Hamish Brown

Bar Crawls: Edinburgh - No Sleep Till Leith

From central Edinburgh and Leith the best way possible – by the bars

18 Nov 2011

Determining the point at which Leith Walk starts has baffled philosophers, locals and postal workers for decades. Haddington Place and Leith Street have (understandably) become subsumed within this long, iconic thoroughfare that joins Edinburgh with…

Richie Hawtin resurrects iconic Plastikman persona for world tour

DJ and producer on the makings of his audio-visual spectacular

9 Nov 2011

Richie Hawtin is one of the most high profile DJs and producers working today, with activities incorporating several record labels, software and hardware products and a globe-spanning tour schedule. Known for distinctive and intense DJ sets, it might…

Interview: Richie Hawtin - Plastikman Live 1.5 tour 2011

Full transcript of interview with minimal techno producer and DJ

8 Nov 2011

Live music concert seems inadequate term to describe your current live show. What exactly is this thing you do now? Well live music exists somewhere between music, theatre and circus right? You're there to entertain and grab the people. I think what…

Music for Airports - An appreciation

How Brian Eno's landmark album connects 60s minimalism, 70s Krautrock and IDM

19 Oct 2011

I discovered Music for Airports aged 18 via TV and David Bowie. Eno's involvement with Bowie's Low and Heroes put him on my radar, but the deal sealer was learning that the theme to long-running BBC programme Arena was 'Another Green World' from his…

The best Scottish websites

The top 30 websites made for and by Scots

21 Jul 2011

When putting together this list, we weren’t necessarily looking for the biggest or the best-known cultural websites in Scotland. We were looking for unique and interesting ideas, cleverly realised and lovingly maintained on the web. This might mean that…

The Hot 100 2010 - Mark Millar, Kevin Bridges and Alasdair Gray take top 3 spots

Our annual chart of the people from Scotland being interesting, successful and creative

16 Dec 2010

The Hot 100 is a list of Scots who’ve made a sizeable creative splash in 2010. It includes musicians, artists, writers, actors, fashion designers, technological innovators, shop owners, festival directors, record label heads and one mad cyclist.

Kylie Minoise - Sid Vicious Occult School Of Motoring

15 Dec 2010

(Kovorox) Glasgow-based noise artist Lea Cummings has been releasing prolifically as Kylie Minoise for five years, notching up split releases with Thurston Moore and tours in Japan, Canada and Europe along the way. The territory he’s carved out for…

Brian Eno - Small Craft on a Milk Sea

Pioneer's debut Warp release with young collaborators a surprise and a success

1 Nov 2010

Like his cohort David Bowie, Eno knows a good collaborator when he sees one. His 70s solo albums are littered with names such as Robert Fripp, Phil Collins, Robert Wyatt and Harold Budd. For this, his first solo album since 2006’s Another Day On Earth…

Jean Michel Jarre looks to Arthur C Clarke for 2010 tour

French musician seeks to reintroduce vision and passion to the future

10 Sep 2010

The problem with setting books and films in a not-too-distant future, is that it inevitably arrives. Whether it’s the dystopian nightmares of Escape from New York (set in 1997), A Clockwork Orange (1995) or Orwell’s 1984, the pitfalls awaiting any…

Phoenix

HMV Picturehouse, Edinburgh, Sun 29 Aug

7 Sep 2010

Despite a decade of history behind them, it’s 2009 album Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix that has given French quartet Phoenix the ammunition to advance from special interest to mainstream concern. Now their delicate but euphoric pop – forging The Strokes…

Rush: Beyond The Lighted Stage

28 May 2010

(12A) 106min Despite massive success during the Canadian trio’s 35-year career, ‘The world’s most popular cult band’ have always existed alongside the mainstream, never in it. It could be argued that the showy musicianship and lyrical subject matter…

Bear in Heaven

Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh, Sat 24 April 2010

12 May 2010

Brooklyn four-piece Bear in Heaven have reinvented psychedelic rock. As equally indebted to 70s American stoner rock and as they are to the rhythmic stabbing synths of early New Order or exploratory jams of Can, their synths and drums-led shoegaze is…

Pavement

Barrowland, Glasgow, Wed 5 May 2010

6 May 2010

There’s nothing like a gig where everyone in the room is ecstatic just to be there. Ten years after calling it quits, Pavement’s 2010 worldwide reunion tour sees the five-piece blatantly flaunt the best of their 8-year back catalogue, and serves as…

Jeans Team

18 Feb 2010

Berlin duo Jeans Team have been doing the thing they do better than most and for longer too, both predating and outliving the electroclash scene during which they came to prominence, after originally emerging from Berlin’s art and music scene a decade…

Hidden Door

17 Feb 2010

An all-you-can-eat weekend-long festival of multi-disciplinary art designed to get Edinburgh’s cells of creative activity talking to each other. It was an admirable ethos, and certainly experiencing the unmistakeable I-am-at-a-festival sensation in…

Pantha Du Prince - Black Noise

27 Jan 2010

(Rough Trade) Hendrick Weber’s third album, the follow up to 2007’s acclaimed This Bliss, is equally laden with his signature digital bells, chimes, dings and tings. It’s also full of brilliant examples of the more recognisable elements of minimal…

Depeche Mode

SECC, Glasgow, Saturday 12 Dec 2009

15 Dec 2009

Massive globally for decades, this arena date with an audience of around 10,000 is probably the smallest show Depeche Mode have played in ages, their first in Scotland for 22 years, and definitely worth the wait for a devotional fanbase who have been…

Sinbad the Pantomime Featuring the Little Mermaid

4 Dec 2009

Brunton Theatre’s panto tradition is in great health with several years of packed-out runs behind it. The detailed local references make the show all the more bespoke to its location, and about as far from an off-the-shelf show as you could…

Gary Numan

4 Dec 2009

Genuine innovators who also become successful in their own lifetime are pretty hard to come by. Gary Numan not only wrenched the synthesizer from the grasp of the neo-classicist aesthetic of prog and retoolled a generation of artists disillusioned with…

Best of a decade: Music

2 Dec 2009

Arcade Fire – Funeral, The Knife – Silent Shout, Radiohead – Kid A, Bon Iver – For Emma, Forever Ago, The White Stripes – White Blood Cells, Franz Ferdinand – Franz Ferdinand, Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion, Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Fever To…

Spotify playlist: St Andrew's Day

Secretly Scottish

30 Nov 2009

How about some Revolting Cocks, Siousxie & the Banshees and Human League? Just because it's St Andrew's Day it doesn't mean you have to subject yersel' to the barrage of yer Dougie MacLean, yer Proclaimers and yer Simple Minds to celebrate culture of…

Efterklang - Performing Parades

2 Oct 2009

Parades is a great album. Originally released in 2007, it transformed marginal Danish avant rock outfit Efterklang – a more off-kilter Arcade Fire who combine massed voices with modern classical instrumentation – into a marginal Danish avant rock outfit…

The Juan Maclean

A reminder of just how exhilarating live music can be

18 Aug 2009

This was always going to be good one. ‘Jesus, this place is small’ says production lynchpin John Maclean confronted by a wall of 100 bodies in a packed-out Sneaky’s. With four people, a drumkit and half a dozen synths crammed onto a tiny stage, and…

Steven Severin: The Trials of Dr Caligari

1920s silent classic gets new score

10 Aug 2009

Erstwhile driving force behind Siouxsie and the Banshees, Severin’s presentation of this German expressionist classic with his own recorded score is perfect material for Bang Bang Club’s festival residency in the basement of Teviot House. In a club…

Cycling to work

11 Jun 2009

Cycling is enjoyable, healthy and makes us feel good. But that’s not why most people in cities do it. Not me anyway. I don’t have ‘reasons’ for cycling any more than I have reasons for walking. Neither do I make use of specialist equipment. ‘Distrust…