Radar weekly: The latest from the Scottish music scene

Doune the Rabbit Hole reveals location and line-up

The organisers of Doune the Rabbit Hole have announced that this year’s festival will take place at the Cardross Estate at Port of Menteith, Stirlingshire, after moving from its former home at Duncarron Fort.

Among the first bands announced for this year’s festival, which takes place from August 22 – 25, are Liverpool’s Clinic, singer-songwriter Alasdair Roberts, Glaswegian indie veterans The Pastels and grunge trio PAWS.

Other Radar favourites on the bill include Meursault, Panda Su, Machines in Heaven, Rick Redbeard, Galoshins and Washington Irving.

A guest stage curated by Edinburgh’s poetry and music crossover night Neu! Reekie! will feature The Sexual Objects and TeenCanteen, among others.

Tickets for Doune the Rabbit Hole, with a weekend adult ticket costing £78, are available via the official website.

Watch a suitably offbeat video introducing the 2013 festival…)

Optimo compile the ‘Underground Sound of Glasgow’

Glasgow DJ duo Optimo have announced their first compilation since 2010′s fabric52, and it looks like it could be a bit special. Titled Optimo: The Underground Sound Of Glasgow, it’s a collection of 21 tracks curated by JD Twitch for the Glasgow Underground label, and features artists as stylistically diverse as Bill Wells & Aidan Moffat and Auntie Flo. That’s precisely the point, as Twitch says in the accompanying press release:

“This mix could easily have been a mix of Glasgow House or Techno or Post Bass Aqua Step or any other micro genre of dance music one may care to invent but rather it covers the spectrum of electronic dance floor sounds from the city that are interesting to my ears. I’m not sure if there is a ‘Glasgow sound’ but there is definitely a Glasgow attitude to making music and I hope that comes across in this mix.”

The mix will be released on May 13, and there’s a five-track sampler of the compilation streaming via Glasgow Underground’s SoundCloud.

• T in the Park has added several “breakthrough acts” to its line-up. They are LA band Local Natives, Warwickshire singer Lucy Rose, Birmingham quartet Swim Deep, Londoners Theme Park, Oxford singer-songwriter Lewis Watson and London-based Sons & Lovers. The festival is at Balado near Kinross, July 12-14, and tickets are still available.

• As previously reported, James and Twin Atlantic have been confirmed as the headline acts for this year’s Belladrum Tartan Heart Festival. The festival, which marks its tenth anniversary this summer, takes place at Beauly in Inverness-shire on the weekend of August 2 – 3.

• It’s Record Store Day on Saturday (20 Apr). Look out for the WOW247 guide to what your local retailer has planned on the day, later this week.

New music

• You might have thought Edinburgh-based duo Capitals had gone a bit quiet of late. But for good reason, as they’ve been in the studio working on their debut album, A National Service. It gets its official release on June 3 via a dedicated website, and while it’s been billed as an “all digital affair”, there will be a limited number of physical copies available on pre-order as part of a bumper package. In the meantime, you can watch the video for new song Reliever on YouTube .

• The Birthday Suit‘s latest single is called Uh-huh Uh-huh – and the music is as unpretentious and instinctive as the title would suggest. Idlewild guitarist Rod Jones is the main man here, and he is clearly embracing some of the thrash of his former band’s early work on this latest cut. The single is available now , and you can see The Birthday Suit live at the Electric Circus in Edinburgh (17 May), Nice’n’Sleazy’s in Glasgow (23 May) and Drummonds in Aberdeen (22 Jun).

• In February we reported on eagleowl‘s debut album plans on Fence Records, and now we have a glimpse of what’s in store, with the Edinburgh band releasing a new video for the song Not Over. The LP, this silent year, is out on May 13, supported with live dates at the Pleasance Theatre in Edinburgh (10 May), The Lit & Phil Society in Newcastle (11 May) and The Glad Café in Glasgow (12 May).

Gig picks

Edwyn Collins

Monday @ The Lemon Tree, Aberdeen

Wednesday @ Strathpeffer Pavillion

Thursday @ ABC, Glasgow

Peace

Wednesday @ Electric Circus, Edinburgh, 7pm, £8

Penguins Kill Polar Bears + Farewell Singapore

Wednesday @ Broadcast, Glasgow, 7pm, free

Thursday @ St Johns, Linlithgow

Friday @ Non-Zero’s, Dundee

Saturday @ Flanagan’s, Elgin

Sunday @ Cellar 35, Aberdeen

I Am Kloot

Thursday @ Liquid Room, Edinburgh, 7pm, £16

And So I Watch You From Afar

Friday @ ABC, Glasgow, 7pm, £9

Beer vs Records (Le Thug, Magic Eye, Plastic Animals, Zed Penguin)

Saturday @ Summerhall, Edinburgh, 8pm, £6 (£4 with record store receipt)

And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead

Saturday @ SWG3, Glasgow, 8pm, £13.50

Outskirts Festival

Saturday @ Platform, Glasgow, 3.30pm – 11pm

Stanley Brinks + Randolph’s Leap + Mike Hastings

Sunday @ Tchai Ovna, Glasgow, 6pm, £7.50