BIG BREAK A guide to the unsigned Scottish bands playing this year’s Tennent’s T-Break stage. Who knows where it’ll take them? Both Paolo and Biffy started off play- ing there, and now they’re back headlining the festival . . . Words: David Pollock
IF YOU LOVE GUITARS . . . . . .
BLOOD RELATIVES ‘Sunny pop from a rainy city’ is how Glasgow’s Blood Relatives (above, right) bill themselves, and we wouldn’t disagree. Last year’s debut album, Deerheart revealed a group whose revelling in the jangly C86 sound is tempered by some urgent rhythms and a strong Caledonian voice from singer Anna Meldrum.
MEDICINE MEN The only group who appear to have no public online proi le to speak of, certainly in so much as we can hear their music, Glasgow’s Medicine Men are described by T-Break themselves as a fusion between LCD Soundsystem, Death in Vegas and the Chemical Brothers. Which sounds great if true.
MODEL AEROPLANES The quartet from Dundee have past form for getting into these kind of things, having impressed the right people with their demo last year and earned a place on the BBC Introducing stage. Here they return with more hook-laden, rhythm- heavy indie-pop in the vein of Vampire Weekend. TEENCANTEEN Based in Edinburgh, all-female indie quartet TeenCanteen have mustered some amount of goodwill locally in the last few months, not least on the back of a strong and varied sound which accumulates the apparent inl uences of the Go-Gos, C86 indie-pop and 1960s ‘girl groups’.
THE MOON KIDS Straight outta Dunfermline, psych-pop quartet the Moon Kids bow to a familiar set of inl uences, but they do so in the right manner at least, writing compelling hooks and songs which go places rather than mooching around the same old ground. As far as listening to the internet tells us, they’re big fans of the La’s. TUFF LOVE One of Scotland’s ‘bands most likely to’ should be a highlight of the T-Break stage this July, as the two-girl, one-boy contingent of Lost Map signees Tuff Love wonderfully recreate the dreamy shoegaze meets indie-rock sound of the late 80s. The Caledonian Warpaint? No, much better than that.
FOR SOMETHING TO ROCK OUT TO . . . DEATHCATS Racketous Glasgow trio whose sound – pure pop choruses, lo-i punk clatter – recalls a kind of Scots Ramones, even as they write frantic tributes to the clod- hopping merits of ’Enders wide-boy Danny Dyer and proudly announce on Facebook that Fugazi are the only band they like.
FAT GOTH Three albums into their career and already approved by the likes of Kerrang and The Guardian, Dundonian trio Fat Goth (not fat, possibly goths in a past life) are satisfyingly shrieky rockers. Fun fact: the artwork for their last album was created by the Jesus Lizard’s David Yow.
SCARY PEOPLE Five Dundonians formed around the duo of sometime-tour techs Ross Farquhar and Scott Anderson, who got together so they could support the View in their shared home city. Loud, fuzzy and equipped with a certain gothic edge, i le them alongside Queens of the Stone Age or thereabouts. ➾
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boy (and Speedway roadie) Nutini, then 15, was goaded into singing over Elton John’s ‘Your Song’, and swiftly charmed the crowed, including one Brendan Moon, who became his manager and signed him up with Atlantic records.
Early releases: Nutini released a bona i de contemporary-soul classic in his debut single, ‘Last Request’ (2007) – a timeless, ragged bruised-pop ballad which has driven your correspondent to entirely uncalled-for karaoke shame on more than one occasion. Latest antics: Nutini’s third album, Caustic Love, is cause for celebration – a woozy, vintage R&B thrill – as is our gravelly charmer’s predilection for covering Chvrches’ ‘Recover’ live.
Collaborations: He’s sung with Quincy Jones, Herbie Hancock and the Rolling Stones, with whom he once rehearsed in a Travelodge. He’s played with Led Zeppelin. And R&B cosmic voyager Janelle Monae raps through ‘Fashion’ on his latest album. Controversies: One of Nutini’s lesser- known country-blues chorales is entitled, ‘The Sun Can Kiss My Arse’ – a song he debuted at T in the Park in 2007, and dedicated to a certain tabloid newspaper. Sunny side up, indeed.