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Interview - Washed Out aka Ernest Greene
8 Aug 2011
American synth-pop creator expands band line-up for UK dates
The List catches up with Ernest Greene the night after a gig in Berlin. It was someone in the band’s birthday apparently, so a bit of partying had to be done afterwards. Now he’s in the awkward post-coffee, but pre-breakfast part of his hangover, and in…
Interview: Becc Sanderson - Eat, sleep and breathe
8 Aug 2011
Australian cabaret singer on food, jodhpurs and corsets
This Australian cabaret singer just did a six-month tour of people’s living rooms, performing songs about flowers (eg Radiohead’s ‘Lotus Flower’, Edith Piaf’s ‘La Vie En Rose’). She’s in Edinburgh now, and talking to us about jodhpurs and corsets...
Nick Pynn
8 Aug 2011
One-man folk orchestra
Nick Pynn’s set-up resembles a slightly madcap music shop. An array of stringed instruments hang from their stands, some conventional, others more esoteric. One such instrument is the cocolele, a ukulele fashioned from a coconut shell. Pynn plays it…
Soweto Entsha
8 Aug 2011
South African songs from the heart
In 2008, Morgan, Lwazi, Jabu and Zensele were ekeing out a living, busking on the streets of Soweto. Hearing that a French producer was dining in a nearby restaurant, the a cappella singers headed down there to try and impress him. They did. Three years…
Interview: Naoko Yamano - guitarist and lead vocalist of Shonen Knife
8 Aug 2011
The Japanese lo-fi punk girl group get ready to return to the UK
‘We have been to Edinburgh a few times but all of them were in the 90s. The first time was with the Nirvana tour, I think,’ says Naoko Yamano, guitarist and lead vocalist of Shonen Knife. Yamano, the only remaining member of the original 1981…
Korean Drum: Journey of a Soul
8 Aug 2011
Dance to the rhythm of life
Sometimes words are not required. Sometimes a single performer beating a frenetic rhythm on a drum suspended from an ornate frame is enough to raise the hairs on your arm. For those who love a bit of variety in their Fringe life, though, this showcase…
Crate-digging: Nick Hollywood - Electro Swing
3 Aug 2011
White Mink Electro Swing Speakeasy club set for 2011 Fringe
Nick Hollywood created the White Mink: Black Cotton compilation album, which gave birth to the White Mink Electro Swing Speakeasy events. Making their Fringe debut, Hollywood lets us know what to expect from his set. Just out on my own label is the…
Sounds of Fringe - Stream and record audio from the Edinburgh Festival
3 Aug 2011
Soundcloud-based app for iPhone and Android documents 2011 Fringe
New collaborative project, Sounds of Fringe allows anyone to post or stream audio from anywhere in the capital throughout the Festival, the fruits of which will be tagged and appear on an online map. Like all Soundcloud files, you can add your own…
Interview: Oneohtrix Point Never
2 Aug 2011
Psychedelic synths and drones from experimental electronica-lord, Daniel Lopatin
Name Daniel Lopatin Job title Musician, label owner Where are you just now? Brooklyn, NY. What are you doing/ going to do today? Finish the track arrangement for the upcoming OPN record. Do you enjoy touring? I do, I didn't always. It…
Fringe 2011 comedy: 5 musical comedians
29 Jul 2011
Isy Suttie, Steve Pretty, ATF?, Pistol & Jack and Gareth Richards
Isy Suttie. Dobby (from Peep Show not Harry Potter, silly) brings us Pearl and Dave, another heartwarming multi-character tale. With his Perfect Mixtape, Pretty recalls the tunes played at his own wake in 2005 (there’s a story there) and wonders what…
Beatbox and a capella artists at 2011 Edinburgh Festival debut
28 Jul 2011
Shlomo, Beardyman Fork and Soweto Entsha cover many musical genres
‘The dynamic of the voice fascinates me,’ says UK beatbox artist Shlomo. The London-based ‘World Loopstation’ champion, also known as Simon Khan, has collaborated with Jarvis Cocker and Björk, and his oral simulations of percussion, electro and…
Fingerstyle guitarist Andy McKee Glasgow and Edinburgh dates
28 Jul 2011
Virtuoso guitar plucker who made his name on YouTube
In 2006 American ‘fingerstyle’ guitarist Andy Mckee joined the YouTube sensation club when he posted a video of himself performing his song ‘Drifting’. It has to be seen and heard to be believed – nearly 78,000,000 hits and climbing – but McKee is…
Camille O’Sullivan: Feel
28 Jul 2011
Sultry chanteuse brings new set of noir reworkings of classic songs to 2011 Edinburgh Festival
Camille O’Sullivan is in agony. Two weeks before her show, Feel, opens, she has yet to finalise the set. ‘I am at the table surrounded with CDs, with stickers on the walls,’ she confesses from her home in Dublin. ‘I look around and see the songs I…
Lach's Antihoot music showcase returns to 2011 Edinburgh Festival
27 Jul 2011
Antifolk set and nightly showcase from Edinburgh-based New Yorker
Having brought his Antihoot night to the Edinburgh Fringe for the first time last year, New York’s antifolk originator Lach (it’s pronounced ‘latch’, which Scots might find counter-intuitive) has found himself a new home. The man whose seminal open mic…
Liberace: Live From Heaven
27 Jul 2011
Edinburgh Festival show features piano man playing at the Pearly Gates
In cabaret, what turns a concert into theatre is the hook that hangs the tunes together. Hanging squirming from this particular hook is Liberace (reincarnated in Bobby Crush) as he plays for his immortal soul. We join the sequined piano man after his…
Qing Cheng
21 Jul 2011
Epic, millenium-spanning Chinese love story part of the China Fringe Festival
A night at the opera takes on a whole new meaning with Qing Cheng, an elaborate yet moving Chinese musical making its European debut at Edinburgh’s Usher Hall as part of the China Fringe Festival. Top billing in a week of cutting-edge entertainment from…
Leroy Jones Band - Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival
21 Jul 2011
The trumpeter visits Edinburgh after appearances in TV drama Treme
‘I was in an episode two weeks ago with my local quintet. I was performing one of my original compositions for about a minute and twenty seconds.’ Bandleader and trumpeter Leroy Jones is bubbling with pride over his recent appearance in an episode of…
The National - Matt Berninger interview
20 Jul 2011
US band set for Edinburgh gig as part of 2011 UK tour
The National‘s Matt Berninger has a way with a tear-jerking lyric. However, as he tells David Pollock, the release of album High Violet has ushered in good times for the Ohioan band. That, and Obama getting elected.
Music highlights from the 2011 Edinburgh Festival Fringe
20 Jul 2011
Lach's Antihoot, James Blake and Withered Hand among highlights
The LuckyMe collective of artists and designers is one of Glasgow’s most successful cultural exports of recent years, and the group’s August party will once more give festivalgoers a chance to find out what they’re all about. This year, they’re having…
Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo 2011 - Fact file
8 Jul 2011
The display of massed military viewed by 100 million people annually
1 The Edinburgh Tattoo first took place in 1950. It was first shown on colour television in 1968. 2The word 'tattoo' comes from the old Dutch phrase 'doe den tap toe', meaning 'turn off the taps', which was a call used at closing time in 17th century…
Edinburgh International Jazz and Blues Festival 2011 - highlights
8 Jul 2011
Tommy Smith, Courtney Pine, Hypnotic Brass Ensemble and more
Hypnotic Brass Ensemble A high energy blend of New Orleans horns and live hip hop beats, this Chicago nine-piece return to raise the Spiegeltent from its moorings. Barack Obama, Jay-Z and David Byrne are among the fans of this exciting block party…
Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo 2011 - Highlights
8 Jul 2011
Brass bands on bikes among highlights of music extravaganza
Have you ever wondered if you are a 'Bad Scot'? If soor plooms, Mel Gibson's take on William Wallace, dodgy recitals of Burns' poems and other things associated with stereotypical Jock culture make you recoil like a moggie from a festering puddle, you…
Trombone Shorty profile - Edinburgh Jazz Festival 2011
8 Jul 2011
Youthful jazz pioneer and composer set for Edinburgh date
'Oooooh! Trombone Shorty! My man!' This is how the 25-year-old jazz musician from New Orleans is greeted by fellow (and fictitious) horn player Antoine Batiste in David Simon's new HBO television show, Treme. Simon's follow-up to his hard-hitting cop…
Opera Die Frau Ohne Schatten set for 2011 Edinburgh International Festival
7 Jul 2011
Russia's Mariinsky Theatre and Jonathan Kent bring Strauss opera to EIF
To say Jonathan Kent's EIF opus is 'a bit' epic is like saying Edinburgh gets 'a bit' busy in August. This summer the Brit director joins forces with Russia's Mariinsky to stage the little-seen Die Frau ohne Schatten (The Woman without a Shadow). A cast…
Amjad Ali Khan to perform set of morning ragas on sarod at EIF 2011
7 Jul 2011
Edinburgh 11am concert accompanied by Ravi Shankar's evening ragas
The sarod may not be as familiar an instrument to western audiences as the sitar made famous by Ravi Shankar, but virtuoso player Amjad Ali Khan is happy to establish its proper context. 'Ravi Shankar's teacher was a sarod player,' says Khan on the line…
