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2 Oct 2008
1 He’s a rockabilly punk trash country delta blues maniac. From Scotland Arcari is a one-man musical whirlwind, thrashing his metal-bodied National acoustic guitar and producing some seriously fucked up gravelly bottleneck blues mojo with gargantuan…
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…
The likes of Dizzee Rascal and Mike Skinner might have higher profiles but there’s only one true king of British rap music and that’s Roots Manuva. London-based Rodney Smith has continued to amaze and delight with his idiosyncratic and original take on…
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…
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…
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…
ROCK Darwin’s theory of convergent evolution states that disparate, unrelated organisms evolve similar traits when adapting to similar environments, and it’s clearly in evidence amongst stadium rock bands. Using the blustery, overblown U2 blueprint…
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,…
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…
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…
18 Sep 2008
For gigs of a certain size Edinburgh has long had a gaping hole where a venue should be. Up-and-coming acts love Cabaret Voltaire, smaller touring bands play the 700 capacity Liquid Rooms and then … nothing until the Corn Exchange at almost 3000…
4 Sep 2008
Emiliana Torrini Me and Armini (Rough Trade) Torrini is frustrating. The Icelandic chanteuse is gifted both in terms of her gorgeous natural voice and her perceptive pop songwriting (she co-wrote ‘Slow’ for Kylie, for example). But she also likes…
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…
(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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
The crossing of normally disparate musical boundaries is always to be applauded, although it’s not automatically the green light to genius that reviewers sometimes make out. This collaboration from two generations of folkies – Kris Drever and John…
27 Feb 2007
Projects like Ballads of the Book don’t come along very often. And, looking at the roll call of writers and musicians involved, it is easy to see why. It must have been a logistical nightmare getting 54 of Scotland’s finest writers and musicians…
POP Lewis is a sultry indie poster girl with Rilo Kiley and delivered a beautifully moving country record, backed by The Watson Twins, two years ago. This second solo album lacks the focus of those projects, but it’s still a cut above the average…
Locally-sourced produce is all the rage these days, so let’s have a cheeky wee Scottish round-up this issue, eh? Quality meat to kick off in the form of Frightened Rabbit , whose ‘I Feel Better’/’The Twist’ (Fat Cat) •••• is excellently jittery…
21 Aug 2008
Opposites attract, right? That certainly seems true for Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip, the former being a short, stocky, shy beatmaster while the latter is a tall, skinny hyperactive wordsmith. ‘We both bring the best out of each other,’ says Pip, aka…
31 Jul 2008
‘No future, no future, no future for me.’ Those words, penned by John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten) back in 1976, expressed not only Lydon’s feelings, not only his band The Sex Pistols’ attitude to life, not only the stance of the fearsome punk movement…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
21 Nov 2006
5 REASONS TO GO SEE 1 They’re horrible The zombie garage goth rock dafties (Faris ‘Rotter’ Badwan, Tomethy Furse, Joshua von Grimm, Coffin Joe and Spider Webb, apparently) hail from Southend, but look and sound as if they’ve just climbed out of…
ROCK The Rev are like an indie version of Madonna, constantly reinventing themselves and their sound with each album, and this seventh studio outing is another successful reincarnation for these dreamy loons. Their early drone-rock weirdness and even…
In this age of quick fixes and cheap thrills, there’s something deeply comforting about James Yorkston. This fourth studio album is the antithesis of the nasty fast food rush of most mainstream indie fare, more like a luxurious banquet in the company of…
14 Aug 2008
You can’t beat a good song title, and Future of the Left have some of the best. The Cardiff based trio’s second single was the thrillingly angry rock of ‘adeadenemyalwayssmellsgood’, and the band’s debut album Curses was peppered with other gems such as…
7 Aug 2008
It’s the stuff on your doorstep that always goes unnoticed. While we heap plaudits on underground legends from across the pond, Scotland’s own talented outsider Jackie Leven remains unheralded. ‘I can’t get arrested in this country,’ Leven laughs…
17 Jul 2008
They've refused to stand still musically in their 20 year career, and with this latest chapter Mercury Rev are pushing their music farther out than ever. Doug Johnstone revels in their sonic adventures Describing what Mercury Rev sound like is a…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
18 Sep 2006
ALT.COUNTRY At 25 years old, Micah P Hinson seems a little young for the world-weary sorrow etched into his melancholic tones, but the Texan singer songwriter has experienced more than his fair share of heartbreak and misery. Hinson was a young…
SINGER-SONGWRITER The Pictish Trail is coming out of the shadows. Johnny Lynch (for the Trail is he) has until now focussed on running the Fence Collective and playing guitar for head-honcho King Creosote (aka Kenny Anderson). But with the release of…
1 He’s an axe hero OK, he’s not in the same mould as Slash, but the veteran English guitarist and songwriter delivers an exemplary, dextrous mix of blues, folk, classical and jazz to wow his audience. 2 He’s a Pentangle Renbourn was one of the…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
(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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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
3 Jan 2007
With the annual Christmas bunfight over with, January always provides space for some decent songs to come to the fore. Step up Amy Winehouse featuring Ghostface Killah (now there’s a date to gooseberry) with ‘You Know I’m No Good’ (Island - 3 stars), a…
Dean Owens Whisky Hearts (Navigator) The craft of songwriting has become devalued in mainstream music these days, but there remain talented individuals out there waiting to be found. One such is Dean Owens, Leith-based singer songwriter with a…
1 The shoegazing revival starts here! OK, Swervedriver were kind of more grungy than shoegazing, but the ballistic Oxford outfit had feet in both camps, creating a mesmerising racket on a par with My Bloody Valentine and Ride for the whole of the 90s…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
(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…
(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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
(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…
14 Feb 2007
Doug Johnstone: Mika is not the next big thing. He is merely the latest creation of the music industry’s marketing machine.
15 Jan 2007
INDIE The sound of a band fulfilling their potential is always a heart-warming thing, and so it is with Aereogramme. This third full-length album sees the band moving onto a whole new level of accomplishment, transforming them in the process from…
5 REASONS TO GO SEE 1 He’s a country music legend Dozens of albums, a string of hit singles (he wrote ‘Crazy’, the Patsy Clyne one though not the Gnarls Barkley one, sadly), countless awards, half a century of outsider genius. The 73-year-old hippy…
11 Dec 2006
FOLK COUNTRY Ever heard a record which somehow seemed less than the sum of its parts? Cos that’s the inescapable feeling when listening to Skygreen Leopards. Across this record are spread gently strummy country melancholy, whispering psychedelic folk…
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