reviews: rm hubbert, emma pollock, polar bear

another trio from the skinny:

RM Hubbert - First & Last (***)

El Hombre Trajeado are lost icons of Glasgow DIY. I say this as someone who had never heard of them prior to this review commission, but whose excitement has been well and truly piqued by the tracks found online. Former member RM Hubbert’s debut solo album generates significantly less excitement, but perhaps that’s just a matter of preference: personally, late-Fugazi grooves cross-pollinated by a glitchy Yo La Tengo have always appealed more than instrumental flamenco-guitar compositions. As a pay-what-you-like release accompanied by a ‘will-play-for-food’ gigging arrangement, it's clear that Hubbert hasn’t lost his self-sufficiency, and perhaps it's better to consider First & Last a low-key re-introduction ahead of his already-in-the-works second album (which carries the more fulfilling promise of Aidan Moffat, Alasdair Roberts and Emma Pollock collaborations). Till then I’ll stick to downloading El Hombre Trajeado’s back catalogue, gratis, from their website - thanking you kindly Mr Hubbert.

Out March 1st

Emma Pollock - The Law of Large Numbers (****)

After a couple of relatively quiet years Emma Pollock redefines herself on her second album, her solo career no longer relying upon residual goodwill earned during her time with the Delgados. Its exquisite centerpiece House on the Hill will be familiar to anyone who attended The Burns Unit's inauguration at last year's Celtic Connections festival, and it's even more magisterial in this incarnation. The switch from tempestuous piano runs in the verse to stalled heartbreak in the chorus is potently powerful, the slightly unhinged air it generates packing emotional punch. Nothing else matches it, but some come close: after an opening piano overture, the punchy Hug the Harbour leaps from the speakers, while The Loop's eerie waltz mesmerises. After the compartively underwhelming Watch The Fireworks, The Law of Large Numbers proves solo Pollock just as exciting a prospect as her former band were at their peak a decade ago.

Out March 1st

Polar Bear - Peepers (****)

While you don't need credentials to review an album (shhhh, don't tell anyone), a familiarity with the genre at hand usually pays dividends. So I'll come clean and admit my jazz-experience amounts to Giant Steps and early Miles Davis - nothing recent, and certainly nothing cut from the same experimental cloth as Seb Rochford and co. So I should probably humbly decline an opinion, right? Nah. Because removing the potentially-daunting 'post-jazz' label reveals enjoyably off-the-wall compositions which can be appreciated without a vocabulary of wailin' and burnin'. Sure, the horns honking throughout Drunken Pharaoh might test the patience of non-aficionados, but generally this is an atmospheric fifty minutes with similarities (in accessible-yet-challenging-scene-darling attitude, if not necessarily aesthetics) to the likes of Animal Collective or Four Tet. Purists may conclude otherwise, but in the opinion of this layman an infiltration of the jazz-allergic mainstream would be very nice indeed.

Out March 1st