Mark Edmundson

Found Magazine

2 Oct 2008

We’re a curious bunch us humans. We seem compelled to concern ourselves with the business of others, be it people-watching in bars or gazing into strangers’ front rooms. Now, there is a quiet phenomenon coming to our shores from America, offering a…

Found Magazine - Tales from the unexpected

2 Oct 2008

What’s the best thing you’ve found? There’s a note I found in our hometown, I think I just found it next to my bike one day. It’s a pretty handsome looking flyer, and it says, ‘Please Lock This Door. It will prevent unauthorised people from entering…

Mungo's Hifi - Sound System Champions

2 Oct 2008

REGGAE ETC Sound system culture is surprisingly at home in a dreich Scotland and one has come of age here throughout the course of the last decade. Here Mungo’s self-congratulatory debut long-player champions the collective as no less proactive in…

The Foundation

2 Oct 2008

HIP HOP Random Aspekts are Scotland’s pre-eminent breakdance outfit having in seven short years forged a path from keen enthusiasts to career dancers, learning a thing or two about what their art owes to its aural inspiration along the way. So after…

Thievery Corporation - Radio Retaliation

2 Oct 2008

WORLD LOUNGE Leaders of the horizontal protest Thievery Corporation remain resolutely political in their approach and there is really no mistaking who programmed this set of sophisticate dub lounge. The breadth of styles treated to their signature…

Rodge Glass

Analysing icons of football and fiction

14 Aug 2008

‘Faith is something that preoccupies me, definitely, but it is usually the lack of it,’ says Rodge Glass, the Glasgow-based Jewish author of No Fireworks and Hope for Newborns who passed through a staggering range of variously religious, private and…

Various - RECON-naissance: The Live Sessions Vol 1

31 Jul 2008

LIVENESS (RECON-naissance) There’s an accomplished and impressive spread of talent on this lush live showcase from the Glasgow club night of the same name, from the sultry Gallic lounge of Irregular Slinky and the jazz-funk of Das Contras to ‘wegian…

Departure Lounge

17 Jul 2008

If one Edinburgh club has championed an intelligent party mix while pushing the envelope, recognising both the importance of live music within the club environment and how the right DJ can create an event – not to mention the impact of distinctive…

A Band Called Quinn - Sun Moon Stars

3 Jul 2008

INDIE POP (Tromolo) Boasting a guest guitarist spot from Echo and the Bunnymen’s Gordy Goudie, a chrome and polish from Parisian producer Kid Loco and delightful artwork care of Bruno Gallagher, this industrious Glasgow trio’s latest offering is an…

Profile - Marco Bailey & Percy X

19 Jun 2008

Names Marco Bailey & Percy X Who that? Bailey is Belgium’s premier techno DJ/producer and CEO of record label MB Selektions. Percy X is Glasgow’s own Soma stalwart, also a DJ/producer, again fronting his own label edit-select. What’s the story?

5 Reasons To Go See - Reggae

19 Jun 2008

It’s hot - Nothing says summer like sweet reggae music. That enviable Caribbean climate seems to emanate from the speakers, giving all a feel-good, lazy day, sunshine quality. It’s just the weather, right? It’s heady - While great for kicking back and…

Damon Galgut - The Imposter

19 Jun 2008

LITERARY TALE (Atlantic) Damon Galgut is in possession of an astute grasp of human nature and a poetically brusque prose that affords him bleak leanings, coaxing the reader on, almost against their will. There is an underlying malice and tangible…

Profile - Marco Bailey and Percy X

19 Jun 2008

Names Marco Bailey & Percy X Who that? Bailey is Belgium’s premier techno DJ/producer and CEO of record label MB Selektions. Percy X is Glasgow’s own Soma stalwart, also a DJ/producer, again fronting his own label edit-select. What’s the story?

Y'all is Fantasy Island - Rescue Weekend

5 Jun 2008

ALT.FOLK (Wise Blood Industries) On stage this Falkirk four-piece may remain capricious in tone and temperament but by first impressions this follow-up to the stark In Faceless Towns Forever could easily be dismissed as more of the same. The…

Jae P - Unsigned & Hungry Vol. 1

22 May 2008

HIP HOP (Souljawn) Perhaps it’s the clamour to be heard or a yearning to be taken seriously, a hangover from the UK’s self-conscious beginnings, but British rappers frequently sound exasperated, predisposed to moan. Ghanian-born, London bred Glasgow…

Rodge Glass - Hope For Newborns

22 May 2008

SOCIAL DRAMA (Faber) After the success of debut No Fireworks, Rodge Glass returns to themes of lapsing Judaism, focusing on what it means to be British in an age where homeland pride is a misty-eyed memory, and an anomaly to third generation…

Triptych - Jamie Lidell

10 Apr 2008

Jamie Lidell ‘I was awakened by Matthew Herbert really, in a magic kind of moment.’ Just how much credit Herbert can take is open to debate, but only a quirk of fate could have led to the doggedly leftfield technocrat Jamie Lidell’s staggering…

Mary Ann Winkowski - When Ghosts Speak

10 Apr 2008

SPIRITUAL MEMOIR (Hodder Mobius) Mary Ann Winkowski has spent the last 50 years assisting earthbound spirits in their passing into The Light, and has more recently acted as a paranormal consultant for popular TV show Ghost Whisperer. In this book she…

Various - Channel U: Vol 2

27 Mar 2008

GRIME (Gut) The newest, street-level incarnation of London’s underground R&B fixation is widely acknowledged as bassline. Thus the plucky pups at Gut are either lagging behind the pack or mopping up the last smears of grime on this compilation of…

Guru

13 Mar 2008

‘I’ve personally always been about trying to create new, relevant, hot music,’ states Guru in a considered tone that sits well with his rap canon, ‘and thanks to my partnership with the super-producer Solar I’m able to do that. Not everyone has a…

System 7

13 Mar 2008

PSYCHEDELIC TRANCE King Tuts, Glasgow, Fri 14 Mar After fronting cult, eccentric 60s space-rock collective Gong, guitarist Steve Hillage ploughed a psychedelic furrow through prog-rock before resorting to production duties for Scottish bands It Bites…

Amplifico - See Heart, See Muscle

13 Mar 2008

POP ROCK (MDM Creations) A triumph in genuinely independent music, savvy Scots Amplifico, following voiceful label interest but seeking commitment, have fashioned a self-released debut of assured distinction and depth. Boasting ballsy rather than more…

Bitcrush - Epilogue in Waves

13 Mar 2008

ATMOSPHERICS (n5MD) In conclusion to a kind of Bitcrush triptych, Gridlock’s Mike Cadoo has made the bold but logical step away from twittering electronics altogether, here moulding pensive soundscapes with nowt but the traditional guitar, bass, drums…

Andrew Crumey - Sputnik Caledonia

28 Feb 2008

SCIENCE FICTION (Picador) Andrew Crumey has been putting a literary editorship at Scotland on Sunday and a PhD in theoretical physics to good use, juggling astral and quantum theory alongside plain, unfussy storytelling. Here, he throws some bygone…

Adele - 19

14 Feb 2008

POP (XL) Much is made these days of the ‘voice’. Joss Stone, if you remember, had one; Corinne Bailey Rae still has hers; why, wasn’t even the bland and affected Katie Mellua touted as being in the possession of such a thing? The newest voice on the…