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PREVIEW ACID POP
ERRORS @ DUTY FREE
Sick Note @ Cabaret Voltaire, Edinburgh, Thu 26 Jun
Sunlight. oxygen. small blue pens from Argos . . . it's true that all the very best things in life are gratis. Add to that list the selection of no cost delights that is Duty Free. Cabaret Voltaire's grass roots championing music festival. which returns for its third annual stretch of on-the-house shows in the capital, in association with your favourite Glasgow and Edinburgh events bible. The List.
Twenty-four bands. ranging from Dundonian folk punks Luva Anna to Falkirk-based melancholic Americana dabblers Y'all ls Fantasy Island are confirmed across nine dates spread over four weeks at the Cab.
Standing out among the standouts will be Glasgow quartet Errors. whose mathematically minded mix of electronica. acid house. post-rock and pop has finally yielded a predictably brilliant. positively uncategorisable and bafflineg named debut album. It ’3 Not Something but it is Like Whatever, which was released early in June on Mogwai's Rock Action imprint.
Having Mogwai as their post-rock sugar daddies has presented all sorts of plusses for the band. as Errors' synth and programming man Simon Ward explains. 'They've always been good. getting money for tour support and stuff like that. which is especially good considering they're only a small label,‘ he says. ‘They're totally easy going guys — they didn't pressure us in any way. so we fannied about for three years.‘
Album sessions. at Castle of Doom studies with Mogwai guitarist John Cummings in the producer's chair. became so mind-warpingly involved that basic speech collapsed. the upside being the record's endearingly curious title. “It's just something someone said during mixing.‘ Ward reveals. 'It was at that pomt where it was like we‘d regressed into ape-like creatures who couldn't form sentences anymore. and everything we said came out in a mush.’
Ward gets a fix on his words long enough to pin down Errors' most genre-defying of sounds: “I'd like to describe it as acid pop but I'd probably be lying slightly.’ he says. ‘But maybe I'll say that anw/ay. because I like it. Acid pop crossed with something quite unhappy.‘ Free unhappiness — you can't say fairer than that. (Malcolm Jack)
PREVlEW ROCK/POP SERGEANT King Tut’s, Glasgow, Fri 20 Jun
‘I wasn't prepared for the sublime genius of Sergeant.' says Alan McGee. who believes the Glenrothes band is carrying on a great tradition of perfectly-crafted sunny Scottish pop songs. ‘They have that slight tinge of anxiety and excitement that makes a good song great and Will break any cynic's heart of stone.‘
Singer Nick Mercer admits that at first he worried that the music mogul would think he was ‘just a silly little kid that's in a band'. He graciously accepts the McGee seal of approval. 'lt's always nice when anyone likes your music. but when it's somebody of that calibre it really humbles yOu.'
It's not the only big name they've been attracting. recording their debut album with John Leckie at Abbey Road. tOuring with the likes of Supergrass and playing T in the Park and Glastonbury last year.
Nick adds that they've always had a serious work ethic. ‘We had that ambition from the moment we first started. There's no point doing it half- heartedly and we've always stood on Our own two feet.’
A fan of the Fife music scene. he praises the Fence Collective and says that locally there's a core of peeple
PREVIEW SHOEGAZE COMEBACK MY BLOODY VALENTINE Barrowlands, Glasgow, Wed 2 & Thu 3 Jul
There are some musical reunions the whole world wants to happen, and others that start out and then fall away without the populace paying the slightest bit of attention. Then there are comebacks like the one My Bloody Valentine will be embarking on later this month, where you’ve got to really care in order to care. MBV are an internationally admired and beloved group, but they retain the same cult status they fostered almost two decades ago with the classic Isn’t Anything and the entirely seminal Loveless.
One thing has changed, though. Where once MBV were the preserve of shabby young men who shuffled a dope-tagged way through their shows (hence the ‘shoegazing’ genre), there’ll be a lot more artistic young women at these gigs, who fancy themselves as photographers and misunderstood global adventurers.
Sofia Coppola saw to that when she hired MBV’s creative fulcrum Kevin Shields to soundtrack Lost in Translation.
Perhaps the reaction to the film’s triumphantly hazy soundtrack inspired Shields to reconvene Bilinda Butcher, Debbie Googe and Colm O’Ciosoig for tour and festival dates on both sides of the Atlantic this summer? But no one can really say as Shields isn’t doing interviews. After Loveless’ production allegedly almost bankrupted Creation Records and saw the group dropped by the label, Shields did spend the best part of the next decade writing and ditching new material in an effort to deliver a workable third album to the band’s new label, Island. After a couple of years spent moonlighting with Primal Scream earlier this decade, the mere fact that Shields and My Bloody Valentine have undertaken this reunion is probably the closest we’ll get to a renewed statement of intent. (David Pollock)
'who are always prepared to go out and see new. unsigned bands. It's a brilliant atmosphere.‘
So why should someone come down and check out Sergeant live? The fact that they're already part-way through the tour. the 23-year—old points out. means that ‘it's sounding pretty good. And it's getting better every single day.‘ (Emma Newlands)
lS) Jun-(l Jul 2008 THE LIST 69