The Thin Air

We know, we know, there’s still a rake of months left in the year, but we’re calling it now: White Sage’s Queen Maeve’s Grave is easily one of the most rewarding Irish LPs of 2025.

Saturday at We’ve Only Just Begun at Whelans featuring live performances from I Dreamed I Dream, EFÉ, Florence Road, ESSIRAY, Telekura, Shmoneydoll, sjaney and Sarah Crean. Photos by Seán Kelly.

If you caught Andy the Doorbum at last year’s In The Meadows – or even more recently at The Grand Social – you’ll know what’s coming to the Sunflower in Belfast on Thursday 14th August: one of the most arresting live performances you’ll ever encounter, a truly singular vision from a truly singular artist.

Belfast will once again throw open its doors to the world this autumn as the Belfast International Arts Festival returns for its 63rd edition, taking over the city from 14 October-9 November with a stacked line-up of music, theatre, dance, visual art, literature and film.

The lunchtime crowd strolls by the bust of Rabindranath Tagore tucked away on the south side of St. Stephen’s Green, the squawks of seagulls resounding in the distance, a spontaneous surrealist serenade to the “bard of Bengal” whose work W. B. Yeats had been most taken with. And just under 110 years previously, in 1916, that one year of the 20th century most fateful for the Irish, the All India Home Rule League was launched, having been directly inspired by the Irish Home Rule movement.

Sungazer live at Opium in Dublin with support from Maddie Ashman. Photos by Federico Ciamberlini

Friday night at We’ve Only Just Begun at Whelans in Dublin featuring live performances from Negro Impacto, Becky McNeice, WineMom,  HANNAHBELLA,  Delivery Service, All Thumbs, Sammy Copley, Sarah Brooki, and more. Photos by Seán Kelly

Seven years deep and still operating in their own slipstream, Just Mustard have spent the last decade being one of the island’s most consistently rewarding, genre-flipping propositions; sonically singular, unafraid to pivot and impossible to imitate. Three years after dropping one of the outright best LPs of 2022, Heart Under, the Dundalk shape-shifters – Katie Ball, David Noonan, Mete Kalyoncuoğlu, Rob Clarke and Shane Maguire – have announced its follow-up: We Were Just Here.

I was first exposed to Portishead when I was in my friend’s house after school one time and we were all listening to her extensive record collection. She put on Third, and when ‘Machine Gun’ came on I was astonished at how such abrasive sounds could have such a delicate and sad beauty to them when paired with Beth Gibbons’ haunting vocals. I can’t get enough of the aggressive distorted drums and especially the breakdown at 3:16 when things sound very evil as that bass and synth come in.

Thursday night at We’ve Only Just Begun Festival at Whelan’s in Dublin featuring live performances by Holly Munro, Hotgirl, For Nina, Kayleigh Noble, Theatre, Anna Leah, Sona Blue, Annika Kilkenny and more. Photos by Ian Davies