Music, Folk

Meursault launch second album All Creatures Will Make Merry with Edinburgh show

After playing a storming set at Homegame recently, the Edinburgh-based band are having a launch party for their new album, All Creatures Will Make Merry. (Full release on 24 May on Song, By Toad.) Fronted by Neil Pennycook, Meursault are known for their…

Etran Finatawa - Tarkat Tajje/ Let’s Go!

(World Music Network) If Ali Farka Toure paved the way for mesmerising desert blues then the Festival in the Desert held near Timbuctou has encouraged a new generation of musicians, including the all-male Etran Finatawa (The Stars of Tradition) who…

Orkestra del Sol line up date showcasing new show in Glasgow

Returning with a brand new 2010 show, Orkestra de Sol generally deliver a bedazzling, euphoric and riotous live performance. Describing this gig as ‘a game of top trumps but with musicians not cards’, the top trump of the orkestra will be decided…

Ceilidh Culture Street Fair

Edinburgh’s annual showcase of music, song, dance and storytelling widens its remit for this 4-day street fair boasting Scottish food, drink, crafts, fashion, music and more near to the castle. See music and around town listings for listings of other…

Homegame

After the tragic own-goal of that ‘We’re For Fife’ tourist video, Homegame – micro-label Fence’s annual takeover of fishing town, Anstruther – was a triumph for the Kingdom. The skies were blue, the fish & chips, outstanding, and the music, well, with…

Woodpigeon - Die Stadt Muzikanten

(End of the Road) An agrarian folk troupe with a penchant for alt-rock, Woodpigeon are a loose collective fronted by Calgary-via-Edinburgh harmonist Mark Hamilton. Their abundant third long-player is a complex, picturesque tapestry of pirate…

Burnt Island

Mono, Glasgow, Sun 7 Mar 2010

This was the launch party for Music & Maths, the debut album from the group christened after Scotland’s most evocatively named place – but Burnt Island’s supporting cast wasn’t bad either. The Second Hand Marching Band and Benni Hemm Hemm, two youthful…

Haddowfest Highlights

1. Idlewild Old pros, compared to the majority of the rookie hot-shots on the bill at this Camden Crawl-style one-dayer festival, Roddy Woomble and the boys bring the angular jock-rock, as enjoyed by fans since 1995. 2. The 10:04s Entering the…

Chris Bradley - At the Outpost

(17 Seconds Records) With his angelic vocals and breezy folk aesthetic, this latest release from Aberfeldy man Chris Bradley makes for an engaging listen. At the Outpost never quite manages to rise out of its lower gears though, making for an…

The Chieftains featuring Ry Cooder - St Patricio

(Fantasy) The Chieftains’ Paddy Moloney hits bulls-eye, here bringing Mexican and Irish music together in a brilliant mix of whistles, fiddles, harps, pipes and zapateo foot dancing. San Patricio tells the story of Irish conscripts who switched sides…

Withered Hand plays Edinburgh Limbo date

Jarvis Cocker recently showed his love of this outstanding Edinburgh-based, quirky alt.folk singer-songwriter, when he played song ‘Providence’ on his BBC6 music show. We’ve been fans of Dan Willson’s flaky, one-liner-laden melodies ever since he…

Fence Homegame 2010

You know you’re in safe hands when Fence Records are involved. And Fife’s weirdy, folky, lo-fi, indie, little bit electronic-y collective are once again taking over every gig space they can cram a stage into across Anstruther this year with a line-up…

Joanna Newsom - Have One On Me

(Drag City) Revising and entwining the rites of folk, pop, blues, baroque, classical romanticism and nursery rhymes, California’s Joanna Newsom possesses an uncanny knack for arousing and confounding our cultural memory: for unfurling strangely…

Ardentjohn - On the Wire

(Slow Train) The dreamy melodies, flowing strings and sliding guitar that suffuse Ardentjohn’s debut recall the peaceful island origins of the two founding members. Having now blossomed into a multi-instrumental six-piece, their sombre yet hopeful…

Alasdair Roberts

Glasgow-based folkster Alasdair Roberts will be taking to the road with his four-piece band for a night of trad folk and his own Americana. Mixing his own compositions with timeless Scottish folk and creepy twists on old forgotten classics. Stereo…

Kris Drever - Mark The Hard Earth

Orkney-born Edinburgh resident, Kris Drever (son of Wolfstone’s Ivan), has been an integral part of Scotland’s folk scene for some time, although he’s only just turned 31. Taking time off from his LAU collaborative (he also worked on an album with John…

Sierre Leone Refugee All Stars - Rise and Shine

Cumbancha Forming a band in West African refugee camps is a potent story and the resulting music – think reggae, dub, African ritual chant and more – is terrific. Here the All Stars go home to Freetown, Sierra Leone to record some songs, then head…

Efterklang - Magic Chairs

(4AD) If Alphabeat’s brand new sped-up hyper-pop effort The Spell makes you wonder what you ever saw in Denmark in the first place, fellow Danes, Efterklang deliver subtle, tinkling orchestral pop by way of national apology.

Way To Blue: The Songs of Nick Drake

Nick Drake’s popularity has only increased in the years following his death in 1976, and this concert, curated by Drake’s producer Joe Boyd for Celtic Connections, was one of the most anticipated of the festival programme. The main appeal was…

The 3 Craws

The Caves, Fri 22 Jan 2010

The 3 Craws are what might in certain circles, those more given to overblown rhetoric posturing perhaps, be termed a supergroup: the three lynchpins of the Fife-based Fence Collective – Kenny Anderson, alias King Creosote, Johnny Lynch, otherwise known…

Erland and the Carnival

Erland Cooper and his Carnival are unlikely to be fazed by Glasgow’s notoriously ‘lively’ gig-goers. Although based in London, these are no southern pansies: Cooper was raised on Orkney’s stormswept outcrops, and cut his teeth as a performer in the…

Have meat, can eat

Just when you thought it was safe to crack open your haggis... BURNS IS BACK. Yes, no sooner has the Year of Homecoming been safely consigned to the tartan time capsule than Burns Night 2010 rolls around, with the usual mix of traditional suppers…

First Aid Kit - The Big Black and the Blue

Wichita Some people are just born talented, it would seem, and so it is with the extraordinarily gifted First Aid Kit, the band consisting of teenage Swedish sisters Klara and Johanna Soderberg. Aged 16 and 19 respectively, the sisters have only…

Five reasons to see . . . Alasdair Roberts

1 He was discovered performing at a ceilidh by Will Oldham. An apocryphal tale, but the pair have worked with Songs:Ohia’s Jason Molina as Amalgamated Sons of Rest, and Oldham (aka Bonny ‘Prince’ Billy) produced Roberts’ ballad collection No Earthly Man…