Fifteen years into their existence, Glasgow’s Chemikal Underground label continue to put out music that makes you realise just how essential they are to the development of music in Scotland and further afield.

As with most solo projects from members of established, one has to make a conscious effort to seperate their music from their day job if they are to be truly realised as something else than ‘him from that band we’ve heard before’.

The first time you hear Punch and the Apostles it makes you feel like your ears are getting a workout, there are so many different styles and sounds going on all at once. They also make you wonder where they’ve been in an industry filled with bland indie bands.

A rummage through the loft shows that as suspected, this East Lothian outfit did indeed feature on an is this music? CD some 5 years ago. That piece of detective work along with the album notes (I’d say ‘sleeve’ but since the release comes wrapped in a haggis pizza box with a ‘nonconforming goods’ stamp [...]

Unless the youngster featured on the cover is a young ‘Sweeney’, the provenance of this debut album is unclear and indeed mysterious. And listening to the music doesn’t help much either. From the opening ‘Carried Away By Melody’ with its recorded-in-a-bucket sound and ludicrous squeaky toy percussion, it’s a bizarre ramble through several eras and [...]