Modern Studies - "Ten White Horses". A song that seems written as a soundtrack to the various conjugations of to begin. Begin, began, will begin, beginning. The piano spells out a future and then the handclaps make it present; we follow, dawning, along Emily Scott's pronouncements. Lines about horses and their tumbling riders, death and love, or falling suitors. The "sun's a pale bystander" and it's a "one-league-wide meander", the rhymes like handmade coins or tokens, pieces to leave upon the train-rails. Once begun, there's crescendo too - horns and drums, winsome harmonium, the tools of an early Noughties sound steered by bands like P:ano and Architecture In Helsinki. I saw Architecture in Helsinki once, in Edinburgh, in a dripping Cowgate bar. It was 2005. Maybe members of Modern Studies were standing beside me, swaying softly. Begin, began, beginning.

[Modern Studies are based in Glasgow; they are Scott, (StG fave) Rob St John, Pete Harvey and Joe Smillie. / Out on Songs, By Toad Records / more on Bandcamp]

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