Music and Stewart Smith

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Robert Wyatt - Greatest Misses

1 Jun 2010

(Domino) Its title may be a wry acknowledgment of Robert Wyatt’s enduring cult status, but Greatest Misses stands as a fine introduction to a truly great artist. As the drummer in Soft Machine, Wyatt was at the forefront of English psychedelia, but…

Uninstal, Inferno Quiz Show – Taku Unami

28 May 2010

Uninstal has been devised by programmers Arika as a taster for Instal later in the year, a space for discussion, experiment and play. While some recent Arika events have been a little heavy on theory and low on thrills, Inferno Quiz Show successfully…

Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti - Before Today

28 May 2010

Ariel Pink’s early albums were nuggets of bedroom pop alchemy, inspiring a generation of glo-fi and hypnagogic pop artists. Illicit pop pleasures – soft-rock, blue-eyed soul, 80s MTV – shone through, but as Ariel ‘Pink’ Rosenberg always insisted, the…

Kept Impulses: James Blackshaw, Nancy Elizabeth & Hauschka

6 May 2010

A self-taught 12-string acoustic guitar virtuoso, Hastings-based James Blackshaw weaves the minimalism of Philip Glass, through medieval ‘Early Music’, and the sparse ‘American Primitive’ guitar styles first played by John Fahey and Robbie Basho in the…

5 Reasons to go and see... Omar Souleyman

29 Apr 2010

1.) He’s Syria’s biggest star In the cassette stalls of Damascus, Omar Souleyman is king, with over 500 releases to his name. He plays around 20 weddings and parties a month and is also popular in parts of Turkey and the Gulf. His biggest hit, the…

Krautrock pioneers Faust embark on 2010 UK tour

22 Apr 2010

The story of Faust begins in 1970, when six dropout musicians convened in an old schoolhouse in rural Wümme, near Hamburg, to embark on a freewheeling musical project. Along the way they had run-ins with the Baader-Meinhof terrorist gang, and brought…

Wooden Shjips

Stereo, Glasgow, Sat 17 Apr 2010

21 Apr 2010

‘The three Rs: repetition, repetition, repetition’. Wooden Shjips may not sound anything like The Fall, but they’ve taken the words of that curmudgeonly visionary Mark E Smith to heart. When Ripley Johnson’s hairy band of travellers strike up a riff…

Dam Mantle launches debut EP

29 Mar 2010

Dam Mantle is the alter-ego of musician and artist Tom Marshallsay, who releases debut EP, Grey, on new Glasgow label Halleluwah Hits this month. A kaleidoscopic mix of melodic samples, jittery beats and post-dubstep bass mutations, Dam Mantle’s tunes…

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…

Sir Richard Bishop

17 Feb 2010

For the past three decades, avant-garde guitar wizard, Sir Richard Bishop has dazzled, confounded and disturbed, both as a member of Arizona freaks Sun City Girls, and as a wildly inventive solo artist. While less deranged than Sun City Girls’ sprawling…

Real Estate

Captain’s Rest, Glasgow, Thu 28 Jan 2010

1 Feb 2010

‘What you want is just outside your reach,’ runs the opening line of Real Estate’s best song, ‘Beach Comber’. The crowd may skip along to its cantering beat, but the pensive guitar part and Martin Courtney’s lyrics pull the song towards melancholy. In…

Gary War - New Rayontheport

27 Jan 2010

(Shdwply Records) Finally given a proper UK release, Gary War’s debut album is a lovely, if disorienting, trip through a fog of gauzy synths, sputtering drum machines and half submerged vocals. While Gary War can’t quite match former collaborator…

The Ex & Brass Unbound

13 Jan 2010

In their 30 year existence, Dutch underground legends The Ex have made connections between post-punk, Eastern European folk, free-improvisation and Ethiopian jazz, yet they’re still widely referred to as anarcho-punks. A misrepresentation? ‘Yes – in…

Five reasons to see . . . Alasdair Roberts

13 Jan 2010

1 He was discovered performing at a ceilidh by Will Oldham. An apocryphal tale, but the pair have worked with Songs:Ohia’s Jason Molina as Amalgamated Sons of Rest, and Oldham (aka Bonny ‘Prince’ Billy) produced Roberts’ ballad collection No Earthly Man…

Beak>

6 Jan 2010

After the lengthy gestation of Portishead’s Third, it’s understandable that Geoff Barrow wanted to do something a little less painstaking with BEAK>. Written and recorded in a week, their eponymous album offers stripped down takes on the krautrock and…

Glasgow DIY Festival

The city shows off its talented underground arts scene

17 Sep 2009

Without wishing to play down the significance of Franz Ferdinand’s commercial breakthrough, arguably the real story of Glasgow rock in the ’00s has been the rise of the DIY gig scene. Nuts & Seeds got the ball rolling by booking weird, noisy and fun…

Self-fulfilling prophesy

16 Sep 2009

Exposure: Nite Jewel

16 Sep 2009

The musical project of philosophy student and artist Romana Gonzalez, Nite Jewel filter ‘80s pop, ‘90s R&B and new age music through a dreamy lo-fi haze. Following the 12” ‘What Did He Say’ on estimable avant-disco stable Italians Do It Better, debut…

Trembling Bells

Ecstatic folk-rock magic from Glasgow

14 Aug 2009

Alex Neilson’s questing spirit has led him to play with Will Oldham and Texan outsider Jandek, make free jazz with saxophonist Sonny Simmons, and explode traditional folk songs with Scatter and Directing Hand. But with Trembling Bells, the mercurial…

Divorce, Vom and Teenage Ricky - Captain’s Rest, Glasgow, Sat 4 Jul

23 Jul 2009

Launching their Optimo Records debut EP – a satanic slab of red vinyl sleeved in a painting of ragged teeth and diseased gums – Divorce affirm their status as Glasgow’s most thrilling band. Their support acts are no slouches either. Teenage Ricky stage…

A Hawk and a Hacksaw

11 Jun 2009

FOLK The boisterous yet melancholy sounds of Eastern European folk music have long entranced Western musicians, from avant-jazzer John Zorn to indie-pop cosmopolitan Beirut. But few have gone as far as A Hawk and a Hacksaw in their exploration of…

Instal 09

19 Mar 2009

PREVIEW A church organ sounding the course of the stars, a cello being turned to dust, a sound poet voicing typewriter symbols, long stretches of almost nothing … Instal has been expanding the way we listen since its inception in 2002, building a…

Burt MacDonald with Lol Coxhill

Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival

22 Jul 2008

A reunion with free jazz, lyrical flourishes and popcorn machines. One of Scotland’s most adventurous jazz groups, the Burt MacDonald Quintet are reuniting with Lol Coxhill. A legend of the soprano saxophone, Coxhill has worked with the band on five…

Exposure - No Age

8 May 2008

Set to be the breakthrough band from Los Angeles arts space The Smell, No Age have unleashed a scuzzy noise-pop masterpiece in their Sub Pop debut Nouns. Guitarist Randy Randall and drummer/singer Dean Spunt crank out a joyous racket that suggests a…

Triptych - James Blackshaw

10 Apr 2008

James Blackshaw In only five years, James Blackshaw has earned a reputation as Britain’s most brilliant young composer-guitarist, wowing the avant-garde and folk underground with his acoustic 12-string reveries. Like contemporary US pickers Jack…

80 articles.