Acoustic

Bert Jansch set for 2011 Edinburgh Festival date

Returning folk hero, pal of Neil Young and Devendra Banhart

16 Aug 2011

One of the great acoustic guitarists, Bert Jansch comes to Edinburgh fresh from an American tour with Neil Young and a London show with folk-jazz supergroup The Pentangle. Jansch has been doing an annual Festival show since the mid-90s, touching base…

Exposure: Hannah Cohen

The NY model/photographer-turned-singer/songwriter is beloved by The National's Thomas Bartlett

27 Mar 2012

Two years ago New York-based model and photographer Hannah Cohen met Antony and the Johnsons and The National pianist Thomas Bartlett, aka Doveman, at a party. She shyly played him some songs she’d been secretly penning, and he immediately offered to…

Fingerstyle guitarist Andy McKee Glasgow and Edinburgh dates

Virtuoso guitar plucker who made his name on YouTube

28 Jul 2011

In 2006 American ‘fingerstyle’ guitarist Andy Mckee joined the YouTube sensation club when he posted a video of himself performing his song ‘Drifting’. It has to be seen and heard to be believed – nearly 78,000,000 hits and climbing – but McKee is…

Lach's Antihoot music showcase returns to 2011 Edinburgh Festival

Antifolk set and nightly showcase from Edinburgh-based New Yorker

27 Jul 2011

Having brought his Antihoot night to the Edinburgh Fringe for the first time last year, New York’s antifolk originator Lach (it’s pronounced ‘latch’, which Scots might find counter-intuitive) has found himself a new home. The man whose seminal open mic…

Adele plans acoustic album

Music Gossip

4 Jul 2011

Adele wants her next album to be more acoustic. The 'Set Fire to the Rain' singer wants to take total control of her next record - the follow-up to '21', which was released in January - and already has some ideas in mind for the LP. She said…

Beerjacket: Animosity

9 Jul 2009

Like an iron fist in a velvet glove, acoustic troubadour Peter Kelly has wrapped powerful lyrical sentiment inside a delicate musical framework for this stripped-back-to-basics album. And what an album it is, with whispered vocals, plaintive harmonies…

Beerjacket

19 Feb 2009

Look busy, here comes The Boss! Yep, the legendary Bruce Springsteen paid a spiritual if not physical visit to Oran Mor during a Beerjacket cover of ‘Dancing in the Dark’, and the song’s bittersweet tone and repressed optimism slotted very neatly into…

Dean Owens

11 Dec 2008

ACOUSTIC ROCK Every singer-songwriter has their holy trinity; those singers who inform what they do at the very core. During this intimate evening, the one-time Felsons’ head honcho, Dean Owens gives away Elvis Costello and Johnny Cash straight off…

Sans Trauma - Rushing Your Dragon

11 Dec 2008

Electronica/Acoustic Rushing Your Dragon comes across a bit like the Delia Smith of the music world: largely inoffensive and pretty mundane. There's no harm in listening to the six track EP (Sans Trauma's debut effort) but there's also little gain.

Musicians' guide: Open mic nights

27 Nov 2008

Mondays Glasgow Nice 'n' Sleazy 421 Sauchiehall St, 333 0900. 8pm. The Monday Acoustic Jam, 8pm–midnight. Free to all performers. Bring your instrument and join in the fun. Open Mic NIght - Pivo Pivo 15 Waterloo Street, 564 8100. 6pm.

Yellow Bentines

28 Feb 2008

ACOUSTIC Linen 1906, Glasgow, Thu 31 Jan I like to imagine that bands are created in a Weird Science-style lab, and that when they’re complete, they emerge in a puff of dry ice to the delight of their creator. Then again, maybe I should lay off the…

Beerjacket and Kate Sutherland

17 Jan 2008

ACOUSTIC Brel, Glasgow, Thu 20 Dec Katie Sutherland’s motivation for picking up a guitar was, she explains: ‘I wanted to do more than listen. I wanted to play. So I bought a Jim Deacon and taught myself guitar.’ It proves to have been a very wise…

Lucky Luke

Emma Pollock, Eugene Kelly and Lucky Luke

9 Apr 2007

ACOUSTIC (Lucky Luke) ‘Acoustic’, more often than not, equals folk music. Even though this is actually billed as ‘Versacoustic’ there’s still no one better to open a showcase than the band spearheading the genre’s resurgence - Lucky Luke…

Amy Macdonald

King Tut’s, Glasgow, Tue 13 Mar

27 Mar 2007

ACOUSTIC POP I thought that if you had an acoustic guitar, a wise man once said, then it meant that you were a protest singer. Quite what he’d make of 19-year-old Amy Macdonald is difficult to predict; her lyrical targets include reality TV, ‘the…

Records - Half Cousin

Half Cousin

27 Mar 2007

ACOUSTIC POP For all its wild weather and curious inhabitants, you probably couldn’t help but make resplendently weird music if you grew up strumming a guitar on Orkney. Half Cousin’s 2004 album The Function Room provided some proof of that; main man…

Records - Uncle Fritz

Uncle Fritz

27 Mar 2007

HAUNTED ACOUSTIC There’s a terminally bleak air to Dundee painter and musician Fraser Stewart’s quiet-time aside from Alamos and Perineum metal outlets. With a penchant for tuneless whistling and testing, syntax-free deep vocals, Fritz undermines the…