Coffee-Table Notes

Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh Four stars “I’d like to welcome to the stage, Mike Heron and Samuel Beckett,” says Alex Neilson following a lull after the ever restless drummer introduced the now seventy-something former Incredible String Band icon as his special guest for the final song of a generation and genre spanning night. Named with a nod to Greek tragedy, Neilson’s latest incarnation casts himself as king, sporting a skeleton t-shirt while sat behind his drum-kit throne to declaim what he styles as ‘songs of love, loss and loathing’. By this time, a stripped-down Storm the Palace has opened the night with a magnificent fusion of Sophie Dodds’ flying-V guitar and Reuben Taylor’s accordion, with Dodds’ vocal at times resembling Dagmar Krause at her Brechtian best. This is followed by surprise guest, Aidan O’Rourke, from Lau, who gives what is quite possibly the first ever solo fiddle rendition of traditional folk tunes to grace the Sneaky Pete’s stage. O’Rourke calls upon Nei

Leith Theatre Neil Cooper Five Stars The Jarvis Cocker approved Extinction Rebellion stall outside Leith Theatre is doing great business before the man himself comes wiggling through the red mist, throwing shapes on a centre-stage platform like a living statue. With his backside stuck out, Cocker gazes into a mirror for the opening Pharaoh, his string-bean frame and 1970s perma-brown threads cast in a heroic hue. “Have you taken Leith of your senses?” Cocker asks wryly once he’s done by way of introduction to his latest concept. He quotes from Claude Debussy, born on the same date as the gig in 1862, and peppers his between-song banter with further bon mots from fellow celebrants, including Dorothy Parker, John Lee Hooker, Carson McCullers and Ray Bradbury. The glam racket of Further Complications gives way to the Can-like groove of Children of the Echo, the song’s mythological intent aided by the celestial backing vocals of harpist Serafina Steer and violinist Emma Sm

Leith Theatre Four stars When Sharon Van Etten plays a solo version of Sunshine on Leith mid-way through a set that mixes up the martial electronica of her recent Remind Me Tomorrow album with bar-room indie-rock confessionals, The Proclaimers’ anthemic lament prompts a mixture of noisy surprise, sing-a-long rapture and at least one grown man shedding a tear. Van Etten says that when she first heard the song growing up in New Jersey, it changed her life. Given the raw truth of pretty much everything she’s ever sung, there’s no reason to disbelieve this most honest of artists. She’d entered in darkness, her voice at odds with the brooding fizz of the opening Jupiter 4 and the industrial sturm und drang of Comeback Kid and No One’s Easy to Love. Only when she strapped on a red guitar for One Day from her 2010 Epic album could you hear her city cow-girl roots. Epic is a title which seemed to predict where Van Etten is at now. A slight but powerful presence, Van Etten has co