QTheMusic.com

Someone said to me why are all your tips are a week if not weeks or indeed months late? Well they didn't word it like that but hey. I'm no journalist (you don't say?!) so I don't get advanced copies of things, I have to wait for release dates just like everybody else.

I like it like that anyway. Makes a record more special. To go to a store and pick out something you've waited for, take it home, go into a blind, whomping rage trying to de-package it from it's taut cellophane prison, calm down with a nice cuppa, put it on the stereo and bask in its glory (or otherwise, but we'll stick with glory for this scenario) and then 45 minutes to an hour later press play once more and do it all again.

Of course this is how you, me, everybody used to buy records but it's a rare scene these days. The ceaseless advance of technology has made it very easy to sound very old very quickly. I'm no technophobe, I'm no anything-phobe really aside from sharks and racists, but I did love the ritual of going to the local indie shop and then the joy of all the things I banged on about up there in those words before. This has though been replaced with the brand new joy of everything (EVERYTHING) at our fingertips.

So in the spirit of the guy that wondered why I never gave him the heads up BEFORE something came out, this week I'd like to talk about the scene in Belfast right now and pick a few great bands (for there are so many) to highlight lest you may in your own sweet time peel the layers of what is the fastest growing and, dear I say it without sounding partisan (probably not) most interesting new music scene in the world.

And what a richness there is in that department. Let's forget the reasons why Belfast is only in the last few years catching up with the rest of the world in many modern departments (that is well documented and not for a music website such as this) but catching up it is. And then some. There is also the infrastructure now of a cottage record industry with labels such as Bruised Fruit, We Collect Records, No Dancing and Only Gone to name but a few. This was not the case when we were growing up there (that's me sounding old again, no matter) and this lead to us and many other bands of our generation finding their fortune in Glasgow or London or Liverpool or elsewhere anyway. One of the great things about the new scene in Belfast is that whereas most bands from Liverpool owe a debt to The Beatles and most from Manchester owe something to Joy Division the kids making music in Belfast are forging their own paths. They have influences of course they do, music is an unbroken line, but their influences come from far and wide and have little rhyme or reason or connection to Belfast. It's a beautiful thing.

Ostensibly they have created an environment for themselves where anything can happen: from the stunning gospel of The Lowly Knights, to the head-bending electronic rock of Cashier No.9, to the deathly elegant nu-country of Robyn G Shields, to the pile-driving majesty of LaFaro, to the serene, swoonsome godlike genius that is Iain Archer, to the vaudevillian marvel of Duke Special, to the voice that launched a thousand salty tears of joy Foy Vance, to the frankly unhinged beautiful and terrifying (in the best sense) dark place that is And So I Watch You From Afar, to the unknowable depths of Western Electric (Charlie Mooney from Desert Hearts' new monster of a thing). All of these wonderful bands and more you can find on the single greatest thing the internet has to offer, in among the lies and the porn, and that is MySpace and the sites like it. Places where you can listen to up-til-then undiscovered gems. Go right now and listen to Golden Recruit by the marvellous Panama Kings on MySpace. "We can't be trusted" they sing as a mantra but heed them not.

There are so many other bands to check out and look for in the future, this is just the tip of the iceberg. There are an army of new bands forming there every week it seems and every time I get home I hear so much great new stuff it boggles the mind (my new favourite thing is the marvellously monikered Panda Kopanda). We have the beginnings of something in Belfast that could be quite quite special indeed.

Next week I'll make it about the one album again. Or about space. Either way it'll be Friday next. Lots of love to y'all. Have a wonderful week.

g.x

Photo: Panama Kings by Gavin Millar

3:57 PM | 10/07/2009