Donald Trump might be bad for the Scottish environment but he is good for our music scene.
In the space of a couple of months, two albums have featured songs inspired by the blustering American's golf course and the locals' refusal to back down. First was Cover Your Eyes from Karine Powart's Traces; now here is Hermit Point from the excellent debut by Trapped Mice.
Hermit Point is a fine example of how the Edinburgh quintet use the full running time of a song to take their music on a complete journey, weaving textures and building tensions, setting the matt of Ian Tilling's voice against the gloss of Lucie Miller's harmony.
Like The Decemberists' Colin Meloy, Tilling is a stylist who won't please everyone. However, get beyond the fact that he often sounds like he's carrying a heavy cold, and it becomes clear it is the very eccentricity of his delivery – as he flips up a falsetto octave, his voice in conversation with a mournful violin – that gives this music its edge.
Edinburgh's dynamic indie-folk scene, already boasting Eagleowl, Withered Hand and Meursault, has just got even stronger.
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