Scot Rocks

Why the hiatus, you ask? A couple of weekends ago I got out of London and embarked on an ambitious road trip around southern and central Scotland. Although I've been to Scotland (and Edinburgh) a few times already the scenery, people, and culture of this truly amazing country never cease to amaze me. And for a small place (under 80,000 square kilometres and just over 5 million people) it sure cranks out a ton of good music.
Here are some of the songs that made up my Scotland Summer Soundtrack while speeding through the idyllic countryside, drinking pints in village pubs, exploring abandoned castles and taking in the Edinburgh festival:

Mylo - Otto's Journey

Beta Band - Needles in My Eyes
Mogwai - Friend of the Night

Belle & Sebastian - Sleep the Clock Around
My Latest Novel - The Reputation of Ross Francis

Idlewild - No Emotion

Camera Obscura - Country Mile

Boards of Canada - Telephasic Workshop

The Twilight Sad - Cold Days From the Birdhouse

Arab Strap - Where We've Left Our Love

The Jesus and Mary Chain - You Trip Me Up

Ballboy - I Hate Scotland

Franz Ferdinand - Fade Together

-a.m.p.m.

Gloomy Buoyance

Many regard Edwin Morgan among Scotland's greatest poets. My first encounter with his work came with the release of Idlewild's 2002 album The Remote Part. That album solidified the band as one of my personal favorites, and particularly striking was the album closer "In Remote Part/Scottish Fiction." The song features Morgan reciting his poem Scottish Fiction, written exclusively for the album, as the track comes to a thunderous conclusion. A snippet of that poem: "It's a red haunting vibration pushing through the walls of dark imagination, finding no equation." I won't pretend to always understand the intentions of the prose, but his structure and tone resound differently than many poets before him. It was a pleasant surprise then, to discover that Idlewild has teamed with Morgan once again on the new track, "The Weight of Years." Morgan himself does not appear on the song, but all lyrics are his. Roddy Woomble's youthful take on the 86 year-old's words is at times inspiring and at times somber, realizing how Morgan's description of elderly deterioration and acceptance must have been difficult to formulate on paper. Traditional highland string arrangements add to the melancholy, further imprinting Idlewild's footsteps on the cultural landscape of Scotland.

Idlewild - In Remote Part/Scottish Fiction
Idlewild - The Weight of Years

- Brad