“Breeding Feeling” by Current Affairs

Current Affairs are from Glasgow and the reverb-heavy chorus and flange guitar sound of “Breeding Feeling” draws on that classic post-punk sound, adding its own distinctive joyous earworm chorus.

“Breeding Feeling” is one of two tracks on a new 7″ single from Current Affairs out on Glasgow label Not Unloved label. The song (and the B-Side) captures perfectly the exotic dark kind of guitar sound often attributed to fellow Scot John McGeoch (from Greenock, near Glasgow, and Magazine, Banshees & PIL guitarist). There’s also a bit of the fidgety ice cool brilliance of bands like Josef K (on legendary Glasgow label Postcard Records in the early 1980s) about this song’s totally wired energy.

Current Affairs are Joan (The Royal We/Seconds/Rose McDowall‘s band), Seb (ex-Anxiety), Josh (The Downs/Kaspar Hauser/Rose McDowall’s band/Jacob Yates) and Andrew (Shopping/Milk Records).

If you like the sound of Current Affairs check out the link through to guitarist Josh Longton’s earlier band Kaspar Hauser.

“Adult Single” by Flo & Spicey

Please sit back, ensure your seat belt is securely fastened, your seat back is upright and your tray table is stowed away, as we prepare for take-off… it’s time to travel through space and time between Glasgow and Stockholm with Flo & Spicey on an “Adult Single”:

Flo & Spicey (real names Diana Jonsson & Colin Stewart) describe themselves as “a long distance studio collaboration between Glasgow and Stockholm. They make their music using old & discarded tech with a love for all things Joe Meek & Delia Derbyshire.”

It’s a kind of lo-fi retro-collage kind of magpie indie-pop where whistling kettles and stirring tea-spoons, railway station announcements, old TV soundbites and all kinds of noisy flotsam and jetsam are woven into bass and keyboard pop. It’s fun, it’s weird in a kind of Residents-meets-Stereoloab kind of way at times, and it’s all got a heart of pop as well.

Flo & Spicey’s Tea Set is highly recommended for fans of Broadcast and also contemporary exponents of this kind of dark, grainy experimental pop, like Exploded View.

“Bubble Sword” by Hairband

Glasgow 5-piece Hairband -which features members of groups Spinning Coin, Breakfast Muff, Lush Purr and Kaputt – has just released a self-titled first 12″ EP last week. Here’s “Bubble Sword” from the EP –

When “Flying” by Hairband was featured on PopLib back in April the song came to notice via a charity fund-raiser compilation of music by an eclectic cast of Glasgow artists. “Flying” intrigued because of its unique style – that rare phenomena of something that sounds fresh and different while still indisputably part of the family tree of ‘pop music’.

Happily it was the advance rider of this 5 song 12″ EP, via their local Glasgow record shop label Monorail Music, released last week. The self-titled debut release from Hairband includes “Flying” and, as should be obvious from the wonderful “Bubble Sword” here, finds 4 more ways to bend the rock and pop ‘rules’ and delight.

“Bubble Sword” is constructed on restless post-punk funk bass and drums, with some avant-garde counter-point guitar patterns over top, emulating a re-purposed Afro-beat kind of rhythmic propulsion, then with a more straight forward noisy sing-a-long chorus.  It doesn’t sound like anything from the halcyon days of post-punk, but it does capture the possibilities of that era for music to go in multiple different directions – sometimes in the same song.

That rhythmic push and pull is at the musical heart of the EP. Each song is a different and distinct thing; related but separate musical events. Each song weaves and braids the band’s instrumentation and voices in different patterns of melody, tone and rhythm. Everything contributes to the whole, and more often than not the instrument that leaps out with something unexpected and audacious is one of the three guitar parts. Listen to “White Teeth” in particular for some sublime guitar interplay.

More than anything else the EP transmits the exploratory joy of a group of friends collaborating apparently without fear, and without self-imposed restrictions tying the music or playing to any particular style or genre. Whatever the chemistry or methodology is here, Hairband have clearly found something that works for them. And also, happily, for us as listeners.

“Boats” by The Pastels

A new song from The Pastels is always worth sharing. Even more so when it is from a fine compilation called “Glasgow Nights” fundraising for Scottish anti-poverty charity Money Advice Scotland. Here’s “Boats”:

“Boats” is a gorgeous song about living in and savouring the moment and continues the fine autumnal form The Pastels showed on their excellent 2013 album “Slow Summits”.

The “Glasgow Nights” album is a wonderfully eclectic celebration of Glasgow music and culture past and mostly present. As if songs from The Pastels, Mogwai, Sacred Paws and Franz Ferdinand, and newcomers Hairband, along with PopLib favourites Spinning Coin, are not enough, there’s also “No Mean City”, theme song from “Taggart” sung by Maggie Bell, for those who remember the gritty 1980s-1990s Scottish TV detective series (“it was muhrrrrduhrrrr”).

Well worth treating yourself to a compilation of mostly new sounds and donating to a good cause while you do so.