all your dreams lie behind your eyes;

This ten-year delimiter must be built into the human psyche. I’ve been going on about how 2009 is a decade since I left school, started a blog and met my best friend, but I’m not the only person who feels that way. A couple of weeks ago, out of the blue, I had a phonecall from a very old friend from those first few weeks of university – summer school and freshers’ week in particular. We caught up, traded life stories and gossiped about as many people as we could remember. And it was nice. So many people – so many good, good people – who slipped through the cracks. Facebook makes finding them again easier of course, but you can’t help but wonder what you could have missed out on over the intervening years without them around. Although, if I still kept in touch with everybody I’ve ever been lucky enough to call a friend I would probably never get anything done.

I met Michelle, who I suspect I haven’t seen since high school although it certainly doesn’t seem as long as that, on Thursday night at the 13th Note and a good old catch-up was just what I needed to lift my mood. It was Michelle who introduced me to the incredible music of Julia and the Doogans as her brother is in the band, prompting me to interview frontwoman Julia for Under the Radar. With more gigs coming up soon I’ve no excuse to leave it ten years next time!

For this live session which will soon be available for download on the website, Halina and the team at Glasgow PodcART have put together a lineup consisting of two of the finest female voices on the local scene at the moment. I hadn’t had a chance to listen to Louise McVey and Cracks in the Concrete before the show, so I was stunned when the blond singer with her Victorian sleeves and prim hair opened her mouth and out poured this incredible, rich, gothic voice. Jim at Aye Tunes summed it up so perfectly when he said I feel like I’ve fallen through a wormhole taking me from downstairs in the 13th Note to a David Lynch film that I’m struggling to add much, not least because I’m watching season 2 of Twin Peaks at the moment! Louise’s voice is like crushed purple velvet and Cracks in the Concrete know just when to make their spine-tingling accompaniments more sparse, and when to swell and fill the Note’s tiny stuffy basement with the most gorgeous form of claustrophobia.

I think you’d be hard pressed to find a band quite like Julia and the Doogans on the local scene at the moment. Although still a relatively new project, there is something magical about the way the instruments (including flute, guitar and cello – although the latter element is missing tonight due to an unfortunate tea-related accident!) mesh together, creating a sound that is as gorgeous and natural as autumn. Julia’s sweet, innocent voice only raises the performance to the next level, and I am overjoyed that she chooses to end on “Glasgow” – perhaps the most beautiful song ever written about the honest, unromanticised face of the city I now call home.

All in all, a fantastic night and many thanks to PodcART for putting it together. The next live event from the team is their forthcoming “East Coast Showcase” on 1st November at the Classic Grand, featuring a top notch lineup of Yahweh, Esperi, Debutant and Panda Su. The night will also see the launch of a new EP by Esperi, described on this blog as wistful folk by one man and a guitar, [accompanied by] a veritable toyshop’s worth of rainbow-coloured bells and plastic percussion. You can find out more, and where to get tickets, here.

DOWNLOAD: Julia and the Doogans – Glasgow [YSI]