Alternative

Angus & Julia Stone Down The Way

19 Mar 2010

(Flock Music) Building up a fanbase stretching from their Australian homeland to the States, via gigs in the Scottish Highlands (their debut album, A Book Like This, was co-produced by Travis’s Fran Healy in his London living room), young siblings…

Quarantine The Past: The Best Of Pavement

25 Feb 2010

During the 90s Pavement were cult kingpins of the burgeoning US indie-rock scene, and leader Stephen Malkmus was an idol for the brainy post-Cobain brigade. Several excellent albums garnished the era (from Slanted and Enchanted to Terror Twilight), and…

All Tomorrow's Parties: The Film

An onscreen celebration of the alternative music institution

15 Oct 2009

A young man, at the head of a throng of people, kneels in front of a performing drummer, his hands either side of the drummer’s floor tom. The man is shouting, nay pleading with the drummer through a variety of emphatic hand gestures. Growing more…

Five Reasons To Go See: Phoenix

Under-rated alt-rock French sorts comed to Glasgow

15 Oct 2009

1. They’re fashionably unfashionable Throughout the course of four staggeringly brief but perfectly formed albums Phoenix have proved themselves masters of a studied laissez-faire and baffling nuanced lyrics rendering them thus far impervious to the…

Scarce

Not even a coma can get in the way of rock 'n' roll

1 Oct 2009

Rock’n’roll is peppered with hard luck stories, but few bands have had the rug pulled from under them quite like Scarce. In the mid-90s, the Rhode Island trio were on the cusp of great things – signed to A&M, critical acclaim, successful tours including…

Julian Plenti... is Skyscraper

7 Aug 2009

It’s not always surprising when a guitarist or keyboard player unveils solo desires, but when the frontman of a band steps up, it seems a bit weird. Now, as Julian ‘Strokes’ Casablancas attempts to convince us that he really is the brains behind his…

Andrew Bird - Noble Beast

22 Jan 2009

ALT.POP Crafted from hand claps, whistles, glockenspiels, violins, guitars and drums, this grower of an album from the intelligently eccentric Andrew Bird sneaks up on you after the third or fourth listen. The warm alt.pop melodies on Noble Beast…

Celtic Connections - Carrie Rodriguez

22 Jan 2009

Before being a fiddle-toting, mandoguitar-slinging Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter, Carrie was a violin student in Texas absorbing the influences of an opera-obsessed mother and folk-singer father. It was only when she went to Berklee College of Music…

Y'all is Fantasy Island - No Ceremony

11 Dec 2008

ALTERNATIVE POST-ROCK From the deepest darkest depths of Falkirk (and Glasgow), singer-songwriter Adam Stafford and his fine band of musicians unleash their third excellent, self-financed album. Marking a significant change of direction (actually…

Alternative Christmas

13 Dec 2007

With both Edinburgh and Glasgow running dedicated Christmas festivals this year, tapping into the festive spirit has never been so easy. The city centres are hoaching with fake snow-capped German market stalls punting mulled wine, and suddenly there’s a…

Club Olum

Meeting of minds

19 Dec 2006

Club Olum is the brainchild of live music promoter and label owner Peter Rooney and one of Glasgow’s most diverse and cutting edge DJs and Deathkill4000’s Marc Lawson AKA Dirty Marc. It’s a partnership made in heaven when you consider the format of…