Welcome Chemikal treatment for RM Hubbert’s therapeutic second solo disc

“NEPOTISM,” laughs Glaswegian guitarist RM Hubbert when asked how his association with the city’s seminal Chemikal Underground label came about. “We’ve been friends for a long time, so when they asked me after a gig if I wanted to record with them, I was into it.”

At first it appears to be the sort of story young and undiscovered bands bemoan all the time, the old “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know” syndrome. Yet the road which has led to Hubbert’s second album, Thirteen Lost and Found, being released by Chemikal is not the sort many would wish to travel. Amid tragedy and depression, the Glaswegian Hubbert – once a post-rocker in the now-defunct El Hombre Trajeado, now a formidably talented flamenco guitarist – has come to create some of the most distinctive music you’ll see performed on a Glasgow stage.

“I’ve been playing music for about 20 years,” says Hubbert, now 37, “and I’ve been in lots of bands in that time – El Hombre Trajeado for the longest, about ten years. I actually started learning to play flamenco guitar fairly recently, though, around the time my father died. I’ve suffered from chronic depression all my life and I wanted something to take my mind off things. It was an arbitrary decision, just because I thought it would be really hard to do. And it was.”

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

He spent three years practising and learning, until his life was turned upside down again in 2008. “My mother died, and I was really struggling for some kind of outlet. I found it difficult to talk to people about what was going on, so I decided to write a song each month for a year, partly to document what was going on and partly as some kind of catharsis.”

The result was 2010’s First and Last, Hubbert’s self-released debut solo album; a sparse, atmospheric collection of dazzlingly played guitar instrumentals which was re-released by Chemikal Underground last year. With its release Hubbert returned to the live stage, although the most striking aspect of his show was as much its confessional nature as it was the sight of this big bearlike guy with a beard and tattoos playing such delicate and tender music.

“When I came to play live again, I found myself talking a lot about the subject matter to the audience. Playing music’s easier than talking to people face-to-face, in the same way it’s easier to talk to a room full of strangers than it is to sit down with ones you love and try and explain how you’re feeling. I mean, it’s not a depressing record, which was surprising to me. A lot of it’s quite happy. It was a nice realisation that even when you’re suffering from depression, good stuff happens.”

It was this process of introducing his music to the public which moved Hubbert towards the creation of Thirteen Lost and Found. “I figured a natural progression would be to try and reconnect with people I hadn’t seen for a long time, because I’d basically stayed in the house for almost ten years. Instead of having that awkward ‘what have you been up to since the mid 1990s?’ chat, I thought it would be better to go into the recording studio with them.”

That’s perhaps an odd method of making contact with old friends, but Hubbert is talking about people like Aidan Moffat, Alasdair Roberts and Emma Pollock, musicians he had known through his sometime career as a sound engineer and through running the Kazoo Club at the 13th Note in the 1990s alongside his new album’s eventual producer.

“Alex (Kapranos, of Franz Ferdinand) and I were very good friends, he and I were in a band called the Blisters together. We started the Kazoo Club because there really wasn’t anywhere else for interesting bands to play in Glasgow, and it became this amazing breeding ground – Mogwai did their first show there, Urusei Yatsura did their first show there, so did the Delgados [Pollock’s old band, who now run Chemikal Underground].”

All of the above artists and more appear on the new album, the recording sessions for which Hubbert describes as a “scary” prospect, given how long it had been since he’d seen those involved.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“I was worried about whether or not we’d still get on, and that I had to put a record out either way at the end. It worked out really well, though. I’d basically achieved my objective before we even came to record it.”

Thirteen Lost and Found is the latest in a good run of form for Chemikal Underground, whose championing of and investment in some of Glasgow’s finest music continues with the recent signings of overdriven rockers Holy Mountain and the quirky electronica of Miaoux Miaoux, as well as Arab Strap founder Malcolm Middleton’s return to the label with his Human Don’t Be Angry project.

The label’s co-founder Alun Woodward speaks glowingly of Hubbert: “It didn’t matter how busy we were, Hubby’s just too talented a guy to not be involved with.”

“I didn’t really have any interest in signing to a label,” reflects Hubbert on his new home. “I’d been very into the idea of creative commons and of open-sourcing music, and when I released First and Last on my own it did pretty well. But Chemikal Underground are one of the only labels in the world I would have signed to, because I know them and I trust them.”

• Thirteen Lost and Found is released by Chemikal Underground on 30 January, and will be launched alongside guests including Aidan Moffat, Alasdair Roberts and Emma Pollock at Stereo, Glasgow, tomorrow. Emma Pollock and Zoey Van Goey Play Chemikal’s Celtic Connections party at Bar Brel, Glasgow, on 31 January. www.rmhubbert.com

Related topics: