Nothing We Can Control

International Airport was formed by Glasgow’s Tom Crossley, a sometime member of The Pastels and Appendix Out, in the late 1990s; their debut album, Nothing We Can Control, was released soon after, on The Pastels’ Geographic Music imprint. On their debut 7”, International Airport covered Ennio Morricone, and there’s something of the cinematic in the music here, alongside a cosmopolitanism that draws from contemporaneous electronica, post-rock, and folk. So it’s hybrid music, but not pushy about it; everything locks into place naturally, whether it’s the jangling guitars of “Gold Strike,” the electronic clack and clatter of “De Merging Var Bruin Er Groer,” or the lovely melancholia of “Melodica 2.” Like the best music from the Glasgow underground, it’s homespun, a little ragged around the edges, but also ambitious and spirited.