Kevin Scott

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Hello. I’m Kev, a Glasgow-based journalist and fiction writer who happens to feel as passionate about music as I do literature. I am a multi-intrumentalist…no wait, that’s not quite accurate. I own several musical instruments, the workings of which I have failed to fully grasp in two decades of trying. What I am capable of however, is listening to and watching other people play music. So when I discovered Echoes and Dust were looking for people to actually write about this, I got in touch and here am I, listening and writing, but not playing. It has been rumoured that I am so “afraid to rock” that I was once ironically nicknamed Metal Kev. These are allegations that I fiercely deny, however I’m far more at home with Scottish indie, folk, Americana and electronic music as I am with those big ruddy loud guitars and angry drums. I miss making up mixtapes. Some of my more coherent writing can be found at www.kevscott.net. Â

Articles by Kevin Scott

sleepmakeswaves – …and then they remixed everything

“…and so they remixed everything” by sleepmakeswaves reviewed by Gilbert Potts and Kevin Scott for (((o)))

Echodrone – Mixtape for Duckie

While they work on their next studio album, the San-Francisco based dream-pop/shoe-gazing specialists Echodrone have recorded a six-track covers album which takes in Louis Armstrong, Gary Numan and George Michael among others.

The Bitter Springs – Everyone’s Cup of Tea

Since forming as Last Party back in 1985, The Bitter Springs have released a score of albums all driven by the energy of songwriter Simon Rivers’ ability as a storyteller. That’s not to dismiss the musicians in the band (who also acted as Vic Goddard’s …

Black Books – Aquarena EP

Imagine yourself in a church and just as the organ begins to play the church suddenly sinks underwater and then just as you’re about to panic, you’re saved by a guitar riff that hauls you back to the surface. That’s pretty much the opening 10 seconds t …

Ólöf Arnalds – Sudden Elevation

When it comes to Icelandic music, the few exports that gain exposure on these shores tend to go down with something close to unabashed devotion – from Bjork (and The Sugarcubes) and Sigur Ros to the less well known Mum, 2012 sensations, Of Monsters & M …

Fantasy Rainbow – Bos Taurus

Back in May 2011 Oliver Catt had an idea about recording songs from his bedroom and releasing them. As the project grew, so too did the number of collaborators working with the Manchester-based Catt, and by April 2012, Fantasy Rainbow had a string of s …

Creature With The Atom Brain – The Birds Fly Low

Guitars. They swoop, they slide, they rumble and they roar all the way through the fabric of ‘The Birds Fly Low’, the third album from Creature With the Atom Brain, and finally gets its UK release after being available in some territories since April. …

Perhaps Contraption – Listening Bones

A New Orleans nightclub, an excitable uncle on Christmas Day, a Victorian carnival, a jazz musician literally melting into the floor of a stage, a different, more contemporary carnival, a cartoon character being chased, a choir of clowns banging symbol …

Linnea Olsson – Ah!

When an album is classed as being in the ‘cello pop’ genre, you can be fairly certain you’re dealing with something you’ve not heard before. That’s certainly the case with Swede Linnea Olsson’s debut, ‘Ah!’. Opener ‘The Ocean’ is a lush neo-classical c …

Tilly & The Wall – Heavy Mood

The start of Tilly & The Wall’s fourth album arrives with a kaleidoscope of sounds, and for a band who don’t have a drummer it makes a lot of noise. Listen to it while staring at the crazy abstract cover art and you’d be forgiven for seeing eyes blinki …

Ultrasound – Play For Today

“We’re sorry that we’re late,” belts out Ultrasound vocalist Andrew ‘Tiny’ Wood in the midst of opening track ‘Welfare State’. So he bloody should be. It’s been 13 years since the band’s absurdly-hyped debut came out. Back in the late 90s a series of b …

Field Music Play…

There was a hint of what was to come on this covers album by hipster favourites Field Music when they recorded versions of Pet Shop Boys ‘Heart’ and ‘Rent’ for Record Store Day earlier this year. If that gave a clue to the sort of song Field Music woul …

Effluence – Vinegar Stroke

Like a lot of grunge rockers, Effluence set their stall out early doors on this debut release with an almighty crashing introduction of feedback, drums and guitars going crazy. A verse arrives like a angry train, then by the time we’re 45 seconds in th …

Echodrone – Bon Voyage

The further into the past that the 80s sink, the more we forget what we’d come to hate about the decade. Instead we can revel in what we loved about it – and not in a Duran-Duran-are-a-guilty-pleasure way. This is the decade that took punk and twisted …

Calexico – Algiers

Opening with a bright acoustic guitar that belies the emotional undertones of Calexico’s first release in four years, it feels like the band has never been away. Things have changed though. The Arizona band decamped to New Orleans to record this record …

volcano! – Piñata

The first few seconds of volcano’s third release sounds like Salvador’s Dali’s alarm clock. To say it ‘erupts’ would be easy, conventional, and that would be doing this Chicago band a huge disservice, because if ‘Piñata’ does anything, it marches to th …

Duke Special – Oh Pioneer

There’s always been a fairy-tale element to Duke Special’s music that transports the listener to different worlds. That’s something Belfast-based Peter Wilson’s alter ego has managed to pull off again in this first new “commercial” album since 2008 – t …

Ikons – Life Rhythm

Maybe it’s the cold, the long dark winters, or the isolation that does it, but Scandinavia digs shoe-gazing. There have been some awesome exponents of the genre in recent years and they’ve clearly influenced this sophomore release by Gothenburg-based I …

Doldrums – Egypt

Airick Woodhead, the man behind Doldrums, is a video artist as well as a musician, and this EP has the feel of something that has been edited in the way a film might, with enough splicing and mashing to blunt a razorblade. The opening few seconds of ‘E …

Paloma Faith – Fall to Grace

Since the release of Paloma Faith’s 2009 debut, the whole female retro-soul thing has gone a bit mental thanks to Adele shifting 40 zillion albums or something. Comparisons are therefore unavoidable, and fans of the genre will be singing along to the a …

Gunning For Tamar – Time Trophies EP

Back in the days before downloads it was fairly common for a band to release two version of a single – one with b-sides and one with remixes, something that Gunning for Tamar have pulled together in this six-track release that combines three versions o …

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