Music, Records, Nicola Meighan
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141 articles
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Eagleowl - This Silent Year
19 Apr 2013
Languorous chamber-pop full of silence, distortion and exquisite humour
(Fence) Here are a few clues that this is a rare and unhurried debut album: it starts with a beat, and then the beat slows down; the instruments come in one by one; the opening words are ‘some other time’. The album’s centrepiece is in fact its…
Kid Canaveral - Now That You Are a Dancer
13 Feb 2013
Second album from promising indie-rock act on Fence Records
(Fence) Legend has it that Kid Canaveral almost expired in an amp inferno during the making of their excellent second LP, Now That You Are a Dancer. Said loudspeaker burst into flames as the Scottish alt-rock quartet recorded album closer, ‘A…
Singles and downloads - April 2013
25 Apr 2013
Releases from Book Group, Digital Jones, Panda Su and Roman Nose reviewed
Book Group - Homeward Sound EP (bookgroup.bandcamp.com) ●●●● Opening with the beatific alt-rock sucker-punch of ‘Year of the Cat’, this excellent feedback-strewn debut from Edinburgh’s Book Group (ex-Come on Gang / Kays Lavelle) is packed with…
Thirty Pounds of Bone - I Cannot Sing You Here, But for Songs of Where
19 Apr 2013
Album exploring location and identity via travelling odes and upbeat celtic folk knees-ups
(Armellodie) As you might suspect of an itinerant folk hoarder who takes his grisly nom de plume from the average weight of a dead man’s bones, Johnny Lamb appreciates the gravity of his songs. His third album, I Cannot Sing You Here... frames his…
Rick Redbeard - No Selfish Heart
21 Jan 2013
Outstanding debut solo album from erstwhile Phantom Band man Rick Anthony
(Chemikal Underground) And the man called Rick Anthony, hitherto deified for conducting The Phantom Band like a stars-and-brimstone preacher, retreated to rural Aberdeenshire; cultivated an elegiac Redbeard; amalgamated an earthly Scots tongue with…
Wounded Knee - Secret Museum of Kind Man
8 Oct 2012
A playful slice of 'spiritual folk-jazz' with a touch of disco
‘More lo-fi spiritual folk-jazz from Leith’s finest exponent of lo-fi spiritual folk-jazz,’ promises Krapp’s fourth tape, Secret Museum of Kind Man – a play on Pat Conte’s Secret Museum of Mankind Ethnic Classic anthologies (Wounded Knee, aka Drew…
William Tyler - Impossible Truth
19 Apr 2013
A shimmering, uplifting psych-folk album influenced by 70s singer-songwriters
(Merge) With gilded stints as backing guitarist to Bonnie Prince Billy, Silver Jews, Candi Staton and Lambchop under his low-slung belt, you might be inclined to wonder if prodigious fingerpicker William Tyler had the motivation, energy or indeed time…
Frightened Rabbit - Pedestrian Verse
17 Jan 2013
Missing circuitous narratives and flipside thrills but sounding bigger and heavier than ever
(Atlantic) Long before they became an international major label concern; before they provoked a rampant wireless love-in from Radio 1’s Zane Lowe with new single ‘The Woodpile’; before they wrote our alternative national anthem in 2008’s ‘Keep Yourself…
Fat Goth - Stud
17 Jan 2013
Excellent album of thunderstruck-hardcore, hollering-pop and countrified-rock‘n’roll
(Hefty Dafty) They may have a line in sardonic song titles, and their band’s name may sound like a dubious punch line, but Dundee rockers Fat Goth are a serious underground rock concern. Formed in 2007 and with a debut LP (2010’s Mindless Crap) under…
Gaggle's ‘The Power of Money’ is single of the month
18 Dec 2012
Singles and downloads December 2012
Nothing says ‘Christmas night out’ quite like Pissed Jeans’ ‘Bathroom Laughter’ (Sub Pop, ●●●●), wherein the noise insurgents spew forth amyl-wired scuzz that annihilates flashbacks to Mariah Carey’s wafting ballad ‘Christmas Time Is In the Air Again…
Julia Holter - Ekstasis
18 Dec 2012
Anthology of visionary pop vignettes using ritualism and baroque instrumentation
(Domino) While Californian underground pop luminary Julia Holter used her debut, Tragedy, to translate a classic ancient Greek text (Euripides’ Hippolytus) into a grassroots suite of electronic pop, its incandescent follow-up, Ekstasis proves that…
L Pierre - The Island Come True
18 Dec 2012
Eerie, bleak and gorgeous electonics from Aidan Moffat's ongoing solo project
(Melodic) Given Aidan Moffat’s consummate way with words – in Arab Strap, with Bill Wells, in his short stories – you might suspect that his expressive endowments were more inclined towards lyrics than music. His uncanny instrumental alter-ego L…
Gav Prentice - The Invisible Hand
15 Nov 2012
Familiar and well-observed folk-pop songs from the Over the Wall vocalist
This solo debut from Over The Wall vocalist Gav Prentice may be lacking in the fanfares that define his euphoric electro-brass duo, but this album’s small-town Scottish tales of getting old and family and work are characteristically familiar and…
Mogwai - A Wrenched Virile Lore
15 Nov 2012
The post-rockers' remix album is as ingenious as it is eclectic
Fourteen years since Kicking A Dead Pig – Mogwai’s formidable remix corpus, culled from their landmark debut, Young Team – comes this equally impressive anthology which utilises last year’s ace LP, Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will as its…
Various artists - Whatever Gets You Through The Night
9 Oct 2012
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…
Finn LeMarinel - Violence
9 Oct 2012
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…
Stanley Odd - Reject
8 Oct 2012
Cerebral, socio-political hip hop from the six-strong Scottish ensemble
Edinburgh six-strong hip hop ensemble Stanley Odd are the first to acknowledge that their debut album, Oddio (2010), was not hugely forward-looking in its sound, and it’s this sonic volte-face, teamed with MC Dave ‘Solareye’ Hook’s electrifying…
Josephine Foster - Blood Rushing
20 Sep 2012
The psych-folk singer's strongest and most convincing work to date
It feels remiss to call an LP a career-high when an artist such as as Josephine Foster’s genre-defying output spans 19th century German lieder (2006’s Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing), reworkings of Emily Dickinson’s poetry (2010’s Graphic As A Star) and…
Rachel Sermanni - Under Mountains
20 Sep 2012
Formidably assured debut full of life, landscape and promise
Rachel Sermanni has become such a well-loved figure on the live map in recent years that this debut LP feels overdue, despite the fact that the Carrbridge singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist is barely in her 20s. Possessed of a striking…
Singles and downloads - September 2012
19 Sep 2012
Errors, Withered Hand and Miaoux Miaoux among highlights
We’re not just here for the nasty things in life, like reporting that vapid-folk yawn-patrol Mumford and Sons return with ‘I Will Wait’ (I wish they had) (●●, Gentlemen of the Road/Island Records). We’re here for the sexy pop goods too, such as RM…
Adrian Crowley - I See Three Birds Flying
7 Sep 2012
War, gorgeous alt.folk from the Malta-born, Galway-raised troubadour
Autumn was made for Adrian Crowley. His sixth LP sees the Malta-born, Galway-raised troubadour further hone his gift for warm, rich, fertile psalms that hang heavy with melancholy, earthly wonder and mellow fruitfulness. From the russet…
Cancel the Astronauts - Animal Love Match
21 Aug 2012
High-octane, ultra-bright indie-rock sounds recall Jetpacks and King Creosote
Continuing in that great Scots tradition of fuelling loved-up alt-rock with an interstellar designate – see We Were Promised Jetpacks, or King Creosote’s Rocket DIY – let’s hear it for Edinburgh vim-pop five-piece Cancel the Astronauts. They’re not…
Cat Power - Sun
19 Aug 2012
A joyous, illuminating rebirth from the American alt.rock darling
As the title suggests, Cat Power aka American alt-rock darling Chan Marshall is hailing this record as something of a rebirth, and it is a joyous, illuminating thing to behold. Forgoing her languorous, long-term attachment to Delta blues and Memphis…
David Byrne and St Vincent - Love This Giant
17 Aug 2012
Two of our greatest pop creators having a ball
There is something ironic about the fact that the futuristic art-pop icons at the heart of this much-hyped endeavour are almost outshone by that most traditional of sonic devices: the good old brass band. The horns and fanfares that populate this union…
Chilly Gonzales - Solo Piano II
17 Aug 2012
Second anthology of self-penned neo-classical piano works
Eighteen months after telling The List that ‘the guy from Muse is asking for an ass-kicking, pianistically speaking’, and three years since he tanned Andrew WK’s proverbial in a New York piano-battle – not to mention his world record-breaking…
