The debut from Edinburgh’s Miyagi is a 60s-style psychedelic mish mash complete with trippy bass and hippyish backing vocals. So sit back, put a flower in the bandana tied round your head and skin up a fat joint. [...]

Bubblegum Lemonade have chosen (or saddled themselves with) a name that may well have got them lynched in the 80s. It’s not the greatest name ever (unless it’s a tribute to Baby Lemonade and Bubblegum Splash) and seems a little twee. Musically, they are more robust than their moniker would suggest. ‘Susan’s In The Sky’ is a neat slab of catchy 60s inflected guitar pop, mixing a surf feel with the girl group sound and augmented by a fuzzy warm bass, with dumb teenage lyrics such as ‘In the summer we’ll take the long road in your father’s car / In the summer in your father’s car we’ll sleep beneath the stars’. ‘Surfin’ USB’ is a cool revamp of the Marychain’s early surf fixation (‘Kill Surf City’ and their cover of ‘Surfin’ USA), giving the form a West Coast (of Scotland) twist:

“Monday morning raining down
[…]
Monday’s plans are all at sea
Everyone’s surfin’ USB.”

It even has some cool “Woo-ooo-eee-ooo” vocals towards the end. ‘Just Like You’ has a livelier sound with more of an edge to it’s frazzled, fuzzed-out guitars and is my favourite song on the E.P. “Holocaust’ is the latest instalment of Glasgow’s Big Star / Alex Chilton love-in. In its original form it’s one of the bleakest songs ever and Bubblegum Lemonade’s mid-tempo version captures the dark beauty at the heart of the song. With the exception of ‘Holocaust’, no song passes the three-minute mark. Almost perfect pop. However, my only criticism of this E.P. is that the production sounds rather flat and a little lifeless, as though the band were scared to let loose in the studio, that they were so focussed on getting the songs ‘perfect’ that they lost some of their energy and edge. That aside, this is still an enjoyable, fun record.

There’s a real sense of adventure present here, a wonderful sense of being taken on some kind of magical mystery tour deep within the confines of the warped minds of the creators. In that respect, it’s a very Scottish kind of a disc. [...]

This, the second single from Glasgow-based Punch and the Apostles, starts out sounding like a big band tune until Paul Napier breaks in with his raucous vocals. Both his singing style and his dark lyrics shouldn’t fit the musical style but then again Punch and the Apostles have already proven that they can’t be shoehorned into any classic musical moulds. [...]

Oh when oh when will Odeon Beat Club have a hit? This is as good as anything they have released and I’m still waiting for their gorgeous music to be noticed by someone, dammit! [...]