MUSIC list.co.uk/music
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D U S D N C O N D R E N
HITLIST THE BEST ROCK, POP, JAZZ & FOLK
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K E R S T Y B O O N
✽ Pere Ubu The post-punk legends showed up recently on US telly, when
‘Road To Utah’ played in TV show American Horror Story: Freak Show. Catch them playing new stuff off recent album, Carnival of Souls. Voodoo Rooms, Edinburgh, Tue 18 Nov; CCA, Glasgow, Wed 19 Nov.
✽ The Drums The jangly Brooklyn surf-
poppers are back. The Art School, Glasgow, Thu 20 Nov.
✽ The Jesus And Mary Chain For some, Psychocandy’s up there with the best
Scottish albums of all time, and the Mary Chain are back to play it live. See preview, page 74. Barrowland, Glasgow, Fri 21 & Sun 23 Nov.
✽ Happy Meals Catch the makers of our
former album of the issue, Apero, louche Italo from Glasgow duo, Lewis Cook and Suzanne Roden.
With support from Ubre Blanca and Apostille. Banshee Labyrinth, Edinburgh, Sat 22 Nov.
✽ Alan Bissett: Desert Island Discs and Books An audience with the author/ playwright, on the records and books that have changed his life. Part of Book Week Scotland. The Glad Café, Glasgow, Wed 26 Nov.
✽ Neu! Reekie! An end of year bash that promises ‘a rich buffet of spoken word,
animation and music’, with Moon Hop DJs to get you up dancing. Pilrig St Paul’s Church, Edinburgh, Fri 28 Nov.
✽ Silver Apples Psychedelia from the New York stalwarts. Stereo, Glasgow, Fri 28
Nov.
✽ Metronomy Brighton remixer Joseph Mount and his band play breezy, intelligent
pop. O2 Academy, Glasgow, Thu 4 Dec.
13 Nov–11 Dec 2014 THE LIST 69
SHARON VAN ETTEN The prolifi c, slow-burn songstress heads for Glasgow
A lthough she’s four albums into a five- year recording career and the last of those records was released a full six months ago, it feels as though Clinton, New Jersey’s Sharon Van Etten has never been more popular than she is right now. The sense is that she’s one of those slow-burn artists who grafts in obscurity for a number of years, and when she hits, she hits slowly, and sinks deep. It’s no surprise that among her friends in her current home of Brooklyn she counts the National, fellow purveyors of hard-won majesty. Nick Cave is also a fan.
That record Are We There, released on Jagjaguwar in May, is a typically slow-burn beauty, and we’d stick out our neck by saying it’ll be near the top of many end-of-year charts. Mixing easygoing but emotionally intense MOR indie-rock with apparently nakedly autobiographical, country-tinged balladeering, it’s a direct descendent of Cat
Power in its sound and its scope. Moments of heavy emotional resonance are many, including ‘Your Love is Killing Me’s hollowed-out, last-legs grandeur and ‘Even When the Sun Comes Up’s eloquently faded hymn from the depths of the morning after. On both sides of the Atlantic it was a modest top 30 hit, several steps up from her National- featuring previous record Tramp in 2012. That and some tasty television appearances for the usual suspects give some idea of her trajectory, but it’s only in soaking up and growing to love her work – darkly driven by semi-autobiographical tales of abusive love, self-abuse and excess in the bad times, it’s been reported, but framed by a warm hope – that Van Etten’s raw femininity and ready to be realised potential will ring true. (David Pollock)
The Art School, Glasgow, Tue 25 Nov.