Most of our music reviews are a mixed bag when it comes to style and content, but the one you are about to experience definitely has a theme. It features great singers and great songs – deceptively simple yet they are all the more powerful for the manner they are produced and presented. This is music which stays with you longer after the last note sounds. Put simply, all of the people you are about to hear – they mean it, man. Stay on till the end for a bonus track which is a

Two of the most challenging types of writing are crime and comedy. For the first you have to avoid repeating well-worn clichés while still making it as recognisably belonging to the genre. For the second, well, it’s got to be funny – perhaps the most difficult trick to pull off on the page. A successful crime/comedy, therefore, is something which is to be celebrated. Christopher Brookmyre and Douglas Skelton are two writers who get the balance right, combining the dark side o

My, but there’s some classy music being made out there. The world may be falling down around our ears, but it’s got a hell of a soundtrack to accompany it. Who would have thought the end of days could sound this good? The majority of those who feature in this roundup have appeared before, but we make no excuses for that as they all have excellent new music to share, and we have impeccable taste. Too much? Listen below and say we’re not right… This Saturday (22nd April) is Rec

Add to this the (fictional?) liner notes which accompanied the early releases, and you couldn’t shake the feeling that this was a band who understood the power of music mythology, and who were determined to be in control of theirs. Stuart David knows what happened, cos he was there; one of the founder members of the band formerly known as Lisa Helps The Blind. His latest book, In The All-Night Café: A Memoir of Belle & Sebastian’s Formative Year is exactly that, and it deals

In the latest Scots Whay Hae! podcast, Ian and Ali are joined by Looper’s Stuart and Karn David. It’s a timely chat as we discuss Stuart’s recent book In The All-Night Cafe about the early days of Belle and Sebastian, as well as Looper’s handsome new 5 CD box-set, These Things, which has just been released. However, as usual, we stray from the main topics to talk about other interesting things such as the lost art of letter writing, literary and local musical influences, writ