Music, Rock, 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…

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…

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…

Glasgow quartet Divorce promise 'a big dumb racket' at album launch

The experimental band will launch their self-titled debut album at Nice'n'Sleazy on Sat 8 Sep

D.I.V.O.R.C.E, find out what it means to me! What it means to me is bleeding ears and free-sax fuck-rock squall. But what does it mean to you, oh harbingers of Glasgow carnage, aka Divorce? ‘We really love making a big dumb racket – none of us have…

Human Don’t Be Angry - Human Don’t Be Angry

Komische-influenced instrumental masterpiece from Malcolm Middleton

Scottische Pop (Chemikal Underground) In the bowels of a radioactive pop bunker somewhere between Glasgow and Falkirk, Malcolm Middleton has spent 18 months incubating a (super) heroic alter-ego. We all thought we knew the mild-mannered Middleton…

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…

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…

Singles and downloads - September 2012

Errors, Withered Hand and Miaoux Miaoux among highlights

We’re not just here for the nasty things in life, like reporting that vapid-folk yawn-patrol Mumford and Sons return with ‘I Will Wait’ (I wish they had) (●●, Gentlemen of the Road/Island Records). We’re here for the sexy pop goods too, such as RM…

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…

Dan Willson aka Withered Hand looks forward to upcoming gig with Darren Hayman, Gordon McIntyre and Josie Long

All-star cast for lauded Edinburgh-based singer songwriter

Withered Hand, alias thrash-pop heartbreaker Dan Willson, is amped for his forthcoming indie spectacular. ‘Two of my songwriting heroes are playing special sets: Darren Hayman [Hefner] and local legend Gordon McIntyre [ballboy]. A grand piano has been…

Mary Epworth - Dream Life

A lavish and eclectic debut album from the folk-rock singer

Where shall we begin? With the banjo twang, Black Sabbath fuzz and Goldfrapping blues-stomp of ‘Black Doe’? With the brass-toting folk-rock euphoria of ‘Long Gone’? With the swirling psych-pop of ‘Come Back to the Bough’? Or perhaps we should start…

Patti Smith - Banga

Unique album of punk poetry populated by rocky arias, improvised psalms and lyrical reveries

You may have heard that Patti Smith dedicates a song to Amy Winehouse on her 11th studio album, Banga. This takes the form of a syrupy ballad, ‘This is the Girl’, and its intentions are honourable, but look beyond it: there are greater, more defiant…

Eye o’ the Dug - St Andrews, Sat 14 & Sun 15 Apr 2012

Fantastic bill featuring Django Django, Malcolm Middleton and more

They may have quadrupled the size of their show, and conscripted beefcakes to man the doors, but the spirit of Fence chiefly prevailed at the inaugural Eye O’ The Dug – a musical hoopla which (kind of) filled a Homegame-shaped hole in the calendar (and…

Holy Mountain - Earth Measures

A cacophonous, riff-driven release imbued with savage axe-mastery and vintage spirit

What we are basically dealing with here is a delirious, hirsute rawk mob – a cacophonous, riff-driven Glasgow trio who’re as heavy as Led and thrice as cool. Notorious for combustible live shows (they once blared out the back of a van, with a cigarette…

Julia Holter - Tragedy

Celestial drones, mesmeric synths, ambient noise and unearthly vocals

(Night School) Perhaps you read that album title and started hollering the Bee Gees song or god forbid, Steps. Thank the stars, then, for LA composer and minimalist pop diviner Julia Holter, who will banish your garish disco horrors with celestial…

Profile: Cass McCombs

Californian alt-country nomad set for UK tour

Name McCombs. Cass McCombs. Or ‘Combs’, as his close friends call him (we like to think). He’s that Californian alt-country nomad, right? Correct. The harmonious, folk-rocking ‘Combs’ has spent most of his adulthood travelling America, writing…

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…

Palace - Domino reissue several albums from Will Oldham project

There is No-one What Will Take Care Of You/ Days In The Wake/ Hope/ Viva Last Blues/ Lost Blues And

(Domino) Before he cast himself as Bonnie Prince Billy, Kentuckian alt-folk heartbreaker Will Oldham recorded several exquisite, distinguished long-players under the Palace moniker. After aeons in the hard-to-find wilderness, they will be…

School of Seven Bells - Ghostory

Third album from New York electro-phantoms, now a duo

(Full Time Hobby) Ghostory – geddit? It’s the way in which our histories are colonised by ghosts. It’s the way in which persons come to haunt our tales of yore. It’s the third album from New York electro-phantoms SVIIB. At best, it is euphoric – all…

Happy Particles - Under Sleeping Waves

Ambient vistas to rival Sigur Ros from Remember Remember-affiliated musicians

(Self-release) This lovely debut from Glasgow slow-core melodists Happy Particles may be sneaking out as a self-release on December 25, but don’t be misled by their low-key approach: the ambient vistas conjured therein could rival those of Sigur…

Peaking Lights - 936

Psychedelic dub-pop mesh of krautrock, afrobeat, soul and hand build synths

(Weird World/Domino) This psychedelic dub-pop excursion from married couple Aaron Coyes and Indra Dunis was originally released on LA DIY imprint Not Not Fun, and its woozy mesh of krautrock, afrobeat, reggae, soul and hand build synths is…

Standard Fare - Out of Sight, Out of Town

Raucous and thrilling indie ride from loveable power-pop trio

(Melodic) Sheffield’s Standard Fare are putting their childhood rehearsal sessions in their grandparent’s living rooms to fruitful use in adulthood. They have become a loveable power-pop trio whose second album, Out of Sight, Out of Town, is a…