Music

Black Host - Life in the Sugar Candle Mines

Splendid mix of prog tentacles and free jazz goo

(Northern Spy) Bursting out of some back-alley Brooklyn laboratory in an explosion of prog tentacles and free jazz goo, Black Host are bizarro world mutant cousins to Little Women. As the sole horn player in a jazz-rock (of sorts) combo, Darius…

A History of Classical Music: Part 4 - The Later Renaissance

Alex Johnston's series of articles outlining the history of classical music - with Spotify playlist

Welcome back. We left off in the mid-16th century, and for quite a while yet, the vast bulk of music that gets written down is church music. And you know what that means, right? ... More unaccompanied choral singing? Yes! And lucky you, because…

Neil Young & Crazy Horse set for 2013 UK tour

Neil Young and Crazy Horse visit UK for what is probably their last outing together

A grizzly bear of a man wrings sublimely heavy tones from a battered old Les Paul and a chain of massively overdriven amps while his seasoned companions sweat and toil to forge the most elemental of grooves: such is the lumbering majesty of Neil Young…

Juan Atkins & Moritz Von Oswald - Borderland

Engaging, if slightly underwhelming release from two of techno’s most iconic figures

It’s something of an event when two of techno’s most iconic figures, Juan Atkins and Moritz Von Oswald, join forces in the studio. Intriguingly, they’ve offered scant information regarding their motivations behind Borderland. Perhaps we shouldn’t be…

A$AP Rocky presents debut album to the UK

Controversial Harlem hip hop star gets seductive

The good thing about being a rapper is that when you do something idiotic, one of your peers will be along shortly with a different cock-up to steal the limelight. Take A$AP Rocky, the languid and beguiling New York MC and the recent furore over his…

New Scottish band Akord bring hard rock from the Granite City

Zealous Aberdeen-bred band sweeping competition ahead of debut EP release

On the cusp of securing top spot at their third competition in as many months, the Granite City's noiseniks Akord have been rapidly attracting major attention from both sides of the border; all of which has been impressively amassed prior to the release…

Exposure: Haim set for 2013 UK tour dates

Sweet, yearning, retro pop melodies from sister-heavy band

When Haim look towards their future, do they see anything between themselves and a torrent of riches and acclaim? We’ve checked, and we can detect nothing. Were we to be unimaginative, in fact, we’d say they have all the retroisms to one day go on to be…

Malcolm Middleton - Electric Circus, Edinburgh, Mon 29 Apr 2013

Guitarist in his element marking reissue of brutally despondent debut album

’I have to apologise in advance,’ says Malcolm Middleton, ‘for being slick and so well-rehearsed.’ His tour opener, coming before bad habits of the road kick-in and soon after the ex-Arab Strap guitarist’s SAY award nomination for his release under the…

Orchestre Poly-rythmo De Cotonou - The Skeletal Essences of Afro Funk

(Analog Africa) The third compilation of vintage recordings from Benin's greatest dance band, The Skeletal Essences of Afro Funk stands as a fitting tribute to founder Melome Clement, who died of a heart attack in December last year. His 'Ne Rien…

Singles and downloads - May 2013

Sad City, Carter Tutti, Jon Hopkins and Rob St John among this months new music

Sad City - ‘You Will Soon Find That Life Is Wonderful’ EP (Phonica Special Editions) ●●●● Glasgow-based producer Gary Caruth delivers an EP that is dripping with lush, undulating synth hedonism and blissed-out meditative swashes. It’s reminiscent in…

Interview: John Cooper Clarke set for 2013 UK tour

Punk, poet and comic recaps 35-year career with humour and fresh insight

Like a recently awakened raven, all hair teased to eternity and trademark skinny suit, John Cooper Clarke is one of the most unique figures in poetry and punk. His forthright poetry, delivered in a breathless, freight-train rush of breath, was perfectly…

Arika Episode 4: Freedom Is A Constant Struggle - Tramway, Glasgow, Thu 18–Sun 21 Apr

A quietly powerful weekend of jazz, poetry, philosophy and 'haiku for black people'

Arika may no longer do music festivals, but Episode 4: Freedom Is A Constant Struggle, boasted the most sublime music the innovative Edinburgh-based curators have presented since the glory days of Instal, alongside riveting talks, readings and…

Optimo: The Underground Sound of Glasgow

Tracks from Golden Teacher, Auntie Flo and Debukas feature on mix compilation showcasing the city

(Glasgow Underground) The mouth waters and the ears tingle at the thought of this, the first in a series of compilations showcasing the sound of a city by someone who knows it well. The producers have chosen well here, for they could have no more…

Cottier Chamber Project features some of Scotland’s favourite chamber ensembles

Pavel Haas Quartet, Daniel’s Beard and Red Note Ensemble among programme highlights

Sometimes described as ‘the music of friends’, chamber music usually brings to mind small scale and intimate. No doubt that’s the case with individual performances in this year’s Cottier Chamber Project, but otherwise we’re talking big. Now in its third…

William Tyler & Hiss Golden Messenger - Summerhall, Edinburgh, Sat 4 May

Songs setting a dense emotional mood and strong sense of place

Despite the setting in a cool, dark, wood-panelled lecture theatre, sometime Silver Jews and Lambchop guitarist William Tyler and Hiss Golden Messenger songwriter and fulcrum Michael ‘MT’ Taylor brought a certain sense of the pastoral with them for this…

Alasdair Roberts & Friends - Stereo, Glasgow, Fri 3 May 2013

Less a conventional folk gig than a subversive ceilidh organised by some cracked millenarian cult

Alasdair Roberts is hopping around the stage, picking out a jaunty Scottish dance tune on guitar. Huddled around him are fiddler Rafe Fitzpatrick and electric guitarist Ben Reynolds, while double-bassist Stevie Jones flanks them all, rocking and swaying…

Sweet Baboo - King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut, Glasgow, Tue 7 May 2013

Charming set combines lyrical originality with self-deprecating humour

‘I go dancing and chancing my luck with all those girls - that’s why I’m bound for hell’, sings Stephen Black, aka Welshman Sweet Baboo, on catchy 2010 single ‘I’m a Dancer’. To look at this freckly face, rabbit-in-the-headlights expression and guitar…

Little Women - Lung

Somewhere between free jazz, avant-classical and downtown art-rock

(Aum Fidelity) Like their more fidgety Brooklyn associates Zs, Little Women operate somewhere between free jazz, avant-classical and downtown art-rock. Lung is conceptualised around the human breath, treating it as a sound source and organising…

Wet Sounds - Glasgow event combines swimming and music

Float in a pool listening to sounds by Joel Cahen and La Horrox

It’s the most listening fun you can have without electrocuting yourself. You get in the pool. You listen to music either in the water, out of the water or somewhere in between, floating on the surface. There are speakers submerged below you and in the…

Clandestino: In search of Manu Chao

A carnival of photojournalism and trans-continental reportage which brings you closer to the World M

It is no marketing accident that Peter Culshaw’s book has all the look and feel of a Lonely Planet volume. A carnival of photojournalism and trans-continental reportage, Clandestino, in search of Manu Chao is an ambitious biography of an artist who both…

The Fall - Re-Mit

Suggests insistent inter-band chemistry despite there being no real surprises here

(Cherry Red) Whoa-whoa-whoa, etc! Don't ever underestimate Mark E Smith, The Fall's founder, writer, vocalist and sole surviving member since they formed 35 years ago. Some may dismiss him as a past-his-best drunken parody of many former glories, and…

RockNess 2013 Bluffer's Guide

Guide to the wide array of musical genres present at this year's RockNess

Musical genres can be tricky things at the best of times so here’s out cut out a keep guide in case you find yourself out of your depth while chatting to a musical trainspotter Techno Do Say: ‘While you have to respect the innovations coming out…

Stag and Dagger: Glasgow's city festival prepares for fifth edition

One-ticket-admits-all festival to feature exciting acts from all genres

It’s uncertain whether anyone remembers the ‘Sauchiehall Crawl’ event of a few years back, which attempted to do for Glasgow’s busiest late night thoroughfare what the Camden Crawl in London was doing. Well, despite being ill-remembered in the face of…

Quercus - Quercus

June Tabor and Huw Warren collaboration blending jazz and folk tradition

(ECM) The great English folk singer June Tabor has been working with Welsh pianist Huw Warren for several years, most notably on her 2011 album Ashore. Now, under the Quercus umbrella, the pair is joined by saxophonist Iain Ballamy, best known for…

Travis, Johnny Marr and Hurts announced for T in the Park 2013

Day splits also announced - see which acts are playing when from Fri 12-Sun 14 Jul

Glasgow band Travis have been announced as performers at T in the Park 2013. Having played at the very first T in the Park in 1994 as Glass Onion, they will return to Kinross to take part in the festival’s 20th anniversary, playing on Sat 13 Jul. Travis…