Coffee-Table Notes

Voodoo Rooms, Edinburgh, 4 May 2008 Without British Forces radio, Ulrich Schnauss’s brand of transcendent electronica wouldn’t be quite so lovely. In early 90s small-town Germany, it was the only way quintessentially English bands such as Ride, My Bloody Valentine and other purveyors of insular, FX pedal heavy, drone-based whimsy laden with the derogatory Shoegazing tag could be heard. “I always liked music that takes you to another place,” says Schnauss on the eve of a European tour that takes in his first ever Edinburgh date. “I used music as a way of escape.” His own output suggests likewise. Schnauss’ first two albums, Far Away Trains Passing By and the sublime A Strangely Isolated Place, fused laptop-generated melodies with the sort of dense guitar washes Schnauss absorbed in his youth. Last year’s Goodbye took such ethereal obsessions to their logical limit. “I’ve fallen in love again with more pure electronic things,” says Schnauss, who moonlights as keyboardist with Long

The Lot, Edinburgh November 14 2007 Neil Cooper 3 stars “Fucking technology, eh?” spits drummer Stu Ritchie by way of an abrupt end to a mid-set melodica-led number, shattering the chummy mood of this launch gig for Trianglehead’s just-released second album, Exit Strategy. The outburst over in an instant, the Edinburgh-based trio re-convene their meeting of Paul Harrison’s wiggy electric keyboards, Martin Kershaw’s airy sax and Ritchie’s driving Downtown drums they’ve been manning since 2004. While there’s not much in the way of edge, Trianglehead nevertheless pursue an eclectic array of moods and tones which occasionally squelches into part Fusion groove, part Nordic flightiness. More reflective tunes drift off in several directions at once before jump-jacking back onto the same route with a polite kind of fury before a partisan crowd. Guitarist Graham Stephen, who played earlier with the equally inventive Newt, joins them for the final number, the most choppily exploratory of

Old St Paul’s Church Hall, Jeffrey St, Edinburgh, Oct 12 2007 A tracer trail is the streak of light left behind by a speeding bullet. It’s also the name of the micro cottage industry who’ve consistently promoted some of the most charming live shows in Edinburgh over the last year. To celebrate, a very special anniversary do will feature ex Appendix Out frontman Alasdair Roberts supported by PuMajaW, the spectral collaboration between vocalist Pinkie Maclure and John Wills, formerly of proto-shoegazers Loop, alongside DJs from Tracer Trails equally hand-knitted kindred spirits from Beard fanzine. With previous shows having featured the likes of Jeffrey Lewis and all manner of sensitive troubadour types from the more melodic end of the current wave of alt-folk-pop-whatever, the emphasis of Tracer Trails is on the low-key. ““I don’t know if we achieve it,” chief Tracer Trail Emily Roff admits, “but I think there are people looking for more of an event. We’ve no ethos as such, other

Henrys Cellar Bar Tuesday November 15 2007 4 stars The name is misleading. Because, rather than some mellowed out, magic-carpet-riding, back-packer-eyed mystics as may be implied, this bi-aural, bi-lingual, buy-now-while-stocks-last quartet are up-tight, in-tense and simmering with enough evil stares you sense they might give you a semiotics lecture any minute. With a frontman who’s a dead ringer for original PiL guitarist Keith Levene sneering like a corrupted Little Lord Fauntleroy throwing Howard Devoto shapes, and at least two veterans of 1990s agit-punx Badgewearer in the ranks, this Edinburgh/Marseille/Droitwich (the most important brine and salt town in England) ensemble fly like antsy, dancey quicksilver. Driven by a tautly plucked bass sound not heard since John Peel circa (but not C) ’86, the barricades are there for the taking, whatever it is they’re against. Think McCarthy, The Cravats and The Prefects. Think Biting Tongues before the new-generation turned post-punk-fu

Sneaky Pete's, Edinburgh, Monday May 23rd 2011 The Nightingales are what happens to 1970s-sired latch-key kids if you leave them alone with a CD of Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica, a DVD of The Wheeltappers and Shunters Social Club and the Bumper Book of Existentialism For Boys. After more than thirty years in the saddle, with only occasional sojourns into solo careers and Svengali-ing long-lost girl band We've Got A Fuzzbox and We're Gonna Use It for distraction, one-time John Peel stalwarts live experience is an intense and relentless chug of skewed meat n' two veg avant-garage-punk laced with vocalist and wordsmith Robert Lloyd's very English absurdist world-view of how (post) modern life is rubbish. Think Pere Ubu if they'd grown up in the shadows of Birmingham's Bull Ring rather than the Flats in Cleveland. Since reforming in 2004, The Nightingales have pretty much picked up where they left off, with three albums and another pe

When David Shrigley spoke in 2010 about how the arts institutions in Glasgow were crucial to his creative development, he may have been bemoaning the impending threat of arts cuts, but it nevertheless spoke volumes about where art education really happens. As this year's art school graduates prepare to display their wares in degree shows at Glasgow School of Art and Edinburgh College of Art, perhaps its worth taking stock of how the schools help young artists to find their voice. Especially in a climate where two graduates of GSA's Masters of Fine Art Course, Karla Black and Martin Boyce, have just been shortlisted for the 2011 Turner Prize. This on top of their presence representing Scotland in the Venice Biennale, Boyce in 2010, with Black picking up the mantle this year. This too given that previous Turner winners such as Douglas Gordon (1996), Simon Starling (2005) and Richard Wright (2009), and nominees including Jim Lambie (2005), Nathan Coley (2007) and Lu

Exposure Tenniscoats Who are Tenniscoats? They're a charming Japanese duo made up of real life couple Saya and Ueno Takashi, who over the last decade have released eight albums albums of their prolific songsmithery as well as playing with fellow travellers Maher Shalal Hash Baz and others in the fecund Japanese alt-pop scene. And what do they sound like? Think stripped-down indie-folk whimsy, gently lilting female vocals and a set of organically generated miniatures that may be fragile in construction, but which never fail to captivate. Music to swoon to, basically. But quietly. And what's the Scottish connection? Well, the Takashis have been regular visitors here ever since they bumped into Glasgow's uber-DIY veterans and long-time supporters of Japanese pop The Pastels, later playing with them at the much missed Triptych festival and collaborating on the 'Two Sunsets' album in 2009. Prior to this, they took part in a Scottish Arts Council