Almost Scottish Fiction Volume 5

Another month and another six tracks to indulge in courtesy of Scottish Fiction and our good pals Almost Predictable, Almost.  This month we've got the highest of high fashion as evidenced by our brilliant cover art - again provided by Findlay from burnhouse industries.  So dive in and strut your stuff with tracks from Earths, Poor Frisco, The Maybes, Gus Harrower, YuTaNi and Nothing Universe.

Once again the EP is curated by myself on behalf of Scottish Fiction, and David McElroy from Almost Predictable, Almost and features tracks from our favourite artists over the past four weeks.  To grab your copy head along to the Scottish Fiction Bandcamp, or the Almost Predictable, Almost Bandcamp and download for free.



Earths - Kangerlussuaq

Kangerlussuaq  demonstrates a new, previously unseen, side to Earths.  Stripped away from the fuzz and lo-fi elements, we see uplifting guitars, crisp percussion and haunting vocals.

Poor Frisco - What's Left of It

Taken from their forthcoming debut album, What's Left of It  showcases Poor Frisco at their best.  With shades of The Shins and Pixies at play, What's Left of It  is a great track from the East Kilbride five piece.

The Maybes - What You Can Remember

The Maybes are a Glasgow based duo whose recent EP Contra Todos  features this track, What You Can Remember,  which displays their melodic indie pop at its best.

Gus Harrower - Mystery

Mystery  is the lead and title track from the debut EP by Edinburgh's Gus Harrower.  At only 17, Gus is already a talented singer/songwriter who brings to mind the likes of Bon Iver.

YuTaNi - Mt. Minakami

YuTaNi is the solo project of Machines In Heaven's Connor Reid.   His album, At The End Of Day,  is a superb mix of downtempo and ambient elctronica.  Mt Minakami  is the album's centrepiece - a beautiful slice of electropop influenced electronica and one of this year's outstanding tracks.

Nothing Universe - Pyre

With a track taken from the band's live EP recorded at King Tut's, this track showcases the direction that Nothing Universe, previously known as Phases, have been taking with their music.  Layered, dense, and intriguing Pyre  builds things up only to tear it all down in an climatic frenzy.

Scottish Fiction Podcast - 26th January 2015

Blog favourite Michael Cassidy returns to Scottish Fiction as our session guest for a record 4th time, ahead of the release of his debut album My Electric Heart  on Monday 2nd February, a sentence which gives me a great deal of delight having waited for it's release to close on two and a half years.  Chatting about the album, and the launch gigs, it's the three live tracks; all taken from the album; which are the real treat.

The show is also packed out with new music from Kapil Seshasayee, Kathryn Joseph, Monogram, and a Song, By Toad booster pack of Supermoon, Garden of Elks, Numbers Are Futile and digitalanalogue.  Plus there's a Re-Mixing It Up track from a well known artist who I've never played on the show before.

Garden of Elks - This Morning We Are Astronauts
Tuff Love - That's Right
Kapil Seshasayee - Crimes
Eastcoastdefector - The Lonliness of the Lightspeed Astronaut
Michael Cassidy - Real Love - Live in Pulse 98.4 Studio
Supermoon - Klopfgeist
Kathryn Joseph - the bird
Seafieldroad - Don't Let The Winter Freeze Your Heart
CLASSIC TRACK - Teenage Fanclub - Mellow Doubt
Sweethearts of the Prison Rodeo - Vulture People
Michael Cassidy - Everybody's Scared - Live in Pulse 98.4 Studio
Ella Fitzgerald - Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye - As chosen by Michael Cassidy
digitalanalogue - Cafe Royal
Monogram - Anno (mute)
Turtle - Universal Ra
very very small inclusions - Winter Solstice
RE-MIXING IT UP - Paolo Nutini - Iron Sky (Hudson Mohawke Remix)
Numbers Are Futile - Vice Over Reason
Michael Cassidy - 15 Years - Live in Pulse 98.4 Studio
Civil Elegies - The Answer, The Problem
Rollor - Pax Britannica
Poor Frisco - A Tick Ahead


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Scottish Fiction - 26th January 2015 by Scottish Fiction on Mixcloud

EP Review - Poor Frisco - Ghosts

Ghosts is the new five track EP from the spontaneous band Poor Frisco.  It is a lively acoustic mix of alternative-rock indie songs which feature heavily in their live sets.  Their lyrics and sounds offer a taste of candour which, after a while, turns into a certain bitterness and expresses a much darker side.

The opening title track sets the mood of the EP - it’s rhythmic, punchy and straight to the point.  The series of succinct lyrics and the sudden ending make it both convincing and well-structured.  In the same pattern, Brothers Grimm, is a rather simple, yet, effective song.

Carry On and Change Your Name, are two dark ballads, in fact, do not be fooled by the cheerful rhythm and the sweet voice because, behind them, two tragic stories are hidden.  Those two songs perfectly display Poor Frisco's talent to portray emotions.

Riot Police starts slowly and, while listening to it, we are living the sombre short story told by the lyrics.  Although it lasts approximatively one minute, it remains loud and sincere.

For all that, Ghosts is a collection of memories, of experiences and feelings, of people who used to mean something.

- Alexandra Andréoli

Poor Frisco - Ghosts is out now and is available to stream/download for free or pay-what-you-want at poorfrisco.bandcamp.com

We're Only Here For The Banter - Poor Frisco

Whether it's dressing up or stuffing your face with sweets, Halloween is a fun time of year.  Today's 'We're Only Here For The Banter' guests certainly agree, having released a brand new acoustic EP Ghosts  on Halloween to celebrate.  I caught up with Callum from East Kilbride five piece Poor Frisco to delve deeper.

Hello! How the devil are you?

Hi Neil, I’m great, thanks!  And cheers for playing us on the radio!

It's the question everyone hates, but could illuminate our readers with a little bit about your music and your influences?

We usually describe ourselves somewhat vaguely as either alt-rock or indie, depending on the amount of plaid being worn at the time.  A few influences are Pixies, Modest Mouse, The Shins, and being from East Kilbride it would be remiss to not add The Jesus and Mary Chain.

What's your song-writing / creative process like?

Usually I’ll write a song - lyrics and at least one guitar part - and bring it to rehearsal where Scott (guitar), Fleck (bass) and David (drums) jam along to it until they come up with something they’re happy with.  David acts as editor, he likes the tracks to be as lean as possible.  He’s cut many a bridge, pre-chorus and noodly intro/outro.  I like to be quite spare with the lyrics too, which is either minimalism or laziness depending on your sympathies.  David also writes himself occasionally, you can hear one of his excellent songs, Brothers Grimm,  on the new EP for the first time.

What could we expect to see from a live show?

Bang for your buck!  A song over three minutes is an epic for us, and we’re strangely proud of being able to rattle through twice as many songs in a half hour set than most other bands.  We like to think we put on an energetic show although we seem to be a bit disaster prone with a history of opening track string breakages, amps falling off stands and, most recently, a rogue smoke machine that gassed us offstage at the end of a set at Sleazy’s.

Tell us about your new EP Ghosts.

Ghosts  is a five-track acoustic EP which we recorded ourselves one afternoon at Scott’s.  We’re releasing it especially as a Halloween treat so it will be free to download from the 31st October.  All the tracks are stripped back versions of songs we play live regularly.

What else have you got planned for the rest of 2014?

We're releasing a new single towards the end of the year (going up against X Factor for the Christmas number one), getting loud again, and will hopefully be doing some more gigs.

What are you listening to at the moment?

I recently arrived at The Eels pretty late in the game and have been working my way through their back catalogue, and Honeyblood’s album has been on a lot too.  Fleck has been bingeing on Villagers and Beulah.

Thanks for speaking with us, would you care to share a joke with us?

You can’t tell jokes to kleptomaniacs – they take everything literally.


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