Withered Hand

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

Fantastic bill featuring Django Django, Malcolm Middleton and more

27 Apr 2012

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

3 Feb 2012

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

29 Jul 2011

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

20 Jul 2011

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

18 Apr 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

15 Apr 2011

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

5 Apr 2011

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

16 Feb 2011

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

6 Oct 2010

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

24 Aug 2010

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

10 Aug 2010

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

12 May 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

29 Apr 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

31 Mar 2010

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

10 Mar 2010

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

9 Mar 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

3 Feb 2010

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…

Fence Homegame 2010 line-up

20 Jan 2010

‘We’ve got the incredible Four Tet headlining on the Sunday night. His live sets are always spectacularly electric – so we’re really excited. Kieran has been to Homegame before, playing guitar as part of One Little Plane – so we’re delighted to have him…

Eagleowl

6 Jan 2010

As one door opens, another closes, as Eagleowl launch their gift-wrapped ‘Sleep the Winter’ 7” single at the penultimate show at the Bowery before the venue’s sad and frankly unnecessary closure (well done, Edinburgh University Settlement, for thinking…

Various Artists - Alternative Christmas

6 Jan 2010

(Avalanche Records) Anticipating the annual landslide of pap music that descends round about Jesus’ birthday, and inspired by the Saddle Creek Christmas album, Avalanche Records commissioned a non-rubbish collection of Christmas songs, with no child…

Charity Baw

13 Nov 2009

Nope, not a fundraiser for testicular cancer – this charity ball’s for Oxfam, and funds raised are going to support the fight against climate change. Acts such as The Real Tuesday Weld, Aberfeldy, The Parsonage, Withered Hand, Come On Gang!, Big Ned…

Withered Hand - Good News

3 Sep 2009

Withered Hand is not, alas, a Jeremy Beadle tribute band. It is, however, the nom de plume of Edinburgh alt.folk messiah Dan Willson – and for said dude we should give thanks. Willson is a curious pop disciple: a deadpan bard eternally vexed by the…

Retreat!

A mini-festival of fantastically named locally sourced indie

6 Aug 2009

Shopping local is even better when it’s free. So it goes with the second edition of Retreat!, a bijou DIY all-day smorgasbord of 14 acts, many of whom are culled from Edinburgh’s fertile lo-fi anti-folk circuit. Rather than hosting a slew of drippy boys…

Rough Cut Nation

Music meets art uptown

29 Jul 2009

Gallery gigs are ordinarily bespoke, underground shop-front affairs that flaunt their art-rock credentials like billy-o. The renovation of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery has allowed some of that DIY spirit to mess up its normally plush interior…

Maccabees instore gig set for Edinburgh's Avalanche Records

29 Apr 2009

The Maccabees are the latest act to perform in the recently refurbished Edinburgh branch of cult record shop Avalanche. An instore gig by the upcoming South London band takes place at 5pm ahead of their show at Studio 24 later the same…