Skip to main content

Robin Guthrie Trio

Electric Circus, Edinburgh
4 stars
As My Bloody Valentine fever went into (interstellar) overdrive last 
week on the back of the surprise release of their first album for two 
decades, enraptured converts could have done worse than check out 
former Cocteau Twin Robin Guthrie’s low-key shows to see where MBV 
copped some of their FX pedal moves from.
Previous visits by Guthrie have seen him playing atmospheric 
soundtracks to his own equally impressionistic films. With Australian 
bassist Steve Wheeler and Finnish drummer Antii Makinen co-opted into 
the fold, his new trio vehicle puts brevity to the fore in a series of 
instrumental sketches that drift between slowcore fuzziness and 
post-rock jauntiness. Each miniature is possessed too with a human 
warmth which at times borders on the sentimental.
Guthrie is a towering figure, whose bearded visage these days makes him 
resemble a hybrid of Vangelis, Jerry Garcia and John Martyn, a trio 
that reflects too on the different shades drawn from his exquisitely 
minimalist palette. There are times the simple bass lines and elaborate 
drum patterns recall long lost 4AD Records fellow travellers, Dif Juz, 
who Guthrie produced. Here, however, the washes of sound are looser, 
and not without levity as Guthrie messes up the opening of one number.
“Where’s your chat?” some wag shouts, but Guthrie only grins behind his 
beard. The only vocals of the night come from support act and former 
Ride vocalist Mark Gardener, who joined Guthrie for an encore of a 
co-written song that’s as up-beat, epic and triumphal as dream-pop can 
be. Guthrie ends the night with a solo piece that would make Pink Floyd 
guitarist Dave Gilmour blush, in this quietest of prodigals returns.
The Herald, February 11th 2013
ends

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Losing Touch With My Mind - Psychedelia in Britain 1986-1990

DISC 1 1. THE STONE ROSES   -  Don’t Stop 2. SPACEMEN 3   -  Losing Touch With My Mind (Demo) 3. THE MODERN ART   -  Mind Train 4. 14 ICED BEARS   -  Mother Sleep 5. RED CHAIR FADEAWAY  -  Myra 6. BIFF BANG POW!   -  Five Minutes In The Life Of Greenwood Goulding 7. THE STAIRS  -  I Remember A Day 8. THE PRISONERS  -  In From The Cold 9. THE TELESCOPES   -  Everso 10. THE SEERS   -  Psych Out 11. MAGIC MUSHROOM BAND  -  You Can Be My L-S-D 12. THE HONEY SMUGGLERS  - Smokey Ice-Cream 13. THE MOONFLOWERS  -  We Dig Your Earth 14. THE SUGAR BATTLE   -  Colliding Minds 15. GOL GAPPAS   -  Albert Parker 16. PAUL ROLAND  -  In The Opium Den 17. THE THANES  -  Days Go Slowly By 18. THEE HYPNOTICS   -  Justice In Freedom (12" Version) ...

Myra Mcfadyen - An Obituary

Myra McFadyen – Actress   Born January 12th 1956; died October 18th 2024   Myra McFadyen, who has died aged 68, was an actress who brought a mercurial mix of lightness and depth to her work on stage and screen. Playwright and artistic director of the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, David Greig, called McFadyen “an utterly transformative, shamanic actor who could change a room and command an audience with a blink”. Citizens’ Theatre artistic director Dominic Hill described McFadyen’s portrayal of Puck in his 2019 production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre in London as “funny, mischievous and ultimately heartbreaking.”   For many, McFadyen will be most recognisable from Mamma Mia!, the smash hit musical based around ABBA songs. McFadyen spent two years on the West End in Phyllida Lloyd’s original 1999 stage production, and was in both film offshoots. Other big screen turns included Rob Roy (1995) and Our Ladies (2019), both directed by Mi...

Andrew Midgley obituary

Born October 26th 1965 Died October 28th 2010 Andrew Midgley, who has died of a heart attack during a session in a Musselburgh gym aged forty-five, didn’t look like a pop star. Neither did this most garrulously playful of raconteurs particularly enjoy talking about his brief time in the charts during the early 1990s. Yet, while there was far more to this most singular of autodidacts, as one half of club-dance duo Cola Boy, Midgley caught the pop-rave zeitgeist with appearances on Top of the Pops performing the band’s infectiously catchy top ten hit, Seven Ways To Love. Even here, however, just as he would later apply diligence and care behind the scenes as a sub-editor on the Edinburgh Evening News, creating two of the funniest websites on the planet or managing an award-winning comedian, the man nicknamed ‘Boy Naughty’ preferred to stay in the background, allowing former Wham! backing singer turned Radio Two DJ Janey Lee Grace to bask in the day-glo spotlight of the period. Mid...