Grimes: come join us at the Arches

As Gary already mentioned; How To Dress Well are coming to town (Glasgow) and they are bringing the perfect support act with them.  Ladies and gents, may I introduce you to, if you haven’t already been acquainted, the wonderful, Grimes.

Grimes is the creation of Canadian Claire Boucher whose last couple of years have been impressively productive; releasing debut album ‘Geidi
Primes’ on free download in 2010 followed by her second album Halfaxa later that year (also on free download). 2011 brought with it Grimes’ release of her
third album Darkbloom – which featured five tracks from Grimes and four from D’eon –  and an opening slot on the Lykke Li tour.  Now she’s supporting How To Dress Well in Glasgow, Manchester, Bristol and Brighton on the 8^th, 9^th, 10^th and 12^th August respectively.

Boucher’s vocals astonish; reminding me of those mythical creatures with a voice so beautiful it hypnotises you before it reveals its built in scythe and violently decapitates you; so watch out for that if you do go to see her live.  Although, based on what I’ve heard from her so far, should you go see her live, she will eerily serenade you with her keyboard, along with a little electro drum beat, creating an unsettling, psychedelic atmosphere throughout.  Altogether slightly less violent than the previous sentence depicted.

If that sounds like your cuppa then you can download Geidi Primes for free here and Halfaxa for free here.

Why not also buy some tickets here and join us in being dramatically entertained at the Arches in Glasgow on the 8^thAugust.  Also supporting are Falconry; wonder if they’re any good…

Hopefully see you there.

Rachel Sermanni

My first encounter with Rachel Sermanni was purely accidental.  I saw her support Scott Hutchison of Frightened Rabbit during one of his many solo shows and she caught my attention.  Since then everything seems to be falling nicely into place for Sermanni as she was a favourite at the 2010 Celtic Connections.  Since then, she appeared on one of my favourite TV shows of 2011: ‘Scotland Rocks at SXSW’ which showcased a wonderful mix of some of the plentiful Scottish acts’ that played at the SXSW festival in Austin Texas earlier this year.

I can really see myself sitting against a tree, in an empty field with dungarees on, chewing some straw, or relaxing by the fire in a country cottage listening to her beautiful voice accompanied by calming acoustic guitar, and if you have any of the above items then I suggest this is what you do.  However, I would more strongly recommend that you go to a live performance of Sermanni’s where you will truly notice her powerful vocals and the smoothness in which she switches from subtle serenading to sturdy strumming.

Luckily, she’s playing the Queen’s Hall in Edinburgh on the 17th August and tickets can be found here.  They are a little on the steep side at £16 (£14 concessions), but I feel like it would be worth it.

Rachel’s myspace has a number of songs on it, which you can listen to, as well as some great live videos.  However, it looks like all this moving up in the world is going to see her move to a more permanent home at rachelsermanni.net, where you can go and get the excellent ‘Burger Van Song’ for free, well you have to give up your e-mail, but it’s still free.  I’m fairly sure it’s called ‘Burger Van Song’, although I did see it down on this recent playlist on The Pop Cop as, ‘Bugger Van Song’.  Was going to make a joke there, but I’ll just leave it at that.

In the meantime, here’s the lovely Waltz from ‘The Bothy Sessions’, which if my memory serves me right is a little recording studio out in the countryside, but that may be called ‘The Barn’. Regardless..

Meursault gig review – King Tut’s – 25th July

Meursault

An intentionally slow paced and subtle introduction was rudely interrupted by me sneezing.  Singer Neil Pennycook was kind enough to bless me and move on. That’s a winning start in my opinion and things just got better.  The band looked totally comfortable on stage taking their hypnotic songs and building them up into angered climaxes with occasionally and beautifully used curse words.

It’s only recently that I have been listening to Meursault.  Gary has a habit of playing his favourite music when I’m round at his in an attempt to brainwash me, however, we have a similar taste in music so I do not object.  Recently his band of choice has been Meursault and for this I thank him.

However, going into the gig with a Meursault experience was not necessary as on first listen the new songs they played stole my attention like one of those kidnappers that you empathise with.  The Moby lookalike front man joked about the difficulty people had with their band name and how the Metro mistook them for some German band that very day, and while several of the audience probably do have trouble pronouncing their name, – I only recently realised their name was not spelt Merso – everyone came to see a wonderful Scottish rock band, and that’s what they got.

Here is a video them playing live on the BBC  Introducing stage at Glastonbury 2010:

Over The Wall

This is probably the third or fourth time I’ve seen Over The Wall play live and they never disappoint with their in between music chat almost as entertaining as the songs themselves.  They come across as an onstage couple; passing picks mid song and sharing tender glances throughout the performance.  Their set steadily increased from what was an already strong opener to the usual finale of Thurso that has everyone enthralled.  With its casual guitar licks and trumpet hook to die for, Thurso is a fitting end to a great set.

Imagine this at King Tut’s and that’s pretty much what we witnessed:

Capitals

This was my introduction to Capitals and I feel I’ve got to know them a little.  They played well and I like their style. I particularly enjoyed it when the guitarist would sometimes look to the man on the electronic drums and laugh at him; not in a bad way but in a way to say , “I love the effort you’re putting into your performance, you’re totally into those drums.”  That’s the way it should be, feel the music.

You can download ‘Hello World’ and ‘Running’ for free on their website here, all it takes is your e-mail address, or listen to ‘Hello World’ here

Miaoux Miaoux

It can’t be easy when you’re the only person on stage but Miaoux Miaoux looked at home as he took the audience on a journey of dance beats crossed with catchy funk guitar sounds.  I agreed with my companions that the vocals helped ease us into a type of music that we are not yet accustomed to, but maybe someday.

edit: (Gary) I actually think I enjoyed Miaoux Miaoux considerably more than everyone else, my music taste seems to be segueing nicely into more electronic stuff these days and so Miaoux Miaoux has arrived at a good time for me.  Definitely one to keep an eye on.

Radiohead – ‘The King of Limbs’. An Epiphany.

The reason I have decided to write this is because I’ve only just realised what this album is for.  All of Radiohead’s albums seem to take around 30 listens before you realise that you have actually listened to them before.  This is one of several reasons that I love Radiohead, as every listen feels like new music and is extremely hard, nigh on impossible to become fed up with.

However, there was a point when I thought I would never recognise ‘The King Of Limbs’, no matter how many times I listened to it, which is simultaneously impressive and irritating.  Fortunately, I elected to listen to it again last night and it hit me; The King Of Limbs is an incredibly awesome chill out album.  If you don’t believe me try it now.

The sun is out – or at least it was when I wrote this – so go outside, jump in your hammock, lie back and press play on your ipod.  You can even smoke a substance of your choice although you don’t have to; it worked fine for me without.

relax enjoy lotus flower