Music

Submissions now being accepted for T Break 2012

T in the Park's unsigned bands stage looking for new applicants

5 Mar 2012

Demos are now being accepted for T in the Park's T Break stage for 2012. The stage is one of the most valuable opportunities on the Scottish music scene for unsigned bands to be heard by a large audience. Acts to grace the stage in recent years include…

Creamfields 2012 line up announced

deadmau5, Avicii, Tiësto, David Guetta and Skrillex confirmed for dance music fesitval

5 Mar 2012

deadmau5, Avicii, Tiësto, David Guetta and Skrillex have been announced as headliners at one of the UK’s biggest dance music festivals this year. Creamfields 2012 will take place at Daresbury in Cheshire from Fri 24–Sun 26 Aug, and will also feature…

Lionel Richie to perform at Glasgow's SECC in Sept 2012

Likelihoood of ceiling-dancing: high

2 Mar 2012

Legendary soul singer Lionel Richie will perform at Glasgow's SECC on Thu 27 Sep as part of his Tuskegee 2012 European tour. The 'Hello' singer has not performed in Scotland since he played the same venue in April 2009. The extensive tour of…

The Drums, Friendly Fires, Mystery Jets and Tim Minchin announced for RockNess 2012

The Rapture, Admiral Fallow and Mylo also added to line-up

2 Mar 2012

The Drums, Friendly Fires and Mystery Jets are among the latest batch of bands to be added to the 2012 RockNess line up. Other acts recently added to bill include The View, The Rapture, Mylo, Admiral Fallow, Kassidy, Zane Lowe, Dave Clarke and…

Sway, Studio 24, Edinburgh, Fri 27 Jan 2012

Crowd-pleasing night from the grime superstar

1 Mar 2012

Although not completely absent from the music scene, Sway (real name Derek Safo) has not released an album since 2008. This perhaps explained the semi-low turnout at this Friday night gig, which seemed unusual for one of the UK’s most successful…

RM Hubbert, Stereo, Glasgow, Fri 27 Jan

1 Mar 2012

The launch RM Hubbert's second album, 13 Lost and Found, is both a celebratory and elegiac affair. A punk and post-rock veteran, Hubbert turned to the classical guitar as a way of dealing with bereavement and depression. To perform his latest album with…

RockNess named Best Small Festival at 2012 NME awards

Boutique festival wins award for second year running

1 Mar 2012

RockNess has been named as the UK's Best Small Festival at the annual NME Awards. Organisers managed to beat off competition from other festivals including Latitude, Kendal Calling, Hop Farm and Field Day to win the award for the second year…

GZA/Genius - The Arches, Glasgow, Mon 13 Feb

Disappointingly sluggish set from the cerebral Wu Tang Clan member

29 Feb 2012

There’s nothing more frustrating than ritual disappointment from someone you hold in high regard. First up there was GZA’s lazy, bonged-out mumble-athon at the ABC in 2008, then a ghost-like contribution to the Wu Tang Clan’s appearance in the Academy…

Alt folkie Feist to play Glasgow's Royal Concert Hall

The Broken Social Scenester to play tracks from latest album Metals

29 Feb 2012

Leslie Feist isn’t the first artist successfully to balance the welcome commercial exposure a ubiquitous hit song can yield with a desire for continuing creative integrity and freedom. But not many manage it quite as gracefully as the Canadian has with…

Dub/electronic/experimental act Hype Williams to play Glasgow's SWG3

The London duo marry a shadowy stage presence with engaging tunes

29 Feb 2012

The List once saw Hype Williams perform entirely hidden behind a white bedsheet. It was like a Poundstretcher version of Pink Floyd’s The Wall but with an added fug of skunk. The duo, Dean Blunt and Inga Copeland, revel in this sort of batshit chicanery…

Exposure: Gotye

An introduction to the YouTube-conquering ‘Somebody That I Used to Know’ singer

29 Feb 2012

Meet 31-year-old Wouter ‘Wally’ De Backer, aka Gotye, a Belgium-born, Melbourne-raised singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist whose inescapable international super-hit ‘Somebody That I Used to Know’ (featuring Kimbra) possesses an almost…

Butcher Boy - Berkeley Suite, Glasgow, Fri 10 Feb, part of the Glasgow Short Film Festival

Profound and nostalgic home movie soundtrack session

29 Feb 2012

The intimate basement bar that constitutes the Berkeley Suite, with its original 60s dancehall décor and faded ‘groovy’ vibes, mirrors the classy, nostalgic theme offered by this evening of film and music. Local eight-piece Butcher Boy frame a screen…

Human Don’t Be Angry - The Arches, Glasgow, Sat 25 Feb

Malcolm Middleton's side project gets a satisfying full-band outing

29 Feb 2012

For those who knew Malcolm Middleton only from his days as one half of the funniest band ever to be famous for misery, or even as the alt folk jangler behind ‘A Brighter Beat’ and one-time Christmas No 1 outsider ‘We’re All Going to Die’, this, the…

Tom McClung of Wu Lyf - interview

The Manchester epic indie rockers eschew traditional approaches to getting their music heard

28 Feb 2012

Manchester quartet Wu Lyf’s unwillingness to play the conventional pop game has been a breath of fresh air. Now they’re preparing to stop talking and start delivering. ‘At the start we didn’t want to be a band for the sake of it,’ says Tom McClung of…

VCMG - Ssss

Vince Clark and Martin Gore minimal techno album is great fun

28 Feb 2012

(Mute) For many, the news that Vince Clark and Martin Gore were making minimal techno together seemed the perfect coda to the screenplay-like story of their respective musical lives. The former Depeche Mode bandmates’ last musical contact came in…

Psyche and Wounded Knee share Single of the Month title

Also featuring Martin Creed, Ladyhawke and Estelle

28 Feb 2012

What this world needs is more high-concept ephemera created by actual, proper artists like Martin Creed, who create minute-long folk ditties like ‘Where You Go’ (Telephone) ●●● amidst light switch-flicking their way to the Turner Prize and Scotsman…

Kindness - World, You Need A Change Of Mind

Superb spellbinding pop which pulls of a mulititude of hipsterism sins

28 Feb 2012

(Female Energy/Polydor) You could be forgiven for thinking Kindness is little more than hipster ‘lolz’. Tracks have trickled out sporadically accompanied by cryptic soundbites and moody black and white shots of a recording studio in Paris and New…

Summer Camp set for UK tour

Bitter-hearted take girl groups of 50s and 60s

28 Feb 2012

Summer Camp: a duo so in tune with one another they respond to The List’s email questions as one entity. ‘How did you get together’, we ask them. ‘We’d known each other for ages,’ Jeremy Warmsley and Elizabeth Sankey tell us in stereo. Then Elizabeth…

Profile: Cass McCombs

Californian alt-country nomad set for UK tour

28 Feb 2012

Name McCombs. Cass McCombs. Or ‘Combs’, as his close friends call him (we like to think). He’s that Californian alt-country nomad, right? Correct. The harmonious, folk-rocking ‘Combs’ has spent most of his adulthood travelling America, writing…

Sepalcure - Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh, Mon 12 Feb

28 Feb 2012

There’s a sparse few loitering outside Sneaky’s closed doors come ten o’clock this Sunday evening, wondering whether they’ve got it right. But they have, and before long the thickening crowd are being lulled into hazy motion with zoned out electronica…

Spector - King Tut’s, Glasgow, Wed 15 Feb

Blending the anthemic and the generic to pleasing effect

28 Feb 2012

‘What a pleasure,’ notes Fred Macpherson. ‘I thought Newcastle on Tuesday was something, but this...’ Wearing his hair gelled to one side and a pair of thick-framed black glasses, the suited singer recalls Buddy Holly or Crispin Glover as Marty’s dad in…

Dean Owens - New York Hummingbird

Release from Edinburgh-based tunesmith a mixed bag

28 Feb 2012

(Songboy Records) Could it be that Dean Owens suffers from Ron Sexsmith Syndrome? RSS is that little-publicised but extremely frustrating affliction which strikes talented singer-songwriters who are perfectly capable of crafting a gloriously melodic…

Randolph’s Leap - The Curse of the Haunted Headphones

Homespun showcase from stripped-back Glasgow indie-folk rabble

28 Feb 2012

(Peenko Records) Do not be misled by this bedroom recording, or its cassette-hissing, lo-fi aesthetic. While Glasgow indie-folk rabble Randolph’s Leap are known and loved for their elaborate arrangements and philharmonic live shows, this homespun…

The Wedding Present - Valentina

Well-worn template mixes with stabs at hummability

28 Feb 2012

(Scopitones) The last time this reviewer looked, which wasn’t yesterday admittedly, The Wedding Present were a bracing proposition, the musical equivalent of being dragged along a cobbled street in Halifax with one leg tied to a Raleigh Chopper. Flat…

Tommy Smith Youth Jazz Orchestra - Emergence

Ensemble playing and the soloing achieves a very high standard

28 Feb 2012

(Spartacus Records) Tommy Smith set up (and funded) this orchestra to encourage the cream of Scotland’s emerging jazz talent to flourish, and it is clearly working. There are only occasional passages on this fine recording where you might guess that you…