Dear Scotland

The launch of this album was, entirely unsurprisingly, one of most enjoyable gigs I’ve been to in a long time.  I think Lloyd from Peenko was officially having The Most Fun He Has Ever Had, it was sweaty as f**k, and the whole experience was just fantastic.

I remember interviewing the Silver Columns up at Homegame this year and their combination of seriousness and playfulness struck me quite strongly.  Whilst they came across as enjoying themselves hugely, and their approach to the songwriting process seemed light-hearted and not in any way precious, there was a definite undercurrent of something a little more [...]

If you really want to become knowledgeable about music, the only way seems to be to read liner notes.  I glanced at the ones which came with Swimmer One’s latest album and who should I see but Pete Harvey.  Who I’ve seen onstage with The Leg, Meursault, Animal Magic Tricks, Willard Grant Conspiracy and Christ [...]

I think it’s fair to say that the Scottishness of this band isn’t entirely spurious – just listen to that accent – but I think Sam Taylor may just reside down South these days.
Signed to the everso tiny-looking Dustbowl Records (their whole site appears to be no more than a blog with three posts) they [...]

The Douglas Firs played their first ever set a month or so ago, in support of eagleowl at the latter’s EP launch.  And just in case you didn’t think that the Edinburgh alt-folk scene was so incestuous that it is probably f**king itself, never mind a close relative, what is nominally a solo project was [...]

I must be the last person in bloody Scotland to review this album, but I have never really clicked with Super Adventure Club particularly, so I suppose it was inevitable that I showed very little urgency when it came to really giving Avoid Zombies* a proper, attentive listen.

My descent into rabid eagleowl fanboydom has been as slow a build as the climax of any of their songs.  The first time I heard them play I really liked it.  By the time of the release show for their ‘For the Thoughts You Never Had’ EP I thought they were bloody excellent.  Late last [...]

This is not only a bloody good EP, it is also the resurrection of an extremely promising band I feared might be slowly drifting into obscurity, as well as my introduction to a really exciting-looking new Glaswegian record label: Armellodie Records.

Crystals Fall?  How about Bear Wolf Crystal f**ks Fall, just to make it properly Pitchforky?  Crystals bloody Fall my arse.
Anyhow, I am not all that keen on the name, but that’s about all I can find wrong with this album, despite the fact that it does a lot of things I don’t like.