SNACK Magazine: February 2022 – Issue 36

SNACKMAG.CO.UK FREE FEBRUARY 2022

SCOTTISH OPERA PLUS: SAVAGE MANSION AILBHE NÍ BHRIAIN GRANITE NOIR + TOP SCOTTISH BOOKS FOR 2022

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

MUSIC | FILM | FOOD & DRINK | LGBT+ | BOOKS | COMEDY | THEATRE | VISUAL ART | WORDS

OPEN 7 DAYS

GIFT VOUCHERS

DISCOUNTS FOR STUDENTS ART GROUPS / CLUBS & YOUNG SCOT CARD HOLDERS

SHOP ONLINE 24/7

CLICK & COLLECT MAIL ORDER & LOCAL DELIVERIES snackmag.co.uk

www.EdinburghArtShop.co.uk @snackmag

ALL FILMS ALL DAY FROM £4.50

MACROBERT ARTS CENTRE UNIVERSITY OF STIRLING CAMPUS 01786 466 666

macrobertartscentre.org Macrobert Arts Centre is a registered Scottish company and charity. Company no: SC337763 | Charity no: SC039546

CONTENTS WHAT'S ON

P8

Independent Venue Week – SPECTRA – Paisley Book Festival Imogen Stirling – Air Leaking Through – D&G Arts Live

INTERVIEWS

P14

Scottish Opera: A Midsummer Night's Dream – Savage Mansion Granite Noir – Ailbhe Ní Bhriain

TEN SCOTTISH BOOKS FOR 2022

P28

FOOD & DRINK P34 Vegan Chilli Recipe

LGBT+ P36 The (Not) Gay Movie Club

REVIEW P38 Bonnie Tropical (Track by Track) – SNACK Bits – The People's City – Spyres Peter Cat – Alt-j – Metronomy – Pinc Wafer – Duncan Marquiss

WORDS P50 @snackmag

CREDITS Editor: Kenny Lavelle Sub Editor: Leona Skene Food and Drink Editors: Emma Mykytyn and Mark Murphy LGBT+ Editor: Jonny Stone What's On: Natalie Jayne Clark Design: Kenny Lavelle Sales: Philip Campbell Cover photo credit: James Glossop/Scottish Opera To advertise in SNACK hello@snackpublishing.com 0141 632 4641 SNACK is a supporter of the global Keychange movement.

Disclaimer: Snack Publishing Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

Hello and welcome to issue 36 of SNACK, After our short Omicron-enforced hiatus, we’re delighted to be back making lovely, physical, paper and ink magazines again. The world is starting to approach something that could, if only vaguely, be described as normality, with plans for gigs, plays, festivals, and general socialising tentatively being made all over the country. Hey, we even managed some in-person interviews for this month’s mag. So, we've got a packed, if slightly shorter than normal, issue full of art and events to get you back in the way of things – if that’s what you’re ready for. First up: check out our front cover feature interview with Catriona Hewitson, one of Scottish Opera’s Emerging Artists. She’s set to play Tytania in Scottish Opera’s re-stage/revival of Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and has a good bit to say about why opera can be for anyone – you can even watch it in your pyjamas. Elsewhere, we have Craig Angus and new Savage Mansion recruit Beth Chalmers in chatting about their ace new album, Golden Mountain, Here I Come, and a look forward to what we can expect from this year’s Granite Noir crime book festival.

On the subject of literature, don't forget to check out Alistair Braidwood's Top 10 Scottish Books for 2022. That's on page 28, and you'll be clearing your reading backlog, quicksmart – believe me.

As for the rest of the magazine? I'm sure you'll find your way around.

Kenny Lavelle Editor @snackmag

A spellbinding opera based on Shakespeare’s much-loved comedy Theatre Royal Glasgow 22 – 26 February 2022 Festival Theatre Edinburgh 1 – 5 March Book now scottishopera.org.uk

A MIDS UMMER NIGHT’S DREAM

Supported by The Alexander Gibson Circle Core funded by

Registered in Scotland Number SC037531 Scottish Charity Number SC019787

Britten

WHAT’S ON GUIDE INDEPENDENT VENUE WEEK

Various Locations: 31st January till 6th February Celebrating independent venues across the UK (with 14 in Scotland), there’s a cornucopia of ear candy to choose from. Room 2 is full of the blues on the Friday – be filled with the emotive smoky Land of Rubber Men, be moved by the hoodoo blues Black Cat Bones, be galvanised by the poignantly punky Tiara Filth. The Glad Café hosts the delightfully discordant Still House Plants and Comfort for a night. Broadcast will be serving Bob Log III, and one-man band, who always wears a full body cannonball suit with helmet, and always serves thrumming riffs. Find out more on their website.

SPECTRA Various Locations, Aberdeen: 10th till 13th February The grey granite city will literally never look prettier.

Each of the scintillating art exhibitions bring their own wow factor. TOGETHER, sponsored by the University of Aberdeen, coalesces sounds, videos, and stories into this celebration of memories, community, unity, and uniqueness.

If you want to feel the same existential wobble as an astronaut, check out Luke Jerram’s two displays.

GAIA is a glowing globe seven meters in diameter – portraying our planet in perfect 120dpi – and the looming MUSEUM OF THE MOON. Have you ever wanted to play giant six-foot glowing trumpet flowers? Now’s your chance. Not only will there be many other physical art installations besides these, there’s performance art and the online #CultureIsNotALuxury conference. The conference is for anyone interested in the role and value of the artist, activism, and community, concepts that are more relevant than ever. spectrafestival.co.uk

independentvenueweek.com

Together @snackmag

Photo credit: Jody Hartley

Photo credit: Amy Gwatkin

snackmag.co.uk

Still House Plants

THE ELEPHANT TREES Nice N Sleazy, Glasgow: 23rd February Martha’s vocals sweep dramatically over the bouncy grinding alt rock sounds in The Elephant Trees. Soft Lad’s musical insights are a microcosm of life’s great humour and tragedy. Soft Lad has been recently touring as part of Self Esteem, who’s album Prioritise Pleasure was voted The Guardian’s top album of 2021. Both sets of the evening will elevate you above the humdrum of the everyday.

Photo credit: Declan Creffeild

The Elephant Trees

LONGLIST

HELLO@SNACKMAG.CO.UK

ADVERTISE HERE

What’s on Page 9

PAISLEY BOOK FESTIVAL

IMOGEN STIRLING

Various locations, Paisley: 17th-26th February If you’ve ever had any inclination of being a writer, there’ll be a workshop for you at this fest: Elspeth Wilson is leading one on our connections to pop culture; Dr Tawnya Renelle is drawing out the personal with a memoir writing session; Gareth Williams and his team will be offering an interactive song-writing experience; Victoria McNulty (this year’s writer-in-residence) is drawing on the mythological and motifs of nature to explore our connections to Earth; and there are many more besides. The festival covers all kinds of literature celebration in the form of panels, readings, poetry performances, walks, and music.

The Old Hairdresser’s, Glasgow: 3rd March Imogen Stirling’s work bridges music, theatre, and spoken word. This event will celebrate the launch of her new poetry collection Love The Sinner. It will feature never-performed-before material from this collection, a Q&A with Imogen, a screening of a short film, plus performances from a range of special guests. Stirling’s enrapturing words and performance will have you forgetting your own name, and has been praised by the likes of Benjamin Zephaniah, Salena Godden, and Michael Pedersen.

Imogen Stirling

paisleybookfest.com

D&G ARTS LIVE

Victoria McNulty

Various locations, Dumfries & Galloway: 7th February till 16th April A Brief History of the Fragile Male Ego promises to deliver a cuttingly funny commentary on gender politics. This show, which has been reworked as a performance for the screen, comes from multiaward-winning Jordan & Skinner. The Big Data Show adds ‘gaming and digital magic’ to the performance about the story of a teenage hacker who showed on BBC news in the 80s how he could access and send emails from Prince Philip’s account. Check out the festival’s website to see their other events, spanning storytelling through puppetry, suitcases, and socks. dgartsfestival.org.uk

snackmag.co.uk

@snackmag

AIR LEAKING THROUGH The Beacon Tower, Edinburgh: 21st January till 13th March If you want to know what polyvocal means, then visit this sound installation. A collaborative affair, this art piece utilises nearby surroundings and their vibrations, along with an instructional score to traverse you through ideas of touch, familiarity, and imagination. A space for ‘listening and drifting’. edinburghsculpture.org/whats-on

CHANGING CONCEPTS

Photo credit: Martin Urmson

City Art Centre: 13th November 2021 till 13th March 2022 One of the world’s oldest art forms, weaving has a special place in our collective history and humanity.

It is just damn impressive in its labour intensiveness, intricacies, and planning. This exhibition will enhance your appreciation for weaving like never before. edinburghmuseums.org.uk/whats-on

RECORDS - CDS - DVDS NEW & SECONDHAND OTAGO LANE, GLASGOW MON-SAT 10-6

10% DISCOUNT IN STORE WITH THIS ADVERT WWW.MIXEDUPRECORDS.COM U SE C ODE : S N ACK 10 FO R 1 0% DIS CO UN T O N WE B S IT E ORD ERS

Henny Burnett, '365 Days of Plastic' (detail)

What’s on Page 11

EDINBURGH PRINTMAKERS

H-E-L-L-O

Castle Mills Studios: 21st January till 1st April You can find two startling exhibitions at Castle Mills Studios right now. Mohammad Barrangi’s Anything Is Possible incorporates traditional Persian calligraphy and storytelling with modern printmaking techniques and handmade paper.

Barrangi creates his work on the floor, utilising his feet and right hand – he was born without the use of his left arm – and embeds flecks of humour in his displays of people with disabilities and women he admires.

City Dome, Edinburgh: 22nd January till 1st May Cauleen Smith has taken the famous five-note musical motif from Stephen Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind and uses it as a starting place for a journey around New Orleans postHurricane Katrina. This video will be screened on a loop and conveys to the audience connections between landscape and history. collective-edinburgh.art/programme/ cauleen-smith

There is also Leena Nammari and Louise Ritchie’s joint endeavour Presence of Absence.

This exhibition conveys the combination of their respective art styles and experiences with the absence of home and what home signifies. edinburghprintmakers.co.uk

Cauleen Smith: H-E-L-L-O, 2014 HD film still, Courtesy of the Artist and Corbett vs Dempsey

SPRING @ DUNDEE REP

Leena Nammari: Absence Does not Mean Forgetting (detail 1)

snackmag.co.uk

Dundee Rep: 11th February till 25th May The Life and Times has transitioned from a digital experience to a hybrid one that you can watch at the theatre or at home. This dance show looks wonderfully nuts. They utilise wood on wheels to whirl across the stage and jerk and gurn to stringy staccato Baroque music. Optimism showcases their Young Company and is a panacea for our current bleak forecasts of the future. Jack Docherty, who plays Chief Commissioner Cameron Miekelson in Scot Squad, is touring his new brutally honest play Nothing But. Have a look for yourself to see what else they have on this season. dundeerep.co.uk/whats-on @snackmag

17 to 26 February 2022

Stories Mak Us

www.paisleybookfest.com

What’s on Page 13

Image Credit: Julie Howden

Catriona snackmag.co.uk Hewitson

@snackmag

SCOTTISH OPERA

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM When I meet Catriona Hewitson, one of Scottish Opera’s Emerging Artists, she’s just been rehearsing with some young artists herself. 'I’ve been working with the kids this morning, so it’s been a bit frantic,' she says cheerily. 'There's a bit where they all play instruments, including the recorder, and it is genuinely challenging music. They're doing a great job,' she adds.

Hewitson is currently in rehearsals for A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Scottish Opera’s production originally slated for March 2020 (but you can guess what happened next.) After a two year postponement, it opens in Glasgow in February before playing in Edinburgh at the beginning of March. Ahead of its opening, Hewitson, who’s playing Tytania, sits down to chat about the rehearsal process, the experience of going to the opera, and, most importantly, pyjamas.

Let’s start off with a little bit of background about how you ended up as an opera singer. What’s the story?

I have an older sister, and she did music before I did. She went to this school with a state-run specialist music department, which just so happened to be our local primary school. I auditioned, got in, and was in the music school from age five until nineteen. I’d decided that I wanted to be an orchestral violinist. Eventually, I think it was actually my violin teacher who said, ‘I think you'll end up being a singer. I think that's actually where your passion is.’ Opera has ended up ticking more boxes than I thought it would because I have a real love of musical theatre and classical music.

So it means I get to dance around, be silly on stage and wear fantastic costumes, and I get to make incredible music and marry the two together.

Theatre by Katie Smith Page 15

So you're one of the Emerging Artists. Imagine I’ve never heard of a young artist scheme – give me a bit of insight into what that's like.

Scottish Opera’s Emerging Artists programme is for people at the start of their career. It's a step into the professional world under the helpful guidance of Scottish Opera. It's a stepping stone but it's very much under their protection. They're looking after you and we get extra coaching and things like that.

Although it slightly changed in lockdown.

I bet!

It’s actually been incredible to do this kind of work during lockdown. It's meant that I've got bigger roles than I originally had set out for me, which has been great. And I've got online content that I can send to casting people and show them all the roles I've done, which is brilliant.

It sounds like it's been a very positive experience, which is a great thing as an artist during the pandemic.

What’s the process been like? Is it like restaging, or more like reviving the original?

It's been a mix and match of 'This is what we did originally' and 'But we don't necessarily have to do that.' I know that the direction has changed within scenes because different people have different energies. So it has been starting off from a place of revival, but we can write our own version of it because nobody saw the original.

Here’s a big one. Why should people go and see it?

I think it's a great show to come and see, especially if you are new to opera, because it's in English but there are still subtitles. It's a marriage of two geniuses, Britten and Shakespeare. And it's magical. It's got fairies in it. The orchestration is amazing. I just think it's going to look beautiful.

It's got a bit of everything: it's a comedy, but it's also bleak and it's got all of these different human stories in it. And there are lots of pyjamas.

Photo credit James Glossop . Scottish Opera 2020

I genuinely progressed. I can see that I've made quite big steps forward which is purely down to the staff that are here. And my own work – but I wouldn't have got there without their help.

How are rehearsals for Midsummer going?

They’re going really well. It's a bit of a funny one because, as with the play, you get people in their separate groups. I don't ever interact with the lovers. I don't interact with the mechanicals other than Bottom. We're all in our little pockets. So I don't know how anybody else is getting on! I wasn't in the original production, but we just have to get to next week and then we'll officially be farther than we were when they had to pull the plug last time.

So I'm keeping my fingers crossed that nothing goes awry in between.

snackmag.co.uk

Catriona Hewitson (Despina) in Cosi fan tutte

@snackmag

Photo credit Jane Barlow. Scottish Opera 2022

Michael Guest (Puck) in rehearsals for A Midsummer Night's Dream

The reason I ask is that, as somebody that enjoys opera, I sometimes find it difficult to convince people that it's for them. Where do you think that comes from?

I think it's twofold. Within the UK, opera is not an everyday activity. It's not like going to the cinema.

It’s just not part of people's everyday activities.

Whereas, for example, they have over a hundred opera houses across Germany; people go to the opera even in tiny little towns, because it's like going to the theatre or the cinema.

But I do also think that there is this elitism that is thought of, particularly with opera. Sometimes it's lovely to dress up and make it like an occasion, but it doesn't need to be. During lockdown, my friends and I watched a lot of operas online, and we made it a Friday night event. The first time we dressed up as if we were going to the 'opera dahling', and by the end of it we were just doing it in our pyjamas.

The point is, were you entertained? It's not about, 'Oh, well, I heard that E flat and what that means is…' We're in the entertainment industry – it is an art form, but it's entertainment, at the end of the day. It’s not about whether you have a degree in it or whether you've seen La bohème a thousand times – if we've done our job, you’re entertained, you have an experience, and you take something away from it.

Scottish Opera’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream will play Theatre Royal, Glasgow on 22nd, 24th, and 26th February and then the Festival Theatre, Edinburgh on 1st, 3rd, and 5th March scottishopera.org.uk

Theatre by Katie Smith Page 17

Photo credit: Mihaela Bodlovic

SAVAGE MANSION snackmag.co.uk

@snackmag

One of the most interesting Scottish bands of recent years, Savage Mansion, are back, but perhaps not as you remember them. SNACK caught up with Craig Angus (vocals and guitar) and Beth Chalmers (keyboards) to discuss the new record, Golden Mountain, Here I Come, recording, silly things on tour, and thoughts of travel when confined to a small space.

How are you getting on?

CA: Good. I'm great. I've not been working much because of COVID. So I've just been kind of slowing the pace of life down a bit and trying to write more.

BC: I've broken a limb. It's not good, but I'm feeling good. I'm doing very well, and being well looked after. It’s just January, isn't it? It's a strange transitional time.

When you're a musician and you break a limb, how quickly do you think about this impacting what you do?

BC: Yeah. I mean, pretty quickly. I'm a photographer and videographer for money, so that was kind of at the forefront of my mind.

So, you need your hands?

BC: Yeah, they’re a big part of my life. The old hands! We’ve got a gig at the end of the month; I’ve listened to the tunes that we might be playing and worked out what I can do with one hand. I think it's doable – we can adapt.

How did you find the recording process?

I believe it was more collaborative than previous efforts.

CA: Yeah. I think with Beth coming in on keyboards, it was a fresh person, and a fresh kind of instrument in the writing process. That made it collaborative.

Also, we had a lot of energy for it in a way that I don't think any creative project I've had before has had. We recorded during the first lockdown – we had all the experiences of what should have been the second album taken from us, and we all wanted to throw ourselves into something. I think the novelty of lockdown had worn off.

There was a lot of engagement between the five of us and it was fun to work on. For the first two albums, I did most of the writing myself, and then came in with an idea of how we should do it. This time, more people participated, and it opened my eyes a bit.

BC: I feel we spent two full weeks in the studio and we were just there solidly every day, which I think made a huge difference. You’d normally book a block of recording time, but that felt like quite a long time. Because we didn't have anything else going on, we were able to throw ourselves into it, and even leading up to the recording process we put the hours in, which I don't think we would have been able to do without the old pandemic.

CA: We're working on another record just now and there’s a bit more getting in the way this time. It’s harder for us to piece together time to work on the new record because we’re back at work and doing other things, social things, too.

So, recording this album was unlike other times.

We had time to devote to the process. I think, regardless, we’ll take this approach going forward, and hopefully keep everyone involved.

BC: Yeah. Even during the recording process as well, there were a number of times where it was said that no one had ever really had that kind of a positive experience in a recording studio. It was honestly a really, really positive experience.

Everyone was so kind to each other.

Music by Andrew Reilly Page 19

You said you toyed with the idea of renaming the group. Does this record really feel like a fresh start?

CA: I totally view it like that. It’s the first time that I've not viewed the band as the thing that I am the songwriter for. I don't think of it like that now.

I don't think anybody should think of it like that. It was feeling like a fresh thing, but I don't know: you can get too attached to the identity of something.

Sometimes things evolve into something different.

There’s a travel theme to the record – was this yearning, or just a way of keeping yourself sane during lockdown?

CA: Certainly a bit of yearning, as we were confined to one place. When we were recording, there was a lot of activism at the time, online and people protesting on the streets. It got me thinking about getting involved in the thought processes of the protests.

I love the idea of using a place to write about, and it can be done really cleverly as well. It’s an obvious example, but something like Bob Dylan doing an album called Highway 61 Revisited about something that goes right down the middle of America. That’s a big road and a really strong place to use as a title because you can explore so much from it. It could have been an A to Z telling, but there’s so many tangents to go off. There’s a framework to return to, and I like that.

Did any bands influence the sound of the record?

BC: Definitely the B52s in some of the vocals I was trying to do!

CA: That was a big one. Also, during lockdown, we had a film club, where ten or so of us watched a film at the same time on a Wednesday night. Then we would chat about it. It wasn’t very formal – we watched some amazing stuff and some hilariously bad stuff.

One thing we watched was the Talking Heads concert film Stop Making Sense. I think because we watched that a month before going into the studio together, it informed a lot of what we wanted to do. Especially in terms of being upbeat. We wanted something you could dance to.

Were you determined to make an upbeat record?

CA: Definitely. I was also thinking about live performances and in the back of my mind, I was thinking, what sort of gig do we want to play when we get back? We wanted one with a lot of energy so people could enjoy it.

BC: It's also fun to play music like that as well. It’s new for me as a player, because everything I'd done before Savage Mansion was pretty poppy or folky. It was exciting for me to try out stuff like that.

snackmag.co.uk

@snackmag

The guitar sounds on ‘The Custom’ and ‘The Crucible’ are excellent – how was the production process of the record?

CA: We did a lot of work in advance. We rehearsed a lot before we started tracking and we reached a stage where we could create the basic track with everyone playing. Once we pressed record, there wasn’t much change in the sound.

From a guitar standpoint, that comes down to Andrew [MacPherson, guitarist].

Photo credit: Mihaela Bodlovic

He really knows what he wants and what he's doing and he gets it ready ahead of time.

Production-wise, we changed the specific bass we used a few times. On ‘Football Weather’, we used the Mustang bass because it popped out a lot more.

You’ve lined up a busy year – do you think it’ll be a shock to your system?

CA: I’m looking forward to it. It's been too long.

We had a Glasgow show in December, but that aside, it’s been two years. The excitement of being out, doing shows and seeing folk again, overrides the nerves. I’m looking forward to seeing so many towns in England that I've never been to before, places like Nottingham or Hebden Bridge. When you’ve not been travelling much, it is something to look forward to.

What do you hope to see and do in 2022?

BC: I'm just looking forward to playing Savage Mansion gigs; I’ve only played four. It’s still a pretty new thing for me, despite being in this band for two and a half years. I'm excited to just hang out and play some shows. Hopefully some festivals or something in the summer too.

CA: It’s the same for me. This is the first time that we've put out a record and done a lot of shows around it. The first album we did three shows, and the second one we did nothing because of the pandemic. We’re playing 30 shows in the space of six weeks. That’ll be good, and I’m looking forward to it.

Golden Mountain, Here I Come is released 25th February on Lost Map

Music by Andrew Reilly Page 21

GRANITE NOIR Granite Noir is a relatively young book festival dedicated to the evergreen subject of Scottish crime novels. Handily, it’s accessible to those outside it’s geographical home of Aberdeen, taking place both online and across various venues across the city from 24th till 27th February 2022. SNACK spoke with Ben Torrie (from Aberdeen Performing Arts), Catriona Cox (Programme Associate) and Stuart MacBride (crime writer and Ambassador for the festival), to give us an insight into what we can expect for the 2022 version of Aberdeen’s very own book festival.

SM: It would have been lovely if we had something like this when we were growing up; Aberdeen often rested on a belief that it was much better than other bits of Scotland, and didn't really invest an awful lot of effort, energy or interest into the arts. So that's the really great thing about the festival is we as a city, and as a region are taking writing seriously.

And that’s so good because apart from anything else in the last six years, we have seen a huge growth in the number of people writing, based in Aberdeen and the northeast of Scotland. I'm sure that has a lot to do with the fact that people have festivals like Granite Noir.

KB: Can you tell us maybe a little bit about the history of Granite Noir, Ben?

KB: Stuart: the event that you're doing for Granite Noir, which is all about Sense of Place sounds very interesting. Can you tell us a little bit more about what we can expect there?

BT: Yeah, absolutely. So, this will be the sixth Granite Noir, believe it or not. It has quickly established itself as a really important stop on both the cultural calendar for Aberdeen but also on the book festival circuit in Scotland. And I suppose it grew out of a desire for us to feel like we are representing the city in our programmes and in our events, and it's a festival, which really has Aberdeen at its heart and it reflects both the style and the feel of the city. snackmag.co.uk

SM: Yeah, I'm gonna be there with Alan Parks and Marion Todd. We’ll be talking about bringing setting to life. Thankfully it's not as common as it used to be, to have huge swathes of crime novels where they could have been set anywhere. Often everything just happened in an absolute vacuum.

@snackmag

And I think the best crime fiction for me is crime fiction that has that sense of about where it's from, the flavour of the places.

KB: There's a real mix of stalwarts and new voices that are on the programme this year.

What was your criteria when pulling the programme together?

CC: I suppose I was getting to know Aberdeen itself and getting to know the festival. So there was quite a lot of me taking in from the past, the feel of things and how things had come together before.

I think this year, one of the main things we talked about was the sense of coming together. When programming this year we picked up a sense of isolation, and a sense of hope, but also a sense of discomfort as well, through a lot of them. I think that was a key theme for me when I was looking at things. And certainly, as you mentioned, new voices.

BT: It’s something that has always been a really interesting element for me of Granite Noir is how we can play on the theme of the festival, that sense of darkness and crime and Noir. But I suppose we can take advantage of the fact that we are a performing arts organisation and have access to buildings and artists that represent other art forms and other genres as well as the writers’ programme, which is a part of the festival.

KB: Of the events for Granite Noir 2022, which would you personally recommend people check out?

SM: I'm really looking forward to seeing Louise Welsh, Ann Cleeves, Denise Mina and Sue Black, because I haven't seen any of them for a couple of years. So, that would be lovely. I hope I can get a ticket to the Hound of the Baskervilles because I think that's going to be pretty damn special.

Photos from left to right: Ben Torrie, Catriona Cox and Stuart MacBride

CC: They’re all going to be absolutely brilliant. I am very much looking forward to the event with Lauren James, Laura Lam and Andreina Cordani.

I think they're writing spectacular books that are just catering so much to the younger audience and being so inspiring. ‘Closer than Close’ is also a firm favourite for me: the panel with Louise O'Neill, Tom Watson and Alice Clark-Platt. That's all about crimes that take place in a kind of a closed situation that you can't get out of and I just feel like they're really representative of how we've all been feeling a little bit trapped this last while. They're also three absolutely brilliant books.

BT: The things that I reflect back on the previous Granite Noir festivals as being highlights are probably the things I either didn't know very much about or are the unexpected discoveries. And there are writers that I read avidly now that I didn't know until Granite Noir. So I suppose I'm looking forward to what I don't know yet.

KB: Festival food is always so important.

What will you be treating yourselves to whilst the festival is ongoing?

SM: I have missed sushi during lockdown. So good. Yeah, Yorokobi on Huntley Street.

CC: I went there when I was in Aberdeen. Stuart, I agree that was some of the best sushi I have ever had. I was absolutely blown away. So good. We will definitely have to make a booking for sushi one evening.

BT: Unfortunately. I end up eating really badly during festivals like Granite Noir, just try to throw down some food whenever you get a minute, so it's always pizza or chips or kebabs often late at night, on the way home.

For more information on Granite Noir and to get tickets, go to aberdeenperformingarts. com/granite-noir Books by Keira Brown Page 23

AILBHE NÍ BHRIAIN

AN EXPERIMENT WITH TIME snackmag.co.uk

@snackmag

Ailbhe Ní Bhriain's work incorporates film, computer-generated imagery, collage, tapestry, print, and installation. Having won a plethora of awards and exhibited both nationally and internationally, Ailbhe is back with her first inperson solo exhibition since 2020, An Experiment with Time. SNACK caught up with her at the CCA. Super excited about the exhibition: it’s so nice to have things in person again, especially immersive installation-type work. How has your practice fared since the pandemic, and how does it feel to be back in the gallery space?

I was meant to do filming around Italy, the UK, and Ireland, but none of that could happen. My method of working became a lot more about 3D modelling – things where it can all be realised virtually. I had been travelling with a production company (the remarkable Enter Yes). That became day-long screen sharing sessions, and that was around two small kids, and I was home-schooling them, and trying to mind house. It was a kind of amazing, flexible new model that wove itself around that. So, this body of work all got made over the last two years and everything that is being shown came from that period.

I had gotten to the point where I had finished the production of the film and I started to almost wallpaper over the experience – I was just full of the positive vibes of the people I had worked with, because it had worked out and I forged this memory of working over the past two years as really quite a positive one. Then my daughter got a positive Covid test just a few weeks ago. Suddenly it was a question of 'Are we gonna be able to install?' and it was all back in lockdown and in the house and homeschooling and it all came back to me and it’s like, [laughing] that had all been so hard! I think our narrative around the Covid experience is very unreliable; I think we’re still so unsettled by it.

But yeah, my experience over the last two years: it was my last solo show, it was in London, it ran for about three weeks and then was cut short by the first lockdown. I had a raft of shows lined up, and was feeling very full-steam-ahead – and then it all, obviously, shut down. I found it really, existentially, quite shocking; the idea of galleries being closed or that world kinda being revealed as a construct, something that can just be cancelled. You think I’ve totally believed in this, and you have to realise that your belief system is forged upon something that can just disappear.

And how was that collaborative experience?

When you're enlisting other people to work on something you have to know very, very clearly what you're asking them to do. There's flexibility and fluidity within that when you're saying, 'Oh hold on a minute! Bring the camera back, that actually looks good, let's pull that out'.

Left hand page photo credit: Helio León.

All other images: Ailbhe Ní Bhriain An Experiment with Time, Film Still, 2022

Visual Art by Zeo Fawcett Page 25

This description of fluidity in your working practice intrigues me; could you elaborate?

Openness is totally embedded in how I start a piece of work. I mean, I’m almost trying to surprise myself.

I talk about collage being like that – you’re trying to surprise things into new meaning. So a lot of that is [Ailbhe arranges her phone and mask in a range of different angles on the table] 'So if I put these things together, what happens if I put it this way or this way?' It starts as an act of collecting and putting things next to each other and seeing what emerges; if there’s any interesting points of tension that kind of get brought up by that.

Sometimes that’s just combining different locations, or a piece of music and a found text and a found photograph and a location. It’s an act of collage; of moving things around and letting ideas and contexts be sparked, because I do think we are suckers for narrative. We fake narrative all the time to make sense of the world for ourselves; that’s sort of what we do, how we understand things, and I’m letting that in intentionally.

snackmag.co.uk

So, the title of the exhibition, An Experiment with Time, is actually taken from J.W. Dunne’s book which shares the same name. Can you elaborate on the text and its connection to your work?

An Experiment with Time was published in 1927 and J.W. Dunne was an Irish popular scientist who forged this theory called serialism, which was around dream narratives kind of being predictors of future realities. The book is extraordinarily dry, almost unreadable, so I would say that I don't find it an inspiring read, but it's odd.

Something in the book that I was interested in was the idea of, one hundred years ago, it emerging, in the aftermath of a global crisis and maybe in anticipation of another global crisis. That idea of playing with the scientific, the technological, and the dreamlike to connect to this time of crisis.

@snackmag

Do you think this exhibition is also infused with disaster, or more of a cathartic experience, or neither?

I want to pull the viewer in and let the work reside somewhere between relaxation and dread. I'm really trying to forge a space that takes these huge subjects – of climate change, of our impact on the world and what this means for our place in it in the future – and removes them from the kind of binaries that they've become caught in. It’s about opening out a space where the real and the imaginary and the external and the internal can all get infused.

What would you like the audience to enter/ leave this exhibition with?

It's not quite disaster; it's a space of nuance, almost, where you get to live inside the contradictions for a while. I’m interested in the work holding these anxieties and letting it vibrate - I’m not proposing an answer, it’s just like, ‘this is a deeply strange experience we’re collectively going through’ and it seems the strangeness itself is worth reflecting on.

I would like them to leave having felt immersed in something. Maybe just an experience of sitting in their own space of reflection, responsive to the images. Maybe even be energised by it. To feel something like ‘This makes sense, even though there is no logic.’

I would like them to enter it with no prior knowledge, no feeling of obligation that they need to read a text or know anything specific to fine art or any other subject. I feel really strongly about that. There is no requirement to have certain thoughts or be educated in advance around a subject.

An Experiment With Time opens at the CCA on the 4th February and will be available to view for free every day from 11am-6pm until 19th March

Visual Art by Zeo Fawcett Page 27

10 TOP SCOTTISH BOOKS FOR 2022 2021 was a great year for Scottish writing, with books of all genres, shapes, and sizes making their mark, many of which were reviewed and discussed in SNACK. But instead of looking back, we are going to take a glance into the future to bring you ten titles which will be published in the early months of 2022, and which promise great things for the year ahead.

In SNACK’s words, with synopses courtesy of the publishers.

IMOGEN STIRLING LOVE THE SINNER Imogen Stirling is one of the finest performance poets around today, with her show #Hypocrisy both selling out at the Edinburgh Fringe and longlisted for the Amnesty International Freedom of Expression Award, with the script published

by Speculative Books. Her new book, Love The Sinner, is a modern retelling of the seven deadly sins, and will première as a stage show later in 2022.

'Love The Sinner is the poet and theatre-maker’s second collection. Swooping from the mundane to the immense, Stirling’s long-form poetry weaves together narratives of human experience. A loose alliance of extraordinary and ordinary characters struggle to comprehend their identities in a world bladed with criticism and obsessed with selfbetterment.'

Love The Sinner is published by Verve Poetry Press, 20th January

snackmag.co.uk

@snackmag

LOUISE WELSH THE SECOND CUT It’s been 20 years since readers were introduced not only to the arresting writing of Louise Welsh, but also arguably her greatest creation, the enigmatic and irascible Rilke. Both are back with The Second Cut, a novel which brings us right up to date in a Glasgow which may look as if it has changed. But, in Rilke’s world, many things stay the same. This is noir as it is meant to be.

‘Auctioneer Rilke has been trying to stay out of trouble, keeping his life more or less respectable.

Business has been slow at Bowery Auctions, so when an old friend, Jojo, gives Rilke a tip-off for a house clearance, life seems to be looking up.

The next day Jojo washes up dead. Jojo liked Grindr hook-ups and recreational drugs – is that the reason the police won’t investigate? And if Rilke doesn’t find out what happened to Jojo, who will? Thrilling and atmospheric, The Second Cut delves into the dark side of twenty-first century Glasgow. Twenty years on, Rilke is still walking a moral tightrope between good and bad, saint and sinner.’

The Second Cut is published by Canongate, 27th January

BRIAN HOLTON HARD ROADS AN CAULD HAIRST WINDS This is Brian Holton’s second Scots translations of Ancient Chinese poetry, the first being Staunin Ma Lane. However, Hard Roads an Cauld Hairst Winds is the first to focus specifically upon Li Bai and Du Fu, considered two of China's greatestever poets. It also includes calligraphy by the outstanding Chinese artist Chi Zhang, who is based in Edinburgh.

'Brian Holton transposes the work of, Li Bai and Du Fu, into the world of contemporary Scotland through a literary Scots full of joy and vitality.

Utilising the rootedness and folk traditions of Scots, perennial themes of love, loss and exile are celebrated and explored to emphasise the essential universality of human existence.

Complemented by the calligraphy the book offers further scholarly interest through introductory essays on the two poets and an afterword on the process of translation.'

Hard Roads an Cauld Hairst Winds is published by Taproot, 1st February Books by Alistair Braidwood Page 29

BELLA CALEDONIA AN ANTHOLOGY Launched in 2007, Bella Caledonia has become known as a place where serious thought and debate find a welcome home. The contributors have continued to ask questions and proffer answers, while including some of the finest writing of recent times, and this publication continues this.

'Bella Caledonia - An Anthology is an eclectic, memorable mix of some of Bella’s most brilliant work over the years. Since 2007, Bella Caledonia has gone on to explore ideas of self-determination via a wide range of voices, expanding rapidly in the run up to the Scottish independence referendum and maintaining this momentum ever since. This anthology, curated by Mike Small, is a flavour of Bella’s output over these 14 years, and includes contributions from Kathleen Jamie, Meaghan Delahunt, Andy Wightman, AL Kennedy, Laura Easton Lewis, Alan Bissett, Irvine Welsh, & more.'

Bella Caledonia - An Anthology is published

by Leamington Books, 24th February

JENNI FAGAN HEX Two of the stand out books of last year were Jenni Fagan’s Luckenbooth and Denise Mina’s Rizzio - the first in Polygon’s Darkland Tales series.

Intriguingly, Fagan’s Hex is the next in that series.

Once again set in Edinburgh, Hex promises a timely look at the infamous North Berwick witch trials of the late 16th century and draws parallels with the present day.

'It’s the 4th of December, 1591. On this, the last night of her life, in a prison cell several floors below Edinburgh’s High Street, convicted witch Geillis Duncan receives a mysterious visitor – Iris, who says she comes from a future where women are still persecuted for who they are and what they believe. As the hours pass and dawn approaches, Geillis recounts the circumstances of her arrest, brutal torture, confession and trial, while Iris offers support, solace – and the tantalising prospect of escape. Hex is a visceral depiction of what happens when a society is consumed by fear and superstition, exploring how the terrible force of a king’s violent crusade against ordinary women can still be felt, right up to the present day.'

Hex is published by Polygon Books, 3rd March

snackmag.co.uk

@snackmag

RYAN O’CONNOR THE VOIDS Every year whispers of a great new novel reach you through word of mouth rather than from the emails of publishers and agents, and this year that book has been Ryan O'Connor's The Voids, which is shaping up to be one of those publications which gets everyone talking.

'In a condemned tower block in Glasgow, residents slowly trickle away until a young man is left alone with only the angels and devils in his mind for company. Stumbling from one surreal situation to the next, he encounters others on the margins of society, finding friendship and camaraderie wherever it is offered, grappling with who he is and what shape his future might take. The Voids is an unsparing story of modern-day Britain, told with brilliant flashes of humour and humanity.'

The Voids is published by Scribe Publications, 10th March

OLGA WOTJAS MISS BLAINE’S PREFECT & THE WEIRD SISTERS Olga Wotjas’s previous Miss Blaine’s Prefect novels have been among the most unashamedly enjoyable and entertaining of recent times. Imagine Doctor Who crossed with Sherlock Holmes if they had both been educated at a private school in Edinburgh, and you have some idea as to what to expect…but only some.

'Fifty-something librarian Shona is a proud former pupil of the Marcia Blaine School for Girls, but has a deep loathing for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, which she thinks gives her alma mater a bad name.

Impeccably educated and an accomplished martial artist, linguist and musician, Shona is selected by Marcia Blaine herself to travel back in time for a crucial mission involving Macbeth, the Weird Sisters and a black cat.'

Miss Blaine’s Prefect & The Weird Sisters is published by Saraband, 17th March Books by Alistair Braidwood Page 31

MARTIN GERAGHTY GEORGE BUNCE AND THE BLACK WAVE OF FEAR Martin Geraghty’s debut novel, A Mind Polluted, was impressive, ambitious, shocking, and risky in almost equal measure, and introduced an exciting and inquisitive new voice in Scottish writing. Anyone who read it (and there were not nearly enough) has been eagerly awaiting what Geraghty would write next. That time is soon, and it could be something very special.

'Meet George, a resident at the Four Seasons care home in a Scottish seaside town. Meet Carrie, an occupational therapist at the Four Seasons care home. Join them as they form an unlikely friendship.

Immerse yourself in their story as they discover second chances in life. Cheer for them as they find laughter in the face of adversity. Support them as they both finally learn to bury the ghosts of their pasts and learn to live again. Most importantly, allow George and Carrie to take you on a journey where you might just end up thinking differently. An extraordinary and poignant tale full of hope and humour.'

George Bunce And The Black Wave Of Fear is published by Spellbound Books, 18th April

M.J. NICHOLLS CONDEMNED TO CYMRU Despite having written a number of novels which have that rare ability to make readers laugh out loud, M.J. Nicholls could be considered one of Scottish writing’s best-kept secrets (which is another way of saying he should be much better known).

Perhaps this is because he is published by a US publisher, the excellent Sagging Meniscus, but it could be because his fiction is often about writing itself, earning him the tag of being ‘a writer’s writer’.

He is that, but so much more. M.J. Nicholls could just be your new favourite author.

'Completing the Brexit gazetteer trilogy that began with Scotland Before the Bomb and continued with Trimming England, M.J. Nicholls’ new novel Condemned to Cymru takes the form of a dictionary of Welsh towns and villages, in which an unlovely incurious Icelandic incel outcast tours the country while dreaming of dangerously pigtailed Icelandic dominatrix Helga Horsedóttir.'

Condemned to Cymru is published by Sagging Meniscus, 1st May

snackmag.co.uk

@snackmag

MICHAEL PEDERSEN BOY FRIENDS Michael Pedersen is known, among other things, as an award-winning poet, musician, and cofounder of literary collective and arts production house Neu! Reekie! with Kevin Williamson. His forthcoming book of non-fiction, Boy Friends, is perhaps the most anticipated publication of the year – one which, although intensely personal, promises to be one to which we can all relate.

'In 2018 poet and author Michael Pedersen lost a cherished friend, Scott Hutchison, soon after their collective voyage into the landscape of the Scottish Highlands. Just weeks later, Michael began to write to him. As he confronts the bewildering process of grief, what starts as a love letter to one magical, coruscating human soon becomes a paean to all the gorgeous male friendships that have transformed his life.'

Boy Friends is published by Faber & Faber, 7th July

Books by Alistair Braidwood Page 33

VEGAN CHILLI While many couples feel the urge to splash out on a Valentine's Day meal, we’ve always felt that surprising your significant other with a home-cooked meal is far more romantic. Not only do you get to show off your cooking skills, but you can also pick up some relationship points for making something from scratch with lots of love.

There is no need to go out when your at-home cooking is this tasty, and by making an aubergine chilli you can impress with something that won’t consign you to hours spent labouring away in the kitchen. Less time in the kitchen equals more time for romance.

snackmag.co.uk

@snackmag

INGREDIENTS

METHOD

▌ 3 aubergines, sliced into cubes

▌ Add the aubergines to a large bowl and add

▌ 2 tablespoons vegetable oil

a large pinch of salt, mix the aubergine and salt

▌ Salt

together. ▌ Leave the aubergines to sit for around 20 mins.

▌ 1 onion, finely chopped

▌ Place a large frying pan or a pot over medium-

▌ 4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped ▌ 2 red peppers, sliced into thick cubes

high heat and add the oil. ▌ Add the aubergine to the pot (or pan) and fry

▌ 2 teaspoons ground cumin

the aubergines until they are browned. Remove

▌ 2 teaspoons ground coriander

and put onto a plate.

▌ 2 teaspoons smoked paprika

▌ Add onion to the pot and cook until softened, ▌ 1 teaspoon flaked chilli then add the garlic and cook until fragrant. ▌ 2 x 400g tins of chopped tomatoes

▌ Add the peppers, spices, and chopped

▌ 2 x 400g tins of kidney beans, rinsed and drained ▌ Fresh coriander for garnish ▌ Rice to serve alongside if required

tomatoes, plus an empty tomato tin full of water to the pot. Mix. ▌ Add the aubergine and kidney beans to the pot. ▌ Simmer for around 40 minutes until the chilli has thickened to your liking. ▌ Stir in some chopped fresh coriander and serve with rice.

Food and Drink by Mark & Emma, Foodie Explorers Page 35

Image courtesy of Paramount

MOMMIE DEAREST

The phrases 'Iconic,' 'Cult Classic,' and 'Gay Icon' are banded about a little too freely these days. Admittedly, I too am guilty of adorning the unworthy with hyperbolic accolades. But there truly is one film anyone with a morsel of common sense can admit is the Godfather of camp gay classics: Mommie Dearest.

The 1981 biography is cemented in pop culture as one of the worst movies ever made – in the eyes of straight audiences. In our circle, Faye Dunaway’s monsterpiece delivers everything we need: melodrama, glamour, outrageous dialogue, and much more. Though, as the years pass, my view of Ms. Crawford as a monster, at least in the film, perhaps feels reductive. We feel it is our duty to discuss, very academically, the legend of Mommie Dearest and coronate the film where it rightly belongs: the (Not) Gay Movie Club.

snackmag.co.uk

It is impossible to remain objective and measured discussing Mommie Dearest: I am unashamedly fascinated and eternally entertained by the movie.

Everything is exaggerated: the costumes, the dialogue, Dunaway’s…everything. Nothing feels measured or understated. Of course, the source material, Christina Crawford’s exposé memoir Mommie Dearest, is far from the high-camp hilarity of its adaptation.

The film stars Faye Dunaway (a woman I feel deserves a feature of her own) as the beautiful, complex leading lady, Joan Crawford, as she adopts two orphans. A series of personal and professional calamities result in brutal behaviour towards her daughter Christina, and Ms. Crawford’s eccentricities and flaws become impossible to keep under control. In real life, Crawford famously omitted the two from her will upon her death in 1977 'for reasons which are well known to them', leading to Christina’s bombshell biopic and the decimation of a Hollywood legend’s reputation. @snackmag

Mommie Dearest may be the most quotable film we have covered so far: an impressive feat for the product of seven screenwriters. Audiences delight, naturally, in the outrageously melodramatic 'No wire hangers, ever!', or 'Don’t fuck with me, fellas!'

But there are so many more to choose as your favourite: 'I’m not mad at you, I’m mad at the dirt,' springs to mind, the withering 'Are you deliberately trying to embarrass me in front of these reporters?' or the bombastic 'Barbara please?! Please, Barbara!' And what is most fun about the film is of course not its subject matter, but the level of seriousness with which it was created. The team’s efforts, while woefully misguided, are sincere, which makes the melodrama and high velocity of the film even more enjoyable. Camp in action!

Dunaway as Crawford is drag in its purest form.

The costumes and production values are superb, and outrageously opulent, but everything she says and does is heightened to the point of caricature.

What’s better is the conviction with which she delivers all facets of Crawford, for better or worse.

One can turn to Alyssa Edwards’ gloriously baffling Snatch Game performance on RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 2, to see Alyssa, a drag queen, playing Dunaway’s hyperbolic version of Joan Crawford, a figure already larger than life. It’s like a gay Inception. And queer audiences have been here for every minute of it since the film’s release. But this was far from the filmmakers’ – and Dunaway’s – intention.

Dunaway certainly seems to regret the part Mommie Dearest has played in her life, and there is a natural parallel to be struck between Crawford and Dunaway, which perhaps amplifies the film’s tragedy. Each woman seems to possess a fierce self-sufficiency, with, perhaps, grandiose ideas of self-worth and egocentric tendencies.

Dunaway was drawn to Crawford’s tenacity when taking the role. She told the New York Times, 'The scandal books about Crawford make me furious… they are by far not the real story. She achieved.

And while monsters do achieve great deeds, she wasn’t one. Crawford was a warrior.' However, the film did little for Dunaway’s career: she won a Razzie that year for Worst Actress and in the media could not escape direct comparisons with Crawford’s egomaniacal persona.

I have such affection for the women of classic Hollywood cinema – Bette Davis, Marlene Dietrich, Rosalind Russell, and of course Ms Crawford – largely thanks to the marriage of glamour and tenacity they all seemed to possess.

Of course, she is villainized in Mommie Dearest, but only a monster, ironically, could fail to acknowledge Crawford herself was a victim of a cruel, unforgiving industry. This is hardly a carte blanche for allegedly cruel, dangerous behaviour, but surely there’s room for empathy in viewing a woman so single-mindedly obsessed with fame, prestige, and eternal youth. (Side note: my favourite Joan Crawford story is when she sabotaged Bette Davis’ Oscar campaign for Whatever Happened to Baby Jane and asked the other nominees if she could accept the award on their behalf. Out. Of. Spite. Olivia Colman would never.)

Perhaps there is a sense of morbidity to Mommie Dearest that draws in queer audiences generations after its initial release: after all, between its subject matter and the vulnerability of its leading lady, there is little to laugh at upon first inspection. But Dunaway’s blistering, misdirected commitment to her performance and dialogue so stupid it defies belief make this film wildly entertaining, and at least keeps the legend of Joan Crawford in our minds 45 years after her death. I doubt there will ever be another film quite like Mommie Dearest, and nor should there be. I don’t think Ms. Crawford would allow it.

LGBT+ by Jonny Stone Page 37

Track by Track: Bonnie Tropical 6 Paradise Palms Even though I’ve never ventured within, I feel I already know the vibe of Edinburgh’s Paradise Palms venue well enough through the release of their five previous Bonnie Tropical compilations.

Sure, as night follows day, a 6 will follow 5 and it might well be the most eclectic and charismatic collection yet in a strong field of charismatic, eclectic challengers.

It all kicks off with the gloriously unsubtle ‘Golden Turtle’ by T_A_M where the mechanical whirring of the drum tracks at the centre of the mix is offset by the sweetly tonal synths which seem to bounce off each other as they funnel in the same, wistful direction.

My first thought when hearing ‘Make Kin’ by Nightshift was that you could mix the intro into the Mission:Impossible theme but it develops into something you could mix into any Fun Boy Three record. Somehow, amongst this, there are enough differing elements to see it through.

Following this, the live-sounding drums that introduce ‘Euphoria Comes’ by duo Numbers Are Futile are like a slap in the face. The pulsating bassline and buried vocals bear enough of a passing resemblance to the funkier outputs of Bauhaus that it deserves comment but there’s such an overall frenetic energy going on here that it would cheapen it to compare it to just one thing.

Aberdonians, Aberdreamin (see what they did there?) and their track, ‘Carrier’ is a bit of a highlight. Balancing dreamy seaward sounds with an occasional galloping electro rhythm, theirs is one of the names on this compilation worth committing to your memory.

snackmag.co.uk

@snackmag

‘Quick Gloss’ by Mystery Season exists in a universe where dreampop meets a sort of warped version of full-on eighties pop. Droning pads meld with a slapped and picked bassline straight out of a Level 42 song in a form of fusion you never knew you needed.

Despite a title suggesting some manner of bluegrass flavour, ‘Georgia Keep Me Vital’ by Ravelston is an almost ghostly sandwich of funky bass lines and stabby scratches cast across ethereal soundscapes and would, in fact, work best in a packed bar before 7PM. ‘Congo Cave Crack (What The F__k Cut)’ by Stockholm Syndrome AU is a moody, lowkey rumbler while ‘Think Tank’ by U Diddy is a more uplifting track modal track driven by rolling rhythms. That said, the two tracks probably go together better than any other two on the album.

I’ve no idea what the title refers to but ‘Neek’ by Nina Stanger & Ritchie Muir enters the most interesting territory here. From the rolling, almost syncopated snares being mashed through all sorts of envelope filters to the chirping yet enormous synths that chime in throughout, there’s no denying the obvious influence of The Aphex Twin.

The order of tracks on a compilation is more important than you may think and ‘Sooakxa’ by Hexagonal Water Trace signifies that we’ve moved to beyond 10PM. However, it doesn’t sacrifice tuneage and nuance for the sake of banging the bang. The pounding bass kicks are shorn of a lot of the attack in their individual kicks, and this manages to turn a high BPM bass-kick heavy track into something decidedly mellow.

There’s something indecisive about ‘Still Free’ by Vardi (ft Paix) but I like that and it’s the closest thing to a theme that Bonnie Tropical records have.

Never committing to a trouser-dropping one-moretune-style rush of beat carnage, it keeps all modal sensibilities firmly at the forefront and there are plenty of samples or what sounds like a shamisen or a sitar for extra dreaminess. The indecisive feeling is expanded on with ‘oscB / PHR0ST’ by KNGHT which feels like a sentient tune changing its own mind about what it wants to do. ‘Limbo’ by Ku-Ro is the necessary drop in tempo required and a welcome increase in the number of human voices heard.

‘Unusual’ by ona:v has a playful swing with staccato key sounds poking in around its simple 909 beat. However, it’s when the beat recedes, and the big bass pads marry unadulterated with the chiming sounds that the track comes into its own and becomes something slightly more hopeful than groovy.

The whole collection is rounded off by ‘Leanne’ by Neil Cruickshank. I’ve known plenty of Leannes in my time but none of them conjured up such a bewildering meeting of overlapping sounds. The rhythmic elements and the melodic elements both sound like they’re being made by some form of jar being hit with something. This leaves an overall sound somewhere between percussion and melody that doesn’t sit within either of those two realms.

Given the Bonnie Tropical compilations that already exist, this sixth instalment would form a better jumping off point than any of its predecessors.

Talking of its predecessors, while they gave me a vibe for the venue that curates these compilations, it’s this particular collection that has me prepared to fork out the fare to get the 900 bus to Edinburgh.

Bonnie Tropical 6 is out February 11th on Paradise Palm Records Music by Stephen McColgan Page 39

SNACK BITS February is the shortest month of the year, and with a hugely commercialised date on the calendar, it’s often viewed as the month of love. So what better time of year for SNACK to launch a new short feature, where we focus on the thing we love most, music? Don’t tell the other arts, leisure, and entertainment sections, but to many of us, it’s the music that matters. And with these short SNACK bits, we hope to keep you more informed as to what is happening with Scottish artists and musicians.

Arab Strap always know they can give us a bit more, and ‘Aphelion’ is a neat way to mark the anniversary of 2021’s smash As Days Get Dark. It’s a slow number featuring Aidan at his smouldering best. It’s another one for the lovers, but perhaps not the romantics.

Adam Ross, main man of Randolph’s Leap, has released his debut solo album, Staring at Mountains, on the ever-dependable Olive Grove Records. It’s not a massive departure for Adam, following his usual strand of inventive yet off-kilter songs, but it will more than hold your interest. More information on live dates, if or when things settle, will follow.

Arielle Free is a name and voice you might be familiar with, as the host of a barrage of shows and slots on Radio 1. The multi-talented Scot was a known face for presenting T in the Park TV coverage, kids’ television shows and even being in the Harry Potter films. For those who think DJs should put their money where their mouth is and make their own tunes as opposed to spinning other peoples’, Arielle has answered that call. ‘Soul Full’, a collaboration with Mortimer and vocalist Joe Killington, is a more than pleasant house number, primed to slip easily into playlists, setlists, and those YouTube DJ sessions featuring unbelievably beautiful backdrops.

Arielle Free

Talk of returning big-hitters takes us to Franz Ferdinand, who’ve dropped another teaser for their greatest hits, or the ‘very good reason to get back on tour’ record. ‘Curious’ lives up to the Franz motto of making records for girls to dance to, and we don’t just mean new recruit Audrey Tait in the video! A casual reminder of what the group can do, with a Glasgow show looming in April. snackmag.co.uk

For something a little bit harder, the Man’s Gotta Eat EP by Roman Nose is gathering some traction.

It’s not new, and some of the collection has been around for longer than the age of some Glasgow musicians these days, but it’s a great way to shake some of the January dust off. Closer ‘BMGK’ is the most energetic of the songs, delivering the squelchy sounds and uplifting backing vocals that can change your mood in an instant. @snackmag

The new Savage Mansion album will be with us soon, and lead track ‘Football Weather’ has been more than enough to leave most convinced they’ll do another good job. The song was more Parquet Courts than Tam Courts, but the cover art for the single must hurt, with the Saints grip on the Scottish Cup slipping at the first hurdle.

For those of us still searching for something that matches up to the majesty of the Get Back films (the struggle is real), the new Astrid single offers welcome respite. ‘Through The Darkness Of Your Life’ is a jangly little number, and should help to usher some sunshine into your days and nights.

And hey, if your Valentine’s Day isn’t shaping up the way you wanted it to, you’re not alone. Stick on ‘You Don’t Want Me Anymore’ by Rachel White, pour yourself something nice, and know that if something this charming can come from heartbreak, you’ll bounce back too. Mind you, if you’re looking for a sassier piece of empowerment for the 14th of February, the release of ‘I’m Good’

by Berta Kennedy is timely. With a more global pop and R’n’B feel than most Scottish tracks, the title might do Berta a disservice.

And of course, no gender has a monopoly on songs that deal with love or relationships. Vanives have long created interesting work, and with ‘Arc of the Moment’, they up the ante in a measured and hazy way. The track has a swooping and sweeping backing that you’ll drift into.

Sadly, it hasn’t all been positive news for Scottish music-makers of late. Singer songwriter Callum Beattie appeared on TV looking like he’s been preparing for TRNSMT by planking half bottles in the dirt to uncover over the weekend. Also, Twin Atlantic are back. Not sure if anyone asked for that to happen, but it is what it is.

See you ‘round the clubs.

Words by Andrew Reilly Page 41

THE PEOPLE'S CITY

CLAUDIA DURASTANTI

Prose Collection In 2005 Polygon Books published One City, a collection of short prose which was to help raise money and awareness of the OnceCity Trust – established to examine the extent of social inequality and exclusion in Edinburgh. Now, 16 years later, sees the publication of what could be described as the follow up. This time around the contributors include Anne Hamilton, Nadine Aisha Jassat, and Sara Sheridan, as well as the returning Alexander McCall Smith and Ian Rankin, who all relate differing stories about the city they know and love. The city’s Botanic Gardens are the place for a moving family reunion. A writer remembers the haunting first time visit which feeds into Edinburgh’s gothic traditions. Two brothers are reunited after forced separation, and regress to their childhood roles. Old traditions and deep-routed prejudices are challenged in Portobello, and love is given an unexpected second chance across the decades in the famous Sandy Bell’s bar.

Book: Strangers I Know Strangers I Know is a work of fiction like noneother. Empathetic, absurdist in places and with the flavour of a family memoir, it’s an interesting look into an unconventional family that allows us to explore language, communication and the notion of managing as a stranger in your own life.

But arguably the most arresting piece of writing is Irvine Welsh’s 'Introduction’ which is as straighttalking and honest as you would expect. Welsh reflects on the years between the books and finds that matters, far from improving, have simply got worse, with the rise of property used for Airbnb, private letting, food banks commonplace, and so much more. It’s a short but powerful piece of writing that speaks to those outside of the city boundaries.

This isn’t just about Edinburgh: it’s more an address as to the state of the nation, and the role that art and culture must play. While it leaves you wanting more, The People’s City is a fine example of artistic engagement between a place and its people.

The People’s City is published on the Polygon imprint of Birlinn Ltd Alistair Braidwood

snackmag.co.uk

This book begins as a family history of the daughter of two deaf parents; her mother says she met her husband when she stopped him from jumping off a bridge. Her father says it happened when he saved her from an attempted robbery.

Into this unlikely union, Claudia, the narrator, is born. She informs us in the style of a memoir focused on the estranged family, household split and her coming of age. Despite being empathetic and balanced in approach, at least some of the time, Claudia conveys herself as an outsider in every way, feeling that she was only hindered by this family upbringing. Books, punk rock, and a somewhat unstable relationship open the door for her to construct her own version of her life, which all feels very meta, if we consider this blurring between fiction and memoir.

Stunningly written, and with characters spectacularly original, this book is somewhat absurd, somewhat considered and depicts an unconventional family that helps us look differently at how language shapes our understanding of ourselves, with such a blend of form and style.

Strangers I Know is out on 19th Jan, published by Fitzcarraldo Editions Keira Brown

@snackmag

SPYRES

PETER CAT

Single: See Through You January is over, but if you’ve not kicked 2022 into life yet, don’t worry. You don’t want to linger much longer, though. Thankfully Spyres, with their single ‘See Through You’, should propel you into action.

The guitar solo, coming after an intense volley of lyrics, is rather ear-catching. It might be a moment that allows the dual vocalists to catch their breath but it’s likely to be the trigger for some serious movement in the audience during live shows.

Single: Melon Dating Simulator!

With shades of outsider pop by the likes of Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci, Glasgow based multiinstrumentalist and singer Peter Cat gives us a melodic, sun-tinged single about falling in love with a watermelon in the apocalypse. Features some excellent wordplay and the finest use of ‘cucurbitaceous’ in a pop song in recent memory.

‘Melon Dating Simulator!’ is out now Chris Queen

The drums also have a few standout fills, so it’s a well-balanced track, serving as a good introduction to Spyres if you’re yet to have the pleasure.

The track is highly polished and, depending on your age, you’ll instantly come up with an equally angsty, ambitious, and anthemic song from your era. And hey, if your era is now, keep an eye out for the forthcoming debut EP from Spyres.

‘See Through You’ is out now on Lab Records Andrew Reilly

review@snackmag.co.uk Page 43

ALT-J Album: The Dream alt-J won the Mercury Prize in 2012 for their debut album An Awesome Wave and followed it up with the Grammy-nominated This Is All Yours (2014).

Following this there came Relaxer (2017), which refused to retread old ground and returned the band to the Mercury Prize shortlist the following year. They have sold out Madison Square Garden, the Hollywood Bowl, and the O2, among many others, and have headlined practically every festival you can think of.

There's a lot to like for those who are already fans of the band, but it's also a wonderfully well-crafted album that deserves to be widely heard on its own merits. Just be sure to keep a box of tissues on hand for the more emotional tracks.

The Dream will be released on 11th February via Infectious Music and the Canvasback Music division of Atlantic Records Zeo Fawcett

Now, after their longest hiatus from releasing a full album, they return with The Dream, and it's well worth the wait. Each track has been meticulously crafted. It's a beautiful journey through genre, from psychedelia to trip-hop, to folk, to the glistening medieval-style harmonies that these boys' choir voices so naturally lend themselves to. Despite the fact that the album's narrative does not follow an obvious progression, it's still firmly the musical equivalent of a page-turner: impossible to put down until the final track gently drifts away, leaving you wanting more.

Lyrically, this album allows for hours of consideration even after a shallow first or second listen. Songs like ‘Hard Drive Gold’ and ‘The Actor’, in usual alt-J style, burrow into the stories of others through cryptic and catchy riddles. The incredibly sincere ‘Get Better’ is about a life partner's gradual passing, creating an intimate and heartbreakingly beautiful world with its sparse instrumentation and fluid sense of timing.

Overall, alt-J have again captured all that is great about the band's style of music-making, while also clearly pushing themselves further than they have before, eagerly exploring new sound worlds.

snackmag.co.uk

METRONOMY Album: Small World It has been 15 years since Metronomy’s debut album, Pip Paine (Pay the £5000 You Owe), and Joe Mount is feeling it. Small World is an album very concerned with the passage of time. A wry, regretful look back at a life well lived and mistakes made along the way: ‘Life, it’s a cross that we all bear’, he sings over the bouncy synthpop of ‘It’s Good to Be Back’, like he’s trying to convince himself.

@snackmag

There’s a lot of that going on, ironically repeated platitudes and clichés that we trot out to try and reassure each other that everything is going to be alright. ‘Life and Death’, ‘Things Will be Fine’ – a cynical optimism, a sense of a once hopeful heart bruised by experience but still putting a brave face on and hoping for once to be right.

There’s a comforting nostalgia to Small World, as with the 80s yacht rock of their 2011 album English Riviera, but also in the driving percussion and strings of the disco-dipped ‘Right on Time’ or the influence of Hunky Dory-era Bowie on ‘I Lost My Mind’ – a sentiment many of us will have felt in our own shrunken lockdown worlds, the sense of living the same day on repeat. The latter pushes out into a cosmic bloom, opening to a sense of possibility and hope echoed in ‘I Have Seen Enough’; a celebration, of the little joys of life that closes the album – flowerbeds rising, children growing and the sense that yeah, this is going to be OK. Metronomy play Glasgow Barrowland on 22nd April. Small World is out 18th February via Because Music Chris Queen

NIAGARA Album: Parva Naturalia Parva Naturalia is an assortment of rarities from Portuguese trio Niagara, following their recent appearance on the Soul Jazz compilation Two Synths, a Guitar (And) a Drum Machine.

The compilation trawls through ten years of out-ofprint vinyl and unreleased CD-Rs. With an emphasis on electronics and improvisation, it jumps from upfront bass and drum-heavy nightclub electro on the opening track to strange sonic experiments with amplified water jugs and the crisp minimal acid of a 90s warehouse rave. Experimental without being aloof, it feels very much like the music of a city at night; frenetic and skittish with a bit of dirt under the fingernails. ‘Jordão’ would be at home on a Zé records Mutant Disco release or a Kompakt sampler.

Glitchy, jittery atonality sits beside percussive tropical-ambient with an air of sticky sleaze throughout. It's music that’s part-nightclub and part-gallery, nodding heads and expanding minds at the same time.

Parva Naturalia is out 4th Feb via Disciples Chris Queen

review@snackmag.co.uk Page 45

MARTHA SKYE & MAXWELL STERLING

PINC WAFER

EP: Distance On Ground The first collaboration between sound artist Martha Skye Murphy and composer Maxwell Sterling, this EP features two longform improvised pieces pulled from eight hours of recording, which interplay Murphy’s airy vocal with the insistent menace of the double bass to create a trance-like atmosphere that never quite lets us get comfortable.

Single: 0% Glasgow based Pinc Wafer’s latest offering ‘0%’ is dreamy bedroom pop at its best. A lo-fi beat with a funky bassline, it’s a clean sound somewhere between Fauves and The Magic Gang. The upbeat sound contrasts the lyrics, which initially seem to be about giving up alcohol but actually tell the story of the end of a relationship.

Drawing along with the somnambulant drip of a long journey, the two sides take some sharp turns from dreamy bliss into a tense anticipation and back, building a sense of creeping uneasiness in the spacious drive, reminiscent of the opening scenes of a movie that we know isn’t going to end well. The two tracks – ‘83km’ and ‘93.3km’ – are accompanied by a participatory website of rural and urban travel scenes, adding to the filmic qualities of a passage into the unknown expanse.

‘0%’ is available to stream now Lily Georgia

Distance On Ground is out now via American Dreams Chris Queen

RYLAN GLEAVE EP: Lawn Crypt Recorded live in 2021, Lawn Crypt explores the incredible vocal range of Leith-based composer and vocalist Rylan Gleave. His late breaking trans-masc voice goes from sonorous plainsong in the opening ‘Woo’d’ to a yearning falsetto reminiscent of Tilt-era Scott Walker via a strangled breathy rattle. The six haunting tracks on this EP are inspired by the writings of Cromarty folklorist Hugh Miller and the ‘Pirate’s Graveyard’ in which he worked and buried his daughter. It drips with a spectral dread, ghosts floating in the moonlight on the icy ‘I Know Who Killed Me’, crashing waves and scattered bones in the organ and clarsach. A lonely sepulchral resonance fills this: ‘Cradlesong’ talks of changelings, children abducted by fairies and replaced with one of their own; a bride anticipates – or maybe dreads – married life in a re-purposed folk song, and in the end we go to ‘lay down the daisies at your side’.

Lawn Crypt is out now via Bandcamp Chris Queen

snackmag.co.uk

@snackmag

SAVAGE MANSION

DUNCAN MARQUISS

Album: Golden Mountain Here I Come Savage Mansion have always been worth checking out, but on third album, Golden Mountain, Here I Come, the band is well placed to connect with much more of the record-buying public. Or streaming public.

They had the terrible misfortune of releasing an album not long into the first lockdown, but they’ve bounced back strongly. Energy bounds off the record, carrying that rush of emotion so many of us felt when reuniting with friends after the enforced separation. It’s a fun record, which has joy and a willingness to dance all over it.

Album: Wires Turned Sideways In Time What is most striking about the debut solo album from The Phantom Band guitarist is the sense of space – it really takes its time, letting sounds breathe and resonate. Recorded in his parents' garage in Aberdeenshire, the album is understated but powerful, in part because of this minimalist approach, which allows various experimental trajectories. As with The Phantom Band, there is a plethora of disparate influences guiding the tunes, but it's very much his own project. Marquiss has spoken of trying to make a guitar album that doesn't sound like it's made with guitars, and succeeds wonderfully in this remit.

The introduction of Beth Chalmers on keyboards adds more to the sound, but it’s often the angular guitar play of Andrew McPherson that takes centre stage. If you’re fond of New York bands who are too clever for their own good (pretty much all of them bar The Ramones), this will be right up your Bowery Street.

From the ebb and flow of opener 'Drivenhalle', that paradoxical thing of a Krautrock-inspired lullaby, to the exquisite, delicate acoustic guitar picking of 'Minor History', the whole thing feels plasmic.

Tracks rise and fall – they have a pulse that's lacking in much ambient music. It's subtle, yet fills rooms with gorgeous sonics that invite superlatives.

Golden Mountain, Here I Come is released 25th February on Lost Map Andrew Reilly

The title track is a more menacing prospect, droning undercurrents gnawing against the top line, and 'Murmer Double' and 'Fixed Action Patterns' have a disarming quality, the latter with the kind of slow burn that is usually found in music by artists like Steve Reich and Michael Rother, bursts of choppy percussion disrupting the steady, hypnotic melodic flow. It's akin to being shaken awake from a hazy daydream by something entirely pleasant – something we could all use more of these days.

The album isn't designed for mainstream indie playlists, then, but that's not to say it's opaque or inaccessible. Indeed, it's incredibly beautiful and rare; an album that seeps into the subconscious and stays there.

Wires Turned Sideways In Time is out March 4th on Basin Rock Lorna Irvine review@snackmag.co.uk Page 47

Noushy

SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK Film Throughout the years many films have tackled the issue of mental health: classics such as One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and lesser-known gems such as Mad World have proven sensitive and powerful in their representation. The genres of feelgood movie and romantic comedy, however, are not well-tread in sensitively or accurately handling characters with mental health issues, and this is where Silver Linings Playbook stands tall. Ten years after it was made, the movie is still refreshing to my eyes and warming to the heart, especially as I have a mental health condition.

Patrick (Bradley Cooper), has just been released after 8 months in a mental institution, and has been diagnosed as severely bipolar. He is obsessed with reconciling with his estranged wife, who he discovered was cheating on him. Back at his family home, his dad (Robert De Niro) is a bookmaker trying to bet enough money to start a restaurant,

snackmag.co.uk

and thinks Patrick is his lucky charm when it comes to betting on his beloved football team. Patrick encounters Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence), and the two make a deal: she will send a letter to his wife (there is a restraining order in place) if he becomes her partner in a dance competition.

Something to be found in Silver Linings Playbook is the reason I started to watch, and fall in love with, films. In art, it is the medium that can most express real life. Many film-makers, since film's early days, have had the philosophy that they should represent human life as closely as possible. It’s a noble philosophy, but misses out a glory of movies.

Heightened reality, impossible beauty, surrealism, a world where stories can end in any number of ways that we delight in predicting…those are the realms of my favourite films. And those ones also allow for the dance of emotion, the intertwining of reality and fantasy, where we can see ourselves in stories but lose ourselves in fantastical journeys.

@snackmag

Silver Linings Playbook achieves this dance to the extent that my emotions, come to the end of the film, were overwhelming. The subject of mental illness is handled in an honest and unflinching manner; we see Patrick’s manic phases, his highs, his delusions.

Lawrence’s condition is not specified. The first real conversation the two have is about the medication they’re on, and they speak honestly and joke about the side effects they can have. I have had similar conversations in my life, with good friends, and I saw them as such a gift. Mental illness is still stigmatised, so a movie which deals with it in this way is an equally huge gift.

There is an elegance to this film. You can feel the act of film-making, see the journey everyone who made it went on, right there in front of you.

Catching that is special. Cooper, Lawrence, De Niro, and the rest of the cast seem to have given their whole hearts and minds to the project, to the extent that there’s an organic, real, and genuine quality to their performances. Not least, it also has the most iconic dance sequence this side of Pulp Fiction.

Someone once said to me, ‘Film and television will always lie to us’. I don’t see it as a lie. Our imaginations are powerful things. In a dream, questioning what is happening to us usually brings the dream to its end; in film the dream ends when the story reaches its conclusion. Sure, Silver Linings Playbook goes pretty far out there at times, reaching through the walls of fiction in a way which nearly removes the viewer from the experience of watching. Yet, it retains just the right balance of charm and loveable characters.

When a movie ends and you feel like jumping for joy, and embracing whatever the moment will bring. That’s a darn good dream.

Silver Linings Playbook is available to stream on Netflix now Martin Sandison

review@snackmag.co.uk Page 49

snackmag.co.uk

@snackmag

A CAR PARK IN THE MORNING The lady out front, battering cracked concrete with bare fists, turned a gorgeously glowing red.

Seagulls squawked into the bright morning air.

They shared in her fury, perhaps unaware. The car park they hung about was thick with life: these screaming birds; pockets of slaters in broken paving; a lingering sensation of the early morning fox, now himself, gone; and the swinging anger of the lady.

She was herself, silent, even the contact with the ground only sung in muted thumps. It was unclear as to the duration of her enacted frustration, but once she arose, dusted off smart lapels and fleetingly observed bloodied knuckles, she sauntered off, head held high.

Jo Higgs

Pollokshields says

Support our work by setting up a monthly donation at snackmag.co.uk @snackmag www.pollokshieldsfoodpoint.org