Music, Reviews 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…

Tunng - This is Tunng: Live from the BBC

Warped magic of eccentric east London glitch folk collective

7 Dec 2011

(Full Time Hobby) With a line-up alteration or two, eccentric east London collective Tunng have gone from glitchy cut and pasters to singalong folksters. Their This is Tunng compilation features bouncy numbers (‘Jenny Again’, ‘Bullets’) from 2010’s…

The Midnight Beast - Book At Us Now

Unfunny pop-parody book designed to cash in on upcoming TV fame

18 Oct 2011

(Coronet) ‘We mock the living hell out of stuff for a living,’ claim London pop parody trio The Midnight Beast. Even in this disposable age, simply poking fun at more talented people can only stretch so far before the game is up. Success rarely…

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…

33 Revolutions Per Minute, by Dorian Lynskey (Faber)

Comprehensive history of protest music

9 Mar 2011

While acknowledging that the protest song has its roots way before the 20th century, music journo Dorian Lynskey kicks off his impressive and extensive history book in 1939 because ‘that is where things get interesting’. This was the year of Grapes of…

Ian Green - Fuzz to Folk

Autobiography from founder of folk record label Greentrax

19 Jan 2011

(Luath) The life of Ian Green is certainly a packed one. Speedway champ, Korean veteran, grower of prize-winning chrysanthemums, police inspector and folk music entrepreneur are among the entries on his CV, but whether he can add ‘accomplished writer…

The Greenhornes - ****

15 Nov 2010

(Third Man Records) According to some worldviews, the 1960s officially ended when The Beatles announced they were splitting up or when Charlie Manson and his followers unleashed a summer of hate. Clearly, no one ever informed Cincinnati garage band…

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.

Agnes Obel

16 Sep 2010

Philharmonics (PIAS Recordings) Berlin-based Copenhagener Agnes Obel may well have just rewritten the book on ethereal pop. From ‘Falling, Catching’, the delicate opener of Satie/Einaudi piano cycles through its evocations of Sufjan Stevens, Stina…

Helen Arney

Sweet songs with a tender heart

24 Aug 2010

For Helen Arney, love is a many tentacled thing. Two centuries ago, there was ‘less choice, more farming accidents’ while now we’re never too sure whether the grass will turn out to be greener on the other side. For her own part, she seems to have a…

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…

Gavin Bain - California Schemin’

15 Apr 2010

(Simon & Schuster) It’s not difficult to see why Irvine Welsh has been so drawn to this story of two Scottish boys who fooled the music industry into believing they were a pair of Californian rappers. There’s a fair smattering of sex, large dollops…