Doug Johnstone

MGMT

8 May 2008

PSYCHEDELIC ROCK The Liquid Room, Edinburgh, Fri 9 May A lot of bands take themselves too seriously, but not MGMT. For evidence, get yourself to YouTube and check out the video for fantastic recent single ‘Time to Pretend’, a song satirising the…

5 Reasons To Go See - King Creosote

8 May 2008

1 He’s royalty Kenny Anderson (aka King Creosote) is a local legend responsible, along with his label Fence Records, for a renaissance of Scottish folk, lo-fi, electronica and rock. All done from a bolthole in the East Neuk of Fife. Clever, eh? 2…

James Kelman - Kieron Smith, Boy

24 Apr 2008

POST-WAR NOVEL (Hamish Hamilton) James Kelman doesn’t have a reputation for writing easy-to-read books. Not necessarily a bad thing, since often the most rewarding fiction is the most demanding. Compared to his last two novels, Translated Accounts and…

Andrew Drummond - Elephantina

24 Apr 2008

HISTORICAL TALE (Polygon) Scottish author Andrew Drummond has a strong reputation for writing comedic historical novels, and while this third book covers similar territory, it seems thinner on substance than his previous outings. Purporting to be the…

5 Reasons To Go See - Willy Vlautin

24 Apr 2008

He’s an amazing singer, songwriter and frontman For the last 14 years, Vlautin has fronted Richmond Fontaine, the alt.country outfit based in Portland, Oregon. Eight finely crafted albums have seen him evoke the ghost of Gram Parsons in telling intimate…

dEUS - Vantage Point

24 Apr 2008

ROCK (V2) Belgian artrockers dEUS have a large cult following, but this fifth album deserves a wider audience. Expansive and eclectic, Vantage Point sees the fivesome refining their mix of powerfully emotive themes with leftfield, intelligent rock…

Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan - Sunday at Devil Dirt

24 Apr 2008

COUNTRY/FOLK/BLUES (V2) Campbell and Lanegan’s Mercury-nominated debut was a one-trick pony, but it was a pretty cool trick. Campbell’s wispy whimper and Lanegan’s bourbon-soaked growl blended refreshingly over some old school folk and blues, but it…

5 Reasons To Go See - Edwyn Collins

10 Apr 2008

The Scottish troubadour’s career has spanned 30 years, during which time he’s been a relentlessly original and innovative artist, redefining pop music first with his band Orange Juice and then as a solo artist of great renown. Three years ago Collins…

Kyon & Dyems - Overnight

10 Apr 2008

HIP HOP ELECTRONICA (Crystal Wish) Kyon & Dyems are enigmatic Edinburgh-based brothers who, on this quality showing, would put most major label hip hop acts to shame. This debut album, recorded on a budget, is nevertheless brimming with ideas…

Singles & Downloads

10 Apr 2008

Life’s shit enough, so this issue we’re only gonna review good stuff. So, no Libertines-influenced jangle monkeys, no dodgy hip hop, no execrable manufactured pop or R&B, no po-faced nu-metal (you have no idea). Only quality, original tunes will make it…

Elbow

27 Mar 2008

Elbow’s recently released fourth album, The Seldom Seen Kid, was met by a whole raft of effusive, praise-filled reviews which all fitted a familiar template. The underlying message across the board was essentially, ‘This band are unbelievably amazing…

Salman Rushdie - The Enchantress of Florence

27 Mar 2008

RENAISSANCE NOVEL (Jonathan Cape) There is much to admire in this ornate, complex Renaissance romp from Salman Rushdie, but when one of the main characters declares at one point: ‘A curse on all storytellers’, it’s hard not to agree, at least in part.

The Breeders - Mountain Battles

27 Mar 2008

ROCK (4AD) It’s been six years since The Breeders released the raw, loose and intimate Title TK, which makes you wonder what the hell Kim Deal and co have been doing in that time? Maybe she’s been distracted by the Pixies reformation, but Mountain…

The Gutter Twins

27 Mar 2008

ROCK Oran Mor, Glasgow, Mon 7 Apr For a legendary hellraiser, Mark Lanegan is surprisingly perky considering it’s early morning after a show in Amsterdam. I say ‘perky’, it’s all relative, he’s still monosyllabic, menacing, moody and terse. So how was…

5 Reasons To Go See - Jean Michel Jarre

13 Mar 2008

He’s an Oxygenius - Sorry, terrible pun to start with. Jarre’s revolutionary album Oxygene changed the face of popular music (trust us, you’d know if you heard it) on its release three whole decades ago. To celebrate the 30-year anniversary, he’s gonna…

Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid

13 Mar 2008

ROCK (Fiction) Mancunian troubadours Elbow have always been at the more inventive end of the indie spectrum. Their restless musical experimentalism has garnered a mountain of critical acclaim, but their refusal to take the easy route has seen them…

Aye Write! - Alistair Findlay

28 Feb 2008

On the face of it, football and poetry are not obvious bedfellows. The Tartan Army enjoy a good singalong but they’re not renowned for their linguistic prowess or their gentle poetic insights. Likewise, you can’t imagine a Poets XI mastering the 4-5-1…

5 Reasons To Go See - The Cult

28 Feb 2008

The Cult might have a rather dubious legacy after more than a quarter of a century in the business, but they can lay claim to one of the finest rock’n’roll albums of the last 30 years, namely Electric, every inch of which is riff-drenched, wailing…

Karine Polwart - This Earthly Spell

28 Feb 2008

FOLK (Hegri Music) Karine Polwart is already established as Scotland’s premier purveyor of progressive folk, and this consummate and lush album consolidates that position. A flip side to last year’s traditional collection Fairest Floo’er, this album…

Philip Cohen Solal - The Moonshine Sessions

28 Feb 2008

COUNTRY (Ya Basta!) Solal is best known as the French DJ, composer and producer behind the electronica-tango fusion of Gotan Project, so this largely traditional country album comes as a surprise. Recorded in Nashville with a host of local…

Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks - Real Emotional Trash

28 Feb 2008

ROCK (Domino) Former Pavement man Malkmus has seemingly spent the last few years trying to alienate fans of his former band, as he’s crawled further and further up where the sun don’t shine. On this fourth solo album, that effort reaches a zenith…

The Gutter Twins - Saturnalia

28 Feb 2008

ROCK (Sub Pop) Two grunge legends for the price of one – bargain! The Gutter Twins are Greg Dulli (formerly of Afghan Whigs) and Mark Lanegan (Screaming Trees), and this joint project seamlessly blends the former’s love of soul with the latter’s…

Hot Chip

14 Feb 2008

ELECTRO-POP Barrowland, Glasgow, Tue 26 Feb ‘I guess we’ve always been outsiders,’ says Felix Martin, one fifth of geeky electro-pop outfit Hot Chip. ‘I think that comes across in our music. We seem to be unique, we’ve never felt closely related to…

Kim Edgar - Butterflies and Broken Glass

14 Feb 2008

SINGER-SONGWRITER (Quietly Fantastic) Winning 2006’s Burnsong competition and being chucked into a house with established songwriters was a dream come true for Scottish singer Edgar, and she’s made that experience count on this accomplished and…

Kyte - Kyte

14 Feb 2008

POST ROCK (Kids) Post rockers tend to take themselves mighty seriously (our own lovable Mogwai aside), and the same goes for po-faced Leicestershire young guns Kyte. There is plenty of ambition here, and the band are unashamedly epic in an obviously…

Singles & Downloads

14 Feb 2008

The trouble with being trendy and much touted is that, at some point, you’ve got to produce the goods. Indie ugly mugs The Cribs singularly fail to do so with ‘I’m a Realist’ (Wichita) •, a tuneless, insipid, po-faced sub-Razorlight jangle. Ditto for…

Various - A Weevil in a Biscuit

14 Feb 2008

ELECTRONICA (Bearsuit) Electronica is surely the most widespread genre possible, given that all it takes is a laptop and imagination. So it proves on this collection, which features 16 unsigned artists from around the world put together by an…

Mark Everett interview

Family plot

31 Jan 2008

When Mark Oliver Everett was nine years old and home alone, a plane crashed in his neighbourhood. Stumbling outside, he wandered through the carnage of burning wreckage and body parts before returning to his house. ‘Just another day in my weird life,…

Aidan John Moffat - I Can Hear Your Heart

31 Jan 2008

(Chemikal Underground) SPOKEN WORD Sometimes a relationship has run its course and all you can do is split up, something former Arab Strappers Aidan Moffat and Malcolm Middleton know all too well. Since going their separate ways, Middleton has…

Bob Mould - District Line

31 Jan 2008

(Beggar’s Banquet) ROCK Mould is rightly regarded as a legend for his work in seminal hardcore outfit Hüsker Dü, and the bristling grunge-pop of Sugar, but his solo outings have been hit and miss. District Line is no different, showing glimpses of…

Drive-By Truckers - Brighter Than Creation’s Dark

31 Jan 2008

(New West) COUNTRY ROCK Any band with songs called ‘Daddy Needs a Drink’ and ‘You and Your Crystal Meth’ can’t be all bad, and so it proves, as Drive-By Truckers here provide a fantastically sprawling trawl through the Southern Gothic hinterland of…

Eels - Meet the Eels

31 Jan 2008

(Geffen) ROCK Mark Everett has always been the outsider on the inside – the indie kid on the major label, the shy freak adopted by the LA cool crowd, the bearded freak on Top of the Pops. This collection of his band’s finest moments confirms…

Helen Boulding - New Red Dress

31 Jan 2008

(Maid in Sheffield) INDIE POP GUFF Connections aren’t everything. Sheffield singer-songwriter Boulding has worked with members of The Verve, Pink Floyd and Squeeze, Youth produced this debut album, and Bryan Adams even took the cover shot (!?). Yet…

I Was a Cub Scout - I Want You to Know That There is Always Hope

31 Jan 2008

(XL) EMO From the knowingly wordy title to the swathes of epic keyboards and echoey guitars, this album has ‘emo’ written all over it. Strange, then, that it comes not from the college heartland of America, but rather from a nerdy Nottingham…

The NME Tour Featuring The Ting Tings

31 Jan 2008

INDIE Mix indie music, punk attitude, clubby vibes, pop melodies and art-rock sensibilities, then say hello to The Ting Tings, the Mancunian duo of Katie White and Jules De Martino who are one of the buzz bands of 2008, and rightly so. Having…

Explosions in the Sky

17 Jan 2008

POST ROCK Barrowland, Glasgow, Sun 27 Jan What’s in a band name? In the case of Explosions in the Sky, a pretty accurate description of the mental images conjured up when they play. The intense and intelligent four-piece band from Austin, Texas…

5 Reasons To Go See - British Sea Power

17 Jan 2008

1 Do You Like Rock Music? British Sea Power do, so much so that the Brighton foursome have called their rambunctious third album Do You Like Rock Music? In the case of the album, the answer is undoubtedly ‘yes’. 2 You can wave a flag The band’s new…

Finniston - Organised for Hi-Fi

17 Jan 2008

GUITAR POP (Ruby) This is the debut album from Glasgow-based guitar pop outfit Finniston, and maybe they’ll get better with time, but at the moment they sound as if they’re struggling to find their own distinctive voice. This is all reasonably…

Kim Novak - Luck & Accident

17 Jan 2008

ROCK (Talitres) Does the influence of Coldplay know no bounds? Even the normally independent-minded French are succumbing to the epic rock bug, as this rather derivative debut from Gallic foursome Kim Novak demonstrates. While everything here is…

Mark Wernham - Martin Martin’s on the Other Side

17 Jan 2008

FUTURISTIC DRAMA (Jonathan Cape) Comparing a book to A Clockwork Orange and 1984 in the press release is a risky tactic, and one which backfires on this underwhelming debut. In the near future, we’re in the company of Jensen Interceptor, a…

Sons & Daughters - This Gift

17 Jan 2008

ROCK (Domino) Everything about this record is a massive leap forward which, consider S&D were pretty shit hot in the first place, is really saying something. From the poptastic hooks to the pristine production (courtesy of Bernard Butler), from Adele…

5 Reasons To Go See - Nobody

4 Jan 2008

1 Indulge your musical whims indoors instead It’s January, you’re skint, it’s cold outside and there are hardly any decent bands playing at this time of year anyway (the ones worth seeing we’ve told you about elsewhere in the mag). You got some gift…

Adrian Crowley - Long Distance Swimmer

4 Jan 2008

FOLK (Tin Angel) Adrian Crowley hasn’t received the level of attention bestowed on fellow Dublin troubadour Fionn Regan, but his sonorous blend of folk and blues deserves its spotlight. The content and style of this fourth album perhaps don’t reach…

Hot 100 - 2007's hottest talent

13 Dec 2007

Scottish culture has shone in 2007, and so have Scottish stars. Throughout the year we have been working tirelessly to spot the hottest talent out there. We also invited you to nominate the people, places and events you think have made the greatest…

Sigur Rós - Hvarf-Heim

13 Dec 2007

ROCK (EMI) Released to loosely accompany the Icelandic outfit’s superb recent film, Heima, this two-CD album is a revelation. The Hvarf half contains outtakes and rarities from 12 years of full-band studio sessions and is full of the sumptuous epic…

Big Country - 5 reasons to go see

13 Dec 2007

1 It’s been a long time since they rock’n’rolled In actual fact, it’s been seven years since the band hit a stage, and a full 25 years since the Dunfermline outfit formed from the ashes of The Skids. Based around singer and guitarist Stuart Adamson, the…

Stockholm and Reykjavik

13 Dec 2007

Let there be light As the largest metropolis in the biggest of the Nordic countries Stockholm proudly lays claim to be the capital of Scandinavia. Yet, the city – essentially a collection of small islands which collide at the point where the Baltic in…

Abba - The Album

13 Dec 2007

POP (Polydor) If you’re tired of Abba, you’re tired of life, basically, so this deluxe re-issue of their most ambitious album is extremely welcome. Originally released in 1978 when the band were at their creative and commercial peak, The Album…

The Clientele - God Save The Clientele

13 Dec 2007

INDIE (Track and Field) This London-based indie outfit are more popular across the pond, and you can see why, with the West Coast jangle of The Byrds and their ilk an obvious influence. The Clientele combine a love of simple guitar pop with a…

The Good Life - Help Wanted Nights

13 Dec 2007

INDIE (Saddle Creek) Frontman Tim Kasher is a central figure of the Saddle Creek scene, and this established side project is an outlet for a more mainstream sound, contrasting his day job with the explosive Cursive. Unfortunately, while much of Help…