Last Minute Stocking Fillers!

No, this isn’t just a pitiful attempt to jazz up some album reviews that we’re a bit late with. Well, it is a bit. But anyway, if you still have people to buy stuff for, buy them these things here.

Aidan O’Rourke ‘An Tobar’ (Navigator)

While we’re all waiting for “best band in the world” Lau to make their second album, one third of the band (with some help from another third, and some other people) has recorded this ‘odyssey’ inspired by the Isle of Mull (rumour has it that 50 Cent is planning a similar project about Benbecula).

‘An Tobar’ reworks a couple of tunes familiar to the ears of Lau fans, though here they’ve been allowed to roam freely across genre boundaries, with Aidan unleashed on nine minute tracks that thrillingly demonstrate what a unique and extraordinary fiddler he is.

Phil Bancroft’s perfectly restrained jazz sax provides an anchor for O’Rourke and harpist Catriona McKay to weave all manner of crazy patterns that’ll do strange things to your head. And everything gets particularly trippy on ‘Tobar Nan Ealain’ (sung beautifully by Kirsty MacKinnon) as Martin Green’s looping Gaelic samples threaten to induce flashbacks (which may explain why, having stared at the maps on the exquisite packaging, we’ve become convinced that Mull looks like a witch with a mohawk).

This is a stunning album, best listened to horizontal.




Unkle ‘End Titles… Redux’ (Surrender All)

You’ll have to be quick if you’re planning this as a present as the CD version is limited to just 3000 and, no matter how modern they are, no one wants a download for Christmas.

Continuing James Lavelle’s (and whoever else is in the band now, we’re not quite sure) soundtrack inspired work, ‘… Redux’ does more than simply remix this summer’s ‘… Stories for Film’ album but reinterprets seven of its sumptuous Blade Runner-y bits, making them even more epic and marvellous and adding two entirely new tracks and putting them in a nice cardboard package.

Everyone likes a nice cardboard package.




And, er, that’s about it. There’s a new Fall Out Boy album out but it’s fucking horrible. Merry Christmas, it’ll all be over soon.

» Reviewed by: Tim
» Talk on the boards (if you want)