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the Boy Who Trapped the Sun, a solo artist with a penchant for elaborate monikers, comes from an island which - now that I think of it - seems curiously lacking of weathery warmth. An aspiring musical expeditionary, his songs combine wry, folkishly narrative-based arrangements with soaring vocals. Dylan-ish, with a tidier voice. Buckley-esque intensity, but less frenetic. Fingers like Nick Drake, toes like Janis Joplin, cuticles like Ingrid Bergman. He dearly wishes he had facial hair like Walt Whitman.

Signed to Indie label, Honcho, the Boy, who counts ex-Reindeer Sectionist among his sometimes-guests, played South by South West in 2005 alongside Willie Campbell, ex-astrid, to moderate acclaim and also has significant experience gigging mainland UK. Bands he has supported include… ... …, but of course he doesn’t like to name drop. He is also friends with Snow Patrol. And Arab Strap. And Eugene Kelly. He saw Michael Stipe once, on the street, from afar, but apparently it might well have been somebody else. the Boy Who Trapped the Sun cannot be pressed into explaining the origins of his name, instead only hinting at a grandiose, maniacal plan infinitely more harebrained than Icarus’, albeit potentially more successful.

When in Glasgow he likes to sit around in Czech tea houses advocating green tea as the secret cure for cancer. On the Isle of Lewis he likes to surf, because it gets him wet, and to row boats on lochs, because he gets other people wet. A prolific, he also writes music compulsively.

In all, the Boy himself neatly appropriates the gist of his abilities, saying: “I’m quite excellent at jumping. I could jump right over you.”

Cameron MacLeay

"He doesn't take himself too seriously..." Katie Macleod,Events monthly Stornoway