Dance this mess around

Neil Cooper on the unbearable lightness of being the B-52s – forty odd years hangin’ with the Deadbeat club.

Take 5

James Metcalfe chooses his favourite records. By Hugo Fluendy

Take 5

Comacat choose their favourite records. By Hugo Fluendy

Alex waespi arlo

Take 5

Arlo Parks chooses the songs that influenced her

Take 5

Paul Research on his most loved records. By Hugo Fluendy

Take 5

Robert Anderson chooses his favourite songs. By Hugo Fluendy

Take 5

Callum Easter chooses his favourite records. By Hugo Fluendy

Take 5

Dot Allison chooses her favourite songs. By Hugo Fluendy

Take Five

Oliver Kass chooses his favourite songs. By Hugo Fluendy

Take me to the river

Vashti Bunyan fled the 1960s music business to roam Britain on a horse and cart, leaving behind an album of such intense beauty that it became an international cult hit 30 years later. Sylvia Patterson welcomes back folk’s most talented absentee

Take Five

Keith Farquhar chooses his favourite songs. By Hugo Fluendy

Take five

Law Holt choose her favourite songs. By Hugo Fluendy

Take 5

Pretty Preachers Club choose their favourite songs. By Hugo Fluendy

Take 5

Dave MacLean of Django Django chooses his favourite songs. By Hugo Fluendy

Take 5

Kirsten Adamson chooses her favourite songs. By Hugo Fluendy 

Jah Wobble

Jah Wobble & Invaders of the Heart @Bongo Club, Edinburgh
April 26. By Neil Cooper

Candy Opera

As Candy Opera release their debut album after 35 years in the wilderness, Neil Cooper talks about life in the 1980s with Liverpool’s great lost band

Take Five

Vic Galloway chooses his favourite songs. By Hugo Fluendy 

Take 5

Paul Vickers chooses his favourite songs. By Hugo Fluendy

Edwyn Collins

Simply thrilled honey

From “Falling and Laughing” to “Dilemma” Alistair Braidwood delights in the music of Edwyn Collins

Take 5

Andrew Loog Oldham chooses the songs that influenced him          By Hugo Fluendy

Take 5

Jill O’Sullivan chooses the songs that influenced her

cloth music

Take five

Cloth guitarist Paul Swinton on the songs that influenced him

Decades

Joy Division were on the cusp of mainstream success forty years ago. Neil Cooper looks at how they conquered the world

Psychadelic Furs

All of this and nothing

Sarah Busby on innocence, idealism and her first love: the Psychedelic Furs

Fire Escape in the sky

Did a percipient Scouse maverick secure Scott Walker’s place in pop history? asks Neil Cooper

Soldier -Talk

Neil Cooper unearths The Red Crayola’s great lost album and post-punk’s missing link

Checkmate Savage

The Phantom Band’s genre defying debut is as thrilling as the day it was released in 2009, writes Neil Cooper

Rip it up

Scotland has a richly diverse and inventive musical history from Lonnie Donegan to Young Fathers. Test your Scottish pop knowledge in our quiz

Kathleen Hanna (right) singing live with Bikini Kill in the early '90s.

We love you

In the first of a series of letters to artists who inspired them, author Kirsty Logan salutes singer Kathleen Hanna.

Just like gold

No-one writes love songs like Roddy Frame.Alistair Braidwood hails Scotland’s most articulate and hopeful romantic

Denise Johnson

Ahead of two Scottish dates, velvet-voiced soul singer Denise Johnson talks to Neil Coooper about her new album of acoustic covers of Manchester bands

Hip priest

Neil Cooper on four decades of the contrary, belligerent and brilliant Mark E Smith

Lux Lives!

Nine years since he left the party, an exuberant annual celebration of the Cramps’ colourful frontman is still in full swing, writes Paul Robinson

Adventures close to home

Alistair Braidwood talks to Viv Albertine, legendary guitarist with pioneering all-girl group the Slits.

Bdy-Prts

@Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh.
December 2nd. By Neil Cooper

Faust

@Summerhall, Edinburgh. November 29. By Neil Cooper

Pussy Riot

Pussy Riot Theatre: Riot Days. @Glasgow Art School. Nov 21. Review by Neil Cooper

Wire

@Mash House, Edinburgh. Monday November 6. Review by Neil Cooper

Beyond Rock and Roll

Neil Cooper on the tireless invention of post punk visionary Vic Godard

Michael Head and the Red Elastic Band

@Oran Mor, Glasgow. October 5. By Neil Cooper

Sing choirs of angels

Communal singing is uplifting and radical, veteran post punk Boff Whalley tells Neil Cooper

Room 29

@King’s Theatre, Edinburgh. August 24. By Neil Cooper

Jenny Hval

@ Summerhall. August 20th. Review by Neil Cooper

Live review

Very Cellular Songs – The Music of The Incredible String Band. Playhouse, Edinburgh. By Neil Cooper

Live review

PJ Harvey: The Hope Six Demolition Project. Playhouse, Edinburgh. By Neil Cooper

Here comes the summer

Neil Cooper on the year’s most unashamedly joyous record

Hope and despair

The Glasgow-based chanteuse has produced a remarkable treatise on love, loss and redemption, writes Alistair Braidwood

Here comes the sun

Sound of Yell’s third release is a woozy slice of summer joy, writes Neil Cooper

Live Review

F For Fake – The Secret Goldfish, Spectorbullets, The Sexual Objects. Wee Red Bar, Edinburgh, June 24. By Neil Cooper

Live Review

Japanese New Music Festival, Summerhall, Edinburgh. Sunday June 18th. By Neil Cooper

Live Review

Damo Suzuki’s Network, Mash House, Edinburgh, Scotland. By Neil Cooper

Album review

Indie-pop survivors resurface with a record rich in off-kilter charm, writes Neil Cooper

Album review

Former Soup Dragon returns with a second instalment of inspired dance floor euphoria, writes Neil Cooper

Billy Wilder

Arch,camp and supremely talented, Billy Mackenzie would have been sixty this week. Graham Domke celebrates Scotland’s Scott Walker

Here comes the sun

Product writers choose their favourite summer songs to brighten the darkest sky

Pick up the pieces

Neil Cooper  on a new collection of instrumentals exploring the shadows of Dundee’s changing urban landscape

Here come the men in pants

Neil Cooper on the return of the lustrous Special Love

Live Review

Public Service Broadcasting: The Race for Space Live. Usher Hall, Edinburgh. By Neil Cooper

Album review

Glasgow’s talented all girl gang banish twee with a soaring fusion of indie and bubblegum, writes Neil Cooper

Album review

Creeping Bent stalwarts return with a sublime collection of shimmering indie pop, writes Neil Cooper

Live Review

Karate Priest, Rhubaba, Leith. By Hugo Fluendy 

Live Review

Mick Harvey, Summerhall, Edinburgh. By Neil Cooper

Album review

Ex-Banshee releases another slice of bass-heavy ambient exploration, writes Neil Cooper

Radio Days

Neil Cooper talks to Johny Brown about adapting Bill Drummond’s plays for radio 

Flowers in the dustbin

Neil Cooper on a thunderous EP from the Blue Orchids’ latest incarnation

Power couple

Neil Cooper on two fine new releases shot through with inventive exuberance

Power in the darkness

Neil Cooper meets Syd Shelton, chronicler of  the seminal ’70s Rock Against Racism campaign with new relevance for today’s protest movement

Album review

Neil Cooper finds hidden depths in a thrillingly contemporary folk album

Live review

Pet Shop Boys, The Playhouse, Edinburgh. By Neil Cooper

 

Album review: Usurper

Neil Cooper gets lost on a sonic safari of bizarre out takes and playful hidden meanings

Live review

Julian Cope, La Belle Angele, Edinburgh. By Neil Cooper

Live review

Slapp Happy with Faust, Cafe Oto, London. By Neil Cooper

 

Wild at heart

The Glasgow garage schlock meisters’ latest is shot through with attitude, musical nous and invention, writes Neil Cooper

Live Review

Future Get Down: Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh. By Hugo Fluendy

Album review: Culver

Neil Cooper on a thunderous, genre-defying epic

Album review: Blurt

The raw power of this abstract-expressionist art troupe is captured live, writes Neil Cooper

Lost in music

Daniel Patrick Quinn’ s return is full of brilliant quixotic invention, writes Neil Cooper

Still waters

Lomond Campbell’s epic debut captures the redemptive power of  nature, writes Neil Cooper

Album Review: Rothko

Bass takes centre stage in this starkly beautiful collection, writes Neil Cooper

Pure genius

Neil Cooper on an inspired send off from one of Scotland’s most inventive duos

Album Review: Jazzateers

Neil Cooper on a sparkling collection from the lost band of the Postcard era

Hop til you drop

This collection of  joyously eclectic dancefloor fillers celebrates a much-loved club, writes Neil Cooper

The heart will not retreat

Neil Cooper salutes the stark beauty of Leonard Cohen’s work

Bonus of youth

Neil Cooper finds The Male Nurse compilation full of offbeat charms

Louder than bombs

Neil Cooper on the new album by Scotland’s slow core poets

Light in the north

Band of Holy Joy: A Plain Cookery Book for the Working Classes. Reviewed by Neil Cooper

Among the roses

Neil Cooper is enchanted by the The Rebel’s latest offering Clear & Lies in June

Ghosts in the machine

Allan Brown suspects his iPod Randomiser knows a little more than it should

Gimme some truth

Neil Cooper on a remarkable musical elegy to those lost in the Lockerbie tragedy

The real hip hop is over here

Scottish hip  hop eclipses even its US major label counterparts, writes Peter Burnett

Timeless tonight

A retrospective Boots for Dancing collection may finally give the long lost funk-punk pioneers the recognition they deserve, writes Neil Cooper

Top Ten Club

Neil Cooper picks his favourite songs by bands from Liverpool, first city of pop

Yester day once more

As Belle and Sebastian celebrate twenty years since the release of TigermilkNeil Cooper toasts a summer of musical milestones

Super 8

Neil Cooper on the welcome return of Robert King, onetime frontman of Scottish postpunk band Scars

Female power

Lilly Markaki talks to P H O E N E, organiser of tonight’s all female Bossy Love aftershow

Forever changes

Neil Cooper talks to Michael Head about survival and the redemptive joy of songwriting

Top Ten Club

Chris Fast picks his favourite post punk singles

The only fun in town

Neil Cooper talks to WHITE frontman Leo Condie about post punk hooks, disco pop grandeur and the art of flamboyant performance

Still crazy

This Heat split in 1982, but their records influenced some of the most inventive alternative musicians who followed. Neil Cooper caught the improv kings’ live return as This Is Not This Heat at Café Oto