Giant Fang - Golden Age

We fairly confident that the idea of a localised music scene is a fairly outdated one these days, only used by the likes of the often horrendously out of date NME (the B-Town scene for example) magazine as they desperately try to create the next big indie guitar thing out of a bunch of bands from the same town.

If scenes still exist they’re more likely to be formed by similar genres across the information superhighway. As soon as one smart kid / band has uploaded something mind bogglingly brilliant to the internet, you can be pretty sure that inspiration and imitation will flood across the world wide web quicker than you can say “now that’s what I call music.”

So now let’s contradict our theories a little and say that right now there’s a hell of a lot of good electronic music coming out of Scotland and in particular Glasgow. Is it a scene? Or just a coincidence? Or is it that right now there’s a lot of good electronic music coating the world all over, like a synthtopian dream? But for a city that’s historically hasn’t been known for championing computer based tuneage, it’s doing a rather good job right now. From Hudson Mohawke to  Koreless to Prides and of course not forgetting the mighty Chvrches, Glasgow is dancing on its keyboards.

So let’s add Douglas Wilson aka Giant Fang to that list. You may remember his M83-esque tune Aqualung from back here? Now he’s following that up with Golden Age, another beast of a pop song, released through fledgling credible pop label POP unLTD on October 20th. Epic and expansive Golden Age doesn’t hold back in reaching for the skies; it’s the musical version of jumping at airplanes in a synth rock stadium. Open your mind and feel this. Thank you Glasgow. (Again)

Giant Fang - Golden Age

Giant Fang - Aqualung (Prides Remix)

Having introduced you to Giant Fang, (possibly) Scotland’s answer to M83 earlier this week and synth pop princes in waiting Prides back in April, now someone has had the sweet idea of putting the two together for some remix action. The results will make you swoon.

If you want to know where summer has gone, we suggest that Prides / Giant Fang have stolen it all and magicked it into this. Chilled to perfection this glorious cocktail will lift you gracefully upwards with its course set for the sun until you burst in euphoria. This is synth warmth from the northern third of Great Britain; a place that seems to be delivering quality electropop with extreme regularity these days.

Dare we say it but it might even be better than the original? OK we just did.

Giant Fang - Aqualung (Prides Mix)

Giant Fang - New Waves

A band’s name can often give a good clue to the type of music they make. Metallica were never going to be a glossy synth pop band were they? Soul II Soul told you exactly what they were doing from the start. Explosions In The Sky weren’t going to be a sneaky whisper of a group. And the terribly named Pigeon Detectives reflect their shit name by making shit music.

So what type of music would you expect an act called Giant Fang to make? We were expecting some sort of cold aggressive Norweigan post-rock with muscular cinematic power chords. Yet our presumptions had to take a back seat when we saw that the Giant Fang single Aqualung was coming out on a new label called POP unLTD, which is run by two ladies called Jen and Jessica who know their pop music as intimately as we know the lyrics to every Nicola Roberts b-side. (That’s quite a bit).

For Aqualung is pop, but not pop in the sense that we could imagine it being a song that The Saturdays or Olly Murs would cover (thankfully). This is pop from a world of paradise and elegance. It’s pop that’s that owes a kinship with rock music in its structure and sonic dynamic. It’s pop that doesn’t tire after a few listens. It’s pop that aims for the heavens. It’s pop that’s very good indeed.

So who is making this music? Giant Fang is rather disappointingly not some hairy leather clad Norweigan but Glasgow musician and producer Douglas Wilson. Having spent a number of years on the ropes as a tour manager and session musician Giant Fang is his own sweet baby. Aqualung was recorded with Sky Larkin drummer Nestor Matthews at Chem 19 studios in Glasgow and comes equipped with a couple of remixes from two other rather top notch artists that have featured on Breaking More Waves in their own right – Prides and Unicorn Kid. Giant Fang play Glasgow Art School on June 20th. If it wasn't quite so far away we'd be there like a shot. Scottish readers - put it in your diary now.

 Giant Fang - Aqualung