Upcoming – TV21 and Panda Su

Still waiting to find out what’s happened to my storage account but in the meantime I’m looking forward to TV21’s performance on Saturday (25th) at the Electric Circus.

The band haven’t played as frequently in the last 12 months as they did before that which makes this more of a special occasion. They’ll be trying to follow up a tremendous performance at the album launch in May and I’m really looking forward to the show.

Support comes from Panda Su who I saw supporting We Were Promised Jetpacks last month. I really enjoyed their performance that night so am looking forward to seeing them again. They’re as different from TV21 as they were from the Jetpacks but having said that songwriting is still at the core of both acts.

The venue in Market Street is a reasonably new name on the Edinburgh circuit having opened just last month but it has a history under previous names and sounds like an interesting place.

So this should be a good night. Check it out if you’re in the area.

Problems

Apologies but as some of you will have noticed, I’m experiencing problems with the sound files at the moment. That’s why there has been a slightly longer than normal gap between posts. I have a post all ready to go but it does really need the tunes to make it work,

I’m trying to get to  the bottom of it and hopefully normal service will be resumed shortly.

Dance Our Last Dance

Despite the fact that his reputation is based to a large extent on misery, Robin Proper-Sheppard can certainly write some uplifting choruses. That knack is more than apparent throughout Sophia’s latest LP ‘There Are No Goodbyes’.

Whilst TANG may be less diverse than its predecessor, ‘Technology Won’t Save Us’ – there’s far less electric guitar than last time – Sophia are not afraid to incorporate different types of instrumentation into the songs. So whilst there’s walls of acoustic guitars there’s also pedal steel and strings, cello and clarinet. For the most part though everything else in the song seems to be there to serve the choruses.

Musically TANG is at its most upbeat early on with the wonderful title track swiftly followed by ‘A Last Dance (To Sad Eyes)’. Things change later on though with ‘Heartache’ tapping into alt.country territory and the mournful ‘Leaving’ led by a plaintiff clarinet.

Lyrically Mr PS seems to be in a similar place to before so there are songs called ‘Storm Clouds’, ‘Heartache’ and ‘Leaving’. Typical lyrics include “I thought I knew heartbreak, but I’ve never known anything like this before’ (‘Heartache’) or “I’m jealous/ And possessive / Neurotic/ Insecure / And obsessive” (‘Something’). Whilst you think that many songwriters in part write in character, I’m far from certain that’s the case here.

A few years ago this sort of thing musically might have passed me by. But these days I’m more likely to have the patience for more subtle fare. And ‘There Are No Goodbyes’ is another fine LP with the bonus of a limited edition double CD including an acoustic (with strings) live recording.

Sophia – There Are No Goodbyes (from ‘There Are No Goodbyes’) [Buy the double CD] [Download it]

After The Rain

I headed off to work today fairly certain it was going to rain at some point during the day. But I certainly wasn’t prepared for what happened. The town was hit by what must have been the most torrential rain in the 20 years I’ve lived here.

I managed to miss the rain but got back in time to see the aftermath – not just water everywhere but large parts of the town covered in centimetres of mud. The following pics were taken an hour after I got home (and some time after the rain) and the situation on the ground had been much improved in that time.

We got off relatively unscathed. Unfortunately there was one leak – directly above the kids’ laptop. It will be given a couple of days to dry off.

A couple of topical tunes:

Waiting for the Floods – Armoury Show (from Waiting For The Floods) [Get it, maybe]

Flood – Blue Orchids [Download it]

There should have been more tunes but the CD drive on this PC is goosed and the laptop’s a bit soggy.

Be Careful What You Wish For

Chemikal Underground, it seems, are in the middle of something of a purple patch this year. Already we’ve had LPs from The Phantom Band, Aidan Moffat and De Rosa but the self-titled debut from Lord Cut-glass may just top them all.

For the uninitiated Lord Cut-glass is the long awaited return to front-line action of former Delgado Alun Woodward. Almost four years in the making, the LP is a stunning achievement.

It’s a record that has its origins in latter days Delgados. Indeed had it not been for the back to basics approach of ‘Universal Audio’ the ambitious instrumentation would have been a logical extension of the previous 2 Delgados LPs. Having said that, ‘Lord Cut-glass’ builds on the more upbeat approach of ‘Universal Audio’ to great effect.

It’s no rock record, that’s for sure, and it’s too sumptuous to be described as folk. No, the term that bests describe, LCG is orchestral pop with the emphasis on pop. This is a truly memorable collection of songs with Woodward dispensing fantastic hooks and witty, intelligent lyrics at will. Picking highlights is almost impossible but the single ‘Look After Your Wife’ is pretty special, even in this company, are the closing tracks ‘Big Time Teddy’ and ‘Toot Toot’.

The official video for the single:

[Buy the LP] [Download the LP] [Buy the single]

O Your Nut

Malcolm Middleton/The Pictish Trail – King Tut’s Wah Wah Sweat Box, 28th June 2009

If he stays true to his word, then there aren’t going to be too many more Malcolm Middleton solo shows after the tour to promote his latest LP ‘Waxing Gibbous’ ends. And on the evidence of Sunday night’s show at King Tut’s, that’s going to be our loss.

An understandable focus on the new record meant that a huge slew of MM classics were omitted from the running order, yet it was still a great show. What was perhaps more surprising was the fact that the songs from the ridiculously eclectic  WG, mixed in with some gems from the back catalogue, produced such a cohesive set.

By and large the main set featured the electric and dance numbers with acoustic songs reserved for the encore. Other than the opening ‘Red Travellin’ Socks’ which lacked a little zip, this was as good a show as I’ve seen from Malcolm. The new songs all sounded great with the highlights perhaps being ‘Box & Knife’, ‘Kiss At  The Station’ and the closing ‘Don’t Want To Sleep Tonight’ with the band locking into a nice groove for the latter.

Of the older stuff, ‘A Brighter Beat’ was recast with Jenny’s fiddle taking the lead melody whilst rare band outings for ‘Choir’ and ‘Speed On The M9’ were both very welcome indeed.

And despite what you might have heard, no, he didn’t finish off with a rousing cover of a soft rock ‘classic’ and he certainly didn’t say ‘I’ve been waiting to do this since I was 12’ before bringing the guitars back in.

All in all it was a terrifically good humoured evening with his deadpan wit much in evidence no more so than perhaps during ‘Ballad’ in the encores when his running commentary on the performance of the song seemed designed to crack Jenny up. And you know what? He managed it!

Setlist

1. Red Travellin’ Socks  2. Subset of the World  3. Box & Knife  4. Loneliness Shines  5. Kiss At The Station  6. Whistle  7. Shadows  8. Zero  9. Choir  10. Speed on the M9  11. A Brighter Beat  12. We’re All Going To Die  13. Blue Plastic Bags

14. Ballad of Fuck All  15. Carry Me  16. Don’t Want To Sleep Tonight  17. There was no last song, honest.

It’s worth mentioning the contribution of support act, the Pictish Trail to the main set. Contributing not just backing vocals to all the WG material he also delivered the rap in ‘Zero’ allowing Malcolm to avoid rapping in public for a second time.

PT’s own set, supported on backing vocals by Rozi Plains, was largely acoustic backed plaintiff numbers but was bookended by electronic numbers. Curiously it’s the first time I’ve been exposed to his music and it worked pretty well.

The Middleton tour continues in the coming days whilst he is next playing in Scotland at the Edge Festival in Edinburgh in August.