Music, Issue 627

Hinterland: Sounds and the City

Just because it’s a brand new festival doesn’t mean Hinterland is free from pressure. The weight of expectation building up behind Glasgow’s two-day music bonanza is considerable. Partly this is because the one-ticket, multiple-venue format hasn’t been…

Fence Collective's Homegame: Homeward bound

In the ever-growing Scottish music festival calendar, the Homegame remains something of a well-kept secret. Despite a steadily increasing profile since its inception six years ago, the weekend, run by Fence Collective head honchos Kenny Anderson (aka…

Basement Jaxx

Ten years since they burst onto the music scene armed with hyperactively genre-hopping debut album Remedy and a carnival-like live act, are dusting down their turntables for a prolonged spell on the live scene this summer. DJs Felix Buxton and Simon…

Health

Everyone’s favourite LA-based noiseniks Health are back, with a brand new record under their belts. More frenzied death riffs, beast-like shrieks and start-stop thundering drums then? Well, yes and no. We catch up with bassist John Famiglietti, fresh…

Calvin Harris

Following successful dalliances with Dizzee Rascal, Kylie and, umm, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Calvin Harris is back with a brand new bunch of his own tunes. And by golly they’re sounding good. You may have heard ‘I’m Not Alone’ already – it’s the first…

Five reasons to go and see: Earth

1 It’ll stop you droning on … because that’s their job. Formed in Olympia, Washington in the early 90s by Dylan Carlson, the awesome Earth were pioneers of doom-laden drone rock, influencing everyone from Mogwai to Autechre, both of whom contributed…

Camera Obscura

This Glasgow band’s status as much-loved outsiders was amusingly encapsulated by a headline on the front page of The Guardian in 2007, linked to a feature inside summarising what readers thought to be unfair omissions from the paper’s list of 1000…

Cosi Fan Tutte

Two internationally renowned Scottish artists take pride of place in Scottish Opera’s Così fan tutte, a production first seen in Strasbourg, where it was created for Opéra National du Rhin in 2005. Although director David McVicar was with Scottish Opera…

Summer festivals line-up announced

Here at The List, we can barely take a jaunt to the water cooler without another festival announcement popping into our inbox. At the offices of T in the Park (Fri 10-Sun 12 Jul) there’s been the usual flurry of activity. One of New York’s finest…

The Specials and The Zombies

‘Hope I die before I get old.’ Yeah, right. The way the band reformation juggernaut continues to pick up pace, that epithet should read, ‘Hope I reform before I die.’ There has been a relentless increase in the number of bands getting back together…

Scottish Guitar Quartet

The Scottish Guitar Quartet have been around for the best part of a decade, and still feature the same four players – Malcolm MacFarlane, Ged Brockie, Kevin MacKenzie and Nigel Clark – that launched the band at MacFarlane’s behest back in 1999. They…

Exposure: Ingested

If you’re finding metal just isn’t doing it for you any more, why not delve into the brutal world of death metal, a hardcore body blow of sound accompanied by guttural vocals? This fortnight there’s a bumper bill of extreme noise with Manchester’s…

Emma Curran

‘This isn’t quite Madison Square Garden,’ jokes Glasgow lass Emma Curran, ‘but it makes a nice change.’ She isn’t joking either; Curran is every X-Factor competitor’s dream, an ordinary girl who travelled to the New York venue to see Snow Patrol, waved…

Dent May

It’s hard, maybe impossible, not to fall for the nerdy, feel-good croon-a-alongs of this trailer-dwelling Southern boy, who calls himself ‘the softest boy in Mississippi’, and who was signed to Animal Collective’s Paw Tracks imprint last year. His…

Cloudberry Records Night

The Cloudberry Records label may be based in Miami, but there is an undeniably Glaswegian influence on the roster of bands on the bill at this jangly guitar showcase. The Catalysts, in the bronze medal position on the line-up podium, are musical gold…

The Art School Dance

(E) 120min Edinburgh College of Art releases this low-budget, yet charming limited edition DVD in celebration of famous city venue, the Wee Red Bar. Filmed in 2007, ECA’s centenary year, it intersperses live performances with interviews that…

Tom Harrell - Prana Dance

(High Note Records) There is no shortage of high quality, progressive post-bop around, but Tom Harrell’s new disc stands out as a particularly noteworthy outing in that style. The trumpeter is a well-established name in contemporary jazz, and has…

Geoff Eales Trio - Master of the Game

(Edition Records) Pianist Geoff Eales is highly regarded as a player of standards, but consciously chooses to push the envelope (as he puts it himself) on this disc for the Edition label, run by musician Dave Stapleton and photographer Tim…

Big Ned - Big Ned

(Optimo Music) The third release and first album from this new label isn’t what anyone who still believes Optimo is just a club night will be expecting. The brainchild of D James Clark and John Murray (and band), Big Ned is a seedy, guitar-propelled…

Lauren MacColl - Strewn With Ribbons

(Make Believe Records) Fiddler ’s well-received debut album from 2007, When Leaves Fall, was one of the recordings chosen for Celtic Connections’ Classic Album series of concerts earlier this year. If that slightly premature accolade overstated its…

The Xcerts - In the Cold Wind We Smile

(Xtra Mile/King Tut’s Recordings) After relentless touring schedules, tremendous support appearances and several EPs, The Xcerts finally release their long awaited debut album. Filled with the most heart-wrenchingly catchy pop-rock melodies around…

Super Furry Animals - Dark Days/Light Years

INDIE (Rough Trade) As per comedian Steven Wright’s line about making his own water, ‘two parts H, one part O’, there is a tried and tested winning formula for Super Furries records, and this, their ninth studio album, is no exception. A handful of…

King Creosote - Flick the Vs

(Domino) On this first album on Domino Fife legend Kenny Anderson has a whale of a time. Brimming with sonic invention and acerbic one-liners, Flick the Vs shows experimentation and ambition vastly beyond KC’s lazy folk tag, from the seven-minute…

Camera Obscura - My Maudlin Career

(4AD) My Maudlin Career reflects vocalist Tracyanne Campbell’s discovery of the sweet melancholy of love. Her gentle voice leads us through these songs about the search for self-acceptance during a personal clash of musical aspirations and a much…