SNACK magazine: Issue 41 – July 2022

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CONTENTS WHAT'S ON

P8

Ginger and Me – Glas-Goes Pop – Re-creation Macrobert Arts Centre – Edinburgh Art Festival – The Virgin Travels For No Other Reason Than Joy – Coming Out To Play – After Work Doune the Rabbit Hole – Sufi Festival – The Stand – Gathered Together

INTERVIEWS

P18

Superorganism – Lizzie Reid – Arielle Free – Michael Pedersen Elle Nash – Scottish Opera: Candide

FOOD & DRINK P36 Vegan Lemon Slice Recipe

LGBT+

P38

The (Not) Gay Movie Club

REVIEW P40 beabadoobee – Helen Sedgwick – Mieko Kawakami – Ali Millar Hannymoon – Celestial North – ASK ALICE – Sean Focus – The Wife Guys of Reddit – Ghost-Note – Hidden Door Festival – Titane

WORDS

I Wish I Loved Foam Parties

P54

CREDITS Editor: Kenny Lavelle Sales: Leeann O'Brien Sub Editor: Leona Skene Food and Drink Editors: Emma Mykytyn and Mark Murphy LGBT+ Editor: Jonny Stone What's On Editor: Natalie Jayne Clark Design: Joanna Hughes Cover photo credit: Jack Bridgland Spine quote: Title of an exhibition of new work by Saoirse Amira Anis To advertise in SNACK hello@snackpublishing.com 0141 632 4641 SNACK is a supporter of the global Keychange movement.

Disclaimer: Snack Publishing Ltd. All rights reserved.

Reproduction of this magazine in part or in whole is forbidden without the explicit written consent of the publishers. Every effort has been taken to ensure the accuracy of the content of this magazine but we cannot guarantee it is complete and up to date. Snack Publishing Ltd. is not responsible for your use of the information contained herein.

Hello and welcome to issue 41 of SNACK, It’s the end of June, at the time of writing, and summer hasn’t quite hit Scotland the way that most of us would like. Plus ça change. I’m holding out hope that it’s just biding its time for the bulk of Scotland’s festival season. With music, new releases are always a little thin on the ground at this time of year but we’ve cobbled together (edit: carefully curated) a cracking bunch of interviews, reviews, and other assortments for you to dig through. Plus c'est la même chose. French is fancy, innit?

Anyold: Superorganism grace our front cover this month – as you’ll have seen. Their new album World Wide Pop is out towards the middle of the month, and it couldn’t have been made by any other group of people on this earth. Fun, endlessly inventive pop that sounds like what would happen if you used the Large Hadron Collider to stuff exactly 39 memes into music. What else do you need? Did I overstretch with my description? Stuffing isn’t the work of a Large Hadron Collider. Surely that would just smash the memes into pieces.

Deary me.

As for the rest of this month’s mag. I’m sure you’ll find your way around.

Kenny Lavelle Editor

citysightseeingglasgow.co.uk

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Close Lobsters, Jetstream Pony, Dolly Mixture, The Orchids, Chris Geddes (Belle and Sebastian), Gerry Love (Lightships and formerly of Teenage Fanclub) are nestling together amongst this list.

There will also be a screening of a documentary

by Paul Kelly, Take Three Girls: The Dolly Mixture Story; access to the adjacent Reading Room; and an option to order some grub for the evening too.

A perfect place to meet like-minded music fans. facebook.com/glasgoespop

Image credit: Alastair Indge

GINGER AND ME Waterstones Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow 21st July Elissa Soave’s debut novel is out and will blind you with its words and its unmistakable highlighterorange cover. This event will have Elissa in conversation with another fabulous Scottish author, Helen Sedgwick. What I love about these kinds of collaborative book launches is that you never know where the conversation will go; since it’s with another writer, you won’t get the same tired questions from the audience (‘where do you get your ideas from?’) but instead a free-flowing flurry of connected ideas of process and themes.

Potential topics of the evening will be about female working-class stories and mysteries. waterstones.com/events/elissa-soavelaunches-ginger-and-me/glasgowsauchiehall-street

GLAS-GOES POP Glasgow University Union Debates Chamber, Glasgow, 5th till 6th August A huge list of bands and musicians from current and former legendary line-ups will be bringing anorak pop, DJ sets, and post-punk to this inaugural boutique indie music festival. snackmag.co.uk

Close Lobsters

RE-CREATION A Queer Poetry Anthology Book Launch, Life Church, Edinburgh & Online 30th July Beautifully diverse and affecting Scottish indie publishers Stewed Rhubarb Press have pulled another blinder and brought us an anthology of new work from nearly thirty poets, all from the LGBTQ+ community. The co-editors of the collection are Éadaoín Lynch and Alycia Pirmohamed, who were joined by guest readers to select from a swathe of submissions on the queer experience from new and established voices, making up a ‘new and vivid constellation’. The launch is hosted by Lighthouse Books and readers include Joelle Taylor (this year’s winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize), Nat Raha, Harry Josephine Giles, Dean Atta, Jay Gao, and Andrew McMillan. The event will be BSL interpreted and livestreamed. recreation-anthology.co.uk @snackmag

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LGBT+ by Jonny Stone Page 63

What’s on Page 9

MACROBERT ARTS CENTRE Macrobert Arts Centre, Stirling June till September Lots of early peeks, firsts and unique offerings this summer. A Mother’s Song is an in-concert presentation that delineates the journey of Scottish folk music, from Dunblane to the Appalachian Mountains. This is a chance to look at the foundation of their work towards a full production premiere in early 2023. In The Light of Day is another dementia-friendly offering from the MacRobert. It invites the audience to participate as much or little as they like and uses hands, gloves, and features to convey a ‘simple story of love, longing, household chores and the wish for connection through music and movement.’ They also have the first chance to see Uma Nada-Rajah’s Exodus, a darkly funny show to make you squirm and laugh and reflect on ‘the indifference to human suffering’. If you’re a fan of the Tour de France, then you can catch Ventoux, which retells the rivalry between Lance Armstrong and Marco Pantani and shows the lengths people are willing to go to for a long-sleeved T-shirt.

There’s also plenty of comedy, music, family shows, and art. One installation showcases five emerging and five established illustrators, and another is a collection of paintings about the natural world and their connected histories and folklores, from Orla Stevens. macrobertartscentre.org

THE VIRGIN TRAVELS The Flying Duck, Glasgow, 5th till 6th July This new show from Royal Conservatoire of Scotland graduates Emma Smith and Katie Smith (not related) explores queerness, Catholicism, and identity. The central character of the Virgin moves through the show on her way to escape the constraints and expectations of female sexuality. snackmag.co.uk

Music and movement meld together to convey core themes of living in this society and how harmful hangovers from history affect us, generation after generation. Watch as this character attempts to break the cycle. eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-virgin-travelsglasgow-tickets-360560093947

EDINBURGH ART FESTIVAL Various Locations, Edinburgh 28th July till 28th August More than a hundred artists, more than thirty exhibitions across Edinburgh, more than just the city centre.

The Wave of Translation takes its name from engineer John Scott Russell’s observations of a wave on the canal in 1824; this is the name he gave to the phenomenon, which has been integral to the development of modern fibre optic technologies. It looks at the city’s ‘layered and complex histories’ and pulls together many community-centred practices and projects: WHALE Arts, Edinburgh Printmakers, and the festival’s Associate Artist programme. Watch this Space is at the Westside Plaza Shopping Centre and is hosted by the Community Wellbeing Collective (residents from the local areas) – a place for all to collaborate together and explore ‘the future of community’ through activities, events and invited guests. There is also Platform: 2022 – a dedicated opportunity for early career artists in Scotland, this year being Saoirse Amira Anis, Emilia Kerr Beale, Lynsey MacKenzie, and Johnny Walker. The latter has a series of casts representing a newborn lamb which explore the ‘fragiliity and multiplicity of the sick body’; two of the artists combine textiles and video; another, reflections on time and paintings.

This is just a wee window into the array of art and collaboration on offer at this year’s fest. edinburghartfestival.com @snackmag

What’s on Page 11

FOR NO OTHER REASON THAN JOY Cample Line, Dumfriesshire 9th July till 28th August Dundee-based Saoirse Amira Anis’s new exhibition will push, press, and poke every single one of your senses. It’s got videos, it’s got sculpture, it’s got textiles, it’s got performance.

It will fill the entirety of the upstairs space of the venue and your brain. A core part of her work is a persona of sorts – Freedom Princess. Freedom Princess transcends human history, guilt, violence, capitalism, and has no one origin. The exhibition uses so much to explore so much and is ‘informed by radical community-based approaches to governance and care that run through queer Black feminist thought’. campleline.org.uk/saoirse-amira-anis

COMING OUT TO PLAY The Glad Cafe, Glasgow 30th July Singing brings us all together, and that’s a huge driving force behind this event – that and that somehow, still, most festivals and music events are male-dominated. They’re inviting women and non-binary people to perform as part of this spotlight on new (even if yer ‘new’ as in ‘only ever sang in yer living room’ new) and established performers. snackmag.co.uk

Confirmed performers include singer/songwriter Lynnie Carson, who ‘performs her own brand of folk/rock’ covering pertinent issues like fast fashion; storyteller Zoe Eliza, who ‘weaves rich, vivid and beautiful tales well beyond her years’; and Ali Tod, who ‘blends modern percussive fingerstyle techniques with classical training and loop pedal mastery’.

All welcome – come support! instagram.com/coming_out_to_play

GATHERED TOGETHER 2022 Tramway, Glasgow 6th till 9th July Back with a swing and flying kick after a twoyear absence, this celebration of dance has everything! Presented by inclusive dance organisation Indepen-dance, the festival will feature companies and artists from all over – Taiwan, Germany, Estonia, Colombia, the US – and they include plenty of folk from Scotland, too. There are films screened daily in Tramway 4 and the Foyer, most with Q&As too, reaching across topics including the concept of the ‘perfect immigrant’, dance and disability and complex needs, and playfulness. There are exhibitions with photographs and murals, and many evening performances. One is about penguins! And through penguins they explore serious themes like overcoming adversity. Another ‘depicts politicians arguing over power while the ice is melting’. In fact, there’s quite a few on ice and climate change, plus of course a vast spectrum of ideas for you to take in. All performances will be audio described and BSL interpreted. tramway.org Image: Still from Saoirse Amira Anis, A Lesson in Frivolity (2022, work in progress). Courtesy of the

@snackmag

THE STAND Glasgow and Edinburgh 30th June till 30th September The Edinburgh Stand is full of Fringe acts this year, so you’ll very likely end up there as part of your day out, with fistfuls of flyers too. Check out Stu & Garry’s Improv Show, Jonny & the Baptists: Dance Like It Never Happened and Vladimir McTavish and Susan Morrison, amongst some other cracking comedy shows. The Edinburgh venue promises to host the best of Scottish comedy and they do have some excellent works in progress, including event fundraiser shows (as does the Glasgow venue). Glasgow also has Out of Office, a debut show from Australian drag queen Karen from Finance – a ‘one-woman journey of self-discovery… and self annihilation.’

Get there early for the best seats. thestand.co.uk

DOUNE THE RABBIT HOLE Cardross Estate, Stirlingshire 14th till 17th July You’ll be singing the songs, thinking this is the life, at Doune this year! Festivals are back!! Doune is a core part of the Scottish summer festival season and this year they have some belters: Camera Obscura, Belle & Sebastian, Teenage Fanclub, Patti Smith and Band (their only Scottish festival date), Nubiyan Twist, Peaness, Arielle Free, Bis, Free Love, Honeyblood, Snapped Ankles, Poster Paints, corto.alto, Billy Nomates – and Boney M.! Plus, Craig Charles is bringing his Funk & Soul Club! Every sentence of this is going to have an exclamation mark at the end of it! It’s more than music – there’s yoga, talks, workshops, jam sessions, and a whole field for families! They also have an ‘Out of the Ordinary’ arena – drop by there to have your jaw drop at the acrobats, clowns, and comedians!

You won’t be asking ‘where am I gonna sleep tonight?’ with their range of sleeping spaces, from everyday camping to their glamping packages, featuring yurts, bell tents, and actual beds aplenty! Join the glitterati and bring your most colourful costumes and most colourful self for the return of Doune! dounetherabbithole.co.uk

Image credit: Kenny Lavelle

AFTER WORK Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh 24th June till 1st October Céline Condorelli has two decades of art influence under her belt, and here is a display of her prowess. Curated by the gallery’s director, Tessa Giblin, this exhibition also has a catalogue published alongside it to celebrate the opening of Edinburgh Art Festival, with freshly commissioned essays and texts by Condorelli herself and others. This exhibition is actually a charcuterie board of her installations. Her Thinking Through Skin is inspired by ‘early alchemical colour experiments and cephalopods’ – that’s squids and octopuses to you and me – and her Cotton/ Rubber series brings the oppressive rubber and textile factory feel to this space. Brise-Soleil has its own soundtrack and creates a garden space in the white cube. There’s even more context (for us nosy curious folk) as alongside the artworks are ‘research vitrines’ – displays of research, experiments, items, and more that showcase the formation of this artist. trg.ed.ac.uk/exhibition/celine-condorelli-after-work What’s on Page 13

SUFI FESTIVAL

THE ALCHEMY EXPERIMENT

Sufi Festival of Islamic Arts and Mysticism, Tramway, Glasgow 23rd–24th July

The Alchemy Experiment, Glasgow 24th June till 7th September

Showcasing the art, culture, and mysticism of one of the world’s oldest spiritual music traditions, the Sufi Festival returns to Tramway on the last weekend of July with Celtic fusion, hip hop, and Caribbean dub, alongside traditional Qawwali performances with workshops on drumming, whirling, Islamic calligraphy, and Sacred Geometry. The Saturday will see talks from prominent scholars on religious sciences, headlined by acoustic act Loves Pilgrim.

Chair of Sufi Festivals Tariq Mahmood says: ‘This fabulous weekend for all the family will be a crucial intervention in the cultural recovery of our city this summer – and once again an invaluable space to enable exchange and dialogue between people of all backgrounds as we reconnect in our communities.’

Booze, food, and ruddy good art – sure, what could be finer? This gallery has recently been granted an alcohol license, further solidifying its hybrid nature – by selling coffee and cake during the day, the exhibition space can be used at a reduced rate or flat fee for the artists, eschewing the traditional gallery structure. There’s lots of pamphlets and magazines and whatnot to rifle through and it’s just a braw space to blether and soak it all in. There are many upcoming exhibitions and workshops in this summer season, focusing on topics like silversmithing (with Lona Lundie, 6th July) and concrete nature collage (Wednesday Collage Club, 17th August). alchemyexperiment.com

sufifestival.org

Pearls of Islam

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Formed out of the detritus of various internet music forums in 2017, Superorganism’s unique blend of fun, wonky pop music fuelled their first album to critical acclaim and award nominations.

As they release the follow-up, World Wide Pop, and set out on a massive tour, I caught up with band members Harry and Tucan just before they jumped on a plane to Japan.

I wanted to ask you about your songwriting process; I remember reading an interview with Tom Waits where he said he wrote with instruments that he didn't know how to play because it gave him a new take. How do you write with non-standard instruments?

Harry: I think that what he's getting at there is similar to our approach, which is to try and maintain spontaneity in what you do. A lot of what we do is constructed remotely, so we'll often be doing things in our rooms and then sending the session files to each other. It can be easy to overthink things, so we actually try to consciously maintain a level of spontaneity in what we do. We’ll often start with even just an iPhone demo, and sometimes things off those really early takes will end up on the finished song, just because of that energy when you first had the idea. I think it's very much an approach of trying different sounds and trying to maintain a spirit of playfulness.

Photo credits: Jack Bridgland

Music by Chris Queen Page 19

I think every journalist describes you as a different genre. Have you got any favourites?

I THINK IT'S VERY Harry: Something that I've heard people say is MUCH AN APPROACH comparing us to kids' music, and I always find that funny. I think that people get a bit confused by the OF TRYING DIFFERENT kind of upbeat and whimsical nature. At the same time I love the idea that kids can listen to us. My SOUNDS AND TRYING favourite and foundational interest in music is The Beatles – as boring as that is – and I love the fact TO MAINTAIN A SPIRIT that that a band can have all of these psychedelic to drugs and existential and confusing OF PLAYFULNESS allusions philosophical tropes, but also appeal to kids Tucan: A lot of us come from a guitar background and it's very easy for your hand to get into the same chord shapes and your writing and playing can become very samey. Keyboards and that kind of thing are a little bit newer, so we're still kind of trying to figure it out; plus a lot of us use a thing called musical typing on our laptops, so that kind of has a janky nature – there's no velocity. So that helps us be a bit childlike cause you’re kind of mashing keys on your laptop trying to play a sample, or something, and it has a certain vibe to it.

On the album there's a lot of incidental noises: phone buzzes and bits of digital interference.

Was there an intent there to make that almost confusing?

because they've got some silly sound effects.

There's a lot of references on the album to aliens or the world being observed from a different place.

Harry: I always think of Carl Sagan and Pale Blue Dot. I don't know if you're familiar with that, but it's a photo that was taken by Voyager I on its way out of the solar system; he does this speech about how everyone that's ever lived, ever loved, ever hated, every war, every genocide, every piece of art, poetry, came from this tiny little speck that's just floating in a ray of light. That has always really stuck with me. I think that's a great way to explore themes about humanity and our place on this planet.

Tucan: Sometimes certain sounds hit each other and it sounds like the WhatsApp ding and then every time you hear that again it confuses you. I like that, screwing with people, like putting a phone vibrating or a dial-up internet sound, kind of a nostalgia for the childhood internet that some of us grew up with.They're just interesting sounds and you hear them in your real life, so why not throw them in a song?

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There's a lot of artists that look at politics and engage with it in a really intelligent way; I think we try to look at it in a more of a big picture way, and so yeah, that idea of there being aliens looking down at us. It's just a good way of trying to have a bit of self awareness.

Tucan: We took that theme with the ‘On & On’ video which is meant to be someone in the future pining for now, in the same way people look back at the 50s and 60s with rose-tinted lenses on.

We were trying to put a lens on that, saying that for someone in the future maybe today will be the Golden Age. The ‘past’ in the video is slightly off – do you think that romanticising the past will always be?

Tucan: People think the 70s were amazing, but I mean, I know in the UK the 70s were not amazing.

Harry: But when you look back and see someone in a cool pair of flares and listening to T. Rex, that's not the bit that you remember. I I think about that with regard to touring: a lot of the time touring can be really gruelling, but when I look back on our time I don't remember the parts where I was sleep deprived on the bus, I remember the best shows that we played. I can't wait to see the reaction to the new stuff, because we've created it somewhat in a vacuum and now it feels like we've not had that engagement with the audience so far. We get a lot of nice feedback, but there's just something so different to seeing how people react in the room; I'm really excited to see that. We've reworked the bunch of the old ones as well, so that should be really cool to see.

World Wide Pop is out on 15th July via Domino Superorganism play SWG3, Glasgow on 18th September

Music/Books by Keira Brown Page 21

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After experiencing significant success with her first EP, Cubicle, Lizzie Reid is back with new EP Mooching. With Mooching, Lizzie continues to write songs that are intimate and emotional, with a sound that is expansive, tender, and atmospheric. She explores her relationship with herself, and her relationships with others, through this lens. Some songs, like ‘Warpaint’, are fun and rhythmic, while others, like ‘How Do I Show My Love?’ are meditative and ballad-like. What we find is the reflective Lizzie we already know, finding a new way to deal, combined with a new, gradually emerging, exciting sound.

SNACK met with Lizzie to talk about her new EP, her songwriting processes, her experience with the success of Cubicle, her recent high profile support gigs, and what’s coming up next.

Before we get into talking about your new EP, Mooching…with everything opening up, and the chance to perform again, finally, what have things been like for you the past few months?

It's been really, really nice to get a kind of wide range of different gigging experiences. In the space of a week, I was supporting Paolo Nutini, in front of a room of nine hundred-odd people who were really up for having a good time. And then the next week, playing a run of my own shows, which was obviously a lot smaller, very intimate: just a totally different atmosphere. So it's been so nice to experience all of that again, just different things keeping me on my toes.

Your previous EP, Cubicle, garnered a lot of praise. It was shortlisted for the SAY Award, which led to Arlo Parks inviting you to support her at a couple of shows, and now you’ve supported Paolo Nutini too, as you mentioned. What was it like for you to experience all this?

It was weird. I released Cubicle in lockdown and it felt like things were kind of moving – but because I was physically stagnant I couldn't really see that progression. So when things started opening up, then I experienced the Arlo Parks gigs and the awards, when they put my face on this big screen in front of everyone and my song was playing. Feeling the energy in the room, I was like ‘Whoaaaa. I can't believe that!’

I think I'm usually quite good at distancing myself from everything – because if I think about it too much, I get really overwhelmed. Often, I'll go into these experiences and come out the other end like, ‘Wait, what just happened? Like, did that happen?’

But there are moments where I'm like, ‘Well, okay, this is different.’

Can you tell me a bit about your process of writing songs for Mooching?

So some of the songs on Mooching, I wrote in lockdown. I believe some of them are actually older as well. ‘Soda Pop Stream’ was written before all the Cubicle songs were written. ‘Bible’ was at the start of lockdown. And they just all sort of came together thematically. It was like, I'm ready to explain this side of me now.

Musically, some of them totally would be a wee bit out of place [on Cubicle]. So it felt like a nice step in a new direction, to show the other side of me as well, musically. I like to rock out, you know.

Music by Elisa Fernández-Arias Page 23

Could you tell me a bit about what your musical journey from Cubicle to Mooching has been like?

I think Cubicle is about one kind of relationship.

One specific situation. I looked at that relationship through the lens of myself, introspecting on how I feel about myself, how I have behaved, and what's become of me. But I think with Mooching, it's kind of gone even more that way – struggles with mental health issues – and it being very much about how I'm doing mentally as opposed to an external situation. So I think that's slightly different to Cubicle? It's so much more about how I'm processing this situation.

What about the themes of Mooching? What would you say those are?

It’s about going through experiences that I've been through before in my life. I've got a new approach to them. So, when things maybe don't go my way, or potentially can't go my way, [I’m] just not letting it hang over me in the same way.

I’ll get

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So there's more of a ‘I'll get over it. It's not like a big deal.’ Whereas Cubicle was more heavy. It's a different tone to how I've dealt with those sorts of situations in the past.

It just sounds like someone who's trying to tell themselves that they're okay when they're probably actually terrified, which is what ‘Bible’ is kind of about, you know. Clearly, I'm terrified, still am, but I’m trying to process everything differently and get on with things. I guess.

What about the sound of Mooching? You already spoke a bit about the sound being a bit different from the sound on Cubicle. Can you tell me a bit more about how this bigger, more expansive sound came about?

Instead of recording straight into my iPhone notes, I did sort of use GarageBand a little bit more. I'm so high tech… I'm not. I tend not to delve into demos too early, fleshing things out. So there was a wee bit more of that.

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‘Warpaint’, I finished writing that in a session with Andy Monaghan from Frightened Rabbit. So that was also a really different writing process for me.

Because I came in with the verses, and I was just like, ‘I can't get a chorus, I can't get a chorus’.

Usually, I will just give up on something until it naturally comes. But I really persevered that day, and was like, ‘I'm not leaving here until we get a chorus.’

Now that Mooching is about to come out, what’s in the future for you?

It's festival season now. So I think I'm just going to be gigging as much as physically possible, which is really exciting. I'll be able to take the band out more, which is just so fun for me, because I really enjoy playing music with other people. I do enjoy playing on my own, but bringing them with me, it just makes you feel…like a team. And it's a nice, cosy feeling.

Are you excited about any gigs in particular?

I'm excited for Latitude Festival. That will be good.

And I'm really excited for Connect too, because the line-up looks great. So that'll be fun for me.

Everything! I'll take it all!

What about any music projects coming up?

Is there anything on the horizon?

I've been writing with a friend of mine quite a lot, sort of more rock and roll stuff It would be cool to release something after Mooching that was maybe a completely different vibe, or, you know, showing another side of me. I've got a lot of time, I guess, to think about how I want to go about doing that. But I think something new, something different could be coming.

Mooching will be released 3rd August via sevenfoursevensix Lizzie Reid will play Connect Festival on 28th August

It’s exhausting enough reading about the gigs and shows Arielle Free is doing this summer, let alone actually doing them. Mind you, we’ve all waited long enough to get out of the house, so you can’t blame anyone for filling their diary to bursting point!

SNACK had to grab a quick chat with one of the hardest working Scots in showbusiness.

You’ve two big Scottish shows in July, at Hampden supporting Calvin Harris and at Doune The Rabbit Hole. Are you all set for them?

Festivals were my upbringing: I know that scene, I know what goes down well. I’ve got experience of playing in Glasgow, and while I haven’t played in Stirling, I grew up there. I learned my skills at festivals. I think I’ve picked up what’s needed at a festival set, and what’s needed for a show like Hampden! snackmag.co.uk

@snackmag

Have you noticed an uptake in friends and family members looking for guest list passes for the Calvin Harris show?

100%. Not my immediate family – they’re lovely – it’s more friends of friends or a random reaching out on Instagram. I was quite explicit; I just want my close family there. It’ll be a real family affair. Also, some of my best pals from back home in Scotland [are coming] and a couple of the girls are coming up from London, so that’ll be nice.

I’ve spoken with Calvin in Ibiza recently – we’ve both been out there. The message to play came from him, and I thought it was an April Fools! It was so casual, in a WhatsApp message, and here’s the biggest gig ever dropping in my lap.

Will you watch Calvin’s set?

Absolutely. I was offered a gig in Edinburgh after but I said no, I want to enjoy it. I will be there to the bitter end and then find a party after, all the way through to being hungover on Sunday morning, looking for a roll and tattie scone and square sausage in Dennistoun.

How did you get into DJing?

I used to be a dancer and I always wanted to be a presenter, but I couldn’t afford to go to uni. I went to college for a dance course, and I won a scholarship for that. After that I was, not falling out of love with dancing, but I had done everything I wanted to. I wanted to give radio presenting a chance.

I’d always idolised Zoe Ball and Sara Cox, but I didn’t have the right qualifications or go down the right route initially, and I couldn’t afford the production courses. I started working at community radio stations, curating shows with Hoxton Radio, Shoreditch Radio, and Ministry of Sound. I was DJing to a degree, but I was only fading in and out and I wanted the proper skills.

Image courtesy of Money Management UK

So, I spoke with Ministry of Sound and said I wanted to DJ, and they helped me, in-house.

Ministry of Sound HQ had loads of great DJs who helped me, big time.

You’ve got a residency at Hï Ibiza every week for David Guetta – how’s that going?

Mad. Mad and wild. I felt very tiny in the first week, in this huge club on a huge night. I was nervous – it’s a global audience who don’t necessarily know what is playing in the UK – but after that, I felt more in the swing of things. It’s going alright; it fits so well with my Radio 1 show, so I work there Monday to Thursday, DJ in Ibiza on Friday and head back to the UK for a festival set at the weekend. It’s not a bad life.

I’d love to stay on in Ibiza beyond a Saturday morning, but I love this, and I want to work as hard as I can in case it doesn’t last. I’m loving every second of it.

You released your first single, ‘Soul Full’, earlier this year. Was that a natural progression?

It was something I always wanted to do. I used Ableton but it wasn’t clicking with my brain.

Someone suggested Logic, and it made sense. I still have so much I need to learn – I’m not on the level of people [artists] I love, but I’m so happy I’ve made a start.

I mentioned the track in passing to someone at Defected [Records], and they said yeah, let’s do this. It was quick, but there have been a couple of blips recently, with two tracks not getting sample clearance. I can use them in my DJ set as a secret weapon, but I’m happy with how I’m putting things together.

Music by Andrew Reilly Page 27

I’ve a couple more lined up, including a release on my own label, and a couple of things I can’t mention just yet.

Our more mature readers might remember you from T in the Park TV hosting duties. Was that a good gig?

Oh my God. I love festivals. I was conceived at Glastonbury, it’s in my blood. To be at T in the Park, which was so important to me, meant so much.

My best year was 2007. I should have been at my college graduation, but I went to T, and funnily enough, I saw Calvin Harris.

T in the Park was brilliant, it was the thing you always looked forward to, it was magical descending on that site. I loved ending up in the Slam Tent till God knows when.

You’re also busy hosting the official Love Island podcast – is that fun?

Yeah [laughs], I’m a huge fan of the show and I wasn’t under contract to Radio 1, so it was a case of being in the right place at the right time. I had been tweeting about the series, so when they researched me before the audition, they knew I was a massive fan. It just goes to show, if you tweet about what you love, who knows what will happen.

Kem [Cetinay, co-host] and I go in and have a laugh. I sometimes think I’ll get over it but every year, including this year, I’m straight back in. I don’t have time to watch any other TV, but we’re in the studio, watching live with the nation, and recording instantly, like a WhatsApp with your friends. It’s an hour’s respite from the madness. I’m a sucker for a romcom!

And you’ve another TV show, Apocalypse Wow. I was on standby for the show last year, and this year I was asked to be a contestant, but then this chance came up. I like being a presenter and not a contestant, as they have to jump in a ball pool and do challenges. I just get to laugh along with the viewers.

The premise sounds as though it’s about torturing famous people?

Yeah [laughs]. It is so weird trying to explain it. It’s like Celebrity Juice, making celebrities look stupid on camera, with a bit of innuendo. I’m worried about my grandfather seeing it, but I’m not the one getting into bondage or anything lubricated.

I get my glam on, and it’s good to have that TV experience again.

Just to round off again with the music: will people have a good time with your sets at Hampden and Doune?

Always. I’m not underground; there’ll be old and new and massive bangers. I think the energy I’ll have at Hampden with Calvin and Doune, don’t worry about that. I’m first on: I won’t need to warm up, I won’t hold back, so get along.

Arielle Free will play Doune the Rabbit Hole, Stirling on 16th July and will support Calvin Harris 2nd July at Hampden Park, Glasgow

Do you get to hear any extra gossip?

No, they are so strict, even on press day. It’s a military operation and we’re kept apart from the Islanders. snackmag.co.uk

@snackmag

MICHAEL PEDERSEN ‘The story of our friends, it's the ingredients of who we are as human beings, it's coded into our DNA,’ Michael Pedersen concludes, as we emerge from a deep dive discussion into his memoir, Boy Friends.

Michael Pedersen, co-founder of Scottish arts collective Neu! Reekie!, is a Glasgow-based writer and curator. His new book, Boy Friends, explores grief and loss, emotion, and male friendship, following the devastating loss of his friend, musician Scott Hutchison of the band Frightened Rabbit. The book developed organically as Pedersen managed his grief through diary entries detailing nostalgic and joyous memories, and the resulting memoir has provided a wondrous conversation starter about grief and our own friendships, outlining the significance of the relationships that are so pertinent to our lives.

Boy Friends is a book that considers male friendships and grief: it’s a significant exploration, which is not often made. There are obviously key triggers, but how did you come to write this memoir?

It was almost by accident. I was booked in to go to Bill Drummond’s Curfew Tower [a historic building owned by the musician and former KLF member, operating as an artists’ residence] in Northern Ireland well in advance because Neu! Reekie! were curating a whole year of writers there. I took over the tough slog of a month that is July in an old tower in this beautiful seaside village, and it was my intention to start work on the third poetry collection.

Photos courtesy of Michael Pedersen

However, the events of the world intervened: we lost Scott five or six weeks before I went out and I found myself there, pretty much consumed by my memories of him. I started writing almost as a way of annexing and archiving my friendship with him, just out of a fear that I might forget some of these memories.

It gave me a structure to my day at a time when I was a bit more emotionally volatile. Sitting down and writing about this seminal friendship became my sort of diary-esque day-to-day obsession.

It was always supposed to be a piece of writing that would become a poetry collection, but then [the writing] just refused it. When I attempted to do that, the prose kept spilling out of it. I wanted to understand who I was as a friend to Scott, and that required me to revisit, to my surprise, friendships further and further into my old past.

I guess we are this sort of cocktail of ingredients of all the friendships that came before us. So, through trying to understand my friendship with Scott, I had to understand who I was as a friend, and thus the friendships that made me trigger this whole social audit of the friendships of the past and those that formed me.

Books by Keira Brown Page 29

And as you just touched upon, you look at many friendships across your lifetime, with a part journal/reflection element, part detailing what happened at the time. How did you reach the decision to structure it this unusual way?

The book wasn't ever supposed to be a book, so of course it wasn't written with a narratorial arc in mind – it was all of these fleshy, different fragments.

It was my day-to-day diaries from the Curfew Tower, because that was the easiest thing to start writing each day when I sat down at the desk. It's very difficult to just fall into writing about the past or about friendships or grief or loss, so I would start writing diaries of what I was doing in the Tower every day. And through those writing exercises, I started writing about the road trip with Scott, the last big journey we took together. I guess that was the most painful and the most difficult piece to write, but it was the most recent and direct, so it was the one that had the most hyper-detail.

Well, Scott was so important to so many people.

I guess I was never going to be able to tell the universal story of Scott. It was too big. It was too abundant for me, and it predates me by many, many years. It wasn't ever going to be something I had the acumen, or the facts, or the desire to grant.

I could only tell the little bit of story that spilled through me and that was a story of friendship. I just wanted to craft as accurate a representation of the friendship I had with him as possible, and that’s mostly about eating meals together, and holidays, and trips, and developing an emotional vocabulary to be willing to let each other know how we feel, and it's full of my memories of Scott.

It was a really fun and joyous friendship, and by writing about that, that was the only way I could really honour it. I think it was so interconnected to all the other friendships that circled around us both that hopefully, by offering a little look into my friendship with Scott, it’s not taking anything away from anyone, and is in fact starting the conversation for anyone to say how special Scott was, or indeed any other friend is, to them.

And then there were all the weird avenues I was going off to, delving into my own past through some of the friends that I think helped sculpt me as a human being. I think the structure we ended up with was a bit more of an accurate reflection of my day-to-day dwelling. It was the diaries in The Curfew Tower as well as the impetus to burrow into the past. Structurally it was a bit of a jigsaw puzzle, a bit of a labyrinth to put together, and my editor prodded me to try out different structures until we found one that fitted. I wanted this book to be starting this conversation about emotional, male friendship in a way that was almost a call to action.

The book reflects upon the death of and grief for someone gone that was so much in the public eye. You must have felt a real responsibility when writing this, thinking about his family and loved ones. How did you perceive this and continue with the challenge of writing it? snackmag.co.uk

@snackmag

And, coming out the other side of writing this reflection, how do you feel it added to your coming to terms with the grief? Did you find it cathartic and give you the opportunity to process, or did it come with further weight?

It was my way of dealing with it. For the year that Scott passed, I wrote about him nearly every day, by poems, by short stories. I was consumed by the writing, and that was helpful for me because it helped clarify and cauterise any wounds I had.

I mean, there were certainly bits of writing which were far too emotionally vulnerable and fleshy for anyone else to see, to be of use to anyone else, which is primarily why I was writing it. Yes, it was cathartic, but why I was publishing what I wrote was because I wanted to offer assurance and companionship. It sounds cliched for me to say, but in all honesty the writing steadied and saved me and kept me from more drastic actions. It filled my time with something constructive when I could have been wallowing or seeking distraction under more riskier means. To have at the end of it a compass towards doing a joyous friendship justice was more than a crutch for me.

It was incredible to just walk with these stories in my head and decide when the right time was to capture them. I knew I could come home if I needed to. It was such a unique opportunity to marinate within my own memories in a way that I'd never done before, that I just couldn't afford to turn it down.

Boy Friends will be published on 7th July

by Faber Michael Pedersen’s book tour includes: Waterstones Sauchiehall St, Glasgow on 11th July with Ricky Ross (Deacon Blue) and Michael Mullen.

Edinburgh International Book Festival, 24th August, with Charlotte Church and Shirley Manson, and the Good Grief event with Gemma Cairney, Ocean Vuong and others on 26th August.

And throughout your time in The Curfew Tower, it must have been tough being so resolutely away from people with your thoughts, so soon after it had happened.

What strength within you compelled you to write on?

I knew that by doing this I could visit Scott and our stories together with a depth and an intensity that I wouldn't be able to do when I'm surrounded by other voices and other people.

I had people checking up on me and it definitely felt like a big, risky endeavour. And it was punctuated by walking every day. I would go walking for hours; I found myself restless. I would walk until my body was exhausted, along stunning coastlines.

Books by Keira Brown Page 31

ELLE NASH

When Elle Nash’s debut novella, Animals Eat Each Other, was published in 2019, it announced the arrival of an exciting talent not afraid to examine the darker corners of human existence. Her follow-up short story collection, Nudes, expands on many of the themes and ideas of that debut, introducing us to a memorable cast of new characters – people who rarely find representation on the page. It’s a collection that proves Elle Nash is a writer to revere, and SNACK spoke to the author ahead of the publication of Nudes.

How do you describe Nudes to people?

People often think that my work is about me.

Whether or not it is, I let people infer for themselves, but I was intrigued by the idea of a collection that felt like an exposure. When someone sends you a nude, it's the ultimate act of trust. They're not only exposing themselves to you, but they're trusting you to not expose them to others. They're giving you something vulnerable and saying treasure this. I suppose that's how I would describe Nudes. As an exposé.

It's a collection where the stories work together, feeding into one another, with the characters appearing to exist in a shared world. Was that something you wanted to achieve, or is it simply a result of the people and places you wanted to represent? snackmag.co.uk

I didn’t necessarily think about it as I was writing it. I’ve never thought that deeply about my work; or maybe I used to and the last two years of burnout have left me empty. What happens is I feel compelled; my head gets full of experiences and atmospheres and feelings, scenes, and flits of touch and prose and dialogue. I just want to figure out how to put it on the page, for some reason. And I spent a lot of time living in the American South thinking about the experiences there and the way that flyover country is so often misrepresented, misunderstood, and marginalised.

You write about people who all too rarely appear in fiction, particularly working class women. What did you want to explore through the lives of your characters?

Mostly, I'm just so damn tired of reading about upper-middle-class women from New York City who don't necessarily have to think about how they're going to survive the next month of their lives, who don't have to think about where their next paycheck is coming from, who complain about being broke when they have access to education and the ability to be emotionally or financially independent. @snackmag

I also am very drawn to the tectonic landscape of emotion that tends to exist between people who don't have the luxury or time to consider the philosophical implications of their existence.

I wanted to explore sadness and sex and drama from a different vantage point, one that hadn’t been wrung through academia. People tend to wear their big cities like a fashion accessory. I wanted to show something different.

What appeals to you about the short story as a form?

I love the short story because it's much more satisfying, immediately, than a novel. I don't have to do too much planning. But at the same time you have to be very economical in your language. A short story can grab you the way a song or the way a poem can, which is just something that a novel really can't do. A novel can be atmospheric, but you have to sustain it. A novel is more like an orchestra, whereas a short story is like a three-piece band writing a hit. It can just be an experience that washes over you. A novel, sometimes you have to work for. In order to do that you have to achieve staying within the fictive dream, and it can be a challenge sometimes. When I’m working on a short story it’s a little bit like solving a puzzle – there's something really satisfying when a metaphor or a sentence just clicks the right way. But it takes work, and it takes time, and patience.

Will I ever feel or experience them? There’s too much possibility and it’s painful not to have all of it.

With such a cast of memorable characters, do you think you will return to any of them in the future?

The secret of Nudes is that two of the characters from one of the short stories are now the main characters of my forthcoming novel, Deliver Me, from Unnamed Press next year.

What is next for you in terms of writing, or is it too early to say?

I don’t think it’s too early to say. I have my novel coming out next year, and as far as what’s next after that, I just hope I can continue to cultivate my writing the way I do any other habit. I’ve been focusing a lot on meditation and self-development, but sadly my daily discipline of writing has fallen by the wayside recently. Cultivation: that’s what’s next.

Nudes will be published by 404 Ink

A lot of your references set the tone and time of your stories, which also further links them.

Is that an important part of this collection? Is there a sense of nostalgia involved, or are there other reasons?

I pretty much lived in nostalgia for a long time as a way to escape my reality. I’m an escapist by nature.

Though lately I have found myself less nostalgic about the past and more just thinking about the multiverse. What other lives have I been leading?

Can I know them?

Books by Alistair Braidwood Page 33

Cargo trucks. Live camera work. Football.

The option to walk around wherever the action goes. Perhaps you wouldn’t expect any of these things from an opera. But these are just some of the elements that’ll feature in Candide, Scottish Opera’s site-specific outdoor show this summer. To find out all about this ambitious staging, I chatted to William Morgan, who’s playing the titular role.

How're rehearsals going?

Very good. I've seen the space where it's going to be: it’s absolutely enormous, like a massive aircraft hangar. It's very cool. It's going to be filled with all sorts of things, trucks and big cargo containers. It’s huge.

So, it's a promenade performance, is that right?

Yeah, it is. There'll be the orchestra up one end, and then about a hundred in the company, including the community chorus, professional chorus, cast, crew, and actors. It’s all going to be very mobile. Because of the nature of the piece, which goes to different locations, times, places every ten minutes, the great thing is we can do something in one area and then abandon it and go to the next one, rather than having to do an impossibly fast scene change. We're not trying to cover up the different, crazy, eclectic mix of things.

Like, if I'm getting in a boat to go somewhere I'm actually getting in a boat and it's going to be pushed along on a rig – we're just doing it. snackmag.co.uk

William Morgan

It's gonna be crazy. I'm gonna be exhausted!

Can you just explain the plot to me?

Candide is a person brought up in an optimistic, sheltered bubble, and then he's thrown out in a brutal fashion. He finds out that the world is chaotic, cruel, and extremely unfair. It's very beautiful and fun and light in lots of places, but there's dark in it too. So the story follows Candide as he finds himself part of massive world events, and he has to deal with different things that get thrown at him. Literally, in some cases.

A lot of people know Bernstein from West Side Story, but what is it about the music of Candide that’s different?

It seems to me it was very personal to him. He obviously loved this book and the idea of doing it excited him. I think of West Side Story more as a ballet and Candide as an opera. @snackmag

I want to know more about what makes this staging unique.

Jack [Furness, who’s directing] and I went up yesterday to where the show’s gonna be and just kind of laughed! Like, ‘this is crazy.’ The way that he put it to me was that you can go ‘This is impossible to stage. We can’t stage a volcano eruption, a shipwreck, a war and an earthquake and the Spanish Inquisition, bang bang bang one after the other. So we try and unify it.’ And Jack said, ‘Well, no, we're not going to do that.

We’re going to make the show about trying. The audience should see how much it costs us to try and do this thing. Everything must be represented in some way.’

So that's rule number one: you have to do all those things, no cheating. And rule number two is: it all somehow has to be about today's world.

The community chorus does a wonderful job of helping with that. It’s a collaboration with the Maryhill Integration Network of refugees and asylum seekers in Glasgow, and there are parts of the story that come quite close to that.

To have people who can actually bring that, so we're not just making it up – I think that's pretty important.

Why do you think we should be staging operas this way? Like, I've never seen an opera done like this before, and I would like to imagine it’ll encourage new audiences in.

But are there any other benefits?

That’s definitely one of the main hopes, isn't it?

That people will come who might go and see theatre, or are interested in music, but don't really see themselves going to an opera house. I don't know what the evidence is of whether that actually happens, but I hope it does. It’s also better for the piece. The idea is to make something that could only be in this space. Hence the thing with the trucks and the shipping containers – that's what that space is, or was, and that would look really odd in a theatre. But the idea is to make a show that belongs there and belongs to that time as well. I think that if we succeed in doing that, it’ll be brilliant.

Candide will be staged at New Rotterdam Wharf, Scottish Opera Production Studios, Glasgow on 11th, 13th, 14th, 16th, 18th, and 20th August (evenings, 6pm).

See scottishopera.org.uk for booking details

Ronald Samm and Anna Patalong in Scottish Opera's Pagliacci. Scottish Opera 2018

Theatre by Katie Smith Page 35

Photo credit: James Glossop

There's showstopping numbers and there's Latin and jazz influences, for sure. But overall, because the story is so disjointed – completely deliberately – the thing that binds it all together is the music.

snackmag.co.uk

@snackmag

VEGAN LEMON SLICE This light and fluffy lemon cake is completely vegan. No eggs and no butter here, so the zingy lemon can shine through.

We cooked this in a loaf tin, but you could use a normal cake tin and slather on lots of vegan buttercream icing. We also think these would make superb fairy cakes.

However you bake it, enjoy this fluffy and light sponge topped with tart lemon.

Summer is here!

INGREDIENTS 100ml vegetable oil 275g self-raising flour 200g sugar 170ml water 1 tsp baking powder 1 lemon, juiced Zest from 1 lemon For the icing 150g icing sugar

METHOD

Heat oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6.

Line a 1lb loaf tin with baking paper.

Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, and zest together in a bowl.

Add the oil, lemon juice, and 170ml cold water, then mix until smooth.

Pour the mixture into the tin and bake for 30 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean. If the cake looks to be browning too quickly, cover with some foil to protect the top and re-check with a skewer after ten minutes.

Cool in the tin, then remove and transfer the cake to a wire rack to cool fully.

Once the cake is cool, sieve the icing sugar into a bowl. Then add the lemon juice a bit at a time, to make the icing thick enough to pour over the cake but not run off.

Scatter lemon zest over the top to decorate.

1 lemon, juiced 1 lemon, zested

Food and Drink by Mark & Emma, Foodie Explorers Page 37

OT) THE (N

GAY

Image couresty of Universal Studios

CLUB MOVIE

DEATH BECOMES HER

Let us pose a question, one posed by many of my friends at least once a week: Money not an issue, what would you change about your body?

Answers vary between nose jobs, face lifts and hair transplants, and, especially in the gay community, body modification is increasingly welcomed and utilised. But how many people actually put their money where their woefully thin-lipped mouth is? Given our penchant for sustaining youth and beauty and relying on the services of a professional to do so, it is no surprise that queer audiences have flocked to Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn’s camp masterpiece Death Becomes Her, celebrating its 30th anniversary this month. It is such a queer staple that it’s remarkable we have not dissected it in detail sooner. But, as our characters Madeline and Helen categorically do not grasp, patience is a virtue, and we owe it to ourselves to indulge and reflect on the camp delight, the technical marvel, that is Death Becomes Her.

Who can blame them, really? As their bodies inevitably age and their cultural currency fades, they each drink a miracle cure that prevents ageing and renders them immortal. Hilarity and camp body horror ensue. Death Becomes Her pushes its audience to reflect on vanity, ageing, sexuality, and death: it just serves them up in glamorous, flamboyant packaging.

Writer Helen Sharp (Goldie Hawn, who make-up artists and wig makers tirelessly but unsuccessfully tried to make frumpy. It’s Goldie Hawn) and failing Broadway actress Madeline Ashton have harboured a bitter rivalry for years as they vie for the affections of Bruce Willis.

Of course, Streep and Hawn are the double act our community deserves. In her role as Madeline Ashton, Streep is the most physical, hyperbolic, and outrageous she has ever been, playing against the serious actor archetype that perhaps negates her excellent comedic acting.

snackmag.co.uk

Death Becomes Her has naturally cultivated a huge gay following. The movie even inspired a Death Becomes Her runway on season 7 of some programme called RuPaul's Drag Race, introducing the world to Violet Chachki’s deathdefying corsetry. Ask any gay man about the film, and I guarantee they will describe in vivid, scientific detail the opening number in which Madeline performs ‘I See Me’. It’s perhaps the funniest, most stupid, and gayest opening scene in cinema.

@snackmag

You can tell she is having the time of her life hamming it up with Goldie Hawn, and this joy is infectious. Add Isabella Rossellini – who looks phenomenal – into the mix and you have as close to perfection as one can get. Even at their most grotesque, Madeline and Helen look stunningly beautiful, and the production value in costuming, make up, and prosthetics is exceptional. But the special effects really deserve their own paragraph, frankly.

The film is a technical masterpiece and pioneered CGI technology that’s considered industry standard today: without Death Becomes Her, there would be no Jurassic Park, or at least not one as technically impressive as we consider it today. Bones and necks are broken, then reset; heads are dislocated; Madeline peers through an enormous hole in Helen’s torso; breasts are lifted and augmented in real time! Unsurprisingly, the film took home its only Oscar for Best Visual Effects.

As always, we appreciate a slick script in the NGMC, and Death Becomes Her fires on all cylinders. Crafted by Martin Donovan and the illustrious David Koepp, every line of the script is witty and handled perfectly by the film’s juggernaut cast. The fact that two straight men wrote this is staggering: with cutting barbs like ‘You’re dressed.

Special occasion?’ I am convinced there were drag queens in the writers’ room. And the dialogue marries perfectly with the outrageous special effects and body gags, in the goofiest manner possible: ‘You're a fraud, Helen! You're a walking lie, and I can see right… THROUGH YOU!’ Perfection.

Of course, our main characters are largely odious, but the humour of their dialogue certainly masks their vulnerability: Madeline wistfully whispers in the mirror, ‘Wrinkled, wrinkled little star... hope they never see the scars,’ a line hilarious and heartbreaking in equal measure.

But that is where the script succeeds: adding levity to a film that is truly dark at its core.

The tragedy of Madeline and Helen is what truly attracts its queer audience. The women are perpetually dissatisfied with their appearance – attached inextricably to their quest for youth – which is a relatable quality, especially within the LGBT community, and both vengeance and validation help fuel their respective transformations.

But the value of these women, radiantly beautiful, is conditional: they are only valid as long as they stay young and beautiful. And there is potentially a link between the experience of Madeline and Helen and the struggles we face daily: for many in our community life can be easier, and often safer, if someone ‘passes’ in their physical identity, however that applies to them. But ultimately, their incessant pursuit of youth and beauty lead to a life (and then some) of misery, distressing physical changes, and perhaps worst of all, co-dependence. Beauty always comes at a price.

So, what does Death Becomes Her teach us?

Perhaps it can be read as a commentary on what being a woman meant in our culture in the early 90s, and how those values may or may not have evolved since then. Or maybe it is a parable on the pitfalls of aiming for physical perfection and youth. Don’t ask me: I’m typing this as I wait for my gradual fake tan to dry and questioning if my arms are really ready for vest exposure this summer.

Take the film at face value and you will appreciate it as a camp, technically stunning, and hilarious romp featuring cinema’s finest, most dazzling stars.

Cut a little deeper (scalpel optional), and you’ll find a perceptive critique of our society’s obsession with an archaic form of femininity, youth, and beauty, and the pitfalls to which our attempts to sustain them can lead.

LGBT+ by Jonny Stone Page 39

Track by Track: beabadoobee Beatopia It seems hard to believe that beabadoobee (Beatrice Laus) has been nudging her way around the collective consciousness since 2018. In that time, she hasn’t strayed enormously from her core sound and, although her sophomore album release comes bathed in a sense of maturity, she thankfully is still very much a bedroom trobairitz (that’s a female troubadour – unfortunately, the word troubadour needs a feminine version since their identity was very much based around being thirsty, other-men’s-wife-enjoying horndogs) as opposed to a chanteuse.

From a sartorial and aesthetic viewpoint, it’s hard to describe beabadoobee without using the G word (the one that rhymes with sponge). Musically, and in the live environment particularly, there are very obvious early-90s reference points for those old enough to have existed in that particular period of extremely offline history, and both of these attributes knit together with all the functional elegance of Lego bricks.

It’s a blazing slice of guitar pop with soaring verses as catchy as the chorus. This is an entirely personal take, but I think this song is my long-sought sweet spot between Miley Cyrus and Juliana Hatfield. It’s perfect and the reason someone you saw on the bus today was tapping their feet.

The new album gets off to a bit of spaced-out start with ‘Beatopia Cultsong’, a groovy acoustic headnodder reminiscent of early Led Zeppelin.

‘Sunny Day’ feels as if it’s produced slightly differently to the rest of the record, with a relatively big, saturated bass kick in the middle of the mix.

This propels the song, giving it an airy, summer feel even if the lyrics are slightly more regretful than the melody and the title suggest.

This quickly gives way to most recent single ‘10:36’.

If you somehow haven’t heard it, you will soon.

One of four singles so far, ‘See You Soon’ highlights beabadoobee’s eminent songwriting maturity.

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Relatable and hummable enough to worm into your brain but with the sort of deceptively simple, uplifting chorus that other songwriters would trade an organ for. Not an organ with keys and pipes on it and that. A semi-vital one like a spleen or a kidney or an eye. There’s a sort of alchemy when a chorus sounds like the natural end of each verse, and it probably is worth at least a retina in the real, global market.

‘Ripples’ is a delightfully honest acoustic song at its core but manages to pile strings on top of strings and then, just as the listener anticipates a stripping back in the last 30 seconds, yet more strings appear.

It’s followed by ‘The Perfect Pair’ which keeps the acoustic core but is set to a very Parisian rhythm.

The intro to ‘Broken CD’ fools you into thinking that it’s the final part of a lowkey trilogy, but it cleverly moves between quiet tales of heartbreak at 17 with a rather forthright middle section.

The first single from Beatopia was ‘Talk’, a buzzing, bass-led rumble with a pleasingly brokensounding solo section.

‘Lovesong’ is another one you've possibly already heard. It’s an intimate confessional on the face of it but it shows one of beabadoobee’s compositional strengths. When you think you’ve already heard the chorus, it turns out she’s got another refrain to build on what’s gone before.

‘Pictures of Us’ is another song which grows as it goes in an almost organic manner, but it’s worth giving it a listen for the intro alone. A prominent, crisp, yet heavily reverb-soaked guitar line surrounded by lush, dreamy vocal harmonies. It develops into a perfectly mature song for the rest of its runtime, but it does peak in the first minute.

‘Fairy Song’ is driven by an enjoyably loose drum beat with synth chimes dancing around the vocal melody. It gets noisy exactly when you want it to and reins in the noise just before the song derails into chaos.

Managing to start off with a simple three-note chord arpeggio befitting a nursery rhyme, ‘Don’t Get the Deal’ again gets its quiet and loud bits sequenced in a way that means every loud bit sounds like a relief.

Featuring Pink Pantheress, ‘Tinkerbell is Overrated’ blends the two overlapping vocals over a shifting arrangement that means that the last minute hits 30 percent harder than it has any right to hit.

The second side is definitely lower in tempo compared to the first, and closer ‘You’re Here That’s the Thing’ signs off with an achingly sweet bluesy verse tied to a very folky chorus. It’s a signature bedroom-songwriter song and a really fitting way to end a remarkably assured collection of songs.

Albums can be many things and still work. They can be a sprawling concept, a greatest hits, or a self-indulgent side project with a banjoist and an arrhythmic gong. Sometimes, though, arguably when they are at their very best, they can just be a collection of good, well-crafted pop songs with enough of a glimpse of the individual soul behind them to keep them in people’s hearts for decades hence.

Incidentally, I love the name. I think having a variation of the word doobie in your name always works whether you’re a beaba, a brother, or the funkiest (the last one is Funkdoobiest – it would be much funnier if they were more widely remembered, and we didn’t have to end this column with a clumsy parenthesis explaining a pure Da-level pun).

Beatopia is out 15th July via Dirty Hit Music by Stephen McColgan Page 41

HELEN SEDGWICK Book: What Doesn’t Break Us Helen Sedgwick’s What Doesn’t Break Us is the final book in the Burrowhead trilogy, and it’s the perfect end to one of the most intriguing crime series of recent times, following on from When The Dead Come Calling and Where The Missing Gather. Burrowhead is a fictional village where a tight-knit community is being changed and challenged by the arrival of outsiders, something which a significant number feel threatened by, and they take action to show this and make any integration a challenge. Crimes both current and historic are investigated by a police force which is also a mixture of locals and newcomers, something which brings its own cultural clashes as prejudices on both sides arise to muddy the waters. Over the three books the cast of characters has grown, so the outline of who’s who at the beginning is a welcome feature for any readers not yet familiar with Burrowhead and those who live there. The way the outsiders’ and locals’ lives are interwoven is at the heart of events as secrets from the past are uncovered in the present, with every character having their part to play.

These books blend crime with both the supernatural and horror. Imagine a cross between Broadchurch, The Wicker Man and Shane Meadows’ Dead Man’s Shoes and you have some idea as to what’s going on, but the whole is so much more than the sum of any influences. Helen Sedgwick has created a world which is fully realised, and that is in no small part to the attention to detail and the clarity of thought behind the writing. She allows characters to shift and change, to be both villain and hero and everything in between. Despite the supernatural shading in evidence, there is recognisable, often flawed, humanity, with all that entails.

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The Burrowhead trilogy brings something fresh and exciting to crime fiction, a genre that is all too often home to clichés and stereotypes. The books could be described as ‘black magic realism’, with just enough of the uncanny to make the reader uneasy, suggesting that good detective work and police legwork can only go so far. There are sometimes stranger things which will always remain a mystery.

What Doesn’t Break Us is published on the Point Blank imprint of Oneworld Publications.

Alistair Braidwood

MIEKO KAWAKAMI Book: All the Lovers in the Night All the Lovers in the Night follows Mieko Kawakami’s acclaimed novel Heaven, which only came out last year. This latest offering reinforces Kawakami’s capacity for exploring raw and vulnerable themes and issues through her characters.

Mieko Kawakami is a successful Japanese singer and writer. With acclaim awarded to her novel Breasts and Eggs, the artist’s works have become much anticipated, with this novel being translated into English by Sam Bett and David Boyd.

Shy and introverted, Fuyuko lives alone and fills her days with her job as a freelance proofreader, swapping her full-time salaried working life for one which focuses entirely on books. About to turn 35, she cannot imagine having any successful emotional relationship in her life as it currently stands. Regularly haunted by encounters of the past, there’s too much baggage for her to give this a second consideration.

But Fuyuko loves the light and goes out on the night of her birthday, Christmas Eve, to count the lights.

Her only friend, Hijiri, offers a little light in her life. @snackmag

However, as a character in this novel, she is frustratingly self-assured and vocal. Her hint of insecurity renders her more interesting. It is, however, Fuyuko’s chance encounter with Mr. Mitsutsuka, a physics teacher, after her bag is stolen, that actually opens the door to possible contentment.

With trust and trauma issues, the metaphor in finding the light sits stunningly throughout this novel. Detachment and isolation are prevalent throughout Fuyuko’s existence in All the Lovers in the Night: the cold traits that are core to her life, however excellently executed, only leave the reader too feeling detached and disengaged from the character.

Pronounced, poetic, contemporary and considered, All The Lovers in the Night is a novel of delightful prose that doesn’t quite accomplish what the author’s previous novels did. Whilst expertly handling formidable themes of sexual assualt and disassociation, Kawakami’s Fuyuko just didn’t pull me in enough to gauge the character more, nor get a deeper understanding of their trauma.

All the Lovers in the Night was published by Picador on 12th May Keira Brown

ALI MILLAR Book: The Last Days Bold, stark, and unflinching, Ali Millar’s memoir, The Last Days, is her account of growing up within a group of Jehovah's Witnesses in a Scottish Borders town. Considered, balanced and with several voices (from the young girl in the 80s to the adult she is in 2015) that span several decades, this book is an insightful look at a life that revolves around the Kingdom Hall and the nearing of the end of the world, displaying a sincere curiosity about those who exist outside of this world.

Ali Millar was born into the Jehovah’s Witnesses, a life that haunts her with vivid images of the Second Coming and the exodus of humans who don’t live life according to the ways of the Witnesses.

Leaving the religion as an adult and a mother, she has written this uncompromising reflection on her experience, portraying a corrupt, manipulative, and abusive group.

Written with a consecutive narrative structure, from 1979 to 2015, we are introduced to many Alis, including her more rebellious teenager voice, one that the reader will find authentic to the bone. Embracing music, literature and sexually exploration, this key stage of Ali’s life opens the door for her to question further the rules of Kingdom Hall. With a real sense of uncertainty, but with a desire to retain her relationship with her mother, Millar allows us to fully grasp her inner conflict, which is the crux of her battle for the decades this book spans.

She marries and has a daughter within the faith, and this finds her questioning the religion, as she considers what life will be like for her daughter as she grows up.

While married, Millar experiences revelations about the ways in which the Elders treat the wives as opposed to the husbands: a catalyst for Millar to question the faith further and consider her own way out.

A disturbing, yet insightful tale of strength, love, darkness, faith, and absolution, The Last Days allows space for your own thoughts to develop around the Witnesses, as you follow this brave woman’s journey to the world outside of the Kingdom Hall. Bold and brutal, yet beatific.

The Last Days is published by Ebury on 14th July Keira Brown

review@snackmag.co.uk Page 43

LOU MCLEAN

CELESTIAL NORTH

Single: RBF

Single: The Nature Of Light

Along with ‘calm down’, being told to ‘smile’ is sure to rile me right up. Can’t a lady just exist without having to people-please all the time? Lou McLean’s new single ‘RBF’ (resting bitch face) floats dreamy echoes that juxtapose the cutting, catchy anthems to galvanise the masses. Catch her playing at Doune the Rabbit Hole this July.

This dreamy, effervescent synth-pop from Edinburgh’s Celestial North at once evokes a witchy, wiccan naturalism and a music festival dance tent. Drawing inspiration from herbalism and natural theology, the song features guest vocals from the artist’s daughter and a melodic message of driving positivity and inner hope in dark times that builds to a euphoric peak.

‘RBF’ will be released 8th July Natalie Jayne Clark

‘The Nature of Light’ was released on 17th June Chris Queen

ASK ALICE Single: Demonia

HANNYMOON Single: Milan Hannymoon is back with another hazy trap rhythm, in the form of ‘Milan’. The layered keys and samples combined with the afrobeat-esque percussion moves between feelings of exhilaration and sensuality. Hanny's softly spoken lyrics bring us on a fantasy trip around the world. Close your eyes and you're there.

This is bass-heavy paganism from Natalie Joy Reid and producer SERA, with massive dance floor drums and speaker-shaking bass drops, pulling influence from early dubstep and the more experimental ends of metal. It’s a huge, pummelling production, with Reid’s impressive vocal range floating over the top and a wicked pop sensibility under all the demonic introspection.

'Demonia' is available to stream now Chris Queen

'Milan' was released 6th of June Joe Rosenthal snackmag.co.uk

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SEAN FOCUS Single: Boudoir Sean Focus' party anthem, ‘Boudoir’, entertains with a slick instrumental padded with frosty synths and hints of Latin percussion – making it impossible not to move with. Focus' flow finds the pockets seamlessly, advancing towards a hook that is begging to be played in the clubs all summer long.

'Boudoir’ was released on 17th June by Imvaize music group

THE STEENS

Joe Rosenthal

Scuzzy, distorted garage blues are in evidence here from the Orange County brothers, with a song that flicks every light on the sound desk to red and rattles through the three-minute runtime like it’s trying to sprint out of town. With shades of every outlaw to have plugged in a guitar, from Lead Belly to Rocket from the Crypt, it's a joyous, shimmering howl of glitter-glam filth.

‘What A Way To Die’ was released on 24th June Chris Queen

LONGLIST

HELLO@SNACKMAG.CO.UK

ADVERTISE HERE review@snackmag.co.uk Page 45

Photo credit: Graham Glover

Single: What A Way To Die

THE WIFE GUYS OF REDDIT EP: The Wife Guys Walk into Oncoming Traffic Hot on the heels of February’s frenetic single ‘Pig Fat’ and last year’s accomplished Wet and Tired EP, The Wife Guys of Reddit have taken a great, yet measured, step sideways with the upcoming release of their new EP. With five tracks clocking in at a total runtime of less than fifteen minutes, The Wife Guys Walk into Oncoming Traffic manages to flirt with a slightly more psychedelic sound on some tracks, including the opener, ‘Wife Guys Diss Track’, without sacrificing any of their existing balance and identity.

The eclectic contributions of multi-instrumentalist Angus Fernie feel like they have taken a noted amble towards centre stage on this latest EP, and we’ve previously gushed lyrically about Elise Atkinson’s drumming, as well as the versatility in the guitar-playing and vocal delivery of Arion Xenos.

Possibly the EP’s highlight, though, is ‘Gloria in Excelsis Deo’, where bassist/vocalist Niamh MacPhail delivers a fairly cathartic vocal over an unsettling swagger of a drumbeat drowning in a swamp of staccato, delayed, flanged guitars.

The Wife Guys are an instantly likeable collage of very identifiable individuals and every EP they release sees them mould themselves further into something more singular and unique. They’re going to keep getting better and will be culturally unavoidable within a year. Some of us think that a level of cultural ubiquity has already been earned by them, but we’re just enjoying listening to their musical spaghetti hitting figurative walls and falling into an irresistibly seasoned platter, before the wider world realises what it’s missing.

The Wife Guys Walk into Oncoming Traffic is out 15th July (self released) Stephen McColgan

LIZZIE REID EP Review: Mooching The title of Lizzie Reid’s latest project seems to suggest a mooching habit of her own, but the evident thought and passion that the EP is steeped in attests to a re-found inspiration, justifying the claim: ‘I’m done with all my mooching’.

Inspired by her grandmother’s reference to her lazy and over-dependent dog, on Mooching the 2021 SAY Award nominee tells tales of taking life into her own hands – a moment that could’ve previously caused heartbreak is brushed under the rug for the sake of dancing with friends on ‘Warpaint’. It’s a demonstration of strength in character that we all aspire to, wrapped up in shaking guitars and metronomic warbles of bass.

‘Now what was mine is mine again’ Reid sings on ‘Love of Her Life’, backed by a chilling chorus of voices. It’s a statement of intent: grip upon her career, willingness to go from strength to strength, to make the heartfelt more heartfelt and the powerful more powerful.

2021s Cubicle is astounding, but Mooching builds on it with instrumentals expanding and becoming even more sonically captivating.

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(See the slow-growing and delicately-wonky groove of ‘Soda Pop Stream’.) The lyrics address mental health more intimately, but with the same cultured story-telling ability.

In ‘How Do I Show My Love?’ Reid gives us breathing space from the exhilaration otherwise presented - but as soon as there is space to breathe, we’re rendered breathless anyway by a touching ballad that in its existence answers the very question it poses.

Mooching will be released August 3rd via seven four seven six Jo Higgs

SON PARAPLUIE Album: Paris n’existe pas If Isobel Campbell sang Andy Murray’s Twitter timeline, there’d be a queue of people lining up to hear it, so of course we were pleased to hear about the Son Parapluie project. Paris n’existe pas is more of an EP with remixes as opposed to a traditional album, but it's 2022: we’ll take music in any form possible.

If you adore the clichéd notion of breathless and sexy Parisian pop, this will be firmly up your avenue. The real gold on the release lies with two of the remixes.

Martin Carr remains a melodic maestro and is always worth checking out. The subtle electro backing takes the effortless cool shimmer and pushes it somewhere uncomfortable, and it’s all the better for it. Jah Wobble takes us on a dub excursion through winding side streets, further indicating that life is a bit more interesting when you venture off the overly trodden tourist path.

1990s Album: Nude Restaurant With so much time, money, effort, and vinyl production tied up in reissues these days, it's always good to get new music, even if that new music is a decade old.

Album opener ‘Psyche-Ward’ is enough to make you forgive them for the ten plus years without new tunes. It’s a rollicking glam stomper, with Jackie’s lyrical tales out of the top drawer.

‘Walk The Plank’ maintains the Bolan boogie, dropping in a little Jagger sneer, which is a big part of the fun of the 1990s.

A couple of songs from the album slipped out many years ago, so there’s a chance you are familiar with ‘(My Baby’s) Double Espresso’ and ‘Fassbinder Would Have Loved Techno’, but it’s not as though they venture far from what you’d expect.

The latter track manages to reference Green Velvet, Elvis at Prestwick and the maverick German filmmaker of its title, while the former lands an excellent Nobel Prize dad joke to great effect.

‘Fun Size’ crams a lot of joy into its tiny package, which is very much in keeping with the song's theme, and ‘Diamond Drag’ shines in the latter half of the album.

We know artists sometimes don’t have a lot to smile about, especially when looking at their streaming royalties. That doesn’t mean the music has to be miserable, though, and whatever happens next, it’s been brilliant to have the 1990s back. Even if it’s just to put a full stop at the end of their activities.

Paris n’existe pas was released 3rd June by Europop 2000 and 80 Proof Records

Nude Restaurant is out 1st July on LNFG

Andrew Reilly

Andrew Reilly review@snackmag.co.uk Page 47

SPACEMOTH

DEEP SEA TOURIST

Album: No Past No Future

Album: Everything Will Be Okay, Probably

Afghan American artist Maryam Qudus, who has previously worked as a producer for artists including Tune-Yards, Toro y Moi and Sad13, steps out solo for this, her debut as Spacemoth, and it's a fully-formed, wonderful album dripping with ambition and ideas.

‘It’s all about taking your time, it’s all about not losing your mind,’ begins ‘Water’, the serene opening track to Deep Sea Tourist’s debut indie-folk album.

Written, performed and recorded by Graham Robertson in his Glasgow bedroom, Everything Will Be Okay, Probably is in many ways the typical ‘pandemic record’. After two years of intermittent lockdowns, the feelings of isolation, uncertainty, and monotony Robertson expresses across the 12 understated tracks are no doubt relatable to many.

Vintage synths and carefree melody lines nonetheless buzz with an undercurrent of immense discontent, and her deeply personal lyrics address feelings of isolation and being trapped ('This Shit') and the stings of everyday racism in the USA ('LOTF'). The societal pressures of trying to contend with an unworkable system are contained in every track, though. 'Round in Loops' is far and away the most accessible song here, but no less deranged or trippy, and 'Waves Come Crashing' is like the theme for an as-yet unwritten sci-fi cinema classic.

Elsewhere, there are little pockets of distortion and detuned radio signals throughout, which provides a nod to the shared DNA of synth pioneers like Delia Derbyshire, Suzanne Ciani and Wendy Carlos, no strangers themselves to creating adventurous sonic techniques which shaped modern electronic music.

Although her influences are evident – 'Pipe and Pistol' flirts with Krautrock retrofuturism and 'UFObird' is a delicate take on the wooziness of Boards of Canada – her rich, emotive vocals and pop sensibility are both hugely assured and uniquely her own. Catchy, yet jarring and unashamedly experimental, No Past No Future proves that, as ever, the best pop music is fluid, intelligent, and singular in its vision.

No Past No Future is out July 22nd via Wax Nine Lorna Irvine

But, more universally, it is an album about anxiety, loneliness and perseverance, or in Robertson’s words, ‘the general mess of human life.’ And despite its eccentric cover image, the record adopts a humble sincerity, conveyed through Robertson’s clear, earnest vocals.

In the vein of Iron & Wine, Badly Drawn Boy and other Elliott Smith-indebted indie acts, Robertson tastefully garnishes the album with sparse guitar, piano, and strings. ‘In a Loop’ has a sleepy lullaby feel, with languid guitars, soft cymbals and delicately layered harmonies, while the intricate guitar work of ‘Chronic Ache’ glitters with hopeful innocence.

Yet whether it’s the solemn horns on ‘Lean’, the crashing rock crescendo of ‘Red Sea Sky’ or Robertson’s haunting falsetto on the eerie ballad ‘Geological Time’, each track comes with its own surprises. And after a fairly bleak album, the final twist is the quiet optimism of closing track ‘Coconut (More than Enough)’. Drawing comfort and hope from the beauty of the everyday, Robertson concludes on a bittersweet note: ‘it’s a beautiful life…but it takes its toll.’

Everything Will Be Okay, Probably is out now on digital platforms Zoë White

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GHOST-NOTE Gig: Ghost-Note, Stereo, Glasgow 7th June ‘I hope you like the new stuff, because we forgot how to play the old record’, says taciturn drummer Robert ‘Sput’ Searight. It seems like he’s only half kidding – while 2019’s Swagism turned out to be fairly prophetic in its apocalyptic social commentary, there’s little of it played tonight other than a few audience-teasing licks from Jelani Brooks’s sax. The show is bristling with that kind of old-school stagecraft from the double-drummer line-up packed onto Stereo’s stage. They riff off James Brown, bounce call and response lines off the audience, bring everything so quiet it looks like they’re miming, and then blast back in unison at top volume. It’s a roster of tricks of showmanship that you’d expect from a band that have played with Prince, Herbie Hancock, and Kendrick Lamar, to pick a few highlights from a full C.V. It’s a set that shows why they’ve been behind some of those big names and Grammy wins – mostly hard, percussion-focused funk with a clear influence from Paisley Park and the psychedelic soul pioneers of the 70s in the push to move feet and expand minds.

There is a real, skilled musicianship on display from everyone on the crowded stage that only comes from the discipline of playing shows like this every night, with spontaneous interplay between the band culminating in a ridiculously funky tambourine solo and extended percussion breaks that seem to change tempo every bar, making for some interesting shapes from the determined dancers in the crowd.

New song ‘Sugarfoot’ is a conga-led chant, along with a flute solo from Jonathan Mones, set closer ‘Five Alive’ is prefaced by Searight – after another round of band introductions – telling us the ‘well known fact: when musicians place a melody on top of rhythm, it makes a booty move’. It sure does.

Chris Queen

The New Scottish Music Review Podcast

‘Greatest bass player in the world’ MonoNeon runs the fretboard with melodic basslines in the mould of Thundercat and a wardrobe that makes him seem like an updated Bootsy Collins – and he definitely deserves to be mentioned in the same context.

Episode 4 out now

mixcloud.com/EWTPTH

review@snackmag.co.uk Page 49

HIDDEN DOOR FESTIVAL Old Royal High School, Edinburgh, 9th–18th June Last month, Hidden Door transformed yet another abandoned Edinburgh location, the iconic Old Royal High School, for its annual festival of ‘music, art, dance, theatre, spoken word and creative collaborations’. Nestled beneath Calton Hill, and with stunning panoramic views of Arthur’s Seat, the 19th-century listed building was the ideal setting, inspiring wonder with its grand neoclassical looks and encouraging exploration with its labyrinthine network of narrow corridors, twisting staircases, and hidden neuks.

Behind a heavy set of rusty, iron gates (prised open for the first time in decades) an assortment of artists and performers were introduced across several charming, repurposed spaces: the leafy outdoor stage (and smaller, more intimate, indoor stage), the atmospheric basement club (complete with vaulted stone ceiling), the Pianodrome amphitheatre (made entirely from recycled pianos) and the impressive Central Chamber (originally intended for parliamentary debates and dripping with retro 70s style).

But it was the overall vibe that made Hidden Door so special, and the festival’s commitment to fairly representing the voices and experiences of women created a strong sense of inclusivity and collaboration. In keeping with this spirit, the festival was free between 1pm and 5pm, ensuring the artwork on display was accessible to everyone before the evening’s ticketed events.

On opening night, the main stage hosted the dreamy songwriting of Scarlett Randle, the driving indie-pop of Connie Constance, and the throwback dance-pop of 90s favourites Saint Etienne.

snackmag.co.uk

Elsewhere, there was improvised musical theatre from Taylor Han & Simone Seales (have you ever witnessed someone delivering a dramatic monologue while standing on someone else’s back?) and the climactic extravaganza ‘Microsteria’, a magical collaboration led by Edinburgh duo Maranta and featuring synthpop grooves, visual art (Chell Young), fantastical costumes (Vomiton) and interpretive dance (Hannah Draper).

Over the next few days, Jess Brodie & Victoria Bianchi lit up the Pianodrome with ‘Help Yourself’, a genuinely laugh-out-loud funny (but ultimately heartbreaking) look at loss and grief, framed as a live self-help seminar. The music stages welcomed the feminist punk of M(h)aol, the screeching, spoken word, post-punk of Dry Cleaning, the jazz mysticism of Ariane Mamon, the danceable noise of Future Get Down, the rock and roll swagger of Cheap Teeth, and the poetic savagery of Benefits.

The festival closed with ‘Music For First Contact’ from experimental electro-pop duo Post Coal Prom Queen, a show that combined a ‘choose your own destiny’ style narrative (concerning the question of making contact with extraterrestrials) with glistening electronics, operatic vocals (Stephanie Lamprea), piano (Baichuan Hui), violin (Laura Wilkie) and saxophone (Calum Cummins). It was a fittingly stunning climax, made even more special with propaganda posters appearing on site in the preceding hours.

We’ve barely scratched the surface of what was on offer over these ten days of arts, but the experience was a true pleasure and, over the last few years, Hidden Door has cemented itself as one of the best festivals in Scotland. hiddendoorarts.org Christopher Michael Ovens Sneddon

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TITANE Film Previous French extreme films such as Martyrs and Irreversible tested audience limits in their brutality; to say these types of movies are outside of the mainstream is an understatement. Rather than being pointless exercises in extremity (I’m looking at you, Hostel), the aforementioned pair are brilliantly constructed, filmed, and realised, and their themes and messages are deep. New effort Titane, while retaining the elements of these previous films, is also a little more accessible and less brutal. Perhaps partly due to this, the film won the top prize at Cannes Film Festival last year. A work of impressive complexity, it will doubtless have many university students sweating into the night, analysing the psychology behind the film's feminist body horror.

Titane is directed by Julia Ducournau, who has now joined the growing surge of fantastic female directors such as Chloé Zao (Nomadland) and Claire Denis (High Life). The film is her second feature: the first, Raw, is just as provocative, with its cannibalistic plot. The plot of Titane revolves around Alexia, a damaged young woman who was in a car crash as a child, and as a result has a fetish for automobiles. Alexia goes on the run after some extreme misadventures, with the police chasing her down. She changes her appearance to look like a missing child grown older and is taken in by the father of the child, who himself is damaged due to the loss of his son.

He’s the obvious touchstone here, but Ducournau makes the visual style and tone her own with virtuosic film-making and expressive lighting.

Come the second half of the film, things take a left turn and Alexia goes from being a blankcanvas character to one you root for, thanks to her change in morality. Actor Agathe Rousselle puts in an extremely brave, powerful performance, one that impresses greatly, especially considering her limited dialogue. She is matched by Vincent Lindon as a broken, toxic male who is trying to change and become a progressive man, thanks to Alexia’s androgyny and his need to connect with her.

Despite the layers at play in Titane, at times the picture lacks that special something to place it up there with genre classics like Videodrome or Tetsuo: The Iron Man. The opening had me in awe due to the visual style, but as things progress there is a flatness to the aesthetic at times. However, Alexia’s journey is always involving.

Ducournau is a massively skilled director. She balances themes such as metal fetishism, the changing culture of toxic masculinity, and where female desire and feminism sit within a world lurching uneasily towards a hoped-for enlightenment. Titane’s ending reveals a message of hope, but one that is tinged with fear: a sign of the times.

Titane is streaming on MUBI now Martin Sandison

Photo credit: Carole Bethuel

The opening half hour of Titane plays out with similarities to David Cronenberg’s controversial Crash, with its characters who fetishise car wrecks, and a few of the other Canadian maestro’s films thrown in for good measure.

review@snackmag.co.uk Page 51

SNACK BITS Pack up your money and pick up your tent. Wise words from Bob Dylan, especially if you are making your way to a campsite at one of the leading music festivals. Some people are already home, showered, and have even cut their wristbands off, while many others have weeks before they get fully into the festival vibe.

Were summers always this long?

Anyways, the music is the most important thing, whether you got down in the dirt or live-tweeted Glastonbury from your couch. As you’d expect, SNACK Bits has plenty of songs and artists for you to check out, showcasing Scotland to the world.

Michael Cassidy’s Wandering As Water album is a stark reminder of how inadequate the words folk music are in trying to describe or explain a record quickly. It's plaintive; it's pop; it's a lot of fun in places; and, of course, it's thought-provoking.

‘Tell Me Who You Are’ could start a dance in an empty house, while ‘Last Boy in the Room’ packs a finger-picking punch. As a nation, we have many artists who do this style of music so well, but we should never take it for granted.

Another thing we don’t take for granted is an infectious dance track, and TAAHLIAH continues to get us up on our feet. ‘Fall Into Place’, the artist’s new single with Tsatsamis, is glorious. It’s probably a lot sexier and more suggestive than we think it is, but musically, it’s perfect for dance floors, fields and anywhere the lights go down.

@akataahliah If it’s all getting too bright and sunny for you, or as sunny as it gets around here, find some refuge with Cloth. ‘Lucid’, the early track from the band’s forthcoming EP on Rock Action, Low Sun, is a dark and marauding little number, prowling with methodical menace.

The whispered vocals may not carry volume, but they carry far more weight and power than a screamed diatribe. Rachael Swinton stands to the fore, but the twin duo, with brother Paul, have the musical backing that takes these soft warnings to a higher level. It’s not a summer banger, but sometimes it is precisely what you need at this time of year.

And for darker sounds with a lot more energy, VUKOVI deliver once again, and a song titled ‘Hades’ leaves you in no doubt of the power and attitude on display. Janine Shilstone remains a darkly beguiling singer, and this song should get the crowd moving when she and Hamish Reilly hit the road for an extensive UK and European tour in October. The final leg at SWG3 just before Halloween should be a perfect way to mark the season, if you’re so inclined.

There’s more rock and anger on offer this month, with ‘Parasite’ by Shredd tearing things up.

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Remember, you don’t need to wear bright colours to enjoy summer. If black is your thing, you do you.

‘Ornamental Ponds’ might look at how grandeur becomes mundane over time, but Blush Club have delivered a quirky and wry track that deserves a few listens. The final race to the end takes the song on a journey that you didn’t see coming, but all in all, we can take more of this. This is just as well, as an EP is due in September.

There’s a delicious statement in the song running ‘it all seemed better decades ago,’ especially from a modern-day band who sound as though they’d be better suited to the days when MTV played music and squeezed alternative bands into a two-hour time slot, once a week.

It’s a slightly pompous electro funk number, but that’s the sort of genre where you can get away with that outlook! ‘(God)less’ by Andrew Combs is like the trudge through a muddy campsite to your tent, car, or bar.

It’s a bit slow and plodding, but there’s a sense of optimism at every step. ‘Feel It’ by Leif Coffield washes over you like the ridiculous rush of being in a field at 6pm and the clouds parting to reveal sunshine after a dull day of rain. It's fleeting, but you’re glad you had it.

If DopesSickFly haven’t been signed up for every tent or outdoor stage where people congregate to dance to slightly generic yet pleasing funk, promoters have missed a trick. ‘Red Light’ is easily the match of these feel-good sermons that some local bands have made a career out of.

The same goes for Sweet Dreamer, although they fit into that electro-pop space, playing to an audience with every second person wearing at least one roll of aluminium foil as clothing. ‘Playing Along With The Bad Guys’ is upbeat fun, and will go down very well for many.

We’ve still got Alter by Susan Bear on regular rotation at SNACK Towers, and that’s unlikely to change in the foreseeable future. It’s a lovely, dreamlike record, ideal for the warmer days when your mind isn’t fully here. Take a wander with it in grand style, with ‘Mario Golf 2’ and the very danceable ‘Slack’.

And because we don’t want to keep you here when you should be out doing something more productive, let's pick up the pace. ‘The March Onto Forever’ by CAFOLLA is as grandiose as the song title and their capital letters suggest.

Enjoy yourself: it’s later than you think. But equally, it’s still early, so don't try and do everything on the first festival night. We’ll maybe see you in August, but let’s be honest, there is every chance the editor will discard this column for some nonsense about the Edinburgh Festival; let’s hope we get to charge Airbnb prices for the privilege!

Honourable mentions this month go to Slim Wrist’s ‘The Soft’ (Lovely, pulsing, restrained electronic pop. Their debut album Closer For Comforting due later in the summer), Pizza Crunch with ‘Wilting Youth’, and Lady Neptune’s ‘TIME 2 MAKE U FEEL GOOD' (Gabber/Un-Happy Hardcore that conjures 90s Saturday afternoons, clad in Ichi-NiSan, collecting flyers and buying mixtapes from 23rd Precinct), released on Night School Records.

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A tiny bubble from the sink floats into my eye – it stings.

I never went to foam parties because of fear for my contact-lensed eyes; I even brought goggles to Amnesia but left before the foam came out.

If I had stayed, I might have forgotten the fear, flicked my lenses into the crowd like beach balls and stripped down to a glittery bikini invincible to broken glass and passed out bodies.

I might have got up on stage with Calvin Harris and befriended foam-legends who’ve been going since 1995.

I probably would have stayed all night and in the morning, I’d think: there’s still more foam to throw – why not stay forever? and soon I’ll be the only one left standing and soon I’ll be a bubble in your eye.

Annie Muir

An epic story of chaos and misfortune Scottish Opera Production Studios 40 Edington Street, Glasgow G4 9RD 11 – 20 August 6pm Book now scottishopera.org.uk

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Supported by Friends of Scottish Opera, Scottish Opera’s Education Angels and The Scottish Opera Endowment Trust Core funded by

Registered in Scotland Number SC037531 Scottish Charity Number SC019787

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