Post-punk

Prinzhorn Dance School - Clay Class

Understated and minimal post-punk effort, but with divisive shouty vocals

6 Jan 2012

(DFA) Whether or not you like Prinzhorn Dance School probably hinges on the vocals. Depending on where you stand on a half shouted vocal (see Mark E Smith, Architecture in Helsinki, Gang of Four et al), their self-titled debut, put out on in 2007 on…

The Nightingales - Sneaky Pete's, Edinburgh, Mon 23 May 2011

Skewed meat n' two veg avant-garage from alt-punk stalwarts

27 May 2011

The Nightingales are what happens to 1970s-sired latch-key kids if you leave them alone with a CD of Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica, a DVD of The Wheeltappers and Shunters Social Club and the Bumper Book of Existentialism For Boys. After more…

The Feelies - Here Before

The post-punk pioneers return with a much mellower sound

25 Apr 2011

(Bar None) Encircling the laid-back parameters of Tom Petty and REM, this comeback album from US alt-rockers The Feelies – once the toast of 70s New York – finds the years have mellowed the post-punk trailblazers, but they have not drained the band’s…

Eat, sleep and breathe: Cold Cave

Wes Eisold, frontman and founder of Cold Cave, talks about the food that keeps him going on tour

24 Mar 2011

What time is breakfast? Early or never. Tea or coffee? Coffee in the morning, tea all other times. Smoking or non-smoking? Non, if we can help it. Sweet or savoury snacks? Savoury and bland. What food do you miss when you…

Cold Cave: Cherish the Light Years

More 80s post-punk synth-pop in the New York trio's second album

21 Mar 2011

(Matador) It’s slightly disappointing to find NYC trio Cold Cave following up the clutch of dark 80s post-punk and synth-pop rip-offs on their 2009 debut Love Comes Close with, er, another clutch of dark 80s post-punk and synth-pop rip-offs. Though…

Scars, TV 21 and Malcolm Ross set for Edinburgh date

HMV Picturehouse bill unites luminaries of Edinburgh post-punk scene

10 Dec 2010

When twinkly electronic pranksters Lemon Jelly played Edinburgh’s Usher Hall a few years ago to promote their new 64-95 album, some younger audience members may have been puzzled. At the end of the set, a trio of guitar, bass and drum-wielding gents of…

Glasgow’s garage-punk upstarts She’s Hit set for King Tut's headline show

Four-piece set to release debut album on own label RE:PEATER Records in April

10 Dec 2010

As well as running RE:PEATER Records, Glasgow’s garage-punk upstarts She’s Hit (that’s Cameron Wilson – drums, Michael Hanson – guitar, Scott Paterson – bass, Philip McLellan – guitar and David Wilson – vocals) have a lot planned for the New Year…

Public Image Limited

7 Jan 2010

‘Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?’ Those were John Lydon’s last words as Johnny Rotten at the close of The Sex Pistols’ chaotic 1978 San Francisco swansong. It was a sentiment echoed this September when the first live dates in 17 years by…

Four reasons to go see: Gang of Four

Post-punk, political legends come to Edinburgh

3 Sep 2009

1 They’re post-punk legends Widely regarded as one of the leading lights of the post-punk movement which emerged in the late 70s, the Leeds foursome mixed the visceral energy of punk with elements of disco, funk, dub and reggae before anyone else…

Magazine - Second Life

21 Aug 2009

On their return earlier this year, Magazine received ecstatic words. Now, Neil Cooper is convinced lighting can strike twice. Valentine’s Day is the perfect time for reigniting love affairs. This year, in a concrete hall close to Manchester University…

Magazine to play Edinburgh Edge Festival

Howard Devoto's band offer a theatrical spectacle

13 Jul 2009

When Howard Devoto reconvened his band of post-punk fabulists after a 28-year hiatus earlier this year, it not only revisited a back catalogue that married a Proust and Dostoyevsky-inspired lyrical ennui to sophisticated layers of sci-fi punk-prog-glam.

Battant

9 Jul 2009

Signed to Paris’ Kill the DJ label, sometime home of Optimo’s own How to Kill the DJ (Part 2) mix, Battant are a class above most other bands of their ilk. Look to lead singer Chloe Raunet for the reason why, her jeans, plain white T-shirt and cropped…

TV21 - Forever 22

25 Jun 2009

(Powbeat) Back in 1981, Edinburgh’s TV21 were poised to stand alongside Scots post-punk giants (i.e. Simple Minds and The Skids) after their debut LP, A Thin Red Line garnered rave reviews. However, things took a downturn for the power-pop outfit and…

Paul Vickers & The Leg

30 Apr 2009

INDIE/POST-PUNK OPERA It’s not at every pre-weekend indie night you witness the premiere of a 20-minute post-punk opera performed by a supergroup quartet of men in animal costumes. Yet that’s exactly what’s on offer in the debut of Itchy Grumble, a…

Introducing . . . Vintage Violence

30 Apr 2009

Residents Long-time friends Anastaziya Violence and Christopher Fast, whose previous night, Fast Punk Club, clocked up five years as one of Edinburgh’s finest evenings out before finishing up in January. Guests Billed for the second edition of VV…

Magazine

5 Feb 2009

POST-PUNK As second comings go, few have been more anticipated than that of Howard Devoto’s hugely influential troupe of post-punk pioneers. Formed after Devoto left Buzzcocks and the one-chord wonderings of punk behind, Magazine were an infinitely…

Exposure - Ming Ming and the Ching Chings

11 Dec 2008

They’ve been around a couple of blocks on the Glasgow scene together, but guitarist and vocalist Craig Wilson, bassist Gordon ‘G’ Gillespie, drummer Davey Miller, and saxophonist and backing vocalist Chet have created a raw post-punk meets rockabilly…

Gdansk

13 Nov 2008

The Mill Live @ Oran Mor, Glasgow, Wed 5 Nov. Glasgow quartet Gdansk claim to do ‘melodic post-punk explorations of literary pop’ and that’s about as apt a description as you could ask for. Song one, line one yields the words ‘taciturn’ and…

Wire

4 Sep 2008

Debuting with Pink Flag in 1977, Wire were players on the UK punk scene but it was their minimalism and stark soundscapes that differentiated them form the pack. They were one of the main influences on the post-punk scene. They split in the 80s only to…

Hydro Connect Festival - Glasvegas

City limits

21 Aug 2008

It’s hard to think of a band that sums up the Glasgow experience as succinctly as Glasvegas. Primal Scream and The Fratellis may have captured the hedonism, Biffy Clyro the anger and Franz Ferdinand the art, but Glasvegas are the streets of Glasgow writ…

Vampire Weekend

24 Apr 2008

The Paul Simon revival, inexplicably, just might start here. Preppy New York quartet Vampire Weekend borrow elements of their sound from Afrobeat, post-punk and new wave, but the fact of four well-off white kids co-opting African rhythms can’t fail to…

The B-52s - Funplex

13 Mar 2008

SURF POST-PUNK POP (EMI) ‘I look at you and I’m ready to pump,’ declares the very first lyric of Funplex. Smutty, puerile, silly or all of the above, it makes at least one thing instantly clear: The B-52s are back. It’s 16 years since Athens…

Dirty Summer

4 Jan 2008

POST-PUNK Oran Mor, Glasgow, Sat 8 Dec Yoofs have always been a major driving force behind popular music, but with influences past and present perhaps more accessible than ever these days thanks to the all-pervasive internet, wide-eyed youngsters…

The Sandals of Majesty

13 Dec 2007

Henry’s Cellar Bar, Edinburgh, Tue 15 Nov The name is misleading. Rather than some mellowed out, magic-carpet-riding, back-packer-eyed mystics as may be implied, this bi-aural, bi-lingual, buy-now-while-stocks-last quartet are up-tight, in-tense and…

Gay Against You

2 Oct 2006

POST PUNK The Subway, Edinburgh, Mon 11 Sep What to do with a sparse audience on a soggy Monday night? If you’re electro-saccharine noise terrorists Gay Against You, you drag all 20-odd onstage with you, thus immediately quelling the venue’s…