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‘I WANTED TO KEEP IT NATURAL AND CAPTURE THE PERFORMANCE’ Hitlist THE BEST ROCK, POP, JAZZ & FOLK*
Dot Allison: best kept secret
✽✽ Tinchy Stryder Perfect warm-up for the forthcoming MOBOs as the modern face of UK urban music heads to Glasgow. The Garage, Glasgow, Tue 22 Sep. (Rock & Pop) ✽✽ Cocoon Counter Culture Weekender Two day celebration of post-rock and experimental music all headlined by Jesu and Crippled Black Phoenix. The GRV, Edinburgh, Sat 12 & Sun 13 Sep. (Rock & Pop) ✽✽ Steel Panther Are you ready to rawwwk? Comedy glam metal troupe who put the cock back into rock. The Garage, Glasgow, Tue 15 Sep. (Rock & Pop) ✽✽ Coldplay and Jay-Z and The final huge stadium gig of 2009 as Chris Martian calls in a few favours from his pals for particularly impressive support from hip hop royalty Jay-Z, so make sure you get there early eh? Hampden, Glasgow, Tue 16 Sep. (Rock & Pop) ✽✽ Gang of Four Post-punk heaven as pioneers of the scene play their Entertainment album. HMV Picturehouse, Edinburgh, Fri 18 Sep, ABC, Glasgow, Sat 19 Sep. (Rock & Pop) ✽✽ Stereo Open Day Wallow in the best live music and DJs Scotland has to offer for a full day of sonic pleasure at the hands of Correcto, Jacob Yates, DeSalvo, Fox Gut Daata and many more. Stereo, Glasgow, Sat 19 Sep. (Rock & Pop) ✽✽ Islay Jazz Festival The Isle of Islay gets down to the sounds of jazz as local distilleries, hotels and even the RSPB are taken over by this annual three-day festival. Acts include Trygve Seim, Frode Halti, Alan Barnes, Subie Coleman and more. Various venues, Islay, Fri 11 Sep- Sun 13 Sep. (Jazz)
Circle of friends After collaborations with Massive Attack, Dot Allison’s latest pairing with Peter Doherty and Paul Weller looks set to bear fruit, as she tells Doug Johnstone
T here can be few better kept secrets in music than Dot Allison. The Edinburgh-born singer songwriter has been involved in exciting new music for over 15 years, collaborating with all kinds of artists as well as producing four acclaimed solo albums, and yet she could easily still walk down Princes Street without anyone batting an eyelid.
In the past Allison has acted as muse for the likes of Massive Attack, Arab Strap, Slam, Death in Vegas and more recently Peter Doherty, lending her distinctive breathy vocals to a wide range of musical styles and situations.
And her love of collaboration continues with her latest solo outing, Room Seven and a Half, which not only features duets with Paul Weller and Doherty, but also boasts backing by a collection of ex-Bad Seeds. The album was produced by Rob Ellis, best known for his work with PJ Harvey, and Allison was keen to echo the sound of Harvey’s work.
‘I wanted to keep it quite natural sounding and capture the performance of the songs,’ she says. ‘Not have it processed too much, make it warm and beautifully recorded. Half the battle is working with people who you know you have shared reference points with. The guys on this record were all very sensitive players and people, so I was halfway there.’ Room Seven and a Half is certainly Allison’s most natural-sounding record. From her early days with influential Scottish proto-indie-dance outfit One Dove, who received critical acclaim for their trippy, blissed-out comedown tunes, and through her solo career, she has tended towards heavily produced beats
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and sounds. But all that’s stripped away in the new record, which is as honest a depiction of her songwriting skills as she’s ever delivered. The presence of Doherty (who she’s been romantically linked with in the past) and Weller stick out in this environment, but Allison sticks by her collaborative leanings. ‘I love collaborating, I find you learn a lot from those experiences,’ she says. ‘And there’s something much more fun about being in a gang.’
And that extends to live shows, too. In the past, Allison has regularly turned up on stage with Doherty to sing with him, and she’ll be stepping out on joint dates with the man and his band on her forthcoming tour. ‘Yeah, we keep voting with our feet and going back to doing something together,’ she says. ‘I’ve got a lot of respect for him as a person and as an artist. He’s a really interesting person to be around. We are friends; he seems to have a group of people around him that he trusts. He’s very loyal in that way.’ With a couple of horror movie soundtracks in the pipeline and more collaborations planned, Allison is anything but resting on her laurels, but for now she’s just happy to have the new album done and dusted, and is itching to get on the road. ‘It’s always great to communicate with people, that’s always the driving force for my music,’ she says. ‘As for the album, you just have to let it go out there and see what happens.’
Room Seven and a Half is out now; Dot Allison plays Barrowland, Glasgow with Peter Doherty, Wed 23 Sep.