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NOISE POP CRYSTAL STILTS The Arches, Glasgow, Sun 27 Mar
‘It’s the morning, I’m at home in Brooklyn,’ informs JB Townsend, guitarist in ethereal noisemongers Crystal Stilts, ‘just watching a movie about a giant squid.’ Ah, the life of the between-albums alternative musician. Townsend’s band’s debut album Alight of Night was released in 2008 and it proved to be a slow-burn success, bringing him, co-founder Brad Hargett and the rest of the group acclaim in all the right places as spiritual heirs to the spaced-out dream pop sound of The Jesus and Mary Chain, Spacemen 3 and Cocteau Twins. Coming up in April, then, will be the quintet’s second
record In Love With Oblivion. ‘We started it about a year ago, and recorded it pretty much live here in Brooklyn at
a friend’s house,’ says Townsend, who produced the album with mixing help from a friend named Gary Olsen. ‘It’s similar in style to the first record, although then I played a lot of the instruments myself and now it’s more of a collaboration, so I guess the songs are a little more concentrated and less spacey. The one that stands out for me is the last one, ‘Prometheus at Large’, which is kind of Velvet Underground-sounding. We did it quickly at the last minute, so it was really spontaneous and fun.’
For a group who released their first album five years after they formed, they’re picking up the pace. Might we have to wait three years for the next album? ‘We actually have a lot of songs written already from the last session,’ Townsend says, ‘we’re definitely getting more prolific as we go on.’ (David Pollock) ■ In Love with Oblivion will be released on Mon 11 Apr on Fortuna Pop.
POP ROYALTY KYLIE SECC, Glasgow, Mon 28–Wed 30 Mar, supported by The Ultra Girls with the Manics’ James Dean Bradfield for her 1998 album, Impossible Princess. Channelling Barbarella on the video for hip-locking ballad ‘Put Yourself in My Place’ didn’t harm her cult credentials either.
Perhaps you have heard of Kylie Minogue. She is a dancefloor monarch: witness her signing to
She is a pop star first and foremost – you might say The Pop Star: an Australian singer, dancer and actor who has sold nearly 70 million records and reaped scores of global hits since her brilliant debut ‘I Should Be So Lucky’ in 1987.
clubland establishment Deconstruction in the early 90s; or her enduring, vintage floor-fillers such as ‘Spinning Around’ (2000) and ‘Can’t Get You Out of My Head’ (2001). She is a showbiz deity: her best friend is Joan Collins
Chronicling the titles of her 51 singles and 11 albums –
not to mention her collaborations with everyone from Jason Donovan to the Pet Shop Boys – would defy our given column inches, but among our timeless favourites were the soul-rock shimmy of ‘Some Kind of Bliss’ (1997); the bike shed anguish of ‘Hand On Your Heart’ (1989) or The Goldfrapp-does-INXS romp of ‘2 Hearts’ (2007). She is also an indie icon: Kylie dueted with Nick Cave on
‘Where the Wild Roses Grow’ (1996), and provided backing vocals for him on ‘Death is Not the End’, then collaborated
(according to celebrity tongue-wags), and her Twitter mates include Jake Shears, Boy George and Jane Fonda. She is Aphrodite herself – at least she is on the face of her
latest album and forthcoming tour: who are we to argue?
She should not be confused with Kylie Minoise – aka Glasgow-based sonic arsonist Lee Cummings. By virtue of their parallel names, however, you can trace La Minogue’s cultural influence as deep as the Central Belt underground noise scene. That’s the markings of a star, indeed. (Nicola Meighan)
Music PREVIEWS
Profile
JOHN GRANT From Denver, Ohio
Occupation From around 1994 to 2004, frontman of the dimly remembered but beloved by those who know them, Czars. Now an unexpected comeback king, with last year’s debut album under his own name Queen of Denmark (recorded with Texan indie-rockers and Bella Union labelmates Midlake as his backing band) earning Mojo magazine’s Album of the Year award. He must be pleased
Maybe not. ‘I wanted to kill myself last year more than I have in my entire life,’ Grant told The Independent’s Andy Gill earlier this year. Having semi-retired from the music business over the last few years, working in translation and waiting tables instead, Queen of Denmark is a work of catharsis which recalls the horror of growing up gay in smalltown America and the latter days of The Czars – a time when Grant had a bad drug problem and a habit for what he described to the Guardian last year as ‘dangerous sexual behaviour. There were people who’d only have sex with me if I smoked cocaine with them.’ Sounds pretty depressing.
It isn’t, at least not all of it. Just check out the fried barroom honky-tonk of ‘Chicken Bones (key lyric: ‘some days it’s just chicken bones / you better fuck off now / you better leave me alone’) or the bittersweet and nostalgic country psychedelia of ‘I Wanna Go to Marz’: Grant is a first-rate singer-songwriter first and foremost, otherwise why would we be so pleased to have him back? Listen to: Queen of Denmark by John Grant feat. Midlake, Goodbye by The Czars, The Ugly People vs the Beautiful People by The Czars (all on Bella Union). (David Pollock) ■ Liquid Room, Edinburgh, Wed 23 Mar.
3–31 March 2011 THE LIST 81