Withered Hand

Ten collaborative music, theatre and film projects from Scotland

Including Speed of Light, Pass the Spoon and Whatever Gets You Through the Night

Pass the Spoon. It sounded like an unlikely dish, with ingredients including off-beat artist David Shrigley (who wrote the libreto), modernist composer David Fennessy and Magnetic North director Nicholas Bone working with the Red Note Ensemble, but when…

Various artists - Whatever Gets You Through The Night

Impressive collection of songs released as part of wide-ranging multi-media project

‘The night’s getting colder’, sings Withered Hand on opening brass-folk serenade ‘A New Case’, and his words reflect the moon-lit backdrop of this terrific pop anthology. Its exclusive songs explore contemporary Scotland at 4am, as part of Cora Bissett…

Singles and downloads - September 2012

Errors, Withered Hand and Miaoux Miaoux among highlights

We’re not just here for the nasty things in life, like reporting that vapid-folk yawn-patrol Mumford and Sons return with ‘I Will Wait’ (I wish they had) (●●, Gentlemen of the Road/Island Records). We’re here for the sexy pop goods too, such as RM…

Scottish Mental Health Arts and Film Festival programme highlights

Scottish Opera, Music Like a Vitamin and director Jack Bond are among the top tips for the fest

‘Walk in my shoes’ is the theme of the sixth edition of the Scottish Mental Health Arts and Film Festival (SMHAFF). This year we’re presenting nearly 300 arts events across Scotland. As before, it encompasses theatre, comedy, film, dance, literature…

Summerhall to host second Scottish Independent Music Fair

The event brings together Scotland's finest independent labels and artists

Local, lovingly reared, carefully selected, packaged with care. Nope, it won’t be organic food being laid out across the stalls in Summerhall’s Dissection Hall. Just quality produce of the musical kind. Stuart Thomas from the Scottish Music Industry…

Dan Willson aka Withered Hand looks forward to upcoming gig with Darren Hayman, Gordon McIntyre and Josie Long

All-star cast for lauded Edinburgh-based singer songwriter

Withered Hand, alias thrash-pop heartbreaker Dan Willson, is amped for his forthcoming indie spectacular. ‘Two of my songwriting heroes are playing special sets: Darren Hayman [Hefner] and local legend Gordon McIntyre [ballboy]. A grand piano has been…

Interview: Cora Bissett and David Greig on Whatever Gets You Through the Night

Night-themed project brings together theatre, music, film and a book

Cora Bissett, David Greig and Swimmer One have stayed up past their bedtimes to hang out with some of Scotland’s coolest actors, bands and artists. Anna Burnside takes an extra slug of coffee to find out Whatever Gets You Through the Night

Whatever Gets You Through the Night - artist interviews

Stef Smith, Kieran Hurley, Withered Hand, Wounded Knee and Annie Griffin

Stef Smith playwright ‘Everyone knows what 4am feels like. How exciting to explore the secrets, silences and stolen moments that take place then. My piece is about an elderly man driving through the night to get to Loch Lomond. I felt it was…

Eye o’ the Dug - St Andrews, Sat 14 & Sun 15 Apr 2012

Fantastic bill featuring Django Django, Malcolm Middleton and more

They may have quadrupled the size of their show, and conscripted beefcakes to man the doors, but the spirit of Fence chiefly prevailed at the inaugural Eye O’ The Dug – a musical hoopla which (kind of) filled a Homegame-shaped hole in the calendar (and…

Singles of the Month: Withered Hand and King Creosote & Jon Hopkins

Django Django, The Twilight Sad and more also reviewed

Come hither and let us imagine a world, a perfect world – a realm in which Kim Wilde is engaged in a goth-disco tryst with The Sisters of Mercy. Think about it. Harder. Got it? Congratulations, you are now playing ‘Lafaye’ (●●●●, Full Time Hobby), the…

Born To Be Wide Showcase of Edinburgh music

Day-long appreciation of music made in Edinburgh

As a salute to Edinburgh’s musical vibrancy, this second annual Born To Be Wide showcase wants to shine a spotlight on what the capital has to offer with a series of ten-minute taster sets, secret shows and instore performances throughout the…

Music highlights from the 2011 Edinburgh Festival Fringe

Lach's Antihoot, James Blake and Withered Hand among highlights

The LuckyMe collective of artists and designers is one of Glasgow’s most successful cultural exports of recent years, and the group’s August party will once more give festivalgoers a chance to find out what they’re all about. This year, they’re having…

Johnny Lynch of Fence Records talks exclusively to The List about Home Game 2011

Fence Records’ annual Anstruther-based shindig Home Game is approaching once again, offering three days of intimate musical adventures for anyone lucky enough to get their hands on one of the 400 highly-coveted tickets. ‘We’ve spent 8 years building…

Bun Fight at the OK Karail #1 - Crail Community Hall, Sat 9 April

Sometimes, with Fence Collective shows – with the strange, intangible magic they weave – it helps to unravel them in reverse. For example, it makes perfect sense for the night to end in a cosy pub, with a hoard of mildly sunburnt gig-goers rubbing…

Music industry seminar Wide Days 2011 features top speakers

Showcase sets from Withered Hand, Capitals and Rachel Sermanni

Following its successful launch in 2010, the organisers behind Scotland's Born To Be Wide return to the capital on the 7th April 2011 with their jam-packed A&R seminar Wide Days, featuring a tasty programme of panels and workshops by day and selective…

Margins is Glasgow’s newest grassroots book and music festival

Doug Johnstone, Ewan Morrison Tom Leonard and Withered Hand

Imagine just starting a festival. Just saying, right there and then ‘there’s a gap in the market, and I’m going to fill it.’ It’s not such a great step for Mark Buckland; when newly graduated from university, he said to himself ‘I’m going to start a…

Fence Collective's Away Game takes the party to island of Eigg

Human Don’t Be Angry, Silver Columns and Withered Hand among highlights

Miami sunsets, macaroni pies, tractors-as-transport. Live death metal at 6am, beach campfire concerts, and a bottomless hipflask of whisky doing the rounds long after the bar had been drunk dry. Away Game – the first Fence Records festival on the…

Withered Hand and Meursault head up Edinburgh's Retreat!

Home-grown, DIY city festival, in a church

As we stagger, tired and bewildered, in the twilight of this year’s Edinburgh Festival, there’s a DIY pop haven on the horizon, and it’s got all of our names on it. It’s locally-sourced, it’s BYOB and it’s for all ages. Its name is Retreat. Sorry…

Withered Hand set for Edge Festival show

Key player in Edinburgh alt.folk scene hits the Fringe

This likeable oddball is a key player in Edinburgh’s alt.folk scene. Singer Dan Willson is a regular performer at Fence Record nights (and also pops up at this week’s Haarfest festival, see page 129) and counts Neil Pennycook (of Meursault) Bart Owl…

Malcolm Middleton, Withered Hand and The Unwinding Hours among highlights of Tigerfest 2010

The concluding stretch of Tigerfest holds some gems, including a night dedicated to the 17 Seconds label – home to Aberfeldy member Chris Bradley, The Dirty Cuts and The Last Battle. Indie legend Martin Stephenson will be performing with local…

Malcolm Middleton and Withered Hand among highlights of Tigerfest 2010

The three-week Scottish mini-festival returns for its seventh year, having featured Scottish heavyweights Idlewild, Frightened Rabbit and Danananananaykroyd in the past. The 2010 line up includes one-time Aereogramme members Iain Cook and Craig B’s new…

How the capital sound of Edinburgh's music scene is rising

For a long time it’s felt as though Edinburgh’s music scene has had to play second fiddle to its cooler, bigger West Coast brother, picking up on Glasgow’s trends and regularly borrowing its records, its clothes and a little of its cachet. But while the…

Withered Hand plays Edinburgh Limbo date

Jarvis Cocker recently showed his love of this outstanding Edinburgh-based, quirky alt.folk singer-songwriter, when he played song ‘Providence’ on his BBC6 music show. We’ve been fans of Dan Willson’s flaky, one-liner-laden melodies ever since he…

Singles and downloads - 9th March 2010

Perhaps it’s the cold weather making the world outside the duvet seem even less appealing, but the singles world seems to be very much of a collective one-track mind at the moment, with the latest offering from Arctic Monkeys setting a suitably filthy…

Labels of Love: SL Records

A treasured Edinburgh DIY imprint, SL Records has propagated local and global anti-folk, alt-rock and indie-pop since 1997. With ballboy, Misty’s Big Adventure and Saint Jude’s Infirmary among its dexterous alumni, SL’s current roster spans Withered…