Malcolm Jack

Summer Festivals 2012: Music

T in the Park, Wickerman and Belladrum among the music fests pleasing your ears this summer

25 May 2012

T in the Park Basics: Balado by Kinross, Fri 6–Sun 8 Jul, tinthepark.com Price: Weekend: £179 (campsite tickets available separately). Day: £70–£77.50. Line-up: The Stone Roses, Snow Patrol, Kasabian, New Order, Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds…

Summer Festivals 2012: Death in Vegas - interview

A chat with Richard Fearless ahead of his RockNess performance

25 May 2012

As British music finally dragged itself out of a post-Britpop hangover around the turn of the century, Death in Vegas were among the most quintessential of festival bands. 1999’s The Contino Sessions and 2002’s Scorpio Rising were staples of any…

Austra set for UK tour

Toronto electro-goth-pop six-piece take Feel It Break on the road

22 May 2012

Having rated spine-tingling coldwave-disco banger ‘Lose It’ as one of our favourite songs of 2011, The List are big fans of this Toronto electro-goth-pop six-piece based around one-of-a-kind Latvian-Canadian singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist…

Ultravox - Brilliant

Dull and pompous record from the no-longer-relevant Ure and co

22 May 2012

Does the world really need another album, the first in 26 years, from the ‘classic’ Midge Ure-era Ultravox – a group of negligible lasting impact on music even at their mid-80s arena synth-pop zenith? The Trade Descriptions Act-violating Brilliant is…

Dexys - One Day I’m Going To Soar

Full of wit, panache, brutal self-examination and abundant tunefulness

21 May 2012

The title alone gives you a tingling feeling that something glorious and redemptive lies within: and so it proves on Dexys’ – formerly Dexys Midnight Runners – first new album in 27 years. Following the young soul rebels’ disastrous plunge in fortunes…

Exposure: Friends

The Brooklyn hipster quintet make disgustingly cool indie post-punk-funk

25 Apr 2012

The List makes two predictions with regards to this fresh Brooklyn indie post-punk-funk ensemble. 1) They’re going to be the sound of many people’s summer, and 2) they’re going to have music journos punning furiously on their sitcom namesake. They’re…

Django Django's Tommy Grace looks forward to Stag & Dagger and RBS Museum Lates gigs

23 Apr 2012

Glasgow city festival Stag & Dagger returns in a lower-key format than usual this May, but there’s abundant quality nevertheless, from Death Grips to White Denim, the Phantom Band and Bear in Heaven. And Django Django, whose uncategorisable distillation…

Beach House - Bloom

Fourth album sticks to style favouring atmosphere over structure

18 Apr 2012

(Bella Union) With 2010’s totally immersive Teen Dream, Baltimore two-piece Beach House – France-born vocalist/keyboardist Victoria Legrand and guitarist Alex Scally – went from American indie try-hards to one of the most critically-acclaimed bands of…

Jesus H. Foxx - Endless Knocking

Long-awaited debut admirable in perfectionism, but feels laboured

18 Apr 2012

(Song, by Toad) ‘I’ve waited two bloody years for these muppets to finish this album,’ writes Song, by Toad boss Matthew Young in an amusingly frank note accompanying Edinburgh seven-piece Jesus H. Foxx’s debut. We’ve shared his frustration in…

Colette Thurlow of 2:54 - interview

The indie singer/guitarist discusses sibling bandmates and significant influences

27 Mar 2012

Like a louchely worn black leather jacket, moody guitar music will never go out of fashion – see 2:54 for proof on both counts. Having toured with Warpaint and The Big Pink since emerging a year ago, the London four-piece based around sisters Colette…

Exposure: Hannah Cohen

The NY model/photographer-turned-singer/songwriter is beloved by The National's Thomas Bartlett

27 Mar 2012

Two years ago New York-based model and photographer Hannah Cohen met Antony and the Johnsons and The National pianist Thomas Bartlett, aka Doveman, at a party. She shyly played him some songs she’d been secretly penning, and he immediately offered to…

OFWGKTA - The Odd Future Tape Vol. 2

Hip hop crew's major label debut impressive but dogged by usual obsessions

23 Mar 2012

(Columbia) Declared ‘the future of the music business’, controversial young California alternative hip hop crew OFWGKTA – aka Odd Future – make their major label debut off the back of a reputation forged through mix-tapes and bad behaviour. With…

Alt folkie Feist to play Glasgow's Royal Concert Hall

The Broken Social Scenester to play tracks from latest album Metals

29 Feb 2012

Leslie Feist isn’t the first artist successfully to balance the welcome commercial exposure a ubiquitous hit song can yield with a desire for continuing creative integrity and freedom. But not many manage it quite as gracefully as the Canadian has with…

Exposure: Gotye

An introduction to the YouTube-conquering ‘Somebody That I Used to Know’ singer

29 Feb 2012

Meet 31-year-old Wouter ‘Wally’ De Backer, aka Gotye, a Belgium-born, Melbourne-raised singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist whose inescapable international super-hit ‘Somebody That I Used to Know’ (featuring Kimbra) possesses an almost…

Frankie Rose - Interstellar

Brooklyn multi-instrumentalist goes solo and makes clean break from fuzz-loving past

22 Feb 2012

(Memphis Industries) Years of flitting between scuzzy indie-pop bands from Vivian Girls to Dum Dum Girls, Crystal Stilts and her own ensemble Frankie Rose and The Outs have led this Brooklyn multi-instrumentalist finally to conclude what we could…

The Twilight Sad set for UK tour

Kilsyth trio take third album No One Can Ever Know on tour

27 Jan 2012

With their third album No One Can Ever Know, masters of the dark side anthem The Twilight Sad add impressively to a catalogue that includes one of the finest Scottish debuts of recent years. It’s a bit of a surprise then to discover that the Kilsyth…

Friendly Fires - Barrowland, Glasgow, Tue 20 Dec 2011

Triumphant end of year show from the St Albans indie-ravers

6 Jan 2012

2011 didn’t quite belong to Friendly Fires, as some had predicted it might, but they owned significant parts of it off the back of their euphoric second album Pala – not least the flying feet and skyward waving arms of a few summer festival crowds. The…

M83's Hurry Up, We're Dreaming combines ambient roots with pop sensibilities

We reassess the albumprior to Frenchman's upcoming UK tour

6 Jan 2012

The Associates’ Alan Rankine once opined that the best way to make an album is to ‘start with a climax, then go further.’ It’s a maxim that Frenchman Anthony Gonzalez – an Antibes-born, LA-based songwriter and multi-instrumentalist with an idiosyncratic…

The View - O2 ABC, Glasgow, Mon 19 Dec

Raucous, lager-soaked rock'n'roll show

6 Jan 2012

Being partial to the occasional shandy, it pained The List to witness the mass lager sacrifice that occurred at the ABC this night – nary a punter was spared a shower of the gods’ amber nectar as high-spirited young souls sent pint after pint looping…

The Big Pink - Future This

Second electro-pop offering let down by over-egged desire to be anthemic

6 Jan 2012

(4AD) It’s easy to assume that London duo Robbie Furze and Milo Cordell’s oft-scrutinised industry connections have earned them their breaks while ignoring the fact that the dark, feedback and effects-swathed element of their music honours 4AD’s goth…

Boy & Bear - Moonfire

Mumford-esque mimsy-folk from down under

6 Jan 2012

(V2) If you’ve considered moving to the opposite side of the world to escape Mumford & Sons, think again – their Australian kindred spirits and touring partners Boy & Bear await you, ready to close the jaws of a vice-like international folk-pop mimsy…

Best Christmas album 2011: Emmy the Great and Tim Wheeler’s This Is Christmas

Justin Bieber, She & Him, The Wurzels and Glee also reviewed

13 Dec 2011

Now more than ever the discerning music fan has about as much reason to look forward to Christmas as a poor Primark employee looks forward to the stampede of burly, booze-breathed horrors thundering through them at opening time on Boxing Day en route to…

DJ Shadow - O2 ABC, Glasgow, Mon 5 Dec

Stunning live show continues to break new ground

9 Dec 2011

For innovation and impact, genre-mashing LA turntablist DJ Shadow, aka Josh Davis, has never bettered his entirely samples-based 1996 debut Endtroducing... But his visually stunning live shows continue to break new ground, and prove DJ sets can be just…

Guided by Voices - Let’s Go Eat the Factory

Reformed lo-fi cult heroes do their unmistakable glorious shitness like no other

7 Dec 2011

(Fire) It was maybe only a matter of time before Guided By Voices got back together and made a new record. Responsible for 16 albums in 24 years and led by a guy in Robert Pollard credited with over 1000 songs, expecting them to totally curtail their…

Little Dragon on UK tour

Swedish electro-pop quartet and Gorillaz collaborators take third album Ritual Union on tour

16 Nov 2011

You’d expect a band to delight in having artists from Gorillaz to DJ Shadow and Big Boi beating their door down to work with them – especially if they’ve hitherto existed in relative obscurity. But while Little Dragon find it ‘super exciting’ to have…

Stone Roses headline T in the Park 2012 - but is it a good idea?

Malcolm Jack ponders the significance of the Roses at T in the Park 2012

15 Nov 2011

I am not in favour of The Resurrection, I’ll be honest about that. Like all bands of yesteryear that matter to me – and The Stone Roses were a staple of my teens – I believe they should be remembered as they were in their prime. I was too young to…

Lykke Li - O2 ABC, Glasgow, Sun 30 Oct 2011

Passive response suggests lesson in stagecraft required

15 Nov 2011

Having transformed radically and impressively from indie pixie into purveyor of arty, bleeding-hearted Spector pop on her second album Wounded Rhymes, you hardly expected Li Lykke Zachrisson to be exchanging high-fives with the crowd all night. But then…

Kate Bush - 50 Words for Snow

The sensual, seductive Bush dominates a sparse, wintery, piano-led slow-burner

10 Nov 2011

(Fish People/EMI) In a burst of prolificacy unmatched since her 1978 debut year Kate Bush makes two new albums in 2011, raising her total for the last 18 years to a whopping three. Where Director’s Cut saw her reinterpret old songs, 50 Words For Snow…

Atlas Sound - Parallax

Deerhunter multi-instrumentalist's third and best solo album

10 Nov 2011

(4AD) The term ‘side-project’ somehow doesn’t do justice to Atlas Sound, the title under which the prolific Bradford Cox operates as a solo artist when he’s not doing his squally noise rock thing with Deerhunter. The Athens, Georgia based…

Odonis Odonis - Hollandaze

Auspicious introduction that further mines the fuzz-and-feedback-as-bliss school

10 Nov 2011

(FatCat) Toronto’s Odonis Odonis – the solo project turned full live band of Dean Tzenos – join a swathe of other North American artists presently mining the trashy, scuzzy, fuzz-and-feedback-as-bliss end of post-punk and its various derivatives from…

Bon Iver set for 2011 UK tour

The collaboration-friendly indie-folk icon is still strongest on his own two feet

21 Oct 2011

‘Profit, profit, nigga I got it, everybody know I’m a motherfucking monster.’ Of all that Justin ‘Bon Iver’ Vernon might have done next following the huge critical acclaim and popular devotion for his exquisite 2008 debut album For Emma, Forever Ago…

Exposure - Lana Del Rey

The 'Videogames' singer's second stab at stardom looks set to be a sure thing

20 Oct 2011

The List hesitates not a moment in declaring this picture of dusky American pop perfection a star in the making – how could the self-styled ‘gangsta Nancy Sinatra’ not be? The New Yorker’s debut single ‘Video Games’ – a YouTube sensation that’s scored…

Loch Lomond - Little Me Will Start a Storm

Tenderly sung and delicately arranged busy, decorative chamber-pop

20 Oct 2011

(Chemikal Underground) After Band of Horses’ song ‘Funeral’ helped to launch Danny MacAskill to worldwide fame when it featured on his breakthrough viral video, the young Scottish pro-cyclist then gave Portland six-piece Loch Lomond a punt by picking…

M83 - Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming

Strong album watered-down by weaker tracks leads to 'spine-tingle fatigue'

19 Oct 2011

(Naïve) French dream-pop auteur Anthony Gonzalez’s last album, 2008’s magnificent Saturdays I Youth, well deserved this double-album follow-up, which came trailered by a triumphant teaser video – all flowers in bloom, jets in flight and misty city…

Justice - Audio Video Disco

Highly enjoyable electro-rock from the Parisian duo, if notably less serious than earlier efforts

17 Oct 2011

(Ed Banger/Because) Hip Parisian electro label Ed Banger’s leading lights aren’t the first dance artists to make like rock stars – see The Chemical Brothers, The Prodigy and fellow French duo Daft Punk among others. But between their wiggly synth…

Electric Frog September Weekender – SWG3, Glasgow, Sat 10–Sun 11 Sep

19 Sep 2011

‘It’s good that this is in Glasgow, ‘cause not a lot of great things happen in Glasgow,’ praised Errors’ Steev Livingston of Electric Frog. His tongue was possibly ever so slightly in cheek, but these micro festivals – of which this September Weekender…

Real Estate - Days

Chiming, melancholic, reverb-bathed songs from some glorious, stoned daze

16 Sep 2011

(Domino) From The Byrds to Avi Buffalo, baked dudes kicking out jangly, gently psych-frazzled pastoral jams is a tradition as old as the hills in American pop and Real Estate are keeping it alive and well. If the trio of New Jersey childhood…

We Were Promised Jetpacks set for new album and UK tour

Edinburgh quartet recorded new album in Sigur Rós' Reykjavik studio

16 Sep 2011

‘It sounded like a bad demo,’ grumbles We Were Promised Jetpacks singer and guitarist Adam Thompson of his band’s 2009 debut album, These Four Walls. The 40,000 people worldwide that bought a copy would presumably disagree, but they’ll be cheered to…

Jeffrey Lewis - A Turn in the Dream-Songs

Lots to adore on sixth Rough Trade album of wry, nerdy, verbose tunes

14 Sep 2011

(Rough Trade) ‘A cult boyfriend is like a record in a bargain bin,’ rambles Jeffrey Lewis, paralleling his calibre as a date with his music; both acquired tastes, ‘no one knows its worth ’til a collector comes in.’ While we can’t advocate going…

Cults - Nice’n’Sleazy, Glasgow, Wed 31 Aug 2011

New Yorkers' difficult attempt to recreate reverb-soaked debut album

14 Sep 2011

When their chiming, summery debut single ‘Go Outside’ ricocheted around the blogosphere last year, then on TV ads for Brothers Cider this summer, New Yorkers Cults made a very immediate impression. Live, their undoubted charms proved much slower to…

Dum Dum Girls - Only in Dreams

Fizzily catchy, if too clean-cut to entirely convince

14 Sep 2011

(Sub Pop) It’s little surprise to discover that The Raveonettes’ Sune Rose Wagner co-produced this Californian all-female quartet’s second album. By progressing from trashy, distorted beginnings towards something more polished and unashamedly pop…

Laki Mera - The Proximity Effect

Sleepy chillwave effort from Laura Donnelly and co

24 Aug 2011

(Just Music) While the chillwave likes of Washed Out and Toro Y Moi purvey a fresh brand of electronic pop music that’s both soothing and stimulating, Glasgow quartet Laki Mera’s second album harks back to a time when it made people fall asleep in…

The Jayhawks - Mockingbird Time

Winningly upbeat and hope-filled return

24 Aug 2011

(Decca) Marking a long-awaited reunion of the band’s two principal songwriters Gary Louris and Mark Olson – the latter of whom acrimoniously left to live in the desert with his folk-singer wife (now ex) Victoria Williams in 1995 – Mockingbird Time…

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Hysterical

Splashy disco beats, floaty synth-strings and wounded puppy yelping

24 Aug 2011

(V2/Co-op) Brooklyn’s CYHSY were trailblazers for the internet-savvy, straight-to-fans DIY indie generation with their self-titled, self-released 2005 debut album. After a cool response to 2007’s Some Loud Thunder and a four year-interim during which…

Will Hanson - Moving a Body

Spine-tingling guitar melodies and off-kilter pop

16 Aug 2011

(12/26) The genesis of Londoner Will Hanson’s solo debut was a move from New York to Glasgow – go figure, it being a city that’s produced audibly two of his biggest influences in Mogwai and The Delgados. He cut his teeth previously with defunct…

M83 and Jens Lekman among highlights of August singles and downloads

Wynter Gordon, Toddla T and How To Swim also feature

10 Aug 2011

Music must mostly be on its holidays considering how light the singles bag is this month, but in the pursuit of assessing shortplayers The List does not rest, just don’t blame us if we’re grouchy. That means you, Hard-Fi. Why must you offend us so with…

Various artists - Johnny Boy Would Love This . . . A Tribute to John Martyn

Mixed bag of cover versions from Robert Smith, Beck and Vashti Bunyan

10 Aug 2011

(Hole in the Rain/Liason) However affectionate a tribute album, they can still make you wish classic songs, like historic buildings, could somehow be listed to preserve their original splendour. Case in point on this set dedicated to late, great…

Stephen Kelman set for Edinburgh Book Festival appearance

Author of Booker longlisted Pigeon English

9 Aug 2011

Probably most humdrum offices in Britain hide an aspiring creative type who dreams of ditching the day job and succeeding at what they love. For Stephen Kelman, the dream came dramatically true. Penned while he worked as a council administrator, his…

AL Kennedy - The Blue Book

Surreal drama from the talented comic/author

3 Aug 2011

(Jonathan Cape) Her first novel since 2007’s Day, celebrated Scots miserablist AL Kennedy’s sixth full-length work of fiction attempts to mess with readers’ minds in a way that few other authors might dare. The Blue Book is laced with cryptic…

Alma Mater - One-person experience blending film and promenade theatre

Sneak preview of what might well be the future of the Fringe show

26 Jul 2011

In the vast sun-drenched glass-ceilinged foyer of Glasgow’s Briggait, there’s a room within a room -- a rudimentary windowless wooden box of about 18 cubic metres. It might resemble a wonkily-constructed homemade garden shed, but it’s the collapsible…

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…

T in the Park - Balado, Kinross, Fri 8–Sun 10 July 2011

Beyonce, Pulp, Lady North and Tom Jones among highlights

21 Jul 2011

A city-sized piss-up spread across seven stages, T in the Park has grown to almost incomprehensible proportions. With the territory comes an obligation to please everybody some of the time, something which inevitably has a habit of leaving fans of…

Wu Tang Clan - Legendary Weapons

New album from RZA, Ghostface Killa et al - or disappointingly not, as the case may be

21 Jul 2011

(E1) Were this legendary NYC rap crew’s identity not fragmented enough between their myriad solo albums and side-projects, there’s now apparently no such thing as a full Wu Tang Clan album anymore either. Legendary Weapons is the first ‘official’ Wu…

The Ladybug Transistor - Clutching Stems

Brooklyn ensemble's seventh album of rich, hi-sheen indie-pop

13 Jul 2011

(Merge) The Ladybug Transistor have been making rich, hi-sheen indie-pop for 15-years – longer even than Belle & Sebastian. But the Brooklyn ensemble – a rotating cast led by Gary Olson and sharing some membership with kindred spirits The Essex Green…

Jon Fratelli - Psycho Jukebox

Derivative debut solo album material ranges from so-so to turgid

13 Jul 2011

(Island) Among those of us who are – let’s be entirely frank here – not utter Neds, Jon ‘Fratelli’ Lawler is deep in the red in the credibility stakes, such is his culpability for the ubiquitous ‘da-dah-dah-da’ nightmare that was ‘Chelsea Dagger’.

Morrissey - Alhambra Theatre, Dunfermline, Mon 20 June 2011

A spellbinding show from Mozza on his Scottish mini-tour

28 Jun 2011

Dunfermline’s grand Alhambra Theatre oddly represented perhaps the most conventional of stop-offs in Scotland for Morrissey on his latest mini tour of typically out of the way destinations. Or at least the most central, on a sojourn that will have wound…

Woods - Sun and Shade

Lo-fi alt-folky tunes from Brooklyn cottage industry derailed by cosmic jams

13 Jun 2011

(Woodsist) Brooklynites Woods are a cottage industry of sorts who release their own lo-fi alt-folky tunes through a label run by their frontman, Jeremy Earl. Their sixth album highlights both the ups and downs of a band not having anyone to answer…

Shonen Knife - Free Time

Winning daftness of Japanese all-girl punk-pop

13 Jun 2011

(Damnably) Despite this 30-year veteran Japanese all-girl punk-pop trio being down to just a solitary remaining founder member in guitarist and singer Naoko Yamano these days, their reserves of winning daftness remain plentiful. Yamano’s lyrics…

Singles and downloads May/June 2011

Battles' ‘Ice Cream’ take Single of the Month title

31 May 2011

The phrase ‘singer-songwriter and professional footballer’ would have most reviewers frisbeeing a CD into the bin faster than you can say ‘super-injunction’, but fortunately enough for Kevin Rutkiewicz it’s a fan of his club, the mighty Dunfermline…

Interview - Friendly Fires ready for summer festivals circuit

UK act take Balearic bliss of second album Pala on the road

27 May 2011

From the sound of their second album Pala, you could easily imagine life in Friendly Fires being a constant summertime carnival. Washes of Balearic blissfulness mingle with Mardi Gras percussion, Ibiza beats and euphoric choruses. The most rapturous…

Stag & Dagger Festival Glasgow - Sat 21 May

Warpaint, Toro Y Moi and Sons & Daughters ensure Glasgow party is no washout

24 May 2011

You couldn’t blame Stag & Dagger for the torrential rain that fell from Glasgow skies for the duration of the all-dayer’s third instalment in the city, though better planning on organisers’ behalf might have lessened time spent getting drenched. Using…

Beryl Bainbridge - The Girl in the Polka Dot Dress

The author's final, unfinished novel is a masterclass in confident prose

23 May 2011

(Little, Brown) Beryl Bainbridge’s editor Brendan King called this final novel by the five-times Booker-shortlisted English author – who died of cancer in 2010 – a flawed masterpiece. And he should know, having remastered the nearly-finished…

Patrick Wolf - Lupercalia

Partner piece to The Bachelor shows that OTT is pretty much Wolf’s MO

20 May 2011

(Mercury) ‘I wish you the top, top, top of the morning,’ beams Patrick Wolf on his fifth album’s rambunctious opener ‘The City’, as if springing fresh out of bed to begin another fine day in fantastical glam pop land. Quite how the androgynous…

Tom Vek - Leisure Seizure

Broadly similar follow-up to much-pilfered sound of debut

20 May 2011

(Island) Circa his debut album We Have Sound’s arrival in 2005, Tom Vek was hailed by some as the new Beck – quit tittering at the back there already. The Londoner’s garage-recorded mix of monotone drawl, angular beats and popping bass was…

Interview - Munaf Rayani of Explosions in the Sky

Guitarist talks about band's last few years and where they're going next

11 May 2011

If you’re wondering what intervened and caused the long gap before Explosions in the Sky issued a follow-up to their remarkable 2007 album All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone, life is the short answer. The Texan instrumental post-rock quartet’s fifth…

Bill Wells and Aidan Moffat - Everything’s Getting Older

A great jazz, folk and spoken word collaboration

25 Apr 2011

(Chemikal Underground) Lovers of a collaboration both – Bill Wells with The Pastels and Isobel Campbell among others, Aidan Moffat with the likes of Mogwai’s Stuart Braithwaite and FOUND – it was really only a matter of time before this pair got it…

Smith Westerns' 'Dye It Blond' is an ideal combination of polished glam and garage rock

14 Apr 2011

(Weird World) Where some bands might let lo-fi scuzziness conveniently mask a lack of drive and simple proficiency, this young Chicago trio have jumped at the chance to record their second album in an actual studio with an actual producer, and fully…

Lykke Li set for 2011 UK tour

Swedish singer tours critically-acclaimed album Wounded Rhymes

24 Mar 2011

From Robyn to Miike Snow and the fast-approaching Sound of Arrows, the fine line in pop acts with indie cache emanating from Sweden continues unbroken. If Lykke Li can convert the glowing critical reception that has met her recent second album into…

Eux Autres - The Flying Duck, Glasgow, Sat 5 Mar

Indie-poppers with cult connections deliver pleasingly unpolished set

21 Mar 2011

Janglesome San Franciscans Eux Autres (pronounced ‘ooz-oh-tra’, so explains their website) boast considerable pedigree by association: frontwoman and keys player Heather Larimer – one half of the band’s founding sibling duo together with her brother…

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…

Stephen Kelman - Pigeon English

Stephen Kelman's much-vaunted social drama of race and manhood.

4 Mar 2011

Stephen Kelman went from redundant council administrator to becoming the subject of a 12-way publisher bidding war thanks to this exceptional debut novel. Penned with that unburdened lightness of touch perhaps only a writer who never believed his words…

Screamadelica: A scientific examination

To commemorate the album's 20th birthday, we examine the elements that made it great

3 Mar 2011

As described in the recent Creation Records rockumentary Upside Down, Screamadelica’s story began in 1989 after Creation boss Alan McGee relocated from London to Manchester for a year to be at the epicentre of one of the biggest youth culture phenomena…

Tinie Tempah - O2 ABC, Glasgow, Tue 23 Feb

Londoner turning grime scene credibility into commercial triumph

1 Mar 2011

Around a decade ago the notion of a British MC storming the charts was as good as laughable. Now Dizzee Rascal, Tinchy Stryder, Example, Chipmunk, N-Dubz and the rest shift hundreds of thousands of records, and the future of UK hip pop is so assured…

Aimee Bender - The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake - interview

Surrealist impulses drive the new novel by LA writer

9 Feb 2011

‘I have a friend who sometimes uses food language to talk about feelings,’ says author Aimee Bender, over the phone from her Los Angeles home, about the genesis of The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake. ‘She’ll talk about feelings that are “undigested…

Harrys Gym - What Was Ours Can’t Be Yours

Scandinavian electro-pop group prove themselves on second album

26 Jan 2011

(Splendour) This Norwegian quartet’s very dodgy moniker proves surprisingly apt on their second album. Harrys Gym’s ethereal electro-pop is toned and conditioned, with a strong heart. The Oslo band have worked with rising English producer James…

My Jerusalem - Captain’s Rest, Glasgow, Sun 16 Jan

Unexposed American indie supergroup brings their underground collaboration to Scotland

26 Jan 2011

Assembled by singer-songwriter Jeff Klein, formerly of The Twilight Singers, supergroup (of a modest American indie pedigree) My Jerusalem’s other five members are variously associated with The Polyphonic Spree, St Vincent, Cursive, Great Northern and…

Exposure: Allo Darlin’

The London indie-pop quartet in thrall to the wistful sounds of Magnetic Fields and Camera

14 Jan 2011

Since forming in 2009, London indie-pop quartet Allo Darlin’ have had a ‘seat of our pants’ couple of years, between making their self-titled debut album for Fortuna Pop! and touring the US and Europe. Australian vocalist Elizabeth Morris describes…

Jonny - Jonny

Radiant pop songs from ex-Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci man Euros Childs and Teenage Fanclub’s Norman Blake

14 Jan 2011

(Alsatian) Incredibly, this long-threatened collaboration between ex-Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci man Euros Childs and Teenage Fanclub’s Norman Blake yields zero sunshiny melodies, no gorgeous harmonies and not a trace of heartwarming quirk. None at all.

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.

Villagers - Conor J. O’Brien and co imbue eerily poetic songs with brooding intensity

Oran Mor, Glasgow, Mon 6 Dec 2010

15 Dec 2010

We got both Villager and Villagers at this show, the moniker serving both as the solo alias of Dublin singer/ songwriter Conor J. O’Brien and as the collective title for his band. They were contrasting experiences that complemented each other well, and…

Sleeping Beauty

Oran mor lunchtime Christmas show for adults a bit of a dog’s dinner, but plenty of fun

15 Dec 2010

Penned by panto veterans David MacLennan and Dave Anderson, Oran Mor’s 2010 lunchtime Christmas show for adults is another ‘alternative’ affair, wringing its topical laughs this time out of austerity Britain. The popular tale of the pretty princess…

Aladdin

SECC Christmas show stars The Krankies and John Barrowman

15 Dec 2010

If you think this arena spectacular violates that unspoken rule of knowing crapness in pantomime by promising 3D graphics and a celebrity star for whom the phrase ‘it’s behind you’ unusually couldn’t be applied to his career, think again. The SECC’s…

Flo White

15 Dec 2010

Last year’s Tron Theatre panto Ya Beauty and the Beast was an anarchic Weegie-style rehash of a popular fairytale that proved about as mindful of a coherent plot as Cinderella is of her shoes. If a formula ain’t broken, why fix it? In Flo White, the…

Allan Brown - Nileism: The Strange Course of the Blue Nile

Biography of enigmatic Glaswegian soul-pop perfectionists leaves much unresolved

30 Nov 2010

(Polygon) The peculiar bubble which enigmatic Glaswegian soul-pop perfectionists the Blue Nile inhabited during their 26 years together burst circa 2004, leaving the three members bitterly estranged ever since. Even if the famously glacial pace they…

Titus Andronicus - Redemptive loser-anthems deliver total victory

Oran Mor, Glasgow, Mon 22 Nov

30 Nov 2010

‘We’re not a crowd, we’re just a bunch of people standing next to each other,’ grumbled one bloke, quantifying his dissatisfied response to thick-black-of-beard Titus Andronicus singer Patrick Stickles’ polite inquiry as to how everyone was enjoying…

Matthew Dear on UK tour to promote Black City

Electronic avant-pop artist to play live in Glasgow and Edinburgh

24 Nov 2010

‘Yeah, I think I’m pretty much crazy,’ responds Matthew Dear with a wry laugh to the suggestion that a psychiatrist could probably write a fascinating case study with the Detroit producer/avant-pop artist and his variety of split personas – Jabberjaw…

Adrian Johns - Death of a Pirate

History of rogue broadcasters' ideological quest resonates with Pirate Bay trial

19 Nov 2010

(WW Norton) The groovy aspect of 1960s British pirate radio has already been dramatised in Richard Curtis’ film The Boat That Rocked. University of Chicago professor Adrian Johns charts the story’s more serious side: how rogue broadcasters were…

The Phantom Band take The Wants on UK tour

Glasgow Krautrock/alt.folk splicers play Glasgow Oran Mor show

16 Nov 2010

Glasgow Krautrock/alt.folk splicers The Phantom Band have arguably bettered their 2009 end of year lists-scaling debut Checkmate Savage with their sophomore set The Wants, which is among the most critically-acclaimed albums of 2010 according to review…

Veronica Falls

Captain’s Rest, Glasgow, Wed 10 Nov 2010

16 Nov 2010

‘We’re Veronica Falls, we’re from … London,’ imparts drummer Patrick Doyle, his sentence split by a pensive pause. ‘No you’re not,’ retorts a witty voice from the gloom. This shambling boy-girl quartet may be based in the Big Smoke, but Glasgow is…

Jenny and Johnny hit Glasgow and Edinburgh on UK tour

Rilo Kiley's Jenny Lewis and Johnathan Rice

16 Nov 2010

‘Jenny and Johnny just looks good on a T-shirt,’ drawls Johnathan Rice in his lazy transatlantic way down the phone from the Laurel Canyon home that the Scots-American singer-songwriter shares with his romantic and musical partner Jenny Lewis, the…

Seafieldroad - There Are No Maps For This Part of the City

15 Nov 2010

(Biphonic) Seafieldroad is the solo guise of Andrew Eaton, vocalist with noirish Edinburgh electro-pop trio Swimmer One, whose latest album Dead Orchestras is one of this year’s shimmering successes. Recorded in tandem with said LP, There Are No Maps…

Nathan Williams' Wavves embark on UK tour

San Diego garage band get it together to support King of the Beach

2 Nov 2010

Wavves’ slacker dude main-man Nathan Williams’ very public meltdown onstage at the 2009 Primavera festival threatened to prove the defining episode in the San Diego garage band’s short career. But they’ve since pulled back from the brink by cleaning up…

The Story of F***

Low-budget irreverent British satire on music industry

2 Nov 2010

(15) 84min (Network) Hunter S Thompson’s ‘the music industry is a cruel and shallow money trench …’ quote is so trite it’s printed on the urinal in the men’s loos at King Tut’s. Hardly an inspired note on which to begin a satire of the pop…

Maple Leaves - Captain’s Rest, Glasgow, Wed 20 Oct

Glasgow boy-girl four piece are a likeable, unashamedly perky lot

2 Nov 2010

Up-and-coming boy-girl four piece Maple Leaves, who here launched their debut EP ‘Golden Ether’, move to that gentle, bookish indie-pop beat – all bittersweet lyrics, chiming piano and warm harmonies – with which Glasgow has become partly…

Engineers - In Praise of More

1 Nov 2010

(Kscope) Londoners Engineers have reshuffled their deck since 2009’s Three Fact Fader, the long-delayed follow up to their much-hyped 2005 self-titled debut. Out go a couple of founder members, Dan McBean and Andrew Sweeney, in comes German boffin of…

Youthful, multicultural urban drama Playback a success despite contrivance

Narrative remains immersive despite gang culture themes being overplayed

27 Oct 2010

This youthful, multicultural urban drama by Davey Anderson and Ankur Productions – the culmination of the PANGAA urban arts project – proves an impressive advertisement for the sort of large-scale play a bold and ambitious company can stage in the…

Hidden Door Festival vs Edinburgh Popfest

Two DIY Edinburgh music festivals in one weekend

22 Oct 2010

Two DIY capital music festivals on the same weekend – sod’s law, eh? While Edinburgh Popfest shuffles to the literate, wistful sounds of an international indie-pop line-up at the Wee Red Bar, The GRV and The Lot in its debut year, the Hidden Door…

Yuck - Captains Rest, Glasgow, Mon 11 Oct 2010

Ex-Cajun Dance Party members give it some power shoegaze

22 Oct 2010

Yuck frontman Daniel Blumberg and guitarist Max Bloom’s last band, Cajun Dance Party, signed while still in school, then collapsed under heavy weight of expectation after just one album. In forming this new four-piece – revivalists of that less angsty…

Zoë Strachan and Louise Welsh collaborate on Panic Patterns at Glasgay! 2010

First collaboration from writing pair

8 Oct 2010

Award-winning writers Zoë Strachan and Louise Welsh live together and are in a long-term relationship, but until recently they’d never collaborated. Glasgay! director Steven Thomson asked if they’d be prepared to change that by co-penning a play for…

Derek McLuckie and Pauline Goldsmith bring Jean Genet’s The Maids to stage

All-male version of controversial play set for Glasgay!

8 Oct 2010

‘It’s about play acting and status games,’ says Derek McLuckie of Jean Genet’s The Maids, an all-male version of which the Glaswegian actor will star in and co-direct at this year’s Glasgay! ‘It’s about how you’re never one person, you’re lots of…