Fancy a little bit of shoegazing type music from Scotland?
Le Thug, from Glasgow, formed some six years ago but thus far have released just a six-track EP, Place Is, on Song, By Toad Records.
The label was recently would up by owner Matthew Young after ten fairly succesful years which means that Le Thug, are currently without a deal. Indeed, I’m not sure if the band are still in existence, as the last I thing I can find is them playing a gig at King Tut’s in Glasgow in January 2018.
A very positive review, from a Scottish broadsheet, when Place Is was released, back in 2015, will give you a flavour of the band:-
Layers of distorted guitar, a dreamy vocal pushed back in the mix, a minimal drum beat. There’s a fashion for this stuff at the moment, even an attempt to label it nu-gaze, but in most cases it only makes you want to go back and listen to original albums by My Bloody Valentine or The Jesus And Mary Chain instead. Not so with Glasgow-based trio Le Thug. Clio Alexandra MacLellan is one of those rare singers whose hauntingly addictive vocals would have seen her bracketed alongside Elizabeth Fraser back in the day; Michael Gilfedder’s guitars, especially on the monumental Basketball Land, are thick and all-enveloping; and Dann McColgan’s laptop beats and synthesiser pulses, while more mechanically insistent, introduce a musical factor from a different era that may well be the key to why Le Thug rise above the retro fad. The melody lines on this six-track EP have a deceptive simplicity but it’s the slow harmonic changes of direction that will make you swoon – those and the sheer sonic completeness of the studio production.
I was telling a white lie when I said Le Thug had released just a six-track EP; in fact, they contributed to one of what were a handful of spilt 12″ releases issued over the years by Song, By Toad, often to act as an introduction to singers and bands on the label. The song featuring today has been taken from such a spilt 12″.
mp3 : Le Thug – New Balance
And here’s a promo film that was made to accompany what many regarded as the best track on their own subsequent EP:-
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 