The Kids are all grown up

Sunday 24 February 2013

How ironic that I'm in an Edinburgh pub talking to half of indie quartet Kid Canaveral only a few hours before the Brit Awards will bestow a bunch of gilded trophies upon a bunch of gilded artists for what would appear to be quantity of sales rather than quality of music.

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Kid Canaveral’s new album is built on indie pop, sharp lyrics and a DIY ethos. By Alan Morrison

You won't see Kid Canaveral at the Brits next year – or ever, unless one of the most unlikely sell-outs in pop history is performed. But I'd put money on their upcoming album Now That You Are A Dancer still being on my playlists long after I've sent those Brit winners to the big MP3 graveyard in the sky.

That's not musical snobbery, by the way: Now That You Are A Dancer is saturated with indie pop tunes and fired by an infectious energy that would flatter the most commercial of charts should they care to accommodate it. Ever since forming in 2005, Kid Canaveral have treated every track they record as something that has to stand on its own two feet, which is why the new album – their second, after 2010's Shouting At Wildlife – feels like nine singles followed by one raise-the-game climactic blowout."If you're going to commit to something being on your album, you have to be able to say why it deserves to be there," argues singer-guitarist David MacGregor. "There are a lot of songs I don't continue to write because they're not going anywhere. They would be filler – and you can't have filler these days."The album opens with the quirkily peg-legged waltz of The Wrench, possibly the most soaring pop song they've ever written, before showcasing MacGregor's best vocal performance to date, on Who Would Want To Be Loved. Low Winter Sun is indie jangle at its most flawless, while So Sad, So Young marries a beguiling melody to the darker-edged lyrics that MacGregor has sharpened for this album. But it's the songs that close either side of the album's vinyl edition that hint at a band now willing to push deeper into uncharted territory. Final track The Compromise finds MacGregor slicing the soundwaves with a massively distorted guitar while, over on Side A, Skeletons features beats and keyboard ripples that owe more to electro-pop than anything they've done previously.Skeletons is one of two songs here written and sung by Kate Lazda. She and MacGregor began playing together while studying at St Andrews University, before recruiting bass player Rose McConnachie and, a couple of drummers down the line, Scott McMaster. After releasing four singles on their own Straight To Video label, they assembled the DIY release of Shouting At Wildlife, which was picked up and re-released by Fence Records in 2011. They're now signed to the Fife label and working alongside the likes of King Creosote (whom they've supported and backed on tour) and The Pictish Trail (whom they'd met when he ran the university's indie club). What's it like now having friends and fellow musicians as label bosses?"We've been involved with them since before we were releasing records," says Lazda. "I've worked with Fence and David pulled pints behind the bar at Homegame festivals in Anstruther over the years. It is like being part of the family."While enjoying the industry clout and administrative support that Fence offers, Kid Canaveral remain a decidedly hands-on bunch, booking the vast majority of their gigs and studio time themselves."Sometimes I worry that people think because we're so DIY, it means we're not making the best effort we could with the recording," MacGregor says. "If anything, being hands-on means we want to make it a bit better."Now That You Are A Dancer marks a step up for Kid Canaveral. One of the hardest gigging bands in Scotland, they're certainly reaching out to wider audiences."We do well in London and, ehm, the 'big metropolitan centres'," says MacGregor."And Wakefield," Lazda points out."Yes, we've a wonderful loyal fanbase in Wakefield," admits MacGregor. "At the weekend there we had a 1300-mile round trip to play in Wakefield and then Paris. And Wakefield was an incredible gig. It was so packed, there were people falling onto the stage over our monitors.""And then we had to carry our stuff out while a hip hop club was going on," adds Lazda.Now that's hands-on in a very literal sense-Now That You Are A Dancer is released by Fence Records on March 4. Kid Canaveral play The Glad Cafe, Glasgow this Friday and Saturday

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The Kids are all grown up

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