It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these. Though I write/blog quite regularly about music I sometimes find it difficult to get excited about it these days, perhaps because the bands I like are getting so much positive coverage elsewhere in the blogosphere already (and on more prominent platforms than this humble blog) that I sometimes feel I have little extra to add. And I do find myself disappointed by a lot of it, though others have raved about it. I guess I have quite specific tastes.

Anyhow here are a few things that have gotten me excited about music again. I’ve been a fan of Dan Willson aka Withered Hand’s music for quite some time, and when I ordered the first EP from his myspace page via paypal, Dan turned up minutes later at my front door to hand deliver it – turned out he lived just round the corner but even so such good customer service is hard to find these days.

The EP also happened to be incredibly good and I featured him on the podcast back then so it’s great to see him take his rightful place as one of the best and better known songwriters in Edinburgh at the moment with his new album ‘Good News’, due out on 7th September. Though I like his lo-fi recordings just as much, it’s also nice to hear his songs recorded in such a lush way, and Dan’s often fragile voice sounds awesome as does the backing by the various Edinburgh alt-folk royalty who make up the full Withered Hand band.

There’s a great piece on it over on the excellent blog bylastyear’s girlwho points out that the album can be streamed and pre-ordered here and a four star review by Ally over at The Skinny.

Also out on Monday is the new album by The Arctic Monkeys. Whilst I don’t normally write about such mainstream fare I was unashamedly a huge fan of their first album and having seen them live at the time it was released I was quickly convinced that they’re the real deal.

The second album was pretty disappointing overall but had a couple of decent tunes, in particular ’505′. So despite ignoring much popular indie guitar rock I am still interested in hearing it. Let me know if you’ve heard it and what you think..

I also particularly enjoyed this song by Generationals despite, again, not being the kind of thing I usually listen to. StillI bought their album on emusic and it’s really rather good, at times reminding me of The Strokes, and at times reminding me of Remy Zero, who never did as well as they should have despite one of their songs being used as the theme for the enjoyably silly Superman teen drama Smallville.

There you go, I just outed myself as a fan of the Arctic Monkeys, Generationals, The Strokes, Remy Zero and Smallville all in a couple of paragraphs! If you are enjoying any seriously uncool stuff right now let me know in the comments – don’t leave me out here on my own!

In terms of upcoming gigs, the festival season is almost over, but before it ends I’ll have my first opportunity to catch the excellent Ambulances live at the Song By Toad gig this Sunday (hear them on the most recent podcast). Also playing are Meursault’s side project Artfag and the brilliantly deranged Enfant Bastard who was my highlight of the recent Retreat fest when he reformed the brilliant Love Gestures -Speaking of which, my joint review with Lauren Mayberry of the recent Retreat event has been submitted to los skinnymag so will hopefully see the light of day soon.

Finally, I will be going to see one of my favourite songwriters Jeffrey Lewis next Monday (who, in a nice circular fashion will be supported by Withered Hand). If you want a ticket be VERY quick as there are only a handful left:

Tickets available from Rippin Records, Tickets Scotland (Rose St), or online at Ticketweb, and from the Edge Festival website.

http://www.ticketweb.co.uk /
http://www.theedgefestival.com/content/default.asp?page=s1_1&gigid=808

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