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From The Desk Of The Twilight Sad’s James Graham: Influential Scottish Bands And Bands From Scotland You Should Hear

On their latest, No One Can Ever Know (FatCat), Scotland’s best musical export since the Jesus And Mary Chain tear down their walls of guitar noise to reveal the icy synths beneath. For fans, it’s a radical departure for the Twilight Sad that’s nevertheless easy to digest, as frontman James Graham’s distinctive Scottish vocals and gloomy lyrical outlook remain front and center. Graham will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Check out coverage of the Twilight Sad in issue #85, as well as our extended Q&A with Graham.

Graham: I grew up listening to Arab Strap and Mogwai. Without those bands I wouldn’t be in a band or be writing music. We’re lucky enough to be friends with both bands now and toured three times with Mogwai. Aidan and Malcolm have produced amazing solo albums as well. Aidan’s last album with was called Everything’s Getting Older and was a collaboration with a guy called Bill Wells. It was a bit of a masterpiece. Malcolm has a new Project called Human Don’t Be Angry, and I’ve been lucky enough to hear the self-titled album, and it’s also amazing. Errors are a band on their third record now, and it’s called Have Some Faith In Magic. Everybody should own this album! RM Hubbert is a solo artist on Chemikal Underground Records, and his recent album was produced by Alex Kapranos from Franz Ferdinand. It’s one of my favourite records this year. Mogwai’s own record label, Rock Action, release some of my favourite records, and last year a band called Remember Remember released an album called The Quickening which everyone should check out. Andy recently did a remix for Remember Remember which is coming out on their remix album.