Festival Music
Telephone Booking Fringe 0131 226 0000 International Festival 0131 473 2000 Book Festival 0845 373 5888 Art Festival 0777 169 3470 PREVIEW BLAZIN’ FIDDLES New face among the fiddles
Blazin’ Fiddles first appeared on the Scottish folk scene for a series of concerts at the old Highland Festival a decade ago. They were supposedly only getting together as a one-off project, but proved such a success that they became a fixture. Duncan Chisholm left the original line-up early on, but the band otherwise remained remarkably stable given how busy they all are. Earlier this year they announced their first major personnel changes in over a decade. Fiddler Aidan O’Rourke decided to step down in order to concentrate on his other main project, the increasingly in-demand Lau, and guitarist Marc Clement also opted to focus on other projects.
The band moved quickly to secure a top-class replacement, and went for a musician who plays both guitar and fiddle. Multi-instrumentalist Anna Massie took her place alongside fiddlers Catriona MacDonald, Bruce MacGregor, Iain MacFarlane and Allan Henderson, and pianist Andy Thorburn in the new line-up in May. (Kenny Mathieson) ■ Brunton Theatre, 17 & 18 Aug, 7.30pm, £14.50 (£12.50); Queen’s Hall, 19 Aug, 10pm, £15 (£13).
PREVIEW KIM EDGAR Home-grown folk musician who is a rising star A fixture on the Edinburgh folk and acoustic scene for some time now, Kim Edgar received her big break when she won the chance to participate in the Burnsong ‘Songhouse’ retreat in 2006 alongside established songwriters like Emma Pollock, King Creosote and Squeeze’s Chris Difford. Participating in the Scottish tour that followed, Edgar is also part of The Burns Unit – the Scots
NEXT ISSUE OUT WEDNESDAY 19 AUGUST
PREVIEW THE JUAN MACLEAN New York house meets rock’n’roll by way of funk and post-rock uptown
With the temporary absence of LCD Soundsystem while James Murphy and co near the finish line of recording their third album (and not, as rumoured at one point, split up never to return), the next best alternative for fans of New York disco-punk might well be one of Murphy’s oldest accomplices on his DFA label. ‘I must have known James since the very early 90s,’
says John Maclean, otherwise known as the fulcrum of angular house-meets-rock’n’roll outfit The Juan Maclean. ‘He was our live sound engineer in my old band Six Finger Satellite, so when I left the band and started doing my own dance music programming, I went to James and Tim Goldsworthy’s studio in New York to finish off my first twelve inch. We were putting our heads together trying to figure out who should release it, and a few months later James and Tim just decided to put that
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twelve inch and some early Rapture stuff out themselves. That was the start of DFA Records.’
Maclean’s new album The Future Will Come is his second as The Juan Maclean, but the first since SFS’ Law of Ruins in 1998 to feature a full band (which now includes LCD’s Nancy Whang). ‘Even though we were on Sub Pop, the biggest independent label in the US,’ recalls Maclean, ‘I was just tired of having to navigate other personalities, so I quit and went off to be an English teacher. That’s why dance music was so appealing; I made my first album (2005’s Less Than Human) on my own in my home studio without having to rely on a band. The irony doesn’t escape me that I’m touring round with a group of people all over again, although as Six Finger Satellite we were a dark, angry bunch. It’s easier now; The Juan Maclean are basically just a collection of my friends.’ (David Pollock) ■ Sneaky Pete’s, 08444 999 990, 17 Aug, 7pm, £8.50. aslo at Optimo at the Sub Club, Glasgow, 0141 248 4600, Sun 16 Aug.