Music

Chris Bradley - At the Outpost

19 Mar 2010

(17 Seconds Records) With his angelic vocals and breezy folk aesthetic, this latest release from Aberfeldy man Chris Bradley makes for an engaging listen. At the Outpost never quite manages to rise out of its lower gears though, making for an…

Galaxie 500: Today/On Fire/This is Our Music

19 Mar 2010

(Domino) Between 1987 and 1991, the Harvard Uni-formed slowcore band released three albums which caught the indie mood of the times but have somehow, pleasingly, weathered the ravages of time. Awash with bonus tracks, the reissue of Today, On Fire and…

Jacques Loussier Trio

19 Mar 2010

Nestling among the classical superstar line-up of pianist Joanna MacGregor, Dutch cellist Pieter Wispelwey and violinist James Ehnes, who appear in Glasgow’s International Classical Season to celebrate the music of JS Bach, there’s a name that doesn’t…

Haddowfest Highlights

19 Mar 2010

1. Idlewild Old pros, compared to the majority of the rookie hot-shots on the bill at this Camden Crawl-style one-dayer festival, Roddy Woomble and the boys bring the angular jock-rock, as enjoyed by fans since 1995. 2. The 10:04s Entering the…

Exposure: Egyptian Hip Hop

19 Mar 2010

This teenage Mancunian quartet – singer Alex Hewett, guitarists Louis Miller and Nick Delap and drummer Alex Pierce – are at the forefront of the new wave of bands emerging from their city, but don’t expect a history lesson from them. Miller brings us…

Angus & Julia Stone Down The Way

19 Mar 2010

(Flock Music) Building up a fanbase stretching from their Australian homeland to the States, via gigs in the Scottish Highlands (their debut album, A Book Like This, was co-produced by Travis’s Fran Healy in his London living room), young siblings…

Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip

19 Mar 2010

(Sunday Best) Like listening to Russell Brand or Simon Amstell rapping about Britain’s flaws, and preaching about safe sex over uninspiring drum & bass beats. Painful polemics. Light years away from ‘Thou Shalt Not Kill’s glory.

Corinne Bailey Rae set for Glasgow date - interview

10 Mar 2010

First record you ever bought? A 45 of Prince’s ‘Thieves in the Temple’. I got it from a ‘Boyes’ [bargain department store] in Scarborough. First film you saw that really moved you? E.T. First movie you ever went on a date to? The English…

Polymath drummer Charles Hayward plays CCA, Glasgow

10 Mar 2010

He’s a drummer, but, like jazz percussionist Han Bennink, Can’s Jaki Liebezeit and improvisational drummer Chris Corsano, he’s so much more, as this solo show should prove. 2: He was in This Heat In 1976, Hayward, Charles Bullen and Gareth…

Autechre - Oversteps

10 Mar 2010

(Warp) Manchester duo Autechre haven’t so much been breaking boundaries for the last two decades as searching for them, like two astronauts blasting off into space, charged with finding the edge of the universe. Oversteps, their tenth album, isn’t…

Goldfrapp - Head First

10 Mar 2010

(Mute) Today’s pop charts may be awash with female vocalists and 80s synth-pop, but a decade ago, our prevailing sounds were bloke rock (David Gray) and maudlin MOR (Eva Cassidy). It was onto this bland, unsuspecting landscape that electro-pop siren…

The Unwinding Hours

Stereo, Glasgow, Fri 5 March 2010

10 Mar 2010

The pin-drop silence that fell on Stereo at points during this first ever headline show by The Unwinding Hours – the new venture from Craig B. and Iain Cook, formerly of the much-revered Aereogramme – reflected the stock of goodwill the pair amassed…

Lady Gaga

SECC, Glasgow, Mon 1 Mar 2010

10 Mar 2010

Lady Gaga returns to Glasgow (she debuted here opening for Pussycat Dolls last summer) to showcase her very own kink-pop juggernaut, equal parts high-end fashion experiment and ingenious pop alchemy. The sheer stupidity of the scale of this production…

Benni Hemm Hemm plays Glasgow and Edinburgh dates

10 Mar 2010

Perhaps you missed the folksy melodic pop of Benedikt Hermann Hermannsson at this year’s Fence Collective Homegame? No need to beat yourself up – the man (and accompanying band, which can range between three and forty others) better known as Benni Hemm…

Bonobo - Black Sands

10 Mar 2010

(Ninja Tune) Brighton producer, Simon Green brings delicate oriental orchestral arrangements, and lovely big bass-heavy, jazz-tinged melodies, in the lush, Fly-Lo mould.

Cincinatti three-piece Why? set for Glasgow date

10 Mar 2010

Humorously blunt lyrics accompanied by sumptuous melodies, tender harmonies and the occasional hip-hop edge – sound like your cup of tea? Us too. You may care to check out this beardy three-piece from Cincinatti – whose interracial lovelorn rap ballad…

Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip - The Logic of Chance

10 Mar 2010

(Sunday Best) Like listening to Russell Brand or Simon Amstell rapping about Britain’s flaws, and preaching about safe sex over uninspiring drum & bass beats. Painful polemics. Light years away from ‘Thou Shalt Not Kill’s glory.

Exposure: Egyptian Hip Hop

10 Mar 2010

This teenage Mancunian quartet – singer Alex Hewett, guitarists Louis Miller and Nick Delap and drummer Alex Pierce – are at the forefront of the new wave of bands emerging from their city, but don’t expect a history lesson from them. Miller brings us…

Isa & the Filthy Tongues - Dark Passenger

10 Mar 2010

(Neon Tetra) Bunnymen echoes from Isa (real name, Stacey Chavis, from Portland, Oregon) and those Filthy Tongues, including ‘New Town Killers’ used in the Richard Jobson film of the same name.

New Young Pony Club and Is Tropical set for Glasgow King Tut's date

10 Mar 2010

Besides the appeal of a date with kinky-popsters, New Young Pony Club (they of ‘Ice Cream’ fame), the support, Is Tropical, promises an added dose of throbbing electropop. A new London three-piece, they play on whatever instruments they can scrounge off…

Prins Thomas - Prins Thomas

10 Mar 2010

(Full Pupp) The Norwegian space-disco producer’s debut LP is a deeply good mix of rolling krautrock beats, moving away from the Balearic beats he normally makes with fellow Nordy, Lindstrom.

Skinnyman guests at Edinburgh's One Drop night

10 Mar 2010

Initially signing to Talkin’ Loud, his calling card was his debut album Council Estate of Mind, that summed up the reality of city life with sharp rap, grime beats and heavy bass. Describing his own productions as ‘rhythmatic urban poetry’ he…

The Besnard Lakes

10 Mar 2010

‘I think one of the most rock’n’roll things ever done was landing on the moon,’ muses vocalist Olga Goreas of celestial pop voyagers The Besnard Lakes. ‘It was the end to a great decade that produced more than just amazing music and art: it was a…

Withered Hand plays Edinburgh Limbo date

10 Mar 2010

Jarvis Cocker recently showed his love of this outstanding Edinburgh-based, quirky alt.folk singer-songwriter, when he played song ‘Providence’ on his BBC6 music show. We’ve been fans of Dan Willson’s flaky, one-liner-laden melodies ever since he…

David Patrick Trio with Bobby Wellins

10 Mar 2010

Bobby Wellins was a unanimously popular choice when he received a Lifetime Recognition award at the Scottish Jazz Awards last year. The Glasgow-born saxophonist has been a major figure on the UK jazz scene since the 60s, and is still going…

Jacques Loussier Trio bring their pioneering crossover sound to Glasgow

City Halls, Glasgow, Sun 21 Mar 2010

10 Mar 2010

Nestling among the classical superstar line-up of pianist Joanna MacGregor, Dutch cellist Pieter Wispelwey and violinist James Ehnes, who appear in Glasgow’s International Classical Season to celebrate the music of JS Bach, there’s a name that doesn’t…

John Warren - Following On

10 Mar 2010

(Fuzzy Moon Records) As the title suggests, this album is drawn from the same 2008 recording session that yielded the excellent Finally Beginning last year, and is every bit as impressive. Like its predecessor, it features Warren’s original…

Nicolas Meier - Journey

10 Mar 2010

(MGP Records) Having produced three fine records on Naim Jazz, London-based Swiss guitarist Nicolas Meier turns to a new label for this highly satisfying album. And ‘album’ it is – in these days of single-track downloads, Meier has opted to create a…

Sierra Maestra - Sonando Ya

10 Mar 2010

(World Village) Music doesn’t come more seductive than Havana’s glorious Sierra Maestra, who sparked the revival that lead to Buena Vista Social Club’s music sweeping the globe. About to tour the UK (dates in Dunfermline, Sat 27 Mar; Stirling, Sun 28…

The Chieftains featuring Ry Cooder - St Patricio

10 Mar 2010

(Fantasy) The Chieftains’ Paddy Moloney hits bulls-eye, here bringing Mexican and Irish music together in a brilliant mix of whistles, fiddles, harps, pipes and zapateo foot dancing. San Patricio tells the story of Irish conscripts who switched sides…

Thee Silver Mount Zion Memorial Orchestra play Glasgow

10 Mar 2010

Initially conceived as a side-project to Canadian post-rock heroes Godspeed You! Black Emperor, A Silver Mount Zion has blossomed into a great band in its own right, evolving from a purely instrumental concern into an expansive rock group characterised…

White Hills

Captain’s Rest, Glasgow, Mon 8 Mar 2010

10 Mar 2010

It would be an understatement to say that Black Sabbath were important. Their influence and sludgy, dark take on bluesy hard rock still, and rather obviously, resonates strongly within so many bands today. However, upon witnessing tonight’s…

Singles and downloads - 9th March 2010

9 Mar 2010

Perhaps it’s the cold weather making the world outside the duvet seem even less appealing, but the singles world seems to be very much of a collective one-track mind at the moment, with the latest offering from Arctic Monkeys setting a suitably filthy…

To Rococo Rot - Speculation

9 Mar 2010

(Domino) Palindromic triad To Rococo Rot have assembled animate machine music for over a decade. Speculation, however, heralds a somewhat raucous awakening, as the German impressionists venture out of the ‘measured’ post-rock dominion, into the…

Wooden Shjips - Vol 2

9 Mar 2010

(Sick Thirst / Forte) San Fran freak-rockers Wooden Shjips are hoary proponents of minimal fuzz-rock, loaded kraut-pop and sun-blitzed psychedelia. Summoning a lost weekend with Hawkwind, Neu!, Loop, Suicide and The Doors, the tranced-out four-piece…

Five reasons to go and see Four Tet

5 Mar 2010

1: He knows a good collaboration when he sees one Whether performing with improvisational jazz drummer Steve Reid, collaborating with dubstep wonderboy Burial, making B-sides for Radiohead or remixing Nathan Fake, Boom Bip or Matthew Dear, Hebden’s…

If I Was a Mouse I Would Hide in Your Hood

5 Mar 2010

The myth that creating work for children is the easy option may have been busted years ago, but clearly not everybody got the memo. Musician, composer and presenter Paul Rissman is a leading light in the field of children and young people’s music, and…

The Noisettes

HMV Picture House, Edinburgh, Fri 19 Feb 2010

5 Mar 2010

Since toning down the indie with their poppier second album Wild Young Hearts, The Noisettes have achieved chart success; appealing to a wider audiences and playing to bigger, more boisterous crowds. Tonight was no exception. At first glance the venue…

Five reasons to: Save BBC 6Music

4 Mar 2010

First came a collective up-in-arms from indie fans across the land; then came the validation of their anguish by the BBC: its small but much-loved digital radio station, 6Music, is to close next year – alongside the Asian Network – pending a public…

Fence Homegame 2010

4 Mar 2010

You know you’re in safe hands when Fence Records are involved. And Fife’s weirdy, folky, lo-fi, indie, little bit electronic-y collective are once again taking over every gig space they can cram a stage into across Anstruther this year with a line-up…

Dialogues Festival - Braw Gigs

4 Mar 2010

Edinburgh’s experimental music scene has thrived over the last ten years, thanks to several low-level organisations who have kept the faith, from Dialogues’ annual festival of electronic sounds to Cowgate-based music and film festival…

New Glasgow drum & bass night Jungle Nation to hit Stereo

4 Mar 2010

With the demise of Pangea, a rather large gap in Glasgow’s drum & bass scene looks set to be filled with the launch of Jungle Nation, which has been running for 13 years in Aberdeen. ‘We have been looking to do something in Glasgow for a while but the…

Joanna Newsom - Have One On Me

2 Mar 2010

(Drag City) Revising and entwining the rites of folk, pop, blues, baroque, classical romanticism and nursery rhymes, California’s Joanna Newsom possesses an uncanny knack for arousing and confounding our cultural memory: for unfurling strangely…

Memory Tapes - Dayve Hawk interview

2 Mar 2010

Spike Jonze and Portishead may be beating his door down, but euphoric New Jersey melodist Dayve Hawk – aka Memory Tapes – isn’t home. ‘I’m in the laundry room of my in-laws,’ he shrugs. Presumably he’s mainlining dream-pop, post-punk, classic rock and…

Alasdair Roberts

2 Mar 2010

Glasgow-based folkster Alasdair Roberts will be taking to the road with his four-piece band for a night of trad folk and his own Americana. Mixing his own compositions with timeless Scottish folk and creepy twists on old forgotten classics. Stereo…

Ardentjohn - On the Wire

2 Mar 2010

(Slow Train) The dreamy melodies, flowing strings and sliding guitar that suffuse Ardentjohn’s debut recall the peaceful island origins of the two founding members. Having now blossomed into a multi-instrumental six-piece, their sombre yet hopeful…

Channel Hopper: The Gemma Factor

2 Mar 2010

Ten years ago, something like The Gemma Factor (BBC3, Tue 9 Mar, 10.30pm) would never have been made. Quite probably in five years’ time, all programmes will be a little like this. Gemma Collinge (toothy newcomer Anna Gilthorpe) is obsessed with fame.

Delphic

2 Mar 2010

One of the ‘tips for 2010’ that have already proved the pop pundits right. Debut album Acolyte went top ten in the charts and was a lovely slice of electro-indie pop owing much to their musical forefathers New Order and Depeche Mode. Studio 24…

Grizzly Bear

2 Mar 2010

Woozy, sun-bleached, otherworldly, baroque pop from America, handily brought to Scotland for this sold-out live date, just in case you can’t make it out to see them play Coachella next month… Beach House will be supporting. Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh…

Hebrides Ensemble – Pierrot Lunaire

2 Mar 2010

Whether in poetry, film, animation, popular and classical music, dance and even jewellery, the figure of Pierrot, the sad clown pining for love, is one that has proven irresistible since his rise to fame in the commedia dell’arte tradition of 16th…

Lynyrd Skynyrd

2 Mar 2010

These Southern rockers named themselves after a particularly jobsworthy high-school PE teacher named Forby Leonard Skinner. Cool accents aside, they also gave the world ‘Sweet Home Alabama’, a song full of ‘dangalanga’ bits that are virtually impossible…

Star Wars in Concert

2 Mar 2010

John Williams’ classic score from all six Star Wars movies are brought to life by the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra with special effects, high definition movie projections, live narration from Anthony Daniels (the one and only C3PO) and a display…

Tamikrest - Adagh

2 Mar 2010

(Glitterhouse) Tinariwen first brought us the Tamashek music of the Toureg people of the Saharan desert. They blew everyone away, even the Rolling Stones, who a year or so later invited them to open their gig. Tamikrest are the next generation, and…

The Soft Pack

2 Mar 2010

‘This is by far our favourite city in the UK,’ says the Soft Pack’s guitarist Matty McLoughlin, and it’s a pleasure to hear. ‘We feel almost at home here. I hate London.’ Ouch. But then again, quite right. Although it does seem more likely that the San…

Yeasayer

2 Mar 2010

The New York oddballs were greeted with some exceptional Weegie banter at Oran Mor. ‘Ira, Ira, where’s your ‘tache?’ the crowd chanted at bassist Ira Wolf Tuton, referring to the long black hair and Gaucho moustache he recently ditched in favour of a…

T in the Park Line-up 2010

25 Feb 2010

T in the Park line-up announced Finally, the wait as over. TiTP have announced this year’s line-up, and very impressive it is too, with Muse, Eminem and Kasabian headlining the main stages and other major acts on the bill include Black Eyed Peas, The…

Shark Batter Records

25 Feb 2010

Dawn of the Replicants were one of Scotland’s most inventive bands: a creative rabble who evolved from the quality 90s ‘zine Sun Zoom Spark and proceeded to challenge – and enliven – the outposts of mainstream(ish) experimental rock. DOTR’s bygone…

Kris Drever - Mark The Hard Earth

25 Feb 2010

Orkney-born Edinburgh resident, Kris Drever (son of Wolfstone’s Ivan), has been an integral part of Scotland’s folk scene for some time, although he’s only just turned 31. Taking time off from his LAU collaborative (he also worked on an album with John…

Liars - Sisterworld

25 Feb 2010

LA’s art-rock contortionists Liars are not short of admirers: Thom Yorke, Devendra Banhart and Suicide’s Alan Vega have all reconstructed songs from Sisterworld, the avant-garde trio’s fifth long-player. Yet Liars’ caliginous renditions eclipse its…

Quarantine The Past: The Best Of Pavement

25 Feb 2010

During the 90s Pavement were cult kingpins of the burgeoning US indie-rock scene, and leader Stephen Malkmus was an idol for the brainy post-Cobain brigade. Several excellent albums garnished the era (from Slanted and Enchanted to Terror Twilight), and…

Patrick Kunka Quartet - The Edge

25 Feb 2010

This debut album from Aberdeen-born drummer Patrick Kunka was originally issued last summer, but was rather overlooked at the time. Some positive recent response has encouraged him to re-promote it, and it more than justifies that decision. Kunka is…

Red Bull Music Academy 2010 brings Tony Lionni, Marco Bernardi and Toddla T to Glasgow

25 Feb 2010

The organisers of this year's Red Bull Music Academy have correctly identified Glasgow as a "pioneering musical melting pot" when they were deciding where to host their unrivalled selection of acts, lectures, worskshops, demos and most importantly…

Autechre Oversteps tour includes Glasgow date - Sean Booth interview

25 Feb 2010

The new album just kind of made itself, really.’ That sounds like a pretty glib statement from Sean Booth, one half of Warp-signed electronic experimentalists Autechre, alongside Rob Brown, the kind of thing you hear from any band which plays the music…

Polar Bear - Peepers

25 Feb 2010

(The Leaf Label) Polar Bear’s music has already been dubbed ‘post-jazz’ in some quarters, and it is easy to hear why a conventional jazz sensibility might struggle to allow them within the fold. Regard them as a freely improvising rock band, with…

Sierre Leone Refugee All Stars - Rise and Shine

25 Feb 2010

Cumbancha Forming a band in West African refugee camps is a potent story and the resulting music – think reggae, dub, African ritual chant and more – is terrific. Here the All Stars go home to Freetown, Sierra Leone to record some songs, then head…

Trance giant Tiesto set for Edinburgh date

25 Feb 2010

Whatever you might think of Tiësto you cannot deny he’s perhaps the world’s most successful DJ. He was the first DJ to play a solo stadium show (rocking 25,000 people at Arnhem’s Gelredome in 2003); he was the first DJ to play at an Olympic Games…

Aerosmith and Rage Against the Machine join Download 2010 bill

23 Feb 2010

The final two headliners for this year’s Download festival have been confirmed with Rage Against the Machine and Aerosmith joining the previously announced AC/DC to head the hard rock and metal festival. The organisers also state vocalist Steve Tyler…

Burnt Island - Music and Maths

23 Feb 2010

Chaffinch Subtlety is in thin supply in today’s overwrought music scene, so it’s refreshing to hear a beautiful and understated debut like this. Glasgow-based nu-folkers Burnt Island are based around author and all-round renaissance man Rodge Glass…

Exposure: Dag för Dag

23 Feb 2010

They’re based in Stockholm, Sweden, but American brother and sister duo Sarah and Jacob Snavely (and their magnificently-named live drummer Chuck Bukowski) have no Swedish heritage. It shows: Dag för Dag’s (it means ‘day by day’) shouty, sky-scraping…

Frightened Rabbit, Three Blind Wolves, Dupec

23 Feb 2010

Tonight’s openers Dupec arrive late and a little flustered. Their angular indie-rock shows plenty of potential, but tonight’s set is too rough around the edges to really shine. Up next are Glasgow’s Three Blind Wolves – indie troubadour Ross Clark’s…

Kode 9 set for Glasgow Numbers date

23 Feb 2010

Name Kode 9 Real name Steve Goodman Occupation DJ, producer and owner of the Hyperdub label, which gave dubstep broadsheet appeal by releasing both of Burial’s albums. Where is he from? Raised in Hamilton, he’s lived in Edinburgh…

Shy Child - Liquid Love

23 Feb 2010

(Wall of Sound) The Top Shop techno revival is well underway, it seems. See also Delphic and early forerunner Sam Sparro for further exhibits of the kind of catchy, contemporary and utterly high street shopping friendly electronica offered by…

SNJO with John Scofield dates for Edinburgh, Glasgow and Stirling

23 Feb 2010

Conventional wisdom insists that the jazz big band had its heyday in the Swing Era before the advent of bebop, but it has remained popular with both jazz fans and musicians. Two home-based projects this month also demonstrate that the big band has been…

The xx lined up for Edinburgh Studio 24 gig

23 Feb 2010

Everybody loves The xx. The Simpsons’ creator Matt Groening loves them so much he asked them to play the upcoming edition of the All Tomorrow’s Parties festival he’s curating. Rob Da Bank loves them too, so he’s booked them for Bestival this year. The…

Zombie Zombie perform the music of John Carpenter

23 Feb 2010

Forming part of the Glasgow Film Festival’s Music and Film strand, the influence of one of American cinema’s most widely-respected cult auteurs hung over this event, so we shouldn’t be too picky that the band scrapped the idea of performing in front of…

Muse, Eminem and Kasabian are T in the Park 2010 headliners

The Prodigy, Jay-Z and Vampire Weekend also on Balado festival bill

23 Feb 2010

Muse, Eminem and Kasabian will headline the main stage at T In The Park 2010. Other major acts on the bill include Black Eyed Peas, The Prodigy and Jay-Z. The festival dates are Friday 9th. Saturday 10th and Sunday 11th July 2010. The campsite is…

Nazareth and The Deborah Bonham Band

ABC, Glasgow, Fri 19 Feb 2010

22 Feb 2010

More than forty years have passed since Nazareth left the comfort zone of the Dunfermline dance hall circuit to dive bravely into the snakepit of the London music scene but, despite the fact that the two remaining founder members of the band, vocalist…

Backbeat

18 Feb 2010

Iain Softley’s 1994 film Backbeat charted the pre-stardom career of The Beatles, focusing on the relationship between John Lennon, his best friend and fellow art student Stuart Sutcliffe, who succumbed to a brain tumour aged 22, and Sutcliffe’s lover…

BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra

18 Feb 2010

Young violinist Nicola Benedetti performs an emotionally-loaded concerto from the Finnish composer, Sibelius, followed by Shostakovich’s epic Tenth Symphony. Shostakovich’s Tenth was the first the Russian composer had composed since he was denounced by…

Hot Chip

18 Feb 2010

You get the feeling that everyone who’s anyone in Edinburgh was out for this show. It wasn’t just a big gig, it was one by a band whose new album One Life Stand has set the benchmark for crossover electronic pop style in ‘10. Did it live up to its own…

Jeans Team

18 Feb 2010

Berlin duo Jeans Team have been doing the thing they do better than most and for longer too, both predating and outliving the electroclash scene during which they came to prominence, after originally emerging from Berlin’s art and music scene a decade…

Scottish Chamber Orchestra: Leschenko plays Chopin

18 Feb 2010

Russian pianist Polina Leschenko is just 29 years old, but has played with big name international orchestras throughout the world, including as soloist with the Leningrad Symphony Orchestra at the tender age of eight. Expect fluent, delicate playing…

Why Fife is celebrating illustrious son Richard Jobson

18 Feb 2010

Here in Scotland, we love a tale of the local boy doing good, and musician-turned-writer and film-maker Richard Jobson has done just that. A former member of punk band, The Skids, Jobson often sets his scene – whether it be his music, photography, film…

Efterklang - Magic Chairs

17 Feb 2010

(4AD) If Alphabeat’s brand new sped-up hyper-pop effort The Spell makes you wonder what you ever saw in Denmark in the first place, fellow Danes, Efterklang deliver subtle, tinkling orchestral pop by way of national apology.

Pere Ubu, Mogwai, Thomas Truax and Zombie Zombie set for The Glasgow Music and Film Festival

17 Feb 2010

The Music and Film Festival is a strange beast, full of contradictions and tangents that threaten to pull apart its coherence, but ultimately make it the most exciting strand of this year’s Glasgow Film Festival. Co-curated by the Arches, and featuring…

Holly Miranda - The Magician’s Private Library

17 Feb 2010

(XL Recordings) Produced by Dave ‘TV On the Radio’ Sitek (hands up who’s still not been produced by Dave, please), this impressive, otherworldly debut is floaty, Cat-Power-esque and sprinkled with Au Revoir Simone Casiotone beats.

The Knife (with Mt Sims and Planningtorock) - Tomorrow, in a Year

17 Feb 2010

(Brille) Darwin’s discoveries get the ‘electro meets classical’ treatment in this experimental tribute opera. Fever Ray, or Silent Shout fans will find it requires lots more ‘uphill’ from the listener, but if you’re in a mood to indulge the…

Iain Shaw - May You Live All The Days of Your Life

17 Feb 2010

(Vow of Noise) Recorded and mixed over four hours, in Glasgow, Iain Shaw’s covers album includes gentle, intriguing, but over-tweedy and earnest folk versions of Motorhead (‘Motorhead’) and The Ramones (‘Blitzkreig Bop’).

Sharleen Spiteri - The Movie Songbook

17 Feb 2010

(Mercury) The Texas frontwoman has gone all camp and a bit ‘Liza Streisand’ on this platform-heeled tribute to her favourite soundtracks. Her retakes on ‘Xanadu’, ‘Take My Breath Away’ and ‘If I Can’t Have You’ just left us craving the originals…

Two Door Cinema Club - Tourist History

17 Feb 2010

(Kitsune) Perky, itchy indie-pop from Northern Ireland, on the dancey Parisian label, Kitsune. Sounds like Franz Ferdinand, crossed with The Feeling on ‘Do You Want It All’ and ‘This Is The Life’, while there are sub-Postal Service echoes (in a bad…

A Broken Consort - Crow Autumn

17 Feb 2010

(Tompkins Square) Aural cartographer Richard Skelton has long transcribed and excavated his much-loved Lancashire landscape by way of contemporary classical music. His heady, elemental hymns are attributed to various guises – Carousell, Clouwbeck and…

Ali and Toumani - Ali Farka Touré & Toumani Diabaté

17 Feb 2010

(World Circuit) Malian bluesman Ali Farka Touré was a towering musical figure who has left a legacy of groundbreaking albums. In 2005 he and kora (harp-lute) player Toumani Diabaté won a Grammy for their collaboration In The Heart of the Moon. The…

Bonobo set for Edinburgh show at Departure Lounge

17 Feb 2010

Name Bonobo Occupation Soul, jazz, hip hop and electronica producer of note What kind of monkey business is this? OK, very clever. Bonobos are indeed a species of small Chimpanzees (which are apes not monkeys for the record) but the Bonobo…

Brassjaw - Deal With It!

17 Feb 2010

(Keywork Records) Although the Glasgow-based quartet launched this album with a gig in Glasgow back in November, it has only recently been officially released on saxophonist Paul Towndrow’s label. The group began life as a conventional saxophone…

Cabaret Voltaire celebrates fifth birthday

Guests include DC Breaks, Slam, Fenech-Soler, Zane Lowe and Tom Middleton

17 Feb 2010

‘Cabaret Voltaire is one of the most atmospheric spaces you could ever find an underground club. It’s a very rare music-orientated team that work here. We’re a little family that are incredibly passionate about what we do, and I feel that really comes…

Cobra Starship - Hot Mess

17 Feb 2010

(Atlantic) This latest offering from New York electro boppers Cobra Starship features some pretty disposable tracks, like the lacklustre ‘Fold Your Hands Child’ (a nod to the album of the same name by Scots twee-heroes, Belle & Sebastian) but when…

Crazy Heart

17 Feb 2010

(15) 111min It’s another day in another shit hick town for country and western singer-songwriter Bad Blake (Jeff Bridges). The music business isn’t what it used to be; his schedule now consists of bowling hall and the back rooms of bars. Between the…

Crazy Heart, Tender Mercies and country music on film

17 Feb 2010

Crazy Heart is a tale of alcoholism, love, redemption and country music. It has a healthy lineage writes Paul Dale

Edinburgh Quartet - 50th anniversary gala concert

17 Feb 2010

As the highlight of their golden anniversary season, the Edinburgh Quartet celebrate in style with a special gala concert and new commission from composer Howard Blake, he of Snowman and ‘Walking in the Air’ fame. Blake also appeared as pianist in the…

Errors set for date at Grand Ole Opry, Glasgow

17 Feb 2010

‘God, I hope it doesn’t get to the point where we all try to outdo each other and turn into Rush,’ shudders Errors’ drum leviathan James Hamilton, talking about the Glasgow quartet’s rousing group dynamic. ‘But the thing about playing in an instrumental…