Scottish music: rock of the north [View all]

[MichaelMcGuire]

Frightened Rabbit: 'Now there's more confidence about staying in Scotland.' Photograph: www.dannynorth.co.uk

Talk of independence is giving Scottish culture a boost – especially in the thriving music scene. The new bands are inspired by the country's traditional music, and they sing in their own accents tooAidan Moffat is contemplating whether devolution makes a certain kind of sound. "There seemed for a long time in Scotland to be an embarrassment in being yourself," says the former Arab Strap vocalist. "When I was young, all Scottish bands seemed to want to be English or American and I found that really peculiar. We're still a fucking miserable bunch, but we certainly seem more proud and comfortable with our own identity than we were in the past."

Novelist Alasdair Gray's dictum to "work as if you live in the early days of a better nation" – now carved on the wall of the Scottish parliament – is finding its most obvious application in Scotland's vibrant arts output. Almost 15 years after devolution and with the SNP government gearing up for an independence referendum in 2014, a period of seismic change is finding a parallel expression through music.

You won't find many bands north of the border hymning independence or singing about the sanctity of the union – it's less clear-cut than that. There is, however, evidence of what folk musician and Burns Unit member Karine Polwart calls "a massive sense of cultural confidence": acclaimed scenes encompassing everyone from cutting-edge electronic artists to million-selling rock bands; collaborations across genres and art forms; above all, a tangible sense of a nation looking to itself for inspiration and validation. "Many musicians are embracing their Scottishness," says BBC Radio Scotland's Vic Galloway. "It's not about tartan, bagpipes and shortbread, but a contemporary forward-thinking Scotland that isn't afraid to sing in its own accent and embrace its own culture."

Read on: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/mar/08/scottish-music-rock-north

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