Music and Electronic

Twisted and Brainfire: Ten Years

20 Aug 2009

Despite not being the most critically-acclaimed genre, hardcore has a long history of popularity in Scotland, and a still-strong fanbase. Possibly the style’s biggest monthly parties in the country are run by Glasgow-based promoters Alan Robertson and…

Electric Frog Street Carnival

The Notting HIll spirit comes to Glasgow

20 Aug 2009

‘The Street Carnival came about from us deciding that we’re the north’s version of the Nottinghill Carnival in London,’ explains Jack Revell, aka Numbers DJ Jackmaster and one of the people behind The Electric Frog Street Carnival, a new all day event…

Benbecula Records – The Final Vinyl

One last electronic adventure from Porty’s finest

16 Aug 2009

When Benbecula Records blew out of Portobello in the final year of the twentieth century, it provided an overdue outlet for the Caledonian wing of the then relatively new wave of laptop-based electronicists inspired by Warp Records’ pioneering mix of…

Simian Mobile Disco - Temporary Pleasure

16 Aug 2009

(Wichita) What the world needs now is more Todd Rundgren. Let us give thanks, then, to Manchester’s SMD: an electronic party-pop deuce whose CV name-checks Björk, Muse, Peaches, Arctic Monkeys and CSS. Their second album hosts a trove of cameos…

Joint Effort: Soulsavers and Mark Lanegan

The blues man joins forces with the electronica outfit

14 Aug 2009

Gravelly voice-for-hire Mark Lanegan loves a good collaboration, from Isobel Campbell to Queens of the Stone Age to fellow grunge veteran Greg Dulli, but how did he come to be singing with English production and remix duo Soulsavers? ‘I’ve been a big…

Top 5 Things To Do This Week

14 Aug 2009

Bloody Beetroot (clubs), Inglourious Basterds (film), Emergent Artists (Visual Art), Soulsavers (music), Christopher Brookmyre (books)

Exposure: Capitals

11 Aug 2009

Capitals is the name given to the musical partnership of Angus Carbarns and Keir MacCulloch. Both hailing from Inverness (ish) and currently based in Edinburgh, the two have both been previously involved with various musical endeavours, with Keir…

The Juan MacLean

New York house meets rock’n’roll by way of funk and post-rock

10 Aug 2009

With the temporary absence of LCD Soundsystem while James Murphy and co near the finish line of recording their third album (and not, as rumoured at one point, split up never to return), the next best alternative for fans of New York disco-punk might…

The xx - xx

10 Aug 2009

How many times have we heard the maxim ‘less is more’ rolled out for someone new just because they resist knocking everything up to 11? Too often, perhaps, but this bewitching debut starts barely there, and doesn’t get much more full on than that. A…

Unicorn Kid and Young Fathers

The man with the horn

7 Aug 2009

He may wear a lion hat and be named after a fantasy creature, but with the Pet Shop Boys, Calvin Harris and a belting set at T on his side, Unicorn Kid is set to make myth a reality. The Lion and the Unicorn have long been heralded as hostile beasts.

Singles and Downloads

6 Aug 2009

Much touted at the start of the year, Little Boots’ takeover of planet pop hasn’t quite materialised, and ‘Remedy’ (679) won’t change that. A decent enough pop strut with obligatory chunky synths and singalong chorus, it lacks the personality of her…

Top 5 things to do this week

6 Aug 2009

We go behind the scenes of the first collaborative exhibition by Baldvin Ringsted and Hrafnhildur Halldórsdóttir and explore the theme of improvisation versus skill that informs their work. Intermedia Gallery, CCA, Glasgow, Tue 18 Aug–Sun 6 Sep.

The Black Dog and Mr Copy set for Soma Records Night

6 Aug 2009

It has become a bit of a mainstay at the Edge Festival and Glasgow’s premiere label, Soma Records, is back once again for its annual showcase of all that’s great and good in the world of house and techno. This year’s line-up includes seminal UK techno…

Indie Music Video Festival

At the forefront of innovative music videos

29 Jul 2009

A whole new type of manufactured pop will find its way to Edinburgh this August. For like Gorillaz and The Archies before him, POL Arida does not exist as flesh and bone, but only on screen as a variety of pixels, animation and imagination.

Rufige Kru - Memoirs of an Afterlife

29 Jul 2009

RUFIGE KRU Memoirs of an Afterlife (Metalheadz) To your nan, he may be that nice lad with the funny teeth that did quite well on that conducting gameshow on BBC2, but to us, Goldie remains an unquenchable source of energy when it comes to music. He…

2009 Mercury Music Prize shortlist on show

Regardless of who triumphs, contenders' nomination is gain enough

24 Jul 2009

This past year has seen Elbow prove to all just what a Mercury win can do to a band's career. Though toiling for near 15 years in relative indie obscurity, seemingly destined to never play the arenas their songs merited, their 2008 victory for fourth…

Mach Nausea - DIY noise festival

23 Jul 2009

As church fetes go, this second edition of this DIY noise festival was an appositely unholy resurrection. Lit from an archway behind them and playing on bare floorboards, the 18 acts on show tapped into industrial metal roots, surrealist slapstick, an…

T in the Park - Saturday

13 Jul 2009

Having utterly failed to 'tweet' from T in the Park, Brendan Miles is given a second chance to voice his thoughts on some of the best acts to grace Scotland's biggest music festival

Exposure: Dead Boy Robotics

9 Jul 2009

Edinburgh based duo Dead Boy Robotics used to be, by their own admission, pretty terrible. They haven’t even released an EP yet, but have been selected to play the T Break Stage at T In The Park. Multi instrumentalist Gregor McMillian explains how the…

La Roux

9 Jul 2009

Good pop music is instant, but great pop music lasts forever. Elly ‘La Roux’ Jackson, with hair like a winsome gingerbread Mr Whippy, a voice like spun sugar and on the receiving end of more hyperbole than Cristiano Ronaldo, Kanye West and Susan Boyle…

Implosion Quintet: The Future Sound of Yesterday

9 Jul 2009

A mashed-up melting pot of experimental world musak ‘lone’ multi-instrumentalist James R Baker delivers his long-awaited IQ debut. Cinematic, with a taste for the Eastern European, TFSOY is an eclectic and exotic hybrid of bohemian jazz and…

Sonar 2009, Barcelona, Thu 18 to Sat 20 Jun

3 Jul 2009

After months of agonising waiting it was finally upon us – Sonar 2009! Arriving at Barcelona’s supercool Sonar Village in the complex of Centre de Culture Contemporanea de Barcelona (CCCB) near Las Ramblas on Friday afternoon, we were like kids on…

What goes around - Orbital

28 May 2009

Orbital were pioneers in the world of dance music, with brothers Phil and Paul Hartnoll epitomising up the sound of the illegal rave scene with their marrying of ambient and techno, but perhaps more significantly they managed to turn this music – until…

Everything's Gone Green - Coloursfest'09

28 May 2009

These straitened times seem to be treacherous ones for festivals, but the last thing we need to get us in the mood for summer fun is a story about another call-off. How about a bit of feelgood news instead? ‘We’re already up 700 ticket sales on where we…

Le Weekend

28 May 2009

A dubstep artist headlining at a left field music festival may have come about by accident, but the appearance of Jazzstepper and the Moody Boyz as the closing act of this year’s Le Weekend festival is as much of a coup as it is an eye-opener. Throw in…

Labels of Love - Flask Records

28 May 2009

Based in Dundee Roster Samoyed, Loops Haunt, sound artist Samuel Playford Greenwell, Mast (a collaboration between Samoyed and Greenwell), exponent of ‘quite Scottish’ techno DJ Shortbread, Bristolian MC Mr Mus. Bosses Although they’re a…

Also Released - Records

28 May 2009

Franz Ferdinand Blood (Domino) A hit-and-miss retooling of the band’s recent Tonight album. The real dubby moments are a sonorous joy among the modest reshuffles of others. Loop A Gilded Eternity (Reactor) A very welcome reissue of the immense final…

Tortoise: Beacons of Ancestorship

28 May 2009

Tortoise have always followed their own path, moving slowly, steadily and deliberately – much like their reptillian namesake. Their six albums in little under 20 years suggest a group at ease in their own skin, building records out of fragments of jazz…

Wavves: Wavvves

28 May 2009

Nothing beats a bit of noisy weird-pop, and the world’s premier purveyor of it currently is 22 year-old San Diegan Nathan Williams aka Wavves. This second effort from the enigmatic chap takes the listener on a brilliantly unsettling journey through…

Little Boots: Hands

28 May 2009

Much touted at the turn of the year, Little Boots has rather had her electro-pop fembot pixie thunder stolen by Lady Gaga, and this debut album doesn’t do anything to turn that around. Suitably retro of feel, with shadows of Yazoo, New Order and the…

Patrick Wolf

28 May 2009

It’s hard to pin down Patrick Wolf, a musical magpie happy to lift Romanian folk refrains or electro basslines for a truly eclectic sound. Amazingly he manages to make this mish mash gel together, returning with new album The Bachelor and his trademark…

Antony and the Johnsons

28 May 2009

An unlikely Mercury Music Prize winner back in 2005, Antony Hegarty and his Johnsons play singularly arresting music that draws on classical and cabaret, making for a strange amalgam of otherworldly experimental sounds and chamber music. Playhouse…

Singles and Downloads

14 May 2009

Take four kids from Northern Ireland and force feed them AC/DC from birth and you’d create The Answer, a scarily authentic gonzo rock outfit who create a fun fluster of riffage and shrieking on ‘ Tonight’ (Albert Productions) ●●● Brainless fun…

Music Routes Festival

14 May 2009

1: It’s folk music, but not as we know it Actually, despite being a compact and bijou seven-day music festival organised by the Leith Folk Club, Music Routes features an impressively eclectic range of sounds, all gigs hosted in the cosy confines of the…

Exposure - The Count and Sinden

8 May 2009

With one being a renowned remix master and the other being an international DJ, you wouldn’t think that The Count and Sinden have much time to do anything else. However, in between the Count (aka Herve) releasing his Ghetto Bass double CD and Sinden…

Various - Recession Vol 1 mixed by October

16 Apr 2009

TECHNO (Caravan) Bristol’s Julian Raymond Smith aka October is doing something not many other techno people are doing right now: something interesting. The approach? It’s a fusion of abstract but very catchy beat stuff, dub and analogue shape…

Exposure: Hockey

13 Mar 2009

When the British think hockey, they picture muddied knees, waterlogged pictures and lethal sticks. When the Americans think hockey, they picture the scrape of the ice, missing teeth, and lethal sticks. Now, when the music lover thinks Hockey, they…

Exposure: Ben Butler and Mousepad

5 Feb 2009

The geeks will inherit the earth. So it was prophesied that men wearing big glasses and bright jumpers, and carrying around portable Yamaha keyboards in their backpacks, would come to replace posturing rock stars as the myspace heroes of a new…

Exposure: zZz

30 Jan 2009

Let's get the bad out of the way first: zZz are from Holland, they have a name that sounds like sleeping and their music has appeared on a car advert (and surprisingly also a Japanese mayonnaise commercial, although that's neither here nor there).

Moby - Last Night Remixed

20 Jan 2009

With the success of Go - The Best of Moby: Remixed, Moby’s sixth album has also been given the remix treatment. The likes of D.Ramirez, Freemasons and Shapeshifters have all contributed to an album that although varied in the number of people remixing…

M83 - Saturdays=Youth

20 Jan 2009

ELECTRONIC/DREAMPOP (EMI) As special guests on the UK tour of Kings of Leon and support act for The Killers US Tour, M83 have felt it appropriate to re-release their album which was met with critical acclaim first time round but little in the way of…

Depeche Mode announce new album Sounds of the Universe

15 Jan 2009

Depeche Mode are to release new studio album, ‘Sounds Of The Universe’ on April 20, 2009 on Mute. Recorded in Santa Barbara and New York with Ben Hillier, the band returned to their pioneering electro roots, using a lot of vintage analogue synthesisers…

Squarepusher - Just a Souvenir

11 Dec 2008

ELECTRONIC FUNK Times change, beats get faster, slower, heavier, funkier, but Tom Jenkinson will forever be the geeky spiritual little cousin of Aphex Twin who synergised breaks and virtuoso bass playing into one monolithic Level 42-crushing funk…

Nathan Fake

27 Nov 2008

Anyone who missed Nathan ‘techno wonderboy’ Fake’s set at The Caves earlier this year can catch him again as he provides support for Squarepusher. The Border Community-signed producer melts computer-rock, a love of Mogwai and gently ambient electronica…

Max Tundra

13 Nov 2008

Carling Academy, Glasgow, Sun 2 Nov The Max Tundra live experience is a million miles away from the home listening headphones one, as I discovered. Max was made to perform live, and perform he does, throughout a one-man, all-singing-all-dancing-show.

Ratatat

31 Jul 2008

Specialising in the art of bleeps and blips Ratatat are an electronic duo (Mike Stroud and Evan Mast) hailing from New York City harnessing synths and other machinery for a funky take on electro. Having toured with the likes of Bjork, Daft Punk and CSS…

Polar Bear

19 Jun 2008

Aberdonian drummer Sebastian Rochford and saxophonist Pete Wareham have stormed Glasgow with Acoustic Ladyland, and now bring this rather different take on jazz-meets-punk-meets-electronics fusion to the city for the first time, with Mark Lockheart…

Ladytron

8 May 2008

Cool electronic pop as Ladytron once more stride into the live arena, testing the waters before the release of new album Velocifero in early June. Effortlessly crossing the club/live divide they’re in demand as DJs and musicians, even going on to remix…

Paul Haig

Album

18 Jun 2007

ELECTRONIC Music has previously always struggled to keep pace with Paul Haig. His 80s angular Edinburgh post-punk outfit Josef K were way ahead of their time, influencing numerous contemporary bands (most notably Franz Ferdinand). His last few solo…

Various (Optimo)

Album

21 May 2007

ELECTRONIC Technically this is a ‘various artists’ compilation, but rarely has a DJ partnership ever put their own stamp to a mix CD like the Optimo duo. Following on from their recent, well-received Kill The DJ and Psyche Out mixes, Walkabout…