Music, Pop and Issue 650

Backbeat

18 Feb 2010

Iain Softley’s 1994 film Backbeat charted the pre-stardom career of The Beatles, focusing on the relationship between John Lennon, his best friend and fellow art student Stuart Sutcliffe, who succumbed to a brain tumour aged 22, and Sutcliffe’s lover…

Hot Chip

18 Feb 2010

You get the feeling that everyone who’s anyone in Edinburgh was out for this show. It wasn’t just a big gig, it was one by a band whose new album One Life Stand has set the benchmark for crossover electronic pop style in ‘10. Did it live up to its own…

Jeans Team

18 Feb 2010

Berlin duo Jeans Team have been doing the thing they do better than most and for longer too, both predating and outliving the electroclash scene during which they came to prominence, after originally emerging from Berlin’s art and music scene a decade…

Efterklang - Magic Chairs

17 Feb 2010

(4AD) If Alphabeat’s brand new sped-up hyper-pop effort The Spell makes you wonder what you ever saw in Denmark in the first place, fellow Danes, Efterklang deliver subtle, tinkling orchestral pop by way of national apology.

Pere Ubu, Mogwai, Thomas Truax and Zombie Zombie set for The Glasgow Music and Film Festival

17 Feb 2010

The Music and Film Festival is a strange beast, full of contradictions and tangents that threaten to pull apart its coherence, but ultimately make it the most exciting strand of this year’s Glasgow Film Festival. Co-curated by the Arches, and featuring…

The Knife (with Mt Sims and Planningtorock) - Tomorrow, in a Year

17 Feb 2010

(Brille) Darwin’s discoveries get the ‘electro meets classical’ treatment in this experimental tribute opera. Fever Ray, or Silent Shout fans will find it requires lots more ‘uphill’ from the listener, but if you’re in a mood to indulge the…

Holly Miranda - The Magician’s Private Library

17 Feb 2010

(XL Recordings) Produced by Dave ‘TV On the Radio’ Sitek (hands up who’s still not been produced by Dave, please), this impressive, otherworldly debut is floaty, Cat-Power-esque and sprinkled with Au Revoir Simone Casiotone beats.

Cabaret Voltaire celebrates fifth birthday

Guests include DC Breaks, Slam, Fenech-Soler, Zane Lowe and Tom Middleton

17 Feb 2010

‘Cabaret Voltaire is one of the most atmospheric spaces you could ever find an underground club. It’s a very rare music-orientated team that work here. We’re a little family that are incredibly passionate about what we do, and I feel that really comes…

Why Lady Gaga is the future of pop

17 Feb 2010

We tried to resist, honestly we did, but Lady Gaga got to The List in the end. It wasn’t the relentless, vom-inducing marketing campaign that did it either. No, no, we survived all that initial fluff; we battled triumphantly against the moneyed barrage…

Errors set for date at Grand Ole Opry, Glasgow

17 Feb 2010

‘God, I hope it doesn’t get to the point where we all try to outdo each other and turn into Rush,’ shudders Errors’ drum leviathan James Hamilton, talking about the Glasgow quartet’s rousing group dynamic. ‘But the thing about playing in an instrumental…

Exposure: So So Modern

17 Feb 2010

They’re hard men to pin down, are So So Modern. In the midst of a 28-date European tour over 31 days when The List tries and fails to collar them for a chat (somewhere over France, in fact), the quartet from Wellington, New Zealand are clearly adherents…

Girls set for Glasgow live date

17 Feb 2010

Bleary-eyed San Fran duo, Girls, follow up last October’s Scottish dates with another gig, as part of a frankly stomach-churning US/European tour. The pair, comprising of Chet ‘JR’ White and Christopher Owens, released their debut – simply titled, Album…

Frightened Rabbit - The Winter Of Mixed Drinks

17 Feb 2010

(Fat Cat) Along with The Twilight Sad and The Phantom Band, Frightened Rabbit are at the vanguard of Scottish indie, building a fine reputation for powerful, plaintive rock shapes and brutally honest lyricism. Their two albums to date have shown…

Hidden Door

17 Feb 2010

An all-you-can-eat weekend-long festival of multi-disciplinary art designed to get Edinburgh’s cells of creative activity talking to each other. It was an admirable ethos, and certainly experiencing the unmistakeable I-am-at-a-festival sensation in…

These New Puritans - Captain’s Rest, Glasgow, Thu 4 Feb 2010

17 Feb 2010

Puritanical? Maybe. This Southend-On-Sea quartet certainly give the impression they aren’t here to compromise, play the game or do what they’re told in order to eke out a little more media coverage, and we can only appreciate them for it. Jack Barnett…

RM Hubbert - First & Last

17 Feb 2010

(Ubisano) Once a member of the now defunct Glasgow instrumentalists El Hombre Trajeado, guitarist RM Hubbert delivers his debut solo release and proves that there’s much to be said for working hard on your craft. Here, he flexes his post-rock…

The Courteeners - Falcon

17 Feb 2010

(A&M Records) The second album from The Courteeners proves that this Manchester band aren’t afraid to wear their influences on their sleeves. Openly describing themselves as a mix of Morrissey, Elbow and The Verve, these musical patrons clearly hold…

LoneLady - Nerve Up

17 Feb 2010

(Warp) LoneLady might be coming on all Manchester warehouse post-punk or whatever, but she’s best when spitting soul asides and rewiring Gwen Guthrie’s ‘Ain’t Nothin’ Goin’ on But the Rent’ – as she somehow does, and boy, it works, on her debut…

Marina and the Diamonds - The Family Jewels

17 Feb 2010

679 The latest in a long line of new Kate Bushes, Greek/Welsh loony tune Marina Diamandis arrives in a fair blitz of hype, but this debut album is a charmless affair which mistakes self-aggrandising for personality and synth-pop rip-offs for musical…

Toro Y Moi - Causers of This

17 Feb 2010

(Car Park) Toro Y Moi is Martian-talk for ‘pissed-up, blissed-out pop’. Or so South Carolinian electro-bard Chaz Bundick would have us believe on Causers of This – his computer-engendered, patchouli-infused and entirely affable debut album. Tipping…

Cobra Starship - Hot Mess

17 Feb 2010

(Atlantic) This latest offering from New York electro boppers Cobra Starship features some pretty disposable tracks, like the lacklustre ‘Fold Your Hands Child’ (a nod to the album of the same name by Scots twee-heroes, Belle & Sebastian) but when…

Field Music set for Glasgow date

17 Feb 2010

Sunderland indie types Field Music have included members of The Futureheads and Maxïmo Park amongst their ranks at various times and while they share a certain quirkiness with said bands they are a more thoughtful proposition as showcased on their new…

Xiu Xiu set for Edinburgh and Glasgow dates

17 Feb 2010

Jamie Stewart (the only constant member of Xiu Xiu) makes pop music. But it’s the weirdest pop music you’ll ever hear, but still encompasses the chirpy tunefulness, lyrical hooks and bouncy playfulness of the form, but imbues it with enough electronic…

Graeme Stephen Sextet with Ben Davis

17 Feb 2010

The sextet expands to a septet as cellist Ben Davis of Mercury Music Prize nominees Basquiat Strings joins inventive guitarist Stephen for a night of free improvisation, Celtic and world music influences. Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh, Fri 26 Feb…

Sharleen Spiteri - The Movie Songbook

17 Feb 2010

(Mercury) The Texas frontwoman has gone all camp and a bit ‘Liza Streisand’ on this platform-heeled tribute to her favourite soundtracks. Her retakes on ‘Xanadu’, ‘Take My Breath Away’ and ‘If I Can’t Have You’ just left us craving the originals…