Shout Out Louds @ Cabaret Voltaire, 7 Aug

Rating: 2/5
If, as popular conception dictates, Swedes really do only follow one of two musical extremes - church-burning black metal or polyphonic, wide-eyed pop - then Shout Out Louds have definitely chosen the latter. The Stockholm quintet combine the dreamy ambience of The Cure with the resonant guitar of U2, adding their own lush harmonies [...]

Ratatat @ Cabaret Voltaire, 1 Aug

Rating: 4/5
A post-gig Google of the name of the support act I’ve been provided with (Dead Boy Robotics anyone?) returns no MySpace, but maybe it’s better that this emo-tronica duo remain anonymous. Their oh-so-ironic yelping and synth-prodding wankery is head-splitting to say the least.
So how especially welcome it is to see the professionals arrive on [...]

T in the Park: Sunday roving report

So much for Saturday. Sunday was all set to be the great day, with the clouds clearing and a glut of exciting bands to enjoy. The only problem was how to take it all in…
After a brief sojourn in the Media Village that proved uneventful (no ‘celebs’ to watch being slobbered over by the Daily [...]

T in the Park: Saturday roving report

With memories of a litter-strewn airstrip and 80,000 dancing, drinking, singing, colliding, wretching, cavorting, exposing, stumbling, pissing people fading as fast as my sunburn, it’s time I posted my second annual T in the Park roving report…
Straight off the trusty shuttle bus - via the bar, of course - we decide to sample some sounds, [...]

‘Rain down, rain down…’ - Radiohead @ Glasgow Green, 27 Jun

Everything was conspiring against me enjoying Radiohead last night.
1. We arrived too late to see support act Bat For Lashes.
2. Touts (evil scum that they are) were selling tickets outside for a tenner, tickets we’d paid £40 for.
3. The bar queue was ridiculous: no beer.
4. It rained almost continually - that especially wet, West Coast, [...]

The Mae Shi @ Cabaret Voltaire, 18 May

Talking Heads and Pavement comparisons are ten-a-penny in the blogosphere, and Edinburgh’s Jesus H Foxx must be getting sick of ‘em; if it wasn’t for the fact that they’ve clearly paid close attention to both indie supergroups. But the Foxx also have a madcap, unhinged sound that is all their own, and surfaces in the [...]

The Twilight Sad, Frightened Rabbit, Dirty Summer @ Carnegie Hall, 15 May

Dunfermline’s Carnegie Hall isn’t your usual gig venue. It’s a provincial theatre with cushioned seating, suited ushers, pinned-up notices of stage times and a drinks ban in the auditorium. It’s a comfortable yet contrary setting, and local trio Dirty Summer (**) don’t do anything to assuage any tension with their relentless noisecore onslaught. Wilfully unconventional, [...]

Clinic, Errors, RememberRemember @ Cabaret Voltaire, 27 Apr

 
RememberRemember’s (***) Graeme Ronald chose his new musical moniker wisely, because by the end of every ’song’ (in the loosest possible sense) the minimalist sequences and percussive noises are not live but recorded, looped, the stuff of memory. He may not be the first to compose and perform in this multi-layering manner, but with his [...]

The Futureheads @ Liquid Room, 2 Mar

***
Having patented the style, The Futureheads do barbershop-punk better than anyone; even if there’s precious little longevity in such a musical straitjacket. So let’s get the inevitable it-all-sounds-a-bit-similar gripe out the way and get on with the gig in hand. Decent Days and Nights is a nought to sixty in zero seconds opener, with singer [...]

Hot Chip @ Barrowland, Glasgow, 26 Feb

It’s not hard to see why Hot Chip chose Matthew Dear  (**) as support for their UK tour. The synth-prodding, cowbell-clutching Texan, along with his buddies on guitar and drums, treads the same not-quite-dance, not-quite-indie path as tonight’s headliners. But his club-oriented brand of electro sounds swamped in the expansive space of the Barrowland Ballroom.
Despite [...]