Another, yes another, great night from Last Night from Glasgow, although the actual album release is a joint effort with Olive Grove (Lloyd Meredith was in Edinburgh at the SAY awards with Carla J Easton, who sadly didn’t win but we can’t all be winners, etc…) Broken Chanter is the new(ish) solo project from David MacGregor of Kid Canaveral fame.
First up in this seated CCA space (it did work, and the sound mix was great) was Moonsoup, a Scottish solo female artist on guitar and loops. Although the place was just filling up, she went down very well with a couple of great tracks (one about food dislikes – “I don’t like mushrooms, I don’t like steak…” – one to watch (BM said that last time, but still watching!).
Driving up from Cambridge, Mammoth Penguins kicked up a massive racket through the CCA sound system (at the soundcheck they constantly asked for “more levels”). A three piece combo, they rocked liked Sleeper vs Sonic Youth and were hugely enjoyable.
Despite these great supports, however, the main event was of course Broken Chanter’s album launch performance, playing the whole of this debut album with a couple of surprises in the middle. Expanded to a five-piece tonight, frontman David MacGregor was joined by Gav on guitar/bass/vocals, Jill on fiddle/vocals, Audrey on drums and Gillian on keyboard.
Together they sounded quite amazing and although BM has heard most of the songs live before, they sounded even better this evening in an auditorium with a decent sound system and some atmospheric visuals on the screen above the stage. Half way through the album tracks, as a kind of intermission, we got two Kid Canaveral oldies, ‘Dumbarton’ and ‘A Compromise’ thrown in for good measure, both sounding as good as ever.
The variety of the music on the album, the choice of instrumentation and settings, using Gaelic on one track and digging into personal and musical experiences makes the thing something of a triumph, and to hear the songs played live was a real treat.