Electronic

Take That - Progress

Electronics-tinged man pop is one of fastest selling records of the century

23 Nov 2010

(Polydor) By the time you read this, the now fully reunited Take That’s sixth offering will have been bought by stratospheric amounts of people. Progress is one of the fastest selling records of the century so far – a huge achievement for a once…

Emeli Sande - King Tut’s, Glasgow, Mon 15 Nov, 2010

Voice of UK rap-pop hits tours classically-styled soul material

23 Nov 2010

Acknowledging the fact there were representatives of London record labels in the house for this last date of a short Scottish tour, Aberdonian singer Emeli Sande seemed every inch the promising young singer-songwriter trying hard to make an impression.

ISVOLT: A Disaro Witch House compilation

23 Nov 2010

(Robot Elephant) If hypnagogic pop is like some half-remembered 80s fantasy, then witch-house is more of a half-repressed nightmare – familiar, compelling and faintly horrific – doused with drowsy disco beats. Fusing and abusing elements of…

Serengeti and Polyphonic - Bells and a Floating World

Chicago art-rap duo deliver sub-aquatic electro and remixes

23 Nov 2010

(Anticon) For all of their talk about floating worlds, there’s something sub-aquatic about rapper Serengeti and producer Polyphonic’s latest burbling hip hop missive. The Chicago art-rap duo’s six new laid-back social expositions are variously…

Die Antwoord - SWG3, Glasgow, 12 Nov 2010

Doing for post-apartheid South African underclass what punk did for UK guttersnipes

22 Nov 2010

With their fresh new Zef style, South African rap-rave crew Die Antwoord performed a high energy, jam-packed line up of catchy rap, indecent exposure and 'next-level-beats' from their debut album $O$. A crowd of expat South Africans, indie kids and…

Kele - The Arches, Glasgow, Tue 16 Nov, 2010

Hard graft rewarded with a won-over audience

22 Nov 2010

After a string of successful festival dates, playing to tents full of boozed-up party-goers while idyllic summer sunsets took place outside, Kele Okereke may have thought that this solo business would be an easy ride. Back then, crowds were effusive in…

Electro-hip hop insurgents Ratatat set for UK tour

‘Mogwai taught us how to drink beer like a professional rock stars’

16 Nov 2010

‘Mogwai taught us how to drink beer like a professional rock stars,’ says Ratatat’s synth‘n’bass extraordinaire Evan Mast. ‘We’d be lost without them.’ He speaks of a Japanese tour that united the rousing twain back in 2006: Mogwai the post-rock…

Tinchy Stryder

HMV Picture House, Edinburgh, Wed 3 Nov

16 Nov 2010

‘I wanna get real deep with you right now,’ promises East London’s own Tinchy Stryder before his big number one hit of last year ‘Never Leave You’. Deep is relative, though. Here it translates almost exactly as ‘a bit like the heart-numbingly awful bits…

Errors - Celebrity Come Down With Me

15 Nov 2010

(Rock Action) Boasting remixes from the mammoth likes of Mogwai (‘Supertribe’), Moon Unit (‘Beards’) and Gold Panda (‘A Rumour In Africa’), Celebrity Come Down With Me is a compelling and curious addition to the Errors canon: a record that delivers…

Finn Peters - Music of the Mind

15 Nov 2010

(Mantella Records) Arguably all music is at least initially of the mind, but there is an extra degree of literal description in the title of the saxophonist’s latest project. Peters worked with Dr Mick Grierson at Goldsmith’s University to map his…

Simian Mobile Disco - Delicacies

15 Nov 2010

(Delicacies) This latest from London-based duo James Ford and Jas Shaw takes a leap from the electro-dance of their first two albums into harder, more techno territory. Gathering releases they’ve put out this year on their new imprint, Delicacies…

The Pictish Trail - In Rooms

15 Nov 2010

(Fence Records) The second long-player from local alt.pop prodigy The Pictish Trail boasts more songs than some artists chalk up over an entire career. Inspired by indie comedian Josie Long’s ‘100 Days To Make Me A Better Person’ endeavour…

Official Tron Legacy trailer, poster triptych and Daft Punk track 'Derezzed'

Compare the original 1982 Tron trailer with the 2010 Tron Legacy version

4 Nov 2010

Tron Legacy is released in the UK on 26 December 2010. That's right, Boxing Day - meaning that the Christmas TV schedules are going to need to pull something pretty special out of the bag to compete with this, as frankly, The Emmerdale Omnibus followed…

LCD Soundsystem on Hot Chip, Glasgow Barrowland and breaking the cycle - James Murphy interview

'I don’t know what’s going to happen for the first time in five years. It’s exciting to be confused'

3 Nov 2010

‘There’s a right way and a wrong way to play Glasgow,’ says LCD Soundsystem founder and frontman James Murphy. And he should know. His band’s excursions to the Barrowlands (‘my favourite venue in my favourite city in the world’, the New Yorker assures…

Joker, James Blake and Girl Unit head up Numbers Sub Club date

Glasgow Guy Fawkes Night triple bill

3 Nov 2010

It’s Guy Fawkes Night, and while children in hoodies are throwing fireworks at each other in the park and building bonfires in places they’re not supposed to, the Sub Club is going to explode with the sound of the biggest party to hit Glasgow this…

Edinburgh's Az-tech club comes to a close

Residents head up final night at The Caves

3 Nov 2010

‘Az-Tech started as a breaks night. We just wanted a place to play out the music we like and bring breaks to Edinburgh,’ explains Amy Fowler (aka resident DJ Siren). ‘But it’s evolved, our music policy is really loose, it’s just party tunes.’ Broadening…

South Africa's rap/rave Die Antwoord on UK tour promoting $o$ re-release

Blaring synths, pounding beats and South African accents

2 Nov 2010

When a video featuring South African rave/hip-hop crew, Die Antwoord surfaced late last year, a lot of head-scratching ensued. Is this for real? What’s up with their hair? And why is that guy shaking his penis? Whatever you thought of that video and…

Gold Panda on UK tour to promote Lucky Shiner

Essex producer follows the 'old-school hip hop rules'

2 Nov 2010

He’s from London, but Essex was the making of Gold Panda. (His real name? ‘Just Derwin, if that’s all right.’) ‘I lived in Peckham until I was about 15, then my family moved to Chelmsford, where a cultural scene didn’t really exist,’ he says. ‘I found…

Robyn - 02 ABC, Glasgow, Mon 18 Oct 2010

Sweden's electro dissident triumphs with precision electro-pop anthems

2 Nov 2010

From her beginnings as a 90s teen-pop icon to her 00s domination of the hipster blogosphere, Sweden’s electro dissident, Robyn, has beaten a colourful path to stardom. She’s in Glasgow, replete with windmills and excessive strobe-lighting, while touring…

Muscletusk - Ask The Universe

2 Nov 2010

(Braw Records) Tripping straight out of Leith, Muscletusk have been honing their at times terrifying aural assault course across an array of tapes and CDRs for some time now. The seven cuts on this vinyl-only release run together to create a…

Brian Eno - Small Craft on a Milk Sea

Pioneer's debut Warp release with young collaborators a surprise and a success

1 Nov 2010

Like his cohort David Bowie, Eno knows a good collaborator when he sees one. His 70s solo albums are littered with names such as Robert Fripp, Phil Collins, Robert Wyatt and Harold Budd. For this, his first solo album since 2006’s Another Day On Earth…

Magnetic Man prepare to take dubstep to the masses

Artwork, Benga and Skream take 'dubstep supergroup' on tour

27 Oct 2010

It thrived in the dark, and in underground dancehalls acolytes beat out their devotion with their feet. Now dubstep is going somewhere no one ever expected: the charts. Magnetic Man (aka Artwork, Benga and Skream) took ‘I Need Air’ into the top ten and…

Various Artists - Fuck Dance, Let’s Art

26 Oct 2010

(K7) For all of its swearing and sloganeering, Fuck Dance Let’s Art: Sounds from a New American Underground comes on less like a counter-cultural snapshot and more like a cash-in on the hipster genres variously tagged as chill-wave, dream-pop…

Foals and Toro Y Moi set for UK tour

Five reasons to go see nu-prog double header

26 Oct 2010

For their lies, for their sweet little lies Foals (pictured) are not baby horses, we can tell you that. And Toro Y Moi is not a bull. The former is a Mercury-nominated art-rock quintet from Oxford. The latter is one Chazwick Bundick: a hazy…

Labels of love: Too Many Fireworks

26 Oct 2010

There’s a phoenix rising in our midst, and its designate is Too Many Fireworks. Formed around 2001 by Troika’s Neil Milton (aka Beneath Us, The Waves), it was inspired by Chemikal Underground and enlightened by Electric Honey. The Glasgow-based imprint…