Health Is a Wealth of Melody As Album Gets up Close and Personal
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20 The National/Thursday, March 28, 2019 The National/Thursday, March 28, 2019 21 STILL IDLEWILD AT theHEART 15th anniversary of that by modernist writers such as Twenty-five years landmark LP. Gertrude Stein (name-checked on BY NADINE MCBAY “Though the last time we worked 2000 hit Roseability) and Scots with him was in 2008, he’s always such as George Mackay Brown and on, new album is been there for us. He has produced Norman McCaig, Woomble says he some of our most recognisable is currently working on a collection as vital as ever songs, like American English and of poems. You Held The World In Your Arms. “I’m not embarrassed to say that Slam duo Orde Meikle (left) and Stuart McMillan LMOST a quarter century He knows the band really well, how any more,” he says. “Whether it will since they formed in we work and how to get the best come to anything, I don’t know. But Edinburgh, Idlewild are out of us.” the ideas won’t be wasted, they will about to drop one of be turned into poems or songs.” the most vital records of RINGA produced five of Literary references have regularly A NEW SKOOL Atheir career. Interview Music’s 13 featured in Idlewild songs and look Interview Music, their second tracks and helped bring back to Woomble’s time at the album with new members Luciano focus to a revitalised band University of Edinburgh, where he OF THOUGHT Rossi and Andrew Mitchell, with ideas to spare. While first met Jones and Newton. They’re vindicates the decision of frontman Enever inaccessible, the album present here too, with slacker-punk SOMA Skool has announced the Roddy Woomble, guitarist Rod shows the musicians at their most track Bad Logic being based on a first tranche of speakers for its 2019 Jones and drummer Colin Newton innovative, with tracks such as William Morris quote: “The past is edition in April at Glasgow’s to return to making music together Mount Analogue featuring the funky not dead, it is living in us, and will SWG3. in 2014 after a four-year break. falsetto of Mitchell – also known as be alive in the future which we are Producers, DJs, artists and other Ambitious and diverse, Interview impressive multi-instrumentalist now helping to make.” figures in the music industry will Music cannot be second-guessed. and composer Andrew Wasylyk. “That song was built around that talk about record labels, promoting, Here, sophisticated art-rock and The title track itself is perhaps idea, that you carry your past clubs, queer artists in electronic funk sidle up to folk and punk in a the most surprising, a mini art-pop wherever you go,” says Woomble. music, radio shows, clubs and take record that bristles with creativity epic with elements of jazz. “That can be a positive thing, it’s part in a panel curated by Red Bull – no small achievement in a band of “Interview Music itself is a good not necessarily a negative thing.” Music. this tenure. example of what we were trying to Unlike previous albums, Woomble Soma Skool began in 2013 as a The album’s two singles so far, do with the whole album,” says says he is finding himself returning partnership between long-running Dream Variations and Same Things Woomble. “In the past we would to listen to Interview Music. techno label Soma Records and Twice, illustrate its principal tension have put different ideas into “Normally when I finish a record I Glasgow-based production school between a desire to experiment and separate songs, but this time we don’t go back to it,” he says. “It Shoogle Studios, and both are taking to look back to the angrier, messier mixed them more, and it takes the feels like it doesn’t belong to me part in the event. sounds of their early days. songs somewhere different. We any more. But I’ve been going back Shoogle Studios are behind Speaking from Mull, where he has were thinking unconventionally in to it more and more. the day’s Ableton masterclasses lived for the past 10 years, terms of arrangements. “I think it really works as an while Stuart McMillan, one half Soma Skool: Woomble says he’s glad the band “There are a lot of talented album and with repeated listens it of legendary dance duo Slam and April 20, SWG3, held off releasing the record in musicians in the band – Rod, Colin, does bring more and more stuff out co-founder of Soma Records, will Glasgow, noon 2017, as was Idlewild’s initial plan. Luciano, Andrew – and there was of it. Maybe some Idlewild records feature in a panel discussing the role to 5.30pm, free. Encouraged by the critical and an element of me thinking: ‘Let’s do don’t have that so much. All of us of radio and podcasts. Tickets: bit.ly/ popular acclaim earned by 2015 something that’s more instrumental- are quite proud of it but we’ve got Other highlights include a class on SomaSkool0419 comeback album Everything Ever based’. Everyone has got a section no expectations. We just want modular synthesis led by electronic Maximum Written and an acoustic tour of the in that track, including me, with my people to listen to it.” music shop Rubadub and another on Pressure: April highlands and islands, the band rambling bit at the end.” creating live visuals led by Glasgow- 20, SWG3, started writing Interview Music back Idlewild – from left Andrew Mitchell, Luciano Rossi, was completed at Post Electric output in the 2000s, helped the Woomble says many of the songs May 4, Barrowland Ballroom, based VJ Georgina Penstkart. Glasgow, 6pm to MUSIC in the spring of 2016. At the end of Rod Jones, Colin Newton and Roddy Woomble – were Studio, the busy recording studio in band finish the record. speak of dreams and the “unreal, Glasgow; May 5, Music Hall, Following the end of Soma Skool, 3am, £30 (+ their US tour that year, they encouraged by the critical and popular acclaim earned Leith run by Jones and German “Dave reconnected with us at one magical” state evoked by the Aberdeen. Tickets at: Maximum Pressure hold their Easter booking fee). decamped to a studio in Los by 2015 comeback album mixer Kris Pohl. of the shows we did for The Remote landscape of both the Scottish idlewild.co.uk/tour party with guests including Slam, Tickets: bit.ly/ Angeles to develop the work, but it There Dave Eringa, the master Part,” says Woomble, referring to highlands and islands and Interview Music is released on Len Faki, Jasper James and Laurent MaxPressure wasn’t until November 2018 that it producer behind much of Idlewild’s gigs they played in 2017 marking California. A lyricist long inspired April 6 Garnier, who’ll play a three-hour set. April19 Health is a wealth of melody as album gets up close and personal EALTH, the new album by further musicians when he stepped The mood feels lighter, almost song as sunny as you might expect. finish, with this record I wanted “It was something I had always April 19, Lemon at first, exposing his heart was Scottish multi- out to play live. joyful in parts. All azures, yellows That’s until you listen to the content more ups and downs, more colour, wanted to do with them but I had Tree, Aberdeen; therapeutic. instrumentalist C Each record is a masterclass in and greens, its cover art recalls of Duncan’s vocals, which, at 29, for each song to have its own never been able to record strings May 10, “I am so used to drowning Duncan, could be the elegance, their meticulous artwork David Hockney’s A Bigger Splash. remain as angelic as ever. identity.” before,” says Duncan. Summerhall, everything that I write in reverb,” mirror image of its 2016 matched by music which is But in Duncan’s painting, the water “It’s a funny record,” Duncan Again, Duncan initially worked on “Because I had that opportunity Edinburgh; May Duncan says. “Usually, you Hpredecessor The Midnight Sun. impeccably structured and has not been disturbed by a bather. says. “While a lot of it sounds really the songs for Health alone at home. this time I just thought: ‘I’m going to 11, Maryhill can never really make out the That album’s eerie beauty and emotionally rich. There’s not a soul in sight. cheery and upbeat, the themes are In May 2018 he took them to Potter go for it’ and wrote them lots of Community words, they just come in and out of lush, spooky melodies were With Health, Duncan’s music has That’s maybe significant: for while a bit more sombre than before. I at Salford’s Blueprint Studios, string parts. They loved being in Centre Hall, focus. This time, the lyrics came composed in Christopher Duncan’s lost none of those qualities. Here these songs often have a tone of wanted to have that juxtaposition home to much of Elbow’s back the studio and doing something Glasgow.Tickets first. I wanted this to be an album Glasgow’s flat – mostly during the they are part of a sound that is carefree contentment, their lyrics so it wasn’t all doom and gloom, catalogue. totally different to what they usually c-duncan.co.uk where you could actually hear hours of darkness. more expansive, varied and – for tell of heartache and anxiety. and have a bit of fun with some Accompanying him were his do.” Health is out what I was saying.