Music, Reviews

The Stone Roses: Made of Stone

Shane Meadows' rockumentary fails to satisfy either as a concert film or fly-on-the-wall doc

To borrow from an old Stone Roses B-side, the Mancunian band’s much-hyped reunion may well have been ‘what the world is waiting for’, though it’s hard to claim the same for this accompanying Shane Meadows-directed documentary. The director of Dead Man’s…

Neil Young: Journeys

An intimate homecoming documentary by the country rock legend, shot by Jonathan Demme

‘This is a town in North Ontario,’ are the first interview words uttered by Neil Young in this Jonathan Demme-directed documentary, and it’s probable that he’s consciously referencing the lyric of his own song ‘Helpless’. In the opening few minutes of…

Juan Atkins & Moritz Von Oswald - Borderland

Engaging, if slightly underwhelming release from two of techno’s most iconic figures

It’s something of an event when two of techno’s most iconic figures, Juan Atkins and Moritz Von Oswald, join forces in the studio. Intriguingly, they’ve offered scant information regarding their motivations behind Borderland. Perhaps we shouldn’t be…

The Fall - Re-Mit

Suggests insistent inter-band chemistry despite there being no real surprises here

(Cherry Red) Whoa-whoa-whoa, etc! Don't ever underestimate Mark E Smith, The Fall's founder, writer, vocalist and sole surviving member since they formed 35 years ago. Some may dismiss him as a past-his-best drunken parody of many former glories, and…

The National - Trouble Will Find Me

A great sixth record, but not one which parades the fact before you

(4AD) The idea that much of the music here was written by guitarist Aaron Desner while bedevilled by bone-aching fatigue and sleepless nights following the birth of his baby daughter is a compelling one. It ties into the sense of a band shattered…

Sparrow and the Workshop - Murderopolis

Third album from Glasgow rock-noir trio has psych-rock heart

(Song, By Toad) This album starts with the words ‘when love was the greatest thing’ - and it is all you need to unravel the third long-player from a Glasgow rock-noir trio who variously conjure The Bad Seeds, The Shangri-Las, Johnny Cash and Melanie…

Young Fathers - Tape Two

Textured and intriguing album from Edinburgh hip hop group who have come of age at last

(Anticon) As if their breakthrough release of Tape One earlier this year on groundbreaking Los Angeles intelligent hip hop label Anticon wasn’t vindication enough of the promise that Edinburgh trio Young Fathers have been putting in the bank for…

Optimo: The Underground Sound of Glasgow

Tracks from Golden Teacher, Auntie Flo and Debukas feature on mix compilation showcasing the city

(Glasgow Underground) The mouth waters and the ears tingle at the thought of this, the first in a series of compilations showcasing the sound of a city by someone who knows it well. The producers have chosen well here, for they could have no more…

Singles and downloads - May 2013

Sad City, Carter Tutti, Jon Hopkins and Rob St John among this months new music

Sad City - ‘You Will Soon Find That Life Is Wonderful’ EP (Phonica Special Editions) ●●●● Glasgow-based producer Gary Caruth delivers an EP that is dripping with lush, undulating synth hedonism and blissed-out meditative swashes. It’s reminiscent in…

Unknown Mortal Orchestra - King Tuts, Glasgow, Wed 1 May 2013

Infectious, hallucinatory reveries, marred slightly by too much sound desk tweaking

Perhaps it is shell-shock after their recent propulsive success at SXSW, or possibly their own astonishment at selling out King Tuts on their first UK headline tour, but Unknown Mortal Orchestra turn up tonight as nervous as if it were the first day at…

Orchestre Poly-rythmo De Cotonou - The Skeletal Essences of Afro Funk

(Analog Africa) The third compilation of vintage recordings from Benin's greatest dance band, The Skeletal Essences of Afro Funk stands as a fitting tribute to founder Melome Clement, who died of a heart attack in December last year. His 'Ne Rien…

Glenn Jones - My Garden State

Album of John Fahey-esque impressionistic storytelling from American Primitive guitarist

(Drag City) For an artist whose compositions are entirely instrumental, Glenn Jones has a special talent for impressionistic storytelling. Like a musical translation of a haiku or imagist poem, his finest songs reflect on an image or idea, bringing…

Black Host - Life in the Sugar Candle Mines

Splendid mix of prog tentacles and free jazz goo

(Northern Spy) Bursting out of some back-alley Brooklyn laboratory in an explosion of prog tentacles and free jazz goo, Black Host are bizarro world mutant cousins to Little Women. As the sole horn player in a jazz-rock (of sorts) combo, Darius…

Alasdair Roberts & Friends - Stereo, Glasgow, Fri 3 May 2013

Less a conventional folk gig than a subversive ceilidh organised by some cracked millenarian cult

Alasdair Roberts is hopping around the stage, picking out a jaunty Scottish dance tune on guitar. Huddled around him are fiddler Rafe Fitzpatrick and electric guitarist Ben Reynolds, while double-bassist Stevie Jones flanks them all, rocking and swaying…

Sweet Baboo - King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut, Glasgow, Tue 7 May 2013

Charming set combines lyrical originality with self-deprecating humour

‘I go dancing and chancing my luck with all those girls - that’s why I’m bound for hell’, sings Stephen Black, aka Welshman Sweet Baboo, on catchy 2010 single ‘I’m a Dancer’. To look at this freckly face, rabbit-in-the-headlights expression and guitar…

Discopolis, Dems and Jonnie Common among highlights at Big Day In

Inaugural Edinburgh indoor mini-fest: Wan day, hunners o’ bands

Having successfully assembled an astounding line-up of electronic indie talent from across the UK, the initial concern for Electric Circus’s inaugural Big Day In mini-festival was getting people through the doors, especially given that the…

William Tyler & Hiss Golden Messenger - Summerhall, Edinburgh, Sat 4 May

Songs setting a dense emotional mood and strong sense of place

Despite the setting in a cool, dark, wood-panelled lecture theatre, sometime Silver Jews and Lambchop guitarist William Tyler and Hiss Golden Messenger songwriter and fulcrum Michael ‘MT’ Taylor brought a certain sense of the pastoral with them for this…

Quercus - Quercus

June Tabor and Huw Warren collaboration blending jazz and folk tradition

(ECM) The great English folk singer June Tabor has been working with Welsh pianist Huw Warren for several years, most notably on her 2011 album Ashore. Now, under the Quercus umbrella, the pair is joined by saxophonist Iain Ballamy, best known for…

Dirty Beaches - Drifters/Love is the Devil

A beguiling, globe-trotting, genre-spanning lo-fi album from Alex Zhang Hungtai

(Zoo Records) Alex Zhang Hungtai’s peripatetic lifestyle has taken him from Taiwan to Canada and then around the globe, and his lo-fi compositions as Dirty Beaches have a sense of dislocation that is both engaging and unnerving. There is no real sense…

Malcolm Middleton - Electric Circus, Edinburgh, Mon 29 Apr 2013

Guitarist in his element marking reissue of brutally despondent debut album

’I have to apologise in advance,’ says Malcolm Middleton, ‘for being slick and so well-rehearsed.’ His tour opener, coming before bad habits of the road kick-in and soon after the ex-Arab Strap guitarist’s SAY award nomination for his release under the…

Little Women - Lung

Somewhere between free jazz, avant-classical and downtown art-rock

(Aum Fidelity) Like their more fidgety Brooklyn associates Zs, Little Women operate somewhere between free jazz, avant-classical and downtown art-rock. Lung is conceptualised around the human breath, treating it as a sound source and organising…

Clandestino: In search of Manu Chao

A carnival of photojournalism and trans-continental reportage which brings you closer to the World M

It is no marketing accident that Peter Culshaw’s book has all the look and feel of a Lonely Planet volume. A carnival of photojournalism and trans-continental reportage, Clandestino, in search of Manu Chao is an ambitious biography of an artist who both…

Arika Episode 4: Freedom Is A Constant Struggle - Tramway, Glasgow, Thu 18–Sun 21 Apr

A quietly powerful weekend of jazz, poetry, philosophy and 'haiku for black people'

Arika may no longer do music festivals, but Episode 4: Freedom Is A Constant Struggle, boasted the most sublime music the innovative Edinburgh-based curators have presented since the glory days of Instal, alongside riveting talks, readings and…

Matmos - The Marriage of True Minds

Diverse album a return to form for duo specialising in high-concept fun

For two decades now, Matmos have making music that goes way beyond sticking microphones in inappropriate places and making glitchy techno from the results. Originally emerging during the post-rock wave of cerebral electronic experimentalists that…

King Creosote - Oran Mor, Glasgow, Wed 10 Apr 2013

Fence Records stalwart's bittersweet railing over declining physical music sales

Following on from his low-key appearance on the fringes of Fence’s Gnomegame festival in Anstruther the weekend before, Kenny Anderson was playing the second date of a monstrous month-long UK solo tour here, the first coming the day before in Shetland.