Fanattica - Edingrad

In five virtuously raw songs, Fanattica turn Scotland’s capital into a Balkan fairytale of fog swept docks and drunken tangos. With the recent resurgence of Balkan-inspired music, it’s great to hear a band whose focus is the soul rather than the dancefloor. Opener Black Cat, White Cat is a joyous top-tapper, but it is the rest of this EP that really glows. A Baltic Sea Shanty would make even the scurviest of sea dogs heave and haul those oars. Babish - a traditional “forbidden” Greek song - is a stunningly sublime vocal epic that captures the melancholic spirituality at the heart of gypsy music. Likewise, on Anuska, John Mowbray’s vocals soar over the kind of tender, stripped-down folk laments that dreams are made of.