To those who loved them, Glasgow, Scotland’s Delgados were the near-perfect blend of churning, indie-rock edginess and stirring, girl/boy vocals, wrapped in gasp-inducing orchestral arrangements that made time stand still. A tough act for vocalist/guitarist Emma Pollock to follow, you might think, when the band split amicably in 2006. And yet, Pollock’s ’07 solo debut, Watch The Fireworks, wasted no time in identifying how crucial she had been to the unique sound of the Delgados. Three years later, the former physics major returns with The Law Of Large Numbers (Chemikal Underground), which goes down like a couple of dry martinis after a savory meal, welcoming you to Pollock’s expanding universe of sound. Pollock will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our Q&A with her.
Pollock: Boo Hoo: A Dot Com Story From Concept To Catastrophe is technically a business book, but I absolutely loved it as my bedtime read for a month or so. It’s the story of a Swedish pair—guy and girl—who start up a revolutionary and very ambitious fashion retail website during the dot-com boom of the ’90s, go through months of investment sourcing, rapid expansion and huge publicity only to see the whole thing crash in front of them within months of launching. I found it utterly fascinating, having been part of a start-up business in the mid-’90s with our record label, Chemikal Underground. A completely different league, of course, but anyone with even just a little bit of experience in starting up a business will enjoy this a lot. Video after the jump.
