Ahead of their gig at Tooth & Claw in March, Butterscotch of Spring Break chats to Chris Lemon of IGigs.
A night of Hip hop looms at Tooth and Claw, where the local talent of Spring Break, The Intelli-gents and Echo & Ryza join with Jackal Trades who hail from Glasgow and London.It promises to be a big night, and we catch Butterscotch to talk about the forthcoming gig and the plans for Spring Break.
For the uninitiated, can you tell us a little about the acts that you are sharing billing at the forthcoming Tooth and Claw gig?
Jackal Trades is the brain child of The Girobabies’ Mark McGhee, who is also an excellent poet and rapper. The album is dark, visceral and topical hip hop, humorously and cleverly detailing life in dystpoian Tory Britain, woven over atmospheric electronic soundscapes.
The Intelli-gents are local veterans made up of members of former highland rap outfit Spit Dis, peddling the traditional boom bap style, sample driven hip hop. Members of The Highland Collective, Echo and Ryza are multi-faceted up and comers, easily switching between hip hop and grime with a solid stage show.
How important is the live setting for Spring Break?
Very important. Our focus is on engaging with audiences and trying to make the live experience fun and inclusive. Our roster expands and contracts depending on the size of the show, so we are always drafting in guests and collaborators to mix things up. We want to keep it interesting for ourselves and the audiences.
Scottish Hip hop has certainly moved away from ‘novelty’ to and important element of the music scene, what do you think it is about the genre that resonates with Scottish audiences now?
Hip hop is traditionally a platform for social commentary and gives a voice to the disenfranchised. With all the global crises, wars and political and social upheaval at home, artists have plenty of fuel for material. It’s heavily descriptive and direct language resonates with people in a way that more esoteric/ ambiguous songs cannot.
How is the recording for the debut album, ‘Tropicaledonia’, going, what can you tell us about the plans for this at the moment?
We are pleased to announce that our album is recorded and in the post production phase. We will likely be releasing a single from it first, then properly releasing it later in the year.
It’s been a fairly busy start of the year, gig wise, but where’s next for Spring Break?
We will be playing more festivals and gigs over the summer, but our main focus is to try and get our album out there to the general public.
Spring Break with Jackal Trades,The Intelli-gents and Echo & Ryza, plays Tooth & Claw, Inverness on the 31st of March.
TICKETS AVAILABLE HERE.
You can also read our interview with Butterscotch from 2015.
