I don’t know what it is about Scottish bands, but so many of them are just irresistible. Okay, maybe it’s not fair to generalize quite so broadly—there are 5 million people in Scotland, after all—but a disproportionate percentage of Music I Really Love seems to emanate from Scotland. The Delgados, for instance, are perhaps my favorite “discovery” of the last decade (along with Dolly Varden), and since finding the Delgados, I’ve become a big fan of a lot of other artists on their label, Chemikal Underground. There’s Malcolm Middleton, whom I’ve discussed here, and his band Arab Strap, and Mogwai. And then, in another corner of the Wonderful World of Scottish Music, there’s the magnificent James Yorkston and the Athletes, whom I unaccountably left off my best of 2005 list. Not that they had a record out in 2005, alas, but I did want to mention their gorgeous 2004 release, “Just Beyond the River,” as my favorite record of 2004 that I didn’t hear until 2005. And of course, my affection for quirky Scottish pop goes way back before any of these bands to the heyday of the great Postcard label, especially Orange Juice, whom I’ve been listening to a lot lately now that their mid-period stuff has been anthologized (on “The Glasgow School,” which I just put on my iPod last night, to go along with the best-of collection that’s been on there for a while. There are few songs in the world, and I’m not even exaggerating when I say this, that make me as purely happy as “Felicity.”). Not to mention the Delmontes and Josef K and, well, Scotland rules, pretty much.
And just recently, I’ve become reacquainted with another slightly quirky and enormously entertaining Scottish pop band: Spare Snare. I used to hear Spare Snare all the time on Radio K, the University of Minnesota’s often superb student-run station, way back in the mid ’90s, but I’d all but forgotten about them until I found out that a guy in a CD-mixer group that I belong to is a member of the band. They just launched a MySpace page (have I mentioned how much I love it when bands have MySpace pages? Let me mention it again), and after listening to all the songs there this evening, I can’t wait till they have a full-length CD out so that I can give them my money for the import. I’d call them charming, but that makes them sound sort of twee and cute, and they’re not that; they’re just completely original and entirely captivating. (And sort of vaguely lo-fi, which is a bonus for me.) They’ve also got one of the best Websites I’ve seen in a long time, and given how thoroughly over the Web I’ve been feeling lately, that’s high praise indeed.
There’s a fair amount to talk about on the music front lately: an early entrant in the race for CD of the year (that would be the new Rosanne Cash), the allegedly forthcoming Scott Miller record (”allegedly” because it mysteriously disappeared from the online CD retailer site from which I had preordered it, something I didn’t find out until they sent me an order update about a CD I’d never heard of, rather than Scott’s CD; Sugar Hill still lists it as due on March 14, but I’m a little suspicious), the overhyped but still thoroughly enjoyable Arctic Monkeys CD, and more. But just at the moment, I’m all about the Scots,* and Spare Snare in particular. Go listen to them.
*Okay, and the Clientele, of course. Nothing has yet knocked them out of heavy rotation. But hey, their frontguy has a Scottish name, so maybe they count too. Sort of.