
Let all the children boogie
Neil Cooper tries to work out what Bowie meant to him

Star Man
Lisa Locascio salutes the artist who enraptured and empowered her

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
Arlo Parks chooses the songs that influenced her

Take 5
Jill O’Sullivan chooses the songs that influenced her

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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


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 Tigermilk, Neil 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

Yellow pearl
The first seven inch from Jim Lambie’s label is slightly bonkers but irresistable, writes Neil Cooper

Bitches Brew
The third installment of a celebratory showcase of Scotland’s virtuoso female jazz players takes place tonight, writes Neil Cooper

Urban shuffle
Hilarious, profound, prolific and uncategorisable, Giant Tank are an underground treasure, writes Neil Cooper

More Viking than you
Haftor Medbøe and friends have created a fearsomely fine album, writes Neil Cooper

Bells from the deep
Golden Teacher have collated their first three storming singles into one glorious disc, writes Neil Cooper

Style in full swing
In the third part of his sleevenotes to the new Boots for Dancing compilation, Neil Cooper looks at the band’s timely embrace of funk

Just the ticket
In the second part of his sleevenotes to the new Boots for Dancing compilation, Neil Cooper traces the band’ s roots

Let them in
Martin Creed’s succinct protest songs bely a hefty emotional power, writes Neil Cooper

Leaders of the pack
Teen Canteen reprise a timely, all-star benefit gig for Scottish Women’s Aid, writes Neil Cooper

The filth and the fury
Uncompromising, inventive and oppositional, Sleaford Mods provide a perfect soundtrack to the age of austerity, writes Neil Cooper

When we ruled the school
Alistair Braidwood is charmed by Stuart David’s typically-understated memoir of the early days of Belle and Sebastian

Lost classics
Samantha Jones’ second single is a peerless piece of gutsy ’60s melodrama, writes Neil Cooper

The day the music died
A manuscript of original lyrics to Don McLean’s epic American Pie was recently auctioned in New York. Simon Warner explores the backdrop to the song’s conception and the hidden meanings behind its much-coveted words