Music, Records

Scott Walker - Bish Bosch

An extraordinary new experimental release from the former 1960s teen idol

From 60s teen idol to purveyor of uncompromising nightmares, no other artist has had as singular a career trajectory as Scott Walker. His first album in six years is extraordinary: vast in scope but solipsistic, a universe all its own. At its core is…

Bad Brains - Into The Future

The DC hardcore legends return with their hybrid brand of punk and reggae fusion

The DC hardcore legends return with their hybrid brand of punk and reggae fusion – a staple in the punk pioneers’ genetic makeup since the get-go of their colourful career. Despite numerous line-up changes throughout the years, the band have never…

X-tg - Desertshore / The Final Report

A double-album tribute to Nico from the Throbbing Gristle members

The late Peter Christopherson’s idea of a tribute to Nico’s seminal, hair-raising solo album Desertshore dates back to 2006 with his old Throbbing Gristle cohorts Chris Carter and Cosey Fanni Tutti, who completed the project on his behalf. Despite Chris…

The Weeknd - Trilogy

A collection of three outstanding mixtapes from the thoughtful hip hop/R&B artist

Major-label signings are usually hyped to bits purely on potential. Soulfully-voiced Toronto singer/producer Abel Tesfaye emerges from the underground, brandishing substantial proof of his idiosyncratic, convention-defying talent. Trilogy collects…

The Twilight Sad - No One Can Ever Know: The Remixes

Reworkings by JD Twitch, Com Truise and Liars make this album far more than a novelty

Remix albums, by design, are a mixed bag. However, having been reimagined by capable friends in the past – Mogwai and Errors among others – The Twilight Sad have already demonstrated that their music can be manipulated, reinterpreted, even blatantly…

John Butcher - Bell Trove Spools

Gorgeous and frequently astonishing collection of Coltrane-like sheets of sound and sound effects

Considering John Butcher’s PhD in theoretical physics, it’s tempting to think of him as a boffin painstakingly investigating the possibilities of the saxophone. Yet there is nothing drily academic about the Londoner’s avant-garde explorations: the…

Getatchew Mekuria, The Ex & Friends - Y’Anbessaw Tezeta

A fine farewell from the great Ethiopian saxophonist, accompanied by Dutch avant-punks The Ex

Getatchew Mekuria, the great Ethiopian saxophonist, ends his 65-year career with Y’Anbessaw Tezeta (‘In memory of the lion’), an album recorded with Dutch avant-punks The Ex. Perhaps surprisingly, the tempos are moderate and the guitars tightly coiled…

Bradford, Gjerstad, Haker Flaten, Nilssen-Love - Kampen

Cornettist Bobby Bradford collaborates with Norwegian trio on a thrilling past-into-future session

An inspired summit between 78-year-old West Coast cornettist Bobby Bradford and the younger Norwegian trio of clarinettist and alto player Frode Gjerstad, bassist Ingebrit Haker Flater and sticksman Paal Nilssen-Love. The session has a thrilling…

Why? - Mumps, etc.

Yoni Wolf’s hipster-friendly fourth album is inventive but lacks heart

Yoni Wolf – part-founder of indie label Anticon and band leader of alt hip hop ensemble Why? – is the very definition of a musical hipster. He sports thick-rimmed glasses and a moustache; he crams high and low-brow references cheek by jowl into his…

Animal Collective bringing Centipede Hz tour to Glasgow's O2 ABC

The album is slower-selling than Merriweather Post Pavilion, but fits better with AnCo's masterplan

Will Merriweather Post Pavilion, comfortably Animal Collective’s most commercially successful album in nine attempts to date, ultimately prove their happy accident? It pushed the American purveyors of strange, soupy, experimental neo-psychedelia onto…

Om - Stereo, Glasgow, Fri 28 Sep

The meditative metal group deliver faithful unsatisfactorily short Stereo set

Meditative metal Om Stereo, Glasgow, Fri 28 Sep Om’s new direction and rhythm section has polarised some older heads inclined towards the more Sleep-heavy vibes found on earlier releases. There’s an obvious difference in the live amalgamation of Om…

Balam Acab - Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh, Tue 9 Oct

Dreamy witch house/chillwave set struggles to hold audience's attention

WITCH HOUSE/CHILLWAVE BALAM ACAB Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh, Tue 9 Oct Just 21-years-old, Ithaca, New York native Alec Koone has already delivered two deliciously transporting albums, awesome for wigging out to in your living room post-club. But as…

Darren Hayman & The Long Parliament - The Violence

A handful of evocative instrumentals prove the only highlights in this 20-track monster

FOLK DARREN HAYMAN & THE LONG PARLIAMENT The Violence (Fortuna Pop) Darren Hayman would be the first to acknowledge that he hasn’t been blessed with a glorious voice. And surely even his most ardent admirers will concede that he’s not immune to…

Ringo Deathstarr - Mauve

A nu-gazey volley of brash guitars, drums and morose vocals

Undoutedly the only thing to bring a smile to the face on listening to Ringo Deathstarr is their name. Everything else about this nugazing trio should make you feel pretty down even if you happen to like their 25-years-after-the-event schtick. A volley…

Neurosis - Honor Found in Decay

Ten albums in, Neurosis continue to evolve. Kicking off with the uncharacteristically forthright riff ‘We All Rage in Gold’, Honor Found in Decay occupies a space between their more contemplative, work and the confrontational style of 2007’s Given to…

Django Bates Beloved - Confirmation

Lively and beautiful homage to Charlie Parker featuring Peter Eldh, Peter Bruun and Ashley Slater

British pianist Bates pays homage to Charlie Parker through the idiosyncratic deconstruction of bebop classics, twisting the alto sax legend’s lines into weird shapes, while retaining their puckish sense of adventure. Bates’ knotty improvisations and…

William Parker Orchestra - Essence of Ellington

An innovative free jazz tribute to Duke Ellington

The Wynton Marsalis paradox: the works of jazz legends deserve to be celebrated, but by treating them like classical repertoire, you lose jazz’s spirit of spontaneity and invention. It’s that essence that William Parker taps into so successfully on this…

Jo Mango - Murmuration

An intimately detailed, delicately sung little lyrical tableaux

Cautiously choosing her path in music these last several years, this Glasgow-based alt.folkie has followed the low-key self-releasing route, while completing a doctorate in musicology, when she could have gone major label. Wider exposure predictably…

Diablos Del Ritmo: The Colombian Melting Pot 1960-1985

A testament to the hybrid sounds of the Caribbean, featuring Andres Landero and Cumbia Soledena

Analog Africa cross the Atlantic for this testament to the hybrid sounds of the Caribbean: Puya, Porro, Gaita, Cumbiamba, Mapale, Chande, Terapia, Palenque and Afrobeat. In the Colombian melting pot of the title African, Latin American, European and…

Various artists - Whatever Gets You Through The Night

Impressive collection of songs released as part of wide-ranging multi-media project

‘The night’s getting colder’, sings Withered Hand on opening brass-folk serenade ‘A New Case’, and his words reflect the moon-lit backdrop of this terrific pop anthology. Its exclusive songs explore contemporary Scotland at 4am, as part of Cora Bissett…

Green Day - ¡Uno!

The first of Green Day's new trilogy of albums is a decent pop album trying to be something more

All credit to Green Day for showing some adventure and recording a trilogy of albums (¡Uno!, ¡Dos! and, inevitably, ¡Tre!) for release over the space of three months, but Billie Joe Armstrong’s claim that they’re going ‘epic as fuck’ is somewhat…

Ital - Dream On

A fun but unenlightening experimental electronica album from Brooklyn artist Daniel Martin-McCormick

Brooklyn artist Daniel Martin-McCormick, aka Ital (and one half of Mi Ami) is having a rather busy year with this his second album on Planet Mu in less than 12 months, and countless global touring to boot. Dream On attempts to cluster a lot of variation…

Iglomat - Super Complication

Mogwai-esque instrumental post-rock with a spooky, dehumanised atmosphere

Super Complication is putting it lightly: variously based in Edinburgh, Austin and Los Angeles, Iglomat members bounced tracks some six-thousand miles and back again via the internet over a year en route to this record’s completion. Judging its quality…

Finn LeMarinel - Violence

LeMarinel's solo debut is a glorious calling card of acoustic folk musicianship

Within twenty seconds of listening to Violence, the following have crossed my mind: RM Hubbert, The Flaming Lips, Supertramp, Joanna Newsom, Yes and a sense of wonder. Can the rest of Glasgow singer-songwriter Finn LeMarinel’s debut album live up to…

We Are The Physics - Your Friend, The Atom

'Mutant science punk rock' with a sense of humour

We commonly laugh out loud at bands – hello Muse – but why aren’t more of them intentionally funny? Like Devo funny? Or Sparks, or Jonathan Richman, or Jeffrey Lewis funny? Welcome, album two by Glasgow ‘mutant science punk rock’ outfit WATP. Their…