Music, Records, Issue 641

Also Released: Music

Various Warp Box Set (Warp) Celebrating the twentieth birthday of the groundbreaking Sheffield electronica label we get a mammoth ten-disc box set of 10in EPs with the label’s artists covering each other, new unheard tracks, special one-off mixes…

Will Vinson - Promises

Will Vinson is an English saxophonist residing in New York, and the line-up on this disc – his first as leader since 2004 – reflects that association. He is joined by fellow expat Orlando Le Fleming (formerly a member of Tommy Smith’s group) on bass…

NYJOS Collective

Collective

The NYJOS Collective is a ten-piece band made up of the most advanced members of the National Youth Jazz of Orchestra of Scotland, directed by Malcolm Edmonstone and Andrew Bain. They include two winners of the BBC Radio Scotland Young Jazz Musician…

Mhairi Hall Trio - Cairngorm

Aviemore-born pianist Mhairi Hall dragged a piano to the top of Cairngorm (well, with a bit of help) to launch this album, an appropriate enough gesture for a record very much steeped in the landscape and ethos of her native Strathspey. Not…

Efterklang - Performing Parades

Parades is a great album. Originally released in 2007, it transformed marginal Danish avant rock outfit Efterklang – a more off-kilter Arcade Fire who combine massed voices with modern classical instrumentation – into a marginal Danish avant rock outfit…

J Dilla - Dillanthology 3

Since his untimely death the legacy of rap producer J Dilla aka Jay Dee aka James Yancey’s work has been elevated beyond touchable. His influence on rap is considerable but sadly, there remains a battle over his offspring gaining the profits from his…

Editors - In This Light and on This Evening

Going Coldplay or sticking with Joy Division?

A third album from Editors, another smotheringly pretentious title and another internal debate about whether singer Tom Smith would rather be Ian Curtis or Chris Martin. For all that Smith’s sonorous tones reflect those of the late Joy Division singer…

Flood of Red - Leaving Everything Behind

If the opening track of Leaving Everything Behind was used as the sole tool to market Flood of Red’s debut collection, there would surely be trade descriptions issues arising. ‘The Edge of the World’ (a longer version of which also closes proceedings…

Andrew Weatherall - A Pox on Pioneers

Although this is Weatherall’s debut solo album in point of fact, we can’t discount his legacy as the man responsible for Sabres of Paradise and Two Lone Swordsmen. Or, no matter what the title says, his pioneering work as producer of Primal Scream’s…

Phonat - Phonat

Flashes of inspired genius abound in this debut of cunning cut up dancefloor electronica from one Michele Balduzzi, who abandoned his farmland idyll in the Italian hills to decant to London and create this stomping album dashed through with 80s rock…

Chipmunk - I Am Chipmunk

The British grime scene is defined by its fury and bravado and Chipmunk rolls out a debut album that suggests there’s scope for having some heart too. After demolishing the charts with the simpering proto-Kanye ‘Diamond Rings’ (which features Glasgow…

Kings of Convenience - Declaration of Dependence

A band’s submission in the ‘Sounds Like’ column of their myspace page is often telling, and in the case of Kings of Convenience their self-effacing ‘music your parents like too’ hints at the quiet Norwegian duo’s fond acceptance of where two albums of…

The Law - A Measure of Wealth

Galling as it must be, comparisons with fellow Dundonian upstarts The View are hard to resist when taking on The Law. Both are undeniably cut from the same cloth as youthful champions of raucous, anthemic, singalong indie-rock with celebrated live…

Singles & Downloads

There’s an almost embarrassing number of good local bands dishing out fine efforts this time. One name that may be familiar is Ming Ming and the Ching Chings, whose double A-side ‘Show Off’/‘OUT in the West of Scotland’ (Badly Built) ●●●● is an errant…

The Twilight Sad - Forget the Night Ahead

Bedeck Kilsyth in spandex bunting: it’s just gone down in rock mythology. The market town’s secrets, skeletons and cherry trees cast an everlasting darkness across this second, impressive album from North Lanarkshire’s loudest sons, The Twilight…

King Cannibal - Let The Night Roar

If only for the sake of his neighbours you’d like to hope that Dylan Richards lives in a cave somewhere out in the wilderness, miles from anyone or anything for his fondness for all shapes and colours of trembling, earthquake bass would have the…