Lloyd Meredith is captain of the ship that is the up and coming Scottish Music blog ‘Peenko’, and we are delighted to welcome him into the Dear Scotland family. Following on from Vic’s 50 Scottish Artists to Watch in 2010, Lloyd brings us a few of his tips. This week, Edinburgh’s North Atlantic Oscillation:
You might have read me banging on about these guys a while back, if not then now is the time to download yourself a copy of ‘Cell Count’, one of my favourite songs on 2009. The Edinburgh-based electronic rock group are due to release their debut album this year and thanks to the wonders of the internet I managed to get a few words from the band.
Would you care to introduce yourself?
Hello. I’m Sam from the band North Atlantic Oscillation.
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How would you describe the music you make?
Tuneful and unusual, hopefully.
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How did you start out making music?
I like noise and patterns. Music is patterns of noise, so it’s my dream medium.
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What process goes into the way you write songs?
a) I get antsy, fidgety, grumpy, antisocial, insomniac and panicky. b) I write a song. c) I feel relaxed for a while. d) Back to a).
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What can we expect to see/hear from you in 2010?
Our debut album Grappling Hooks comes out in late March. We played some gigs with Porcupine Tree in late 2009 which went really well, better than we expected. So we might end up playing with them again in Europe, as well as doing our own headline gigs to promote the album.
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Lastly, the question that’s on everyone’s lips is it possible to blow a balloon up under water?
Excellent question, and well done for consulting musicians on matters of basic science. I imagine that it is possible but with less impressive results than blowing it up in the air, since you’re displacing water, which is heavier than air at normal atmospheric pressure. Also it probably gets more difficult as you go deeper since there’s more weight to blow against. Good luck inflating anything at 2000m below sea level. Piezophiles, tiny animals which live on ocean floors, have a completely different metabolism than the mesophile majority because the intense pressure (over 350 atmospheres) of their environment makes their cell membranes almost imporous.
