Music and Malcolm Jack

Summer Festivals 2012: Music

T in the Park, Wickerman and Belladrum among the music fests pleasing your ears this summer

25 May 2012

T in the Park Basics: Balado by Kinross, Fri 6–Sun 8 Jul, tinthepark.com Price: Weekend: £179 (campsite tickets available separately). Day: £70–£77.50. Line-up: The Stone Roses, Snow Patrol, Kasabian, New Order, Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds…

Summer Festivals 2012: Death in Vegas - interview

A chat with Richard Fearless ahead of his RockNess performance

25 May 2012

As British music finally dragged itself out of a post-Britpop hangover around the turn of the century, Death in Vegas were among the most quintessential of festival bands. 1999’s The Contino Sessions and 2002’s Scorpio Rising were staples of any…

Austra set for UK tour

Toronto electro-goth-pop six-piece take Feel It Break on the road

22 May 2012

Having rated spine-tingling coldwave-disco banger ‘Lose It’ as one of our favourite songs of 2011, The List are big fans of this Toronto electro-goth-pop six-piece based around one-of-a-kind Latvian-Canadian singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist…

Ultravox - Brilliant

Dull and pompous record from the no-longer-relevant Ure and co

22 May 2012

Does the world really need another album, the first in 26 years, from the ‘classic’ Midge Ure-era Ultravox – a group of negligible lasting impact on music even at their mid-80s arena synth-pop zenith? The Trade Descriptions Act-violating Brilliant is…

Dexys - One Day I’m Going To Soar

Full of wit, panache, brutal self-examination and abundant tunefulness

21 May 2012

The title alone gives you a tingling feeling that something glorious and redemptive lies within: and so it proves on Dexys’ – formerly Dexys Midnight Runners – first new album in 27 years. Following the young soul rebels’ disastrous plunge in fortunes…

Exposure: Friends

The Brooklyn hipster quintet make disgustingly cool indie post-punk-funk

25 Apr 2012

The List makes two predictions with regards to this fresh Brooklyn indie post-punk-funk ensemble. 1) They’re going to be the sound of many people’s summer, and 2) they’re going to have music journos punning furiously on their sitcom namesake. They’re…

Django Django's Tommy Grace looks forward to Stag & Dagger and RBS Museum Lates gigs

23 Apr 2012

Glasgow city festival Stag & Dagger returns in a lower-key format than usual this May, but there’s abundant quality nevertheless, from Death Grips to White Denim, the Phantom Band and Bear in Heaven. And Django Django, whose uncategorisable distillation…

Beach House - Bloom

Fourth album sticks to style favouring atmosphere over structure

18 Apr 2012

(Bella Union) With 2010’s totally immersive Teen Dream, Baltimore two-piece Beach House – France-born vocalist/keyboardist Victoria Legrand and guitarist Alex Scally – went from American indie try-hards to one of the most critically-acclaimed bands of…

Jesus H. Foxx - Endless Knocking

Long-awaited debut admirable in perfectionism, but feels laboured

18 Apr 2012

(Song, by Toad) ‘I’ve waited two bloody years for these muppets to finish this album,’ writes Song, by Toad boss Matthew Young in an amusingly frank note accompanying Edinburgh seven-piece Jesus H. Foxx’s debut. We’ve shared his frustration in…

Colette Thurlow of 2:54 - interview

The indie singer/guitarist discusses sibling bandmates and significant influences

27 Mar 2012

Like a louchely worn black leather jacket, moody guitar music will never go out of fashion – see 2:54 for proof on both counts. Having toured with Warpaint and The Big Pink since emerging a year ago, the London four-piece based around sisters Colette…

Exposure: Hannah Cohen

The NY model/photographer-turned-singer/songwriter is beloved by The National's Thomas Bartlett

27 Mar 2012

Two years ago New York-based model and photographer Hannah Cohen met Antony and the Johnsons and The National pianist Thomas Bartlett, aka Doveman, at a party. She shyly played him some songs she’d been secretly penning, and he immediately offered to…

OFWGKTA - The Odd Future Tape Vol. 2

Hip hop crew's major label debut impressive but dogged by usual obsessions

23 Mar 2012

(Columbia) Declared ‘the future of the music business’, controversial young California alternative hip hop crew OFWGKTA – aka Odd Future – make their major label debut off the back of a reputation forged through mix-tapes and bad behaviour. With…

Alt folkie Feist to play Glasgow's Royal Concert Hall

The Broken Social Scenester to play tracks from latest album Metals

29 Feb 2012

Leslie Feist isn’t the first artist successfully to balance the welcome commercial exposure a ubiquitous hit song can yield with a desire for continuing creative integrity and freedom. But not many manage it quite as gracefully as the Canadian has with…

Exposure: Gotye

An introduction to the YouTube-conquering ‘Somebody That I Used to Know’ singer

29 Feb 2012

Meet 31-year-old Wouter ‘Wally’ De Backer, aka Gotye, a Belgium-born, Melbourne-raised singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist whose inescapable international super-hit ‘Somebody That I Used to Know’ (featuring Kimbra) possesses an almost…

Frankie Rose - Interstellar

Brooklyn multi-instrumentalist goes solo and makes clean break from fuzz-loving past

22 Feb 2012

(Memphis Industries) Years of flitting between scuzzy indie-pop bands from Vivian Girls to Dum Dum Girls, Crystal Stilts and her own ensemble Frankie Rose and The Outs have led this Brooklyn multi-instrumentalist finally to conclude what we could…

The Twilight Sad set for UK tour

Kilsyth trio take third album No One Can Ever Know on tour

27 Jan 2012

With their third album No One Can Ever Know, masters of the dark side anthem The Twilight Sad add impressively to a catalogue that includes one of the finest Scottish debuts of recent years. It’s a bit of a surprise then to discover that the Kilsyth…

Friendly Fires - Barrowland, Glasgow, Tue 20 Dec 2011

Triumphant end of year show from the St Albans indie-ravers

6 Jan 2012

2011 didn’t quite belong to Friendly Fires, as some had predicted it might, but they owned significant parts of it off the back of their euphoric second album Pala – not least the flying feet and skyward waving arms of a few summer festival crowds. The…

M83's Hurry Up, We're Dreaming combines ambient roots with pop sensibilities

We reassess the albumprior to Frenchman's upcoming UK tour

6 Jan 2012

The Associates’ Alan Rankine once opined that the best way to make an album is to ‘start with a climax, then go further.’ It’s a maxim that Frenchman Anthony Gonzalez – an Antibes-born, LA-based songwriter and multi-instrumentalist with an idiosyncratic…

The View - O2 ABC, Glasgow, Mon 19 Dec

Raucous, lager-soaked rock'n'roll show

6 Jan 2012

Being partial to the occasional shandy, it pained The List to witness the mass lager sacrifice that occurred at the ABC this night – nary a punter was spared a shower of the gods’ amber nectar as high-spirited young souls sent pint after pint looping…

The Big Pink - Future This

Second electro-pop offering let down by over-egged desire to be anthemic

6 Jan 2012

(4AD) It’s easy to assume that London duo Robbie Furze and Milo Cordell’s oft-scrutinised industry connections have earned them their breaks while ignoring the fact that the dark, feedback and effects-swathed element of their music honours 4AD’s goth…

Boy & Bear - Moonfire

Mumford-esque mimsy-folk from down under

6 Jan 2012

(V2) If you’ve considered moving to the opposite side of the world to escape Mumford & Sons, think again – their Australian kindred spirits and touring partners Boy & Bear await you, ready to close the jaws of a vice-like international folk-pop mimsy…

Best Christmas album 2011: Emmy the Great and Tim Wheeler’s This Is Christmas

Justin Bieber, She & Him, The Wurzels and Glee also reviewed

13 Dec 2011

Now more than ever the discerning music fan has about as much reason to look forward to Christmas as a poor Primark employee looks forward to the stampede of burly, booze-breathed horrors thundering through them at opening time on Boxing Day en route to…

DJ Shadow - O2 ABC, Glasgow, Mon 5 Dec

Stunning live show continues to break new ground

9 Dec 2011

For innovation and impact, genre-mashing LA turntablist DJ Shadow, aka Josh Davis, has never bettered his entirely samples-based 1996 debut Endtroducing... But his visually stunning live shows continue to break new ground, and prove DJ sets can be just…

Guided by Voices - Let’s Go Eat the Factory

Reformed lo-fi cult heroes do their unmistakable glorious shitness like no other

7 Dec 2011

(Fire) It was maybe only a matter of time before Guided By Voices got back together and made a new record. Responsible for 16 albums in 24 years and led by a guy in Robert Pollard credited with over 1000 songs, expecting them to totally curtail their…

Little Dragon on UK tour

Swedish electro-pop quartet and Gorillaz collaborators take third album Ritual Union on tour

16 Nov 2011

You’d expect a band to delight in having artists from Gorillaz to DJ Shadow and Big Boi beating their door down to work with them – especially if they’ve hitherto existed in relative obscurity. But while Little Dragon find it ‘super exciting’ to have…