AUTUMN MUSIC PREVIEW
Giant Steps With her upcoming tour Little Boots faces the tough job of living up to a year’s worth of hype and anticipation. Claire Sawers finds her ready to face the music
the tunes. ‘I’m not a cutesy girl, I prefer that space-age vibe when I perform. I like that I can dress up in sparkly clothes and have a dance, but I can combine that with the mechanics of the music too.’ Little Boots plays the HMV Picture House, Edinburgh, Sun 25 Oct.
UP-AND-COMING Scottish Bands
The Twilight Sad, We Were Promised Jetpacks and Frightened Rabbit may be off on epic US adventures, but they’ve left an exciting autumn schedule of young, live Scottish music behind. First up are those acoustic affectionates Zoey Van Goey (Oran Mor, Glasgow, 18 Sep. Pictured), who bring their charms to one of their biggest crowds yet. Just as compelling are Stanley Odd, the Edinburgh based hip-hop collective who will be showing off some intelligent lyrics and refined beats (GRV, Edinburgh, 19 Sep).
Back to guitars, and Phantom Band kick up a storm at Oran Mor (Glasgow, 23 Sep). It’s where Aberdeen sorts, The Xcerts play too on 29 Sep, after shows at Fat Sam’s, Dundee (27 Sep) and the Tunnel, Aberdeen (28 Sep).
Hairy noisemakers Bronto Skylift take on the Central Belt (Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh, 30 Sep; Tolbooth, Stirling, 1 Oct; TBA, Glasgow, 2 Oct) before There Will Be Fireworks deliver something more ethereal (Classic Grand, Glasgow, 4 Oct; Cabaret Voltaire, Edinburgh, 6 Oct). Then it’s time for multinational sweethearts Sparrow and the Workshop (Cabaret Voltaire, Edinburgh, 7 Oct), before Dananananaykroyd (Oran Mor, Glasgow, 1 Nov) make sure October goes off with a pop. (Thomas Meek)
L ittle Boots is mid-fib when her phone signal cuts out. She’s on the motorway, heading towards the Reading Festival, and she is livening up her early morning interview by colouring in a few of her answers. She was just explaining where she got her tenori-on from – the Japanese instrument that looks like an Etch A Sketch covered in flashing lights. ‘I was on an island, digging this hole in the sand, when I saw some glowing lights. I kept digging, and was like, “Wow!” There it was, the tenori-on. I can totally understand why people take metal detectors down Blackpool beach.’
Little Boots, Boots, or Victoria Hesketh, depending on how well you know her, loves the idea that musical instruments are washed up on desert islands, and that pop stars come from outer space, just like Ziggy Stardust. It might not be as fun as the sci-fi version of her story, but the truth is she’s a 26- year-old girl from Blackpool who grew up reading fantasy novels, listening to Human League, and briefly singing in an electropop band called Dead Disco, before she got signed last year. She was hailed as the future of pop – winning the BBC Sound of 2009 Poll and a Brit nomination – before she’d even put a record out. A lot of the hype was created by a L a t e r . . . Wi t h Jo o l s H o l l a n d appearance where she sang a beautifully quirky version of her song ‘Meddle’, accompanied by stylophone, tenori-on and piano. Then there were the YouTube videos she made, in her pyjamas, singing Hot Chip, MGMT and Madonna covers in her bedroom.
6 OCT ALBUM
8 OCT 9 OCT
Air Love 2 Simian Mobile Disco
ABC, Glasgow
More electronic shocks than
ever from this dynamic
English duo, mostly thanks to their massive summer single ‘Audacity of Huge’.
The French duo have disappeared beneath the radar of late, now they’re ready to re-
establish themselves
as the
‘modern day French Pink
Floyd’.
24 THE LIST 10–24 Sep 2009
Jamie T Barrowland, Glasgow The Billy Bragg for the new generation, Mr T’s songs about love, life and fucking croissants have made him a young indie punk poster boy.
Compared with those DIY days, where twinkly keys and gadget geekery gave her sound a home- made, electronic charm, the slick synthpop and polished girlband beats of her first album, Hands sound light years away from well, a year ago. ‘I never wanted to do a Kate Nash,’ she points out. ‘I didn’t want to make something that sounded twee and DIY. My album was in production while I was making those videos. I’ve always loved the combination of sounds from the past and the future. I like that weird, futuristic mix of different kinds of technology.’ When she plays Edinburgh’s
Picture House next month, she’ll be bringing her tenori-on and a mini-theremin, plus a tambourine, cow bell and an ‘extended ravey’ version of her song ‘Mathematics’. ‘Live music should
be physical and visual, and let you get interactive with the crowd,’ she says. As a fan of Jean- Michel Jarre and Giorgio Moroder, she wants to have as much fun with the visual side as the beats.
‘We’re living in a digital age, and if you ignore that, you’re ignoring a gigantic part of culture.’ Like Kylie, Alison Goldfrapp or Lykke Li before her, her pop package is as much about the plaited hair and shiny frocks as
O C T O B E R
12 OCT ALBUM
12 OCT ALBUM
Editors In This Light And On This Evening
Described by the band themselves as ‘raw and anthemic’ they look to be going in a new direction, away from their black,
moody origins.
The Flaming Lips Embryonic
Rolling Stone magazine has described this double album release as ‘hairy
hippy exorcism’. Surely worth a listen for that alone.
19–20 OCT
Bat for Lashes O2 Academy Glasgow; HMV Picture House,
Edinburgh Brighton’s own queen of quirk
brings her winsome pop experiments to
bear.