The harder that Arab Strap mainstays Aidan Moffat (vocals, flowery shirts, industrial-strength sarcasm) and Malcolm Middleton (guitars, ginger hair, inner rage) strive to look as if they don't care which way things are going, the more painfully apparent it becomes how desperately they do. "We have had reviewers say they enjoyed us because we were drunk and it was a shambles," Malcolm admits "I hate the idea that we're some kind of circus act. We do take it all very seriously; we want the songs to get through to people". Oh yes, the songs. Arab Strap's second single, "The Clearing", featured three different versions of the same strange, hypnotically sombre piece of music, the lyric of which might have been about falling for someone or discovering a corpse. The last one ends with a poignant whispered message, recorded by a friend called John under his bedclothes in the early hours of the morning, fearing that his sister might wake up in the next room and come in and give him a slap "That's it, I've got nothing else to say", John concludes.

"If I did, I'd just be talking shite."Upon hearing Arab Strap's debut recording, "The First Big Weekend", a lot of people leapt to the misapprehension that it was Irvine Welsh making his spoken-word debut. In fact, this hilariously matter-of-fact account of four days and nights of downbeat debauchery (the band's loyalty to the song's documentary spirit is such that it gets updated every time they play it, even when the best "big weekend" experience Aidan can come up with is "We wandered aimlessly round the shops for a bit") introduced a new voice of Celtic disaffection every bit as compelling as Welsh's, and - so far at least - a good deal more consistent.Released at the turn of the year, Arab Strap's first album, The Week Never Starts Round Here (Chemikal Underground), mixed the claustrophobia of Tricky's Pre-Millenium Tension with the taut intimacy of American lo- fi eminences such as Slint and Smog. From the oddly jaunty fin de siecle folk of "I Work in a Saloon" ("I work in a saloon pulling shit pints for shit wages") to the hilarious acapella pleadings of "General Plea to a Girlfriend ("I know you find my habits sickly, I know sometimes I come too quickly"), it was the most striking and resonant showcase of new Scottish songwriting since Teenage Fanclub's Bandwagonesque."I wish more people would use the same language in songs that they use in everyday life," muses Aidan. "I hate it when people who obviously aren't poets try to be." In contrast to the dewy-eyed romanticism of their Glaswegian forbears, Arab Strap adopt a bracingly warts-and-all approach to affairs of the heart.

Can Aidan understand why people might be unnerved by his tendency to refer in song to his ex-girlfriend as a "fickle disco bitch"? "Anyone who finds that shocking or offensive is a fucking hypocrite," he says cheerfully "I don't do it to shock people. I do it out of spite and the desire for vengeance on the individual concerned. Besides, the more people moan about the language, the more extreme I'm gonna get."Arab Strap's imminent third single - a profoundly entertaining 20-minute concept EP called The Girls of Summer - exhibits a more celebratory attitude to femininity. Not only can it boast an instrumental called "The Beautiful Barmaids of Dundee", but the sleeve of the disc is adorned with individual snapshots of the young women the band presently share their lives with. "They're embarrassed," Malcolm admits, "but I think they like it really." How do they feel about the opening lines of the title track - "We're sitting drinking fruity alcopops from pint glasses with ice and watching the girls of summer, with their bare legs and trainers and their white strap-lines from yesterday's tops"? "Don't get the wrong idea," Malcolm insists, "We're not sleazy old men - you only have to see the looks on our faces to realise that there is a certain innocence at work."Arab Strap's unspoiled naivety has already survived a first attempt at corporate co-option. Earlier this summer, the backing track for "The First Big Weekend" was picked up by Guinness to provide a backdrop for their TV and advertising campaign, in which a Scottish voice (supplied by an English Spitting Image regular) recites a series of lame made-up statistics over a series of annoying black and white linages. Why did the band agree to this, especially given their professed disdain for the product in question? "We were skint and we needed some new amps," Malcolm explains.How do Arab Strap think their second album, which they are currently half way through recording with a motley assortment of guest cellists and trumpeters, might turn out? "I don't think anyone in Britain since Joy Division has known how to make seriously depressing music," Aidan says enthusiastically.

What about Radiohead? "They're more self-indulgent," he grins, "and you've got to have a sense of humour about yourself if you want to communicate something quite depressing n"Arab Strap play Edinburgh Cas Rock (0131-229 4341) tonight and King's Cross Water Rats, London (0171-837 7269), next Friday. The Girls of Summer EP (Chemikal Underground) is out on 1 Sept. OK, so the Garage isn't Madison Square Gardens, but the fact that Mike Scott can sell out five nights there is testament to his enduring popularity. When asked recently why he had called his forthcoming album Still Burning, he simply replied: "Because I am." Tonight's performance, which saw a rejuvenated Scott playing with an electric band for the first time since The Waterboys packed out a circus tent at Highbury Fields in 1990, proved this was no empty boast. Looking a bit keener and leaner, and sporting some sideburns that Gaz Coombes would be proud of, Scott bows regally before striking up the opening chords of "Questions". Like much of the new album, the song is rich in grand metaphor and confirms that Scott's spiritual quest is still on-going. Some critics seem to find his meditations on higher things easier to digest when he has an electric, rather than an acoustic guitar in his hands Tonight's set would have thrilled them.

MTV Unplugged it wasn't. It's "Dark Man of My Dreams" that really sets the tone. Scott's unhinged and incendiary lead-guitar solo proves he's still in touch with his more base instincts and, like all great performers, he seems to take a certain amount of narcissistic pleasure in his own sexiness as he throws shapes with his Les Paul His new backing band are superb. Ian McNabb - himself a singer and guitarist of some repute - is moonlighting on bass, and on "Glastonbury Song", his backing vocals are a welcome addition. Elsewhere, the keyboard player James Hallawell's off-the-wall piano solo on "Edinburgh Castle" seems to draw inspiration from Bowie's "Aladdin Sane", and is equally impressive.About mid-way through, we're starting to wonder when the pace will slow and Scott will dip into his collection of folk-ballads It doesn't happen.