Radar recommends: 27 Feb - 5 March

[Copy Haho: gigging across Scotland this week]

Plan your gig-going with our pick of the week's finest live music nights...

The best...

James Yorkston & the Athletes, The Phantom Band, Alasdair Roberts Trio, Remember Remember
Saturday @ Platform, Glasgow / 7.30pm / £5 (£3)
Forget those woolly jumper clad men with acoustic guitars. No, folk music's cool these days. Just look at this line-up, where Fence troubadour Yorkston shares a billing with Rock Action upstart Remember Remember.

Futuristic Retro Champions, Skitten, Ace City Racers
Saturday @ The 13th Note, Glasgow / 9pm / £tbc
The 'Champs, who also play Edinburgh this week (see below) launch their new EP at this gig. The CDs are apparently designed to look like coloured vinyl, so it's like retro does retro really. Curious? Read an interview with the band here.

White Noise: Dead Boy Robotics, Futuristic Retro Champions
Wednesday @ Electric Circus, Edinburgh / 8pm / £tbc
Chalk and cheese this one, but none the worse for it. Pulsating shards of electronics and drums from duo DBR, while FRC use synths for more poppy pursuits.

The Mill: Stanley Odd, S.Kay
Thursday @ Cabaret Voltaire, Edinburgh / 7pm / Free but ticketed
Just this week we lauded Stanley Odd's "thrilling blend of hip hop, indie and funk", and, as if on cue, they appear for a show at The Mill. Are we arbiters of taste or what? (Don't answer that.)

Copy Haho, eagleowl, Debutant
Friday @ Sneaky Pete's, Edinburgh / 7pm / £5
Copy Haho also play The Tunnels, Aberdeen on Thursday
Surely the Holy Grail of gig quests this. Why? Not one, not two, but three UtR-featured bands on one bill. So if you don't enjoy at least one then you'd be well within your rights to advise the PCC to shut us down.

John Knox Sex Club
Thursday @ Nice'n'Sleazy, Glasgow / 9pm / £tbc
Thursday's a sexy day, get your best undies on and head to this party. Have a wee read about your saucy hosts here.

Tango in the Attic
Friday @ Harley's Bar, Bathgate / 8pm / £tbc
Tango and Cash + Cash in the Attic = Tango in the Attic. In reality, this Glenrothes band make fun, upbeat indie-pop.

Local Natives, Peggy Sue
Friday @ King Tut's, Glasgow / 8.30pm / £9
Folking rock again (yes, that is a sweary pun - the best sort). Think Fleet Foxes with ADHD, bright and poppy. With Peggy Sue minus the Pirates it seems.

The Unwinding Hours + Holy Mountain, Olympic Swimmers
Friday @ Stereo, Glasgow / 7pm / £7
Amazing Aereogramme offshoot who recently signed to the much admired Chemikal Underground label and featured here a few months ago. A couple of stellar supports including the brilliant Olympic Swimmers, also featured on UtR last year.


The rest...



Words: Aimi Gold, Nick Mitchell

What have we missed? Tell us below, or add it to the calendar by emailing utr.scotsman@gmail.com

Radar recommends: 6 - 12 Feb

[The Low Miffs: appearing in Stereo-sound on Thursday]

Plan your gig-going with our pick of the week's finest live music nights...

The best...

Live at the Beach
Saturday @ The Beach Ballroom, Aberdeen / 7.30pm / £7.50
Some of Aberdeen's brightest bands play a rare live music night at the famous Beach Ballroom: The Little Kicks, Indian Red Lopez, Cast of the Capital and The Underkills.

Louise McVey and Cracks in the Concrete, Hitlist Youth, Skinny Villains
Saturday @ 13th Note / 9pm / £tbc
The gorgeous, gothic voice of Louise McVey has already turned our heads here at UtR, and Saturday night at the Note is definitely one to watch.

Sisqo
Tuesday @ Fat Sam's, Dundee / 10.30pm / £7-£10
Sorry, but the prospect of the man behind 'The Thong Song' coming to play Dundee just seemed too good to pass over.

Beach House, Lawrence Arabia, Washington Irving
Wednesday @ King Tut’s / £9 / 8.30pm
Baltimore duo Beach House are the new indie darlings, although their watercolour dream pop stylings won't appeal to everyone. Get there early for Washington Irving too.

The Low Miffs, Hidden Masters, Foxgang
Thursday @ Stereo / 7pm / £1
In troubled economic times, you’ll struggle to find a better-value line-up than Ten Tracks’ monthly night at Stereo. Three top-notch bands plus a ten-track download compilation (this month from Hijack), for the princely sum of £1 – bargain!

The Leith Tape Club
Thursday @ The ISO Lounge, Leith / 8.15pm / £tbc
Space is always limited at this low-key monthly night, but this instalment - with eagleowl, Hailey Beavis and The Stormy Seas - is the last until May, so it could well be packed to the rafters.

Limbo: Found, Three Blind Wolves, Over The Wall
Friday @ Voodoo Rooms, Edinburgh / 8.30pm - 1.30am / £tbc
A three-pronged prognosis of the state of new music in Scotland, with local favourites Found and the Glasgow pairing of Three Blind Wolves and the infectious Over the Wall.

The Late Call, The Last Battle, Emily Scott
Friday @ Wee Red Bar, Edinburgh / 7pm / £5
The Late Call is Stockholm troubador Johannes Mayer, supported on this date by Edinburgh regulars The Last Battle and Emily Scott, who we profiled last year.


The rest...



Words: Lisa-Marie Ferla, Nick Mitchell

What have we missed? Tell us below, or add it to the calendar by emailing utr.scotsman@gmail.com

Live review: Versus

Thursday 21 January
The Voodoo Rooms, Edinburgh

On-stage hook-ups can have spectacularly varied results. From The Last Waltz to Band Aid to all those carefully brokered festival duets masquerading as spontaneous 'happenings', there have been good, bad and painful examples. But in its short stint Edinburgh’s Versus night has got the concept just about right: thoughtful curation, proper rehearsals, mutual respect and minimum ego.

But tonight in a busy Voodoo Rooms ballroom we aren't plunged head first into a multi-band spectacle, oh no. Instead the artists perform separate mini-sets as a gentle introduction to the daring experimentation to follow. And it doesn’t come much gentler than eagleowl. With the darkened room almost at capacity, it takes a few moments before most attendees notice that the gig is underway, with the Edinburgh band’s brooding post-folk (c.f. every article ever written about them) making a quiet, undramatic entrance. But Bart Owl (pictured, right) gradually pulls focus stage-ward with his transatlantic vocals and understated but purposeful guitar strumming, backed by Clarissa Cheong on double bass.

Alan Oates of Come in Tokyo makes his solo debut as Oates Field (left) next - although he starts this maiden gig unceremoniously, crouched down at the side of the stage where he tinkers with a tattered synth and loop pedals. It all comes together when he steps up and stomps out a rhythm out on the bass drum, adding direction to his ragged folk rock. A seasoned live musician with seemingly scant concern for the occasion, it feels as if you’ve walked in on a private rehearsal in his living room.

There’s no red carpet in sight for tonight’s headliners, Bafta winners Found (below), but they follow Oates without a hint of grand pretentions, dutifully adding their electro-fringed, funk-flecked fare to the night’s rarefied menu.



After only one initial song they vacate the spotlight for the evening’s first special guest, The Wee Rogue (right). Reminding this writer of Mr Tumnus for a weird moment, the skinny, goatee'd Jamie O’Connor then locates himself nearer 60s America than Narnia with his finger-picked guitar and far-sighted delivery of a single “love song”.

A cover of eagleowl’s 'MF' delivered with relish by Oates Field follows, before Found return with a longer exposition of their assured folktronica. Ziggy Campbell pronounces his sabre-sharp lyrics with evident pleasure, while Kev Sim and Tommy Perman forge a torrent of drenched static, zinging FX and chugging bass. For a trio they emit a surprisingly complex, utterly composed sound.

There’s an unintentional interval before special guest number two, which Oates fills with a spot of improv comedy, and it’s to Phillip Quirie’s credit that he manages to shrug off Oates' playful jibes about his spaghetti junction of pedals and hooded jumper as he sets up his gear. Once he gets going, Meursault member Quirie, here tonight as Debutant (left), quickly draws the room deep into his shimmering, stormy realm. It’s his second effort, 'Thirst', that emerges as a highlight, not just from his brief set but the whole evening.

From here on in the 'versus' clause comes into full effect, with eagleowl, Found and Oates Field massing on stage as a kind of shambling supergroup, their mission to find new perspectives in each other's songs. For the most part they achieve this; each musician eyeing one other intently, studying the shifts and pauses and showing the kind of cohesion that must have required real preparation. The sedate pace of the eagleowl material benefits from Found’s box of digital tricks, and they consciously alternate between styles, from three-minute crescendos to American radio rock to segments of unrestrained jamming.

But with so many cooks crowding over the broth pot, at times it does go off the boil. There are at least two songs which fall flat, prompting the less attentive in the audience to restart their (no doubt essential) conversations.

Despite the downturn, the last song of the night, a version of eagleowl’s normally undulating 'Blanket' (but this time driven by a thumping beat straight from the subwoofer of your local boy racer) builds and builds to a magnificent climax, as if to reaffirm that, despite the risks involved, the pay-off on offer with such boundary-pushing is undoubtedly worthwhile.

Whoever they choose for the next Versus will have high standards to uphold.

Words: Nick Mitchell
Photos: Julia Stryj

Guest blog: Bart Owl (eagleowl)

Having played prominent roles in no fewer than four of the acts we've featured this year (eagleowl, The Occasional Flickers, Rob St John and The Second Hand Marching Band) it would have been rude not to ask Bart Owl for his end-of-year thoughts...

2009 has been great. With eagleowl, we didn't play that many shows. But then I think we've played too often in the past, and the ones that we did play were all winners: tour with Rob (St. John) in February, Flowers of Hell, Bowerbirds, ballboy, Withered Hand album launch, Trespassers William, Homegame.

The Playing with the Past soundtracking event - for me personally - is the best thing we've ever been involved in. It's probably the show I'm most proud of, and I think I'll look back in years to come with that same outlook. Also, putting out our first vinyl is kind of a big deal. It's just that extra step. It feels more real, somehow. It's like "We have a 7". We're a proper band now."

We have an EP ready for release in 2010, and a track on a Jonathan Richman tribute album which is due out on Fortuna Pop. So I hope those go well. I think 2010 will also be about playing fewer shows, but concentrating on writing and recording.

More generally, I hope music in Edinburgh continues to grow and thrive. There's been a lot of talk about a "scene" or things building up here over the last couple of years. I see 2009 as the year when more people have got organised and started releasing stuff.

There's been a lot of great bands emerging over the last while, putting on great shows. But this year, a lot more people have put out proper releases. I think it's an important development - to make a record of what has been achieved, and create a chance for what's happening to get recognition from outside of Edinburgh. Which is important to help stop things getting too insular and self-serving. I guess Kilter - who are putting out our single - are an example of this. They've been operating for a while putting on shows as 'Tracer Trails', but this will be their first actual release.

My alternative Christmas message?

Enjoy yourselves. Responsibly.

My favourite Christmas song?

Well, it's kind of obvious for us, I guess, but 'Just Like Christmas' by Low is hard to beat. I made an alternative christmas compilation album for my friends last year, and there was lots of good stuff on there. One was 'On Christmas Day' by Leadbelly. It's great. The whole thing is really is really bright and happy - like one big chorus. The main line is: "children get so happy on Christmas day". I like the way that it captures that childhood wonder and excitement about Christmas, without getting into any of the religious connotations. In a similar way to how the Low song does. I think that's what Christmas means to me.

eagleowl: Sleep the Winter


eagleowl play the Christmas Songwriters Club at Leith Docker’s Club, Edinburgh on 23 Dec

Image: Shannon McClean

Under the Radar podcast #6

Christmas. It might be chilly outside but it's hardly the coolest time of the year is it? We over-indulge in party snacks, strange, once-yearly liqueurs (eggnog?!) and belt-busting meals, before battening down the hatches on our little cocoons of reliable family customs, TV drowse-athons and enough lighting effects to melt Greenland. In short, the carving knife is all that's cutting edge about Yule-tide.

So it pleases us at UtR to know that the young hipsters and hipstresses of the Scottish music scene are equally predictable at this time of the year. Don't believe us?

Well, Billy caught up with a quintet of his favourite music makers for some festive banter, and was treated along the way to a poorly executed version of The Waitresses' Christmas Wrapping, a shameless plug for Terry's Chocolate Orange and the earth-shatteringly weird coincidence that two separate musos both long for one of those tiny screwdriver sets in their Christmas cracker.

Panda Su, French Wives, Conquering Animal Sound, Dead Boy Robotics and Cancel the Astronauts... we're looking at you.

We also asked a few more of our favourite acts of 2009 to contribute either Christmas-themed - or just plain new - songs, and eagleowl, The Last Battle, There Will Be Fireworks and Tokyo Knife Attack duly obliged.

Again, the sound quality isn't perfect, but rest assured that top of our list for Santa this year is some professional recording gear. Hope you enjoy it anyway...

Play: Podcast #6


Running order:
00:54: There Will Be Fireworks: In Excelius Deo
07:10: Interview: Panda Su
10:32: Panda Su - Eric Is Dead
15:44: Tokyo Knife Attack - Invisible Sister
20:15: Interview: French Wives
23:30: French Wives - Me vs Me
28:04: eagleowl - Sleep the Winter
34:09: Interview: Conquering Animal Sound
37:48: Conquering Animal Sound - Where The Wild Things Are
42:22: Interview: Dead Boy Robotics
44:31: Death Ohh Eff - Me and Fift (Dead Boy Robotics remix)
48:22: The Last Battle - Once Upon A Boxing Day
54:14: Interview: Cancel The Astronauts
57:27: Cancel the Astronauts - Funny For A Girl


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Podcast: Billy Hamilton, Nick Mitchell

Previous UtR podcasts

Radar recommends: 5 - 11 Dec

[eagleowl: swopping down on The Bowery on Friday]

We edge ever closer to Christmas party season this week. But if you want to purge all thoughts of 70s glam rockers with mirrored hats and 80s woolly jumpered, mullet-headed warblers for the time being, you may want to head down to one of the following recommended gigs...

Aberdeen
Steve Earle
Tuesday @ Music Hall / 7.30pm / £22.50
The bearded US singer-songwriter and spiritual counsellor from The Wire tours his latest album, Townes.
Also playing Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow on Sunday and The Ironworks, Inverness on Thursday

Edinburgh
Sebastian Dangerfield, Washington Irving, We Were Promised Jetpacks (solo)
Saturday @ The Bowery / 7.30pm / £5
Edinburgh indie quartet with support from recent blog stars Washington Irving and Adam from the Jetpacks.

The Last Battle
Saturday @ Carters Bar / 9.30pm / Free
The Edinburgh band launch their Christmas single, Once Upon a Boxing Day.

Schwervon!, Withered Hand, The Pineapple Chunks, Les Enfant Bastard
Saturday @ Henry's Cellar Bar / 7pm / £5
The cream of New York anti-folk is joined by the cream of Edinburgh anti-folk for this intimate night of, er, anti-folk.

Tubelord, Trapped in Kansas
Monday @ Sneaky Pete's / 7pm / £6
Tubelord trade in high voltage fight-pop, while Trapped in Kansas are quite simply one of our favourite new bands of the year.

Deerhoof
Tuesday @ The Bongo Club / 7pm / £12.50
Change of venue, which means now you'll be able to get even closer to the deranged noise emanating from the San Fran band's amps.

Benni Hemm Hemm, Alasdair Roberts, Wounded Knee
Wednesday @ St Mark's Unitarian Church / 7.30pm / Donation
Icelandic troubadour Mr Hemm Hemm leads the musical prayers at this unusual church gig, with excellent support/collaborations.

Broken Records
Wednesday @ Cabaret Voltaire / 7pm / £7
Everyone's favourite Edinburgh-based klezmer-tinged seven-piece play their own homecoming (with a small 'h') show.

The Mars Volta
Wednesday @ HMV Picture House / 7pm / £17.50
You can excuse the odd ten-minute guitar freakout if Cedric Bixler-Zavala still manages to do a handstand while bending his versatile vocals around their bizarre subject matter.

The Banana Sessions, Small Feet Little Toes, Freemore
Thursday @ The Bowery / 7pm / £5
We first encountered The Banana Sessions playing covers on the Glasgow-Edinburgh train one night. Now they're playing proper shows and they shouldn't be missed.

**UtR's gig of the week**
eagleowl, Withered Hand, Jill O'Sullivan
Friday @ The Bowery / 7.30pm / £5
The much admired Edinburgh collective eagleowl launch their kinda-Christmas-kinda-not single Sleep the Winter. Read our interview with Bart Owl a bit further down the page.

Glasgow
Vic Godard and the Subway Sect, The Sexual Objects
Saturday @ Stereo / 8pm / £10
Punk pioneer Vic (he was supporting The Clash in '77) celebrates the 15th anniversary of the Creeping Bent label at this Sounds in the Suburbs night.

Brother Louis Collective
Sunday @ Bloc / 8pm / Free
UtR-tipped six-piece with heart-felt, sweet folky numbers are at Bloc tonight.

Sunn 0)))
Sunday @ Stereo / 7.30pm / £15
Every bearded-chin-stroking muso-boy in Glasgow will be having their very cores vibrated by the US doom merchants with their grimm robes and reaaalllyyy loooonnng, REALLY LOUD notes.

The Gothenburg Address, Loss Leader, The Bucky Rage, Aidan Moffat (DJ set)
Monday @ Mono / 8pm / £5
Band who include sometime Arab Strap and Zephyrs members and make beautiful shoegazy-style instrumental tunes launch their debut album with help from one-man gloom extravaganza Loss Leader.

Ensemble Thing
Wednesday @ 13th Note Cafe / 9pm / £4
Lots of talented folk from a bunch of other Glasgow bands/orchestras get together and make lovely, “post minimalist” music.

Malcolm Middleton's Long Dark Night
Thursday @ Oran Mor / 7pm / £14.50
Get your festive celebrations off to a cheery start with Mr Middleton's intimate show of wintry acoustic songs “about love, hate, death and other stuff”, plus a solo support slot from his former Arab Strap bandmate.

Woodenbox with a Fistful of Fivers
Thursday @ King Tuts / 7.30pm / FREE
Woodenbox do a sneaky wee acoustic gig in the bar at King Tuts – and won't even make a dent in your Christmas present fund... unless you want to partake in the accompanying supper.

Nuts and Seeds: Box Elders, Goldern Grrrls, Mazes, Water Wolves
Thursday @ CCA / 8.30pm / £4
A transatlantic mix of bands as Nebraska brothers Clayton and Jeremiah McIntyre head up this Nuts and Seeds night along with experimental noisy Glasgow trio Golden Grrrls.

Any Color Black, Less Than Sober
Friday @ Stereo / 7pm / £6
I'll forgive that whole 'American spelling thing of coloUr' thing because this fun electro-rock duo make me want to dance.

Edwyn Collins, 1990s, The Low Miffs
Friday @ ABC / 7pm / £18
The Orange Juice man has made a significant return from illness in the past two years so fans shouldn't miss this rare show – along with two bands indebted to the Postcard records legacy.

Words: Elaine Liddle, Nick Mitchell

What have we missed? Tell us below, or add it to our gig guide by emailing utr.scotsman@gmail.com

eagleowl: No time to hibernate

[Poster artwork by Ola Rek]

Unlike their feared namesake, eagleowl the band are attracting more and more admirers around their neck of the woods. Within a few days of releasing new single 'Sleep the Winter' last week, practically every Scottish blogger and music scribe worth his / her salt had picked up on it with studied words of praise.

And rightly so. It's another wonderfully evocative release from the band, with mournful cello and languid guitar combining to conjure a cold, foreboding atmosphere, until a change of chord and the hushed words of the title gently add a layer of much needed warmth. Like the best alt-folk, it sounds timeless, permanent, but not dated.

So with the hype still feathering the Edinburgh group's nest, we thought we'd catch up with Bart 'The hardest working man in post-folk' Owl to find out what's new since Billy spoke to him in May...

Play: Sleep the Winter


Where did the idea for Sleep the Winter come from?

In some ways it came from an argument I had with Dan from Withered Hand. I had suggested that we both write Christmas songs, so that we could then do a show together at Christmas time. He said it would be "a waste of a song". I think we both have a rather laborious approach to songwriting - definitely aiming for quality over quantity. Dan thought spending ages writing a song you could only play at one time of the year would be a waste. So this was an attempt to write a song that "felt Christmas-y", but wouldn't sound too weird when played at other times of the year.

It's going to be the first release for Kilter - a new Edinburgh-based label. The people behind it were previously responsible for the Tracer Trails shows in Edinburgh, and have brought some amazing names to the city in the past (Viking Moses, Tiger Saw, Jeffrey Lewis, Woodpigeon, etc). They're friends, and we have quite a close working relationship, but I just really respect their approach to promotion, and the effort they put into every conceivable detail.

What have you been up to since we last spoke?

Since we last spoke we finished the recording and mixing of the single. There's also an EP recorded and ready for release next year, and we've recorded a track for a Jonathan Richman tribute album, which is due out on Fortuna Pop at some point next year too. We've not been playing that many shows recently, but we did do a few nice support shows in October - with ballboy, Bowerbirds, and Trespassers William. We also did the Playing with the Past event - both during the Film Festival and again in August. For this we composed and performed a live soundtrack to two short films from the Scottish National archive.

Any other plans afoot?

We're playing the Versus night on 21 January at the Voodoo Rooms in Edinburgh. This is a relatively new night and not a conventional gig - three acts set up at once so that they can collaborate with each other. It's a really interesting idea and gives us scope to try out new things and work with some great acts that we really respect. The full line-up's not been confirmed yet, but it's shaping up rather nicely. We're also hoping to do more shows outside of Edinburgh, and outside of Scotland, next year.

Words: Nick Mitchell

Sleep the Winter is released on 14 Dec.

The launch night is at the Bowery, Edinburgh on Friday 11 Dec, with support from Jill of Sparrow & the Workshop and Dan of Withered Hand. There's also a Glasgow launch at the 13th Note on Monday 14 Dec, with Dan again and Ali from Woodenbox with a Fistful of Fivers.

Lights, camera, guitars... action!

The Edinburgh International Film Festival launched yesterday, and while it is mainly the realm of the cineaste, this year there are a couple of events to get us music fans salivating too.

The big news is the UK premiere of All Tomorrow's Parties. This documentary about the indie connoisseurs' festival of choice is a celebration of everything that's non-corporate and a bit dishevelled about the Butlins-based getaway. It has been lovingly compiled from Super-8, camcorder and mobile phone footage and includes performances from Sonic Youth, Daniel Johnson, Slint, and Scotland's own Mogwai and Belle and Sebastian.

You can watch it on 25 June at 6pm at the Filmhouse (£8.50/£7.50). But we recommend you opt for something a bit more special. The premiere screening is the day before (24 June) at the HMV Picture House, which will become "a 50s holiday camp dreamland" for one night only, with a top secret live music guest performing after the film. It starts at 8pm and tickets cost £18.50.

And just to show that the festival hasn't neglected the music scene on its own doorstep, another event, called Playing With the Past, is a selection of short films from the Scottish Screen archive, set to music by local heroes Found, Meursault and eagleowl. It's on at The Pleasance on 26 June, 8pm, tickets priced £6.50/£5.50.

Tickets for all EIFF events can be purchased here.

Play: eagleowl - Blanket


Words: Nick Mitchell

Any guesses who the top secret guest might be?

On the radar: Eagleowl

Eagleowl are like the soundtrack to a dream.

Insulating in both tone and acoustics, the Edinburgh ensemble sprawl soft melodic sheets across a mattress of achingly pretty arrangements.

Such nocturnal reveries, however, are far from the work of slumberland fancy. Instead, the group’s beatific compositions are meticulously crafted and perfectly formed.

“I find it easier to create a certain mood or atmosphere, rather than communicate a specific idea or tell a story,” says band foreman Bart Owl. “I prefer if the listener gets a glimpse of the story behind the song and then goes on to develop that themselves - to make up their own mind - than to have everything set out in black and white.”

Play: Blanket


Despite appearances, Eagleowl are no bed-wetting lightweights. A stoic determination underpins the quartet’s tear-stained symphonies and, every once in a while, an incongruous sonic boom will bookend their mesmerising live shows.

Bart explains: “When we played at Homegame last month we finished with the most Pop song we have and filled it out with Rob Waters [The Great Bear] on harmonium, Owen Williams [Pineapple Chunks and Rob St. John] on drums, and Neil Pennycook [Meursault] on accordion. It was good fun to make a bigger noise, but I don't think it's something we'll do very often.”

A key component in the burgeoning Auld Reekie scene, Eagleowl’s reputation for resplendent soundscapes has escalated quickly. Not that Bart’s one to blow the band’s trumpet too loudly:

“I'm pretty proud of what we've done so far,” he states reticently. “I kind of assumed early on that world domination isn't really on the cards for Eagleowl. Not that the music's particularly leftfield or confrontational, but I think there's limited appeal there to a 'mainstream' audience. But I'm quite comfortable with that.”

He continues: “I've always thought it's better to have a large impact on a smaller audience - to really mean something, even if it's just to a handful of people - than be on every radio show you can, and have the whole nation tapping its feet, but never really paying attention. It’s better to be loved by one person than liked by a hundred.”

And loved they are. Previous gigs have reduced grown women to tears (in a good way, of course), while the lugs of national DJs are finally beginning to tune into to the band’s harpsichordal lullabies.

So, with their star now firmly in the ascent, what’s the best thing about being in Eagleowl: The women? The acclaim? The riders?

“Clarissa’s [Eagleowl's bassist] a really great cook. Seriously, really great, “ Bart claims, deadpan. “I think everything we do - rehearsal, recording, sound checks, anything - it's all scheduled around regular meals.”

Play: For The Thoughts You Never Had


Want to check out Eagleowl for yourself? Catch them at the following shows:

26 Jun @ Pleasance Cabaret Bar, Edinburgh
2 Oct @ Wee Red Bar, Edinburgh

Words: Billy Hamilton

The latest dispatch from Under the Radar

This month's Under the Radar column features a track by Edinburgh band eagleowl, as well as news on Broken Records' album progress, the Homegame festival in the East Neuk of Fife and the latest Chemikal Underground signings, The Phantom Band.

Read - and listen - here.

You can also read an interview with The Phantom Band here.

Edinburgh's indie scene rises again

Not since the distant days of Josef K and The Fire Engines has Edinburgh fostered such a healthy music scene. Glasgow always casts a long shadow eastward, not least with the recent commercial success of Glasvegas, but it seems Scotland's capital city is finally emerging with a dynamic, like-minded clutch of bands.

And some of the success can be attributed to local music fans taking matters into their own hands by promoting gigs, writing blogs and even putting out records. One such industrious fellow is Matthew Young, who has been running his lively Song, by Toad blog for a while and recently set up his own record label.

It's early days, but the few releases to date have been of remarkably high quality. First, Meursault gave us an album that was just a few weeks too late for many album-of-the-year polls with Pissing on Bonfires, Kissing with Tongues, which The Scotsman's Fiona Shepherd liked a lot. Then folkier outfits Eagleowl and Nightjar emerged with a pair of EPs that also received strong praise.

They say music scenes occur in cycles, and Edinburgh's indie community is long overdue its day in the sun (metaphorically speaking of course - this is Scotland).