Music, Reviews, Issue 694

VCMG - Ssss

Vince Clark and Martin Gore minimal techno album is great fun

(Mute) For many, the news that Vince Clark and Martin Gore were making minimal techno together seemed the perfect coda to the screenplay-like story of their respective musical lives. The former Depeche Mode bandmates’ last musical contact came in…

Dream Theater - Clyde Auditorium, Glasgow, Fri 3 Feb 2012

American prog-metallers overcome venue with hooks and virtuosity

First things first: seated venues aren’t really best friends with metal music, are they. Tonight’s gig is at the Clyde Auditorium, complete with lukewarm pastel furnishings and besuited ushers, torch in hand. It’s more aligned with Britain’s Got Talent…

GZA/Genius - The Arches, Glasgow, Mon 13 Feb

Disappointingly sluggish set from the cerebral Wu Tang Clan member

There’s nothing more frustrating than ritual disappointment from someone you hold in high regard. First up there was GZA’s lazy, bonged-out mumble-athon at the ABC in 2008, then a ghost-like contribution to the Wu Tang Clan’s appearance in the Academy…

First Aid Kit - King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut, Glasgow, Mon 27 Feb

Young Swedish sisters' take on country hints at originality and potential

One of the things that really stands out on Swedish sisters Klara and Johanna Söderberg’s recent second album, The Lion’s Roar, is the maturity of the songwriting. It’s striking how these two, with barely 40 years on this planet between them, have…

Simple Minds - Barrowlands, Glasgow Sat 25 Feb 2012

Revisit to first five albums a reminder of their potency

In these recessionary times, it’s easy to suppose the manufacturers of dry ice are thanking their lucky stars for 1980s art-rock bands on the comeback and reunion trail. Clouds of the stuff create precisely the proper atmosphere in which men with…

Rob St John, Banshee Labyrinth, Sat 18 Feb

Intimate gig from a new breed of folk troubadour

The first thing to note about the venue for Rob St John’s sell-out gig is how dark, small and shivery it is – it's basically a subterranean cavern which fits perfectly with the haunted alt-folk to come. Support, marred slightly by sound issues, comes…

Martyn Bennett - Aye

A collection of the best tracks from the late celtic fusion artist

(Long Tale Records) Seven years after his tragic early death, wunderkind Martyn Bennett’s legacy lives on. Anyone who never experienced the live or recorded version of his multi-instrumental music (whistles, fiddles, piano, bagpipes) will surely gasp…

Batida - Batida

African-inspired electronica record that probably works best in a club setting

(Soundway) Having carved out a reputation for unearthing rare tracks of touchstone Latin musics, Soundway now champions hot sounds heard today on the streets of Luanda. Angolan/Portuguese DJ Mpula (aka Pedro Coquenão) creates electronic dance music…

Episode 2: A Special Form of Darkness, Tramway, Glasgow, Sun 26 Feb

A mixed bag exploration of pessimism, decay and banality

Genre: Experimental music, Theatre, Philosophy So, is everything just a bit fucked? Dissecting pessimism, decay and banality is the theme of the day on the Sunday of Arika’s Episode 2: A Special Form of Darkness, with opening talks by writer, theorist…

French Wives, Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh, Tue 28 Feb

Successful performance from band on the cusp of greatness

‘We’re kind of shitting it’, French Wives frontman Stuart Dougan declares with a semi self-conscious shrug, a statement referencing the thirty gigs his band will embark on over the next month (including a stint at SXSW) and succeeding ‘two great…

Sway, Studio 24, Edinburgh, Fri 27 Jan 2012

Crowd-pleasing night from the grime superstar

Although not completely absent from the music scene, Sway (real name Derek Safo) has not released an album since 2008. This perhaps explained the semi-low turnout at this Friday night gig, which seemed unusual for one of the UK’s most successful…

RM Hubbert, Stereo, Glasgow, Fri 27 Jan

The launch RM Hubbert's second album, 13 Lost and Found, is both a celebratory and elegiac affair. A punk and post-rock veteran, Hubbert turned to the classical guitar as a way of dealing with bereavement and depression. To perform his latest album with…

Butcher Boy - Berkeley Suite, Glasgow, Fri 10 Feb, part of the Glasgow Short Film Festival

Profound and nostalgic home movie soundtrack session

The intimate basement bar that constitutes the Berkeley Suite, with its original 60s dancehall décor and faded ‘groovy’ vibes, mirrors the classy, nostalgic theme offered by this evening of film and music. Local eight-piece Butcher Boy frame a screen…

Human Don’t Be Angry - The Arches, Glasgow, Sat 25 Feb

Malcolm Middleton's side project gets a satisfying full-band outing

For those who knew Malcolm Middleton only from his days as one half of the funniest band ever to be famous for misery, or even as the alt folk jangler behind ‘A Brighter Beat’ and one-time Christmas No 1 outsider ‘We’re All Going to Die’, this, the…

Kindness - World, You Need A Change Of Mind

Superb spellbinding pop which pulls of a mulititude of hipsterism sins

(Female Energy/Polydor) You could be forgiven for thinking Kindness is little more than hipster ‘lolz’. Tracks have trickled out sporadically accompanied by cryptic soundbites and moody black and white shots of a recording studio in Paris and New…

Sepalcure - Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh, Mon 12 Feb

There’s a sparse few loitering outside Sneaky’s closed doors come ten o’clock this Sunday evening, wondering whether they’ve got it right. But they have, and before long the thickening crowd are being lulled into hazy motion with zoned out electronica…

Spector - King Tut’s, Glasgow, Wed 15 Feb

Blending the anthemic and the generic to pleasing effect

‘What a pleasure,’ notes Fred Macpherson. ‘I thought Newcastle on Tuesday was something, but this...’ Wearing his hair gelled to one side and a pair of thick-framed black glasses, the suited singer recalls Buddy Holly or Crispin Glover as Marty’s dad in…

Dean Owens - New York Hummingbird

Release from Edinburgh-based tunesmith a mixed bag

(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…

Randolph’s Leap - The Curse of the Haunted Headphones

Homespun showcase from stripped-back Glasgow indie-folk rabble

(Peenko Records) Do not be misled by this bedroom recording, or its cassette-hissing, lo-fi aesthetic. While Glasgow indie-folk rabble Randolph’s Leap are known and loved for their elaborate arrangements and philharmonic live shows, this homespun…

The Wedding Present - Valentina

Well-worn template mixes with stabs at hummability

(Scopitones) The last time this reviewer looked, which wasn’t yesterday admittedly, The Wedding Present were a bracing proposition, the musical equivalent of being dragged along a cobbled street in Halifax with one leg tied to a Raleigh Chopper. Flat…

Tommy Smith Youth Jazz Orchestra - Emergence

Ensemble playing and the soloing achieves a very high standard

(Spartacus Records) Tommy Smith set up (and funded) this orchestra to encourage the cream of Scotland’s emerging jazz talent to flourish, and it is clearly working. There are only occasional passages on this fine recording where you might guess that you…

Steel Magnolias

Play made famous by big-screen adaptation is slight and horribly sentimental

You should maybe seek a second opinion on this one. Judging by the full house and the warm reception, the Rep’s decision to stage Robert Harling’s play – best known for the big-screen adaptation with Julia Roberts and Dolly Parton – demonstrates a…

Grimes - Visions

Jaw-dropping record of carefully crafted and cleverly created songs

(4AD) Visions is Claire Boucher’s fourth release in less than two years, and shows the Vancouver-born music-maker feverishly developing her sound at a rate of knots. Since she moved to Montreal in 2006 and birthed performance art, video and audio…

The Shins - Port Of Morrow

Timely reminder of value of solid indie rock built on smart storytelling and melodies

(Aural Apothecary/Columbia Records) Oh, James Mercer, we’ve missed you. Port Of Morrow is The Shins’ first new material in four years and in a world where the young’uns are dabbling in skew-whiff electronica and art funk ‘jams’ with varying results…

Frankie Rose - Interstellar

Brooklyn multi-instrumentalist goes solo and makes clean break from fuzz-loving past

(Memphis Industries) Years of flitting between scuzzy indie-pop bands from Vivian Girls to Dum Dum Girls, Crystal Stilts and her own ensemble Frankie Rose and The Outs have led this Brooklyn multi-instrumentalist finally to conclude what we could…