Music, Issue 636

Top 20 Festival Shows

Emmanuel Jal There are few people who could even imagine the terrors of being a child made to fight in a war-torn homeland. This guy has lived it and come through the other side. Jen Hadfield In a year of poetry shocks, this Shetlands-based…

Music: also released

The Xcerts: Live at King Tut’s. James Yorkston & the Big Eyes Family Players: Folk Songs, Squarepusher: Solo Electric Bass, The Crystal Method: Divided By Night. Richard Thompson: Walking on Wire.

The List Festival Party

Video and photo gallery

Mercifully the sun shone for us this year at The List Festival Party. Japanese drummers enthralled the crowd as a stilted dancer busted his moves, while air guitarists strummed along to any and all of the music. The Body Tights Men provoked giggles in…

Tom Tom Crew

Hip hop acrobatics and human beatboxing

Australia’s Tom Tom Crew make a welcome return to the Edinburgh Fringe with their high-energy hip hop inspired show. Having been described as a 21st century circus, this show is in an incredible spectacle of young talent and infectious enthusiasm. Break…

The Juan MacLean

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

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…

Various - Reggae Chartbusters Volumes One-Six

With its origins in New Orleans R&B (through tinny transistors broadcast from the US), reggae music took hold in Jamaica in the early 60s, evolving from its up tempo, ska-beat cousin. While today, it is something of a specialist genre – which appears in…

Music Hitlist

What to go see this week

GRV three-day music festival, The Juan McLean, Young Fathers and Unicorn Kid, Scotland at Night, St Kilda, Broken Records

Bach at Greyfriars

Europe’s finest converge for Johann Sebastian

In Jonathan Mills’ third Edinburgh International Festival programme, the highly successful early evening slots he has established at Greyfriars Kirk are focused this time round on the music of one composer – JS Bach. Across eight hand-picked top…

Mumford and Sons

Furious energy from indie folk upstarts

The tiny cavern that is Cabaret Voltaire may not be the biggest of venues Edinburgh has to offer, but it’s still some fear for these still relative unknowns from London to sell-out two intense, sweaty nights in a row, especially considering the…

Steven Severin: The Trials of Dr Caligari

1920s silent classic gets new score

Erstwhile driving force behind Siouxsie and the Banshees, Severin’s presentation of this German expressionist classic with his own recorded score is perfect material for Bang Bang Club’s festival residency in the basement of Teviot House. In a club…

Hotdoctors: The Downage

Slick DJs, slack comics

As the old saying goes, if a job’s worth doing, then it’s worth doing well. So when it comes to the likes of musical comedy, you get your gems like Spinal Tap or Flight of the Conchords; elsewhere, subversive satire has brought us comedy gold panned by…

The xx - xx

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…

Northern Exposure - The Last Piece of the Puzzle

While some in Scotland’s hip hop community strive to take production into the realm of abstract art form, there’s as many willing to get their heads down, keep it real and keep the message in the music. Edinburgh veterans Northern Xposure do the latter…

Bill Frisell - Disfarmer

The slightly ungrammatical-looking title actually refers to a person, photographer Michael Disfarmer, who captured telling images of the rural American south in Arkansas in the early 1940s. His given name was Meyers, but apparently he changed it to…

Kerrang! The Album ‘09

Since 1981 weekly metal mag Kerrang! has been waving the flag for hard rock charting the rise and fall of thrash, nu metal, grunge and emo. This double album exemplifies the dichotomy at the heart of any commercial magazine: do you cover what’s popular…

Miike Snow - Miike Snow

Represented visually by the mythical jackalope and scarce pics of three masked figures floating around on the internet, anyone would think Miike Snow didn’t want people to know who they are. Weird, considering this brilliant debut effort that is packed…

Pissed Jeans - King of Jeans

Being a grown-up sucks, right? Well Pissed Jeans certainly think so. Third long-player King of Jeans is the sound of the Pennsylvanian foursome formally attempting to accept adulthood, and by the sounds of it they’re none too happy at the prospect.

Nodzzz - Nodzzz

Fuse the quirkiness of Pavement, with the short-sharp-shock of The Folk Implosion, plus a thousand similar retro-new wave acts, and you get California kids Nodzzz. For people in a hurry and running at just under 16 minutes for 10 songs (and not…

Jay Reatard- Watch Me Fall

On the cover of his second studio album, Jay Reatard (née Lindsey) looks a bit like a druggy and bedraggled serial killer. But you can come out from behind the sofa now because he’s really not that scary. In fact one listen to Watch Me Fall proves he’s…

Richmond Fontaine - We Used to Think the Freeway Sounded Like a River

After a year’s sabbatical to recuperate from the sudden death of his mother, Oregon-based, singer-songwriter/storyteller Willy Vlautin, and his Richmond Fontaine band (DON’T file under F) return with their eighth studio album. Right up there with…

Crystal Stilts

Deep, dark pop and new wave from this Brooklyn collective who draw influences from the likes of Velvet Underground, Joy Division and Jesus & The Mary Chain for a reverberating sonic dirge of spectral guitar and rumbling bass as seen on recent album…

U2 - In the Name of Love

After 30 years at the top, U2 remain an unstoppable force of live performance, global success and critical relevancy. Ahead of their Glasgow date, we ask some prominent figures in music to describe their relationship with the band and explain their…

Fabric Live 47: Toddla T

For those of you who slept on this young scamp’s debut from May this year, Skanky Skanky, here’s a summation of his loves and passions in one fast and furious mix for the ever reliable Fabric stable. He sets his stall out with a track that speaks…

Julian Plenti... is Skyscraper

It’s not always surprising when a guitarist or keyboard player unveils solo desires, but when the frontman of a band steps up, it seems a bit weird. Now, as Julian ‘Strokes’ Casablancas attempts to convince us that he really is the brains behind his…