Arab Strap

Arab Strap - Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, Glasgow, Thu 17 Nov 2011

Aidan Moffat and Malcolm Middleton strip down their back catalogue

As if anyone would have called their band ‘William Harness’ anyway. That was the not-so-secret moniker Aidan Moffat and Malcolm Middleton chose to add deniability to the fact they were getting the old band back together here, even if it was just for one…

St Andrew's Day - The best music from Scotland

Our editors pick highlights from Scottish music through history

Treasure (1984, 4AD) by the Cocteau Twins. Because when ‘Lorelei’ or ‘Ivo’ are playing, it’s hard not to feel a surge of hairs-on-arm-raising national pride about the Grangemouth origins of such a beautiful, essential dream-pop album. Forget listening…

Top five Arab Strap lyrics

In honour of Middleton and Moffat's gig at Nice'n'Sleazy's on Thu 17 Nov, we sings their best bits

1 Speed Date ‘The ugly tattooed swingers euphemise and call their mucky hobby “trysts” / But if I saw another man touch you, I'd break his fucking wrists.’ 2 The First Big Weekend ‘It was a beautiful day, and later that evening Malcolm introduced me…

Arab Strap's Aidan Moffat - interview

Moffat and Middleton are set to team up again to celebrate Nice'n'Sleazy's 20th birthday

The mid-90s Arab Strap song ‘I Saw You’ was inspired by The List’s lonely-hearts feature of the same name. Do you remember using I Saw You at that time? That I Saw You feature had just started, and it was quite exciting and cool. I did attempt to use…

Aidan Moffat takes Bill Wells collaboration album Everything’s Getting Older on tour

Falkirk poet and ex Arab Strap member set for Oran Mor show

‘Yeah. I might have personality issues,’ Aidan Moffat deadpans, while sipping on a tea. He’s explaining his knack for writing equally candid lyrics about ‘unemotional, nasty shaggers’, ‘lonely sollipsists’, sixty-year-old women, squaddie-shagging girls…

Human Don’t Be Angry - guitar-based project from ex-Arab Strap mainman

Malcolm Middleton's new project brings out his sensible side

‘I set out with three unbreakable rules,’ states alt.pop saviour Malcolm Middleton. He’s referring to his brand-new solo endeavour Human Don’t Be Angry. ‘Rule one: don’t do interviews. Rule two: act like you know what you’re doing. Rule three: no beer…

Aidan Moffat - Arab Strap is Dead

Documentary clip shows vocalist mourning end of his former band

Four years after Arab Strap flew off to the big miserable record shop in the sky, their label, Chemikal Underground, have released a shocking documentary short, tracing lead singer Aidan Moffat’s mental decline since the band broke up. In ‘Arab Strap…

Best of a decade: Respectable in the Noughties

Much of the most powerful art produced in Scotland in the 1980s–1990s developed in angry reaction to the political situation and tapped into our radical, left-wing and egalitarian traditions – it’s no accident that the most popular works of that period…

Circle of friends: Dot Allison

The muse-for-hire finds her own voice

There can be few better kept secrets in music than Dot Allison. The Edinburgh-born singer songwriter has been involved in exciting new music for over fifteen years, collaborating with all kinds of different artists as well as producing four acclaimed…

Exposure: Strike The Colours

Strike The Colours is the song-writing vessel of Glasgow-based multi-instrumentalist, Jenny Reeve. Cutting her teeth on a plethora of guest appearances and tours with the likes of Arab Strap, Idlewild and The Reindeer Section - not to mention frequent…

Malcolm Middleton - Waxing Gibbous

The former Arab Strapper has had some wonderful moments in his seven year solo career, but this fifth album has a faint whiff of treading water about it. The wry, bittersweet lyrical observations are still present in the likes of ‘Don’t Want to Sleep…

Exposure: The Gothenburg Address

They don't need a vocalist, they don't even need to tell you what their name means. The Gothenburg Address make music that bleeds with so much honest to goodness grandeur that they claim PJ Harvey and Ian Rankin as fans, quite a quick feat for the…

Sounds of the Suburbs

Arab Strap Known for the dry wit of lustrously bearded singer (or mumbler) Aidan Moffat and the incessantly depressing tone of their music, they are from a small town called Falkirk, midway between Glasgow and Edinburgh. It’s famous for the Falkirk…

Malcolm Middleton

The future’s bright

It was a truly miserable day when the mighty Arab Strap called it quits last year but this grey cloud did, in fact, have a silver lining of sorts: it shifted the spotlight onto the solo work of Malcolm Middleton. Never the most talkative of characters…

Malcolm Middleton - album review

Malcolm Middleton

INDIE (Full Time Hobby) Ex-Arab Strapper Malcolm Middleton posted his intent with the glorious 2005 album Into the Woods, and this remarkable follow-up cements his place as one of the best songwriters in the country. There is an anthemic pop…

Arab Strap

Belt up

OBITUARY It’s September 1996. A message is being left for me by Arab Strap’s Malcolm Middleton. ‘One of us looks a bit like Chris Evans, the other looks like, em, Tony Slattery.’ As a means of setting up a face-to-face interview with people I’ve…

End of the road for Arab Strap

The party's over

‘Then on Friday night we went through to the Arches... There was only one car going, so some of us had to get the train. We got through quite late. Then we went to a pub to take the gear. There were no problems getting in - we saw some others waiting…