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
Dance this mess around
Neil Cooper on the unbearable lightness of being the B-52s – forty odd years hangin’ with the Deadbeat club.
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
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
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
Tracks of my tears
Simon Frith salutes a brilliant piece of music writing which returns the song to centre stage
A city of tears
Patrick Small is charmed by “The Possibilities are Endless”, a new documentary about Edwyn Collins