To say the new project from Paul McGeechan is ambitious would be an understatement. This month Paul, former Love And Money keyboard player, releases his fascinating studio project, Starless. The album features no less than five of the country’s most talented Gaelic singers, former Blue Nile front man Paul Buchannan and the full musical might of The Prague Symphony Orchestra. Paul has amassed a huge array of technical credits over the last three decades that includes Capercaillie, Emily Smith, Bella Hardy and Aidan O’Rourke; but it was after a successful reunion album with Love And Money that Paul returned to song-writing, and the concept for Starless began to take form.
Neil McFadyen, 17 June, 2016.
Photograph Kathleen Little
PAUL McGeechan is pondering how best to describe the lush, late night mood of his first solo project.
The Love & Money keyboard player has spent the past two years working on Starless. Featuring contributions from, among others, Paul Buchanan of The Blue Nile, Julie Fowlis, Capercaillie’s Karen Matheson and the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra, Starless is an atmospheric collection of songs, shot through with the kind of melancholic romanticism familiar to fans of the Cocteau Twins, Peter Gabriel, the Blue Nile and David Sylvian.
Paul McGeechan & Paul Buchanan
chat with Graeme Thomson.
Photograph Kathleen Little
Creative Scotland Interview
Starless (CD, Marina, Pop)
Intricate. Meticulous. Precise. And dreamy. Starless is the band/project created by Paul McGeechan who is, up to this point in time, best known as the keyboard player in the band Love & Money. Although this is McGeechan's project, he works with and includes a wide array of other folks here. Some amazing artists contributed to this project...Paul Buchanan (The Blue Nile), Karen Matheson (Capercaillie), Julie Fowlis, Chris Tomson (The Bathers), Marie Claire Lee, Andrew White, and Gwen Stewart. The tracks on this album are highly stylized and feature exceedingly articulate arrangements. McGeechan proves himself to be a master of the studio here, creating recordings that have a great big sound while never sounding overproduced. Housed in an impeccably designed tri-fold digipak sleeve, this self-titled album is bound to be immediately embraced by critics and fans. Cool reflective tracks include "Fuadach," "Starless," "Solitude," and "Yellow Midnight."
Paul McGeechan is one of the gray eminences of Scottish pop: former member of the seminal band of Friends Again and later of Love And Money, he has collaborated with the likes of Julie Fowlis, Roddy Hart, Capercaille, James Grant , Justin Currie and Ricky Ross , alternating some personal projects with cult bands such as Sugartown and Cowboy Mouth.
The return of Love And Money , with the album "The Devil's Debt", and the continuous reunions with the old friends of Friends Again have restarted the creativity of McGeechan, who arrives at a new project, "Starless", accompanied by the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra and old friends and collaborators, among whom it stands out Paul Buchanan of Blue Nile .