS). SEND YOUR QUESTIONS TO ASKMICHAEL@THETHINAIR.NET

October 2014