Gutted to hear about Mark Linkous’ death from suicide.
I’m not an authority on his music, but it touched me, and it’s clear that a lot of people will be coming to terms with the loss of a hugely talented singer-songwriter for a long time to come.
I played this song on repeat last night…until the poignancy became almost too much to bear. The comment from his family on the website “It is with great sadness that we share the news that our dear friend and family member, Mark Linkous, took his own life today. We are thankful for his time with us and will hold him forever in our hearts. May his journey be peaceful, happy and free. There’s a heaven and there’s a star for you” is almost too much to read.
Punch and the Apostles -‘Punch and the Apostles’ (Repellent)
This album appears to have just snuck out, quietly, under the radar and even many blogs that seem to be well and truly on the money don’t appear to have reviewed it yet (though bluesbunny ), Kowalskiy and Is This Music? have done).
This album is released as a limited edition of 1,000 and on download, but don’t let it slip out of your grasp. Having released a handful of singles (including the rather excellent ‘I’m A Hobo’) their debut album is a very serious contender for one of the albums of the year. Not just in Scotland – but anywhere.
To listen to this album is to be assorted by a variety of influences – I might jot down burlesque cabaret, free jazz and Tom Waits, but then I’d probably need to add about another 100 to the list. It’s an album that grabs you from the off – but each listen reveals something else. Paul Napier sounds like a man on the edge of a peer in the most bizarre freakshow -and I mean that as a compliment. This could be the last souundtrack you would ever hear -and it would be a fantastic way to go.
lbum is full of spirit and passion. Whilst many bands might make the comment ‘that we do what we do and if anyone likes it, that’s a bonus’ you know they’re producing rubbish. Yet Mr. Napier and chums make this all sound so natural, and do n’t care what anyone else says or thinks, as they suck you into a colourful, if excit
in the Edinburgh music scene. The Edinburgh six-piece have already performed sessions for Leith FM and for Song, By Toad’s show on Fresh FM. Both of which were fantastic -and continue to show just how healthy the scottish music scene is at the moment.
Lead by Scott Longmuir (vocals, acoustic guitar, mandolin); the band also comprises Liam O’Hare on percussion, Arwen Duncan (vocals, percussion), Paul Barrett (bass), Flora McKay (‘cello) and on glockenspiel and melodica, Ella Duncan. Live they have also been helped out by Stephen Kerr and Bart from eagleowl (sic). Though still unsigned, this cannot remain that way for long, not with songs like ‘Whiskey!’ and ‘Lifejackets’ under their belts. These are songs to be treasured and appreciated, again and again. Not only that, but within a handful of plays you are totally smitten.
list a number of influences, not just fellow scots acts like ballboy, Belle & Sebastian and John Martyn, but also Oor Wullie and Leith. They’re very proud of being based in Leith – to the extent that the gigs on their myspace differentiate whether they are in Edinburgh or Leith.
One things for sure – wherever they call home, this band are most defnitely going places.
Edinburgh band Midas Fall are taking the template for moody ethereal scottish indie and going some serious places with it, if the songs that make up their debut
album Eleven. Return and Revert are anything to go by. And yes, that full stop is meant to be there.
The five piece are Elizabeth Heaton (Vocals, guitar, synths), Rowan Burn (guitar, piano), Brian Dunsmore (synths, piano, guitar), Jamie Scobie(bass) and Adam Ley-Lange (drums). Normally words like melodic and haunting in press releases are bywords for bland, but in this case, these ad
jectives are compliments. They cite Radiohead (I would go for circa OK Computer ) and Portishead amongst their influences, and I’d be surprised if the likes of Aereogramme, Mogwai and other scottish acts whose music evokes the dark but beautiful Caledonian winters hadn’t flitted across the bands’ stereos. They’re due to support Japanese post-rockers Mono in Glasgow soon, which should be a night and a half to behold.
The album is out in April 26 on Monotreme Records – and I sincerely hope that not only the scottish blogging community but the scottish music loving populace and further afield will take them to their hearts. They deserve it.
Viv Albertine’s EP is her first release in twenty-five years. Whatever she has been up to in that time (the press release doesn’t say – and the reputation of the Slits is one that you would always be respectful
eace is the label run by Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore, so utterly cool that it makes the likes of Sub Pop, Matador and Domino look like mere wallflowers by comparison.
Over the course of four songs, Ms. Albertine sets out h
er stall again, with four tracks that show that she was definitely a member of one of the most adventurous groups ever, and all these years after Cut, the Slits’ peerless debut, she can produce stuff that has a serious edge. This is music that is deeply personal, that still has a pop sensibility and is completely on her own terms. Original Slits drummer Palmolive went on to join the Raincoats and in many ways this solo EP reminds me far more of their debut than that of the Slits. ‘Never Come,’ the opening track holds its’ own with anything the Slits or Raincoats produced, indeed the whole EP does. The first band she was in, Flowers of Romance also featured Keith Levene (who would join PiL), the aforementioned Palmolive and one Sid Vicious. The influences of the past are here but she’s not looking backwards.
It’s an EP that benefits from frequent listening and from repeated playing -already this evening I’ve played it three times, and I’m likely to give it another spin again soon.
Just how different would the music scene in Britain be without the likes of DJs like Steve Lamacq?
Thoroughly annoyed at the news about 6Music looking likely to be closed down by the BBC. This has been blogged about by many other people far more eloquently than I I feel I could do right now, but suffice to say: There is the demand for it. There is a need for it. Can I listen to it in the car? No, I can’t – but listening to local radio play the likes of Hard-Fi, Snow Patrol, Kaiser Chiefs, Biffy Clyro and various other ‘indie bands’ who crossed over, the point is that we need stations and DJs to champion this stuff. Is this mainstream indie? Of course it is, but the likelihood of hearing Biffy or Snow Patrol on daytime local radio 10 years ago seemed remote. The Beeb has always had a more adventurous music policy – and radio is still key to breaking bands in the 21st century.
Tom Robinson at 6Music was one of the very first DJs to play 17 Seconds Records’ music, and it meant a huge deal. There is some talk of Radio 2 being sharpened up – but dammit, what I wanted was for 6Music to be easier to get hold of, not to have to scratch around for decent music on the radio. People like Steve Lamacq, Jarvis Cocker, Lauren Laverne and other 6Music DJs who actually care about music shouldn’t be having to worry about their jobs. The Beeb wouldn’t axe Radio 3, even though its’ listening figures are not drastically higher than those of 6music. And whilst I have to confess I haven’t listened to the Asian Network either, I hope these two stations fight their corner. Maybe if the Beeb stopped paying inflated salaries to certain presenters…? Hate to point out the Emperor is actually stark bollock naked, but, y’know…
I think this hits the spot very well…
Ballboy -‘All the Records On The Radio Are Shite.’ mp3
Y’know, normally if a band came along who’d formed only earlier this year, who had but two songs to their name, I’d think it was a bit early to be featuring them. Especially seeing as they haven’t played any shows even.But, dammit, Whirl just sound so ready to go on these two songs alone. The California band deserve to go places with their gorgeous shoegaze sound. Even the name sounds perfectly 1990 – and i mean that as a compliment.
There’s six of them: Eddie, Loren, Byanca, Sergio, Joey and Nick. They have released their demo on cassette (if you think no-one buys cassettes any more, may I sugggest you start reading The Wire and stop reading Q; there has been a real incr
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ease in underground bands putting their stuff out on cassette) which you can buy via their myspace
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.
I’m not the only one who thinks they’re ace, either. Christina Marie, one half of 17 Seconds Records’ act Factory Kids, and also writer of the very fine Girls Sold Out blog has already interviewed them, here.
ul Vickers & The Leg -‘Itchy Grumble.’ (SL Records)
Paul Vickers is, I like to think ,
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one of the great scottish eccentrics. Having fronted Dawn Of the Replicants – a band who should have been very much bigger than they were – he still continues to walk the streets of Edinburgh (I saw him walking along South Bridge not two weeks ago wearing a bizarre look
arded scottish blogger) stated that they would go out of the way not to see them again. It was an interesting spectacle, granted, but also an intriguing one.
And still a pretty intriguing proposition on paper. This is a rock opera…come back I haven’t finished. It has been brilliantly descr
t I almost posted the press release as my review because that seemd to get closer to the mark. It
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chy grumble, the protagonist is immortal (he once drank the tears of a witch) and is charged with making a lighthouse on the forth estuary revolve…
Yeah, it’s demented. Yup, it probably makes more sense live, but damn it…in a world where 6Live is being taken off the air, where once proud music papers are more concerned with reinventing themselves as indie-lite heat…thank God for Paul Vickers. They clearly broke the mould after him. Everyone should hear this record…and I hope quite a few will go and buy it.
Frightened Rabbit -‘The Winter Of Mixed Drinks.’ (Fat Cat)
I was trying to work out the other day why it is that a band’s third album has so much resting on it. Then I realised: it all has to do with War, U2’s third album. This was the point, in 1983, at which the band broke through and were on their way to becoming -let’s face it – the biggest band of the last thirty years in the western hemisphere. They did more successful albums (The Joshua Tree) and artistically better ones (Achtung Baby) but this was the point at which, with years spent on album charts, top 10 hits, enormo gigs etc.. bands that had come from an ‘alternative’ sphere would be seen as truly having broken through. In subsequent years, it’s been the third album that’s been the marking point for the likes of Blur and Idlewild, even if the likes of REM and Red Hot Chili Peppers had to wait far longer.
Frightened Rabbit aren’t being talked about as having done a U2 – yet. But for a band not based in London, who are steadily making headway in the US (and touring alonside labelmates The Twilight Sad and We Were Promised Jetpacks) and appear to be ‘crossing over’, all eyes are on them now. Though the initial releases of their first two albums Sing the Greys and The Midnight Organ Fight may have made more impact north of the border than south it was a picture that was changing by the end of 2009. Zane Lowe and other DJ’s were picking up on the single ‘Swim Until You Can’t See Land’ – the first single from this new album, and The Midnight Organ Fight made the NME’s list of the Top 100 albums of the decade.
So, the pressure is on them: to make the crossover, by delivering an album that’s good enough to make it, and take them beyond just being cult stars. Were Top Of The Pops still going, people would be expecting them to be putting out singles big enough for them to have a hit big enough for them to appear. Yet there’s also the worries of tall poppy syndrome, and that of whether in order to make the jump they’ll end up having to compromise what made them special in the first place.
However, I think that Frightened Rabbit can hold their heads high with this release. It’s not perhaps as immediate as The Midnight Organ Fight – yet, paradoxically, it feels more anthemic than either of their first two studio albums put together. Album opener ‘Things’ sounds like Frightened Rabbit still – but this time, instead of little clubs, it’s sets at outdoor rock festivals where they will be appearing ever higher up the bill. The aforementioned ‘Swim Until Yuo Can’t See Land’ starts off so fragile and yet proves itself to be a monster and makes even more context within the album than as a single.
Current single ‘Nothing Like You’ agains sounds like it could and should be a hit. Tellingly, on YouTube there are already a few people muttering that it’s not like FR used to be. Yet the catch 22 is that if it were, they’d be accused of repeating themselves. As an album it still feels like Frightened Rabbit -and with the sense of the cold and grey that seeps into your sou, bringing you down in the winter.
It’s not a jaw-dropping album, but it is still an excellent one. Frightened Rabbit are still singing the greys. And this time, they’re inviting everyone around the campfire. Budge up, there’s enough room for everyone.
****
The Winter Of Mixed Drinks is released on Monday on FatCat.
Frightened Rabbit -‘Nothing Like You’
Frightened Rabbit -‘Nothing Like You (alternative video)’
Frightened Rabbit -‘Swim Until You Can’t See Land.’
