++Money Can't Buy Music - The Universe for Beginners

Gordon McIntyre has steadfastedly ploughed the emotive indie furrow since the late 1990s in the guise of ballboy, but here branches out into a collaboration with Swedish musician Maja Mangard. The result is a delicate, poignant and heartfelt set of electronic folk-pop fantasies, which immediately brings to mind the recent work of Johnny Lynch’s Pictish Trail – was he involved in production at all? But where the Fence crooner evokes misty, wistful memories of Fife, McIntyre explores the psychogeography of Edinburgh, from the cracks in the pavements, along the cobbled lanes and up to its regal, soaring heights. At points, his delivery invokes the ghost of Arab Strap, but instead of tending toward the painfully real, McIntyre’s spoken-word sermons feel fantastical, whimsical, gentle, never more so than in The Ghosts or Beautifulgirlsunnyledges. A delightful and dreamy collection of otherwordly flights of fancy which capture the soul of the singers and the city.