Frightened Rabbit have recorded a new song entitled ‘Last Tango in Brooklyn’ for Australian zine The Lifted Brow. Here is Pitchfork’s take: “It’s a view looking back after a relationship has ended, and what once seemed bright and lovely has now turned cold and lonely. Starting with an acoustic guitar and building to a sad hymnal, fleshed out with chanting and tambourine, ‘Last Tango in Brooklyn’ shows a quieter, less anthemic side of Frightened Rabbit. It’s a desolate ode to something gone, that feeling not so much that the world is over but that things used to be a little more fun.”

Grab the song here!

mp3:> Frightened Rabbit: ‘Last Tango In Brooklyn’

The single ‘It’s Christmas So We’ll Stop’ was released for Christmas last year, but it is to be re-worked and re-released, labelmate David Karsten Daniels will be adding a full choir, strings, piano and much more to the typically downbeat yet euphoric song. Needless to say this could be something quite special. The single will be released on 15th December.

Frightened Rabbit

Thanks to the enterprising souls behind London’s newest and most evocatively named inner-city festival, Concrete & Glass, a drizzly Thursday night spent bar-hopping in Shoreditch suddenly looked less like a punishment for a past life’s misdeeds and more like a chance to hear some genuinely exciting live music. TLOBF staked out a prime spot at Hoxton Bar & Kitchen, cameras and pencils in hand. Continue Reading

The internet is sooooo vast that it’s nye on impossible to be aware of all the truly great  music websites out there. Lucky for us then, that the founder of the fairly new Bandstand Busking got in touch a few days ago to tell us all about the video delights they have for the discerning music lover. i.e: You.

So what is Bandstand Busking? Well, it’s kinda like Blackcab Sessions and Takeaway Shows. A ridiculously hip indie band gets asked to perform a few tracks in weird and wonderful locations (in this instance, yup, you guessed it - on bandstands).. There are some fantastic videos up on the site at the moment.. We’ve compiled a few of the best below but we truly recomend you got forth and check the whole lot out. They’re great.

The Wave Pictures - David’s Evening On Wheels

Frightened Rabbit - Backwards Walk

Laura Groves - Coast

The Acorn - The Flood pt 2

Left: James Graham - The Twilight Sad
Right: Scott Hutchinson - Frightened Rabbit

In this, the second part of our Twilight Sad/Frightened Rabbit feature, TLOBF moves on from the ‘C’ word filled spewings of Part 1 to chew the fat with Scott Hutchison and James Graham on why both bands were overlooked at T In the Park, where they think their standing is in the current Scottish Music scene and what the pair have planned for the future.

I noticed that at T In The Park you were both in small tents. What did you make of that?
James Graham: Yip, we were in the Unsigned Bands tent. I was quite happy to play it but I saw it as a kick in the nuts because we’re not unsigned and there were bands on that bill who weren’t where we are and hadn’t put in as much work as we have.
Scott Hutchison: You feel like you’ve produced good enough music that you could be treated as a real band and not be lumbered into one of those tents. There’s a lot of promoter politics to get a good slot at T In The Park.
JG: It worked out well but at the time it felt like ‘for fucks sake’. Continue Reading

Scott Hutchinson and James Graham share the stage

If you haven’t noticed, the Scottish music scene’s thriving. There’s a new sense of worth emanating from the nation’s sweat soaked venues and acts like We Were Promised Jetpacks, Broken Records and El Padre are creating sounds with the potential to shoot beyond the country’s towering trajectory and out over the Atlantic. And the reason for this tartan-clad revival? Well, there’re two: Frightened Rabbit and The Twilight Sad.

Over the past twelve months the uniquely home-grown sonics of the ‘Twilight’s magnificent Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters and Frightened Rabbit’s equally elegiac The Midnight Organ Fight have pulled relentlessly on the UK public’s heartstrings. Forget the grating art school chic of Franz Ferdinand, these acts truly encapsulate the sound of modern Scotland: vehemently sarcastic, bitterly morose and absolutely, unflappably honest.

So in the first of a two part interview, The Line of Best Fit caught up with Frightened Rabbit’s Scott Hutchison and The Twilight Sad’s James Graham before a gig in Edinburgh during the Fringe to discuss their morbid disposition, the increased popularity of the Scottish brogue and, of course, Gwen Stefani… Continue Reading

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

The absolutely brilliant Frightened Rabbit are to release an album of mostly acoustic live versions of (some) songs from their astounding album The Midnight Organ Fight from earlier this year, set for release on October the 21st in the States and sometime in April for the UK. The recordings come from a gig at Captain’s Rest, Glasgow on July 30th this year, with a guest appearance from FatCat label mates The Twilight Sad’s James Graham on ‘Keep Yourself Warm’.

If the Pure Groove in-store they played on Moday is anything to go by, just… oh my god, oh my god.

Tracklisting for Liver! Lung! FR!:
1) The Modern Leper
2) I Feel Better
3) Good Arms vs. Bad Arms
4) Fast Blood
5) Old Old Fashioned
6) The Twist
7) Head Rolls Off
8) My Backwards Walk
9) Keep Yourself Warm
10) Poke
11) Floating in the Forth
12) Who’d You Kill Now?

Frightened Rabbit will support Death Cab For Cutie on their Autumn UK tourdates. It seems as though Death Cab are quite taken with the Rabbit - In the latest issue of Rock Sound Magazine, bass player Nick Harmer called The Midnight Organ Fight his album of the year, stating: “It’s lyrically perfect with words that hit you right in the heart. And coupled with the singer’s (Scott Hutchinson) vocals, the whole thing just kills me.” He ‘aint wrong. We loved it too.

Those tour dates in full:

November
12 - St. Georges Market, Belfast
13 - Ambassador Theatre, Dublin
14 - Corn Exchange, Edinburgh
15 - Rock City, Nottingham
16 - Colston Hall, Bristol
17 - Carling Academy, Sheffield
19 - Alexandra Palace, London

If we’re to quote The Cranberries (and why shouldn’t you?), “Everybody else is doing it, so why can’t we?”. As we’ve past the halfway point in this year of 2008, it seemed like a good time to look back. What have been the musical higlights of the year so far? We’ve had some absolutely corking albums released, from Fleet Foxes genre defying debut, to Elbow’s continued cultured and heartwarming release. It might surprise some of our readers what’s ended up on this list but one thing this exercise has made us realise, is that come the end of the year, there’s going to be a big pile of albums under the ‘Excellent’ heading…

So how did we decide on the final 10 albums? We asked all of our writers to email in their favourite 5 releases of the year thus far. Each album voted for was then given a point and entered into a highly technical spreadsheet - which left us with the following records… Continue Reading

They’re one of our new favourite bands. They’re the missing link between Idlewild and The Wedding Present. They’re going to be huge. They’re Frightened Rabbit. That’s all you need to know… apart from the answers to our recently revamped 20 Questions… Continue Reading

When our friends over at Fat Cat records started talking about frightened rabbits I was a bit concerned. Perhaps their water had become contaminated with LSD or they’d been watching some random remake of Watership Down. However, it was cleared up when a CD popped through my letter box and it became apparent that Frightened Rabbit was, in fact, a band who were releasing their debut single “Be Less Rude”.

It was clear from the first time I played it that I was falling in love. The lyrics delivered in a winning Scottish lilt, friends of the Twilight Sad and a love for all things indie rock, it was a perfect combination. “Be Less Rude” has all the hallmarks of a great indie-pop record. The opening riff should have Johnny Marr on the phone asking if he can have this signature guitar tune back. The vocals pained at the realisation that you’ve now fallen in love with a girl who’s frightfully rude, and who you might also have offended in previous meetings. There’s also a touch of The Wedding Present to it’s crashing guitars that mount up as the song progresses, the resignation in the vocals strikingly similar to David Gedge.

Flip side “The Greys” proves they’re no one trick pony either. It’s a futher charge of electric guitars that rush out of your speakers, coming on like Idlewild at their earliest, aggressive selves. The song lamenting those days when you just can’t get from underneath a dark cloud that’s following you around.

Do yourself a favour, hunt these guys down. Don’t wait though; the wave of support is growing. Listening to 6Music the other night and Mark Riley is already on about booking them for his show. If he has his way, they’d never leave, so make sure you catch them before they get locked in his cupboard.

mp3:> Frightened Rabbit: “Music Now”
[From Sing The Greys; 19th Nov 2007 Fat Cat]