Music, Doug Johnstone

5 Reasons to Go See - Jay-Z

17 Jul 2008

He stuck it right up Noel Gallagherafter Noel made some rash remarks about Jay-Z being chosen to headline Glastonbury this year. In retaliation, Jay-Z ran an intro tape mocking Gallagher, then proceeded to lead the huge crowd through a sarcastic version…

Exposure - Gin Goblins

17 Jul 2008

Gin Goblins are Edinburgh punk legends, having delivered a unique brand of schlocky horror doom hardcore for the last 16 years. When The Horrors were still in short pants, Gin Goblins were getting victimised by Scottish tabloids and banned from…

Ida Maria - Fortress Round My Heart

17 Jul 2008

This is hands down the album of the year, so there. Distilling down everything that’s great about rock’n’roll from the last 40 years, Norwegian force of nature Ida Maria and her band have made a debut packed with hit singles, dripping with heartbreaking…

KT Tunstall and The Pictish Trail

17 Jul 2008

ROCK Alhambra Theatre, Dunfermline, Thu 10 Jul This first proper gig for the newly-refurbished 1700-seater Alhambra is a fitting one, with returning Fifer Tunstall warming up for T in the Park. Opening is Johnny Lynch, aka The Pictish Trail…

Tricky - Knowle West Boy

17 Jul 2008

Fifteen years in and Tricky remains a fascinatingly contradictory figure. This debut for esteemed indie Domino sees him more eclectic than ever, with a raft of obscure guest vocalists adding to that vibe, and features both some of his most commercial…

5 Reasons To Go See - Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip

3 Jul 2008

They’re unclassifiable - to some they’re outsider pop, to others they’re hip hop played through a punk filter. Then again their recent debut album Angles could easily be called lo-fi electronica mixed with spoken word poetry. Whatever, the end result is…

T in the Park - The Fratellis

3 Jul 2008

The Fratellis aren’t a band you’d think of as suffering from existential self-doubt, eh? But a spell out of the spotlight has left singer and guitarist Jon Fratelli with the slightest lingering doubt about his band’s success and longevity. ‘I’m…

Stapleton

3 Jul 2008

INDIE ROCK Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, Glasgow, Tue 8 Jul It must be tiring, constantly being referred to as unsung heroes. Who wouldn’t rather be a sung hero than an unsung one? If Scottish outfit Stapleton feel any of that frustration they hide it well, but…

Free Kitten - Inherit

3 Jul 2008

ART ROCK (Ecstatic Peace) It’s been eleven years since we last heard from this art rock supergroup of sorts, but on the evidence of this fourth album, it’s not been worth the wait. Featuring Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth alongside Pussy Galore’s Julie…

Sigur Rós - Meo Suo í Eyrum Vio Spilum Endalaust

3 Jul 2008

ROCK (EMI) Iceland’s favourite sons recently toured their homeland for free and released a stunning acoustic record, and these both rejuvenating processes seem to have fed into the joyous spirit of this fifth studio album. Opener ‘Gobbledigook…

Iglomat - Iglomat

19 Jun 2008

ELECTRONICA/POST-ROCK (KFM) Edinburgh-based laptop whiz David Jack has made three albums of atmospheric electronica on his own already, but spearheading this debut from a transatlantic four-way collaboration, he adds a more organic post-rocking vibe…

Mudhoney - Superfuzz Bigmuff: Deluxe Edition and The Lucky Ones ••••

5 Jun 2008

GRUNGE Superfuzz Bigmuff: Deluxe Edition The Lucky Ones (Sub Pop) Mudhoney were always the dirty, psychotic older brothers to Nirvana’s globe-straddling grunge phenomenon, true inheritors of The Stooges’ mantle, with their reluctance to…

5 Reasons To Go See - Bob Mould

22 May 2008

Hüsker Dü - Mould was singer and guitarist with seminal American hardcore outfit Hüsker Dü. Throughout the 80s they released a string of hugely influential records including Zen Arcade and New Day Rising. Their unique blend of thrashy punk, melody and…

Ida Maria

22 May 2008

How do you solve a problem like Maria? Don’t worry, we’re not talking about any scary Saturday night television show featuring melty-face Andrew Lloyd Webber. No, this is a much nicer problem, in fact, this Maria isn’t really a problem at all, she’s a…

The Ting Tings - We Started Nothing

22 May 2008

POP (Columbia) Salford duo The Ting Tings have been a buzz band recently, and this debut partially fulfils that potential. Conforming to today’s obligatory itunes-friendly frontloading of the album with hits, they blow their wad early, the insanely…

MGMT

8 May 2008

PSYCHEDELIC ROCK The Liquid Room, Edinburgh, Fri 9 May A lot of bands take themselves too seriously, but not MGMT. For evidence, get yourself to YouTube and check out the video for fantastic recent single ‘Time to Pretend’, a song satirising the…

5 Reasons To Go See - King Creosote

8 May 2008

1 He’s royalty Kenny Anderson (aka King Creosote) is a local legend responsible, along with his label Fence Records, for a renaissance of Scottish folk, lo-fi, electronica and rock. All done from a bolthole in the East Neuk of Fife. Clever, eh? 2…

5 Reasons To Go See - Willy Vlautin

24 Apr 2008

He’s an amazing singer, songwriter and frontman For the last 14 years, Vlautin has fronted Richmond Fontaine, the alt.country outfit based in Portland, Oregon. Eight finely crafted albums have seen him evoke the ghost of Gram Parsons in telling intimate…

dEUS - Vantage Point

24 Apr 2008

ROCK (V2) Belgian artrockers dEUS have a large cult following, but this fifth album deserves a wider audience. Expansive and eclectic, Vantage Point sees the fivesome refining their mix of powerfully emotive themes with leftfield, intelligent rock…

Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan - Sunday at Devil Dirt

24 Apr 2008

COUNTRY/FOLK/BLUES (V2) Campbell and Lanegan’s Mercury-nominated debut was a one-trick pony, but it was a pretty cool trick. Campbell’s wispy whimper and Lanegan’s bourbon-soaked growl blended refreshingly over some old school folk and blues, but it…

5 Reasons To Go See - Edwyn Collins

10 Apr 2008

The Scottish troubadour’s career has spanned 30 years, during which time he’s been a relentlessly original and innovative artist, redefining pop music first with his band Orange Juice and then as a solo artist of great renown. Three years ago Collins…

Kyon & Dyems - Overnight

10 Apr 2008

HIP HOP ELECTRONICA (Crystal Wish) Kyon & Dyems are enigmatic Edinburgh-based brothers who, on this quality showing, would put most major label hip hop acts to shame. This debut album, recorded on a budget, is nevertheless brimming with ideas…

Singles & Downloads

10 Apr 2008

Life’s shit enough, so this issue we’re only gonna review good stuff. So, no Libertines-influenced jangle monkeys, no dodgy hip hop, no execrable manufactured pop or R&B, no po-faced nu-metal (you have no idea). Only quality, original tunes will make it…

Elbow

27 Mar 2008

Elbow’s recently released fourth album, The Seldom Seen Kid, was met by a whole raft of effusive, praise-filled reviews which all fitted a familiar template. The underlying message across the board was essentially, ‘This band are unbelievably amazing…

The Breeders - Mountain Battles

27 Mar 2008

ROCK (4AD) It’s been six years since The Breeders released the raw, loose and intimate Title TK, which makes you wonder what the hell Kim Deal and co have been doing in that time? Maybe she’s been distracted by the Pixies reformation, but Mountain…

The Gutter Twins

27 Mar 2008

ROCK Oran Mor, Glasgow, Mon 7 Apr For a legendary hellraiser, Mark Lanegan is surprisingly perky considering it’s early morning after a show in Amsterdam. I say ‘perky’, it’s all relative, he’s still monosyllabic, menacing, moody and terse. So how was…

5 Reasons To Go See - Jean Michel Jarre

13 Mar 2008

He’s an Oxygenius - Sorry, terrible pun to start with. Jarre’s revolutionary album Oxygene changed the face of popular music (trust us, you’d know if you heard it) on its release three whole decades ago. To celebrate the 30-year anniversary, he’s gonna…

Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid

13 Mar 2008

ROCK (Fiction) Mancunian troubadours Elbow have always been at the more inventive end of the indie spectrum. Their restless musical experimentalism has garnered a mountain of critical acclaim, but their refusal to take the easy route has seen them…

5 Reasons To Go See - The Cult

28 Feb 2008

The Cult might have a rather dubious legacy after more than a quarter of a century in the business, but they can lay claim to one of the finest rock’n’roll albums of the last 30 years, namely Electric, every inch of which is riff-drenched, wailing…

Karine Polwart - This Earthly Spell

28 Feb 2008

FOLK (Hegri Music) Karine Polwart is already established as Scotland’s premier purveyor of progressive folk, and this consummate and lush album consolidates that position. A flip side to last year’s traditional collection Fairest Floo’er, this album…

Philip Cohen Solal - The Moonshine Sessions

28 Feb 2008

COUNTRY (Ya Basta!) Solal is best known as the French DJ, composer and producer behind the electronica-tango fusion of Gotan Project, so this largely traditional country album comes as a surprise. Recorded in Nashville with a host of local…

Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks - Real Emotional Trash

28 Feb 2008

ROCK (Domino) Former Pavement man Malkmus has seemingly spent the last few years trying to alienate fans of his former band, as he’s crawled further and further up where the sun don’t shine. On this fourth solo album, that effort reaches a zenith…

The Gutter Twins - Saturnalia

28 Feb 2008

ROCK (Sub Pop) Two grunge legends for the price of one – bargain! The Gutter Twins are Greg Dulli (formerly of Afghan Whigs) and Mark Lanegan (Screaming Trees), and this joint project seamlessly blends the former’s love of soul with the latter’s…

Hot Chip

14 Feb 2008

ELECTRO-POP Barrowland, Glasgow, Tue 26 Feb ‘I guess we’ve always been outsiders,’ says Felix Martin, one fifth of geeky electro-pop outfit Hot Chip. ‘I think that comes across in our music. We seem to be unique, we’ve never felt closely related to…

Kim Edgar - Butterflies and Broken Glass

14 Feb 2008

SINGER-SONGWRITER (Quietly Fantastic) Winning 2006’s Burnsong competition and being chucked into a house with established songwriters was a dream come true for Scottish singer Edgar, and she’s made that experience count on this accomplished and…

Kyte - Kyte

14 Feb 2008

POST ROCK (Kids) Post rockers tend to take themselves mighty seriously (our own lovable Mogwai aside), and the same goes for po-faced Leicestershire young guns Kyte. There is plenty of ambition here, and the band are unashamedly epic in an obviously…

Singles & Downloads

14 Feb 2008

The trouble with being trendy and much touted is that, at some point, you’ve got to produce the goods. Indie ugly mugs The Cribs singularly fail to do so with ‘I’m a Realist’ (Wichita) •, a tuneless, insipid, po-faced sub-Razorlight jangle. Ditto for…

Various - A Weevil in a Biscuit

14 Feb 2008

ELECTRONICA (Bearsuit) Electronica is surely the most widespread genre possible, given that all it takes is a laptop and imagination. So it proves on this collection, which features 16 unsigned artists from around the world put together by an…

Mark Everett interview

Family plot

31 Jan 2008

When Mark Oliver Everett was nine years old and home alone, a plane crashed in his neighbourhood. Stumbling outside, he wandered through the carnage of burning wreckage and body parts before returning to his house. ‘Just another day in my weird life,…

Aidan John Moffat - I Can Hear Your Heart

31 Jan 2008

(Chemikal Underground) SPOKEN WORD Sometimes a relationship has run its course and all you can do is split up, something former Arab Strappers Aidan Moffat and Malcolm Middleton know all too well. Since going their separate ways, Middleton has…

Bob Mould - District Line

31 Jan 2008

(Beggar’s Banquet) ROCK Mould is rightly regarded as a legend for his work in seminal hardcore outfit Hüsker Dü, and the bristling grunge-pop of Sugar, but his solo outings have been hit and miss. District Line is no different, showing glimpses of…

Drive-By Truckers - Brighter Than Creation’s Dark

31 Jan 2008

(New West) COUNTRY ROCK Any band with songs called ‘Daddy Needs a Drink’ and ‘You and Your Crystal Meth’ can’t be all bad, and so it proves, as Drive-By Truckers here provide a fantastically sprawling trawl through the Southern Gothic hinterland of…

Eels - Meet the Eels

31 Jan 2008

(Geffen) ROCK Mark Everett has always been the outsider on the inside – the indie kid on the major label, the shy freak adopted by the LA cool crowd, the bearded freak on Top of the Pops. This collection of his band’s finest moments confirms…

Helen Boulding - New Red Dress

31 Jan 2008

(Maid in Sheffield) INDIE POP GUFF Connections aren’t everything. Sheffield singer-songwriter Boulding has worked with members of The Verve, Pink Floyd and Squeeze, Youth produced this debut album, and Bryan Adams even took the cover shot (!?). Yet…

I Was a Cub Scout - I Want You to Know That There is Always Hope

31 Jan 2008

(XL) EMO From the knowingly wordy title to the swathes of epic keyboards and echoey guitars, this album has ‘emo’ written all over it. Strange, then, that it comes not from the college heartland of America, but rather from a nerdy Nottingham…

The NME Tour Featuring The Ting Tings

31 Jan 2008

INDIE Mix indie music, punk attitude, clubby vibes, pop melodies and art-rock sensibilities, then say hello to The Ting Tings, the Mancunian duo of Katie White and Jules De Martino who are one of the buzz bands of 2008, and rightly so. Having…

Explosions in the Sky

17 Jan 2008

POST ROCK Barrowland, Glasgow, Sun 27 Jan What’s in a band name? In the case of Explosions in the Sky, a pretty accurate description of the mental images conjured up when they play. The intense and intelligent four-piece band from Austin, Texas…

5 Reasons To Go See - British Sea Power

17 Jan 2008

1 Do You Like Rock Music? British Sea Power do, so much so that the Brighton foursome have called their rambunctious third album Do You Like Rock Music? In the case of the album, the answer is undoubtedly ‘yes’. 2 You can wave a flag The band’s new…

Finniston - Organised for Hi-Fi

17 Jan 2008

GUITAR POP (Ruby) This is the debut album from Glasgow-based guitar pop outfit Finniston, and maybe they’ll get better with time, but at the moment they sound as if they’re struggling to find their own distinctive voice. This is all reasonably…

Kim Novak - Luck & Accident

17 Jan 2008

ROCK (Talitres) Does the influence of Coldplay know no bounds? Even the normally independent-minded French are succumbing to the epic rock bug, as this rather derivative debut from Gallic foursome Kim Novak demonstrates. While everything here is…

Sons & Daughters - This Gift

17 Jan 2008

ROCK (Domino) Everything about this record is a massive leap forward which, consider S&D were pretty shit hot in the first place, is really saying something. From the poptastic hooks to the pristine production (courtesy of Bernard Butler), from Adele…

5 Reasons To Go See - Nobody

4 Jan 2008

1 Indulge your musical whims indoors instead It’s January, you’re skint, it’s cold outside and there are hardly any decent bands playing at this time of year anyway (the ones worth seeing we’ve told you about elsewhere in the mag). You got some gift…

Adrian Crowley - Long Distance Swimmer

4 Jan 2008

FOLK (Tin Angel) Adrian Crowley hasn’t received the level of attention bestowed on fellow Dublin troubadour Fionn Regan, but his sonorous blend of folk and blues deserves its spotlight. The content and style of this fourth album perhaps don’t reach…

Sigur Rós - Hvarf-Heim

13 Dec 2007

ROCK (EMI) Released to loosely accompany the Icelandic outfit’s superb recent film, Heima, this two-CD album is a revelation. The Hvarf half contains outtakes and rarities from 12 years of full-band studio sessions and is full of the sumptuous epic…

Big Country - 5 reasons to go see

13 Dec 2007

1 It’s been a long time since they rock’n’rolled In actual fact, it’s been seven years since the band hit a stage, and a full 25 years since the Dunfermline outfit formed from the ashes of The Skids. Based around singer and guitarist Stuart Adamson, the…

Abba - The Album

13 Dec 2007

POP (Polydor) If you’re tired of Abba, you’re tired of life, basically, so this deluxe re-issue of their most ambitious album is extremely welcome. Originally released in 1978 when the band were at their creative and commercial peak, The Album…

The Clientele - God Save The Clientele

13 Dec 2007

INDIE (Track and Field) This London-based indie outfit are more popular across the pond, and you can see why, with the West Coast jangle of The Byrds and their ilk an obvious influence. The Clientele combine a love of simple guitar pop with a…

The Good Life - Help Wanted Nights

13 Dec 2007

INDIE (Saddle Creek) Frontman Tim Kasher is a central figure of the Saddle Creek scene, and this established side project is an outlet for a more mainstream sound, contrasting his day job with the explosive Cursive. Unfortunately, while much of Help…

Benbecula Records - Our friends electric

29 Nov 2007

The Scottish electronica scene is probably healthier now than it’s ever been, and that’s down in no small part to Benbecula Records. Formed eight years ago by artists Beluga and Phase 6, and currently run on a day-to-day basis by general manager Steven…

New Scottish bands

15 Nov 2007

Over the last couple of years, it has sometimes seemed like the end of an era for Scottish indie music. Starting with the amicable split of the seminal Delgados, and, more recently, the demise of Falkirk’s Arab Strap and underrated noiseniks…

5 Reasons To Go See - The Hives

15 Nov 2007

1 ‘Cos every girl crazy ‘bout a sharp dressed man’ Sorry for starting with a ZZ Top quote, but it couldn’t be more apt for this impeccably attired Swedish five-piece garage rock behemoth. Every new record comes accompanied by a razor-sharp new look, and…

Imani Coppola - album review

Hip Hop

1 Nov 2007

Imani Coppola is a lot of fun. This is the NYC lady’s eighth album, and it eschews much of her sample-heavy traditional hip hop for a kitchen sink approach, chucking every genre possible into the mix with highly entertaining results. So we get rattling…

Reverbaphon - album review

Folktronica

1 Nov 2007

Pretty much everything released by Scottish electronica label Benbecula is worth a listen, and Reverbaphon is no different. This second album from Dundonian Paul Smith blends glitchy, skittering folktronica with jazz and world music to create something…

The Proclaimers - gig preview

1 Nov 2007

Whichever way you look at it, it’s been an astonishingly successful year for The Proclaimers. It’s 20 years since the Reid twins’ groundbreaking appearance on The Tube led to a string of hits, but 2007 finds their stock at its highest ever level. First…

Ash

18 Oct 2007

ROCK Barrowland, Glasgow, Sun 28 Oct ‘There’s always been a fight within ourselves between wanting to rock out and also wanting to be totally pop,’ says Tim Wheeler, grinning. ‘So there’s always a real tension to what we do.’ And there, in a…

Mammal

18 Oct 2007

ELECTRONICA 7VWWVW (KFM) Elusive Edinburgh foursome Mammal have been brewing this tasty stew of retro electronica for ages, but it’s worth the wait. Like The Magnificents in a chill-out tent or Boards of Canada jamming with Bob Moog, this mostly…

The Fiery Furnaces

18 Oct 2007

ART ROCK Widow City (Thrill Jockey) This is pretty much everything that’s wrong with music, packaged in a relentlessly tedious, overblown and self-important hour of aural torture. Much fêted in cooler-than-thou indie circles, this New York-based…

Kate Nash interview

4 Oct 2007

‘It’s a total headfuck.’ Kate Nash is not playing it cool. The 20-year-old pop songstress has had such a sudden rise to fame, she’s still coming to terms with her newfound celebrity status. The paparazzi followed her all summer, while Prince has…

Alex Cornish - album review

Singer-songwriter

4 Oct 2007

Less flamboyant than Rufus Wainwright, less earthy than Richard Hawley, Edinburgh singer-songwriter Cornish here provides a passable debut which suggests he might yet carve out a niche of his own. Orchestral, plaintive and melancholic, the downbeat pop…

The Rezillos

4 Oct 2007

1 They’re a joke OK, maybe not now, 30-odd years on, but when the proto-punk-glam-new wave gang from Edinburgh formed as The Rezillos in 1976, it was meant as a bit of a lark. So much so that when their debut single, ‘Can’t Stand My Baby’ started…

King Creosote and Emma Pollock interview

20 Sep 2007

We meet in Edinburgh’s Fruitmarket Gallery Café in the middle of the day. Not because Emma Pollock and King Creosote (AKA Kenny Anderson) are living the rock’n’roll lifestyle and couldn’t get out of bed because of terrible hangovers, but to give both…

Georgie James

20 Sep 2007

POP Places (Saddle Creek) Imagine The White Stripes raised on summer sunshine and vintage Beach Boys instead of Detroit rain and Delta blues, and you’ll get some idea of the genius of boy-girl duo Georgie James. This is pure, driven pop music with…

Jose Gonzalez

20 Sep 2007

FOLK In Our Nature (Peacefrog) For most people, Swedish-Argentine troubadour Gonzalez will always be known for his song ‘Heartbeats’ soundtracking that Sony Bravia ad with the bouncy balls in San Francisco, and that’s his main problem. What makes…

Singles & Downloads

20 Sep 2007

The Cult are back! Raaaaaaaaar, let’s party like it’s 1987! Actually, let’s not bother, because Ian Astbury and co’s latest comeback, ‘Dirty Little Rockstar’ (Roadrunner) •• is a lacklustre rehash of their Stones and AC/DC roots, except creakier in the…

Idlewild interview

10 Sep 2007

Few bands can last 12 years these days, so it’s refreshing to hear that Idlewild are as invigorated as ever about their musical predicament. Roddy Woomble tells Doug Johnstone why ‘We’ve always been the band of bad timing, haven’t we?’ laughs Idlewild…

KT Tunstall interview

6 Sep 2007

Looking around the room gives a clear indication of the reason behind KT Tunstall’s remarkable success. Crammed into the boardroom at XFM Scotland’s headquarters in Glasgow are two dozen competition winners being treated to an intimate acoustic show…

Rilo Kiley

6 Sep 2007

ROCK Rilo Kiley’s last album and singer Jenny Lewis’s subsequent solo debut both contained a handful of indie-country stonewall classics, but this lacklustre and scattershot offering shows none of the same spark, despite Lewis’ ever-wonderful and…

The Go! Team

6 Sep 2007

POP The Go! Team have always ploughed a lonely, if thrilling, furrow. When the Brighton six-piece outfit’s debut album, Thunder, Lightning, Strike, exploded in our faces in 2004, it was a joyful, irrepressible record which sailed in the opposite…

The Proclaimers

6 Sep 2007

POP With the Comic Relief single and a musical based on their songs, 2007 has already been a great year for The Proclaimers, and this consummately crafted and soulful album can only add to their wide grins. Title track ‘Life With You’ is as big…

Hot Chip

23 Aug 2007

Hot Chip will break your legs, snap off your head. At least, that’s what they claim on The Warning, the title track of their magnificent second album. Apparently the London-based electro-pop duo of Alexis Taylor and Joe Goddard met at school, where they…

Idlewild

23 Aug 2007

‘We’ve always been the band of bad timing, haven’t we?’ laughs Idlewild singer Roddy Woomble. ‘We’re perennially called underachievers or underdogs, because we’ve always put out records that are out of sync with what’s being played on the radio. We’re…

Billy Brag

16 Aug 2007

Billy Bragg was described by The Times as ‘a national treasure’. That particular phrase would surely bring a wry smile to his face, not least because the topic currently vexing the lifelong political campaigner and singer-songwriter is the fundamental…

Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan

Edinburgh Festival Fringe

19 Jul 2007

Edinburgh Festival Fringe The Odd Couple Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan talk to Doug Johnstone about the unlikely collaboration that produced their Mercury-nominated Ballad of the Broken Seas

Singles & Downloads

Records

16 Jul 2007

SINGLES & DOWNLOADS (Image: The Heavy) I declare it the Summer of Dross! Kicking off the half-arsed festival-promoting releases is Mika ’s ‘Big Girl’ (Casablanca, 1 STAR), which flaps along like Scissor Sisters devoid of the camp charm and…

Spoon

Album

16 Jul 2007

ROCK SPOON Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga (Anti) What’s happened to Spoon? The Austin, Texas underground rockers have seen their profile increase with every album, but have simultaneously been losing creativity and edge along the way. This sixth long…

Records - Ash

3 Jul 2007

ROCK Ash hit their creative peak blending pure pop and adrenaline rock with the near-flawless Free All Angels in 2001, so, after the heads-down metal reaction of 2004’s Meltdown, where next? Back to basics, it seems, the band ditching Charlotte…

The Magnificents

3 Jul 2007

ELECTRO ROCK The Magnificents were always ahead of the game. Formed seven years ago at Edinburgh Art College, the eccentric but brilliant foursome set about assaulting audiences with a relentless, high-octane blend of post-punk and new wave, at a…

Underling

18 Jun 2007

Homegrown hip hop is a growing phenomenon and Underling find themselves at the front of the pack. Splitting their time between Dunfermline and Edinburgh, the fivesome are renowned for eclectic live shows, and are currently putting the finishing touches…

Wilco

Album

7 May 2007

ROCK With their last two albums Wilco rewrote the book on what rock bands could do, so where next? The answer is they’ve reined in the experimentalism a tad and are indulging in exquisitely crafted, plaintive country-soul which manages to be…

Liquid Room

7 May 2007

Liquid gold

Fields

Records

26 Apr 2007

INDIE Imagine, if you will, Fleetwood Mac getting together with My Bloody Valentine. Add some crystal meth, the melodies of angels and a poet’s heart. Fields’ sound ranges from exquisite skewed folk to powerhouse drone-rock mayhem, frequently in the…

Exposure - De-Fence

Exposure

9 Apr 2007

The Fence Collective are often wrongly tagged as an exclusively folky bunch, but there is a much more diverse array of music on offer from its members. To showcase that fact, collectee Gavin Brown aka On The Fly set up De-Fence, an offshoot label…

Records - Singles & Downloads

Singles & Downloads

9 Apr 2007

(Herman Dune) It’s compare and contrast week at List Towers, so first up are a brace of female singers, and there couldn’t be more contrast between Amy Winehouse and Melanie C . The former’s ‘Back to Black’ (Island, 4 Stars) is a gorgeous…

The Go! Team

Smirnoff Electric Cabaret

9 Apr 2007

CUT’N’PASTE FUN’N’GAMES If you’re looking for a gig with a difference, here it is. Human beatboxer? Check. Hula hoop artist? Check. Burlesque dancers? Check. ‘Giant balloon man’ (whatever that is)? Check. Right, let’s also get Lemon Jelly to DJ and…

Midlake

ABC, Glasgow, Mon 9 Apr

27 Mar 2007

ROCK Last June, an album emerged that was so completely unlike anything else around that it seemed to arrive fully formed from another planet. And yet it was so accomplished, so confident, so self-contained in its own strange world, that it was…

5 Reasons To Go See

Jackie Leven

13 Mar 2007

1 He’s an underground legend The 56-year-old singer songwriter from Fife has spent a lifetime on the periphery of various music scenes and genres, but has influenced generations. His 1971 debut, Control, is considered a psychedelic folk classic and his…

Records - 102 Miles

102 Miles

13 Mar 2007

PUB ROCK Despite having a guitar-playing singer called Bob Mould, this Shotts-based five-piece are sadly not imbued with the spirits of American hardcore more’s the pity. What they are instead is a tediously ordinary pub rock outfit with precious few…

Records - The Midden

The Midden

13 Mar 2007

FOLK Considering the recent leaps forward in folk music made by the likes of Karine Polwart and Seth Lakeman, it simply isn’t enough these days to be a proficient traditional band with a few decent tunes. Scottish fivesome The Midden suffer by such…

Records - Various - Ballads of the Book

Various

13 Mar 2007

POETRY POP Of course, just because dozens of the county’s finest bands and authors have collaborated on this album, doesn’t guarantee it’s going to be any good. But thankfully it is, it’s really very good indeed. The end product is unsurprisingly…

Air - 5 Reasons to see them

AIR

28 Feb 2007

1 Ils sont un groupe francais plus bon OK, we’re not going to keep that up, not with our school-level French. Anyway, for the last ten years, French duo Air (Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoit Dunckel) have, along with Daft Punk, been at the vanguard of…