Into New Music: January 2025
2024 is fast fading into the background but on reflection it was a great year for music. As we move into a new year, Into Creative have a look at the best releases in recent weeks and fair to say there are some belters! So read on and do check out the tunes, we know you will not be disappointed.
Artist: Sulidae
Single: Save You All My Blues
Now bear with me here. Yes, this is the first Into Creative review of new music in 2025 and yes, we are a tad (over) excited about this one and yes, the following is a bold statement…. But we do believe it could be true, that this may well be the song of 2025!! It will certainly appear as a minimum in our songs of the year.
Sulidae is the solo project of Bobby Motherwell and the track Save You All My Blues sees him accompanied by Fraser Speirs on harmonica and the dual guitar wizardry of James Grant and Robert Hodgens to produce a track right out of the Scottish songbook. Motherwell’s vocal is soaked in emotion, the musical backing elevating the song to the heady heights.
The song is contained within a new EP just released on Bandcamp which can be ordered here.
Oh, and do check out the cool video which was partly recorded in The Britannia Panopticon and partly filmed at Howwood, and produced by Into Creative.
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Artist: The Golden Tree
Album: Scottish Songs Observed Volume 2
Label: Last Night From Glasgow
The Golden Tree is the brainchild of acclaimed Glasgow musicians Grahame Skinner (Hispway/The Cowboy Mouth) and Robert Hodgens (The Bluebells/The Poems) and they are back with the second instalment of their Scottish Songs Observed albums. Essentially, take twelve songs that have a Scottish link and turn them into something new.
We’ve seen all too often, bands take on a cover of a track and basically re-do it with nothing added, a boring carbon copy of what has gone before. No chance of that happening with Skinner and Hodgens and they really have reinvented several tracks and/or provided a completely different spin on the originals which makes this an album that is both rewarding and interesting in equal measure.
There is a wide gambit of artists covered, from contemporaries such as BMX Bandits to luminaries such as Mott The Hoople and a few unexpected curve balls such as the Bay City Rollers. Indeed, on the latter, the duo’s take on Shang-A-Lang is inspired. Skinner’s voice is the highlight, given space and time to explore a wonderful range while Hodgen’s music simply flows. At first I was expecting it to speed up a little but it never does and it is all the better for that.
A semi-acoustic take on Movin’ On Up might’ve been what Bobby Gillespie ended up with were it not for the influence of the late 1980s dance scene and all that came with it and that is no bad thing whereas the disco smash Love Is In The Air gets a suitably elegant makeover.
The album closes with Letter From America and a clever touch is added, replacing the various places referenced in the original with music venues that are sadly no more such as Night Moves, Apollo and the Rock Garden.
There are plenty of twists and turns on Scottish Songs Observed Volume Two, an album littered with great songs and versions of tracks that deserve to be heard. To purchase the album, head to the Last Night From Glasgow website here.
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Artist: The New Fools/ The Groovy Cellar
Single: We Love The Sun/ A Certain Girl
Label: World Cup Records
It’s been over a year since we’ve heard fresh music from The New Fools so it’s great to have them back with a track which is hopefully a taster of more to come in the not too distant future. We Love The Sun bursts out the traps with some great brass and busy drums before Tony Jenkins come in with a vocal dreaming of the summer (me too)!! Three minutes of modish pop is just what the Doctor ordered, we just need the sun to accompany this veritable cracker!
The flip has a track by The Groovy Cellar, and this is quite an interesting concept in that you don’t often see two bands combine to share a release. Quite an interesting idea and one I’d like to see more of as it gives you a different way into potential new music. The band were established in Berlin in 1991 and are named after a well known neo-60’s London club (from the 1980’s). The song, A Certain Girl is a slab of melodic laid back 1960’s era psychedelia and is definitely a gateway to their back catalogue.
For more on The New Fools head to their website here. Check out The Groovy Cellar via their website here.
John Welsh
Links:
@TravisDurden
@jamthrawn
@R0Poem
@GramSkin
@LNFGlasgow