Music, Records and Brian Donaldson

The Just Joans - Buckfast Bottles in the Rain

Underwhelming concept album from the indie-poppers

23 Apr 2012

(weePOP!) Naming themselves after a notoriously annoying tabloid columnist might be mistake number one, but it isn’t the worst of The Just Joans’ crimes. Claiming to have created an ‘audacious artistic undertaking’ of Bowie and Zappa-like proportions…

French Wives - Dream of the Inbetween

An astute and highly promising opening salvo from Glasgow band

18 Apr 2012

(Electric Honey) What a satisfying thing it is to hear a pop song that bypasses the tyranny of the chorus and sticks to its guns with a series of ear-warming verses. ‘Younger’, the shoulder-high stand-out track from the debut collection by French Wives…

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…

Belle and Sebastian - Late Night Tales Volume 2

Eclectic mix of lush instrumentals, smoked jazz and 60s guitar interludes

22 Feb 2012

(Late Night Tales) As with being invited to perform stand-up on Letterman or to guest-host Have I Got News for You, some people might only feel vindicated in their cultural pursuit when they are asked back. And so the people behind the Late Night…

Mull Historical Society - City Awakenings

Varied collection of often backwards-looking eccentricities

5 Jan 2012

(Xtra Mile Recordings) A decade after the Mull Historical Society debut Loss, Colin MacIntyre marks the event with another gentle, curious and occasionally awkward platter, as they called them back in the early 00s. In some ways, MHS are becoming…

Chris Isaak - Beyond the Sun

Listenable but redundant take on some of Sun Records' finest

5 Jan 2012

(Vanguard Records/Rhino) During its 1950s heyday, Sun Records churned out standards by the bucketload from the likes of Elvis, Cash and Orbison. During the recording of Beyond the Sun, David Lynch’s favourite bequiffed rockabilly star was presumably…

The Hazey Janes - The Winter That Was

Unoriginal effort from the Dundonian indie-poppers

12 Oct 2011

(Armellodie Records) For those looking to uncover evidence that the reservoir of originality has truly dried up on contemporary music, this new effort from Dundee’s Hazey Janes might well seal the deal. After an intriguing, brief opening salvo which…

Blueflint - Maudy Tree

Déjà vu melodies and clichéd narratives winds up down the same old cul de sac

14 Sep 2011

(Jorock) If ever there was a band best suited to be heard in the ale-imbued confines of a wee folk club rather than in the car or at home, it’s Scottish quartet Blueflint. For every song on Maudy Tree that seems to begin promisingly with a subtle…

Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin - Tape Club

Enjoyable collection of B-sides and demos a predictably patchy affair

14 Sep 2011

(Polyvinyl) The 26 tracks on Tape Club, the majority of which are pleasingly under two and a half minutes long, represent unreleased tunes, B-sides, demos and rare recordings across a decade in the life of this Missouri outfit with one of the…

Viva Brother - Famous First Words

Dull and pointless album of Britpop-era rejects

13 Jul 2011

(Geffen) ‘If you don’t give yourself the option of fucking up, then you can’t fuck up,’ boldly announces Viva Brother frontman Lee Newell. And yet, time and again, their ‘gritpop’ (oh dear) debut album offers chance after chance for the band to make…

Lamb - 5

Diverting aural oddities abound on this return to action

13 Jul 2011

(Strata) Have you ever seen anything more 80s than Lamb’s cover design for 5? No, we’d venture, you haven’t. Yet curiously, their big comeback album (they’d put themselves on ice since 2003 and not, as you might guess first time, during the summer of…

Robin Adams' 'Be Gone' contains some worthwhile tracks, but ultimately lacks the depth of its forebears

13 Apr 2011

(Eye Dog Eye) It’s a bold move for Be Gone to kick off with a protest song called ‘Investment Graveyard’ which is so reminiscent of Bruce Dylan (or is it mid-period Bob Springsteen?) to be almost parodic. Fortunately, Robin Adams swiftly gets into…

Alela Diane: Alela Diane & Wild Divine

Family-made folk album from Diane

24 Mar 2011

(Rough Trade) Something of a family affair this for Alela Diane’s third album, with husband Tom Bevitori and daddy Tom Menig helping out on, respectively, co-writing and guitar duties. In this patchy yet occasionally uplifting collection, a downbeat…

Eat Dr Ape - Love and Lust in Wonderland

6 Oct 2010

(EDA Publishing) While you’re listening to this seven-track affair drone on, why not play the band-name anagram game? It quickly throws up at least one intriguing alternative title which curiously matches the threatening ambience of the CD cover.

Nina Nastasia - Outlaster

20 May 2010

(FatCat) Should you happen to have the severe misfortune of being stranded on a leaky boat in a most callous storm, the soundtrack in your head to accompany this horror will most likely be sung by Nina Nastasia. In this, her most lush offering to…

The National - High Violet

14 May 2010

(4AD) Over a ten-year spell, moody Brooklyn boys The National have been fretting over their souls and this messed-up world around them. The time to cheer up a bit is surely overdue with Interpol having long ensnared the miserablist NYC indie rock…

The Bacon Brothers - New Year’s Day

12 May 2010

(Hypertension) To those who say there’s not way too much recorded music in the world, please cop a feel of this. Featuring anaemic white reggae, crushingly vapid soul and decrepit grandad rock, there’s barely a track on Michael and Kevin Bacon’s…

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…

Adam Green - Minor Love

6 Jan 2010

(Rough Trade) Looking like he’s walked straight off a Strokes album wrap party and now sounding exactly (I mean exactly) like Transformer-era Lou Reed, the former half of NYC’s Moldy Peaches delivers his sixth solo album. If or when you get over the…

Codeine Velvet Club - Codeine Velvet Club

9 Dec 2009

(Island) Different people have a different idea about what makes for glamour. Those who are into a bit of monochromatic 60s chic will go ape for the breathy duo behind Codeine Velvet Club, perhaps realising only too late that this is largely a…

Bite Harder

19 Nov 2009

(De Wolfe) From deep within the bowels of the De Wolfe music library has been unearthed this bawdy 57 varieties of funk from the late 60s and early 70s. So, we have the Hendrixy funk of Peter Neno’s ‘Street Girl’, the porno-cop funk of Nick Ingram’s…

Flood of Red - Leaving Everything Behind

2 Oct 2009

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…

Loner - Western Sci-Fi

16 Apr 2009

ELECTRO-POP (Just Music) If Loner’s second album was a flower, which would it be? Probably one that wilted and split at the merest whiff of a breeze, so delicate are its components. Geoff Smith doesn’t so much sing his fragile numbers as emit…

Iain Archer - To the Pine Roots

19 Mar 2009

INDIE FOLK Dripping in the ethereal, To the Pine Roots is the latest folky affair from Bangor’s Iain Archer. Formerly a ‘secondary lyricist’ with Snow Patrol (an odd thing to brag, perhaps), Archer follows up 2006’s Magnetic North with songs recorded…

Various - Sci-Fi-Lo-Fi Vol 3 compiled by Rob Da Bank

5 Mar 2009

SHOEGAZER TRIP Having spun off from Soma’s Sci-Fi-Hi-Fi compilations of 2005 onwards, their lo-fi offshoot has now grown arms and legs. Following in the eclectic fingertips of Andrew Weatherall and Damian Lazarus, this collection from Robert Gorham…