Music, Reviews, Nicola Meighan

Conquering Animal Sound - Kammerspiel

Compelling and gorgeous debut of eerie and astral electronica from Glasgow duo

This gorgeous debut from Glasgow duo Conquering Animal Sound is draped in eerie, astral electronica, iridescent guitar ripples and heavenly, disembodied vocals. Evoking the pastoral machine music of Mice Parade and Múm, and fusing it with DIY pop and…

Michael Chapman - Trainsong: Guitar Compositions 1967–2010

(Tompkins Square) Maverick guitarist and singer-songwriter Michael Chapman has attracted fans such as John Peel, Jack Rose and Thurston Moore through the years, and little wonder. From his roots in the 60s Cornish folk circuit to an unlikely revival…

PJ Harvey - Let England Shake

(Island) There she goes, marching forth, marking irretrievable distance between her military coat-tails and the rest of the contemporary rock battalion flagging in her wake. Again. A glance at the track-list and a cursory scan through PJ Harvey’s…

Earth - Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light

Seattle languid-rock colossi is leaden, capacious and quite beautiful

(Southern Lord) Citing such musical reference points as Pentangle, Fairport Convention and Saharan groove pioneers Tinariwen, the latest LP from Seattle languid-rock colossi Earth is – as ever – mesmerising. While not as doom-infused as, say, their…

Sea of Bees - Songs for the Ravens

Country-rock debut from Sacramento's Julie Ann Bee is haunting and compelling

(Heavenly Recordings) This dreamy country-rock debut from Sacramento chanteuse Julie Ann Bee – or Julie Baenziger, or Sea of Bees – has attracted fans like Grandaddy deity Jason Lytle, and this comes as little surprise: its fusion of driving acoustic…

Adele - 21

Buoyant and tear-jerking record rampant with chart-seducing gospel, blues and rock ‘n’ roll

(XL) It is increasingly hard to believe that soul-pop titan Adele was once pitted against Duffy. While the latter has spiralled into helium-vocal mockery and farcical caffeine drink endorsements – not to mention disappointing sales for her recent…

Malcolm Middleton - Long Dark Night/Live in Zurich!

Live double album straddles all-out rawk in Europe and acoustic Glasgow psalms

(Around7Corners) Evoking Simple Minds’ Live in the City of Light and Mogwai’s Special Moves, Malcolm Middleton has affirmed his status as a bona fide local alt-rock deity with this live double album that straddles all-out rawk in Europe (Live in…

ISVOLT: A Disaro Witch House compilation

(Robot Elephant) If hypnagogic pop is like some half-remembered 80s fantasy, then witch-house is more of a half-repressed nightmare – familiar, compelling and faintly horrific – doused with drowsy disco beats. Fusing and abusing elements of…

Serengeti and Polyphonic - Bells and a Floating World

Chicago art-rap duo deliver sub-aquatic electro and remixes

(Anticon) For all of their talk about floating worlds, there’s something sub-aquatic about rapper Serengeti and producer Polyphonic’s latest burbling hip hop missive. The Chicago art-rap duo’s six new laid-back social expositions are variously…

Errors - Celebrity Come Down With Me

(Rock Action) Boasting remixes from the mammoth likes of Mogwai (‘Supertribe’), Moon Unit (‘Beards’) and Gold Panda (‘A Rumour In Africa’), Celebrity Come Down With Me is a compelling and curious addition to the Errors canon: a record that delivers…

The Pictish Trail - In Rooms

(Fence Records) The second long-player from local alt.pop prodigy The Pictish Trail boasts more songs than some artists chalk up over an entire career. Inspired by indie comedian Josie Long’s ‘100 Days To Make Me A Better Person’ endeavour…

Stereolab - Not Music

(Duophonic) Stereolab once released a record called ‘Stunning Debut Album’. It was neither their debut, nor an album. You can therefore rest easy that Not Music – the motorik-pop voyagers’ twelfth long-player – is entitled with a similarly cool…

Sweet Baboo - I’m A Dancer / Songs About Sleepin’

(Shape) Alt.country crooner Sweet Baboo is a deadpan Welshman with a penchant for farmland. His third long-player, I’m A Dancer, sees the troubadour – real name Stephen Black – on typically entertaining form while singing indie-pop paeans and…

Various Artists - Fuck Dance, Let’s Art

(K7) For all of its swearing and sloganeering, Fuck Dance Let’s Art: Sounds from a New American Underground comes on less like a counter-cultural snapshot and more like a cash-in on the hipster genres variously tagged as chill-wave, dream-pop…

Avey Tare - Down There

(Paw Tracks) Animal Collective’s Avey Tare could teach Elton John a whole lot about crocodile rock. The Baltimore-born singer-songwriter and producer – real name Dave Portner – is clearly obsessed with all things crocodilian, as his sometimes dreamy…

Of Montreal - QMU, Glasgow, Mon 4 Oct 2010

'Kamikaze R&B and electro-funk'

Uncannily akin to Rising Damp’s Leonard Rossiter (Rigsby) dolled up like Frances de la Tour (Miss Jones), Of Montreal’s frontman Kevin Barnes is nothing if not eye-catching. (Though not as conspicuous as he once was at New York’s Roseland Ballroom; he…

Antony and the Johnsons - Swanlights

(Rough Trade) As with Antony Hegarty’s three prior albums, Swanlights forages the natural world, yet bears unearthly fruit. It is typically impelled by his dramatic vocals: they scale astral heights; plunge aquatic depths and entwine themselves…

Magnetic Man - Magnetic Man

(Colombia) Newsflash: dubstep is still hot right now. Hence, we presume, this album from Magnetic Man – aka Benga, Skream and Artwork – a dubstep supergroup, if you will. Evidently aimed at the upper echelons of the hit parade (why else would…

Mice Parade - What It Means To Be Left-Handed

(FatCat) Attention, fellow anagram fanatics: did you realise that Mice Parade is a reconfiguration of Adam Pierce? You did? Then we’re the last to know. Pierce, of course, is the New York multi-instrumentalist who founded Mice Parade – a loose…

Grinderman - Grinderman 2

(Mute) Provided your senses have overcome the shock of Grinderman as camped-up centurions, (we presume you’ve seen the posters), then let’s turn our attentions to the second long-player from Nick Cave and three Bad Seeds (Warren Ellis, Jim Sclavunos…

Robyn - Body Talk Pt 2

(Island) This is cosmic. No, this is literally cosmic. ‘In My Eyes’, the opening track from Robyn’s second of three albums this year, is all zooming synth-riffs and meteoric ‘Invisible Touch’ (hello, Genesis!) drum-machine patterns. ‘Hey little star…

Lloyd Cole - Broken Record

(Tapete) He’s been Scottish rock’s adopted son for over a quarter of a century, and we’re damned if two decades in the States or lines like ‘I look like a million bucks’ will change that. Americana is Cole’s bag on Broken Record – warm, authentic…

Summer Camp - Young

Secret pop duo unveiled

(Moshi Moshi) After doing the fashionable thing and releasing a record incognito last year, London duo Summer Camp came out as melodic crooner Jeremy Warmsley and pop-cult writer Elizabeth Sankey. Their debut mini-album, Young, sounds like a…

Everything Everything - Man Alive

(Geffen) Manchester pop boffins Everything Everything are the most aptly-named rock troupe since The Band. They cram pretty much every hipster device into their ebullient, chock-a-block debut, and then fire in the tenets of electro and classical.

James Blackshaw - All Is Falling

Virtuoso guitarist's ninth album sees him move to electric twelve-string

(Young God) He’s banished the acoustic twelve-string! Fear thee not, however. London’s virtuosic James Blackshaw may have (temporarily) hung up his signature instrument, but he remains a spellbinding figure throughout his ninth…