Nicola Meighan

Exposure: Esben and the Witch

29 Apr 2010

Those of a fragile disposition are advised to look away now. Brighton horror-folk sorcerers Esben and the Witch – Daniel (axe, electronics), Rachel (lungs, bass), Thomas (axe, synth) – are rapidly advancing. They’re coming to get you, Glasgow You…

CocoRosie - Grey Oceans

21 Apr 2010

(PIAS) Remember trip-hop pantywaists Sneaker Pimps? Disconcerting swathes of this fourth long-player from CocoRosie will jog your memory if need be. Thankfully the US-born, Paris-based sisters’ foray into cry-baby drum’n’bass is bedimmed by a collage…

JJ - JJ No 3

21 Apr 2010

(Secretly Canadian) Let’s take a moment to clear something up. ‘Clannad’ need not be a term of abuse. A brief (and delirious) dip into their sublime Robin of Sherwood masterwork will bear witness. With reference to Sweden’s bliss-pop hipsters JJ…

Caribou - Swim

15 Apr 2010

(City Slang) Canadian dance-floor explorer Dan Snaith, alias Caribou and formerly Manitoba, recently amassed a spectacular live backing band for the New York leg of All Tomorrow’s Parties. It was at the behest of the Flaming Lips, and counted Four…

Five reasons to go and see: The Fall

15 Apr 2010

1: For 33 years, 100 albums, 50 ex-members A brilliant, capricious garage-rock mob helmed by Manchester alchemist Mark E Smith (above), The Fall are among the most enduring and vital cult-pop conduits in our history: they were famously idolised by…

The Twilight Sad

O2 ABC, Glasgow, Fri 2 Apr 2010

15 Apr 2010

The Twilight Sad occupy shadows and angles; space and darkness. They delineate a rare silhouette onstage, and on our musical landscape: for all their Scottish indie references, bleak local folklore and Lanarkshire diction, their live performances often…

Three Blind Wolves - The Sound of the Storm

14 Apr 2010

(Instinctive Raccoon) Three Blind Wolves, see how they run? That’s right, they run like lovesick delinquents through decades of vintage Scottish rock – by way of country, blues and folk – and come out sounding downright affable. The new and…

Admiral Fallow - Boots Met My Face

14 Apr 2010

(Lo-Five) Let’s celebrate it from the rooftops: the Deacon Blue revival is finally upon us. If The Last Battle (and of course Frightened Rabbit) herald a renaissance in melodic Scottish rock, then leading the charge are Glasgow pop heartbreakers…

King Creosote - My Third Bit of Strange in 14 Years

31 Mar 2010

Fencerecords.com Imagine that you’re here beside me. We’re flanked by people crying quietly. At the front of the room is a modest man singing exquisite songs, re-evaluating pop, and infiltrating rock mythology. It is Anstruther, noon, the 13th of…

Woodpigeon - Die Stadt Muzikanten

29 Mar 2010

(End of the Road) An agrarian folk troupe with a penchant for alt-rock, Woodpigeon are a loose collective fronted by Calgary-via-Edinburgh harmonist Mark Hamilton. Their abundant third long-player is a complex, picturesque tapestry of pirate…

She & Him - Volume 2

29 Mar 2010

(Double Six) Brimming with classic 60s girl-pop and California country-rock, the second instalment from improbable couple She (indie film icon Zooey Deschanel) & Him (alt-folk troubadour M Ward) is another worthy offering for fans of The Beach Boys…

Exposure: Bear in Heaven

23 Mar 2010

Our Bear, who art in Heaven: hallowed be thy epic space-pop, thy divine psychedelia, thy dense electro, thy mammoth kraut-rock. Fortified with a reverent live persuasion and an excellent second album, Beast Rest Forth Mouth (Hometapes), it is little…

Goldfrapp - Head First

10 Mar 2010

(Mute) Today’s pop charts may be awash with female vocalists and 80s synth-pop, but a decade ago, our prevailing sounds were bloke rock (David Gray) and maudlin MOR (Eva Cassidy). It was onto this bland, unsuspecting landscape that electro-pop siren…

The Besnard Lakes

10 Mar 2010

‘I think one of the most rock’n’roll things ever done was landing on the moon,’ muses vocalist Olga Goreas of celestial pop voyagers The Besnard Lakes. ‘It was the end to a great decade that produced more than just amazing music and art: it was a…

To Rococo Rot - Speculation

9 Mar 2010

(Domino) Palindromic triad To Rococo Rot have assembled animate machine music for over a decade. Speculation, however, heralds a somewhat raucous awakening, as the German impressionists venture out of the ‘measured’ post-rock dominion, into the…

Wooden Shjips - Vol 2

9 Mar 2010

(Sick Thirst / Forte) San Fran freak-rockers Wooden Shjips are hoary proponents of minimal fuzz-rock, loaded kraut-pop and sun-blitzed psychedelia. Summoning a lost weekend with Hawkwind, Neu!, Loop, Suicide and The Doors, the tranced-out four-piece…

Five reasons to: Save BBC 6Music

4 Mar 2010

First came a collective up-in-arms from indie fans across the land; then came the validation of their anguish by the BBC: its small but much-loved digital radio station, 6Music, is to close next year – alongside the Asian Network – pending a public…

Memory Tapes - Dayve Hawk interview

2 Mar 2010

Spike Jonze and Portishead may be beating his door down, but euphoric New Jersey melodist Dayve Hawk – aka Memory Tapes – isn’t home. ‘I’m in the laundry room of my in-laws,’ he shrugs. Presumably he’s mainlining dream-pop, post-punk, classic rock and…

Joanna Newsom - Have One On Me

2 Mar 2010

(Drag City) Revising and entwining the rites of folk, pop, blues, baroque, classical romanticism and nursery rhymes, California’s Joanna Newsom possesses an uncanny knack for arousing and confounding our cultural memory: for unfurling strangely…

Shark Batter Records

25 Feb 2010

Dawn of the Replicants were one of Scotland’s most inventive bands: a creative rabble who evolved from the quality 90s ‘zine Sun Zoom Spark and proceeded to challenge – and enliven – the outposts of mainstream(ish) experimental rock. DOTR’s bygone…

Errors set for date at Grand Ole Opry, Glasgow

17 Feb 2010

‘God, I hope it doesn’t get to the point where we all try to outdo each other and turn into Rush,’ shudders Errors’ drum leviathan James Hamilton, talking about the Glasgow quartet’s rousing group dynamic. ‘But the thing about playing in an instrumental…

A Broken Consort - Crow Autumn

17 Feb 2010

(Tompkins Square) Aural cartographer Richard Skelton has long transcribed and excavated his much-loved Lancashire landscape by way of contemporary classical music. His heady, elemental hymns are attributed to various guises – Carousell, Clouwbeck and…

LoneLady - Nerve Up

17 Feb 2010

(Warp) LoneLady might be coming on all Manchester warehouse post-punk or whatever, but she’s best when spitting soul asides and rewiring Gwen Guthrie’s ‘Ain’t Nothin’ Goin’ on But the Rent’ – as she somehow does, and boy, it works, on her debut…

Toro Y Moi - Causers of This

17 Feb 2010

(Car Park) Toro Y Moi is Martian-talk for ‘pissed-up, blissed-out pop’. Or so South Carolinian electro-bard Chaz Bundick would have us believe on Causers of This – his computer-engendered, patchouli-infused and entirely affable debut album. Tipping…

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…