THREE Edinburgh innovators have joined forces to launch their devilish debut single.
Dripn Angel is the first song written by Check Masses, a trio featuring Vic Galloway, Saleem Andrew McGroarty and Philly Angelo Collins; three key figures in the city’s music scene for three decades.
Back in 1990, McGroarty co-founded the capital’s first hip-hop club The Big Payback, and went on to be a regular face at some of the city’s most esteemed nights including Lizard Lounge and Chocolate City. He also featured on Demonstrate In Mass (One Nation Under A Dope Mix) by Sugar Bullet, a collective of pioneering locals whose influence can be heard today on the likes of Stanley Odd and Young Fathers.
READ MORE: Ingrid Henderson draws on heritage and experience for new album
Now as one third of Check Masses, McGroarty’s fractured beats and sultry synths are allied to the otherworldly vocals of Collins and the clanging, bluesy guitars of Galloway, a champion of new Scottish music for more than 20 years as a BBC DJ and the author of Songs In The Key Of Fife, a memoir of the rich east coast music scene, and Rip It Up – The Story of Scottish Pop, the book commissioned to accompany the National Museum of Scotland’s landmark 2018 exhibition.
Out now on Fife’s Triassic Tusk Records, Dripn Angel is an eerie, lurching blues stomp you might hear on the jukebox in a dreamed truckstop on a lost highway. The track sees Collins, a member of various bands since the mid-1990s, further explores the psychedelic tones of Kings And Queens, a self-released acoustic album he cut with McGroarty.
The lyrics, says Collins, came “very fast, an outpouring … experimenting with unconnected words” after watching steamy late-1980s noir horror Angel Heart, starring Mickey Rourke and Lisa Bonet.
“I’d recently rewatched Angel Heart and was trying to get the atmosphere and desperation and the futility of making a deal with the devil come alive in song,” Collins says.
“The blues come from the darkest part of a man’s heart, and trust me it’s all heart.”
READ MORE: Paul Carrack on playing with Clapton – and why he can't stop worrying
The accompanying video, filmed and directed by Gareth Goodlad, was partly inspired by the early homemade videos of Young Fathers, says Galloway.
“We wanted a lo-fi, psychedelic feel, to capture the claustrophobia and tension in the song,” Galloway says. “We think this is captured with the dancing silhouettes, churchyard gargoyles, album artwork and Philly’s yearning vocals all colliding on-screen.”
With more music and dates set for the coming months ahead of their album Nightlife in May, Check Masses launch the single at the end of the month with support from Gavin Sutherland in his atmospheric electro alias Other Lands and Super Inuit, a heart-racing Edinburgh duo Galloway has often praised on his radio shows.
January 31, The Voodoo Rooms, Edinburgh, 7.30pm, £8 on the door. www.facebook.com/CHECKMASSESwww.checkmasses.bandcamp.com. Dripn Angel is out now
Why are you making commenting on The National only available to subscribers?
We know there are thousands of National readers who want to debate, argue and go back and forth in the comments section of our stories. We’ve got the most informed readers in Scotland, asking each other the big questions about the future of our country.
Unfortunately, though, these important debates are being spoiled by a vocal minority of trolls who aren’t really interested in the issues, try to derail the conversations, register under fake names, and post vile abuse.
So that’s why we’ve decided to make the ability to comment only available to our paying subscribers. That way, all the trolls who post abuse on our website will have to pay if they want to join the debate – and risk a permanent ban from the account that they subscribe with.
The conversation will go back to what it should be about – people who care passionately about the issues, but disagree constructively on what we should do about them. Let’s get that debate started!
Callum Baird, Editor of The National
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here