Music, Issue 620

Preview 2009 - Pop Music

‘Pop is back!’, Same Difference exclaim in typically camp fashion on the advert for their not-so-innovatively-titled debut, erm, Pop. Simon Cowell’s karaoke factory might not be the best example of it, but their statement is bang on. Strictly speaking…

Conflict and Resolution

CELTIC CONNECTIONS The life of Scottish architect and designer Charles Rennie Mackintosh will be celebrated in unusual fashion in this concert featuring a specially commissioned new work for musicians from Scotland and Catalonia, with the BBC…

Shoeshine Showcase

CELTIC CONNECTIONS The Shoeshine imprint isn’t so much a label (although it’s that too) as it is a catch-all umbrella term for any venture which Francis Macdonald has a hand in. The Glasgow-based musician, producer, manager and musical entrepreneur’s…

Courses, classes and activities

Alternative Therapy Edinburgh Aromatherapy Far superior to a nasty blast of air freshener, learn the subtle art of aromatherapy, with beginner’s classes in essential oils and massage. An 8-week non-vocational course is available through the…

Rolo Tomassi

HARDCORE With the current trend for turning any conceivable subject matter into a feelgood singalong musical, it seems only fair and logical that Linda Blair’s most famous film role should be immortalised in song eventually. Or so it would seem…

Celtic Connections - Béla Fleck

What’s in a name? In the case of Celtic Connections, not much, or at least, nothing too literal. Anyone who insisted on the strict application of the name would have found themselves left well behind almost from the launch of the festival back in 1994.

Preview 2009 - Albums

The start of ‘09 sees a hip hop war brewing, with new records by some of the genre’s heaviest hitters landing on the streets. First we’ve got to survive January, though, and what more uplifting way than with Bruce Springsteen ’s Working on a Dream?

Preview 2009 - Local talent

MUSIC: The Phantom Band We’ve been tipping this Glasgow sextet, who make what’s most succinctly described as ‘experimental krautrock’, for greatness for a wee while now. Their debut album Checkmate Savage lands in late January, fresh off the Chemikal…

Malinky

CELTIC CONNECTIONS In many ways the ever-growing success of Scottish folk outfit Malinky mirrors that of Celtic Connections, a festival the band have become inextricably linked with over the last decade. The band formed ten years ago from the vibrant…

Exposure: Little Joy

For those who’ve been wondering where The Strokes have been hiding since 2006, here’s one of five answers. Little Joy is drummer Fabrizio Moretti, alongside Los Hermanos’ Rodrigo Amarante and Moretti’s girlfriend Binki Shapiro. Their self-titled debut…

Singles & Downloads

My New Year’s resolution was to give all music the benefit of the doubt but Travis are making it difficult. According to their press release they’re now at their ‘loudest, edgiest and most arresting’ since their debut. If only that description bore any…

Kidsamonium

CHILDREN’S JAZZ SHOW The archetypal image of jazz players in roll-necked shirts bathed in a haze of smoke has no place at Kidsamonium. In fact you’re more likely to find an Elvis impersonator, High Court judge, wannabe pilot and a few giant chickens.

Staind & Seether - 5 Reasons to go see

1 It’s a killer double bill It’s great when the support act is as good as the headliner and Staind and Seether are the perfect alternative metal partnership. 2 Metal with heart Staind have their detractors with words like ‘morose’ and ‘depressing…

The Phantom Band - Checkmate Savage

ROCK For years the Chemikal triumvirate of The Delgados, Arab Strap and Mogwai dominated Scottish indie, but more recently the label has struggled to find a seminal band to soundtrack the future. On this evidence, they’ve found them. The Phantom Band…

Hallaig - A Celebration of Sorley MacLean

CELTIC CONNECTIONS A gathering of Gaelic musical talent will celebrate the work of Sorley MacLean (Somhairle MacGill-Eain) in this concert, which will feature both vocal settings of the poet’s work and instrumental pieces inspired by it. The show…

Slipknot

METAL For any rock band worth their salt, it’s all about the guitars. BIG. HEAVY. GUITARS. Slipknot have their fair share of shredding riffs and six string belligerence, although the first thing that hits us tonight, aside from the explosions and…

Idlewild

ROCK RESIDENCY This was always going to be a sentimental trip, Idlewild revisiting each of their albums over consecutive nights. In my case, seeing the band for the first time on the 100 Broken Windows tour in 2000 and now again, eight years later…

Stage Blood, Roads to Siam and Divorce

NO WAVE & POST ROCK Divorce have clawed the title of ‘most exciting group in Glasgow’ from the cold, dead hands of whoever held it before. Having brought Optimo to its knees back in November, the four-girl, one-man group’s live show includes…

Luke Haines - Bad Vibes

MUSIC MEMOIR ‘I am a cruel and pious man,’ mourns Luke Haines. History hasn’t had much time for the 90s-vintage indie iconoclast, instead celebrating the more palatable same-but-different likes of Jarvis Cocker. Yet those whose memories stretch back…

Johnny Griffin - Live at Ronnie Scott’s

JAZZ This live recording from the Soho club last May proved to be the swansong for the hard-hitting American tenor man, and if the octogenarian was no longer at his peak, he more than holds his own in some very fast company, including American…

Loop - Heaven’s End; Loop - Fade Out

PSYCHEDLIC ROCK Spacemen 3 and Croydon’s Loop have been inextricably linked over the years, not least because Sonic Boom of Sp3 (wrongly) accused Loop of nicking his band’s droning tripped out sound. They were in fact coming from similar viewpoints…

Gore - Mean Man’s Dream •••• ; Gore - Hart Gore •••

ROCK Gore were never really a particularly fashionable proposition – a pummelling Black Sabbath-esque instrumental rock trio from the Netherlands – who stomped their way through the 80s and 90s in the company of the likes of Big Black and Henry…

Common - Universal Mind Control

HIP HOP SOUL Common has been around long enough to reinvent himself a couple of times already but his social conscious that extended beyond the dime bags and low riders always set him apart from the gangsta shit. For this, his eighth album he enlists…

The John Henrys - Sweet as the Grain

COUNTRY In popular folklore, John Henry spent his days erecting railroads and digging tunnels, taking on a steam powered drill to discover whether a man could beat a machine. Henry did his side proud but died from exhaustion. Whether the Canadian…

The Shee - A Different Season

FOLK The Shee have been attracting favourable comment for a while on the live circuit now, and this impressive debut album bears out the growing reputation the six-piece all-women band have accrued. Harpist Rachel Newton, fiddler Olivia Ross and…