Music, Folk

The Ukulele Project

Charming folk take on modern classics

Festival newbies The Ukulele Project make their debut here, bringing their unique take on everything from Radiohead and The Beatles to Plan B and Gorillaz.

The Loose Screw promises a sexy gypsy midnight music party

Denise Black answers five questions on her Fringe show

5 words I’d use to describe my show Sexy gypsy midnight music party. 4 things I bring on tour Guitar, pedal steel, busking licence… and I can’t do without my virtuoso guitarist Graeme Taylor, who was a long-haired rockstar in the 70s with folk…

Inspector Tapehead - Duress Code

Cleverly made and head-scratchingly catchy debut

(Song, By Toad Records) Inspector Tapehead are folkies; but not in the strictly traditional or rather cynical ‘I’m a Mumford, me’ sense. Yes, Duress Code boasts clattering rhythms, acoustic strumming and the raw delivery and lyrical romance you might…

Alasdair Roberts and Friends - Too Long in this Condition

Scottish guitarist re-animated murderous and bawdy Scottish ballads

(Navigator) The List can think of no other artist who has dished out props to their manicurist within the immortal confines of their sleeve-notes. But that’s what Glasgow-based folk bard Alasdair Roberts does on his excellent sixth album, Too Long in…

Lady Carol - Malady

We asked the singing, ukelele playing, dark-humorist five questions

This ukelele lady has an inky-black sense of humour, and can turn the sweetest of love songs into a creepy stalker anthem. Just, please, keep her away from bright light and cakes. Five words you’d use to describe your show Sad songs, silly…

Lach’s Antihoot - anti-folk night imported from NYC

Birthplace of Beck, Regina Spekto and Jeffrey Lewis comes to Fringe

‘The Antihoot is the heartbeat of the anti-folk revolution,’ explains its infamous founder, Lach. ‘It produced US acts like Regina Spektor, Beck and Jeffrey Lewis, and inspired UK practitioners like Kate Nash and Laura Marling.’ It also prompted…

Villagers at the Edge Festival

Tender, poetic pop, now with added Mercury nomination

‘I usually have a picture or a colour in my head as I’m making a song,’ says Dublin’s Conor O’Brien – the dulcet bard and multi-instrumentalist behind Villagers’ picturesque rock. And so it was with Becoming a Jackal (Domino), the dramatic…

Edinburgh Mela 2010

An international and ceremonial start to the Festivals

These days the Mela is just as much of a ceremonial start to Edinburgh’s Festivals as the (often far less exciting) Fringe Cavalcade. This year, alongside Bollywood dance shows, multi-artform companies from China, traditional Sufi music from Rizwan…

Piping Live! Glasgow's International Piping Festival

8000 pipers and 30,000 visitors descend on Glasgow

This is always a huge deal in the world of traditional music – when 30,000 visitors, and 8000 pipers from around the globe descend on Glasgow for the annual International Piping Festival. This year’s highlights include evening concerts by…

Piping Live! Family Fun Day

Try your hand at piping, or other musical instruments

If you’ve ever fancied a shot at Tenor Drumming or a wee blow on the pipes, then the Piping Live! Family Fun Day is the perfect opportunity to try out a musical instrument, safe in the knowledge that everyone around you will probably sound just as bad.

RM Hubbert performs solo show

The acoustic guitarist supports Dananananaykroyd

Fans of Sparklehorse (RIP, VIP) may care to check out Glasgow acoustic guitarist RM Hubbert’s moving cover of ‘Spirit Ditch’. Hubbert was a big Mark Linkous fan, and his recording is part of a series of covers (Elliott Smith and Vic Chestnutt have also…

Belladrum Tartan Heart Festival

Promising line-up in an absolutely stunning setting.

All festivals have their own unique selling point. Be it the buffalo burger stall, the grass sledges, the giant headliners, or a Ferris wheel. Here, besides the performances from Harper Simon, Badly Drawn Boy, The Divine Comedy, Erland & The Carnival…

Glasgow trio Nalle deal in otherworldly psych-folk

Glasgow trio Nalle (Finnish for ‘teddy bear’) are touring a new album of otherworldly psych-folk. The List caught up with Hanna Tuulikki – whose keening soprano has been compared to Joanna Newsom and Björk – to discuss music and myth. How did Nalle…

Nalle - Wilder Shores of Love

(alt.vinyl) Inspired by the Greek myth of doomed lovers Hero and Leander, and named after a Cy Twombly painting, the third album by vocalist Hanna Tuulikki, viola player Aby Vulliamy and multi-instrumentalist Chris Hladowski fuses ancient and modern…

John Goldie's newest album Picked in The Past is a tribute to the artist's influences

The artist presents his musical roots in a series of 70s rock covers

(Watercolour Music) John Goldie has earned a considerable reputation as a jazz guitarist, but his personal musical roots go back to 70s rock, and this is his tribute to that era, albeit played on acoustic guitar. It all started when he worked out a…

Folk-pop collaboration The Burns Unit deliver new album Side Show

Burnsong project supergroup delivers folk-flecked pop album

This is perfect evidence that locking musicians in a room and letting them get on with it is the best idea ever. That’s what happened when the eight members of this ‘supergroup’ were picked for the Burnsong project, and the result is this sumptuous…

Benni Hemm Hemm's newest album Retaliate

(Kimi) Edinburgh via Iceland’s Benedikt H Hermannsson – that’s Benni Hemm Hemm to his many music-loving friends – has long enkindled our local stages with his gentle, warm acoustic pop. Retaliate, his first all-English language outing, is a rich…

The xx, Biffy Clyro and Dizzee Rascal among favourites for 2010 Mercury Music Prize

Spotify playlist: Mercury Music Prize 2010

The shortlist of contenders for this year's Mercury Prize was announced today. The £20,000 prize is awarded to the best album of the last 12 months, as chosen by a panel of music industry members. Among the 12 acts competing for this year's prize are…

Exposure: Aerials Up

Indie folk rockers Aerials Up have enjoyed a lot of success for a new band, supporting acts like Paulo Nutini and Snow Patrol. The List caught up with lead singer Kemy to find out what’s got everyone so excited about this band. How would you define…

The Boy Who Trapped The Sun - Fireplace

(Geffen) Fireplace is the debut album from Lewis-born Colin MacLeod, aka The Boy Who Trapped The Sun. Inspired by an obligatory dose of lost love, as well as his homeland, the album marks an incredible transition for MacLeod after years of…

Crosby, Stills and Nash line up 2010 UK tour

Since their guest-starring role at last year’s Glastonbury (playing in proximity to, but sadly not alongside, their erstwhile fourth member Neil Young), this trio have been pounding the rock’n’roll comeback trail so favoured lately by bands of their…

Richard James - We Went Riding

This second solo album from Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci co-founder James is a fairly infectious, ribald traipse across drowsy folk, garage-rock and pub R&B. It features his erstwhile bandmate Euros Childs and exalted singer-songwriter Cate le Bon (on the…

Pekko Kappi and Alasdair Roberts play Edinburgh's Roxy Art House

If you feel like your life has been lacking in folk/drone crossovers recently – and let’s be honest, we could all use a bit more of that - there’s a treat in store. Finnish improv artist Pekko Kappi plays the jouhikko (pictured), an archaic bowed…

Lisa O Piu - Behind the Bend

(Subliminal Sounds) Swedish folk sorceress Lisa Isaksson first made our acquaintance via quality Scottish micro-imprint Autumn Ferment, who released her single, ‘Whisperers, Wavers...’ in 2008. Since then she’s released a lovely debut album…

Music festivals 2010: Festival profiles

Big or small, loud or quiet, dry or muddy – we love festivals whatever their size, sound or likelihood to leave you soaking wet. Over the next 20 pages we'll give you the lowdown on every major fest hitting Scotland this summer, and information on a few…