Music, Reviews, Nicola Meighan

Eagleowl - This Silent Year

Languorous chamber-pop full of silence, distortion and exquisite humour

(Fence) Here are a few clues that this is a rare and unhurried debut album: it starts with a beat, and then the beat slows down; the instruments come in one by one; the opening words are ‘some other time’. The album’s centrepiece is in fact its…

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…

L Pierre - The Island Come True

Eerie, bleak and gorgeous electonics from Aidan Moffat's ongoing solo project

(Melodic) Given Aidan Moffat’s consummate way with words – in Arab Strap, with Bill Wells, in his short stories – you might suspect that his expressive endowments were more inclined towards lyrics than music. His uncanny instrumental alter-ego L…

William Tyler - Impossible Truth

A shimmering, uplifting psych-folk album influenced by 70s singer-songwriters

(Merge) With gilded stints as backing guitarist to Bonnie Prince Billy, Silver Jews, Candi Staton and Lambchop under his low-slung belt, you might be inclined to wonder if prodigious fingerpicker William Tyler had the motivation, energy or indeed time…

Thirty Pounds of Bone - I Cannot Sing You Here, But for Songs of Where

Album exploring location and identity via travelling odes and upbeat celtic folk knees-ups

(Armellodie) As you might suspect of an itinerant folk hoarder who takes his grisly nom de plume from the average weight of a dead man’s bones, Johnny Lamb appreciates the gravity of his songs. His third album, I Cannot Sing You Here... frames his…

Mogwai - A Wrenched Virile Lore

The post-rockers' remix album is as ingenious as it is eclectic

Fourteen years since Kicking A Dead Pig – Mogwai’s formidable remix corpus, culled from their landmark debut, Young Team – comes this equally impressive anthology which utilises last year’s ace LP, Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will as its…

Stanley Odd - Reject

Cerebral, socio-political hip hop from the six-strong Scottish ensemble

Edinburgh six-strong hip hop ensemble Stanley Odd are the first to acknowledge that their debut album, Oddio (2010), was not hugely forward-looking in its sound, and it’s this sonic volte-face, teamed with MC Dave ‘Solareye’ Hook’s electrifying…

Adrian Crowley - I See Three Birds Flying

War, gorgeous alt.folk from the Malta-born, Galway-raised troubadour

Autumn was made for Adrian Crowley. His sixth LP sees the Malta-born, Galway-raised troubadour further hone his gift for warm, rich, fertile psalms that hang heavy with melancholy, earthly wonder and mellow fruitfulness. From the russet…

Kid Canaveral - Now That You Are a Dancer

Second album from promising indie-rock act on Fence Records

(Fence) Legend has it that Kid Canaveral almost expired in an amp inferno during the making of their excellent second LP, Now That You Are a Dancer. Said loudspeaker burst into flames as the Scottish alt-rock quartet recorded album closer, ‘A…

Rick Redbeard - No Selfish Heart

Outstanding debut solo album from erstwhile Phantom Band man Rick Anthony

(Chemikal Underground) And the man called Rick Anthony, hitherto deified for conducting The Phantom Band like a stars-and-brimstone preacher, retreated to rural Aberdeenshire; cultivated an elegiac Redbeard; amalgamated an earthly Scots tongue with…

Frightened Rabbit - Pedestrian Verse

Missing circuitous narratives and flipside thrills but sounding bigger and heavier than ever

(Atlantic) Long before they became an international major label concern; before they provoked a rampant wireless love-in from Radio 1’s Zane Lowe with new single ‘The Woodpile’; before they wrote our alternative national anthem in 2008’s ‘Keep Yourself…

Fat Goth - Stud

Excellent album of thunderstruck-hardcore, hollering-pop and countrified-rock‘n’roll

(Hefty Dafty) They may have a line in sardonic song titles, and their band’s name may sound like a dubious punch line, but Dundee rockers Fat Goth are a serious underground rock concern. Formed in 2007 and with a debut LP (2010’s Mindless Crap) under…

Julia Holter - Ekstasis

Anthology of visionary pop vignettes using ritualism and baroque instrumentation

(Domino) While Californian underground pop luminary Julia Holter used her debut, Tragedy, to translate a classic ancient Greek text (Euripides’ Hippolytus) into a grassroots suite of electronic pop, its incandescent follow-up, Ekstasis proves that…

Gav Prentice - The Invisible Hand

Familiar and well-observed folk-pop songs from the Over the Wall vocalist

This solo debut from Over The Wall vocalist Gav Prentice may be lacking in the fanfares that define his euphoric electro-brass duo, but this album’s small-town Scottish tales of getting old and family and work are characteristically familiar and…

Various artists - Whatever Gets You Through The Night

Impressive collection of songs released as part of wide-ranging multi-media project

‘The night’s getting colder’, sings Withered Hand on opening brass-folk serenade ‘A New Case’, and his words reflect the moon-lit backdrop of this terrific pop anthology. Its exclusive songs explore contemporary Scotland at 4am, as part of Cora Bissett…

Finn LeMarinel - Violence

LeMarinel's solo debut is a glorious calling card of acoustic folk musicianship

Within twenty seconds of listening to Violence, the following have crossed my mind: RM Hubbert, The Flaming Lips, Supertramp, Joanna Newsom, Yes and a sense of wonder. Can the rest of Glasgow singer-songwriter Finn LeMarinel’s debut album live up to…

Wounded Knee - Secret Museum of Kind Man

A playful slice of 'spiritual folk-jazz' with a touch of disco

‘More lo-fi spiritual folk-jazz from Leith’s finest exponent of lo-fi spiritual folk-jazz,’ promises Krapp’s fourth tape, Secret Museum of Kind Man – a play on Pat Conte’s Secret Museum of Mankind Ethnic Classic anthologies (Wounded Knee, aka Drew…

Josephine Foster - Blood Rushing

The psych-folk singer's strongest and most convincing work to date

It feels remiss to call an LP a career-high when an artist such as as Josephine Foster’s genre-defying output spans 19th century German lieder (2006’s Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing), reworkings of Emily Dickinson’s poetry (2010’s Graphic As A Star) and…

Rachel Sermanni - Under Mountains

Formidably assured debut full of life, landscape and promise

Rachel Sermanni has become such a well-loved figure on the live map in recent years that this debut LP feels overdue, despite the fact that the Carrbridge singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist is barely in her 20s. Possessed of a striking…

Deacon Blue - The Hipsters

It starts like all the best Deacon Blue records – gradually, subtly, waiting and wondering – just like Raintown, their debut, did 25 years ago. Then it eases into the melodic drive-pop that made the Glasgow band a household name. Produced by ex-Delgado…

Cancel the Astronauts - Animal Love Match

High-octane, ultra-bright indie-rock sounds recall Jetpacks and King Creosote

Continuing in that great Scots tradition of fuelling loved-up alt-rock with an interstellar designate – see We Were Promised Jetpacks, or King Creosote’s Rocket DIY – let’s hear it for Edinburgh vim-pop five-piece Cancel the Astronauts. They’re not…

Cat Power - Sun

A joyous, illuminating rebirth from the American alt.rock darling

As the title suggests, Cat Power aka American alt-rock darling Chan Marshall is hailing this record as something of a rebirth, and it is a joyous, illuminating thing to behold. Forgoing her languorous, long-term attachment to Delta blues and Memphis…

David Byrne and St Vincent - Love This Giant

Two of our greatest pop creators having a ball

There is something ironic about the fact that the futuristic art-pop icons at the heart of this much-hyped endeavour are almost outshone by that most traditional of sonic devices: the good old brass band. The horns and fanfares that populate this union…

Chilly Gonzales - Solo Piano II

Second anthology of self-penned neo-classical piano works

Eighteen months after telling The List that ‘the guy from Muse is asking for an ass-kicking, pianistically speaking’, and three years since he tanned Andrew WK’s proverbial in a New York piano-battle – not to mention his world record-breaking…

Karine Polwart - Traces

The collaboration-friendly folk artist's latest solo effort reaffirms her striking reputation

For all of Karine Polwart’s unquestionable folk appeal (the multiple awards; the clarity of her voice; the history and humanity in her songs) it bears noting that she has stolen the limelight in three of our finest indie collaborations – The Burns…