Malcolm Middleton

Malcolm Middleton, the Arab Strap musician frequently acknowledged for handling most things musical, launched his solo career in 2003 with the awkwardly named 5:14 Fluoxytine Seagull Alcohol John Nicotine on Chemikal Underground. The Falkirk-born artist followed that debut a couple of years later with Into the Woods. While neither record strayed far from the lyrical and sonic territory he had explored alongside Aidan Moffat, the material sometimes leaned further inward, saturated with self-doubt, romantic disappointment, and a bleak sense of humor. After Arab Strap parted ways on friendly terms in 2006, Middleton moved to the Full Time Hobby imprint and delivered A Brighter Beat the following year. The album’s fourth single, the offbeat rock track “We’re All Going to Die,” sparked an unlikely social-media push to crown it Britain’s Christmas number one for 2007 despite 1000/1 odds posted by bookmaker William Hill. BBC Radio 1’s Colin Murray threw his support behind the effort, helping the song climb to number 31 and lifting Middleton’s visibility. He issued the understated Sleight of Heart in 2008 and the more playful Waxing Gibbous a year later. While touring the latter, Middleton declared his intention to stop releasing music under his own name. That decision was reflected in the 2012 album credited to Human Don't Be Angry, although he did lend his name to the 2014 spoken-word project Music and Words with visual artist David Shrigley. Dropping the Human Don't Be Angry alias, he resumed solo work, enlisting Glaswegian electronic producer Miaoux Miaoux and former Fence Collective member Gordon Anderson to shape the electro-tinged Summer of '13, which finally appeared in the summer of 2016.