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Music, Reviews 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.

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.

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…

Crazy Heart

17 Feb 2010

(15) 111min It’s another day in another shit hick town for country and western singer-songwriter Bad Blake (Jeff Bridges). The music business isn’t what it used to be; his schedule now consists of bowling hall and the back rooms of bars. Between the…

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…

Brassjaw - Deal With It!

17 Feb 2010

(Keywork Records) Although the Glasgow-based quartet launched this album with a gig in Glasgow back in November, it has only recently been officially released on saxophonist Paul Towndrow’s label. The group began life as a conventional saxophone…

Julien Lourau - Quartet Saigon

17 Feb 2010

(Naive) French saxophonist Julian Lourau’s band, and this album, both take their name from the fact that the first gig with this particular line-up took place in Saigon in 2007, rather than from any more intrinsic Vietnamese connection. The…

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…

Ali and Toumani - Ali Farka Touré & Toumani Diabaté

17 Feb 2010

(World Circuit) Malian bluesman Ali Farka Touré was a towering musical figure who has left a legacy of groundbreaking albums. In 2005 he and kora (harp-lute) player Toumani Diabaté won a Grammy for their collaboration In The Heart of the Moon. The…

A Broken Consort - Crow Autumn

17 Feb 2010

(Tompkins Square) Aural cartographer Richard Skelton has long transcribed and excavated his much-loved Lancashire landscape by way of contemporary classical music. His heady, elemental hymns are attributed to various guises – Carousell, Clouwbeck and…

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…

Rob Zombie - Hellbilly Deluxe 2: Noble Jackals, Penny Dreadfuls and the Systematic Dehumanization of Cool

17 Feb 2010

(Roadrunner) Rob Zombie is certainly one of the most enigmatic figures in modern metal. He’s evolved from rock star to a full-blown, gore-loving stage persona (a feat last pulled off by Marilyn Manson to increasingly lacklustre results). Taking a…

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…

Razia - Zebu Nation

17 Feb 2010

(Cumbancha) As far away as Madagascar is, the irresistible rhythms of the music of newcomer Razia make it feel a lot closer. Razia is a beautiful person in looks, heart and mind and uses her strikingly fresh voice for well crafted dance songs with a…

Two Door Cinema Club - Tourist History

17 Feb 2010

(Kitsune) Perky, itchy indie-pop from Northern Ireland, on the dancey Parisian label, Kitsune. Sounds like Franz Ferdinand, crossed with The Feeling on ‘Do You Want It All’ and ‘This Is The Life’, while there are sub-Postal Service echoes (in a bad…

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