Tracks - page 39

Hey, it’s that Steve Mason again, in transition between life in The Beta Band, and life as a solo artist recording under his own name. Musically, this is more Beta than Mason, which means it...

How can someone possibly be part of a band that wrote a song like Dry The Rain (you know, the one John Cusack plays in High Fidelity) and yet still wind up deep in debt,...

In 1992, Peter Gabriel released Us, and chose Digging In The Dirt as its first single. To accompany it, a video, complete with claymation like on that other Gabriel song - you know the one,...

I challenge anyone not to feel, in some way, uplifted by the song and the man.

Out somewhere beyond sumptuous, such a rich voice, and song-writing that takes you back to some non-specific good old days, the result is somehow contemporary and yet at least 50, 60, 70 years old; it’s...

The second single from the Blur guitarist’s fifth and most successful solo album, “Bittersweet Bundle of Misery” is a treasure chest of riffs and pieces that remind you of various Blur moments. The first and...

Suedehead was Morrissey’s debut single; his first release after the break-up of The Smiths. It appeared on Now That’s What I Call Music 11, half a copy of which I own - an incompleteness suggesting...

It’s no coincidence that after Rose Elinor Dougall and her fellow vocalists left them, The Pipettes swiftly plummeted from pitch-perfect Phil Spector admirers to a sorry papier mâché pastiche of the same: once a deliberately...

This might be a bit of a cheat, because technically, the album Rabbit Fur Coat is by Jenny Lewis and The Watson Twins, rather than Lewis as solo artist, but it’s just too beautiful a...

Sometimes it’s hard to spot the line that divides the solo work from band material. That’s very much the case with Ben Gibbard, who lends his distinctive vocal sound to Death Cab For Cutie, and...

Singers have it easy: no matter their musical direction and their travelling companions, we already know what they sound like. That thing they do? They’re still doing it, just with new friends.

Given that the solo career tends to happen after the time spent in a band, it’s no great surprise to find that the wiser, older solo artist eschews the rough edges of his or her...

The other half of The Delgados’ singing twosome, Emma Pollock, has had a more straightforward solo career than Alun Woodward since the band’s demise, taking the late era Delgados as a springboard (think Everybody Come...

Lord Cut-Glass, aka Alun Woodward, was formerly of Motherwell indie band The Delgados, who somehow never quite managed to translate promise, talent, and appearances in John Peel’s Festive Fifty into sales, singles, and success. I...

It’s amazing what you can do with a 1994 Casio keyboard and an acoustic guitar. Or at least it is if you’re the mad genius creator sort, and you can tie those elements together (or...

Psychedelic animal-based tomfoolery from the ever-reliable Haines, fiercely ploughing that lone furrow of his once more. Last time out he was imagining the intimate and private thoughts of 70s and 80s British wrestling stars; now...

The solo album as relaxing time out from the pressures of the day job received an explicit reading from The House of Love’s Guy Chadwick, with the release of Lazy, Soft & Slow.

Something of a curiosity this. Alan McGee, sitting on huge piles of cash at Creation Records HQ, seems to have been pretty open to solo projects from artists on his roster. While the solo efforts...

Drunken Santa video of the week.

Go sing, too loud