SNACK Magazine: April 2021 – Issue 26

SNACKMAG.CO.UK

ISSUE 26

IF I COULD SEE ALL MY FRIENDS TONIGHT

APRIL 2021

POST COAL PROM QUEEN | TEENAGE FANCLUB

SQUID | NIGHTSHIFT | ELY PERCY | IONA LEE | MARLEY MORRISON MUSIC | FILM | VISUAL ART | BOOKS | FOOD & DRINK | THEATRE | LGBT+ | REVIEW | LIFE

GIFT

VOUCHERS SHOP STUDENT & ARTONLINE GROUP DISCOUNTS

MAIL ORDER

LOCAL DELIVERIES CHECK IN ON OUR SOCIALS FOR NEWS ON SPECIAL OFFERS PLUS UPDATES ON THE BRICKS & MORTAR...

www.EdinburghArtShop.co.uk

.

CONTENTS WHAT'S ON

P10

INTERVIEWS

P20

Post Coal Prom Queen – Teenage Fanclub – Squid – Nightshift Mr McFall's Chamber – Iona Lee – Sarah Grant – Ely Percy – Marley Morrison

FESTIVALS

P100

Alchemy Film & Moving Image Festival – Femspectives

FILM

P114

LGBT+

P124

The (not) Gay Movie Club – Human Rights Watch Festival

FOOD & DRINK P140 Recipes: Vegan Spaghetti Bolognese + Custard Creams – One Man's Treasure

REVIEW

P154

Teenage Fanclub – Teen Canteen – Sister John – Art d'Ecco – Bachelor OVER/AT – Glassmasterer – Boys Noize – Probably Finlay – Flock of Dimes The Gracious Losers – Sulka – Kaputt – Rachel Jack – Stanley Odd How to Survive Everything (When There's No One Left to Trust) – Into the New

CREDITS Editor/Sales: Kenny Lavelle Sub Editor: Leona Skene Food and Drink Editors: Emma Mykytyn and Mark Murphy LGBT+ Editor: Jonny Stone Design: Kenny Lavelle Front cover photo courtesy of Post Coal Prom Queen

To advertise in SNACK hello@snackpublishing.com 0141 632 4641

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.

SNACKMAG.CO.UK/SUBSCRIBE

For all your plant-based, vegan, vegetarian, organic, eco-friendly, sustainable and plastic-free goods.

www.realfoods.co.uk plant-based

•

vegan

•

vegetarian

•

organic

Hello and welcome to issue 26 of SNACK, Some light, at last! Things are looking brighter for April with the ‘stay at home’ rule being lifted across Scotland, and beer gardens being a thing again towards the end of the month.

As you’ll have seen, this month’s front cover is occupied by Post Coal Prom Queen. Their brilliant new PCPQ EP is out at the end of April and, by our reckoning, it’s their best work yet. We had a long chat about the inspiration for their unusual new name, the benefits of the band’s new independence, and the reason why their songs are, actually, all about love – even when they’re not. Teenage Fanclub need no introduction: they’ve their eleventh studio album, Endless Arcade, out later on this month, so we had Andy Reilly chat with Norman Blake. They spoke about the new album, nice vinyl, Bosman signings, labours of love, and getting through ‘this’.

There’s loads more going on between this month’s covers. Have good safe fun in April and we’ll all hopefully see the other side of lockdown in a few weeks. Take care.

Kenny Lavelle Editor

! w o g s a l G u o We Show y

We’re back from 26 April!

Delivering safe and responsible tours

Face coverings are mandatory

Physical distancing measures in place

Customer hand sanitiser provided

Get your tickets now at citysightseeingglasgow.co.uk Tours depart every 30 mins from George Square.

Tour buses regularly disinfected

Scan to book

WHAT'S ON Back to Contents

IBERO-AMERICAN DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL 19th April till 2nd May This is the eighth edition of the documentary festival, which celebrates and promotes Ibero-American culture in Scotland. The theme of the 2021 festival is ‘Art as a Need’, and the event will feature documentaries from Spanish, Portuguese, and Latin-American filmmakers.

This year’s festival is, as expected, an online experience. But with restrictions expected to be lifted at the end of April, organisers have left some wiggle room, offering a glimmer of hope that if everything goes to plan, and we finally reach beyond lockdown, there’s a chance of real world festival action. Fingers and toes crossed for that.

For more information and to stay up to date with the latest Ibero-American Documentary Festival news, visit the Iberodocs website.

In a Whisper

Ballad of theHYYTS Crone Denise Mina What’s on by Gregg Kelly Page 11

10 YEARS OF SUMMERHALL Summerhall, Edinburgh – 26th April onwards Nearly a year after closing due to lockdown, Summerhall has continued to provide hope to artists and creatives, crowdfunding an essential £67,000 in the process. If you haven’t already, make sure to check out their 10th-anniversary exhibition online. To celebrate a decade of the venue’s history, ten contributors, amongst them artists, residents and audience members, were asked to write, draw or paint a piece that best reflected their relationship with the iconic building.

Contributors include Peter Dibdin, SHHE, Mamoru Iriguchi, and Jenni Fagan.

Summerhall’s Royal Dick Courtyard Bar reopens to the public on 26th April, and bookings are already being taken – best book ahead, as spaces are certain to be limited. Together we can look forward to a (socially distanced) pint/glass/drink of sheer unadulterated pleasure.

For more information, to check out the online exhibition, or to book a table for that glorious, glorious beverage, visit the Summerhall website. summerhall.co.uk

Back to Contents

Photo credit: Oli Cliff

Viv Gee

NOVA SCOTIA THE TRUTH

Making All Things New, Victoria Crowe

ANOTHER TIME, ANOTHER PLACE The Scottish Gallery, online –28th April till 29th May Artist Victoria Crowe OBE and poet Christine de Luca have teamed up over lockdown to each create 12 works of art that they feel best express themselves and how they experienced the global crisis.

Crowe, battling serious illness during lockdown, created 12 paintings, while de Luca’s collection of 12 poems were also inspired by the pandemic. Both say their ideas were in some way stimulated from the grounding of planes worldwide and the resulting clarity of the night sky. De Luca’s poems being directly influenced by Crowe’s paintings help create a connection, linking both sets of creative ideas.

Alongside the collaborative painting and poetry project, The Michael Cuddington Trust sponsored young musicians and composers to create a new song cycle based on both Crowe and de Luca’s works.

For more information about the exhibition, visit The Scottish Gallery website.

What’s on by Gregg Kelly Page 13

TALK OF THE TOWN, PAISLEY BILLBOARD TAKEOVER Till 6th April To celebrate the art of writing, three Renfrewshire-based authors have been commissioned to write works close to their heart, for a project entitled ‘Talk of The Town’. Each published piece has been displayed on the advertising billboard outside Paisley Gilmour St Station. The project features works that reference the end of lockdown and the universal romance of meeting and parting at the station. A third piece, entitled ‘RALLY’, celebrates the history of Paisley, and was penned by Fraser Scott and Iona Ramsay of Kick The Door Theatre.

'RALLY' can be viewed until the 6th April.

For more information on the Talk of The Town project, visit the Renfrew Leisure website.

Bryan Kearney

Back to Contents

CONSTANTINE STAIRWELL PROJECT Ongoing from 19th March Edinburgh-based artist Constantine has launched a new type of art installation, aiming to allow art and culture to become more readily available and more accessible to everyone in the city. Launched on 19th March, the aim is to set up private art exhibitions in various Edinburgh closes. The artist hopes that this can help build trust in the community, allow art to be experienced from a new perspective, and support people to once again enjoy art in its physical form.

For more information or to find out where the installations are being hosted, visit Constantine the Artist on Facebook.

What’s What’son onby ByGregg GreggKelly Kelly Page 15

THE DAZZLED

SHOW ME: A FESTIVAL OF WORKSHOPS FOR PRODUCERS & CREATORS 23rd till 26th April A weekend of workshops has been designed to allow aspiring creative producers, self-producing artists (SPAs), and producers throughout the industry to develop and evolve their creative process. The two-hour workshops are being hosted by specialists in individual aspects of the creative process. Workshop titles include Basic Budgeting, Who's Not in the Room, Producing: Proper Job, Honest!, and Balancing Passion and Resilience. The workshops will also be live-transcribed using otter.ai (an artificial intelligence note/transcribing system which is definitely on SNACK’s best pal list). Participants will be given an audio recording and transcription of the entire workshop, allowing them to refer back whenever they choose.

The event includes but is not limited to: workshops on marketing, pitching, budgeting, audience reach, career advice, and social media promotion, as well as plenty of others.

Full weekend pass holders will also receive invitations to several other exclusive workshops.

Back to Contents

Laurie Black

VIVA GLASVEGAS – 7TH GLASGOW FESTIVAL OF BURLESQUE 7th April Glasgow’s Festival of Burlesque returns this year in all its (virtual) glory. Last year’s event was a 7-day virtual extravaganza, and although this year’s offering is slightly shorter, it’s certain to be a fun and fabulous time for all.

Viva GlasVegas will be showcasing the best of the city as well, as the incredible burlesque and cabaret performers as they take you on a Zoom tour of the city.

Venues visited during the event will include the Britannia Panopticon, Glasgow Necropolis, Queen Street Station, STV Studios, and the Botanical Gardens.

Local tour guides include Debay De Lux, Alana Duvey, Laurie Black and Roxy Stardust, as well as some special guest performers.

The tour will be streamed on Zoom, and for ticket holders unable to tune in live, the festival will be available to watch afterward.

What’s on by Gregg Kelly Page 17

EDINBURGH TRADFEST Online: 30th April till 10th May Edinburgh Tradfest is set to return this year with an online programme showcasing a wealth of talented home-grown and international traditional artists. It will move online for the first time, with a programme of recorded and live streamed music concerts, folk films, and daily podcasts.

The main programme will be broadcast daily and presented as a series of nine podcasts. Episodes will explore the history of traditional music in Scotland, as well as featuring tracks and interviews from some of Tradfest’s 2020 line-up, including Lizabett Russo and Kinnaris Quintet. Also as part of the Festival, the Scottish Storytelling Centre will host the online launch of Scotland Online: A Directory of Musicians (Friday 7th May, 8pm), a comprehensive and ever-expanding list of musicians working and recording in Scotland.

The festival will kick off on Friday 30th April at 8pm with an hour long performance entitled Shetland Springs, curated by Catriona Macdonald. The finale of will be the much anticipated Rebellious Truth (Monday 10th May, 8pm) live streamed from Edinburgh's St Cecilia’s Hall. edinburghtradfest.com Catriona Macdonald

Yo-Yo Ma Back to Contents

20/20 HINDSIGHT: TWENTY DAYS OF WOMXN’S WORKS From 10th April 20/20 HINDSIGHT is a virtual showcase of womxn’s art that people might’ve missed in the shitstorm that was the last 12 months. Each day over 20 days they will highlight some of their favourite writing, art and music. Many of the artists are from in and around Edinburgh (where they are based), but there are also creators from further afield. They’re looking at albums, story anthologies, novels, lit mags, comics, visual art, nonfiction, and more, showcasing a diverse range of talents and experience, and covering a range of themes and issues. Follow along at @bluntknifeco, on bluntknife.co, or by subscribing to their newsletter

EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL HARP FESTIVAL Online: 9th till12th April This year celebrates 40 years of the Festival, and to celebrate there is a line-up that has been specifically chosen to showcase the best of the harp world. For any aspiring musicians there are workshops and courses; for the less inclined – or those without a harp – there are five jam-packed concerts of both seasoned performers and rising stars. Despite being a celebration of a single instrument, genres range across traditional Scottish, contemporary folk, classical, jazz, and even the musical landscapes of Paraguay, with the occasional fiddle, guitar, and nyckelharpa making an appearance. harpfestival.co.uk What’s on by Gregg Kelly Page 19

INTERVIEWS

POST COAL PROM QUEEN TEENAGE FANCLUB SQUID NIGHTSHIFT MR MCFALL'S CHAMBER IONA LEE SARAH GRANT ELY PERCY MARLEY MORRISON

POST

PROM QUEEN

COAL

L

Post Coal Prom Queen, née L-Space, are releasing PCPQ, their debut EP in their new incarnation, towards the end of April. It’s a stunning collection of tracks, a pure distillation of the sound they've been cultivating over the past few years. The band’s touchstone themes of environmentalism and the possible positive future applications of technology are to the fore again, and their knack for creating miniature worlds through song is as uncanny as ever.

We caught up with the duo, Lily Higham and Gordon Johnstone, to chat about the new EP, the source of their unusual new name, the benefits of the band’s new independence, and the reason why their songs are, actually, all about love – even when they’re not.

Your new EP, PCPQ is coming out soon. What can you tell us about it?

Gordon: Yeah. It’s coming out on the 30th of April. We were really lucky that we managed to get the last little bit of recording done just before the proper lockdown kicked in, around December-ish. So we got the recording done, which was really lucky. And then we started to remotely mix, which is something we hadn't done before.

Lily: It's not as exciting as being in the studio when you can hear each change the engineer makes, and you're like, ‘Yeah, that's perfect. Let's keep that’ or ‘Garble it more, make it sound worse’ [laughs]. It's not as exciting but at least we can still do our own mixing.

Gordon: We're lucky to record with Simon [Doherty, Infinity Bus Studios, Glasgow]. He’s fantastic, and did a really good job of mixing it all for us. It was just kind of luck of the draw that we actually got everything done; if we'd waited another day or another week, we wouldn't have anything to release just now.

Music by Kenny Lavelle Page 23

I’m really enjoying the EP. To me, you’ve really got down to the bones of what makes you great.

Gordon: I think from a music arrangement perspective, it’s a confidence thing. All through L-space, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing when we started. I didn't know how to plug one end of something into another. I didn't know how to use any audio recording equipment. I could barely play instruments.

So we built up this really big sort of grand sound and lots of layers because you can hide mistakes, you can hide a lack of experience. But over the course of the couple of years I learned a lot. Now it feels like we've got the confidence to just strip everything back to the really good parts and just let them shine through.

Lily: Yeah, I think we know a bit more about how to make each individual layer sound better within its context as well. From what I remember, we didn't go very much in-depth about frequencies when we were doing L-space stuff. Now we've learned more, we are able to filter out frequencies that are causing problems between the layers, or enhance other ones that make it sound good.

Gordon: We've always worn our learning on our sleeves. When our first EP came out we played a gig the next week, and we had no idea what we were doing. We're not one of those bands that sat for years and years, that practised and practised and perfected one particular sound, and then took it live. We just sat in my living room, recorded something and then that day, put it out.

And thought ‘that's fun’. It just kind of snowballed from there.

Lily: Completely. Yeah, we did it because it was fun, not because we were good.

Gordon: [Laughs] Back to Contents

Lily: I would say for other people to do that, too. If you find it fun, you should do it – even if you’re not that good. Like music, sports: people should go out and play football with their friends, even if they're really terrible at football. They should do it for fun and they get better with time. Yeah, we did it because it was fun.

You changed the band name from L-space to Post Coal Prom Queen. What’s the story behind the new name?

Gordon: It comes from a photo essay that the Guardian published in May 2019. A photographer went to the traditional coal-mining towns in Transylvania, Romania, where I lived for a little while. He was taking pictures of the young people there who are stuck in this weird existence where they live in a completely post-industrial town – quite like a lot of towns in Scotland – that used to rely on industry, but it's taken them a long time to catch up to anything else, now that the industry is gone.

So these teenagers are stuck between an incredibly hyper-modern world where they exist online, and an incredibly traditional but outdated world where they live on a day-to-day basis. So as soon as we saw the name, Post Coal Prom Queen, it just sounded really evocative. It was the kind of aesthetic that we're going for because we mix a lot of very organic sounds with electronic and industrial sounding things.

Lily: With that combination of words, it makes you think, ‘oh, what does that mean?’ I like the idea that the name has a story and evokes images.

Music by Kenny Lavelle Page 25

The EP itself, you said you were working on it remotely?

Also, how do you work? Do you split the writing so that one of you writes so much of the music and the other comes up with the lyrics and topline?

Gordon: That's largely true. There's lots of times when Lily comes with a musical idea and we'll develop it together. Or sometimes I have snippets of lyrics that we incorporate into things.

When we're working remotely especially, I tend to do the production and arrangement and then there's a lot of back-andforth about how to get the song into the kind of shape we want it to be. It’s definitely more difficult remotely than it is in a studio.

You don’t have that instantaneous thought process where you just blurt out ideas that might be stupid, but sometimes they're really good. Whereas if you have to type it all out in an email – I'll type something out and think it’s stupid and take out because I don't want to embarrass myself.

Lily: I wonder how many lost ideas there are just because of the gap of time and it not being immediate anymore. How many ideas have just slipped through the cracks and disappeared because of the situation? Ideas that could have been really good.

Back to Contents

You’ve been making music which talks about technology and environmental concerns for a long time. When we last spoke, in 2018, you mentioned the issue of rising sea levels impacting the viability of farmland and how technology could be used to solve that. It’s interesting to see that on the new EP, 'Salt' is all about this.

Lily: Yeah, I think ideas are kind of brewing over time. You might have something on your mind that you want to write about, but you don’t quite have the song that fits that topic yet. When Gordon sent me the beginnings of Salt, it had that sound, a bit like underwater, its sinister depths – like if you're in a submarine, in a trench underwater. And so I was like: ‘Ah, okay. So this is maybe the time to talk about the rising sea levels’. It just fitted well with that song.

It’s the same with other songs, like ‘Tomorrow's Garden’, which is our next single. That has solar punk themes, which we've been interested in for a while. I started playing with some synths and nature sounds. And putting those together gave this kind of nature-y feel with electronics.

Gordon: I always find it funny when we speak about the themes of the songs because, you know, you're not gonna hear ‘Tomorrow’s Garden’ in a nightclub anytime soon. This song is about futuristic agricultural practices, and I thought ‘Total dance banger!’ It's always quite funny when we just lay it out.

We've been working on the songs for a while now and it feels different. If you've listened to a song a lot, and you wrote it, after a while it starts to feel like it’s not yours anymore. That's how I feel about ‘Tomorrow's Garden’. It feels quite remote. It’s still definitely us but when I hear Lily talk about it I think ‘no, this is the sort of stuff I’d listen to’.

Music by Kenny Lavelle Page 27

In ‘Faraday Cage For One’, what is it that you’re looking to protect yourself against?

Lily: When we wrote it people were talking about misinformation in the media and doubting science. It was in that media environment of having to filter through everything to find what is closest to the truth, or most accurately reflects the outside world. And how exhausting that is. And how difficult it is. And sometimes, you just want to block all of that information out that's being thrown at you wherever you look, and put yourself in a little Faraday cage for one person, where no one's feeding you any misinformation or uncomfortable information.

People have been talking recently about information hygiene. For mental health, not just making sure that you drink enough water, making sure you eat your vegetables, or something. It's also about cultivating good information habits, and what you read each day as well, because it can really affect your mental health. I was thinking about that when I wrote ‘Faraday Cage For One’.

Gordon: It was late 2019 that we recorded that, so it would have been around the time that the US election was gearing up, so there was that. At that point, there were just murmurs of a pandemic, or at least a new virus kicking about. So I think it was definitely an interesting political landscape, one that we might not really see again. So I'm glad we captured an idea in a song around that time.

Lily: And it's always going to be relevant, because we're never going to get to a point where we're only presented with highaccuracy information that we don't have to filter.

Back to Contents

Do you have any ideas on how society could approach normalising the information hygiene you mentioned?

Lily: I think that they should start teaching particular targeted philosophy courses in schools for quite young children, like at secondary school – classes in epistemology, logic, and critical analysis.

Gordon: Critical thinking is key. You have a lot of schools just geared towards teaching you the specific facts that you need to pass exams. There is less of a focus on the critical analysis aspects, which is what everybody requires. I think philosophy should definitely be talked about at a much younger age.

Lily: Yeah, I think that would really help. Just starting those ways of thinking when people are younger, so they are used to doing it.

So they are used to looking at a piece of information, not as ‘this is black and white, true or false’. I just like thinking about things in terms of probabilities rather than facts. I think teaching things like that in school will really help mental health, but also everything – being able to analyse things critically.

Music by Kenny Lavelle Page 29

You talk a lot about the positive use of technology in your music.

Gordon: I think we try to remain optimistic. Most of our songs are fairly positive about the use of technology.

Lily: And we're trying to do that more for the album as well. So we've got some of that in some of that in the EP: ‘Tomorrow's Gardens’ is an optimistic song. But in the album, we're gonna lean into that more, and think about more optimistic uses of technology, because technology will be our way out of problems. It will be our way out of climate change, which is too late to fix, but we can find ways of surviving it through technology.

You kind of need to think about technology optimistically, because it's the only way we're going to survive – it’s the only way we can make people's lives better.

Gordon: I think there's gonna be a massive uptake in the science of manipulating weather, geoengineering. I’d like to think that we’ll go live on Mars, or the moon. But realistically, it's easier to fix this planet, which is for all intents and purposes perfect for us, than it is to go and terraform.

Lily: Yes – you think about terraforming Mars, but we can we can just terraform Earth! [laughs] Gordon: We've got the internet here, we've got coffee shops, you know, it's sunny, or it is sometimes. We should really just stay here.

Lily: What makes it harder to terraform Earth though, is that there's a lot of people here, and people will want different things.

Whereas on Mars, no one's going to tell you you can't start building, because it's not going to hurt anyone if you do. Maybe that's why people go straight to terraforming Mars rather than fixing Earth: because no one's going to argue about it. You can just do it.

Back to Contents

Gordon: Elon Musk in his Tesla, just driving around Mars, terraforming things left, right and centre, doing whatever he wants.

Lily: One of the songs that we're probably going to put on the album, that is mostly written but not all recorded, is about the use of aerosols to reduce the heat on Earth. It’s about a plane that outputs these aerosols that reflect the sunlight so that less of the sun's rays are trapped in that gap between the clouds and the surface of the earth. One of the songs is about that. Spoilers!

Gordon: Another dancefloor banger. It’s a surprisingly upbeat song. I like that one.

Lily: It’s an upbeat topic really. It's about fixing the earth. And it's about going and flying in a plane, spraying stuff.

Gordon: Wouldn’t it be easier if we just wrote songs about drinking?

Yeah, you don’t really do songs about drinking. Or love.

Gordon: No, in fact, I've counted up a while ago: in the course of L-space and PCPQ we’ve released about 70 songs and only one of them has the word love in it. And it's a song about a giant isopod trying to imagine what it's like to be human, and then deciding it’s better off as an isopod. That’s the only time we've ever used the word love. And I think I'll probably continue for a while.

Lily: There's one song which is about love. It was ‘Bloom Rapids’. I think love is in the songs, in a way. Because if we're writing about wanting to fix things then there is love in that. If you didn't love anyone or anything then you wouldn't care about trying to make the world a better place. So even though songs themselves aren’t specifically about love, I think they are within a context of loving people and the ways that the world can be.

Music by Kenny Lavelle Page 31

How are you feeling about releasing the EP yourselves after being with Last Night From Glasgow for a while? Are you apprehensive, or are you just thinking ‘Let’s get out there and do it!’

Gordon: The latter. We're really excited to be doing things on our own schedule, and the way that we want to do them. Working with Last Night From Glasgow was great; we had fun, but their method of working doesn't suit what we do now. And what we're doing now doesn't suit the label.

L-space will stay there as a legacy project with them. But everything PCPQ does is independent. It means that we can try out some new things that even when you're working with a very small and agile label like LNFG [wouldn’t be possible]. We can make a decision in the morning and be doing it by the afternoon.

And that's what we're all about.

We're going to try some new methods of interacting with fans and the people who buy the music. We’re going to have an interactive WhatsApp group for people in the UK to join. And then we're going to have an equivalent for our fans in Japan and Taiwan.

Lily: It means no one has to suffer our misguided decisions, if they end up being misguided. But right now we think it's a great idea to do these WhatsApp broadcasts or do pay-what-you-want releases. But we don't want that to negatively affect anyone else if it goes wrong. It's an experiment and we don't mind too much if we learn it doesn't work.

Gordon: Because it's fun.

Lily: Yeah, it's fun, and it's an experiment.

The single 'Tomorrow's Garden' is out now and the PCPQ EP will be released on 30th April

Music by Kenny Lavelle Page 33

TEENAGE FANCLUB

Photo credit: Donald Milne

Back to Contents

For a band with a reputation for being quiet guys who get on with things, there’s been considerable upheaval in the Teenage Fanclub camp since their last release. Although perhaps not as much as many other acts, they've suffered delays, and there have been some line-up changes. However, with their new album Endless Arcade they still sound and feel like the act you’ve known for all these years.

SNACK caught up with Norman Blake to discuss nice vinyl, Bosman signings, labours of love, and getting through this.

How are you getting on?

Not bad, hanging in there, but a bit frustrated that we aren’t touring. We’ve been sitting on this LP for a while; it was done quite a long time ago. We’ve postponed the tour dates a couple of times now. That’s frustrating as we would love to be out playing the songs. Also, importantly, it’s how we earn a living. It’s frustrating not to do that, but I cannae complain too much. There are people in worse situations, in terms of musicians, too.

We were lucky we did get to finish the LP before the initial pandemic hit. I believe Camera Obscura were booked to go into a studio, and unfortunately they had to cancel. So our timing was pretty good in terms of recording.

You can do an album by social distancing. It is manageable – you just have to be careful. We mixed the album in Raymond’s [McGinley] house in Glasgow. We wore masks. It’s a bit crazy being in your bandmate’s house with a mask on, but you have to do it.

I suppose you do what you have to do to make it work. We were lucky enough that all the recording was done before, so it was just mixing. As long as we didn’t sit too close to each other, it was all right.

Music by Andy Reilly Page 35

Before lockdown, the only time a band member was in another band member's house while wearing a mask was when Pete Doherty robbed Carl Barat’s house.

That’s good, aye, you’re right!

Raymond and yourself both have six song writing credits on the record. Was this added pressure for you?

I don’t think it was too much. It was only two extra songs each.

As a songwriter, you always have little bits of ideas floating about. Even when it was the three of us writing, and we had four songs each on the album, you’d always have a few others.

You need B-sides.

As sad as it was that Gerry [Love] was no longer there, there was a freshness with Dave [McGowan] on bass and Euros Childs coming in. Any change, you have to try and take the positives from it. I think we all felt invigorated about making music again. All the ideas came pretty easily. It didn’t seem a problem, happily. It ran smoothly.

Was there a compulsion to write a broader range of songs?

I just write songs, flesh out the ideas I have. The way we write, it’s always been classic in the terms of verses, chorus, solo.

That’s what we do, and we’ve never veered away from that.

That’s partly down to there being three of us writing – you write for the group, not the individual. You want the album to have a sound, not do anything radically different from each other.

Say for example I came in with a song. I’d play it on guitar, and then I’d ask everyone to come up with a bit. Maybe in the past the writer might have directed the song, but we didn’t do that this time around. We’d arrange it as a band. Hopefully that gives it a broad sound but homogenises it all together. It’s Back to Contents

a different dynamic. It’s not a million miles away from what it was, but there was a determination to do something good.

Well, you always want to make something good, but with the change in circumstances, there was more determination to do that.

You’ve worked with Euros before. Has he slotted in well?

He’s an easy-going guy. We’ve known him for years, and I’ve played with him. He’s not a difficult person to be around.

He shares a similar sense of humour with all of us. He’s unassuming, he gets on with it, and he loves playing. He’s also prepared to try things, which is really good, having a go at difficult harmonies without it being an issue.

So that’s all been brilliant and he fits in great. If we’d gone with someone who hadn’t played with us, it might have been different. He’s part of the family.

One of the best Bosman signings a band could make?

That’s a very good way to put it. He’s a star striker!

The album was virtually finished pre-lockdown, but it’s inevitable it will be viewed with current times in mind, won’t it?

Yeah, a lot of people have said the songs sound as though they were written during the lockdown. It’s funny, because none of them were. They seem to resonate in the current situation. It’s interesting, but it’s a coincidence. I suppose there is quite a bit of melancholy in the air, and nostalgia. Maybe because of the situation, people’s senses have been heightened.

Mind you, on ‘I’m More Inclined’, there’s the lyric ‘I could live in isolation’, which even I could pick up on!

Totally, and that line is purely coincidental. I wrote that song two years ago.

Music by Andy Reilly Page 37

Back to Contents

Good songs make people feel and connect. Is there any music which has resonated with you in the past year?

I’m always looking to pick things up. I got the new Jane Weaver album the other day. I’m a bit too long in the tooth for staying up to date with contemporary music. That’s an inevitability of getting old. I go back to things I liked in the past.

A 55-year-old bloke shouldn’t know who the hottest bands in Glasgow are! Recently, I’ve played Sonic Youth’s Sister a lot. I’m always happy to hear something new; I’m just not very good at finding things! Oh, I got the new Stereolab release, although that’s a compilation. And an old pal of mine, Lomond Campbell, I got a few of his things recently.

Do you think Mogwai getting a number one album raises the bar or gives new hope/impetus to the Scottish music scene?

It’s great they’ve done it, and I’m really pleased for them. I see Arab Strap are doing quite well too. That’s great people are making a concerted effort to place these artists into the charts.

It is dependent on who else is out in the week you release music. Our last record got into the top ten, and if we could do that again, it would be amazing.

What Mogwai have done is great. They’re a big band, popular and well-known globally. Scotland has been great for music in the past 20 years. Chemikal Underground, Rock Action, it’s been really good, it’s thriving. There’s a ton of stuff out there, with Scottish bands being popular all over the world.

When people talk about Scottish bands, they see it as being a bit special.

Music by Andy Reilly Page 39

Teenage Fanclub have a huge following around the world, and you’ve a strong following in Japan. You’re loved there, aren’t you?

Japan has been great for us. For some reason we do well there. We’ve always been able to go back there...it’s been ten times at least! It’s a great place to go and play and visit. I feel fortunate to be able to go there, and hopefully we can get back soon.

There’s a Listening Party for the new album, are you looking forward to that?

Yes, that should be great fun. I’ve done a few of them, and it’s brilliant that he [Tim Burgess] has done this. Hundreds of records, and it’s still ongoing. It’s a lot of listening, and Tim has listened to all of them.

It’s a great idea, and it’s a nice way to turn people onto music.

It also generates a lot of streams for a band. Even though it’s tough to make money from Spotify, it helps. And you have people listening to music, supporting bands and new music.

Record sales are still going up, although nowhere near what they were, but more and more people are interested in buying vinyl. There’s some nice-looking pieces of vinyl around nowadays. Hopefully that will continue growing.

It’s always nice to buy an LP. It’s a nice artefact, and you get a wee bit of artwork in your home. You see people spending money on a record and it’s lying against a wall or wherever you put it, and it’s good to look at.

One of my friends got a record player at Christmas, and I told him he needs to buy a Now Playing stand, so he can show social media what he is listening to.

There you go, exactly. There is also something about reading Back to Contents

the liner notes. That’s something I remember doing when I was young. When you think about Spotify, there isn’t really any information. You’re just listening, but you don’t necessarily know much about the record. If you buy the record, you have somewhere to find information without going online.

It’s a more immersive activity isn’t it?

You have to pay attention to flip the record over. There is a process involved with vinyl. I have discovered music on the streaming platforms, and it is great if you’re a kid. If someone mentions Miles Davis to you, you can go and listen to all the records there and then, it’s all there. When I was young, you’d hear about things, and you’d have to go to a shop and buy it, or go to a mate’s house. Now, it’s all there to listen to, anytime you want.

It helps people find new music, and these people will always buy new music.

You’re right. At times I’ve listened to a stream and if I liked it, I went and bought the LP. I still like having the albums.

Spotify claims that people buy records after checking songs out, and that they help to build live audiences. But that’s not for them to say is it?

They should be paying artists properly, but this is the case now. It’s why it’s important the live sector is supported right now.

We’re all hoping this will be over soon, and we get venues open.

It’s going to be tough to organise it all again; a lot of people tour around other jobs, and that is hard to arrange. Also, if you’re not making money from playing live, you need a job, and that stops you from touring. The good thing about bar work, generally, is you can get time off. But of course that’s gone now too. It’s a labour of love being a musician. I cannot think of any musician who’s in it for the credit: money...there must be easier ways to make a living.

Image Alasdair McLellan Music by Andy Reilly Page 41

Creation Stories [the Alan McGee film directed by Nick Moran] will be publicly available by the time this issue comes out. Have you seen it yet?

I’ve not seen it yet. I know it premiered at the Glasgow Film Festival. I meant to watch it but I completely forgot! It’ll be interesting, because I know so many of the people.

Joe Foster, Dick [Green], Alan; they guys, that’s the bit I’m looking forward to seeing, how their traits are portrayed. I think Bobby [Gillespie] features too. I’ll find that amusing, because I know them.

It’ll be good to see how they’re captured, and how their personalities are shown. I’m sure it will all be exaggerated.

I spoke to Duglas [T. Stewart] about it, and he said Edward Ball is in it, someone’s playing Ed. Dan Treacy as well. That’s a big part of Alan’s story that people don’t know, The Television Personalities, and how much of a fan he was. It’ll be interesting to see how Dan is portrayed – he’s quite the character.

Do you have a story or viewpoint on Creation that hasn’t been shared, or that is unlikely to feature in the film?

Do you know what I always thought was brilliant about them, about Alan and Dick Green? They were making Loveless [by My Bloody Valentine], Screamadelica [by Primal Scream], and Bandwagonesque. We were all in the studio at the same time, making those records.

They weren’t released yet, Dick and Alan re-mortgaged their houses, took out massive loans to invest money in studio time for those records. It was a big risk; if they records flopped, they’d have been done. Massive debt. They had faith in the artist, and they were artist friendly too. They let you do what you want. They didn’t try to dictate how the record sounded; they were happy for you to deliver music.

Back to Contents

Image credit: Alasdair McLellan

They brought a lot of great music. Everyone knows about Oasis, but they put out Felt albums, Super Furry Animals – loads of other great music, tons of great stuff. They came through, and won through adversity. Early on, the music press was pretty scathing of them; they thought they were a bit of a joke. Of course, Alan and Dick had the last laugh.

As you say, if they are remortgaging their home, that’s not a business decision, that’s a labour of love.

They believed in us, they loved to do it, being part of the music business. Alan is a bit of a Malcolm McLaren [Sex Pistols manager], an Andrew Loog Oldham [Rolling Stones manager].

He’s great, a proper character. You don’t really have people like that in the music business any more. You don’t have these people who have a touch of madness about them. We always got on great with them. We were lucky to be there, really lucky.

It was good timing.

It’s been more than 30 years since you started Teenage Fanclub, and you were talking about A Catholic Education [the band’s debut album] on Twitter recently.

Are you a nostalgic person?

I played that album the other night; it’s not something I do very often. I think it's masochistic to listen to your music. I’d rather listen to other people’s music. I just thought I’d see what it sounds like. You don’t listen to your records; you make them and then you put them out for other people to listen to. It sounded better than I thought it was going to.

It’s funny that music, made by that wee guy, I’d have been 22 or 23 when we made that. Those wee guys are way in the past, and it’s interesting to hear how different you sound. We sounded like a young band, with enthusiasm, and it was a bit rough and ready. It was all right...it had its charms for sure.

Occasionally I’ll listen back, but not too often.

Back to Contents

Were you listening to the album because you wanted to, or looking for ideas for the setlist?

I just fancied listening to it. There were moments when I thought we could play that one again, we could play all of them. It’s always good to shake the set up a little by playing something you haven’t played in a while. It makes it interesting for us too.

We want to challenge ourselves a bit, work out some things we haven’t thought about for 30 years.

Do the line-up changes provide you with a chance to do something different as well?

It definitely does. That’s been a motivation too. When we did the reissues, we had to learn all the songs again because we played all the albums. That was quite an experience. That was the last thing Gerry did with us too, it was a funny way to end that, playing all the songs we worked on together over the years. Paul Quinn was there, Brendan [O’Hare, former drummer] was there, everyone who had been in the band was part of it. I don’t know if I’d want to do something like that again. We’ve had our fill of album tours.

Any thoughts on releasing a book or documentary of the band?

I don’t know if it’s an interesting enough story. My memory is too bad; I’d have to make it all up. Mind you, that’s what people do anyway, isn’t it?

Absolutely, create the headlines and paint themselves in a better light.

Exactly, no, we’ve been approached a couple of times about doing a book, but we always thought, ach, who cares about us? There are things that have happened. We met Little Richard; that was pretty good. The thing is, many of the stories are just little anecdotes, but I guess that’s what rock ‘n roll Music by Andy Reilly Page 45

autobiographies are, a series of anecdotes, and making it look like there is more there than there really is! Big text and a lot of pictures.

What’s your favourite cover version you’ve played or recorded?

That’s a good one...I’m not sure what the answer would be.

Maybe ‘I Heard You Looking’, a Yo La Tengo instrumental we used to play live a lot. That was one I liked doing, partly because I played bass on it. That was unusual for me. We’ve done a lot of covers over the years. We had to, because of the formatting wars in the 90s. That was when you had to have about 25 B-sides, so we did loads of covers.

I’ve long thought we should do a compilation of those. You never know, maybe at some point, we’ll do that. I suppose some songs are unavailable, things that were only released on the 7” single, they wouldn’t have made it to Spotify or streaming services. So, I suppose there are things out there which are unavailable in digital form, and perhaps those things could be collated somewhere, you never know.

Are you counting the days until the live shows?

We can't get together to rehearse at the moment, but we are looking forward to doing it. It’s what we do, and I really enjoy playing with those guys. Even just having the sound of playing live in a band, I’ve missed that sound. The fact we’re being creative, and the camaraderie, all hanging out together, meeting people and going to different places. What a great thing to do. I cannot be doing with the idea of complaining about going to new cities. I love it, I really do. Waking up and having a cup of coffee in places like Auckland, and going, wow, I’m in Auckland, this is amazing! You never get tired of that.

Back to Contents

There’s talk of a new album following on from Endless Arcade.

We’re going to try and keep rolling on. While we’re feeling creative, we might as well keep working on stuff. Also, if we can’t play as many shows as we would like at the moment, we might as well use the time to do something else. We’re recording demos at home, and when we get together, we can put down some new tunes. It’s always good to have more material to play live.

Endless Arcade will be released on 30th April via PeMa

Music by Andy Reilly Page 47

Back to Contents

Photo credit: Holly Whitaker

SQUID

When you think about all the bands in the world vying for attention, being labelled one of the upcoming acts of the year is a massive accolade for any act. Of course, when that year was 2020, you might question whether you want to be associated with that or not!

Thankfully, Squid haven’t dwelled on that, and if anything, they look set to claim 2021 as the year where people stop and pay attention. Their debut album, Bright Green Field, will be out before summer, and let’s hope it’s just one of the things which see us move forward. SNACK caught up with Anton Pearson from Squid to discuss cults, improvisational melting pots, and the subtle difference between new and new-new.

If we all get out of the house soon, surely an album called Bright Green Field has to be one of the feelgood hits of the summer?

We didn’t name it thinking it would be out at the end of lockdown.

We thought that would be sooner! I hope people enjoy it.

According to Ollie Judge [drummer and lead vocalist], you’ve made a ‘really fucking weird record’. That’s not an insult these days. What do you think about your position alongside other contemporary bands?

There are loads of great bands out at the moment who’ve released music this year. We have huge respect for them, and we’re influenced by them to some degree, but it’s a small part of the musical, and non-musical things that inform the record.

Music by Andy Reilly Page 49

The way Squid works is there’s equal input and equal ownership between the five of us. We have our own interests and things we want to explore. The picture that comes out when making music is a complicated mess of many different things!

Is recording exciting because you know everyone is chipping in?

We love recording. This was our first time making an album, so that was incredibly exciting in itself. Also, we’re still learning about approaching a project this ambitious.

We have such a strong trust between each other and we can let each other lead different things, or bring new ideas in. That’s how it becomes an eclectic record – if someone is excited about something, we try to roll with it. There is no sense of ever venturing too far down the rabbit hole.

Do you have an organic way of approaching song writing?

We try to be non-hierarchical in how we approach things. We do everything as a five-piece, together. We never bring in finished or almost-finished tracks. We’ll either bring in nothing or small ideas.

From there, we let things evolve, or we let things die when they are put in the Squid ‘improvisational melting pot’. It’s a fun way of working, and we’re not attached to ideas.

When someone brings a small musical idea, there’s no point in being attached to it. If it evolves into something else, you have to let it die, and move on to the new thing. That’s a great way of working, and everybody feels part of everything we do.

Back to Contents

Photo credit: Holly Whitaker

Music by Andy Reilly Page 51

It must be important to know when to stop or drop ideas?

Definitely, yeah. It’s important to know when not to play, and we’re still learning in that regard. If all five of us are playing, it’s difficult to stop and say ‘Do we stop now or can we go back to what we were doing 40 seconds ago, because I love that?’ That happens a lot. I’m sure we’ve forgotten about or missed out on a lot of hit records!

What new songs are you most looking forward to playing live?

There’s a track called ‘Peel St’ in the second half of the album, which is the newest track. It was written quickly. When lockdown hit, we had to postpone the tour, so we had time together rehearsing when we were expecting to be on the road.

We were then separated, the longest time we had been apart from each other. I’m making it sound a bit of a cult. We came together for a few weeks to work on the tracks before we went to London to record, and there was an amazing wave of excitement and joy to be together again. ‘Peel St’ came out in the first wave of that; it’s aggressive and a lot of fun to play. We were all thinking it would be so fun to play at a gig, and it’s yet to be played at one. So I’m looking forward to that.

There are many great things about being in a cult. You just have to get out before the killing and the forced behaviour; the early days are fun.

Yeah, that’s the thing, the early days of cults do sound fun.

Back to Contents

All being well, you’re going to be on the road for most of the second half of the year. Is that keeping you going?

Over the past couple of years things have been moving so fast with us. We feel so lucky about everything that has happened. There was so much planned for summer, autumn and winter which were cancelled. We couldn’t believe what was happening...we were meant to be going to America and Japan. When COVID hit, it felt like we were waking up from the dream world.

It was disheartening when things were getting cancelled. We took a huge hit. Of course, we’re grateful we’re healthy and all our families are okay. What really kept us going was the album recording; that was the big event of the year. Even when all these amazing tours and gigs were lined up, the recording was the most important thing in our calendar. Somehow, it didn’t get cancelled when everything else did. That kept us going all last year. We’re really looking forward to playing shows for the rest of this year, but who knows what will happen.

You played the online SXSW. How did that go?

It was fun, but we didn’t get to watch it! I don’t know if we didn’t get organised in time, or if we just didn’t get a pass. The tickets were expensive. It was fun to do because it was professionally set up for us to play. We were playing on a stage, and it was nice to see our managers. It was nice to get a flavour of what life used to be like.

Music by Andy Reilly Page 53

Do you think online live shows will continue to be a thing in the music industry?

The situation we’re in has sped up the capabilities and access to technology to do these things. It’s hard to do it really well, and it’ll never replace the importance and excitement of live music. That’s really important for us. But I don’t see it as being a negative thing if more of this sort of thing happens alongside the live stuff. It’s good for people who don’t necessarily go to gigs, for whatever reason. If the two things can live symbiotically, it's not a bad thing.

In previous interviews, the band have spoken about being younger and accessing music from download sites. Now you’re in a band releasing music, what’s your view on streaming?

It’s complicated. It connects with what we said before, we’re really pleased that people who wouldn’t normally have access to our music, or music generally, do have access. In some ways, it breaks down that economic barrier.

Obviously, there is another side of it, with streaming platforms not paying us. They can’t survive without us, and it’s difficult for some artists to compete without streaming platforms. Hopefully, things will swing more towards artists, especially artists who are starting out.

Back to Contents

The band has its own record label, Ink. Do you think this will aid the longevity of the band, allowing individual thoughts and ideas to flourish as well as the collective?

Yeah. That was the idea behind it. I released an EP [It’s Time For Us All To Leave Now], a collection of music I worked on over the first lockdown. The music was environmentally informed. Generally speaking, it’s a way for us to explore different avenues of creativity without as much pressure as there is with Squid. Squid is an environment where we can explore everything and anything we find interesting.

However, if there were certain things we wanted to develop, we can do that with no pressure or anyone listening to it. I think it’s important to have it so things are released. You need an impetus to get things finished. Deadlines are important. Warp (the band’s record label) set it up for us, and we’re grateful. They understand how to nurture creativity.

How has it been on Warp?

It’s been really good. We signed on the basis they seemed like people who would support us to go down whatever route we felt it was necessary to go down creatively and musically. We get asked sometimes if it's funny being on a label associated with electronic music, but what is electronic music? Also, we were attracted to challenging ourselves and being surrounded by different people.

They’ve also had Grizzly Bear and Battles. We were attracted to people who are looking to push the boundaries.

Music by Andy Reilly Page 55

You’re currently in that weird stage where the album is finished, but people haven’t heard it. How are you coping with this?

In the last few months, we’ve been really busy. We’re using this time the best way we can. In normal times, we’d have been touring. We’ve a studio in Bristol and we meet up every week, getting on with writing new music. It feels weird that the album is recorded and its brand-new music, but then to us, it’s not the brand-new stuff. We’ve been writing new stuff, and while we’re cautiously optimistic about playing live in the next few months, we are working with the assumption we will. So we’ve been getting sets ready and thinking about interesting things for the shows and tour. We’ve also been preparing for radio sessions.

It’s been important for us to keep busy and do creative things, as much for our mental health.

So, if the gigs go ahead, will there be new-new material, or just new material?

Ha. I think we’ll slip in some new-new material here and there. We are always excited about new things, and we’re keen to make our sets different wherever we go. There’ll be new tracks and new-new tracks this summer. We’re looking forward to getting on the road. It’s a shame we’re not in Glasgow until September; we’ve had some great shows in Glasgow, and we meet such nice musicians.

Bright Green Field will be released on 7th May via Warp Records

Back to Contents

Music by Andy Reilly Page 57

NIGHTSHIFT

Back to Contents

Nightshift are an emerging Glasgow band whose latest album, Zöe, simmers with a kind of societal malaise.

Released at the end of February through Trouble In Mind, the album also evokes feelings of vibrancy, wit, and a sense of hope.

The synthy swirl of 'Power Cuts' points towards revolution.

'Spray Paint the Bridge' is a rumination on opting out of society, and 'Make Kin’ acts as a mantra for resistance. The album is independent, sometimes elusive, and straddles many genres, from psych to folk and post-punk.

Nightshift were formed in Glasgow in 2019 by David Campbell (ex-I'm Being Good!), Eothen Stearn (2 Ply), Andrew Doig (Robert Sotelo), and Chris White (Spinning Coin), with Georgia Harris (Robert Sotelo) joining later.

Is it fair to say you're a very democratic band? Everyone seems to get their say individually.

Andrew: Absolutely. I hope so anyway. It's certainly the intention!

Eo: Yes, completely.

Chris: Yeah. For the first tape we made the songs in the room together, and for the recent album, Zöe, we added something, and passed it onto the next person – no-one is telling anyone what to do.

Dave: There's been a very democratic, collaborative process from the beginning.

Georgia: Yes. I felt really welcomed into the band, and free to do whatever from the start, even though I joined under weird circumstances at the start of the pandemic in the UK. Music by Lorna Irvine Page 59

There's a range of disparate influences within the music.

Was that an important factor, that you're not caught up in any one prevailing trend?

Andrew: It's not important to me to not be caught in any prevailing trends; it's just something I don't think about. I think if you were to consider current trends too much or at all, it would be a bit of a vibe killer.

Eo: That's nice you feel that. It seems the energy we all bring is unique and encouraged to be heard and co-exist, which transcends. We don't follow anything in particular trends, it's all organic.

Chris: I think it's a natural result of not having a fixed aim of what the music should sound like. Everybody develops the initial idea in their own way, and it becomes what you hear in the recordings.It's not consciously important, but I think it's nice.

Dave: We all have such a range of musical tastes and influences and they all find their way distilled into the musical melee, but not in any deliberate or contrived way. We seem to all keep very open to whichever direction the music wants to take us.

Georgia: Like Dave says, I think disparate influences come naturally from being a musical omnivore. I feel pretty oblivious to trends and all that, as it's just not interesting to me.

Back to Contents

Is it important that a lot of your lyrics focus on lived experience?

Andrew: For me personally, not necessarily. I am totally open to abstraction and/or unlived experiences also.

Eo: For me it is. I am really interested in autobiographical feminist writing and the power of an individual's voice. There is a strength and generosity of diaristic work, in terms of reliability of going through being alive in a particular moment. But again, different for all of us! I do sometimes also put observations or fantasy into my lyrics.

Georgia: I'm not sure. It's nice to keep the possibilities open, in that I don't think they have to be.

Music by Lorna Irvine Page 61

What has been keeping you going during the pandemic?

Andrew: My partner Gemma, TV, books, music, my bike, my friends, my Mum. Eo: My partner Rachel. Pretty much the same as Doig. I love cycling too. My Mum. Gardening, books. My job has also been a strong driving force in me passing time. I'm working as a Climate Action Community Worker for a Woodlands Community Charity here in Glasgow. I've been cooking and working on a Climate Action Project which has been a positive distraction.

I've also been doing this amazing weekly online workout for queers which has kind of saved me by doing things regularly to connect my mind with my body – but it has been hard! Also the band has helped me a lot, and making art. I've been making some textile artwork and drawing, and painting in my flat.

Back to Contents

Chris: Recording and mixing the Nightshift LP, our live stream, and what is going to become the next record. Working on new Spinning Coin recordings. Working as a support worker.

Watching too much TV! Hanging out with my cats. Fixing my house. Making pizza. Eating out at Ranjit's Kitchen.

Dave: The promise of real future happiness after meeting my soulmate. Making music under very different conditions than expected that continues to surprise and entertain and continues opening doors to seemingly never-ending enjoyable and occasionally amusing possibilities, and generally still loving making a racket on the guitar after countless years. I don't know how I would have coped through this pandemic situation without playing guitar and coming up with ideas for Nightshift songs.

Keeping in contact with friends and family and the thrill of sometimes hearing from people out of the mist of gloomy news. Food and drink, especially nice wine... Reading, films, cycling, playing piano, drawing plants, gardening and studying Horticulture and Coding, and wondering if there's a way of combining both.

Georgia: Thinking about this time as an unexpected experience I might gain something from, and reflecting how lucky I've been that friends and family are all doing alright. Also helpful: lots of phone chats, walking, cooking, music, films/TV, and enjoying the mundane acts of daily existence.

Music by Lorna Irvine Page 63

Who are you all listening to at the moment?

Andrew: Yesterday, Rollins Band, Lauryn Hill, Janet Jackson – The Velvet Rope, Sheryl Crow, Sun City Girls, Armand Hammer, Collate, Writhing Squares, Tomaga, Cruz.

Eo: Ibibio Sound Machine, The Green Child, Cate le Bon, Beverly Glen-Copeland, Current Affairs, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Gordon Koang, Primo!, Mary Ocher, H.M.S.RMA. Chris: Black Sabbath (album Vol. 4), The Fates song 'No Romance', Charles Bradley's 'Changes', Ry Cooder – Boomer's Story, Klang – No Sound Is Heard, and Can – Future Days.

Dave: This last week or so: Black Flag Everything Went Black, Massicot – Kratt, Klang – No Sound Is Heard, Das ist DAF, Gang Of Four – Solid Gold, Art Ensemble Of Chicago – A Message To Our Folks Joe Henderson with Alice Coltrane – 'Earth' from The Elements, Warren Sampson's Traveller LP, Ustad Ahmed, Jan Thirakwa and Ustad Amir Hussain Khan – Rhythms of India, The Name Of This Band Is Talking Heads, and many, many others.

Georgia: Random tapes and CDs I've stumbled on while spring cleaning, for example: Depeche Mode, The Cars, Os Mutantes, Patsy Cline, 16-17, High Rise, Meat Puppets, Prince.

Zöe is out now via Trouble In Mind

Back to Contents

Music by Lorna Irvine Page 65

MR MCFALL'S CHAMBER

Image: Mr McFall's Chamber with Norwegian percussionist, Thomas Stronen Drill Hall, Edinburgh

Back to Contents

Mr McFall’s Chamber have enjoyed a 25 year career introducing audiences to wildly exciting and genre-hopping concerts. SNACK mag caught up with Robert McFall and Su-a Lee about their upcoming Soundhouse Spotlight concert, their origins, and the universality of music.

This year marks Mr McFall’s Chamber’s 25th year as an ensemble. How did it all begin?

Su-a Lee: Robert [came] up to me in an orchestra rehearsal and [said] that he's got this slightly wacky idea. His sons frequented and worked with sound engineers in the Cowgate for the nightclubs. [They] thought it would be fun to get their dad to put together a classical string quartet to come and play in the clubs for a late night session. And would I be up for it? And of course, the answer to that was a very big ‘Yes!’. Robert put together an incredible programme – some Shostakovich, some Webern.

Robert McFall: There was something that I arranged with my son: Weather Report’s ‘Birdland’. A few weeks later we did this arrangement of Jimi Hendrix’s music which we're playing on Sunday.

Su-a: It felt like a brand new thing to do and completely out there.

The club, The Transporter Rooms, had gone to so much effort to make it special. The whole thing was full of wispy sails, draped in beautiful lighting. I just remember thinking ‘this is really special – that we're sitting here at two in the morning playing Webern, and we've got people dancing to it’.

Robert: Partly, I guess, the initial impetus behind forming the group was me trying to impress my teenage sons. They were both playing in rock groups and I sort of wanted to reach out to what they were doing in a way.

Music by Sam MacAdam Page 67

Su-a: Talking of working with your sons, we did this amazing collaboration with Edinburgh College of Art. Their final year students were doing animations and they wanted Mr. McFall's Chamber to do the music. There was one, The Great Lobster Chase, [that] was such brilliant animation and I didn't know what to do with it. I was into Leftfield at the time and I was influenced by their drum and bass rhythms, but I didn't know how to recreate that. Robert's sons, Tom and George, stayed up with me one night using the kitchen utensils in Robert's kitchen to make the sounds for all the drum and bass rhythm tracks.

Robert: We did it there and then didn't we?

Su-a: Yeah, chopping boards, sharpening knives. It became the underlying track for the whole of this Lobster Chase scene. To me that epitomises that sense of excitement that was around at that time. Just anything was possible.

How has the ensemble changed over the past 25 years?

Robert: Some of the things we did at the beginning everyone else does nowadays, and we've gone much straighter. Playing arrangements of pop songs I mean, everyone does it now, don't they? It’s very commonplace, but I don't think it was so much when we did it in 1996. We've pretty much gone back into giving concerts that are a little bit... well, I mustn't exaggerate – they're not that mainstream.

Su-a: They're not at all!

Robert: We allow ourselves to play a little Mozart from time to time.

Back to Contents

Considering the breadth of your back catalogue, what repertoire will you be playing for your upcoming Soundhouse Concert?

Robert: The initial idea really came from Su-a – she said, ‘wouldn't it be nice to revisit some of the things from the distant past?’ I was speaking to our bass player, Rick, and he said, ‘Oh, well, on the contrary, wouldn't it be quite nice to do some of the things that we're doing in the future?’

We’re doing three numbers from our very first album and we're doing a couple of songs that are going to be on a CD that we're recording this summer of music by Mexican composers. That's the idea – to bring together things from the distant past and from the near future.

Su-a: Distant past things like the Jimi Hendrix ‘Little Wing’. The original is so electronic and so loud in some ways, whereas Robert's arrangement is written unbelievably gently. It's in a ridiculous key of six sharps and it's a very tender, very gentle version of it. It’s sublime and beautiful – it's completely transformative.

Robert: I think that at the beginning of this group it seemed a bit artificial that different genres existed in isolation from each other.

I was just wondering what a Jimi Hendrix song would sound like played very slowly and quietly. And it sounds very beautiful. It's partly to prove the universality of music.

Music by Sam MacAdam Page 69

What’s your process for making these arrangements?

Su-a: Robert's a genius!

Robert: I just think about it a lot. And work on it for a long time.

I have to confess, I don't do it quickly – but that suits me. It's very tailor-made. I have to bear in mind what people are like. I guess that's a very good thing that I have particular players in mind – I know what they’re good at and what they’re bad at; what they like doing, what they don't like doing; what they might complain about, what will make them happy.

It was a great opportunity to do this concert this weekend – I haven't done any live concerts for a long time. So it's very, very nice to be able to do this.

Soundhouse presents Mr McFall’s Chamber online from 26th April till 3rd May Tickets £5+ from traverse.co.uk

Back to Contents

Music by Sam MacAdam Page 71

Photo credit: John Mackie

IONA LEE

Back to Contents

Hailing from West Lothian and now based in Glasgow, Iona Lee is one of the boldest voices of the Scottish spoken word scene. Iona has recently released her second poetry pamphlet, Know Your Space, published by Speculative Books, and is currently working on her first full-length collection. I sat down with her to chat about her career so far and how she has managed to keep creative over the past year.

Where did your interest in poetry begin?

I took part in my first spoken-word open mic one fateful winter's evening in Edinburgh, about eight years ago. It is not a particularly fascinating story. One day I decided to try it out, and it has been my life ever since. Funny how these small decisions turn out to be monumental on reflection. I suppose that I’ve always been interested in storytelling, and the different ways that stories can be told.

I was raised in a theatrical family and grew up around actors, puppeteers, musicians, theatre-makers – people invested in storytelling and performance. But if you'd told me when I was leaving school that my life would be that of a poet, I don't think I'd have believed you. It wasn't exactly my 'plan'. It wasn't until I met my mentor, Salena Godden, that I realised what a life in poetry could be. How much fun and how much hard work it could be.

Poetry by Ross Wilcock Page 73

Your poetry explores magic, memory, fairies, womanhood and storytelling. How did this style of writing start for you?

My childhood was spent touring around with people who knew how to tell a good story. My dad, especially, is a font of mythological and folkloric knowledge. I was very lucky to have such a world of stories at my disposal. Tales of the wild wood, the faerie hunt, the non-human world. I also spent a lot of time in nature, and you're never far from magic there.

This year has been, well, awful. But I was wanting to ask if you were still able to find inspiration to create new work, even with everything going on?

Creative work has been a bit of a slog during lockdown.

Cultivating and maintaining any kind of creative flow can be difficult at the best of times, but when the perimeters of your life are brought right in – as they have been – and any novel experiences become severely limited, inspiration can seem a bit of a Moby Dick. I try not to give myself too hard a time when I am feeling uninspired, though. Artists are not meant to be constant 'content providers'. Creativity takes time, and that's okay. I'm in less of a rush than I used to be. We must breathe in before we can breathe out.

Back to Contents

You recently released a pamphlet through Speculative Books. Can you tell us a bit more about that?

Yes, I created my second pamphlet, called Know Your Space : A Creative Journal for the Capitalist Feminist – a very tongue in cheek title, of course. It is intended as a satire of #girlboss feminism; that horrible plastic kind of feminism that capitalism sells back to us through vague platitudes and saccharine affirmations. Speculative Books are sweethearts, and they wanted to publish something of mine. I had this weird idea to make a creative journal that you can read from beginning to end like a poem. Luckily, they were up for it!

I really liked what you did with your second pamphlet. It's a little different from most other poetry releases, with its DIY feel, and its encouragement to the reader to write and be creative throughout the book, while still featuring original poetry. Why did you decide on this approach?

I just liked the idea of it being interactive. It's full of instructions for the reader to respond to, like 'write the nonspeaking role', or 'colour inside of the lines', and I wanted to hand it over to people and see what they did with it. The instructions are all purposely conceptual.

Poetry by Ross Wilcock Page 75

There have been some exciting moments and opportunities throughout your career. Is there a highlight that you can share with us?

Yes, I've been very blessed. Booked and blessed! I think that my favourite part of this job is the travelling and the people. I have seen the UK race by through train windows, and I have brilliant poetry friends dotted all over.

Sometimes we'll all get to be in the same place at the same time, like the Edinburgh Book Festival, or Glastonbury. And that's the good stuff.

We have seen a rise in digital events due to the lockdown. How have you found the poetry scene’s transition to online performances?

Poetry has had probably the smoothest transition to the online realm during pandemia. It is essentially just speaking, which is what platforms like Zoom are built to handle. Theatre, comedy and music have struggled a lot more. But still, something is inevitably lost. I feel more like a YouTuber than a poet at present, which is not exactly ideal.

I've become a professional email writer. I miss that human connection.

Back to Contents

Your book launch was held online, with an interactive element that followed. How was that experience?

We launched Know Your Space as a digital event, with a writing and drawing workshop led by me. It was really well attended and the feedback was great. Zoom doesn't have a smoking area, though!

You took part in some events at the Paisley Book Festival, with a virtual audience. How do you prepare for a gig when you can’t know the reactions of an audience watching?

Online gigs are an entirely different experience. First of all, there's no audience, really. Sometimes your laptop screen is full of mute faces looking back at you, like animals in well-upholstered cages. More often though, it's just your own face. It's a very odd experience actually, and more than once I've had the urge to close my laptop mid-poem. You're essentially performing a fifteen-minutelong monologue to your own digital reflection. Except that part of you knows that potentially hundreds of people are observing you. It's all very solipsistic.

Poetry by Ross Wilcock Page 77

There are some really striking lines that jump out when hearing the opening poem 'Know Your Space' from your pamphlet of the same name. I wondered if you could tell us a little more about a couple of those that stood out for me?

‘The act of being observed is feminine and indeed not an act at all’ The act of observing is coded in our minds as a masculine pursuit. To be observed is feminising. The muse is traditionally a female role, whereas the artist or the writer, the 'genius', is male. Women are non-speaking roles, or side characters. We exist in relation to men. Men have told us the world. They are the history-writers, the keepers of the keys and of our stories. I suppose I got these ideas from my studies in art history. Historically, women have had to be passive creatures. Things happen to us. We are not active participants in our lives. Our domain is chaos, whereas men's domain is intellectualism, order, authority, sense, God and state. Women are not authorities on life, as we are, somehow, 'other'. We are what is non-human about the human experience. That is why you still get posters boasting of an 'ALL-FEMALE CAST'. You would never get that with an all-male cast, because that wouldn't be out of the ordinary. A story about men is a story about life and is for everyone, whereas a story about women is just a story about, and for, women.

Back to Contents

Can you tell us a your thoughts on the line: 'the white page interrupted by ink'?

With that line I think I'm alluding to many things.

Innocence lost. Silence interrupted by speech. Bed sheets.

Books that weren't written. Taking back power. Words as weapons. Times that you have felt silenced.

‘It is the radical feminist coffee mug, made in China’.

Could you discuss this line for us, and the irony that seems to be packed within it?

It is impossible to exist in this western world and be an ethical consumer. Genuinely impossible. Someone is always getting massively fucked over. Especially Mother Nature. But when you buy something with a feminist slogan on it, from a company like Boohoo, or Missguided, or, god forbid, Pretty Little Thing (the world's most condescending fashion brand) for next to nothing, and it arrives, plastic wrapped in yet more plastic, made in a sweatshop far far away – well, that doesn't seem particularly radical to me.

Poetry by Ross Wilcock Page 79

Photo credit: John Mackie

Back to Contents

When writing poetry that is personal and raw and emotional, how do you make sure you are not giving too much of yourself away, but still managing to be vulnerable for an audience?

It is certainly true that some poems are rawer and more emotional than others, but the thing about poetry is that you are always editing - how much of yourself you want to share, how certain truths are told, how things are framed. You're letting people in, but you're choosing what you show them. I find that in my work I am a paradoxical mix of very open and simultaneously very guarded.

There are many things that I have never written about, personal experiences. Sometimes I think, maybe it's time to write THAT poem. And then other times I think, why?

And for who? This is not to say that writers shouldn't tackle difficult subject matter. They should if they want to. Many do, brilliantly and bravely. But I think that performance poets especially can feel a pressure to share painful, personal things in order to be considered relevant. Truth is, you could write nothing but limericks about your bus route home – and it would still be relevant. There is no hierarchy in subject matter, and there is poetry to be found in everything. ionalee.com

Poetry by Ross Wilcock Page 81

Photo credit: Katrina Allen

SARAH GRANT

Back to Contents

Based on her full-length spoken word show Spark, poet and filmmaker Sarah Grant’s new education venture, The Spark Education Programme, builds on the themes of her show and aims to encourage young people to tell their stories and find confidence in their voices.

Grant’s show was presented at the Scottish Storytelling Centre in November 2019; it told a tale of witches, womanhood, pressure, and persecution. Grant could not tour with the show as planned as lockdowns restricted her from doing so, but in 2020 she received Creative Scotland funding to create a free education programme based on the show.

Born and raised in Glasgow, Grant placed on the YWCA’s 30 under 30 list in 2019; she is hailed as a BAFTA Scotland New Talent nominee as well as a Sky Academy Arts scholar. Her personal mission is to share stories of her lived experience of a woman as she fights for gender equality, and she goes about this as she heads Coven Productions, through which she generates her creative endeavours. Coven Productions itself aims to be honest, feminist, and fearless.

The programme, launching on 31st March, takes the form of an online course that teaches young people to find their voice and confidence, and so share their stories through spoken word poetry. Grant began work for Spark in 2018. She says, 'I was wanting to write something more long form, maybe something that blended poetry and theatre together, but I had no idea what I would write a show about.' She drew initial inspiration from the musical Wicked after seeing it live in Edinburgh – when she and her sister were sitting way up high in the back, some of the worst seats, her view of the climax in ‘Defying Gravity’ was entirely blocked by a speaker.

Words by Holly Fleming Page 83

Her sister grabbed her and hauled her across the chair so she could see the moment when witch Elphaba rises into the air as she sings. In that moment, when Grant was allowed to see the moment at the cost of her sister's comfort, she knew what she wanted to write her show about: witches.

'The last woman to be executed for the crime of witchcraft in the British Isles was a Scottish Highlander, Janet 'Jenny' Horne. She was accused because she would talk to herself and act strangely,' the poet explains. 'Looking back now, the reasons they burned her were nothing more than symptoms of dementia.

'I wanted to write a show about witches and womanhood and everyday persecution that still happens and encourage my audience to not be afraid of their own power.'

The Spark Education Programme is aimed at anyone over the age of 15 who would like to try their hand at spoken word for the first time, or who is looking for a creative writing outlet to boost their self-assurance and confidence. Grant says, 'Spoken word can help you do so much more than write poetry.

'It can help you articulate difficult feelings, help you stand up for yourself, give you confidence to speak out loud and to take up physical space. It can give you the essential belief that your voice is valid, and your stories are interesting and worthy of sharing. If I had that kind of confidence when I was in my late teens or early twenties, my life would have been so different.

'Also, you get to write awesome poems.'

Back to Contents

As prospective students can use the programme either in groups or solo, Grant sees the advantages and drawbacks of both practices. 'Writing is such a personal thing that can make you super vulnerable. Being alone allows you to really play with all the things you want to write about and only put yourself on display when you have figured out how to write it.

'However, so much of the programme is about building confidence and normalising speaking your work out loud, and having a small audience for this will really help you feel that. I would recommend, if possible, taking the programme in small groups, or even have a group that allows you to take the programme alone but catch up after every chapter to share and support each other.'

Grant was awarded the funding for the programme pre-COVID, and wanted to take it into schools. When the world shut down, however, she had to adapt the programme to be digital. 'I think it ended up being much better than anything I could have done with stand and deliver training.'

Words by Holly Fleming Page 85

As an online programme, Grant is happy for her venture to be streamed into schools or taken individually at home anywhere in the world. Included in the programme is the educator resource hub, which is packed with lesson plans, writing exercises, and prompts. Teachers can use this resource to help in teaching the programme themselves with full autonomy.

Spark is funded through the Create:Inclusion funding scheme by Creative Scotland, which is meant to level the playing field in the arts; offering grants to artist groups who are underrepresented, like working class artists, LGBTQ+, BIPOC, disabled, and other marginalised groups. 'The funding application process was really easy; I thoroughly recommend it for artists’, she says.

As Spark has been so heavily affected by the pandemic, Grant is now excitedly looking ahead to its life post-COVID. 'I only got to perform the show in front of a live audience once before COVID happened, so I am hoping to take the show on tour in some form or another. I have zero plans for what that looks like yet, but I am excited to get back on stage, hopefully working with theatres that are interested in community outreach so I can take The Spark Education Programme on tour too.'

Grant is currently in the process of going full-time freelance, so she is working on a variety of different projects right now. Currently she’s working on a treatment for a feature film that was funded by Short Circuit, based on a short she made in 2019 called Scare.

For more information about Sarah Grant and The Spark Education Programme, check out her website: sarahgrantcreative.com

Back to Contents

Words by Holly Fleming Page 87

ELY PERCY

Photo credit: Ellen Desmond

Back to Contents

Ely Percy is a Scottish writer whose latest novel Duck Feet captures the highs, lows and everything in between of the school years as few others have managed. SNACK spoke to Ely about the novel, and the themes and inspirations behind it.

How would you describe Duck Feet?

Duck Feet is a coming-of-age novel set in Renfrew in 2001 to 2007.

It follows the lives of twelve-year-old working-class schoolgirl Kirsty Campbell and her pals, as they go from first through to sixth year of the fictional Renfrew Grammar. The novel deals with things like drugs, bullying and exam stress, as well as sexuality and teen pregnancy.

It’s a wee bit like the old TV programmes Byker Grove and Grange Hill, only it’s Scottish and there’s a few more swear words.

How did you approach writing about that time in life? Do you have to get into a different mind-set?

I sustained a brain injury in November 1992 aged fourteen, and was later diagnosed with retrograde, anterograde and post-traumatic amnesia. So I don’t remember being twelve. But I always love writing from the first-person point of view of children and young people, and I find it quite easy to get into the heads of those characters. I think when you first start high school you are kinda on the cusp of two worlds - you’ve gone from being a big fish in a small pond to being this tiny tadpole who has to grow arms and legs and learn to swim again, and there’s just so much you don’t know – I can relate to that.

I also spoke to a lot of people (of various ages) who went to different public high schools in Scotland because I didn’t want to misrepresent Books by Alistair Braidwood Page 89

anyone. And what I found was folk were telling me the same sorts of stories over and over again. There was always the teacher you loved and the teacher who hated you, your best friend and your worst enemy. There was the class clown, and the brainy kid, and the wee person that everyone said smelled. The conclusions I drew from my research were that – apart from politics and technology – nothing much had changed since I’d left high school.

Duck Feet is written in Scots. Was that the decision from the start, and if so, why?

Duck Feet started off as a single short story that I wrote in response to a writing prompt about ‘shoes’. I remember sitting in my parents’ living room writing a list of high heels, trainers, brogues etc when my dad came in with a basin of water to steep his feet. Out of nowhere, I heard this voice saying ‘Ma da’s got bad feet’. And that was Kirsty Campbell’s voice clear as a bell. A few days later I wrote another story about Kirsty doing her French lessons, and then another about Social Dancing. So it wasn’t really a conscious effort to write in Scots, but once I’d started it just made sense!

You not only get the language spot on, but the thoughts and deeds of a time in life where children start to see adulthood looming. Was it difficult to look back on your own young life, or was it actually good to go back?

I didn’t always have the best time at high school. I was bullied when I went to Renfrew High because I was a bit different, and I ended up having to leave and go to Linwood High which was a lot better for me.

Back to Contents

I made the decision quite early on though that Kirsty would not share my negative experiences – I wanted to remain impartial so that I could fully explore what it might feel like for a very average, straight, cis, neurotypical girl going through adolescence in the midnoughties. I think it also helped that she’s a good decade younger than me and her parents are younger than my parents, because it gave me some extra distance.

Was it important for you to write about and represent your hometown, and the people you grew up with?

Absolutely. I had never read a book that was set in Renfrew. And I love reading about places I’ve been to, streets that I’ve walked down. I’ve received a lot of positive feedback from people I know (as well a fair few folk I’ve never met) who grew up in Renfrew, and it’s always the sense of place that they comment on – that makes me so incredibly happy knowing that I got it right.

Photo credit: Hannah Killoh

Renfrew Victory Baths Books by Alistair Braidwood Page 91

I believe you are working on a project called Odd Duck.

What can you tell us about that?

To be honest, I haven’t gotten very far at all! The idea for Odd Duck came about because my editor asked if I would be willing to give some of the closeted LGBT characters in Duck Feet greater visibility.

I declined for two reasons: I don’t believe there would have been an abundance of openly queer kids attending Scottish high schools in 2001-2007; I also feel very strongly that a straight, cis narrator is the wrong person to tell multiple stories about queer lives – Kirsty’s view point is limited because of her own sexuality and gender identity, plus she’s not the greatest ally in the world (although she does improve as the book goes on). I think any additional storylines about LGBT characters really need to come from a queer perspective.

So I said I’d write two spin-off stories – one about a gay character we’ve already met in Duck Feet who signs up to advance swimming lessons at the Vicky Baths after developing a crush on an instructor – and another about a trans boy from Kirsty’s registration class who we didn’t previously get to know, but who has since left school and is absolutely loving life and making pals both in his college class and at LGBT Youth. I’ve also since thought of a third story about a bisexual girl who finds community and connections in the online forums she frequents.

Back to Contents

My intention is for one or more of the spin-offs to be set during the summer holidays of 2006, therefore intersecting with the time period in Duck Feet just before Kirsty and her pals go back to school for their final year. I like the idea of these stories going from July to July and straddling two Pride parades. But we’ll see. I have a LOT of ideas. I keep thinking of new characters, but I don’t really know what to do with them all! And I don’t know if this will turn out to be a booklet or a novella or a whole new bloody novel, or something else entirely, but right now I just want to take my time and have fun and play about with it. Hopefully, next time it won’t take sixteen years to make it into print!

Duck Feet is published by Monstrous Regiment

Photo credit: Hannah Killoh Books by Alistair Braidwood Page 93

MARLEY MORRISON

Photo Credit: Chloe Sheppard

While Sweetheart may not be Marley Morrison’s first outing as a filmmaker, having directed the short films Sticks and Stones (2014), Baby Gravy (2017) and Leroy (2017), a feature-length film came as ‘a huge challenge’. Morrison had not expected to direct a feature so quickly, ‘but it kind of just worked out that way, with the Microwave scheme, where Sweetheart was commissioned’.

Film London Microwave is a flagship feature film scheme, supported by the BFI and BBC Films. Sweetheart was part of the scheme’s second slate of releases by new London-based filmmakers. While describing this change as ‘a big jump’ in her creativity and career, Morrison reflects on the experience as ‘an amazing, amazing time. I learned so much from doing it. I'm definitely glad I did it’.

Following Sweetheart’s premiere at Glasgow Film Festival, Morrison discussed her inspirations for the film, the portrayal of lesbian relationships on screen, and how the pandemic affected the film's production.

One thing I really enjoyed about Sweetheart is that it focuses on this beautiful love story between two women, which is still quite a rare thing to see in film in terms of representation. Did you have any films that you looked to for inspiration?

I think I had a few films and filmmakers in mind. I grew up watching John Hughes films, and [I was inspired by] Greta Gerwig, Miranda July, people like that. There's a film called But I'm a Cheerleader that had a big impact on me when I was younger. But a lot of the films I've seen have been rooted in a lot of trauma, and what I wanted to do was make something that was a lot more uplifting.

I placed lesbians at the forefront because I feel like a lot of the time they're side-lined or made the butt of the joke, or they're kind of depicted as weird outsiders. I wanted to make something uplifting that represented the young lesbians; what I wanted to see when I was when younger.

Film by Bethany Gemmell Page 95

Do you think that, when we see lesbians portrayed in the film, they're usually catered towards a heterosexual audience?

Yeah, I mean, it really depends on who's making the film. Something like Portrait of a Lady on Fire, which we've seen recently, is amazing and is made by a lesbian director. But I think historically, yes. You're going to find films that were made for a heterosexual audience by heterosexual people. So yeah, my intention is to make films for the queer community, by the queer community.

For me, the film felt like it might be semi-autobiographical. These kinds of boring family holidays that you're forced to go into as a teenager feel quite like a universal experience. Was that the case for you?

It was, yeah, definitely. I grew up going to holiday parks every summer. So it's somewhat inspired by my childhood, for sure. I'm a generation older than the characters, but I think anyone that's working class is going to relate to having gone to those sorts of places, those holiday parks.

What I think is great about them is they are kind of timeless places, you know.

They generally don't change that much. I gave the character of AJ an ending that I didn't have when I was younger. I think that's one thing that was definitely different about the whole script and the whole film. It's semi-inspired by my own awkwardness as a teenager, for sure, but then I wanted to give her a happy ending.

There's one particular line in your film that stuck with me – ‘That's the best thing about being on holiday, you can be whoever you want to be.’ That made me realise that a lot of films portraying same-sex relationships, whether it’s Call Me by Your Name, Moonlight, or many others - are set during the summertime or on holiday. Why do you think this time is so significant?

Back to Contents

That’s a really good question! I think there's something kind of liberating about being in a different space and a different environment to what you're used to. I think there's a lot of peer pressure and social judgement in your home environment, where people know you and people judge you and people expect a certain presentation or certain behaviour from you. Because, you know, people, more often than not don't really like change. Being away from that environment, and that judgement, that is kind of liberating. It gives you space to explore yourself and be whatever version of yourself you want to be, without the judgement of people that know you. It's almost like you can be whoever you want to be in front of strangers - in front of people that know you, it's a little bit more difficult.

Film by Bethany Gemmell Page 97

I noticed that in this film, and in your short film, Baby Gravy, there is this conflict about the difficulties LGBT people face when it comes to having children. What was the inspiration behind that?

That was kind of inspired by my own journey with my partner and my friends who have been going through the IVF process. I think there's just what we were experiencing - people assuming that we didn't want to have children just because we were gay. That was a straight assumption. It was almost baffling to them to hear that we did want children, followed by ‘How are you going to do that? Then? How?How's that gonna work?’, you know? Yeah, I guess that was where the inspiration came from.

I guess outside judgement is something that's always prevalent in the films I make, with Sweetheart that thing that continues in the way that Tina speaks about AJ. I think a lot of these judgments that are made outside, they come from a place of love or support. They're sometimes ignorant and come without thought. It's not about homophobia, in that sense. Do you know what I mean? It's not deliberate homophobia. It's more coming from a place of fear, you know, or trying to do the right thing, and just getting it a little bit wrong.

Back to Contents

I thought it was interesting that the main character, AJ, speaks a lot about the environment. How did you come to that creative choice?

I think it was an observation of where young people are, emotionally, right now. It's a different generation to me - I grew up mostly without social media.

So for me to look at how kids are now, I think they've got so much access to everything instantaneously - there's so much information at their fingertips. I think if you're intelligent and observant, you take a lot of things on. If you’re sensitive and emotional, that can be quite overwhelming for somebody. So if I see a character, like AJ, who is very emotional, and also quite smart, I feel like they are also very sensitive.

Because they have all of this information at their fingertips, they believe that they know everything about the world. For young people, it can be overwhelming for them to believe that they have to fix the world. Climate change is happening, and this is happening, and that is happening, but really, you know, teenagers are going through enough as it is being 16 and gay. For me, it was just an observation of how different young people are today.

I saw on your Instagram that filming for Sweetheart wrapped in 2019 - almost two years ago. Did the pandemic affect how the film was shaped, and how do you think it will change filmmaking as a whole?

It affected our edit process. We finished at the end of September 2019 and went straight into the edit, and then the coronavirus thing happened. As a result, the process became slightly longer than it should have been, and we had to do a lot of it remotely. Luckily, it didn't affect the shoot; we’d shot everything by then.

I'm really glad that we shot when we did, otherwise we'd still be waiting.

Sweetheart will be released in UK cinemas later this year and Marley Morrison's Baby Gravy is available to watch in full here.

Film by Bethany Gemmell Page 99

FESTIVALS

ALCHEMY FILM & MOVING IMAGE FESTIVAL FEMSPECTIVES

ALCHEMY FILM FESTIVAL Ocean of Interiors If one were to name the film towns upon the Scottish artistic landscape, the likely first names would be Edinburgh and Glasgow. Home to the big festivals and the decision makers, these are culture capitals. Yet down in Hawick a pure ‘film town’ is being metaphorically constructed, thanks to the work of progressive film charity Alchemy Film and Arts.

Established in 2010 by video artist Richard Ashrowan, the organisation has spent a decade using the advantages of the Borders’ community spirit and semi-rural surroundings to build a local identity around experimental film, exhibition, training, and partnerships.

Hawick’s flagship film festival, the Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival, returns for its 11th installment at the end of April, meaning the 14,000 strong industrial town, so long known for cashmere, mills, and folk chasing large oval balls, is becoming a proper stop on the culture tour.

Back to Contents

A small-town setting possesses benefits in the digital age. For those unable to reach Hawick, online is a viable option, although Scottish and international audiences alike – some introduced to Alchemy when it presented Scotland’s 2017 Venice Biennale entry – have proven themselves willing to travel for a unique festival location.

Meanwhile, Alchemy is surrounded by a community ethos that encourages collaboration. Come festival time (in non-pandemic years), a dozen sites in the town morph into makeshift cinemas.

Alchemy’s digital resources are now being made available to elevate local digital competency: plans are afoot to integrate film education into the curriculum of Hawick’s local primary schools. Additionally, necessity is the mother of invention, catalysing innovation in Scotland’s rural arts groups.

‘Arts organisations in rural communities are tasked with the same challenges as organisations in cities, but they are more immediate,’ says Rachael Disbury, Alchemy’s Co-Director. ‘In rural areas you have to face them, come up with alternative strategies, and come up with creative ways to address access. In the creative arts scene in Scotland, I think a lot of rural organisations are leading the way.

That has been seen in a year like this where suddenly everyone has adopted methods we were already using, like Zoom communication.’

That pioneering thrust came to the fore last year when Alchemy’s was one of the first festivals to move online because of lockdown restrictions. Labelled ‘the canary in the coal mine’, results soon made it evident that the little bird lived: the 6,000 in-person event visits of previous festivals transformed into 15,000 online guests, garnered Film by Jamie Wills Page 103

alongside positive feedback and viewers’ photographs illustrating how they were watching within their domestic spaces. Part of that success was certainly because Alchemy enjoys a niche market, as an experimental film festival, and being free to view certainly does no harm. Yet it was also vindication of a bold decision to maintain the festival’s quest for a live Hawick community atmosphere.

‘We were, and remain, one of the only festivals whose programme is mostly live,’ explains Rachael about the COVID-era UK film exhibition sector. ‘We had a lot of good feedback around being able to generate a communal viewing experience and that community feel, and we really invested in hospitality and relationships – I think having it live has really helped that.’

In the spirit of sharing, Alchemy duly uploaded a ‘how to’ guide for use by festivals that followed in its wake. That Alchemy itself is online again a full calendar year later is mildly surreal, as is the notion that it must adapt its own advice because, as Rachael notes, the context and novelty of last spring was a unique moment; subsequent evolved attitudes towards online festivals means replication would not suffice.

However, the 2021 programme – which is again free to view – may be the strongest in the festival’s history, with at least five live one hour programmes a day, each followed by a live Q&A. This totals to over 170 films, garnered from 1,200 submissions. Again, the majority of the festival is live, although on demand programmes will put seven specific artists in focus, including Emily Jacir, Baff Akoto, and Richard Fung.

Back to Contents

Further ideas of what audiences can expect at the experimental film festival include: six newly commissioned ‘non-film’ pieces that combine text, image and sound; a Karel Doing phytography (plantbased film-making) feature; artist in residence, Natasha Ruwona, presenting a new piece on the Scottish Black Atlantic; and opening and closing symposiums by Marxist intellectual Vijay Prashad.

Audience participation is encouraged via chat boxes that complement the Q&As, and a new space entitled 'New Tab' has also been introduced to host Alchemy's online exhibition and six non-film works. To aid access, captioning by Matchbox Cineclub and audio descriptions by VocalEyes are also on hand.

Softer

Film by Jamie Wills Page 105

Whilst the festival's imagination, artists and audience are on broad, the five days are also a showcase for some of the organisation’s yearround local work. Films made in the south of Scotland will receive special focus this year, and amongst the programme – of which around 35% is Scottish – is a film mentored by Alchemy, created by Borders Additional Needs Group (BANG). Similarly, works by a member of Moving Image Makers Collective – another Borders partner – will also be in focus. On top of that, seven 16-25 year olds have curated a programme which will be shown alongside the established names, and Alchemy’s own film-making academy, Outwith, will be guided through festival operations across the duration.

These collaborations hint towards one final advantage Alchemy possesses within the cultural calendar: although its 2021 festival lasts for five days, ‘film town’ is a year-round project, meaning those who are inspired need not wait to participate. Having secured regular funding from Creative Scotland since 2018, the Outwith academy sits beside the Sitdown artist interview series, monthly Continue Watching screenings programme, and a smorgasbord of community projects.

An injection of £145,000 from the new Culture Collective relief fund from Creative Scotland, designed to rebuild creativity and the arts community, will also be put to use this summer. This fits directly into Alchemy’s hope for Hawick.

‘That is what we mean by ‘film town’: really investing in the potential of film across all facets of life and society,’ says Rachael.

Back to Contents

Rachael will not be drawn on whether Hawick is yet superior to Kelso, but if Alchemy’s work continues to flourish, the town will find itself beside the major cities on the Scottish film map, and arguably sit as a better representation of a predominantly rural and small town nation. Such success can only be positive for Hawick and the Borders.

It may even help address the only problem Rachael can identify with her new home community: ‘I do wish we had a train station.’

Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival 2021 runs from 29th April till 3rd May alchemyfilmandarts.org.uk

The Pump

Film by Jamie Wills Page 107

FEMSPECTIVES

Black Lady Goddess I feel it is incumbent on me to state that, for women, the past few months have been…shite. I was going to type something like ‘challenging’ or ‘disheartening’, but no. They’ve been roundly, thoroughly, shite.

The beginning of March of course saw the distressing news of the kidnap and murder of Sarah Everard. Events unfolded before us, a terrible drama which played out as we collectively held our breath and so, so, hoped that the outcome wouldn’t be what we feared it would be. But it was. We’d seen this one before, and we knew, deep down, what the conclusion would be. We knew.

Then, in the aftermath, a week bookended by International Women’s Day and Mothers’ Day saw the Reclaim These Streets event quashed and the Clapham Common vigil dissolve into chaos. Social media was a battlefield of pain and recrimination. And finally, like the rotting cherry on a cake you never wanted to eat, domestic violence statistics were released which showed the extent to which the problem has worsened over lockdown.

Back to Contents

Alycia Pirmohamed

These events, and all the others, are why we need feminism. And this is why we need books and films and events and discussions about feminism, because women need greater visibility in the arts, and we need our voices to be heard and acknowledged. Which is where Femspectives comes in. The Glasgow Feminist Film Festival is now in its third year, and appears to be gaining in strength and popularity as time goes on. This year sees the festival’s first foray into a digital-only format, due to restrictions caused by the pandemic. SNACK spoke with festival co-founder Lauren Clarke to find out a wee more about this year’s programme, and about Femspective’s aims in general.

The festival programme looks great. Which films are you most excited about showing, and why?

The programme has been such a joy to put together, even though it’s really tightly curated. We managed to cover a lot of ground with the films. We are super excited to screen Jane Arden’s iconic experimental film from 1972, The Other Side of the Underneath. We actually showed it at our first Femspectives event in 2018. Not only will it open the floor to a discussion about feminist cinema and the archive, but revisiting it will also give us the opportunity to look back at our festival history and forward to where we want to go.

The Euphoria of Being Film by Leona Skene Page 109

This is the festival’s first year of running an online programme. How was last year’s experience – was it very close to the beginning of the first lockdown? How have you found the move to digital-only?

Last year we managed to scrape in right before the pandemic – about a month before everything went into lockdown. Once the restrictions came into place, we quickly developed an online film club to create an engaging space for feminist film viewing and participatory discussions. We ran the film club for several months and it was clear to us that there is an appetite for the kinds of films we love to programme, as well as having conversations. Deciding to take our third festival entirely online was a no-brainer. Of course, we miss sharing space with our audiences and online film exhibition comes with its own set of challenges. That said, going online opened up other possibilities and meant more people can now join our events beyond Glasgow and even Scotland.

There’s a real breadth of performance and genre at the festival. How does the process of selection work? Is there a list of strict criteria that you work from, or do you just look for a good fit in general?

Because we knew we would have a very small programme for this year’s festival, we decided early on to have a central theme that would allow us to programme a variety of films, but to make sure they are all connected and in dialogue with one another.

Our theme for the Online Festival Weekender is DREAMING, in the widest sense of the word. We wanted to find films that would encourage us to look back, examine the present, and think about the future and how we move forward. We also used the opportunity to reflect on the past of the festival and dream about how we want Femspectives to grow in the future. Working with guest curators and expanding the team are all aspects of this kind of dreaming.

Back to Contents

Your mission statement is very clear about the festival’s aims and purpose. How did you and the festival organisers go about deciding on and setting out these goals – was there a lot of brainstorming involved?

We, the festival producers, revised our mission statement in the summer of 2020, both to be transparent about what we hope to achieve with Femspectives, but also as a promise of accountability. The process was supported by our fantastic advisory board.

We see our mission statement very much as a living document that will grow with our organisation along the way. Some of our aims and purposes won’t be achieved overnight, but saying them out loud reminds us of what we are working towards.

Other Side of the Underneath

Film by Leona Skene Page 111

This year Femspectives has two guest curators, Tanatsei Gambura and Ane Lopez. How did you go about finding these curators, and what do you think their input will bring to the festival?

We have been following both Tanatsei’s and Ane’s work for a while, and we are very excited that they both accepted our invitation to join Femspectives as guest curators. We met Tanatsei when she was a programmer with Take One Action Film Festivals. As part of that role, she programmed an event for our online film club last year. Both Tanatsei and Ane are very experienced and have worked with a variety of organisations and film festivals in the past.

Each brings their unique lived experiences and perspectives, which is reflected in the films they choose to programme. It is exciting to see the festival team grow and have more voices represented in the programme. We hope that working with Tanatsei and Ane this year is only the beginning of this journey.

There’s a real emphasis on the festival as a safe space for marginalised people, and it feels as if this aspect, and the discussions which follow the film screenings, are as important as the films themselves. Is this something that’s fundamental to the festival?

Absolutely. Creating a space in which everybody is welcome and feels comfortable to contribute in whatever way they like is very important for us.

As such, we put a big emphasis on our participatory and non-hierarchical audience discussions.

As a feminist film festival, we want to be accessible to anyone regardless of their pre-existing knowledge about film or politics. That doesn’t mean that we shy away from sometimes challenging films and topics, but we want to create a space in which we can ask questions without judgement. We are inclusive of Back to Contents

all gender identities, try to reduce barriers through a variety of access measures such as sliding scale tickets, and do our best to make films and discussions accessible through subtitling and captioning.

Finally, what are the plans for next year’s Femspectives, so far anyway? 2020’s festival was held at Civic House – will you be looking for a physical venue once again, or are you thinking of keeping any part of the festival online?

We can’t give away too much yet, but we are working on an event series later in the year that will hopefully combine online events with screenings in physical venues. Of course, we have to wait and see what restrictions will be in place then. For next year and Edition 4 of the festival, we hope very much to return to a physical venue. That said, we really came to value the benefits of online events over the last 12 months, so we might see hybrid festivals stick around for longer!

The Femspectives Online Festival Weekender runs from 23rd till 25th April. Tickets are priced on a sliding scale from free to £8, on a paywhat-you-can basis. More information is available at femspectives.com

Comets Film by Leona Skene Page 113

FILM

A PERFORMANCE FOR THE DEVILS

A PERFORMANCE FOR THE DEVILS

Back to Contents

As a mid-teen I discovered my two favourite British films.

Performance shocked and enraptured me from the first viewing, whereas it took many years for The Devils to have its mind-blowing effect. Interestingly both films were made within a few years of each other: Performance in 1968 and The Devils in 1971. The latter is without doubt one of the most controversial movies ever made, and every print of the film was cut until missing footage was discovered some years ago.

This missing footage is one of the most notorious scenes in film history, and is called ‘the rape of Christ’. It features hysterical nuns removing an effigy of Christ from the wall and making love to it. No wonder the film has the reputation it does. I fortuitously came across a download (not that I’m in favour of such things, but needs must) from a friend that features that scene cut back into the film. With or without it the movie pushes boundaries, and even now is still shocking, deep, intelligent and thought-provoking. Performance hits a lot of the same notes, and both marry style to substance in a way that arguably places them high in the rankings of great films, and high on my personal list.

Performance plants you right in the midst of swinging late-sixties London, and foreshadows the end of the hippie dream with a nightmarish feel. Despite this, the film is a record of a time and place that is second-to-none. The experimental and mythic feeling of that decade, which I and many others grew up hearing about from the older generation as if it was a new dawn in civilization, is reflected in its ground-breaking editing style and visuals. The film was a collaboration between two directors, Nicolas Roeg and Donald Cammell. Roeg would become one of the great British innovators of Film by Jamie Wills Page 117

cinema, directing movies such as the haunting artistic triumph Don’t Look Now and the 1990 version of Roald Dahl’s The Witches, which haunted my dreams as a kid. Cammell would make a few films of merit, but is more known as a master emotional manipulator, testified

by Keith Richards in his book Life.

Richards got to know Cammell through two of the stars of Performance, Mick Jagger and his then-girlfriend Anita Pallenberg, whose introduction to the film’s world is a realistic sex scene. So realistic, it is said in legend, that Richards became angry and went right out and slept with Jagger’s then-girlfriend, Marianne Faithfull.

The movie is much more than just a footnote in the story of The Rolling Stones; it is a deconstruction of the idea of art and performance, and the insanity that can go with both.

Londoner Chas (James Fox) is an up-and-coming gangster in a crime syndicate, and when a job goes wrong he has to hide out in the flat of bohemian musician Turner (Jagger). He takes psychedelic drugs and lives out an intense trip, wherein the walls of reality become hazy. Many who take psychedelics don’t come back, and according to the film’s lore, Cox took the drugs for real, and never did again in Polystyrene: I Am A Cliche real life.

Back to Contents

Parts of the first half and almost the entirety of the second are a fever dream of surreal visuals with peaceful lulls, like the experience of a trip.

There is experimentation with different film stocks, such as 16mm, and naturalistic performances (Jagger basically plays himself). Editingwise there is use of jump cuts, a technique still in its infancy, and scenes that bring in moments which connect to altogether different parts of the film’s story, to startling visual effect. The effect of jumbling up a narrative in this manner is reflective of Roeg’s philosophy on making movies. He made them so that they would not be straightforward, but haphazard, like the contents of the characters' minds.

To combine all of these elements imbues Performance with a mesmeric power, which for the time was groundbreaking. To the more cynical viewer this may seem pretentious, but to me the communication of psychedelia and the descent into insanity on film has never been so potently conveyed.

Film by Jamie Wills Page 119

The soundtrack, as you would expect considering who is involved in the film, is outstanding. Atmospheric cuts from Ry Cooder and Randy Newman sit alongside Jagger originals, none more searing and gut-wrenching than the song ‘Memo From Turner’, which scores one of the most intensely surreal sequences of the film. A filmic record of the end of perhaps the most important decade in music, art and humanity, Performance documents its decline with true immersion and intelligence.

Performance was made in 1968, and was so controversial in previews, reportedly making one woman vomit, that it was shelved until 1970 and released heavily cut. Only in later years did the film receive the reappraisal it deserves, and was restored to its original form. A year later a film would be made that would eclipse Performance in controversy and notoriety, and is every bit as brilliant: Ken Russell’s The Devils.

Russell had previously worked as a television director, but by 1970 had begun to find his voice with the movies Women In Love and The Music Lovers. The former scored major Oscar success and broke boundaries with its naked male wrestling scene, while the latter left room for the bizarre nature of Russell’s style and his knack for incredible visuals. With The Devils these aspects of his style are elevated to artistic heights, and highlight him as one of the great visionary directors.

Looking at this film now, I think it is one of the monumental achievements of cinema. Dismissed and tarred with the brush of blasphemy at the time, it reveals much about the human condition Back to Contents

and the repressive nature of religion. The film is anything but subtle in portraying these ideas. Naked nuns vomit breast milk, Oliver Reed’s priest is burned at the stake and the Mother Superior (played

by Vanessa Redgrave, no less) sexually fantasises about Reed as a Christ-like figure; and these are just a few of the still-shocking images from the film.

Father Urbain Grandier (Reed) is the priest of a city called Loudun, situated in the south of France during the late 17th century. Cardinal Richelieu wishes to raze the city to the ground, whereas Grandier seeks to protect it. Richelieu hatches a disgraceful plan: to threaten the nuns in the town with death unless they pretend Grandier has possessed them.

Film by Martin Sandison Page 121

Based on real events and the 1958 Aldous Huxley novel The Devils of Loudun, Russell presents a surreal yet convincing world, a dream-like version of this time in history. Performances, emotions and visuals are heightened and every shot is meticulously lit and arranged, drawing the viewer in. Despite not having seen many of Oliver Reed’s films, his performance here is one of my favourites.

A philandering priest who has high ideals but has done no wrong, the journey of Grandier is magnificently conveyed, especially when he is tried in a farcical court. Reed’s emotive ability is mesmerising.

Vanessa Redgrave matches Reed at every turn, with a truly manic and twisted performance. The film’s final shot, Redgrave walking away from the scene of Reed being burned at the stake, is one of my favourite images in film history; once seen, never forgotten.

Back to Contents

The Devils is arguably one of the bravest commentaries on the nature of religion in the history of art. Russell himself said the film is about how the principles of religion had been degraded, and he himself was a Catholic until his death in 2011. My personal framing of picture leans towards the repressive nature of religion. To make such a film at the beginning of the 1970s, when the sexual freedom of the previous decade had faded and there was a return to conservatism in Britain, means Russell must be congratulated. Something he was not at the time by the Catholic church and the BBFC censors.

Thanks to the tireless efforts of national institution Mark Kermode, The Devils has been reappraised in recent years and the missing footage discovered, with many calling it a landmark in British cinema.

For me and many others, Performance is just as important, and I hope you readers will be inspired to check them out. Don’t expect easy viewing – but then, most film-as-art is not meant to be.

Film by Martin Sandison Page 123

LGBT+

THE (NOT) GAY MOVIE CLUB HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH FILM FEST

BIG BUSINESS Back to Contents

From Twins to the various incarnations of The Parent Trap, twins and their hilarious escapades have never failed to inspire Hollywood filmmakers. Just look at The Shining. And there are few examples as convoluted, camp and kitsch as Big Business.

My appreciation of this 1988 farce is relatively new, but its stars are quintessential Hollywood juggernauts, with whom I am very familiar.

Bette Midler, the Divine Miss M, is one of pop culture’s most enduring gay icons. She is bawdy, her talent is immense, and every role she plays – even her offscreen persona – exudes unflappable confidence and joy. Lily Tomlin, meanwhile, has enjoyed a great resurgence because of Grace and Frankie, but has been a trailblazing comic actor and activist for nearly 60 years. Big Business currently enjoys three stars on iMDB, which is frankly quite surprising – we expected it to be lower. Just when we were worried our discerning collection of movies was becoming too highbrow and, as one of our particular characters would say, highfalutin, it felt right to welcome Big Business into the Not Gay Movie Club.

Can you believe that two sets of identical twins could have the misfortune of being born and mixed up by the same inebriated nurse in the same hospital? Some people have no luck. This terrible confusion occurs in a backwoods town called Jupiter Hollow, and thus we are presented with Midler and Tomlin as two pairs of twins, Sadie and Rose, who each grow up with the wrong sister. The ‘business’ portion of the film, and indeed the closest thing we have to a plot other than the twin switch, is that the Shelton sisters (the city slickers) are co-chairwomen of a huge conglomerate in New York City. When the treacherous Sadie decides to liquidate her company’s furniture LGBT+ by Jonny Stone Page 127

factory in Jupiter Hollow, Sadie and Rose Ratliff – the hicks – come to New York to confront her at the stockholders’ meeting, unaware they are meeting their identical twins. Confused? Just roll with it and bask in the glory of Midler and Tomlin delivering excellently stupid performances in what is an ultimately stupid film.

The script is…serviceable. As cheesy 80s comedies go, it delivers laughs, but I wonder if this is thanks to the succinct comic timing of the film’s leads and their ability to elevate a so-so script. But there are moments of glory throughout, when the labyrinthine plot unravels and chaos ensues. The most iconic moment, of course, is the reveal, when each set of twins discovers the other in the ladies’ room. What emerges is nothing short of performance art: Bette Midler, in a white polka dot power suit, is confronted with her twin but assumes she is looking at her reflection, and shimmies to check what she is seeing.

One watch and you will never pass the bathroom mirror the same again.

Back to Contents

The costumes are stupendous, capturing the essence of brash, audacious 80s power-dressing – gargantuan shoulders, asymmetric hair – with outfits usually reserved for a Drag Race hillbilly acting challenge. Midler, naturally, is afforded the lion’s share of the best outfits, especially the scene in which creepy businessman Fabio takes her out and she wears a marvellous gown, incidentally foreshadowing her stint in Hello Dolly decades later. But Big Business feels like a time capsule (those looking for an elegant film of restraint and taste should perhaps look elsewhere) and this is felt most prominently in the hair and costuming.

LGBT+ by Jonny Stone Page 129

The duo have good chemistry, but Midler and Tomlin shine individually. The audience is treated to two stellar comedic talents who are clearly in their element; there are plentiful secondary characters, but justifiably they pale in comparison to our leading ladies. Playing both sides of the same coin allows each actor to portray their most vulnerable and most brash dynamics in equal measure. At times it feels like you just want each to play their bolshy counterpart for the whole film, as it is simply so joyous to witness, but Midler and Tomlin allow the softer characters to shine in more subtle ways. In particular, Lily as Sadie Ratliff is an inspiring tour de force – a community activist, unafraid to take on a challenge many consider to be above her station, and ultimately a social justice champion. If ever there was a spin off, I know who I’d want to see more of.

So, what qualifies Big Business to join the illustrious ranks of our glorious, pseudo-gay gems? The plot is, of course, ridiculously camp, and our leading ladies deliver their performances with full ham. Midler and Tomlin are gay icons extraordinaire, so their very inclusion in the film merits Big Business’ place on our list. But there are gay characters in the film, which is a surprising oddity in our choices so far. However, they are handled with remarkable taste and care for 1988. We have two charming gay men, Chuck and Graham, who are seen sharing a bedroom and aren’t crude caricatures. A character asks if the kimono Chuck is wearing was bought in ‘[Viet]Nam,’ to which he responds, ‘No. Fire Island.’ Yes, our bar for meaningful representation is (justifiably) low, but in a film like Big Business it comes as a welcome surprise to see restraint where it is deserved.

Back to Contents

Is there a message to Big Business, other than ensuring your midwife isn’t drunk enough to confuse your child with someone else’s? I don’t believe so, nor should there be. We are treated to two of comedy’s finest performers delivering low-stakes, high-camp shenanigans, and that should be enough for us. In a pinch, one could argue that each sister, in their own way, is desperate to belong, a feeling LGBTQ+ audiences can always relate to, and their journeys to achieve selfacceptance are inexplicably complex.

We’ve arguably all felt like Tomlin’s country persona, desperate for bigger and better things, to be seen, to excel. And it’s also easy to identify with Bette’s portrayal of the down-home, country bumpkin twin, vulnerable and sensitive to the fast-paced world around her.

But we welcome Big Business into the Not Gay Movie Club and urge you to enjoy the film for what it is – a high camp comedy of errors, with two iconic performers delivering what they do best.

Oh, and the shoulder pads. You couldn’t overlook them, even if you tried.

LGBT+ by Jonny Stone Page 131

HUMAN RIGHTS FILM FESTIVAL

Unapologetic Much can change in the space of 30 years, and few organisations will have seen the highs and lows of the fight for social justice quite like Human Rights Watch have. The Human Rights Watch Film Festival (HRWFF) celebrates its third decade of showcasing films that present human rights violations in its purest form, facilitating a space for courageous individuals to ‘empower audiences with the knowledge that personal commitment can make a difference.’ HRW has defended people at risk by investigating abuses scrupulously, exposing facts, and relentlessly pressing those in power for change that respects rights; its celebrated film festival is an extension of this work, and this year powerful films are screening in over 20 cities across the world.

Back to Contents

The programme is rich in compelling stories from around the world, but SNACK’s personal picks, Unapologetic and I am Samuel, epitomise the messages of passion and perseverance at the heart of HRWFF.

UNAPOLOGETIC US director Ashley O’Shay’s blistering documentary is a profound and necessary story ripe for a country, and indeed a global, reckoning with racial injustice. O’Shay’s work focuses on illuminating marginalized voices and ​Unapologetic is her first venture into the feature world. Her invigorating documentary illuminates the love underpinning the anger and frustration that comes with being Black, queer women in the US, and elevates those who are most often leading the way while being denied the spotlight.

After two Black Chicago natives, Rekia Boyd and Laquan McDonald, are killed at the hands of the police, the Movement for Black Lives demands justice and organises to challenge an administration – specifically a police board led by Lori Lightfoot and a complicit city administration - complicit in violence against its residents. Unapologetic introduces the audience to Janaé Bonsu and Bella Bahhs, two young, passionate activist leaders whose upbringing and experiences have shaped their view of what liberation could and should look like. Their united vision is to achieve and sustain an expansive view of public safety that does not depend on the police, instead relying on communities to work together, especially promoting the leadership of women and femmes.

LGBT+ by Jonny Stone Page 133

Each woman has carved their own journey in activism, though their goals are ultimately similar, and their dream of sustaining an abolitionist programme of safety without police intervention is essential at a time when racially motivated violence persists. A glimpse into the jarring inequalities and tragedies of Chicago’s justice system is illuminating for a non-US audience. Each group we meet dedicates such time and energy holding officials accountable for acts of violence and murders of Black citizens; there are countless names presented in the film’s closing credits, amplifying the scale of the city’s (as well as the country at large) systemic racism. Bella, a powerful and inspiring public speaker, leads the chant, 'Protect and serve, we are the police! We're taking back our community!'

Unapologetic

Back to Contents

What is most glaring is the energy such work takes, and the toll this takes on those who make groups like Black Youth Project 100 as successful as they are. Janaé and Bella are relentless in their respective missions, but the toll their efforts take on their lives – balancing social lives, education, their spirituality – is staggering. While inspiring, seeing each woman juggle their lives around the incessant fight for equality is ultimately a harsh reminder of the sacrifice required to propel progress. Janaé balances the ivory tower of academia, toiling at her PhD proposal and navigating through dense academic discourse, while her zeal to organise within the Movement wanes as challenges and controversy strike the organisation, forcing her to reflect on the physical and mental toll of leadership. We see that activism, especially on a grassroots level, is not optional, rather a necessary vocation, but it all comes at a price.

Kush, one of the activists we meet, contends, 'If Black, queer, feminist people are not free, nobody else is going to be free.' This statement is a clear reminder of collective responsibility, that in our community no one deserves to be left behind, and we all have a role to play in making life safe and fruitful for everyone. Unapologetic is bold, alarming and uplifting.

LGBT+ by Jonny Stone Page 135

I AM SAMUEL “I can’t really be myself. It’s like they’re seeing just half of who I am.”

So many of us has felt this sentiment described by Alex, the partner of the film’s eponymous subject, but not all of us have experienced this feeling in the ways Samuel and Alex have, navigating their love in such a hostile environment. Samuel, a gay man, balances duty to his family with his love for Alex in Kenya, where their love is criminalised.

I am Samuel is Peter Murimi’s feature directorial debut, filmed verité style for five years in his home country of Kenya.

Samuel has grown up on a farm in the Kenyan countryside, where tradition is valued above all else. He moves to Nairobi in search of a new life, where he finds a community of fellow queer men where he meets and falls in love with Alex. Their love thrives even though Kenyan laws criminalize anyone who identifies as LGBTQ, and together they face threats of violence and rejection. Samuel’s father, a preacher at the local church, doesn’t understand why his son is not yet married and Samuel must navigate the very real risk that being truthful to who he is may cost him his family’s acceptance.

I am Samuel Back to Contents

The country has notorious legislation against the protection of LGBTQ citizens, and this year has seen homophobic and genderbased violence increase as a result of COVID-19. According to the Gay and Lesbian Coalition of Kenya (GALCK), they have been receiving and responding to up to ten attacks per month on the LGBTQ community during the pandemic, and while the Kenyan government raised an alarm on increased cases of gender-basedviolence in the earlier stages of lockdown, they offered no targeted support for LGBTQ people.

It is so powerful to see individual stories like Samuel’s onscreen, yet one must remember there are countless queer Kenyans living in fear and physical harm. In the film’s opening scenes, we see a friend of Samuel’s being stripped and beaten mercilessly because he is gay.

Brutal and difficult to watch, this scene serves as a harsh reminder of the violence LGBTQ Kenyans face.

However, Murimi skilfully balances the hard-hitting elements of the film with light and joy. Some of my favourite moments occur when we see Samuel and Alex with their tight circle of friends, fellow queer men living life as authentically as they can within a system of oppression. But they exude joy when they’re all together; their house parties are raucous, full of bitchy chat and dancing. It reminds me of the importance of chosen family, and there is a poignancy to seeing the men together when we haven’t been able to see our own this year. And when we see first-hand the danger in which these men find themselves – one of Samuel’s friends is brutally beaten and shows his injuries – seeing them together, thriving in the only space they have for themselves, is quite emotional.

LGBT+ by Jonny Stone Page 137

What is notable, however, is how detached Samuel can be from the group at times. He often gravitates towards doing the cooking or washing the dishes while Alex is in the thick of the festivities, perhaps reluctant to engage completely.

The film is heart-breaking at many moments but it is also moving, with a sense of optimism; love triumphs, in whatever way it can, against adversity. Seeing Samuel and Alex exchange vows at their tiny engagement party would bring a tear to even the most cynical among us. I am Samuel is a bold, emotionally resonant documentary, a presentation of contrasting identities and values, courage and, ultimately, love.

Human Rights Watch Festival UK+Ireland 2021 ran online from 18th till 26th March and continues on Mubi with 11 of their favorite films, from 25 years of the festival, free for a limited time

Back to Contents

YOU CAN

FOLLOW

US @snackmag

snackmag.co.uk hello@snackpublishing.com 0141 632 4641

LGBT+ by Jonny Stone Page 139

FOOD &

DRINK

RECIPES VEGAN SPAG BOL CUSTARD CREAMS ONE MAN'S TREASURE

VEGAN SPAG BOL

Back to Contents

This vegan spaghetti bolognese replaces the meat with lentils, carrots, mushrooms, and walnuts and will serve six to eight, or possibly even more, depending on how much spaghetti you use. Any unused portions can be safely placed in Tupperware then refrigerated or frozen. As long as the container is air-tight then it should still be good to eat five days later.

INGREDIENTS ▌ 50g walnuts, crushed ▌ 2 tbsp olive oil ▌ 1 onion, diced ▌ 1 medium carrot, diced ▌ 1 punnet of mushrooms (250g) ▌ 2 cloves of garlic, minced ▌ 1 tablespoon chopped rosemary ▌ 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar ▌ 1 tbsp umami seasoning (preferably Yondu vegetable umami or miso paste) ▌ 1 can chopped tomatoes ▌ 2 cans of green lentils ▌ 1 tbsp tomato paste ▌ A small packet of cherry tomatoes (250g) ▌ Spaghetti – use your own discretion based on how many meals you’d like to make but aim for about 70g per serving ▌ Basil leaves ▌ Crushed red peppercorns Food and Drink by Mark & Emma, Foodie Explorers Page 143

METHOD ▌ Rinse and drain the lentils. ▌ Heat the oil in a large pot over medium heat. ▌ Add the onion and carrot then cook for around 3 minutes. ▌ Slice then add the mushrooms and continue to cook until the carrots are soft. ▌ Add chopped rosemary and crushed walnuts, then stir together. ▌ Add the garlic, balsamic vinegar, and the umami seasoning and give it another stir. ▌ Now add the tomatoes, lentils, tomato paste, and fresh cherry tomatoes, then stir again. ▌ Simmer the sauce for about 20 minutes, until it thickens. ▌ Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. ▌ Cook the pasta according to the instructions on the package. ▌ Drain and add the pasta to the pan with the sauce. ▌ Serve with fresh basil to provide an extra fresh taste, and crushed red peppercorns for added oomph, and if you have vegan parmesan, grate some on top to complete your meal.

Back to Contents

Food and Drink by Mark & Emma, Foodie Explorers Page 145

CUSTARD CREAMS

Back to Contents

How can you top a classic like the Empire biscuits recipe in last month‘s issue of SNACK? Well, we believe we have done just that with the famous custard cream, one of the most popular biscuits in the UK and Ireland.

This one reminds us of childhood and our first forays into trying to act like an adult by eating them with a sophisticated cup of tea, rather than a glass of Irn-Bru. So, for a nostalgic biscuit that tastes of custard and creamy icing, be sure to give these beauties a try. This recipe makes 25-30 biscuits.

INGREDIENTS For the biscuits: ▌ 225g soft butter ▌ 115g sugar ▌ 1 tbsp vanilla extract (or vanilla flavouring if you don’t have extract) ▌ 3 tbsp milk ▌ 340g plain flour, sieved ▌ 125g instant custard powder For the filling: ▌ 300g icing sugar ▌ 150g softened butter ▌ 2 tbsp instant custard powder ▌ 2 tsp vanilla extract (again use vanilla flavouring if you don’t have extract)

Food and Drink by Mark & Emma, Foodie Explorers Page 147

METHOD ▌ Preheat your oven to gas mark 4, 180ºC, fan 160ºC. ▌ Cream together the butter and sugar until they are fully mixed together. ▌ Mix in the vanilla extract and milk. ▌ Add the sieved flour and custard powder. ▌ Mix this all together until the ingredients produce a smooth dough. ▌ Wrap the dough in cling film and place into your fridge for about 20 mins to firm up - this makes it easier to cut the biscuits. ▌ Roll out the dough until it is the thickness of a biscuit slice (I.e. one slice + cream filling + one slice = a single biscuit). ▌ We found it easier to cut the dough in half here and then roll it out to cut the biscuit shapes. ▌ Being food geeks, we had a custard cream mould at home - you can get these and others (e.g. Bourbon and Jammie Dodgers) for a few quid from eBay. They will make your biscuits look the real deal but they aren’t absolutely necessary.

Back to Contents

▌ Cut the dough into custard cream biscuit shapes and place them onto a baking tray lined with baking paper. ▌ Bake in the oven, now keep an eye on them as they can burn quickly and you want to get them golden brown - this should take between five and ten minutes depending on the temperature of your oven. ▌ Remove the biscuits from the baking tray and leave to cool on a wire rack. ▌ Whilst the biscuits are cooling, you can make the filling. ▌ Cream together the icing sugar, butter, custard powder and vanilla extract until smooth. Once the biscuits are cool, spoon a teaspoon of the filling onto a slice of biscuit and then top with another biscuit slice. ▌ Repeat until all your biscuits are filled full of custardy tasting deliciousness and then serve. Keep the biscuits in an air-tight container, as they will go soft if you don’t, and they should keep for a few days.

Food and Drink by Mark & Emma, Foodie Explorers Page 149

ONE MAN'S TREASURE Back to Contents

To coin a phrase, 'one man's trash is another man's treasure'.

Or perhaps an alternative – when put in the vegan context – 'one man's meat is another man's poison', would be a good fit for some of my most recent adventures.

Throughout this month, I have been aiming to live by this mantra and have looked for new and ingenious ways to give things away and find or save things which otherwise may have been tossed out.

It seems I am not the only one who has taken on this way of life, and several apps have appeared to help us on our way to reducing and saving waste.

The best app I've found for giving anything away you don't want and discovering treasure yourself is OLIO. Well-named, its dictionary definition is 'a miscellaneous collection of things’. You may not have used this app, but if you have noticed an increase of bags left outside your apartment building, only to be quickly scuttled away by a grateful soul, then your neighbour certainly has.

OLIO is a tool for reducing waste; the app has separate sections for both food waste and non-edible items you can source for free, as well as a locally-made section full of craft and baked goods to buy.

If you download the app now, you will find such delights as clothing, books, shoes and toys, all listed by the distance from your house.

Much of the food is collected by its ‘Food Waste Heroes’ from local supermarkets and shops. This food would have been thrown away, but is now spread throughout the community. You can do your bit for the environment by saving some salad and even becoming a hero yourself.

Environment/vegan by Laura Woodland Page 151

So far, I have cleaned out my wardrobe, given away piles of books I wouldn't read again, collected a whole freezer load of sourdough and all the boxes I needed for a big move. It also came in handy when my food delivery accidentally gave me some food with dairy in it; I put it on OLIO and it was collected within an hour.

My subsequent discovery is an app I hope becomes even more popular. Too Good To Go is used by shops and restaurants to reduce their food waste but still cover the cost of the food itself. Usually priced are around the £4 mark but worth around £12, restaurants often list items as 'surprise bags', and you collect a mystery meal or bag of groceries. Unfortunately, there are fewer vegan options on there than I would like, so the possibilities are limited, and places with vegan options don't tend to separate them from non-vegan food. So far, I have only rescued a few boxes of vegetables. Hopefully more vegan businesses will join the movement in the future, as it's such a great initiative.

For those who have things you’d ideally like to sell, there are some new apps to help with this too. We Buy Books and Zifed are two which have sprung up for the books that you no longer want or need.

If you give them a go, I’d love to hear how you got on. For piles of clothes you've barely worn, then Vinted might be a perfect solution.

On here, you can list and buy second-hand clothing. It's a great way to find out-of-season clothes, save money and reduce your waste by not contributing to fast fashion. I've not had much success with listing anything, but in fairness, most of what I was listing were ‘going out’ clothes, which haven't been anyone's priority of late!

Back to Contents

It's been a great experience sharing and discovering these apps with the other people using them. Knowing that I’m helping the enviromnent and my community, as well as saving money, is a great perk. According to the OLIO app's analytics, I've shared with 31 people, saved five meals and over 800 litres of water, and made at least £30 in cold hard cash. I like to think that I've also created countless smiles.

If you try it, make sure to leave out the right bag. I had one OLIOer accidentally collect my rubbish – luckily she realised whilst she was still at my building!

Environment/vegan by Laura Woodland Page 153

REVIEW

TEENAGE FANCLUB TEEN CANTEEN SISTER JOHN ART D'ECCO BACHELOR OVER/AT GLASSMASTERER BOYS NOIZE PROBABLY FINLAY FLOCK OF DIMES SQUID THE GRACIOUS LOSERS SULKA KAPUTT RACHEL JACK STANLEY ODD INTO THE NEW HOW TO SURVIVE EVERYTHING

TEENAGE FANCLUB

TRACK BY TRACK ENDLESS ARCADE No band truly enjoys universal goodwill, but Teenage Fanclub come close. The announcement that a new Fannies record was on the way in 2020 was celebrated like a significant David Marshall penalty save. When that release date was put back to March and then April 2021, it was treated like a David Marshall butter-wristed effort at a thirty-yarder in Tel Aviv.

Back to Contents

Other than the occupants of the drummer’s stool, the band had managed to maintain the same line-up since 1989. The trio of Blake, McGinley and Love remained a reassuring, ever-present unit as the world changed around those of us who listened to A Catholic Education and Bandwagonesque devotedly in our school days. So in 2018, the news that Gerry Love was to leave bass and vocal duties cast massive doubt on whether the Bellshill veterans could continue to produce the same naturally harmonic pop magic they’d been riffing out for 30 years.

For those of us who matured along with the band, Love’s departure was a figurative size 11 in the squidgy bits that nobody needed.

Whether the Fannies could continue in their well-furrowed lane without diminishing into irrelevant dad rock wasn’t really a concern as, with the benefit of hindsight, the long-maturing arc of their output has been as natural as the maturing arc of an ageing spine/hairline/ dress size/erection.

The band’s lineup now includes Dave McGowan on bass rather than his previous keyboard and guitar duties and Euros Childs, formerly of Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci, on keyboards. As with previous record Here, the recording was done in Hamburg. And whether by design or serendipity, the writing credits are split right down the middle, with six tracks written by Blake and six by McGinley.

Music by Stephen McColgan Page 157

Opening track ‘Home’ might almost pass you by on first listen, despite being the longest song on the album. After repeated plays when it was a single, it has only grown in my estimation. As an opener, it sets out the record’s stall pretty effectively with the warm vintage amp rhythm guitar tones, a tempo best described as funky pedestrian, and the subtle chord movement in the chorus which balances a sweet optimism with suitably adult sadness.

There’s a lengthy solo section and outro reminiscent of classic nineties TFC song, ‘Gene Clark’. This seems particularly appropriate as the long-term influences on the band’s sound have arguably never been more front and centre, so you’ll need to excuse the forthcoming lists of artists used as unimaginative synonyms for adverbs. ‘Home’ absolutely radiates The Byrds, The Band, Neil Young, and images of well-curated record collections.

Title track ‘Endless Arcade’ is what happens if there’s a genetic splicing incident involving The Pastels and Stereolab. Euros Childs’ solo steals the show. If there’s a keyboard solo sweet spot somewhere between freakout and total restraint, it has just had its dictionary entry updated.

‘Warm Embrace’ is a charming, jangly chunk of Sixties-ness not entirely of different parentage to ‘Little Miss Strange’, the Noel Redding song on Jimi Hendrix’s Electric Ladyland. It was the first track anyone heard from this album, and there has been a trifling global problem in between, but ‘Everything is Falling Apart’ is still as class as when you heard it in 2019. ‘The Sun Won’t Shine on Me’ is a Back to Contents

Photo credit: Donald Milne

clever clash of elements that somehow works. For the first two minutes it’s an almost hymnal vocal harmony, singing rather self-depreciating sentiments in a waltz-time. The last minute is the same, but the stomp boxes are on. It feels like it shouldn’t work but the melody has the sort of rolling codas that lend to being sung whilst walking in diagonal vectors between the pub and home.

‘Come With Me’ has pleasing Delgados-like verses with a hint of Beach Boys in the chorus. The ever-changing second chorus line includes ‘together we’ll hide from reality, ‘together we’ll fly across the open sea’, ‘together we’ll slide into symmetry’ and ‘together we’ll ride to infinity’, all of which should be quite banal, but I find them quite romantic. Except the Buzz Lightyear one, which is just weird.

The guitar tones that form the bedrock of ‘In Our Dreams’ are a thing of beauty – moving from slightly overdriven to clear, ringing chimes oozing chorus and reverb.

Music by Stephen McColgan Page 159

Released as a single in January, ‘I’m More Inclined’ is a touching love song with a Motown drumbeat in the chorus and deceptively clever lyrics, playing off religious imagery with the human concepts of love and longing.

The consistent and fairly minimalist production leaves the songwriting completely exposed. For the most part, this plays into Blake and McGinley’s craftsman-like hands, but ‘The Future’ and ‘Living With You’ are both fairly unremarkable except for the particularly aquatic solo on the latter. Final track ‘Silent Song’ is a cinematic way to close any album. A headphones-on-ceiling-starer full of Syd Barrett-ish observations over a lazy tempo.

Whatever my expectations were, Endless Arcade exceeded them.

Should you worry about the 'dad rock' label? Absolutely not. Just as every nominative genre covers a qualitative spectrum ranging from bin juice to stardust, so does every dad and so does every rock, I’m sure.

Endless Arcade is available from 30th April on PeMa

Back to Contents

Music by Stephen McColgan Page 161

TEEN CANTEEN SINGLE: HOW WE MET (CHERRY PIE)

Good pop music can sparkle in any setting or surroundings. That’s one of the defining features of the frothy yet fantastic music we love. However, there is no getting away from the fact that at its best, pop music packs a powerful punch.

Be it the Wall of Sound, neon magic or a cavalcade of choruses, it’s the oomph that steals your heart and makes your eyes smile as tellingly as your mouth.

Teen Canteen, and more notably Carla J Easton in her solo ventures, are perfect examples of this. Their music always sounded better at its brightest, a technicolor scream cutting through the dull daze of mundane radio plays.

‘How We Met (Cherry Pie)’ is pleasing, pleasant; and it points the way for where the band and songwriter would travel in the coming years – it was originally planned for release in 2012. Whether it’s a casual introduction or nagging reminder, the single works, but it holds a promise of more.

‘How We Met (Cherry Pie)’ is released on 2nd April on Last Night From Glasgow/HIVE Words by Andy Reilly Photo credit: Dave Taylor

Back to Contents

SISTER JOHN SINGLE: HOW CAN I KEEP IT ALIVE

The Glasgow-based four-piece return with new single ‘How Can I Keep It Alive’, a luxurious mix of trippy Americana and lo-fi authenticity. Sister John are adept at placing you into the flower power decade with absolute ease whilst maintaining a contemporary slant and, thankfully, this track continues in the same vein. From its beginning, you are washed over with heavy-hearted yet soft-sounding lyrics, carried through expanding synths and rhythmic guitars, eventually to be released to a guitar solo fit for a convertible cruise along Route 66. This new addition of a synth throws in a welcome extra pinch of psychedelic flavour into the multi-instrumentalist melting pot of Amanda McKeown, Jonathan Lilley, Sophie Pragnell, and Heather Phillips. The highly symphonious group routinely tug at a well-balanced mix of J.J. Cale and Kurt Vile-like guitars, which create a perfectly sweet-toned partner to Amanda’s timeless vocals. With the new album I Am By Day out in May, it’ll be interesting to see what's in store from a band who clearly know how to consistently knock it out of the park.

‘How Can I Keep it Alive’ is out now via Late Night From Glasgow Words by Paul McTaggart

Email: review@snackmag.co.uk Page 163

ART d'ECCO ALBUM: IN STANDARD DEFINITION

Enigmatic Canadian art pop singer Art d'Ecco wears his bellbottoms as unashamedly as Jon Spencer, but approaches things from another angle.

Where Spencer kicks it in black, d'Ecco is a satin-clad androgynous diva. This is his concept album, celebrating celebrity culture in lieu of something real.

We're talking 70s and 80s retro here – it comes on like a Spider from Mars, but lands somewhere around a ZX Spectrum. The Blitz Kids are as much the aesthetic as the glam fixation. The album was even recorded on a fifty-yearold console, and the production from Colin Stewart is as slick and shiny as back issues of style magazines like The Face.

It creates a strange effect within the listener, a kind of disconnect – when one decade seems to be homaged and settles in, then another is brought in – this is especially true of 'Bird Of Prey', with its early 70s Bowie acoustic strum and early 80s Gary Numan synth. The anthemic 'TV God' has the audacity to merge an ABBA-style piano line with the euphoria of T Rex. This is bizarre at first, but then it all starts to make sense. If nostalgia is a way of engaging with the wider world in times of intense upheaval, why not mash it all together in a pop cocktail?

The best moments are the most assured. 'The Message' has a little malice to it, a glower amid the lasers. 'Head Rush', with its fat, heady bursts of saxophone, stompy drums, and layered 'woah oh oh' vocals, could almost be in danger of toppling off its platform heels into parody, were it not so lovingly performed: a mere strut from Slade and Bolan, but with a pinch of modern detachment.

Back to Contents

The instrumentals –'Channel 7 (Pilot Season)' and 'Channel 11 (Reruns)' – are beautiful, evoking the cinematic synth shimmer of Giorgio Moroder at his most febrile, or Kraftwerk circa The Man Machine.

Escapism is the main thrust of the album, a longing for days which never really existed, an airbrushing of history. It's eccentric as hell, a stadium-sized embrace of pop's past. Enormous fun, if you surrender to it.

In Standard Definition is out 23rd April, via Paper Bag Records Words by Lorna Irvine

Photography: Rene Passet

Email: review@snackmag.co.uk Page 165

BACHELOR SINGLE: STAY IN THE CAR

Palehound’s Ellen Kempner and Jay Som’s Melina Duterte coming together to form a collaborative project, Bachelor, is a pairing we absolutely welcome.

This month they announced their debut album, Doomin’ Sun, due out 28th May on Lucky Number, alongside the release of this brand new single ‘Stay in the Car’.

This track is irrefutably great. Inspired by the likes of the Pixies and the Breeders, ‘Stay in the Car’, hears the two artists combining their distinctive sounds. On a compelling bass-heavy track with adrenaline-fuelled guitar riffs, both artist’s vocals hold an innocence that is almost believable until you listen to the lust, rife amongst their real-life-inspired lyrics.

Kempner explained, ‘I wrote the lyrics to ‘Stay In the Car’ back in December of 2019 when I was in Florida for my partner’s top surgery. I had run out one afternoon, while he was healing post-op, to grab lunch for us and as I was gathering my stuff in the parking lot, a big car pulled up and this absolutely beautiful woman got out. She was dressed all in red, dripping with jewellery and had the most wild fiery mane I’d ever seen. She was yelling at the man behind the wheel asking him what he wanted from the store and I wished I was that man. I wanted to be a part of her life, her best friend, her driver, whatever she wanted me to be. I was completely mesmerized.’

Directed and edited by Haoyan of America, the music video combines vibrant colours, charity store kitsch and psychedelic digital effects to firmly Back to Contents

complement their indie lo-fi sound. Written and recorded in Topanga, California over the course of two weeks in January of 2020, pre-pandemic, Doomin’ Sun is a record steeped in friendship. ‘Stay in the Car’ is the perfect teaser for an album that has the potential to be an instant classic.

‘Stay in the Car’ is out now via Lucky Number Words by Aisha Fatunmbi-Randall

Photo credit: Tonje Thilesen Email: review@snackmag.co.uk Page 167

OVER/AT EP: FOLKS' SONGS

FOLKS' SONGS is a new EP from the world of Scottish trans music-making, created by OVER/AT – a project lovingly curated by composer Rufus Isabel Elliot. It includes three new songs from three Scotland-based trans, non-binary, or other gender-minority artists. The EP highlights the various ways in which trans, non-binary, and other gender-minority people can use their voices. It features musicians ranging from punk backgrounds to trad, and focuses on the beauty of untrained and unheard voices freeforming outside of social expectations.

The opening track, Malin Lewis’ 'Are We?' is earthy and grounded. It builds in intensity, and then fades as quickly as it began, feeling almost like a dream.

The polarising phrases 'I’m not who you think I am. I am who you think I am.' really gripped me and the statements lingered and alternated in my brain long after the end of the track.

Matthew Arthur Williams and Joel Cu’s 'ASKING' also utilises speech: 'You’re asking too many questions.' repeats over a rhythmic and driving yet ambient synth track. A sentiment that feels so immediately understandable for those who are gender non-conforming, trans, or marginalised. The need to explain yourself consistently is exhausting; the anxiety of entering new spaces and then having to do it all over again. Yet there is a comfort to this track, and it creates a feeling of being understood when overwhelmed; the boiling down of so many emotions into a single sentence.

Back to Contents

The first movement of Harry Josephine Giles and Vivien Holmes’ 'Out of Existence' is a lo-fi chaos of timbral ambiguity. It’s almost overwhelming to listen to over headphones. The fourth movement’s looping synth waltz reminds me of the surreal animations of those from as XPloshi, or Stanhatesyou – treading the line between comforting and familiar and uneasy, unstable, unsettling. There is something so powerful in embracing an aesthetic that is intentionally 'bad'.

The bonus track, Matthew Arthur Williams’ 'FEELS', seems almost like an uplifting palate cleanser, comparatively, and it’s beautiful. It makes me think of that feeling when you have spent the day outside when it’s sunny, and when you go in for a lie down for some reason you’re a little melancholy – perhaps because tomorrow won’t be as nice. It feels warmly nostalgic; the kind of nostalgia you can’t place to a particular moment, but which provides an overall feeling of blankety sonic comfort.

This EP is a vital snapshot of the simultaneous beauty and complexity of transness. The pieces both contrast each other, while complementing one another with an aesthetic coherence. It’s immensely genuine, refreshing, necessary, and intimate. I intend to relisten and reflect, and I highly recommend this compilation to all those with open ears and hearts.

FOLKS’ SONGS was released on 26th March on OVER/AT Words by Zakia Fawcett

Email: review@snackmag.co.uk Page 169

GLASSMASTERER SINGLE: TROUVAILLE

Lewis Bigham, aka Glassmasterer, has been producing music since 2016, dabbling in jazz, hip hop, folk and funk. He’s most at home, though, in his studio with his smorgasbord of electronic equipment, creating ambient electronic works. ‘Essaitchohnine II’ and ‘Remember Why You Started This, And Hold On To That Thought’ are particular favourites.

Back to Contents

Glasmasterer has the happy ability to create space with sound. His latest release ‘Trouvaille’ – which is French for ‘Lucky Find’ and hints at his inspiration – is a transportive piece of music that will ease you to a place of calm.

‘Trouvaille’ welcomes you with the warmth of a fuzzy Rhodes keyboard from the 70s. Add to that some smooth and spaced-out pads and a stripped-back breakbeat, which is constructed so sparsely that each individual component – such as layered hand-claps, finger clicks, scratches, glass bottles, and more – is awarded prominence, even amongst the synths and sparkling keys. It’s a light-hearted and upbeat piece of music that acts as a therapeutic moodenhancer.

On the B-side is the utterly brilliant ‘Twenty Red Kites’; the inspiration for which came from a friend’s visit to an arboretum, where he saw a flock of red kites emerge from the trees. With this majestic event in mind, it’s easy to appreciate this musical interpretation. Again, there’s an impressive use of the soundspace, with warping synths that pan from left to right around a twinkling key sequence. Echoes of notes drift off into the distance with the whooshing sound of the wind interspersed throughout, meaning you can bathe in the warmth and drift off with the wind through the trees. Beatless and dreamlike, there’s a depth of sound that Glassmasterer clearly has a knack for.

His chilled, ambient electronica provides a welcome respite from all of the white noise surrounding us on a daily basis. If you’re in need of a moment of pleasurable calm, then ‘Trouvaille’ is a must.

‘Trouvaille’ is available on the usual streaming platforms.

Words by Donald Shields Email: review@snackmag.co.uk Page 171

BOYS NOIZE SINGLES: RIDE OR DIE / U

Flexing not one but two new singles, respected DJ/producer Boys Noize delves deeper into experimental electronic music with this latest double release. Leading track ‘Ride Or Die’ sees the Grammy-nominated producer collaborate with singer Kelsey Lu and pianist Chilly Gonzales. Originally, the track was created to form part of an audio/visual NTF art piece auctioned off at Nifty Gateway.

The introduction captures immediate interest. A harpsichord sets the uneasy tone as Kelsey Lu’s vocals fluctuate in and out of distortion. Gently progressing through the track, Boys Noize allows the listener time to absorb the melancholy, emotive vocals before dropping an unexpected rapturous kick beat. Within seconds the soundscape of ‘Ride Or Die’ is transformed by the driving 140 bpm techno momentum, now channeling contrasting feelings of promise and hope.

The second track, ‘IU’, sees Boys Noize pair with dark RnB singer Corbin.

Although part of a timely release, ‘IU’ is sonically worlds away from the previous track – think Berlin techno scene. Corbin’s looped vocals depict a moody atmosphere before a punching techno beat overrides all inhibitions and transports you into an underground club.

‘Ride Or Die’ and ‘IU’ are out now on Boysnoize Records Words by Jo Dargie

Back to Contents

YOU CAN

FOLLOW

US @snackmag

snackmag.co.uk hello@snackpublishing.com 0141 632 4641

Email: review@snackmag.co.uk Page 173

PROBABLY FINLAY

SINGLE: THE UNQUIET GRAVE Edinburgh-based singer-songwriter Probably Finlay’s new release ‘The Unquiet Grave’ is an orchestral offering inspired by an old folk story. At just 18 years old, half-Scottish, half-Costa Rican Finlay Mayers Porras has already released an EP and a handful of singles within the last year, and this latest offering is a real step up for the young musician in terms of composition. Enlisting friends and family members to lend their talents on strings and brass to this recording, the end result is a delicate but impactful arrangement which enhances the storytelling of the song and complements the themes of love and loss perfectly.

While Finlay’s back catalogue of music is diverse and showcases his talents as a songwriter and musician across a variety of genres, ‘The Unquiet Grave’ is on another level. The single showcases his ability to write for a wider range of instruments, meaning the possibilities are endless in terms of what we can expect from him next. Set to study jazz at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, it will be interesting to see which direction his music takes over the coming years.

‘The Unquiet Grave’ is available to stream now Words by Lily Black

Back to Contents

Email: review@snackmag.co.uk Page 175

FLOCK OF DIMES ALBUM: HEAD OF ROSES

Jenn Wasner’s indie rock duo Wye Oak have been around for a number of years now, and their exquisitely arranged music has undoubtedly made an impact on the genre. Despite loving some of their tunes, especially those with layers of deep instrumentation, I find that they’re a bit hit-and-miss, and there is a lack of consistency in their long players. However, Wasner’s second solo album under the Flock Of Dimes banner sorts this inconsistency out beautifully, with a full sound and deep underlying themes.

A break-up album with a twist, Head of Roses is about dealing with a broken heart while at the same time breaking someone else’s. The raw, exposed-to-thebone elements of Wasner’s lyrics are complemented by a musical approach that runs the gamut from psychedelic rock through to wistful acoustic songs and piano ballads. Previously there was a clinical feel to much of her songwriting, which served the mathematical style of the music. It was all very elaborate in arrangement, but with not enough emotion for my taste. The songs in Head of Roses marry the musically complex nature of her earlier work with genuine feeling that just drips from the speakers.

Wasner’s voice is a thing of great range and beauty, and this may be the most potent use of it on record. Her vocals are treated and double-tracked at times, which integrates wonderfully with the musical accompaniment. From slabs of psychedelic guitar in ‘Price of Blue’ to bare synths in ‘Hard Way’, each song unfolds organically and with musicianship that is sympathetic to the melancholy themes of the album.

Back to Contents

Lyrically, the album is a massive step from the at times abstract quality of her earlier work: these lines have a confessional feel to them that never steps into narcissism, yet retains the mystery of a poet at work. I love lyrics that make me stop in my tracks: ‘And we’re all just wearing bodies / like a costume till we die’, from the track ‘Two’ does just that.

Some of the stripped-back songs on Head of Roses are a little too bare, and some instrumental passages are intentionally atonal, which can sit uneasily beside the musical fullness of other songs. Despite this, the majority of the album is a deeply felt and musically realised work that has my vote as the best Wasner has created.

Head of Roses is out now via Sub Pop Words by Martin Sandison

Email: review@snackmag.co.uk Page 177

SQUID

ALBUM: BRIGHT GREEN FIELD

Squid have caught the eyes and ears with singles and an EP, but a debut album is the time for bands to stand up and show their hand. Bright Green Field doesn’t deliver the fresh and breezy slice of summer pop that the title might suggest, but it’s a record of intensity and anger.

As you’d expect from a band that believes in the power of collective, there is a great deal going on. You aren’t going to connect with every trick or idea at first; some might pass you by forever. But there should be enough to keep you entertained and intrigued.

There are times when the vocals cut through in such a sneering and jarring manner that your mind will instantly flicker through recollections of great vocalists and bands from yesteryear. You could spend days unpicking the influences and similarities in Squid’s music, or you could also get over yourself and enjoy the record for what it is.

‘Paddling’ is a jabbing and incessant number, feeling nothing like it’s sixminute run time. The driving rhythm doesn’t allow much room for air, so allow yourself to be swept along. There’s a few plodding moments that might bring you down, but by the time of closer ‘Pamphlets’, you should be fired up and ready to let loose.

There’s a lot of bad words used to describe the music of Squid, such as jazz, funk and grooves, but forget all that. Bright Green Field is a hugely captivating collection that always finds it own path, even in unconventional ways. It’s challenging, but you don’t need everything handed to you on a plate; you’re not in the dinner hall anymore.

Bright Green Field is released on 7th May on Warp Records Words by Andy Reilly Back to Contents

Email: review@snackmag.co.uk Page 179

THE GRACIOUS LOSERS ALBUM: SIX ROAD ENDS

You find some people get too hung up on country music, possibly scarred from some of the undoubtedly terrible examples of the genre. You can’t write a musical style off because of the worst examples, though, and right here you see country music being taken in a wide range of directions. There’s enough gospel and soul peeking through the cracks to convince you that there’s plenty going on.

Six Road Ends is a really easy album to stick on and let wash over you. Sure, it’s not hugely original or innovative, but who needs that all the time? This is a comfortable and uplifting collection of songs, with plenty of hazy and bluesy sidesteps along the way. With a cast of qualified pals and hired hands on display, it’s the sort of record that will leave you pining for the return of live shows and a good night out.

Six Road Ends was released 25th March via Last Night From Glasgow Words by Andy Reilly

Back to Contents

SULKA

SINGLE: HOLLOW DAYS ‘Hollow Days’ is the latest single from recording project Sulka. Brought to you

by Glasgow’s Lucas Clasen, this highly endearing lo-fi number has a warm energy that soothes the soul. The most recent single from Sulka’s album Take Care, ‘Hollow Days’ drifts along a melodic stream of soft scuzz-rock. The woeful lyrics and Clasen’s gentle murmurs are paired alongside sweet guitar that lifts the song and emphasises the hopeful tone. On par with the aesthetic, Sulka self-produces, engineers and plays all of the instruments on his homemade recordings. This single comes after a string of animated tracks released from Take Care, which came out earlier this year, as part of Lost Map’s PostMap Club subscription service. The full album can be purchased on Bandcamp with the option of a limited edition cassette featuring illustrations and lyrics by Clasen himself.

‘Hollow Days’ is out now via Lost Map Records Words by Aisha Fatunmbi-Randall

Email: review@snackmag.co.uk Page 181

KAPUTT

SINGLE: MOVEMENT NOW

Kaputt, the Glasgow-based DIY sextet, are back with new single ‘Movement Now’. Post-punky and twisted, it’s a visceral and direct reaction to the willful intransigence and neglect of the guys (it's mostly guys, let’s be honest) that refuse to budge. Their sound on ‘Movement Now’ is a significant departure from previous album Carnage Hall’s B52s-and-Talking-Heads-togetherstepping-through-the-broken-jazz-carnage-of-a-destroyed-Sauchiehall-Street sound. It’s, almost unbelievably, more intense this time round. While the track is focused, taut and danceable, you get the feeling that it could gloriously unhinge, snap and spill when played live. Chrissy Barnacle’s saxophone lures and punctuates. The pre-chorus is cartoonish, and while the rhythmic repetition of the track’s title almost aims to trip up the listener, on further plays it acts as a wide-eyed respite.

The track touches on the growing authoritarianism of the Tories, especially their attitudes to refugees and immigration. This sense of quietly gathering fascism, like racist soap and hair in a plughole, is confronted in the song, as the listener is met with monotone vocals from Cal Donnelly, lend a sense of impending doom.

‘Movement Now’ is a macabre, punky, political banger which operates as an instruction, as your toe taps, ribs break, and your head bops.

'Movement Now' is out now via Upset The Rhythm Words by Dominic Cassidy

Back to Contents

RACHEL JACK EP: MAGAZINE GIRLS

Following on from her 2020 acoustic folk album The Calgary Tapes, Rachel Jack goes pure pop with her new EP Magazine Girls. Blending genres and departing from the folk-pop sound of her previous release, Jack manages to blend the energy with some pretty pertinent messages throughout the 4-track release.

The title song ‘Magazine Girls’, lays out the insecurities brought about by unrealistic beauty standards presented in the media, with lyrics like: ‘I wanna look like the girls in the magazine / but the girls in the magazine, don’t even look like the girls in the magazine’, and, ‘Is it any wonder we’re all so insecure…

Few role models to be seen in beauty magazines’.

The self-care theme continues, with ‘Warrior’ and ‘Stop’ confronting bullying and celebrating battles overcome. The final track, ‘For You’, is my personal favourite. Here Jack looks back with gratitude at the challenges she has faced, allowing her to see what she has achieved and where she came from.

The final track on the EP ‘For You’ was recently track of the week on BBC Radio Scotland’s Afternoon Show, so its been getting a good-sized audience.

It’s a hypnotic and energetic synth pop song, with infectious rhythms and lyrics showcasing Jack's songwriting and vocal ability. It was produced by Jack’s former classmate Dunt (Andrew Samson), who was ranked as one of Vic Galloway’s 25 Scottish artists to watch in 2021.

Everyone has had to grow, change and adapt over the last year. And that’s partly what makes this such an interesting release; in a way, it tells a common story of recent times. It's also a lot of fun.

Magazine Girls is out now Words by Ross Wilcock Email: review@snackmag.co.uk Page 183

STANLEY ODD ALBUM: STAY ODD

As hip-hop in the US suffers through an era of mumble rap from the likes of 6ix9ine and XXXTentacion, this side of the Atlantic is trailblazing ahead, routinely reminding us how great rap can actually be. To name only a few: Ireland’s got Kojaque, England’s got Loyle Carner, and Scotland… well, we’ve got Stanley Odd. Out on 12th April, STAY ODD is the fourth album from the hip-hop collective and their first for six years. It’s an absolute cracker. With the oomph of (almost) Run the Jewels-style beats, the album is saturated with raw cultural commentary put forth on the back of impressive lyrical flow by Dave Hook, aka MC Solareye, about the ‘oddities of the ordinary’.

Back to Contents

It kicks off with ‘FUWSH’ (F*** You We’re Still Here), a bold Slim Shadystyle middle finger to every critique the group has become bored of hearing.

And just as your curiosity has been stirred, you’re smacked in the face by ‘Night Rip’, filled with an array of catchy hooks supplied by Veronika Electronika to a backing of almost liquid drum ‘n’ bass.

Similarly, the likes of ‘Undo-Redo’, ‘Invisible Women’, and ‘Where They Lie’ continue to fill the album with energetic enthusiasm. When the group finally has the opportunity to grace the stage again, these tracks will make up what will be a memorable sweaty night.

Taking a breather with the more chilled-out ‘KILLSWITCH’, we touch upon the superlative gem of the album, showcasing Solareye at his intelligentlydelivered best. Lyrics like ‘council cut with a claymore / like Brexit you get what you pay for’ and swipes at the shameful incompetence of the establishment will leave your head bobbing in agreement, or at least they should. In perfect accompaniment comes an iconic music video, in which rhymes are delivered in front of a shutdown O2 ABC as Glasgow-based graffiti artist PANDA sprays his trademark Big Heid logo with the words ‘STAY ODD’.

Email: review@snackmag.co.uk Page 185

The energy is further ramped up by ‘Bill Oddy’, a track with lyrics both amusing and self-deprecating. From insertions of a Chewin’ the Fat skit to lines like ‘I’m not 2 Chainz / I’ve got two weans’, you’ll be left tickled.

To pick up on these quips and contextualise the album, ‘STAY ODD’ comes with it a 56-page book featuring curated artwork by talented Scottish illustrators, including Matt Sloe. ‘It’s a lyric book, it's a scrapbook; it showcases all the artwork, some video content, fan photos and – of course – the words and stories of the songs,’ says Solareye.

By creating an accurate reflection of our environment soundtracked by the voice of the underrepresented, the group consistently manages to add credibility to rap this side of the border. With 12 years under the belt, Stanley Odd (alongside Loki, Shogun, early Young Fathers, and, let's be fair, recently plenty of others) have completely deconstructed the idea that Scottish rap should be seen as cringe.

STAY ODD will be released on 12th of April via Handsome Tramp Records Words by Paul McTaggart Photo credit: Cameron-Brisbane

Back to Contents

YOU CAN

FOLLOW

US @snackmag

snackmag.co.uk hello@snackpublishing.com 0141 632 4641

Email: review@snackmag.co.uk Page 187

INTO THE NEW THEATRE

Photo Photo credit: Jassy Earlcredit: Redens Desrosiers 2020

As Real As Reality

Into the New is the graduate festival for the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland’s Contemporary Practice Programme. The event has returned for a digital installation of contemporary theatre performance, with ten RCS artists premiering their degree shows across four days.

Developing material under some of the most challenging circumstances artists and students have faced in our lifetimes deserves commendation in its own right, and unsurprisingly there's a common denominator of questioning life and inner acceptance running through these ten diverse presentations.

Back to Contents

From completely retreating from the outside world in Forest Wolfe’s ‘Under My Duvet (until further notice)’, which effectively highlights depression and intrusive thoughts, to Maria Monteiro’s visceral exploration of social media pressure and the cost of perceived perfection in ‘As Real As Reality’, the showcase retains the experimental. Boundaries are pushed, as you’d expect from contemporary performance, yet the wide lens of unifying themes keeps the avant-garde aspect accessible.

Jack MacMillan drives home recent life contrasts amidst a global pandemic with ‘Short/Long : Long/Short’. Juxtaposing footage from a 100-mile excursion with a friend with footage of Jack re-tracing the distance in a studio, it starkly highlights how journeys together create support and connection in turbulent times, while exploring the stagnancy that imposed restriction can create. The contrast between the vibrant banter of pals and Edinburgh landscapes with MacMillan repeatedly tracing a rectangular line laid in a plain space, reminiscent of a caged animal, is striking and will no doubt resonate with everyone.

Photo credit: Jassy Earl

Under My Duvet (until further notice)

Email: review@snackmag.co.uk Page 189

Beyond exploring the effects Covid-19 has had on us individually and as a society, another common theme is gender, which is a hot topic subject in the current socio-political climate. Indra Wilson’s ‘Till I Die’ sees her dressed like Drew Barrymore’s doomed Scream character, using the slasher genre to explore our fascination with male killers and what it means to be a victim. Weaving audio extracts from pop culture throughout, with the image of Ghostface embodying the real danger to females in every day relationships of control, Wilson successfully challenges sexism, sexuality and the male gaze with a warped comedic edge that becomes less funny as violence against women is brought sharply into focus.

Photo credit: Robert McFadzean

Till I Die

Back to Contents

Photo credit: Robert McFadzean

Mother's Milk Sally Charlton presents a study of female relationships with ‘Mother’s Milk’, exploring generational lineage and if we have control over what we remember and forget. A cluttered space sees a woman dress, undress, dance, and drink to a soundtrack of recorded conversations. These range in subject from ballet routines to teenage pregnancy, bouncing through time with a poignant personal timeline paralleling the wider cultural landscape, embodying how regret or tragedy can often see us trying to connect with those not present.

Holly Worton’s ‘6687’ piece conversely explores communication between friends, in a collaboration with Sam Worton. Beginning by assembling two trampolines, Holly and Sam exhaustively bounce through musical interludes and dialogue to deconstruct their relationship and shifting dynamics over the years. The transition from child to adult can encourage further internalisation of thought, and Holly cleverly utilises physical exhaustion to interrogate why we regress in conversation as we get older.

Email: review@snackmag.co.uk Page 191

Photo credit: Robert McFadzean

We're Not Really Strangers The sense of self, nature versus nurture, and reflective reminiscence take the focus of Rachel McLean’s ‘We’re Not Really Strangers’ as she looks into her own history to explore the sense of self and if this is affected by hidden issues within a community. A dimly-lit stage with a wall of portrait memories hosts a casually-dressed McLean, battling a war in her head, contemplating her relationship with herself over 21 years with poetic and challenging prose. She urges us to think about our own concept of self in a digital age of distraction, asking if we’ve taken the time to know the reflection staring back at us.

‘And When I Remember That I Have Forgotten’ is a celebratory exploration of nostalgia from Minnie Crook. Set against the backdrop of a family gathering featuring a “host with the most”, there’s a Phoenix Nights feeling here, as Minnie explores personal history and kinship, comparing them to collective recollection and questioning how much the individual can be subconsciously shaped by societal manoeuverings.

Back to Contents

Althea Young’s ‘Content Here’ will play with your eyes, as she explores dynamic objects in an hypnotic display interrogating the relationship between art, artists and materials. As. Inanimate objects take centre stage, yet are still infused with emotion. In stark contrast to Young’s dreamlike work, Miro Santeri’s nightmarish ‘The Unholy Knight’ combines old Finnish incantations, Scandinavian Black Metal and Arthurian legends. We follow a hooded character wandering through a bleak forest to reclaim something lost, meeting a host of folklore archetypes and questioning the perceived powers of magic.

If you don’t like dark atmospheres designed to disturb then this one isn’t for you, but if you’ve an interest in ancient mythology Santeri’s take could help you see the light.

It’s a staggering achievement for all involved, with the assortment of creative experimentations guaranteeing there’s something for everyone, and plenty more to take a chance on. If you’re not going to tentatively dip your toe into the new, given our current circumstances, then will you ever?

The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland's Into the New, 2021 took place online from 25th till 28th March Words by Lindsay Corr

Email: review@snackmag.co.uk Page 193

HOW TO SURVIVE EVERYTHING BOOK If any Scottish writer was going to tackle the task of writing a pandemic novel head-on, Ewan Morrison was always going to be among the favourites. Never one to shy away from a controversial or current topic, he has previously written about swinging (Swung), the complexities of capitalism (Tales From the Mall), sexual obsession (Distance) and communes, cults and the damage they cause (Close Your Eyes and Nina X).

His latest, How To Survive Everything (When There’s No One Left to Trust), is instantly recognisable as a Ewan Morrison novel, with a dark heart at its centre.

Teenager Haley Cooper Crowe is taken by her father to a remote and hidden location in what most people would call an abduction. This is not a spur-of-themoment idea, as ‘Dad’ has clearly been planning everything for some time, believing that there is only one way to survive another pandemic – his way.

Haley’s father has gathered a small group of committed acolytes to help the family survive, but there is still one person missing to complete this distinctly nonnuclear family. Dad’s detailed survival manual becomes the group’s sacred text, containing practical ways to cope if the worst does happen, as well as setting out just what that ‘worst’ could be. Haley has to sort fact from fiction to discover what is actually happening in the rest of the world, as opposed to her parent’s propaganda. With everyone’s situation changing on an almost daily basis, and relationships shifting constantly, she isn’t sure if she should stay and fight or take flight.

Back to Contents

How To Survive Everything is absolutely gripping from the start, but initially it’s not exactly an easy read. That’s partly because it all feels very close to home. While it would be interesting to re-read in the future, clearly the novel’s immediacy is a major reason for its impact and existence. Morrison refuses to sugarcoat the pill when setting out the potential extremes of a pandemic; his research into the subject is clear and thorough and therefore hard-hitting. But, as you read on, you realise that this is a novel which has family at its centre, and you can’t help but care about Haley’s as they discover what’s really important to them, and that some ties bind tighter than they may realise. As a result you reflect on what, and who, is important in your own life. It’s a novel to lend perspective, and that’s something that is increasingly welcome.

How To Survive Everything (When There’s No One Left to Trust) is out now published on the Contraband imprint of Saraband Books Words by Alistair Braidwood

Photo credit: Paul Harkins Email: review@snackmag.co.uk Page 195

♥+ve GAMING Taking time to look after yourself is always important, even when you’re not really doing anything – perhaps particularly when you're not doing anything. Some game developers have realised this, and have released a bundle on the indie game site itch.io, aptly named the Care Package Bundle.

The Care Package Bundle consists of seven games for around £5, so it’s an absolute steal. With these seven all being totally different genres and styles, there’s plenty for players to dig into. I talked to one of the developers, Cameron (@JustCamH on Twitter), who developed Adventure For A Bit, one of the games on the bundle. Cameron, a Physics student from Australia, has been working on games casually for about five years, putting out titles like Hole Punch, Verest, and Snek on Itch.

A big aspect of making games is the fluctuation of the scope and vision of the project as development rolls on; for me this is typified by huge amounts of cut content, in games like Bloodborne, and games which can’t live up to their own hype, as we saw recently with Cyberpunk 2077.

Cameron talked about keeping projects manageable being a big drive behind the bundle, from a developer point of view: ‘The scope of a project typically blows up as new ideas are created and so the development time frame just extends forever until you lose interest’. Cameron then explained the team’s solution to this problem: ‘We've been supporting each other, sharing our work and sharing encouragement. We were able to talk about our progress and ideas, and that helped keep everything in scope.’ It seems that a sense of belonging to a collective has helped the games come together, and an appropriate level of coordination and support has resulted in this successful package dedicated to the concept of self-care.

There didn’t seem to be a grand scheme in deciding who made what; a diverse group of developers, all with unique experiences and preferences, has resulted in a really interesting mix of titles. Cameron says: ‘There wasn't too much co-ordination in the genres. I knew I wanted to do something different, and the other devs did a great job finding their own unique angles!’ These angles are something really impressive to see in such a concise bundle. With only seven games on offer, having such a varied range is excellent.

Gaming by Dominic Cassidy Page 197

His game Adventure For A Bit is hard to put in a box. It’s heavily influenced by No Man’s Sky, but other than that it’s tricky to pin down.

It’s not quite a walking sim, as the story happens elsewhere, and it doesn’t have the same reliance on the actual procedural generation, as the exploration of the worlds being created is its own reward.

Cameron sums it up as being ‘about an AI who wants to create a perfect procedural world. The AI is named Bit, and you can play their creations and give feedback to help them learn and create something better.’ While the idea of rating and tailoring the worlds to your tastes is a nice mechanic, what Adventure For A Bit does particularly well is the sense of exploration and conversation. The loading screens are filled with chats with Bit, and through these conversations, you learn more and more about the friendly little AI. The writing in these loading screen conversations can be pretty good – it feels real, natural sounding, and layers gameplay where you wouldn’t normally expect to see any.

Adventure for a Bit Back to Contents

Lonely People Potion Shop The games in the Care Package Bundle are all wildly different from each other. You have the likes of HappBee, a cutesy 3D platformer developed by Sonicboomcolt, about a bee who's afraid of heights fighting mosquitoes. There’s also Magnum Opus X, developed

by ZIK, in which you ‘defend the world from negativity with your comically large gun,’ in a 2D platformer inspired by the pixel games of yesteryear, bouncing about the map whacking bad guys with your large piece.

A real standout is Lonely People Potion Shop, developed by Kultisti, a visual novel about being a witch in the woods making potions for different people. As with the other games in the bundle, this sees a big wave of positivity wash over you as you play. With pretty simple Cooking Mama-style gameplay, most of the story revolves around talking to your friends and customers; coming from a customer facing role, getting back to it in digital form was odd at first, but the game really lends itself to being embraced full on.

Gaming by Dominic Cassidy Page 199

Having some smaller, more manageable titles for me to work through while writing this has been super delightful – being able to put that grim, beige shooter, or the 300 hour JRPG to the side for a few hours, and just play some games specifically created around the idea of positivity. It’s been great to get into something where there really isn’t any stress and there are no monsters, no terrorists; just good vibes and cute games. The way that these games have been put together, and the care taken to make sure they succeed in their goal of embodying positivity, is really impressive.

Having something new to play has also been an absolute blessing.

My quest to buy a new console has proved to arduous, with delays coming thick and fast due to COVID. And it’s nice to see the real DIY devs fill the space left by the bigger teams. So take the time, treat yourself for the price of a coffee, and pick up some games you can just enjoy! There’s no badness, no stress, just seven games that are great fun to play. Do yourself a favour and cop it.

You can grab the Care Package Bundle on Itch.IO

Back to Contents

GIFT

VOUCHERS SHOP STUDENT & ARTONLINE GROUP DISCOUNTS

MAIL ORDER

LOCAL DELIVERIES CHECK IN ON OUR SOCIALS FOR NEWS ON SPECIAL OFFERS PLUS UPDATES ON THE BRICKS & MORTAR...

www.EdinburghArtShop.co.uk

.

Back to Contents

A Way Out Gaming by Dominic Cassidy Page 201

ADVERTISE

WITH

US snackmag.co.uk hello@snackpublishing.com 0141 632 4641