Under the Radar podcast #7

It was looking like it might never happen, but finally we have recorded our first podcast of 2010.

Two months away from the microphone has rendered some of our chat slightly nonsensical (what's new?), but the standard of music on this podcast is probably the best so far...

We were fans of The Japanese War Effort from the first time we saw him play at the erstwhile Bowery venue last year, and we open on 'Usain Bolt', taken from his new LP, I Will Leave You Now, And Two Loudspeakers Will Take My Place. The fastest man alive should be proud.

Another act to have graced this blog are The Unwinding Hours, the new band comprising one half of Aereogramme, and from their self-titled debut album we've chosen the spine-tinglingly epic 'Tightrope'.

We also turn our attention to this weekend's main event, the Fence Collective's annual Homegame festival in Anstruther, Fife. In anticipation of three days and nights of crammed pubs, fish suppers and maybe even the odd bit of music, we've got tracks from a trio of acts on this year's bill: Django Django, Findo Gask and Silver Columns.

And that's not all. There's more tuneage from the sickeningly talented Miaoux Miaoux and the ethereal Call To Mind (both of whom have new EPs on the way), as well as the obligatory 6 Music post-match analysis.

Hope you enjoy, and, as ever, let us know what you think below...

Play: Podcast #7


Running order:
00:00: The Japanese War Effort - Usain Bolt
04:04: The Unwinding Hours - Tightrope
08:58: Django Django - Storm
14:59: Findo Gask - Va Va Va
18:42: Silver Columns - Brow Beaten
25:10: Miaoux Miaoux - Dream On
34:02: Call To Mind - Breathe Pt. 1

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Podcast: Billy Hamilton, Nick Mitchell

Previous UtR podcasts

On the radar: Django Django

Django Django: Love's Dart


Even in our digitised world there hasn't been much in the way of biographical backstory to be gleaned by typing Django Django into your search engine of choice, save for an art-filled MySpace page, a stated admiration of Joe Meek and a loose Scottish connection. It would seem 'the band so good they named themselves twice' prefer to lay low.

But when I get in touch with drummer Dave MacLean to try and find out more about this elusive quartet I learn that he can physically do little else right now. "2010 is off to false start because I've been in bed the whole year so far with swine flu! But when I get back to London it's going to be very busy."

Like countless bands before them, three quarters of Django Django met at art school - in Edinburgh, to be precise - but it wasn't until they hit the Big Smoke that it started happening for them as a band.

"Edinburgh was great, it's a great city to be a student in," says Dave (who also goes by the DJ moniker Hugo Paris. "I always knew we would do the band thing properly but it took us years to get round to it. Somehow we all ended up moving to London for different reasons and the band gradually came together, starting off with Vinnie [Neff] and myself recording songs in my flat after work. We brought in Tommy [Grace] and Jim [Dixon] to go live and become a real band."

Together, the four sound like what might happen if you took the seeds of pop music to another planet and let them grow independently for a decade or two. That's not to make the grandiloquent claim that it's like nothing else ever recorded; rather that it's wide-ranging, not a little skewed, and mostly ignorant of current trends or fads.

Django Django: Storm


Take 'Storm', for instance. There's a hint of Spector Sound about the insistent, pitched drumbeat, a touch of 60s yé-yé in the jazzy guitars and a smidgen of the Beta Band's nonchalant croon in the vocals. Or 'Love's Dart', with its burnt wood guitar riff and clip-clop coconut rhythm, like the soundtrack to the weirdest western you've (n)ever seen. Or there's the thumping remix ('re-version' would be a better word) of Clock Opera's 'White Noise'.

But being hard to define, to sum up, is surely a good thing for a musician? "Yes I suppose it is," Dave says. "Again it's not something we've contrived, it's just that we're into loads of different styles of music so we draw influences from a pretty eclectic range of stuff. That tends to mean that each song sounds a bit different from the last but for us that's the fun of making music... seeing what you come up with next without worrying if it sounds like this or that."



Neither do they fret much about their identity, but despite the fact that they're now embedded in the east London scene, they still feel the pull of home. "My family are in Fife and Tommy's are in Edinburgh so we come back pretty regularly," Dave says. "London is great but for me and Tommy Scotland is our home and we'll end up back here. We've only done a couple of gigs north of the border but we're back up in March to play the Wee Red Bar in Edinburgh and Fence Homegame in Fife so we're looking forward to that."

First on Dave's to-do list for 2010 is shaking off his swine flu affliction, but looking farther ahead, he sees a busy agenda looming on the horizon. "First we're mastering the next single 'Wor' and getting that out," he says. "At the same time an American release of our first single is due out, then lots of gigs... we're off to SXSW which is great. Then when we're back we'll be concentrating on finishing the album. We also have some exciting remix projects on the go so we'll have to somehow find time for that... so it's shaping up to be a pretty busy year for us."

With the chatter about this eccentric act growing steadily, you might stumble across the words Django Django more and more. New bands take note: name yourself twice, and double the hype.

Words: Nick Mitchell

Django Django play the Fence Homegame and the Wee Red Bar, Edinburgh on 13 March.

Django Django: Skies Over Cairo

Editorial: The tipping point

If you're an avid consumer of music journalism you could be forgiven at this time of year for picturing every blogger and critic to look like John McCririck.

OK, maybe they don't look like the Ascot-frequenting eccentric, but they're all having a go at being excitable tipsters.

Perhaps the most high profile formcard for the year ahead is the BBC's Sound of 2010, which today crowned Ellie Goulding as the artist primed for stardom. Having already vented about the selection process behind their shortlist, I'll refrain from any more cynicism now, but the comment from Drunk Country on our original editorial is worth a read.

Over the festive period a few of our writers offered their own Scottish tips for 2010, but we have refrained from compiling a thorough run-down or poll of the most exciting acts of the moment.

Why? Because that's essentially what we've been doing for the past year anyway. The bands and artists we have profiled have been emergent by definition, the vast majority of them unsigned. If 2009 was the year of their formation, or the year they started gigging or self-released an EP, perhaps 2010 is the year they'll 'make it' - and I'll let you be the judge of what 'making it' entails.

Some of our choices from the class of 2009 - Withered Hand, North Atlantic Oscillation, There Will Be Fireworks, Copy Haho, Panda Su, to name a select few - are already growing their audience beyond the cosy confines of the Scottish scene. Others will undoubtedly come to nothing and fade back into obscurity. As any pundit will tell you though, that's the risk you take in this game.

But like everyone else, we can't resist the appeal of the crystal ball, so I'll add a few more new names that have recently appeared as blips on our collective radar:

Django Django
Nomogram
The Last Battle
Midnight Lion
miaoux miaoux
Three Blind Wolves (Ross Clark's renamed band)

Who are you tipping for 2010? Do you actually look like John McCririck? Let us know...