MUSIC | Previews 98 THE LIST 11 Dec 2014–5 Feb 2015
INDIE / COUNTRY FIRST AID KIT Usher Hall, Edinburgh, Mon 19 Jan
As teenagers in their native Stockholm, Swedish sisters Johanna and Klara Söderberg, discovered the Americana music of Gram Parsons, Bright Eyes and Fleet Foxes. It was their cover of the latter’s ‘Tiger Mountain Peasant Song’ in 2008 that brought them to the wider attention of the music world when the band posted it on YouTube. They followed it up with their debut album The Big Black & The Blue (2010) and support slots with Patti Smith, Jack White and their aforementioned heroes, Bright Eyes.
‘We were big fans of Conor Oberst [of Bright Eyes] for a really long time,’ says Johanna. ‘“Lua” was one of the first songs Klara ever learned on guitar. So when he played with Monsters of Folk in Sweden, we got to go backstage and gave Conor our first record. A year later we played in Austin and he came to our show and said he loved it, and we met [Bright Eyes / Monsters of Folk multi-instrumentalist / producer] Mike Mogis, and we asked if he wanted to produce our next record.’
2012’s The Lion’s Roar was a beguiling mix of Nordic folk, Scandinavian myths and country music with Mogis at the producer’s helm honing their eclectic influences. ‘Emmylou’ was named as one of the singles of the year by Rolling Stone and First Aid Kit went onto work with Oberst, on his solo album, and Jenny Lewis. Third album Stay Gold widens their scope adding a layer of strings from the Omaha Symphony Orchestra. It’s bigger, lusher and more expansive, boasting a richer depth of sound to their indie folk leanings. There’s a yearning soulfulness that adds an air of authenticity to their country laments. ‘On our other records, we wrote a lot about nature and fairytale-ish stuff,’ explains Johanna. ‘But if you listen to the lyrics on this one, you can tell it’s much more about us, more personal.’ (Henry Northmore)
LO-FI POP HALF MAN HALF BISCUIT Liquid Room, Edinburgh, Sat 31 Jan
We could fill this preview with wry titles from post-punk’s Half Man Half Biscuit alone. From the Birkenhead quartet’s 1985 debut album, Back in the DHSS, through some of their best-loved LP designates (1998’s Four Lads Who Shook the Wirral; 2005’s Achtung Bono; 2008’s CSI: Ambleside) not to mention their deadpan track names (‘Dickie Davies Eyes’, ‘Rod Hull is Alive – Why?’, ‘National Shite Day’), HMHB are indie kings of the kitchen sink moniker. Little wonder John Peel crowned them ‘a national treasure’.
Fronted by Nigel Blackwell, HMHB have peddled scrappy pop, raucous folk and lo-fi rock’n’roll vignettes since forming in 1984. Soon thereafter, they dispatched the droll poetics of ‘Venus in Flares’ (‘A million housewives every day / Pick up a can of beans and say / “What an amazing example of synchronisation”’), and 30 years later, they’re still on a roll: they’ve just released a new album, Urge for Offal.
Urge for Offal scraped the UK Album Chart Top 40, testifying to HMHB’s ongoing place in our indie hearts, and Blackwell nods to his down-home manifesto in one of the LP’s standout tracks, ‘Mileage Chart’ (‘In limiting my aspirations / a quiet happiness ensues / I never tried to reach for the stars / I never had platform shoes’). But then, HMHB were always wise as well as wry – and they often offered sage advice, as evinced by this 2002 titular wonder: ‘The Light at the End of the Tunnel (Is the Light of an Oncoming Train)’. (Nicola Meighan)
GERMAN ELECTRONICA APPRECIATION MUSIK / REISE Platform, Glasgow, Sat 10 Jan
Faust arguably set the template for the whole immersive living, band-as-commune, jamming- naked-in-the-kitchen thing when they encamped themselves in a house-cum-studio in rural Germany in 1970 and made some landmark recordings.
Communal living aside, little has changed for founder member Hans Joachim Irmler (pictured). ‘I’ve basically done the whole thing again,’ he laughs from Studio Scheer, his recently built, idyllic complex whose clients include To Rococo Rot and Berghain resident Marcel Dettmann as well as his own collaborations outside Faust. ‘For me, you have to be in a good environment to make good music.’ He holds the phone out the window. ‘Hear that? That’s the Danube.’
Offering more psychedelia than the blissed out motorik of Can, Neu and other acts now branded Krautrock (oh, they coined that term too), releases such as The Faust Tapes and Faust IV exhibit a Zappa-esque playfulness while simultaneously ripping up the rule book. Describing their own music as ‘stücke’ (pieces), Faust’s approach influenced many artists favouring mood over songs, making this upcoming one-off performance with members of Mogwai and the Phantom Band a unique chance to catch multiple generations of musicians exploring a similar territory. (Hamish Brown) ■ The event includes a collaborative set, an Irmler solo set, plus a Q&A / panel discussion on German electronica’s influence on Scotland and beyond.