The fantastic Emubands throw a party featuring a few Scottish great hopes tonight and we couldn’t be anymore excited.
It’s been quite the year for fuzzy garage trio Shredd, scooping Best Newcomer at the SAMAs earlier in the year followed by releasing quite possibly their finest moment yet in ‘Flight of Stairs’ – it seems quite apt that these boys end the year in style with a set worthy of any Christmas party.
Vocalist and guitarist Chris Harvie leads the charge through a plethora of sweet saccharine punk rock numbers such as set highlight ‘Cobra’ which funnily enough, leaves us wanting more in 2018 from Shredd.
Edwin Organ brings an ostensibly eccentrically pleasing manner to proceedings, his awkward and enclosed body language only makes his whole aura and stage presence feasibly more interesting and curious as he darts through finely sliced syllabic jams such as ‘Serenade’, which hoots and howls akin to Wild Beasts finest moments yet cunningly breaks a beat or two like those slightly well-known chaps in LCD Soundsystem.
Where Shredd soar with high intensity Skjør just as delicately delight with a brittle lo-fi haziness which encapsulates around Tut’s quite remarkably tonight, Vic Galloway proclaimed the Edinburgh quartet as darlings to watch this year and on the evidence provided through the ceremoniously slick ‘Self Control’ or disco jangly ‘Living Without You’ – we would hardly argue against Skjør, that’s for sure.
Static Union brings the encore and icing on the Emubands Christmas party cake with a generous helping of genuine, honest and at times scintillating musicianship and songwriting. Equivocally important to the remainder of the naughty tens as Belle and Sebastian were to the 90s and 00s, tonight we see just why Scotland has sat up and taken note of this wonderful quartet.
‘Last of our Kind’ juxtapositions chaos and order harmoniously, with a genuinely sombre reflection on hope and anxiety – Static Union’s approach to crafting a very good rock song is curating some consistent and haunting results – ‘Last Resort’ for example floats under a psychedelic wave of blooming keys and airy guitars.
As revellers begin to empty back on to the cold streets of Glasgow, there is whisperings on the way down the infamous venue stairs that perhaps, just maybe – one of the acts who played here tonight will one day have their name enshrined on the Tut’s stairs next to some of the esteemed artists to have graced this stage.
Words: Chris Kelman
Photos: Brendan Waters
Rave Child 