The Skinny Scotland November 2015 by The Skinny

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November 2015 Scotland Issue 122

MUSIC A Tribe Called Quest Starred Up Reworked The Mountain Goats Zyna Hel !!! FILM Saoirse Ronan French Film Festival Todd Haynes ART Life in Songzhuang Creative Edinburgh Awards Too Much Fun Club

Playing G.o.D

BOOKS Helle Helle CLUBS Luke Vibert Jelly Roll Soul

ONEOHTRIX POINT NEVER A Vision of Disorder

THEATRE Paul Higgins GIFT GUIDES The Resurgence of Boardgames Alternative Foodie Christmas

best of 2015 album of the year

sufjan stevens

public service broadcasting

carrie & lowell

the race for space

tame impala

currents

kurt vile

bâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;lieve iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m goin down

john grant

grey tickles, black pressure

courtney barnett

sometimes i sit and think, and sometimes i just sit

new order

music complete

father john misty

i love you, honeybear

hot chip

why make sense?

sleaford mods

key markets

julia holter

have you in my wilderness bjork

vulnicura

the fopp list

get the lowdown on the best albums of 2015 in this monthâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s edition of the fopp list, free magazine in-store now while stocks last

fopp stores bristol college green cambridge sidney st edinburgh rose st glasgow union st & byres rd london covent garden manchester brown st nottingham broadmarsh shopping centre

THE

SIOBHAN WILSON

SILENCERS

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EDINBURGH QUEEN’S HALL

P.34 Xinyue Zhang and Yifei Liu

Sat 28th Nov plus special

guests

Credit: Bethany Grace

FULL BAND SHOW

P.63 A Tribe Called Quest

HAMILTON TOWNHOUSE

Thurs 26 Nov Glasgow

Oran Mor

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THURSDAY 3 DEC ORAN MOR GLASGOW P.23 Black Wax; CCA Highlights

WITHERED HAND PLUS SPECIAL GUEST

November 2015

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SUNDAY 13 DECEMBER GLASGOW ORAN MOR

HAILEY BEAVIS

plus special guests

I N DEPEN DENT

CULTU R AL

JOU R NALI S M

Issue 122, November 2015 © Radge Media Ltd.

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Editorial Editor-in-Chief Music & Deputy Editor Editorial Assistant Art Editor Books Editor Clubs Editor Comedy Editor Deviance Editor Events Editor Fashion Editor Film & DVD Editor Food Editor Games Editor Tech Editor Theatre Editor Travel Editor

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QUEEN’S HALL EDINBURGH

PLUS SPECIAL GUESTS

P.16 Saoirse Ronan on Brooklyn

In person from Ticket Scotland Glasgow/Edinburgh & Ripping Edinburgh and usual outlets

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General Manager Chief Operating Officer Publisher

Kyla Hall Lara Moloney Sophie Kyle

regularmusicuk THE SKINNY

Contents 06 Chat & Opinion: Welcome to the magazine; What Are You Having For Lunch? Shot of the Month and more freakily accurate foresight from Crystal Baws.

LIFESTYLE

Food & Drink: Alternative foodie gift ideas for those food lovers in your life. Phagomania keeps doing what Phagomania does. And Food News!

Showcase: Edinburgh multi-arts collective Too Much Fun have a lot going on – check out a snapshot of their practice here and head online to see their live drawing on our 10th birthday video.

Fashion: Exquisite pieces from designers Xinyue Zhang and Yifei Liu, shown off in a shoot by photographer Bethany Grace.

Deviance: Our Deviance editor spitballs some possible alternative titles for the section, which has proved controversial since its inception

08 Heads Up: Squeeze in some culture be-

tween all that Christmas shopping with our handy events calendar. Alternatively, just sack off the shopping ‘til 24 Dec and do everything listed here instead.

FEATURES

Sadomasochism and corroded eggs of time: we pore over the bones of alt metal adolescence with one Daniel Lopatin – or Oneohtrix Point Never to you and me. You’d think it’s all dance punk hedonism with implausibly-named Californians !!!, but apparently there’s a lot more tally charts involved. Frontman Nic Offer explains how.

Todd Haynes’ new film Carol is a tender love story between two women in 1950s New York. The legendary new queer cinema pioneer tells us about his struggle to get it to the screen.

REVIEW

We speak to extraordinary young actor Saoirse Ronan about her nuanced performance in Brooklyn, but all she wants to talk about is doing a musical.

Music: Enter the dark electro-pop world of New Blood Zyna Hel; David Mackenzie tells us why his Starred Up score is still a work in progress; plus we survey new albums by Oneohtrix Point Never, Bill Wells, USA Nails and Lanterns On The Lake.

The Mountain Goats returned earlier this year with Beat the Champ; songwriter John Darnielle wrestles with our questions ahead of their Glasgow show this month.

Clubs: Stirling vinyl addicts Jelly Roll Soul tell us why it makes sense for them to move from club night to record label, plus yer clubbing highlights for the month.

Art: Everything you need to know about art events in Scotland this month; then let’s get critical with an exhibition from Adrian Morris and the BBC’s broadcast of Master Rock.

Luke Vibert on Bizarster and DJing; plus we preview the always edifying French Film Festival, which this year brings the latest bit of ramshackle artistry from Michel Gondry and the newest work from post-Nouvelle Vague hero Philippe Garrel.

Glasgow-based Canadian artist Julian Tolhurst sheds light on life in a Chinese art village.

The English-speaking world has taken a long time to catch up with ‘debut’ Danish author Helle Helle: we learn about the banal beauty of This Should be Written in the Present Tense.

As they celebrate their fourth birthday, we speak to Creative Edinburgh about the network they’ve amassed over the years, and plans for their annual awards ceremony.

Playwright Paul Higgins aka Jamie from The Thick of It, introduces new play The Choir about a community in Wishaw.

Board games are in the midst of a renaissance. We ask why, in a digital age, the industry is experiencing such a boom.

November 2015

50 Film: Michael Fassbender plays Steve

Jobs in the Aaron Sorkin-scripted, Danny Boyle-directed biopic of the late Apple co-founder – we review.

Books: One reviewer reads Morrissey’s List of the Lost and heaven knows they’re miserable now.

Theatre: Young companies get their chance at the inaugural Chrysalis festival, plus reviews of Ghosts and Martyr

DVD: Get set to wear out your pause button as Magic Mike XXL bumps and grinds its way to DVD while Ant-Man gets shrunk down even smaller.

Comedy / Competitions: Dust off your best puns: improvisational comedy group Austentatious return to Edinburgh this Christmas; also WIN STUFF.

Listings: Fill those gaping holes in your diary with these exciting things to do in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Dundee.

The Last Word: In a rare interview with all four founding members, we try to make greater sense of both the past and present of hip-hop pioneers A Tribe Called Quest.

Contents

Editorial

Shot Of The Month Prehistoric Friends, The Hug & Pint, 23 Oct by John Graham

working as an artist in China, in the state-approved art village of Songzhuang. As they gear up to celebrate their fourth birthday, arts networking organisation Creative Edinburgh take the time to reflect on what they’ve achieved, and what exciting possibilities lie on the horizon. In our Showcase, art collective Too Much Fun Club tell us all about the multitude of projects they’re currently working on, in the wake of creating an epic mural for our 10th birthday video. As if the pre-Halloween Dome Christmas light display and Lindt reindeer chocolates in Tesco weren’t enough to herald the arrival of the most wonderful time of the year (™), in November we start to whet your appetite for the impending season of enforced acquisition with a couple of early gift guides. Food has had a look at some of the more entertaining culinary presents available, while our Tech team have had a think about the resurgence of IRL boardgames, offering a survey of some of the weird and wonderful delights on offer. Our Deviance section is having a bit of a watershed moment in the wake of our decade celebrations, and considering a complete rebrand. The name has proven contentious over the years, but should we change it? Turn to p36 to find out more, then head to the website to cast your vote. Should Deviance stay? YOU DECIDE. Finally, one of this month’s real highlights lies on the preceding contents page, where our film editor directs readers to the DVD section to ‘wear out your pause button as Magic Mike XXL bumps and grinds its way to DVD.’ That’s where we’re at right now. NOVEMBER'S COVER ARTIST Timothy Saccenti is a photographer and director living in New York city and working worldwide. As a photographer Timothy has created scores of portraits of pop musicians from Erykah Badu to LCD Soundsystem to Pharrell. He balances his pop sensibility via avant-garde print and music video collaborations with seminal experimental record labels including Warp Records and DFA.

Illustration: Tom Saffill

oes anyone want to write my editorial? So begins my print day morning, month in, month out. No one ever takes me up on my kind offer, sadly. They do, however, offer helpful suggestions like: why not fill the space with pictures of dogs? Why not just have a big picture of your face? Why not recount the plot synopsis of favourite episodes of Nashville? Next month, I promise to do all of these things. On the cover this month, in his own halo of light, sits Oneohtrix Point Never aka Daniel Lopatin. He’s here to tell us about hallucinatory new album Garden of Delete, and ask the immortal question, “What does a traumatic memory of music fermenting inside a corroded egg of time sound like?” Who can possibly say? Continuing in Music, we have the easily pronounced !!! or ChkChkChk, whose frontman Nic Offer drops by to discuss sixth album As If. The Mountain Goats’ John Darnielle is here to explain what possessed him to write an entire album about wrestling; New Blood and star of our 10th birthday party Zyna Hel shares her dark electropop world; director David Mackenzie tells us why his Starred Up soundtrack has been reworked; and on our inside back cover we have a very exciting and incredibly rare interview with all four founding members of A Tribe Called Quest. In Film, we’ve got a stellar line-up of interviews, with the extraordinary Saoirse Ronan shedding some light on her role in eagerly-awaited Colm Toibin adaptation Brooklyn, and legendary director Todd Haynes discussing tender love story Carol. We couldn’t fit it in print, but if you head to the website you will find an interview with director Sean Baker on his new indie comedy, the transgender buddy movie Tangerine. In Books we speak to celebrated Danish author Helle Helle about being treated like a debutante in translation, as the English-speaking world catch up with novel This Should be Written in the Present Tense. On the website, again, we speak to Booker runner-up Chigozie Obioma about the state of Nigeria and The Fishermen. Art is also thinking internationally, as Glasgowbased Julian Tolhurst shares his experiences

Online Only T

his magazine may be stuffed to the gills with exciting articles, but our website’s even busier. Head to theskinny.co.uk for up to the minute news and reviews, and these excellent features we couldn’t find room for in print: Transgender buddy movie Tangerine is the year’s most effervescent indie comedy – director Sean Baker reveals how he captured it all on his iPhone. Clever-boy stand-up comedian Nish Kumar talks political correctness, leftwing comedy and the many benefits of giving your show a weird title. Ahead of the publication of his New Selected Poems, we look at the work of Shuntaro Tanikawa, one of Japan's best-kept literary secrets. Kelvin Brown, one half of legendary club night Eyes Down, chats about making art and the joys of endless discovery.

Chat

Nigerian writer Chigozie Obioma explains why he’d rather his book The Fishermen be widely read than prize-winning. We suggest some experiential gifts, from foraging for wild mushrooms to swimming with sharks. Manchester School of Art graduate Jordan Alex Smith blurs the line between the work and talking about the work in his witty but provoking art. In Games, we cast an eye over Edinburgh's latest edition of Games Are For Everyone, taking place at the Mash House this month. Tech meanwhile focuses on advancements in home DNA testing kits and the plight of the Transhumanism movement's presidential candidate. He's essentially asking the question: Do Americans want to become cyborgs or not?

THE SKINNY

Crystal Baws With Mystic Mark

Spot the Difference Come up with the funniest or most inventive bone mot and you could win a copy of Black Mass by Dick Lehr and Gerard O’Neill, courtesy of our ever-lovin’ pals at Canongate. Competition closes midnight Sun 29 Nov. Winners will be notified via email within two working days of closing and will be required to respond within 48 hours or the prize will be offered to another entrant. Our Ts&Cs can be found at theskinny.co.uk/about/terms-and-conditions

Illustration: Michael Arnold

TWO ROY ORBISONS Only the lonely know the way Roy Orbison feels, so we’ve paired him up with his exact double for company. But wait! The eagle-eyed among you may notice one subtle-but-crucial difference between these two Big Os. Paws for a moment and have a think: if you have a ruff idea of the answer, head to theskinny. co.uk/competitions and share your findings.

ARIES “Is there anybody there?” you ask, huddled around the Ouija board with the other believers at the seance, each with a single trembling finger on the rim of the glass. The tension builds as the glass edges forward, nudging spookily across the board to gasps from the gathered crowd, sliding all the way over to stop resolutely at ‘NO.’ TAURUS Running out of cat food, you decide to blend up one cat and feed it to the other. GEMINI Letting one go during supper, your father tells you off for your rudeness, demanding you never fart at the dinner table again. You excuse yourself to continue your fart in the toilet, but he stops you and instead leads you to the new fart room he’s just had installed. The room boasts gleaming floor-toceiling tiles, a basin for washing your hands after each fart and a plethora of reading materials to keep you occupied during longer farts. CANCER Your head is meaty and hard like a ball of unchewable gristle. LEO Don’t judge people for what race they are. Race them in a car instead. That way, you’re all in the same race. Because when you think about it, the only race that really matters is the F1 race. VIRGO You’d be the first to admit that you’re the least arrogant person in the universe. LIBRA A starfish can lose a leg and grow it back. But when you lose a leg this month all you can grow is a moustache.

SCORPIO Hearing your 5-year-old crying in the night you get up to comfort her. She had a nightmare about the bogey man. You give her a hug and explain that’s just plain silly, the bogey man doesn’t exist. If you were her, you’d be far more afraid of opening your eyes to see the moist, goat-like thorax of a demon crawling out of the mirror, skittering onto the ceiling above the bed and burping an insane hurricane of wasps into her silent, screaming face. SAGITTARIUS When injured it is often best for Sagittarius to be destroyed. CAPRICORN Your MP explains in their reply to your letter regarding the situation in the Middle East, that the intricate web of socio-political, historical, religious and cultural problems means the war in Syria is unlikely to be solved by the creation of a gigantic super-robot battalion of flying robots with guns where their arms would be and rocket packs and laser eyes that go zzeeeewwww that can blow up anything even a diamond which is the toughest thing in the world, but they sincerely hope they can rely on your vote in the upcoming by-election. AQUARIUS God’s titanic solidified corpse begins to thaw out in Antarctica as global warming makes the glaciers melt. PISCES To cut a long story short, you get your bell-end trapped in the door of a spaceship. twitter.com/themysticmark facebook.com/themysticmark

The December Issue: Out Tue 1 Dec

November 2015

jockmooney.co.uk

As the shadowy figure of time draws the curtains on The Skinny’s first decade, we’ll be engaging with the usual end-of-year stuff, putting aside our differences to settle on the films and records of 2015. There’ll also be chat with Warpaint’s newly-solo Jenny Lee Lindberg, while A Mote of Dust discuss going head-to-head with fellow Aereogramme alumni Chvrches, and the seemingly unstoppable juggernaut that is Tame Impala reflect on the success of Currents. Meanwhile, Agyness Deyn discusses her shining role in Terence Davies’ Sunset Song and Guy Maddin considers the progressive ideas behind The Forbidden Room. If that wasn’t enough, there’s the second half of our Christmas Foodie Gift Guide. We spoil you lot really, but we just can’t help ourselves.

Chat

As winter sneaks e'er closer, November invites you to cosy down in cinemas for the French Film Festival UK, huddle up at the theatre for two-day new talent programme Chrysalis, and, y'know, start your Christmas shopping at saleable art showcase Selected. Happy-nearly-festive season!

Radio how and podcast creator Richard Melvin hosts another of his Richard Melvin Presents... live radio recording nights – this month including the very first pilot episode of Jail Mates, a brand new sitcom for BBC Radio Scotland starring comics Julia Sutherland and Gary Little, plus an extract from the third series of The Lach Chronicles, and more. Even better, tickets are free! The Stand, Edinburgh, 8pm, free (but ticketed)

A concept show that debuted to suitably starry reviews at the 2013 Edinburgh Fringe, Comedian Rap Battles – aka Ro Campbell and The Wee Man's comedian rap battle-off to the grisly death – takes to The Stand for its monthly outing, where another handpicked batch of comics will battle it out 8 Mile-style to see who's got the most swagger when it comes to hippity-hop wit. The Stand, Glasgow. 8.30pm, £6 (£4)

Richard Melvins

The Wee Man

Sun 8 Nov

Mon 9 Nov

Tue 10 Nov

A highlight of the final day's of Sonica festival, musician and sound artist Lauren Sarah Hayes presents sitespecific aural concert piece 15 Seconds in the iconic Hamilton Mausoleum (making the most of the building having the longest echo in any manmade structure, fact fans), complete with sonically responsive flash light bulbs. Leaving from CCA, Glasgow, 7 & 8 Nov, £10 return

Adapted from the novel of the same name by controversial writer Ignacy Karpowicz, The Pinocchio Theatre company from Poland bring their adult puppet show adaptation of Balladynas and Romances to Edinburgh – a provocative tale of present-day Poland, where the gods of different religions resemble modern celebrities. Assembly Roxy, Edinburgh, 9 & 10 Nov, 7pm, £12 (£10)

Returning for s'more mockery of a shit film of their choosing, Joe Heenan and Billy Kirkwood bring their Watch Bad Movies with Great Comedians event to Edinburgh for its debut, screening Jeremiah Chechik's reliably rubbish The Avengers (as in, not the Marvel one, but the RalphFiennes-in-a-too-smallbowler-hat one), with the chaps providing laughalong live commentary. The Stand, Edinburgh, 8.30pm, £5

Balladynas and Romances

Hamilton Mausoleum

James Welling, 4580, 2007

Sun 15 Nov

Mon 16 Nov

Neon-lit bar/cocktail/occasional gig haven Paradise Palms presents the second in its series of monthly gig showcases offering an insight into the venue's very own label – this time presenting the local talents of electronic pop/rock unit Tongues, fledgling live band project Stillhound (formerly Discopolis), and electronic lot Glamour Muscle. Paradise Palms, Edinburgh, 6pm, free

With his latest solo offering b’lieve I’m going down finding him on suitably languid form, slowly spitting out a series of confessions and self-realised truisms over the course of an hour, Philadelphian muso Kurt Vile takes to the road with his band ensemble (The Violators) to give said LP the live treatment. O2 ABC, Glasgow, 7pm, £15 Credit: Amy Muir

The Fruitmarket opens it's doors for it's winter exhibition – Another Minimalism – a group show bringing together a select batch of current artists with that of two pioneers of West Coast American minimalism (Robert Irwin and Larry Bell), examining the impact of California Light and Space art on artists working today. Free informal tour available on Saturday afternoons, 2pm. The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, until 21 Feb, free

Credit: Courtesy the artist and Maureen Paley, London © James Welling

Sat 14 Nov

Stillhound

The Avengers

Kurt Vile

Sun 22 Nov

Some seven years after the dreamy Snowflake Midnight enchanted our earlugs, last month saw NYC alt-rockers Mercury Rev release the orchestral-rich The Light In You, marking a landmark 25 years of recording. And this month they do the done thing and tour the record to a live setting near you – alighting at The Art School for what promises to be a memorable set. The Art School, Glasgow, 7pm, £22.50

Stirling Tolbooth's two-day multi-stage music festival returns, with this year's Strange Behaviours Festival seeing Admiral Fallow and United Fruit headline day one and two respectively, alongside a schedule of 15 additional acts – among them Man Of Moon, Outblinker, Siobhan Wilson, and CARBS – plus DIY record stalls and all the craft beers you can guzzle. That do you? Tolbooth, Stirling, 21 & 22 Nov, 7pm, £10 (£15 weekend)

The Dovecot opens its doors for Selected 2015, the gallery's annual selling exhibition of contemporary Scottish craft and design – now in its third year – showcasing various local makers across disciplines including jewellery, silversmithing, ceramics, glass, textiles, and furniture. And we're sure you don't need reminding that Christmas is but a month away... Dovecot, Edinburgh, until 23 Dec, free

Mercury Rev

Admiral Fallow

Credit: Euan Robertson

Sat 21 Nov

Credit: David Lemm

Fri 20 Nov

Thu 26 Nov

Fri 27 Nov

With Book Week Scotland in full swing (running 23-29 Nov), The Glad Cafe get in on the action with a special Desert Island Discs... and Books! session, with Scottish crime writer and playwright Denise Mina discussing with Craig Smillie the records and books that have changed her life. Plus, the night prior sees the venue host a night of music and readings under the banner 'What We Wrote'. The Glad Cafe, Glasgow, 8pm, £5

After the success of the first event back in May, all-girl pop kids on the block TeenCanteen host a second of their girl power takeovers, The Girl Effect #2 – inviting a bounty of musicians to cover girl groups past and present, with guests including Broken Records, Kathryn Joseph, BMX Bandits, Jo Mango, The Cairn String Quartet, Sharptooth, and more. Raising funds for Scottish Women's Aid. Mono, Glasgow, 7.30pm, £10

Following their 9th birthday bash last month (and indeed the highs of playing our 10th a few weeks later), the Substance crew tagteam with Pulse for a Substance Vs Pulse oneoff special, welcoming Yorkshire-born percussive maestro Blawan to the Bongo's lair for a guest set of his wandering electronic, with support from residents Gavin Richardson and Darrell Harding. The Bongo Club, Edinburgh, 11pm, £10

Denise Mina

Chat

TeenCanteen

Credit: Adrian Barry

Wed 25 Nov

Catherine Louise Aitken, SegmentMirror, 2014

Blawan

THE SKINNY

Credit: Gemma Burke

Compiled by: Anna Docherty

Wed 4 Nov

Credit: JamesChampion

Heads Up

Tue 3 Nov

Making various stop-offs across Scotland (and the UK) this month, the French Film Festival UK revels in its 23rd year – opening official at London's Ciné Lumière with Jerôme Bonnell’s sixth feature All About Them, a fun twist on a youthful menage à trois, which then tours to Edinburgh (6 Nov) and Glasgow (7 Nov), with the director in attendance for a Q&A quizzin'. Various venues, UK-wide

Inauguraul youth theatre fest Chrysalis brings together various companies from across the UK for a two-day celebration of original performance by talented young performers, kicking off on the Friday with Glasgow's own Junction 25's i’d rather humble than hero, double billing with Manchester company 20 Stories High's monologuedriven Headz. Go marvel. Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, 6 & 7 Nov, £32 festival pass

Longstanding Edinburgh gig-in-a-club night Limbo celebrates its 8th year this month with a duo of outings, first with the Limbo 8th Birthday bash official (joined by Tuff Love, Garden Of Elks, and Star Rover), before decamping to The Mash House on 28 Nov for a beefed-up outing headlined by Micah P Hinson and band, with support from Delta Mainline and Supermoon (see listings). The Voodoo Rooms, Edinburgh, 8pm, from £5

All About Them

i’d rather humble than hero

Tuff Love

Fri 13 Nov

The Trav's homegrown theatre showcase returns, with this year's Traverse Hothouse featuring four selected companies sharing their latest creations at varying stages of development, including Heather Marshall's playful exploration of the things she does that waste her womb, Wasting My Womb. Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, 10-13 Nov, 8pm, £6 (£4)

NVA’s internationally touring public artwork Speed of Light arrives in Glasgow for the first time with a restaging of Ghost Peloton, which will see cyclists lit up in bespoke LED lightsuits (which instantaneously change colour, flash-rate, and luminosity, well of course) as they cycle outside The Whisky Bond, set against a backdrop of large-scale projections and an original score. The Whisky Bond, Glasgow, 12 & 13 Nov, £returns only

Following on from Scott Rodgers' solo showcase, Collective Gallery's Satellites Programme continues with a showcase of new work from British artist of Indian origin Hardeep Pandhal – who currently lives and works in Glasgow – encompas-sing new drawings and autobiographical home videos exploring conflicted stories around his own identity. Preview evening, 6-8pm. Exhibition runs until 17 Jan. Collective Gallery, Edinburgh, 6pm, free

Wasting My Womb

Credit: Alan McAteer, courtesy of NVA

Thu 12 Nov

Credit: Heather Hothouse

Wed 11 Nov

NVA and Phoenix Dance Theatre’s Ghost Peloton

Hardeep Pandhal, Human Parody after Fêlicien Rops(detail)

Wed 18 Nov

Thu 19 Nov

Having turned the grand old age of five in September (with, y'know two parties), and then gone on to host another of their immense themed Tron production nights in October, resident i AM young guns Beta & Kappa this month take to their regular home of Subbie for a special guest edition with Franz Ferdinand drummer Paul Thomson and his eclectic selections. Sub Club, Glasgow, 11pm, £tbc

Messrs Vladimir McTavish, Mark Nelson, and Keir McAllister return to host their monthly politicised comedy night – So... That Was November? – offering satirical musings on the world following the election outcome, mixing stand-up, chat, and comment while attempting to provide leftfield answers to the biggie questions. Also at Glasgow's The Stand later in the month (23 Nov). The Stand, Edinburgh, 8.30pm, £7 (£5)

Touring comedy fun night Festival of the Spoken Nerd makes its way to Scotland with a nerdy night themed around graphs, presented by geek songstress Helen Arney, stand-up mathematician Matt Parker, and resident experiments guy Steve 'Danger' Mould, with the added bells'n' whistles of guest scientists and comics... And a promised retro fax machine solo. Òran Mór, Glasgow, 7pm, £15 (£13)

Paul Thomson

Credit: Euan Robertson

Tue 17 Nov

So… That Was November?

Tue 24 Nov Best known as the vocalist of late 90s electronic duo Moloko (with then-boyfriend Mark Brydon), Irish chanteuse Róisín Murphy takes to the road with her latest – and rather glorious – solo LP Hairless Toys, melting together skittish house, sultry vocals, and a tense emotional landscape in one musically-rich, discotinged whole. Plus, she'll obviously be wearing something marvelous. O2 ABC, Glasgow, 7pm, £20

The Prodigy

Credit: Amy Muir

Mon 23 Nov Last seen in these parts steamrolling the T in the Park stage back in July, everyone's favourite electronic ravers The Prodigy take to the road with their latest LP The Day Is My Enemy – their first since 2010's Invaders Must Die – playing the not-so-intimate surrounds of Glasgow's gargantuan SECC, with support from old skool heroes Public Enemy. SECC, Glasgow, 6.30pm, from £31.20

Festival of the Spoken Nerd

Róisín Murphy

Mon 30 Nov

The Royal Scottish Academy once again adorn the gallery walls with a vast and varied array of diminutive works for the annual RSA Open – a collective exhibition taking in around 400 small artworks (with a maximum size of 80cm in any direction) sourced by open submission from artists across Scotland. Expect the usual pick'n'mix wonderland. Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, until 14 Feb, free

Owned by the folks behind cultural haven The Glad Cafe, and handily situated right next door, not-forprofit thrift shop Glad Rags pitch up in The Glad Cafe for the evening to host summat they're calling the Glad Rags' Pre-Xmas Big Bad Sale – a one-off popup offering big discounts on their lovingly curated selection of secondhand clothes, bric-a-brac, and vinyl. #budgetxmas. The Glad Cafe, Glasgow, 7.30pm, free

Glasgow-based visual artist Ruth Barker unveils her ambitious new performance piece – Circle Work – an immersive experience adopting the form of a provisional séance, layered with spoken word, installation, and costume elements, with this being your one-andonly chance to see it, performed just once at CCA, to an intimate audience of limited numbers (aka early booking advised). CCA, Glasgow, 7.30pm, free (but ticketed)

November 2015

Glad Rags' Pre-Xmas Big Bad Sale

Credit: Create Forty Eight Design Studio

Sun 29 Nov

Credit: David Grinly

Sat 28 Nov

RSA Open Exhibition 2014

Credit: Rita Azevedo

Sat 7 Nov

Credit: Courtesy of the artist

Fri 6 Nov

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Never Never Land Daniel Lopatin, aka Oneohtrix Point Never reminisces over alt metal adolescence, conjures up a parallel universe known as Garden of Delete and allows himself to be swept up in a messy cosmic fortune Interview: Jon Davies

omething’s in the air, but then again something always is. From the open confessionals of LiveJournal to the ‘one-left’ temptation on Facebook, only the most self-aware are carefully redacting their online history. But for most history no longers rots, it just lays inert on a server thousands of miles further than your parents’ dusty photo albums. The artefacts lend to an IRL muckiness that we sometimes can’t escape. Oneohtrix Point Never AKA Daniel Lopatin alluded to this on his previous long player R Plus Seven, most notably the track Still Life; its yawning choir melodies, non-sequitur lappings of noise bludgeoned into submission by a vortexing trance pattern towards the end. Its sister video by Jon Rafman was removed from YouTube, the collage of food or fecal debris jammed into the keyboard, subterranean weirdos playing with guns and children’s underwear, and furries drowning in quicksand too graphic for viewers within virtual touching distance of a lurking community. With controversy surrounding the dispatch Lopatin slinked off into his own rabbit hole. Then came a public press release, half an update for the fans and half an admission into a weird semi-fictional zone Lopatin had found himself in. His body is described to be both disintegrating and regressing into adolescence, his only marker of outside time being the ‘repugnant aroma of cumtrees’ in the Spring as he befriended Ezra, the perennially pubescent humanoid with a dog named Void. Naturally, they started a band, coagulated and then Ezra left, leaving various millennium-marked curios. The release ends with ‘EZRA DITCHED ME TO SAVE MY LIFE.’ From the typography to the use of oblivious teenage language that flies in the face of astute emotional irony, Garden of Delete is set in a world where there is no escape from puberty and shame. In a roundabout way the story isn’t too far from the truth. The genesis of G.o.D. comes from a crazy time between records for Lopatin, including creating a new soundtrack for sci-fi anime Magnetic Rose, and a rekindling of his obsession with drumming thanks to an exhibition by video artist Jacob Ciocci advancing Oneohtrix’s penchant for syncopated rhythms. An invitation to support Nine Inch Nails and Soundgarden on an amphitheatre tour served to inspire both musically and psychologically. Despite Oneohtrix Point Never progressing on to new audiences and territory, Lopatin was sucked into nostalgia mode. Along with listening to FM radio stations specialising in alternative metal and rock in order to “get it into my bones again, and regain the impulse,” the Nine Inch Nails tour opened up a rarely explored period in his life: “This was an opportunity to revisit my youth. When I started making

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my own decisions with buying music, grunge was mechanised in the worst way possible; I was in the process of being tricked or seduced. So while I was on this tour I was thinking about how I encountered both of those bands then.” While NIN was a mutual appreciation between Lopatin and his older sister, “Soundgarden was something I was pummeled with by the industry. I remember that I returned one of their tapes at a store and swapped it for Rush’s Counterparts, which changed my life. I remember encountering this music realising ‘this is who i am.’” Subsequent to the invite from Trent Reznor, Lopatin began working on a new set that paid homage to his youth, in which he could best describe as “Cyberdrone,” accompanied by a new tongue-in-cheek doctoring of Korn’s logo. From then on, it was telling that he would be having a lot of fun with producing the new record. His home at Warp Records, home to resident jester Aphex Twin, gave Lopatin licence to ‘take the piss’ in anticipation of the record. Presented to the fans was not only the story of Ezra, but ‘lost’ cybermetal group Kaoss Edge, complete with outdated website of broken hyperlinks and mall goth artwork that felt like the future two decades prior. The concepts were created to quench Lopatin’s boredom between completion and release of the record, as well as to serve as a “reference to the music industry, the oppressive features of being a musician and selling records in 2015. That also means that I’m allowed to make fun of myself, the label, managers... that’s part of G.o.D.; there are very dynamic and complex information trade routes at play these days.” While most record releases feel like an impenetrable exercise in control of identity, Garden Of Delete found a new way to subvert the culture of leaks by releasing MIDI files for fans to reinterpret melodies before even hearing the final outcomes. However, this was no attempt to create a new model of dissemination before the inevitable leak; “I’m actually just trying to entertain myself, having them appropriate my melodies before anyone’s heard these songs I’ve slaved over. Instead of waiting for it, I’ve just actualised it so I can put it on display instead of being a victim of it… It’s not politics, it’s sadomasochism.” And this is where the pain for pleasure comes full circle in Garden of Delete. No recent music has been so disdainfully assigned to the dustbin of history like alt.rock’s transition to nu metal, and it’s fascinating to see Oneohtrix dredge up the facets of vulnerability and angst found in outsider culture. Arguably metallers, grungers, grebos – whatever you want to call them – were the last teenage tribe to come to fruition before we learned how to curate our online identity through selfies,

emotionally neutral statuses or checking-in with bae. If you’re feeling particularly sadomasochistic, try to find your old online journals and see how you handle your online activity now. Similarly, revisiting some of the finer lyrics of the alternative metal era like ‘give me something to break; how about your fucking face?’ and the unintelligible squeals of pain from Korn’s Jonathan Davis, it’s easy to see why we recoil in disgust that nu metal was the soundtrack of many adolescences. Somewhat paradoxically to the nature of the internet’s permanence, trying to find your old profiles and aliases from obsolete social websites is a patchy struggle at best. Since Myspace revamped itself as a music-oriented platform, many memories have been lost, at least to the point of public use. Much like half-forgotten memories, the random amnesia from the data lake serves as a reflection of Lopatin’s state of mind as well as the compositional approach best described as vertical; in that sound designs are haphazardly smashed together as if two different songs were glitching upon each other.

“What does a traumatic memory of music fermenting inside a corroded egg of time sound like?” Daniel Lopatin

Unsurprisingly the memories that float to the surface are “the potent ones involving some kind of trauma. I tend to think about ways to formalise my own perception a lot. So in terms of adolescence, what does a traumatic memory of music fermenting inside a corroded egg of time sound like?” Lopatin understands that nostalgia is nothing more than a reinterpretation of the past, and can serve up as an existential novelty of “all kinds of failures and hallucinations... it’s best to just think of memories as interesting, life affirming newnesses.” The way Daniel Lopatin deals with this trauma on the surface of Garden of Delete conjures up grotesque images in today’s sensibilities. Akin to the maximalist tendencies of Rustie and Evian

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Christ, Oneohtrix Point Never has a brash way with trancey arpeggiations, except they’re offset by MIDI acoustic basslines and melting guitar solos shown in Ezra and I Bite Through It. There’s double kick frenzies in Sticky Drama and a headbanger ending on SPDK, while the second half of Freaky Eyes conjures up Y2K’s forgotten euphoria, disintegrating before our ears. All these speculative visions left to the wayside 15 years into the future; optimism for the 21st century exacerbated by teenage angst feels like a distant joke. But was this reality more grotesque than today’s sterile self-awareness? For some, including Lopatin, the confession and shame go hand in hand with a forgotten innocence where obsession meant sharing. Congratulating Lopatin on Kaoss Edge’s exhaustive website and the myth of Ezra as exciting marketing tools, Lopatin disagrees vehemently. “That’s just not marketing, it was for me and people as obsessive as I am, and it’s a way to collaborate with my friends who are all over the world,” including the sharing of the MIDI files Ezra developed with his mentor known as The Seurat System. The dawn of broadband brought unlimited connection to the world where you felt like you could make a best friend on a chat service with someone on the other side of the world because you sent them a bootleg of a leaked album. Nowadays, the internet community’s operation of sharing is of cynicism, unrelenting yet platitudinal, totally self-mediated and way too tasteful. Much like the internet in its liberating adolescence, the conception of Garden of Delete is deliberately and deliciously messy. In asking directly what the kernel of inspiration was for the record, Lopatin’s answer is obtuse yet telling: “I get really excited by something, and I memetically take that over.” Oneohtrix doesn’t seem led by concrete concepts, but perhaps concepts lead him into slowly forming sonic hallucinations where journalists try to put a pigeonhole on what he’s trying to say. His music, even to the listener, has that way of exploring “what alchemical relationships happen if I let thought become more real.” Serendipitous happenings abound; returning from Ciocci’s exhibition Lopatin was inspired to start making his trademark Eccojam exercises using old rock tracks for interesting drum rhythms, including industrial metal group Fear Factory, an inspiration to Kaoss Edge. “That was when I got the email about the Nine Inch Nails tour and I thought to myself ‘What the fuck is going on? Is the collective unconsciousness so pervasive that when I think of anything crazy, things will appear?” Garden of Delete is released on 13 Nov via Warp Records pointnever.com

THE SKINNY

Credit: Tim Saccenti

November 2015

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Trust Your Gut !!! (Chk Chk Chk) frontman Nic Offer details the self-scrutiny, silliness and tally charts which went into making rambunctious sixth album As If Interview: Katie Hawthorne Photography: Gemma Burke

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obody is as real as what you just did right there.” There’s a sample on !!!’s newest album As If that’s taken from radio DJ Mister Cee’s interview live on Hot 97, in which he breaks down his involvement with a transgender prostitute and starts to find confidence discussing his own sexuality, through co-host Ebro’s support and encouragement. The on-air conversation traverses legalities, moralities and the pitfalls of self-expression, marked by honesty and anxiety. As an example of trying to stay true to yourself, and the resultant difficulties finding that truth can cause, you won’t get much realer. Nic Offer, lead showman of !!!, wonders whether internal conflicts of (self-) interest might be the backbone of their new record – and possibly, of the band more generally – hypothesising, “I guess… we’re just trying to keep expanding our cliché?” If they have one, !!!’s cliché is that they’re the showiest, danciest punk outfit this side of the 80s. The band’s hyperbolic moniker has found standardised pronunciation as Chk Chk Chk – although the group initially claimed that any monosyllabic sound repeated three times over would do. It proved an infamous, potentially gimmicky and later certifiably un-Google-able title, but lives on as a reminder of the flamboyant Californians’ determination to shake it up. “We were really high minded, kind of pretentious when we started,” Offer laughs. “We really wanted to change music. But there’s still that attitude in trying to push the music as far as it goes, though; that’s how we feel we keep punk.” In short: call them what you want, because !!! works better as an attitude than a band name. Some 18 years since the band’s inception, the line-up has seen rapid-fire changes alongside their well-documented irreverence for genre. To date !!! consists of Offer, Rafael Cohen, Allan Wilson, Mario Andreoni, Dan Gorman and Paul Quattrone, with some nine alumni to keep count of, too. In 2000 their self-titled debut record opened the floodgates for early noughties dance-punk, ushering in bands like LCD Soundsystem and Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Building on the moody post-punk floor fillers so popular in the ‘70s and ‘80s, !!! injected a highly welcome dose of kooky, unselfconscious humour into their rabble-rousing party starters. Moving to esteemed label Warp in 2004 confirmed the band’s status as risk-taking good timers, renowned for their obscenely energetic live performances – something Offer’s still proud of: “Everyone always says the shows are better than the records!” In more recent years, their punk credentials have been called into question – apparently hidden beneath gyrating hips and fluorescent lights. A surface listen to their latest, disco-balled record As If could reinforce that doubt, but beneath the glitzy surface lays a steely core. Offer explains, “We all really responded to punk, but what we responded to was being yourself, doing your thing. But then it got locked into something very rigid and close-minded… So when we first started doing dance punk, there were punks mad at us for not being

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Black Flag. But that’s not the attitude, that’s not what we were in punk for. Then, a few years after dance punk, everyone was like, ‘Why aren’t you doing that dance thing anymore?’” He laughs, hard. “That was never what it was about. To us, the whole punk attitude should be a search for something more, like: ‘Society is bullshit, so what can we do?’” Rather than non-conformism through your classic snot and spit, !!! circa 2015 are taking a much more introspective, self-aware route: attacking big, existential questions through obstinate independence, and a little help from their friends. The band decided to outsource the tracklisting of their sixth album; after sending a multitude of demo tracks to friends and family, the record was compiled based upon their “pretty brutal” feedback. “We gave them a week to listen and then everyone turned their votes back in. Our manager/ secretary set us up with a proper tally sheet, with the votes all laid out so you could see what the boys voted for, what the girls voted for, what the older people voted for, what the younger people voted for… Yeah, it was proper! You could see it all. I was like, ‘Oh, ok, guess that track didn’t work out!’” Offer admits that some of his favourites failed to make the cut, but !!! stuck resolutely to democracy – and yielded the rewards. Lead single Freedom ‘15 topped the tally, and has been “hands down the most talked about in all the reviews so far,” Offer muses. “It wasn’t what we’d have anticipated, but friends will tell you what you need to be told!” Offer describes As If as a “grab bag”. The title’s a quasi-pun on the idea of dressing up in other musical voices and attitudes – and it reflects the “many different techniques, different producers” which had a hand in the record’s genesis. As a handy guide to navigating its complicated waters, Offer has created a kind of treasure map – a short series of blogs and an accompanying YouTube playlist which demarcate the reference points and samples sprinkled within As If. From the obvious to the downright unlikely, the hints include Blawan, Erykah Badu, The Cure, Sparks, Jam City and the ever reclusive Jai Paul. Some clues will have you slapping your forehead – of course Badu’s On & On

influenced the vocals in Sick Ass Moon. Others straight up can’t be found within the record’s walls: The Cure is only namechecked thanks to Lovesong playing in a coffee shop at a fortuitous moment – “a simple, eternal song.” Offer is quick to refute any specific intent behind the “treasure map”, though. “I don’t know why we did it,” he says, slowly. “People were like, ‘Oh that’s interesting.’ And we were like, ‘Oh, it is?!’ But it must be tiring, I would think, for a critic to get another press pack that says, ‘Here’s a band’s new record and this is why it’s the most incredible thing they’ve ever done.’ And it seemed, also, like a strange record… so this is our way of explaining that we were just trying lots of things out. You won’t necessarily like everything you’ll find in there, but hopefully there’s some gems and rubies for you.”

“The monkey was controversial. People thought it was toooo far” Nic Offer

Spanning house, disco, funk, punk, soul and thoroughly indulgent pop, the most consistent thread you’ll find through As If is of self-realisation, driven by Offer’s mind-set that “you have to be be unafraid to let anything happen.” It’s a deceptively simple mantra given the powerful current of shoulder-shimmying silliness and Panto-sized winks; tracks titled Ooo, Sick Ass Moon and Lucy Mongoosy are just the tip of one big, flamboyant iceberg. Finger-snapping one liners like, “She said her favourite Beatles song is Wonderwall” nestle against huge Europop choruses, sassy backing vocals asking, “How’s it working for you baby?” and perfectly timed auto-tune. Crafted to bring a grin and set you sweating (Offer says,

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multiple times, that sweat is very important), it’s a record that demands semi-baffled but completely enthusiastic participation. As a third layer of icing on an already very sticky cake, the album’s promo material features the most famous monkey in showbiz, liberal use of intentionally terrible photoshop and full eye contact, face-to-camera lip sync videos. Watch Bam City if you think this sounds like exaggeration – it’s a million miles from your average, label-endorsed promotional vid. Offer is excited: “It’s so good that you notice that, we fought for all those things. And you’ll be surprised, there’s more to come! I will tell you, though, that the monkey was controversial. People thought it was toooo far. Too ridiculous.” This begs the question; what could possibly be too ridiculous for !!!? “Well, there’s a pile of vetoed ideas… There are certainly times we’ve just gone too far. But I mean, take Lucy Mongoosy – it’s not even some huge inside joke to the band, it just opens up a strange world, something you have to imagine. The name describes the beat, it had that feel… and that’s why it felt okay.” “You take an artist like Prince, and people always told him, ‘You can’t do this! Don’t do this! This is crazy!’ But he’d do it, and he was always right, he only trusted himself… But then suddenly he was kind of too far into his ego? He was too far gone. So there’s always that self-doubt; have I gone too far? Are we over the hill? Can we still do this? It really gets confusing, and that was part of the struggle with the record. Even with track I Feel So Free – ‘I try to listen to the little voice I hear inside, but it’s hard to trust it when everyone out here’s so uptight.’ It’s a simple, basic couplet but it’s a very intense thing that I think everybody battles with. That thing of knowing what your true self really wants, and then what society… or whatever… is telling you you’re supposed to do.” It’s hard work, trusting your gut. “True. But I always get in the mood when the right groove comes on.” As If is released on 6 Nov via Warp. chkchkchk.net

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Criminal Lovers Todd Haynes has been making films – some of modern cinema’s smartest and most daring – for nearly three decades. At this year’s London Film Festival he discusses his stunning new picture, Carol, a tremulous love story between two women in 1950s New York

fter watching Todd Haynes’ Carol early on a Wednesday morning, and when speaking to the director just over 24 hours later, the film is constantly replaying in The Skinny’s mind. The odd thing is that the details that keep percolating passed almost unnoticed while watching the film; it’s only later that the significance and emotional weight of every fleeting glance, every gesture and every touch become apparent. The forbidden relationship at the centre of the film, between young shopgirl Therese (Rooney Mara) and the older, married Carol (Cate Blanchett), is constructed almost entirely from these moments, with a silent exchange of looks between the two characters at the end of the film carrying an indelible power. This is a film that quietly breaks your heart. “I didn’t really think of it as so quiet when I was making it, but I think it’s just my preference,” Haynes says when told of this reaction. “I really love the disquiet that Therese would feel in the company of Carol, and that there was not a simple, easy or immediate rapport between the women. I mean, there was a conflict, there was interest and curiosity, but there are a lot of moments that were indecipherable to Therese. Carol came with a complex web of issues in her life and an ambivalence about this relationship that Therese has to keep navigating, so that silence and those moments of indecipherability were really important and loaded. They create anxiety but they also create desire, and I love the tension that produces.” That tension, and that exploration of conflicted desire within the constraints of a conservative era, is something Haynes handled masterfully in Far from Heaven. Also set in the 50s, that 2002 film followed a well-to-do housewife (Julianne Moore) who falls in love with her black gardener (Dennis Haysbert) around the time that she discovers her husband (Dennis Quaid) is gay. Carol, an adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s novel The Price of Salt, is so perfectly attuned to Haynes’ sensibility that it comes as a surprise to learn he didn’t originate the project. “I was given the script [by Phyllis Nagy] and the novel, which I had not read before and didn’t

November 2015

know, in the same moment in May of 2013,” he explains “and there had already been a long history preceding this project. I had actually heard about it through Sandy Powell [costume designer on Far from Heaven], who was planning to do costumes, and she told me that Cate was already attached to this and [The Crying Game producer] Liz Karlsen was producing it. So I knew it existed, but I kind of forgot about it and was working on other things before it came to me.” The book might feel like an anomaly in Highsmith’s body of work, which is best known for dark tales of murder and psychological intrigue (Strangers on a Train, The Talented Mr Ripley). For Haynes, however, it was the way in which Highsmith approached this subject matter from the perspective of a crime novelist that was most intriguing. “It made you feel like falling in love was like having committed a murder,” he says, “and having to recount and examine all of the evidence stacking up against you to see what your chances are of getting away with it. Every detail and nuance, particularly if it’s coming from your object of desire, is a sign to be decoded and you start to fixate on it to try and read what it means. So there’s a kind of pathology to it.” Although it’s tempting to use Far from Heaven as a point of reference for Carol, this is a very different film. While the earlier picture was intended as an overt tribute to the films of Douglas Sirk, Carol feels like a love story rooted in a recognisably real depiction of 1950s America, shot in muted tones by the great Ed Lachman (who shot Haynes’ Far from Heaven, I’m Not There and miniseries Mildred Pierce) and with performances that don’t feel stylised. Instead of looking to greats like Sirk for inspiration this time, the 54-year-old filmmaker talks enthusiastically about a littleknown film from 1956 called Lovers and Lollipops: “It had a female character at the centre of the story and the way she moved, and her range of gestures, was quite different from the way actresses from movies in that time behaved, and yet it was still quite codified and very particular to the time,” Haynes explains. “It just felt more like a documentary, like it wasn’t filtered through Hollywood

language, and that was very interesting. I felt like there were aspects of femininity that had gone away, and that I wanted to be really true to.” This is Haynes’ first feature film since I’m Not There, his unconventional take on Bob Dylan from 2007, and despite having established himself as one of the most interesting and artistically adventurous filmmakers in American independent cinema over the past 25 years, making films like Carol hasn’t become any easier.

“Silence and moments of indecipherability are really important and loaded. They create anxiety but they also create desire” Todd Haynes

“Velvet Goldmine, because it had a music theme and a lot of young people in it, was a little bit easier to finance, but it was still a very modest budget and I’ve never felt that I’ve had anything other than a modest budget for the ambitions of the project,” he says. “It has really narrowed because people just don’t go to the theatres to see those movies as much, so financing has dried up. And DVD sales, that whole ancillary part that supplemented independent filmmaking for so long, has now gone away with streaming and the way we watch things today.” Is it any wonder that more independent filmmakers are taking the opportunities offered by television? After all, Haynes found the

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Interview: Philip Concannon

experience of making the miniseries Mildred Pierce in 2011 to be an extremely rewarding one. “The more open dramatic form of the miniseries was already an exceptionally different and interesting challenge, but you have to shoot so many pages a day for TV and that was the biggest daily challenge,” he recalls. “But I loved working with HBO, and once we all agreed on the budget and were greenlit I felt a kind of security under me that I hadn’t felt before.” Part of Haynes’ attraction to television is that there seems to be a lot more space for the kind of stories he wants to tell. “There are probably more and more dramatic programmes with female characters. Showtime seemed to specialise in women-driven stories for a while and HBO is catching up a bit, but all of that is helping competition and broadens what we get to see, and that has not been the case in independent filmmaking.” While the rise of the TV serial over the last decade or so has been great to see, we can’t help thinking about what we would lose in terms of cinema if filmmakers like Haynes make the full transition to television. It’s hard to imagine a version of Carol existing as a miniseries without it being more narrative and dialogue-driven, and consequently losing those almost imperceptible touches that gradually accumulate such emotional force, particularly when viewed on a huge cinema screen. We’re still marvelling at the way Haynes has crafted this film and concocted such a tangible sense of yearning, sadness and chemistry, but when asked about it, he typically demurs: “All you can do is provide a conscious series of decisions and specific choices showing who these people are and expressing it at different moments, and to use all the tools of the medium – the music, the visual language, the silences – to inform those things.” Ultimately, it’s up to the viewer, he says: “They bring the emotion and they bring what’s alive to the film.” Haynes is entrusting his delicate and beautiful new movie to our hands. Let’s treat it well. Carol is released 27 Nov by StudioCanal

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supporting player feels like a well-rounded person in their own right, with lives of their own beyond our protagonist’s story, from Julie Walters’ boarding house matron, Mrs. Kehoe, to Mad Men’s Jessica Paré as a work supervisor. “You don’t see that very often,” Ronan agrees. “It’s one thing to have one lead performance that is quite strong, and we see that a lot in films and it’s great and people comment on it and all that stuff, but [it’s rare] to have every single person play their roles so well and have so many wellwritten characters – even if they only come in for a couple of scenes. “Nick put it really well the other day,” she continues. “He said that when he’s writing he likes to be able to walk all the way around a character and see everything from their perspective and love their life. And I thought that was a really great way to put it, and it makes sense when you read his stuff because everyone along the way, whether they knock her down a bit or help her up, all of these characters are really essential to her moving forward.”

“I’ve always wanted to do comedy, but it scares me how hard it is” Saoirse Ronan

This Must Be the Place Saoirse Ronan, Ireland’s best young acting export of the last decade, heads into adult leading roles with Brooklyn, an adaptation of Colm Tóibín’s beloved novel. The Skinny talks to the star about immigrant stories, career goals and doing a musical Interview: Josh Slater-Williams

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h God, I do really love Singin’ in the Rain. I loved Gene Kelly so much, and I loved watching him perform.” The Skinny is chatting with Saoirse Ronan just a few hours before her new film, Brooklyn, has a red carpet launch for its European premiere at this year’s London Film Festival, and we’ve broached the topic of favourite movies from the era of the film’s 1950s setting. “What else did I love?” she continues. “I loved anything with Bette Davis. She was terrific. Maybe that was more late 40s, but she worked into the 50s as well. All About Eve would be 50s and I love All About Eve.” The question is inspired by Ronan’s character in the film, who goes to see the aforementioned Kelly musical, swoons over Gary Cooper with a friend, and has a conversation about John Ford’s The Quiet Man, released in 1952, the year in which Brooklyn is set. At the time of writing, news has just come through that The Quiet Man’s female lead, Maureen O’Hara, passed away at age 95. The Dublin-born star’s career really took off with Ford’s Oscar-winning How Green Was My Valley (1941), also set in Ireland, and despite becoming

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a US citizen as her Hollywood work prospered, she retained Irish citizenship and was publicly vocal about sharing her heritage and promoting her home country to the world, both on screen and off. It may be a bit hasty to compare a Golden Age Hollywood legend with a 21-year-old performer, but reading up on O’Hara’s legacy does set off a few light bulbs in the mind regarding Ronan, in terms of her own career so far and her new film. Both actors have worked with some of the best filmmakers of their era. In Ronan’s short career she’s starred in Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel, Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones, Peter Weir’s The Way Back and Neil Jordan’s Byzantium. She’s also worked twice with Joe Wright, in Hanna and Atonement, and for the latter she received an Oscar nomination, age 13. This comparison’s mileage may vary depending on whether you consider these directors comparable in quality to O’Hara collaborators like Ford, Carol Reed, Nicholas Ray and Alfred Hitchcock, but whatever your thoughts on these current filmmakers, it’s a pretty remarkable resume for someone barely out of her teens.

A primer on the new film first: Brooklyn is an adaptation of Colm Tóibín’s much acclaimed 2009 novel of the same name and is brought to the screen by Irish director John Crowley. Ronan plays Eilis Lacey, a young Irish woman who immigrates to the eponymous New York borough with the help of her sister (played by Fiona Glascott) and a churchrelated sponsorship for a life of “better” prospects. Initially, Eilis is devastatingly homesick, but gradually she makes friends and begins dating a young Italian-American man, Tony (Emory Cohen). But just as her new life and love prosper, a disruption back in Ireland forces her to return home. While there, she subsequently develops feelings for a local man, Jim (Domhnall Gleeson), and other forces seem determined to keep her around. It seems like the new, different life she has created for herself in the States will have to be left behind. As adapted by Nick Hornby, Brooklyn doesn’t offer any weak links in terms of the characters surrounding Eilis. Where a less sensitive screenwriter might reduce the people she meets to broad caricatures, particularly when it comes to the various issues of ethnicity in the story, every

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We throw in the suggestion that, though you wouldn’t necessarily want to deviate from Eilis’s story, you could plausibly follow a completely different film with nearly any other character in the movie as a lead and it would probably prove compelling. Ronan starts chuckling: “Well, they said for a while that if we were ever gonna do a spinoff, we’d do a spin-off of Ma Kehoe’s and all the girls in the boarding house.” Despite the story’s tragedy and longing, Brooklyn is a surprisingly funny film, and the boarding house scenes play a big part in that. When we ask about other filmmaking routes she’d like to explore, Ronan seems particularly interested in pursuing something more light-hearted. “I’d love to do a musical,” she says. “I’ve always wanted to do one. I dunno if I’m a good enough singer but I’d still love to do it. I’ve always wanted to do comedy, but it scares me how hard it is. And directors-wise, I’d love to work with Lenny Abrahamson, the Irish director, and I quite like the idea as well of, just ‘cause I love TV so much, doing an eight-part drama or something like that.” One thing she’s less keen to do is stick with the teen roles she’s been so accustomed to. “You know, I’m in my 20s now and I would like the roles I take to kind of reflect that age. Unless it’s really great I don’t wanna go back too far, [though] it is a fascinating journey to see someone grow up and be introduced to the adult world. So many films that we’ve grown up with and we watch all the time are kind of solely about that. But no, I’m ready to move on to that next sort of step now and play people who have already gone through that.” When we go back to asking about her musical ambitions, there’s a hint of a mini-dance with her arms while she’s sat on the sofa of the Soho hotel suite where she’s still in a light-blue floral-patterned dress and high heels from a press conference earlier that morning. “I just like the idea of, like, doing a little dance routine and singing some songs, going into the recording studio, laying down some tracks. That’s the goal.” Her distinctive, very expressive pale-blue eyes, which have been used so prominently in films like Atonement and Hanna, grow particularly big as we discuss future endeavours like this. It’s an encouraging sign that although her teen-star mantle is being put to rest, the spark of what first drew the world to Saoirse Ronan shows no sign of fading with adulthood. Brooklyn is released 6 Nov by Lionsgate

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Title Contender

As The Mountain Goats return to UK shores to promote wrestling-themed concept album Beat The Champ, John Darnielle tells us about morality and inspiration Interview: Will Fitzpatrick

s muses go, John Darnielle’s seems to wander more than most. Over the past six years alone, he’s dealt with subjects ranging from mental illness to tarot to a variety of takes on Christianity. He’s also successfully negotiated a journey across musical horizons, beginning in a somewhat lo-fi manner (from 1991’s cassette-only Taboo IV: The Homecoming until 2002’s All Hail West Texas, The Mountain Goats often amounted to little more than Darnielle, a guitar and a portastudio) before finally arriving at the rather more intricate explorations of American music that he now crafts with a full band. As if to confound us further, his latest record is about a relatively unlikely subject. It’s called Beat The Champ and, as the sleevenotes proudly declare, it is “an album about professional wrestling.” It’s also quite beautiful. Even from the other end of a crackling phone line, the 48-year-old Darnielle’s presence positively shimmers. He’s warm and fascinating – much like his music, applying some truth to the old notion that a writer can’t help but put themselves into their work. We plump for the obvious question first: what inspired him to write an album about such unusual subject matter? “It’s funny,” he begins. “When they teach you about literature, you come away with the impression that writers wake up one morning and go, ‘What shall my theme be?’ But it’s not like that for me. I just start working and see where my ideas go. So I’m at the piano, just playing a little something, then I adlib a line of whatever comes into my mind until I get a good idea. Then I start following the images wherever they go. “The first one I wrote was [album opener] Southwestern Territory – it follows this idea of a wrestler working for small pay around the country. When I was a kid, wrestlers seemed very glamorous… you grow up and you think, ‘Oh wow, that didn’t pay very well at all.’ They had to work five days a week like everybody else, and fly where the work was. So I had this loose idea, telling the story, and when I went to write another song, I had a similar story in mind. I thought it would be pretty unusual for a record to have just two songs that were about wrestling, so I kept going.” As ever with The Mountain Goats, it’s the detail that makes this album so absorbing. The aforementioned sleevenotes reminisce about being taken as a child to watch matches at LA’s Grand Olympic Auditorium (“I would not cheer the heels,” they declare solemnly), while The Legend Of Chavo Guerrero – the album’s most glistening slice of bright-eyed pop – sees a young Darnielle mapping out the life of his hero, and cursing the villains (“I would pray nightly for their death”). There’s great significance placed on good triumphing over evil; almost a morality structure. “When I was a kid I had a real strong desire for good to win out,” he explains. “I remember the first time that we went through The Lord of the Rings when I was 11 or 12, and the idea of this dark power wanting to ruin and darken an entire land was offensive to me. Same with the witch in The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe. I was horrified by these evil people who – as in wrestling – do evil for the sake of evil. That to me was outrageous. It was very much a moral position for me as a child.” This innate sense of right and wrong may lie at the root of his fandom, but Darnielle’s fascination with wrestling extends far beyond the battles fought in the ring. Indeed, and perhaps inevitably for a born raconteur with a keen eye for minutiae, he proves quite a historian of the sport.

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“I was following it during a time called ‘the days of the territory’, when there was no overarching wrestling federation, just these small regional scenes. Very minor operations, run by ambitious businessmen – sort of like carnies, putting on this show that was half hoodwinkery to make as much money as possible. “In the 80s, [WWE founders] the McMahon family bought up the smaller territories and made a single one, which of course was good for the wrestlers – they made a lot more money – but the charm of the regional territories was very much the charm of the local [music] scene: if you have good small bands around, and a good scene gets going, nobody who’s not from where you’re from will ever understand how cool that was. That makes it kind of special, like a family, and wrestling was like that when I was a kid. It was a secret, almost.”

“In writing, you can get lost enough that you get unmoored, and you’re not sure where you’re going. That’s an exciting and mysterious place” John Darnielle

Once Darnielle gets going, there’s almost no stopping him, and soon our questions lead to enthusiastic, scene-setting explanations of the sport’s context: “There was a tradition in wrestling for many years called ‘kayfabe’,” he continues. “That meant that you did not tell people who weren’t in the business that it wasn’t all real. Under kayfabe, a masked wrestler would never be seen without his mask. [Iconic Mexican luchador] El Santo, legendarily, nobody saw him without his mask on – nobody, who didn’t already know him from family connections. “Now everybody’s in on the joke – that’s cool too, but it’s very different. Everybody knew that it was to some degree staged and planned, but it was much more like theatre in that everybody pretended it was real in order to have a true cathartic experience.” Do you ever lament the passing of that era? “I try not to lament the passing of anything. I really think it’s a bad habit to get into, ‘cause that’s how you get old.” He laughs. “But like I say, the wrestlers back in those days were not getting paid very well at all. There are few athletes who sacrifice more of their bodies for sport, you know? Their backs and knees are all messed up by the time they turn 40. “I’m really glad these artists are making a good living, I’m glad more people are able to enjoy it. But at the same time, it’s like when a band you like gets successful and you go, ‘Well, it was cooler when it was smaller.’ I’m sure it was, but it’s cooler for the band that they don’t have to sleep on people’s couches.”

Credit: Lissa Gotwals

Beyond the wrestling veneer, however, the album also explores darker themes, as Darnielle explains: “It’s the most explicitly death-obsessed record of mine in a long time. There’s Stabbed To Death Outside San Juan, Luna and The Ballad of Bull Ramos – plenty of death. And then there’s a lot of imagined death in Fire Editorial. So I think in a way this is an album about mortality, and the sort of fantasies we can preoccupy ourselves with on the way to our eventual end.” Do you still manage to immerse yourself in anything that offers that sense of escape? “You know, it’s funny… I don’t know if it’s just maturity or the busyness of life, but it does get harder. For example, when I was a kid, there was this legendary surgeon’s photograph of the Loch Ness monster – you could really immerse yourself in that concept because the information was so scant. Well, now you can go watch as many YouTubes as you like of people telling the story of the photograph, and the way the hoax was concocted. Practically all mystery, you can go online and dispel for yourself.” Is the absence of that mystery one of the reasons why you write? “In writing, you can get lost enough that you sort of get unmoored, and you don’t know where you are, and you’re not sure where you’re going.

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That’s an exciting and mysterious place.” It’s precisely this delight in the unknown that makes Darnielle’s writing so consistently surprising – and one of the many reasons why Beat The Champ is such an excellent record. It also makes it difficult to spot an overall theme to his work, however. Not that this concerns him too much: “I always assume that if anybody is writing a bunch of songs during a period of their life, there’s going to be an overarching theme, but I don’t know if it’s there for the writer to know. There’s a sense in which you never know exactly what you’re writing about – this actually goes back to the first question. “Maybe there are some people, and this is how I always imagine British writers of the 19th century, going, ‘I shall address the theme of nobility and man, and for these purposes I will invent a character who strives to be noble from mean origins,’ or whatever. But I just tell a story, and then I tell 11 more, and then I have an album. And then I think it’s for other people to tell me what I did, or what I wound up writing about. It has to remain a little mysterious to me.” The Mountain Goats play Glasgow Art School on 13 Nov. Beat The Champ is out now via Merge mountain-goats.com

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Luke Vibert, Who Else? Ahead of his set for Something Wicked at The Art School – his first Scottish appearance in eight years – genre-hopping master and lover of playful samples, Luke Vibert ponders his approach to production and DJing Interview: Ronan Martin

Credit: Stuart Holt

ast month saw the release of Bizarster, Luke Vibert’s seventh studio album under his own name – that figure grows significantly if you consider his work under aliases such as drum’n’bass project Plug, the junglist Amen Andrews guise and the Wagon Christ moniker, through which he presents spaced-out trip-hop of gratifying looseness. Also dabbling in everything else from acid and rave to disco and hip hop over 25 years, and always doing so in a distinctive fashion, the veteran producer is by now fairly comfortable in shifting perspective with ease. On his latest offering, many of these styles sit side by side, somehow tied together by that unmistakable Vibert touch. “It’s a big old mix of stuff Mike [Paradinas, of Planet Mu] hand-picked from tons of tracks from the last few years,” Luke tells us. It’s easy to imagine he has the same kind of vast cache of unreleased music as fellow traveller Aphex Twin, who recently sent sections of the internet into meltdown with a mass dump of years’ worth of tracks via an obscure Soundcloud alias – an idea Vibert admits does have a certain appeal for him too. Yet while many may have initially speculated about the possibility that Richard D. James’ bulk upload, and last year’s release of the album Syro, was a way of drawing a line under one era in the history of Aphex Twin, it somehow seems less likely that Vibert could ever be as pre-meditated in his approach. Rather, he seems content to continually revisit different styles and aliases whenever the notion takes him – evidenced with this year’s welcome return to the spellbinding disco house of his alias Kerrier District, a move which delighted many who had suspected the project had been consigned to history. That said, when asked if he feels any pressure or level of expectation when producing new work, or whether he instead takes a more carefree approach, his answer is tellingly simple: “Pretty much the latter.” This nonchalant sensibility is also writ large in the tongue-in-cheek flourishes found

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throughout Bizarster, firmly placing it within the Vibert canon. Whether through playful samples, cartoonish sound effects or simply in the use of silly track titles, Luke has always appeared to shirk the po-faced indulgence that plagues many electronic artists – even those who have had much lessofanimpactandlastinginfluencethanthe42-yearold from Cornwall. “It’s pretty subconscious”, he says of the way in which this skittish side finds its way into his music through the oddball samples and sounds he utilises to devastating effect. “It’s just putting bits together, one by one. I sometimes don’t quite realise what’s happening under my nose!” Unsurprisingly, Vibert’s approach to DJing is as intuitive as the way he produces music. In the past he has spoken about how he rarely plans his sets until shortly before taking to the booth, taking his cue from whoever has warmed up and feeling his way through the set by instinct. “I love the varied nature of DJing”, he explains, comparing it to his back catalogue, in terms of the variety of moods on offer. “But obviously a nice banging set every now and then clears the air out,” he jokes, with an eye on his upcoming appearance at The Art School, where he is joined by Planet Mu labelmate Konx Om Pax. All told, it would seem that very little has changed for Luke Vibert, in terms of how he views his working processes at least. Can he pinpoint any shift at all in recent years? “Hard to say, really. I suppose I must have become more knowledgeable somehow, but it doesn’t particularly feel like it.” In fact, his reflections on making music would seem to echo the sentiments of his most enthusiastic fans, who rather convincingly point out that however retrospective some of his output may feel, it still blows most of the contemporary competition out of the water: “It feels pretty damn similar to 25 years ago, I’m happy to report.” We suspect that feeling is mutual, Luke. Luke Vibert plays Something Wicked at The Art School, Glasgow on Saturday 28 Nov

My Golden Days

Film d’Amour The annual French Film Festival returns for its 23rd edition, with another diverting, varied programme – we select some highlights Words: George Sully

ove, l’amour; it fascinates and tortures us in equal measure, and forms the subject of countless works of cinema. And as universally human as that emotion may be, there’s an inimitable hotblooded sensibility to films from the continent, especially France. Naturally, then, highlights from the 23rd annual French Film Festival (5 Nov-13 Dec) include films of torrid, agonising, time-tested relationships; of bittersweet betrayal and infidelity; of love in its many forms. My Golden Days is Arnaud Desplechin’s tenth film, and the prequel to his 1996 drama My Sex Life... or How I Got into an Argument. Mathieu Amalric reprises his role as anthropology professor Paul Dédalus, but steps back to allow new blood Quentin Dolmaire to play his younger self, as he relives his heady teenage years and all their social and romantic entanglements. Dolmaire is magnetic as the burgeoning academic with a steelygaze, as is Lou Roy-Lecollinet as his siren-like paramour Esther. Where Desplechin charts tempestuous adolescent love, Maïwenn opts for the complexities of marriage. My King, her newest film since the 2011 Cannes Jury Prize-winning Polisse, stars trusty firebrand Vincent Cassel and Emmanuelle Bercot as a wealthy married Parisian couple. Praised for its fresh take on otherwise established archetypes, the film also has Bercot in one of her best roles to date, scooping the Cannes award for best actress. Infidelity catches the prolific Philippe Garrel’s eye in In The Shadow of Women, a bracingly intimate examination of the strains a relationship can suffer in the wake of extramarital romance, and the differing perspectives on what it means to be unfaithful. Variety called it “an exquisite three-hander about life, art and the delusional male ego.” From relationships with people to our relationship with society and the state; some choice picks from this year’s programme deal with humanity versus ‘the system’. Frederic Teller’s SK1, loosely based on the true case of serial killer Guy Georges, is as much about the inhibiting bureaucracy of the French police force in the 1990s as it is about the case itself, while taut investigative thriller The Clearstream Affair (Vincent Garenq), also with a grounding in reality, dramatises journalist Denis Robert’s uncovering of Luxembourg bank Clearstream’s shadowy corruption. For the very human consequences of our

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modern economy, Stéphane Brizé’s The Measure of a Man explores the frustrations of fruitless unemployment through Vincent Lindon’s stoic security guard Thierry. And to rebel entirely against it all, Cédric Kahn’s Wild Life has anti-consumerist couple Carole (Céline Sallette) and Philippe (Mathieu Kassovitz) roving the countryside in a caravan, living off the land and raising their children, until that lifestyle is tested by certain realities. It’s also based on a true story. Few socially conscious films, however, surpass the seminal 1919 pacifism paean that is J’accuse, also screening at this year’s festival. Simultaneously anti-war and its own self-contained love story, J’accuse was shot at the end of the Great War and has scenes of real returning soldiers (the famous ‘return of the dead’ sequence). It is a timeless, moving depiction of the senselessness of military conflict. Cornerstone studio Gaumont, the oldest film company in the world, celebrates its 120th anniversary this year, and so the French Film Festival are screening, among select others, Luc Besson’s 1989 cult classic The Big Blue. A fictionalised story of the machismo-driven relationship between two real champion free divers, and though not strictly Francophone, the film is seen as Jean Reno’s ‘big break’ career-wise, paving the way for higher profile roles (including other Besson productions like Léon). We’d be remiss not to recommend the reliable, playful Michel Gondry and his latest adventure, the quasi-autobiographical Microbe and Gasoline, set to feature his usual trademark whimsy and charm, but told through the eyes of two misfit boys. Worth mentioning too is up-and-coming director/long-time actor Louis (son of Philippe) Garrel (starring, incidentally, in My King above), who brings his feature debut Two Friends to the festival. All eyes are on him to see if he’ll follow in his father’s accolade-filled footsteps. The programme is fit to burst with highlights, so we urge you to explore beyond these picks. And the festival is screening in Newcastle, Warwick, Leeds, Hereford, Belfast, Aberdeen, Dundee, Inverness, Kirkcaldy, Hawick, as well as the main sites of London and, of course, Edinburgh’s Filmhouse and Glasgow’s GFT, so you can go almost anywhere this month to catch some premium Gallic cinema. The French Film Festival runs 5 Nov-13 Dec For full details, go to frenchfilmfestival.org.uk/FFF2015

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November 2015

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began a sculptural collaboration with a tattoo shop in Hong Kong that had been involved in the front line of street protests during the Umbrella Movement’s formation. “I went down and interviewed [the people in the] tattoo shop that had been involved. I took a bunch of sculptures of heads that had been gagged. It was in Chinese New Years when I went down, carrying a whole suitcase of subversive sculptures. But that wasn’t unusual, people would carry chickens, or whole cases of eggs. So they [officers] see six heads and think fuck it, go through.” He left the heads with the tattoo shop workers, who have made various interventions, like chiselling the eyes out and drawing on top of them.

“You can make political art... But if suddenly you get a lot of exposure you might get into trouble” Julian Tolhurst

Julian Tolhurst, Assimilation Game, 2014

Life in A Chinese Art Village Glasgow-based Canadian artist Julian Tolhurst discusses his three and a half years living, teaching and working as an artist in China Interview: Adam Benmakhlouf

or three and a half years, newly Glasgowbased artist Julian Tolhurst taught and lived as an artist in China. Breaking the Canadian expat’s “five minute rule” (“you have five minutes to talk about where you used to live then you have to shut up because no one cares”), he gives an insight into his experience of teaching, making and exhibiting work in China. When Tolhurst says he worked within a Chinese art community, there’s a more literal edge as he lived in an art village called Songzhuang. “It’s 30 minutes outside Beijing. There are people that are just barely getting by, making and painting whatever they want. Then there are people that are really rich, all in that one community. But the entire community, about 7000 people, all make their living either selling food to artists, stretching canvasses, or running foundries for artists.” Some of the success of the Songzhuang artists’ colony may be explained by the availability of large and affordable studios. Tolhurst worked in a “huge” studio with its own bedroom, kitchen and bathroom for 3000 Canadian dollars (about £1500) a year. There were a few false starts before Tolhurst found himself in a comfortable set-up. Initially, he visited Songzhuang a few times before being able to learn of any opportunities. “It was so inaccessible because I didn’t speak the language. A lot of people do speak English but it’s not as prevalent as people would think.” Gradually picking up the language, he was able to rent a space within the building for a special effects company. “After two months, everything was knocked down apart from my studio. They waited for me to get all my drawings and paints out, then they knocked it down. It hadn’t been scheduled to be knocked down for six more months but they just got ahead of schedule.” While studio space might still be relatively cheap, “those opportunities are disappearing as more people hear about it and go for residencies.” Though in this case on a more international level,

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he sees a parallel too with the kind of gentrification that’s more familiar within areas of specific cities that host artist communities until they become prohibitively expensive. “There was a place downtown called 798. It was the hip place for artists to live and make work. Now it’s only where the galleries are. It’s all shops and restaurants around them. There are barely any artists – unless they’re well to do – that live there.” As well as the more generous spatial economy within Songzhuang, the increased political engagement within his community of friends and artists began to inform his work. Some care was necessary when making this kind of work within China’s current political framework. “You can do it in a quiet way and you’re probably okay. But if suddenly you get a lot of exposure from it you might get into trouble.” With careful reserve, Tolhurst chose not to exhibit a lot of the works made in Songzhuang at the time. With the village’s reputation as a dense community of artists, it attracted different kinds of public and private attention. “A woman just showed up on my door and she was just looking around artists in the village, for works to collect. She was from Shenzhen, to the South in China, a city which has become wealthy by building things for the entire world. She just came to my studio and was looking around.” Just the same, being known as a centre for artmaking, there were often visits from police officials. “They come around and look at what you’re making.” During his time there, Tolhurst knew of one artist who had acquired Australian citizenship then returned to China and began to make models of Tiananmen square from ground meat. “He was picked up [by police] in Songzhuang. I don’t know how long he disappeared for before people found out. I only knew of him from going to openings… He made the mistake of publicising one of the works, as well as speaking out on a

radio programme in Singapore.” These kinds of interventions “came in fits and waves.” Coextensive with this atmosphere of topdown authority and supervision, there’s a certain novelty of certain first-time experiences “like if you go to an indie rock club there. It’s not that long ago that just wouldn’t have existed. It may have existed before 1989, but then been quelled for a good number of years after. Quite regularly you’ll show up and the whole place will have just been shut down. So weird things do still happen in an authoritarian way. When you see people enjoying it and dancing ... [there’s] the added tension, which also makes it more exciting in some ways, or more relevant.” On a more collective scale of activism, Tolhurst brings up the political protest Umbrella Movement, the political group that spontaneously formed during street protests in Hong Kong. Recently, he

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As an active participant in both the contemporary art and the teaching communities, Tolhurst experienced the duality of the avant-garde intentions of practitioners and the “strict ways of schooling.” Often, schools are “based on being technically really good at life drawing, controlling oil paint or calligraphy” and “following your teacher.” Even among courses that emphasised contemporary art practice, there was still the emphasis on making work that looks something like the work of your teacher. “Teacher” can be used as a mark of respect. “If you’re an artist and you’ve been doing it a long time, as a form of respect you’re called Teacher.” Now recently settled in Glasgow, Tolhurst stays in contact with friends and contemporaries in China with social media apps like WeChat. Doing a quick search online for these kinds of apps, there are plenty of Facebook substitutes – currently banned in China – or the YouTube replacements like Youku and Toudu. Apps like these are important for Tolhurst, so he can maintain an artistic, as well as social connection with China while in Glasgow. He set himself a goal of posting a new artwork each day in the Moments section – broadly similar to a Facebook wall. Looking forward to his own return to China in the future, Tolhurst advises me, “As a journalist you should go out there. There are so many journalists living in China full time because the stories that come out every day.” With this last suggestion, he tells me a saying that’s equal parts encouragement and disclaimer: “Every day you see something in China you’ve never seen before in your life.” juliantolhurst.com

Julian Tolhurst, Red Heads

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Beautiful Tales of Forgotten People The unknown ‘debut’ novelist Helle Helle is a multi-award-winner and apparently Denmark’s most popular author, writing since the early 90s. It’s just taken the English speaking world time to catch up. Here she explains the banal beauty of her work Interview: Dominic Hinde

elle Helle has just answered a ten minute, three part question from an Edinburgh International Book Festival audience member, about the significance of shoes and glasses of water in her writing. It is apparently standard routine for the Danish author abroad, with foreign audiences keen to read her work as delicate highbrow literature. You see, Danish culture is currently hot in Edinburgh, with a City Link festival having taken place in 2015, designed to bring Danish artists to Scotland and export Scottish ones to Copenhagen. It has meant a flood of interesting Danes in the Capital, and some of Edinburgh’s finest visiting their eastern neighbour. The aim is not to dress up either country as a neat package for export, but to let the two meet on their own terms outside of the stereotypes, whether they be about highbrow Nordic intellectuals or tonic-swigging Scots. And so, back to Helle Helle – visiting Edinburgh back in summer – and her unwilling attachment to that aforementioned stereotype. “I don’t write to be difficult,” she explains. “What I write is my language, because that is where I am coming from.” And where Helle is coming from is important to her work, and also explains her unusual name. Born Helle Olsen, she adopted her mother’s maiden name early in the career, hence the double Helle. Her characters are from beyond the city, jogging around lost in the forests of windswept Jutland, living in abandoned smalltown railway stations or manning the cash registers on ferries across the Baltic. Their dislocation has proven a strange attraction for her international public. “I had someone tell me that they found Rødby – Puttgarden, my novel about two women working the perfume counter on the train ferry from Denmark to Germany, exotic because he had never considered that those people had whole lives when they got up from the checkout,” says Helle. “He lived in Berlin and was literary, but these people were opaque to him.” Helle’s single English language work, This Should be Written in the Present Tense, has a similarly low-level tone. Its main character, early 20s university dropout Dorte, is intriguingly normal in her compulsions and her insecurities. After inviting a couple to stay the night in her home, she then maintains the charade of being a hardworking student by taking the train to Copenhagen for non-existent classes. Dorte is lost, but no more than anybody else. The style may be more serious, but at times she is deeply reminiscent of her Norwegian contemporary Erland Loe’s naïve drifters on the periphery of Nordic society, engaged in a banal and largely inconsequential but still entertaining adventure. “I used to go to Copenhagen, ostensibly to study, but spent a lot of time floating around the city instead,” she says. It is a passive way of living well suited to her literary style. Throughout her work there is a sense of ambivalence encapsulated by descriptions of the mundane practicalities of the everyday. Her characters do not achieve great things, instead settling in the cracks.

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Sat in the temporary village of the Edinburgh International Book Festival and on the final penswipe of a seemingly infinite signing queue, Helle admits she forgets which of her releases she is supposed to be talking about. In front of her, alongside stacked copies of This Should be Written... is her latest Danish release, so new it has not been translated at all. “You write a book and then it comes out in one language, then you write another but as far as foreign audiences are concerned you are a debut author.” It is a distorted chronology that means Helle, active since the early 1990s and widely translated, is up for Edinburgh’s prize for debut authors. It also means she is something of an unknown quantity for the crowd packed into one of Edinburgh’s smaller marquees to see her. Even the session chair admitted to knowing almost nothing about Helle’s work or its background, hopefully clutching a translated novel in the hope it might yield some answers. “Maybe it’s better explained in English,” ponders Helle as she tries to describe her approach to writing and to implement it. The sentences come alternately in English and Danish. “There are some things you can only say in Danish though,” she reflects.

“As far as foreign audiences are concerned you are a debut author” Helle Helle

“It’s a challenge, every time you go somewhere new you have to re-adjust and people are always reading a translation. My English translator Martin Aitken was always emailing me, asking and explaining things.” By way of illustration, Helle points to her latest book. Its title Hvis det er is almost unstranslatable. “You can’t even say it in Norwegian,” she laments. The title is something akin to ‘if you like’, “but you have to listen to the intonation,” says Helle, picking up the book and sliding it across the table. “You can have this hvis det er,” she nods to make her point. It is obvious Helle spends a lot of time thinking about her language. Form is a central plank of all her writing and it is testament to her ability that she has made the jump overseas to critical acclaim with subject matter that does not correspond to either of the dominant strands of Scandinavian literature export (Noir and Feelgood). Her sparse, pared down language is the polar opposite of the deep rambling attention to detail that made Karl Ove Knausgård a household name. Nor is the dysfunctionality of her characters endearingly quirky like many other Nordic

Credit: Sofie Amalie Klougart

exports of late. In English or in Danish, Helle’s books are economically written and finely balanced. “It shouldn’t be abstract though,” she emphasises. “I’m always driven to write about things I am most connected with and write in a way that fits the people I am writing about.” Continuing with the suggestion that “it is not supposed to be a hymn to the trivial, but you do write about the small things.” Her style may not be gritty, didactic or overly naturalistic, but Helle is also that increasingly rare thing, a working class writer. “I guess I am one, and my characters are like that. I’m not a political writer, at least not in the strictest sense. I have never set out to write a book that tries to comment on

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or illustrate the conditions of the working class, but I do write about things I find recognisable,” she ponders. “I think one of the things you can say is that these tales of people not managing particularly well or who don’t have everything gives an energy to my language.” The result is a unique and appealing world outside of the mainstream, expertly seen through the eyes of someone who observes without judging. Helle’s real talent is to take you from your own mundane reality and into someone else’s, if you like. The paperback edition of This Should be Written in the Present Tense is out on 5 Nov, published by Vintage, RRP £8.99

THE SKINNY

CCA Highlights The CCA lives up to its name this autumn with a fine spread of contemporary art, music, and film events – we big up some faves Interview: George Sully

Credit: Eoin Carey

Cultural Capital On the eve of talent network Creative Edinburgh’s fourth birthday and annual awards party, we talk to executive director Janine Matheson about who they are and how far they’ve come Interview: George Sully

ince its conception in 2011, Creative Edinburgh has grown to become a network of thousands across the Captial’s industries. “Our members span the whole creative industries,” Matheson explains. “Practice-led artists or musicians mix with these bigger, commercial creative companies. It spans all different age groups as well; people that are still in art college or studying, right up to really established creative leaders. We do a lot of events to bring people together, to help them connect to each other and support one another as they develop their creative career, their creative life.” But she is quick to emphasise how they’re just connecting what was already there. “Edinburgh’s got an amazing cultural scene anyway, which existed before we were here – there’s a lot of support for creatives – but it does tend to be quite discipline-specific. There are loads of events for writers, or visual artists, or performers, but there’s maybe not as much that brings everybody together.” Their network has grown significantly since 2011, now standing at around 2,100 members, before you even count the non-members who have benefitted from attending the organisation’s yearround programme of events. That’s well over double what it was at this time last year, the constantly growing membership due in no small part to the creative diversity of those already involved. The awards came about as a way to recognise the wealth of multi-disciplinary talent in the city. “We celebrate our birthday every year, and when we first started it was really important that, as part of that, we thank our network for their support, but also that we highlight what really amazing things people are doing. It’s quite a different type of awards in that it really is a party, it’s a celebration of what everyone’s achieved over the last year. “The network is what makes Creative Edinburgh.” This year the awards will take place at the newly repurposed Biscuit Factory creative hub in Leith on Thursday 12 November. Entertainment will come courtesy of bakery-meets-vinyl-party Kitchen Disco (“back by popular demand”), and there will be cakes from Lovecrumbs patisserie Twelve Triangles and beer from Heverlee. The physical awards, too, change every year. “This year we’ve commissioned Karen Mabon, who’s a designer who works in fashion and illustration to make a selection of printed silk scarves.”

November 2015

Two new categories join the ranks for 2015, both focused on the work of individuals: Independent, for professionals and/or sole traders, and Leadership, for outstanding contributions to the sector from an industry leader. Up for the former are womenswear designer Judy R Clark, Lynsey Jean Henderson’s boutique art and design studio, and illustrator Marco Bevliacqua, aka Want Some Studio. The latter is between Scottish Games Network founder and all-round games industry don Brian Baglow, former Festivals Edinburgh director Faith Liddell, and the executive director of New Media Scotland, Mark Daniels. The awards, and the network itself, can make a real difference to someone’s creative journey. “Over the last couple of years we’ve seen more of those stories: how people maybe met at a hotdesk hangout, and then they’ve pitched for a job together, and now they’re going to set up a business together... We can see all these connections – we’re here for the long haul.” The Creative Edinburgh network has also proved useful for the wider creative community. “It’s helped Creative Scotland, the City of Edinburgh Council and other organisations that want to know more about Edinburgh as a whole. We can help them with that because we are connecting a big audience together – we’re open to anybody.” And it doesn’t stop with Edinburgh. “We’re not alone in what we do. We connect people to other support – like Business Gateway, or Cultural Enterprise Office, or Creative Scotland – but also to other cities. We work a lot with Creative Dundee and Creative Stirling, and there’s AB+ in Aberdeen that’s developing, and Perthshire Creates, and Creative Glasgow’s on the horizon.” So what’s next? “We’ve actually just been awarded some Creative Scotland money for a year project. At the end of November we’ll kick that off, and that’s going to allow us to develop some of the areas that we started looking at (such as how we get our members more involved in different types of spaces). We’ve also plugged into a few international networks like in Toronto and Shenzhen. We want to think of fun, maybe more digital ways that we can connect our members with these international opportunities.”

ovember. Yeah, we know, how’d that happen? One minute you’re just getting used to that tepid breeze we begrudgingly label ‘summer’, the next it’s already autumn, which is, let’s face it, an off-brand winter with just as much cause for knitwear and hats and remembering how to work the central heating in your badly insulated flat. For those cockles in dire need of warming, both literally and spiritually (arts, we’re talking about the arts), head to Glasgow’s CCA. But what to see, we imagine you pleading. Panic not, and read on, for we’ve got some suggestions. Its 11-day run finishes up on Sun 8 Nov, but if you haven’t been yet, you really must check out phwoar-worthy sonic arts festival Sonica. The annual showcase typifies much of what makes Glasgow great: a one-of-a-kind blend of disciplines, centred around an interface between sound, visual art, and digital technologies, presenting work from British and international artists. Such as Cryptic Associate Kathy Hinde’s Tipping Point, a water-levels-in-vessels-based sonic artwork, or Olivier Ratsi’s (of ‘visual label’ Antivj fame) mesmeric perspective-mapping piece Onion Skin. Jumping ahead to December (keep up!) but on a similarly artistic bent, Glaswegian outfit YAKA Collective open their White Mountain exhibition (Sat 12 Dec-Wed 6 Jan) in the Intermedia Gallery. YAKA’s seven artists focus on ‘activating spaces’; this is actually the second in a pair of exhibitions, the first being Black Hole, which ran in October at Trongate 103 and served as a collaborative, investigative project in preparation for White Mountain. Both works deal with the unknown, with paradoxes and quandaries, and react in some way to the spaces in which they’re placed. Back to November, and to change topic completely, Albert Hammond Jr. (you know, that guy from that band) is touring off the back of his third solo album Momentary Masters, and stops by the CCA to play a few hits. ‘That band’ is of course The Strokes, but he’s now very much an established artist with his own distinct style. Check out him and his melodic alt-rock entourage on Saturday 21 November.

More music? Sure! More music by a soloist from a popular indie band? Okay, that’s a lot more specific, but how about this: Euros Childs, erstwhile frontman to twinkly troupe Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci, comes to CCA on Wednesday 9 December. Latest record Sweetheart dropped in October and marks album number 11 for the cheerful Welshman. We’re only looking out for your health: his sunny tunes will be the closest you’ll get to vitamin D this winter. How’s this for a segue: before we recommend a couple of quality film-related events, why not see a film about music? And one about no less than the late seminal soul poet Gil Scott-Heron. Black Wax (Sun 15 Nov) is a 1982 documentary which features not only live performances of the legend but also him giving a ‘walking tour’ of Washington D.C. within a racial context. The revolution may not be televised, but... yeah, nevermind. See this! More films! We’ve picked out two gems in December. Watch Bad Movies With Great Comedians (Wed 2 Dec) literally requires no explanation except that this is an extra special, pre-that-new-Star-Wars-coming-out screening of the lesser-known Star Wars Holiday Special. The A.V. Club is “not convinced the special wasn’t ultimately written and directed by a sentient bag of cocaine.” No pithy blurb could possibly prepare you for this only-broadcast-once 1978 TV movie, so you may as well watch it with a howling live commentary from Joe Heenan and Billy Kirkwood. In the wake of the inaugural Scottish Queer International Film Festival (SQIFF) in September, follow-up strand I Do? is screening the radical Homotopia (Tue 15 Dec), a queer critique of the politics and expectations of ‘gay marriage’. The film is accompanied by a handful of other short films, as well as a Q&A with Argentinian LGBTQ activist AB Silvera. Former editor of Irish LGBTQ magazine BoLT, the cynical, sardonic Silvera can now be found hosting Subcity Radio’s 30 km/s, “a show about radical politics,” usually around 6pm on certain Fridays.

Head to http://tinyurl.com/reekie2015 for the full shortlist The winners will be announced at the Creative Edinburgh Awards, Thu 12 Nov, 6pm, at The Biscuit Factory

YAKA Collective – White Mountain

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Changing Bull Longstanding alt-rock bar The Black Bull goes through its biggest refurbishment in nearly half a century – we chat to bar manager Bob Anderson about the pub’s ethos and new lease of life Interview: George Sully

he Black Bull on Leith Street, peeking out from that corner as you head down to (or indeed come up from) the Omni Centre and the top of Leith Walk, may not be able to lay claim to the oldest pub in Edinburgh, but it comes awfully close. (The City of Edinburgh Council has a William Turner painting, The Arrival of the Mail Coach at the ‘Black Bull’, Edinburgh, dated 1820.) It’s certainly one of the longest-running alternative rock bars in the city, and has remained true to its spirit over the years, come rain or shine. A cursory search online spits up a healthy whack of glowing reviews, praising its famous jukebox and distinctive, friendly alt-scene clientele. Which is why its refurbishment, completed only last month, is worth shouting about: this old pub’s had much more than just a facelift, and yet in many ways it’s still the same old Bull. “We’ve done this for longer than anyone else,” says Bob Anderson, General Manager, with all the pride of someone who’s been on both sides of the bar in his time. “I’ve been [the manager] here seven and a half years now, but,” he half-winces, halfgrins, “I know the pub from my late teens. So I know the business from the late 80s up until now.” Pubs are no stranger to wear and tear. The more somewhere is loved, the more it becomes wellworn, musty, in need of a lick of paint. The Black Bull was no exception. “This place has been well supported over the decades by coming and going hardcore regulars,” Anderson explains. “It’s about time, I felt, the customers got rewarded for their investment. Which is, I think, what we’ve given them.” Belhaven, which owns the pub, has heavily invested in the Black Bull’s major refurbishment, all the while staying true to the pub’s roots. “When they said there was going to be a refurbishment, we said quite clearly and categorically that we were going to stay a rock bar.”

The name, too, was briefly put on the table. Anderson’s face here says it all: outrage at the blasphemy. “You cannot monkey around with that,” he says, shaking his head. Don’t mess with the Bull, in other words. But to really do this right, they’ve had to face up to some unpleasant realities. “The biggest factor is that the toilets in here have always been a talking point,” says Anderson, somewhat euphemistically (again, a quick trip on the Googles also brings up some less complimentary words re: the WCs). “They’ve actually ripped out both the ladies and gents in their entirety, and put in brand new facilities.” Now they’re unrecognisable: “palatial”, in Bob’s words. It’s not a rosy topic, but the quality of the loos in a place can really affect the overall experience. “The toilets are probably about as famous as people running down past the pub for Trainspotting.” (A scene from the film was shot just outside, and is often reenacted by tourists and locals alike.) The Black Bull has still retained its regulars, thanks in no small part to its atmosphere. It is, by all accounts, a traditional-looking pub, with polished wood furnishings, bare brickwork, and low, ambient lighting. Anyone who’d been before the refurbishment would still feel at home, but some fairly major changes have taken place. “This would probably be the most fundamental change the bar’s seen in 30, 40 years,” Anderson confirms. The bar itself feels brand new (they’d “ripped out pretty much the entire bar”), the seating arrangements have been overhauled to make the space much more openplan and less segregated, and the rock-themed artwork on the walls, too, has been refreshed. This is an area Anderson seems most proud of. “Before, a lot of it was just pulled out of magazines, put in a frame, you know. It was understating what we were doing and what we were trying to say.” By the time the refurb rolled around, it

was top of his list. “So you’ll now have lots of proper, bonafide music memorabilia stuck on the walls: there are ticket stubs, there are t-shirts that have been framed, there are autographed things... Don’t get me wrong, we’re not Hard Rock Café. We’re a little bit more...” He searches for the word. Authentic? “I would like to think so.” Rock music and Americana is at the heart of the Black Bull’s character. “We have, for this style of music, the best jukebox in town; I’d still argue that. We don’t deviate from it, we don’t dilute it, we don’t dumb it down. You can go from, quite literally, Journey, to Decapitate.”

“We’ve done this for longer than anyone else” Would he say that the Black Bull, then, is all about the music? “Yes, absolutely,” he replies. But then he hesitates: “Yes, definitely about the music, but the Black Bull is very very much about the people. Without the people we can’t do what we do, we can’t be what we are, we can’t go where we want to go. “We are an out-and-out rock bar, but that doesn’t mean you have to like the music to have a nice time in here, you know? We’re a relatively trouble-free bar for the city centre, very very little bother in here. And [for] the people, if they come in out of curiosity, we’ve got a nice bar, they’re getting good service, reasonably priced for the city centre... So what, you don’t like the music? Does that necessarily mean you have to move on? No, not really. I could easily go into a pub on George Street where I’m gonna get chart music... would

that make me leave? No, probably not. I’m there with people who want to be there.” What is a pub without its customers, after all? “People generally come in to play pool, to listen to music, to talk, to socialise, they come in to meet their friends, to drink after work or whatever.” There’s TV too, but that’s never been a focus. “We’ve just had DVD players put in so we’ll have music videos going on in the background, but invariably people won’t be paying any attention to it. People don’t come here to watch sport – they genuinely don’t. We don’t have Sky. Although, we are looking at expanding into nonmainstream sport, so American football, baseball, extreme sports and wrestling. So, if there’s a Royal Rumble on...” he adds with a wink. He says they’ll also, hopefully, phase out traditional crisps: “We’ll do pretzels, popcorn and nuts.” Drinks-wise, the pub’s now got an even more competitive offering, particularly with their whiskeys. “Before we shut down [for the refurb late September] we had something like 35; we’re up to 50 now,” Anderson beams. “We’re heavily slanting towards Americana-style things, so we’ve got more American draught products, and we’re covering all eventualities of American spirit – that’ll be your White Dogs, your ryes, your corns, your bourbons... Hopefully we’re getting up to round about 60 within the next 4–8 weeks. Nobody in Edinburgh will be able to touch us, for bourbon.” So: great booze, great tunes, great people. What’s next? “Just to keep it thriving,” Anderson replies, matter-of-factly. “Keep giving the customers a haven. There’s not many alternative bars left in Edinburgh y’know. “Businesses are all about taking; I’m all about giving. Giving someone somewhere to go and keeping them happy and comfortable, giving them the music they want, the drink they want. Beyond that, what else can I do?”

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The Choir Paul Higgins talks his new play The Choir, finding the truth in theatre and humour in the darker moments of life Interview: Emma Ainley-Walker

Credit: Tim Morozzo

ou might know Paul Higgins from Channel Four’s Utopia or from his short but memorable turn as Jamie in The Thick of It, or you might know him from the stage. This time he’s taking more of a behind-the-scenes role, having penned The Choir, soon to be performed at the Citizens Theatre. A new musical written in collaboration with Deacon Blue’s Ricky Ross, The Choir is, in Higgins’ own words, just what it says it is: “It’s about a man who tries to start a community choir from scratch in Wishaw, and what happens when he gets this mixture of people in the room who wouldn’t usually be in a room together; the tensions and the obstacles that that presents to everyone involved.” A musical about a community choir sounds instantly upbeat and uplifting. “Of course that’s the intention,” says Higgins. “The intention is that it will be this nice upbeat thing that brings everyone together but it turns out that it’s not as easy as that. There are major differences between the people that come along – major differences in politics, in politeness. There are people there who are 19 and there are people there who are in their late 60s, and they all have different ideas about what is the proper way to behave. It certainly is uplifting but it’s also very difficult in places.” This is not Higgins’ first play, and the difficulty he mentions speaks to the darkness that ran through his first play Nobody Will Ever Forgive Us, which performed at The Traverse in 2008. “It was dark but it was very funny. I always called it a comedy and people would say, ‘Why do you call it a comedy? It’s terrible the things that happen’ – someone dies and stuff like that. And I would say, I think it is funny.” This may worry those who are

November 2015

The Cast of The Choir

looking for a more lighthearted play, but Higgins assures us that humour can and should be found within darkness, even if it takes some time to convince your audience. “It took a long time to get it put on because I don’t think many people believed me about it, and then we did a reading of it with the National Theatre of Scotland in Glasgow and the audience laughed their heads off at this supposedly dark stuff. A lot of this is true for The Choir as well. It’s not a comedy but there are some really funny people in that room – people who are used to cracking jokes and people for whom humour can be a weapon and a way of asserting themselves.” Comedy is much more than a tool for Higgins; it’s a part of life and a huge part of his work. “I don’t

believe plays that are not funny. Macbeth is funny and King Lear is funny. Life is funny. I’ve just recently read a play that I was offered that was all completely doom and gloom and I said to my agent, ‘That’s not true, life isn’t like that.’ Even in bad situations there’s always wit. That was the case with Nobody Will Ever Forgive Us, and then when we put it on in Edinburgh the audience laughed a lot which really helps when the story is dark. Certainly nothing as bad happens in The Choir as somebody dying but it’s not easy, and I really didn’t want to write anything that was sentimental or ‘Hollywood happy ending’. I was trying to balance the need for it to feel real and true with the need for it not to be miserable. And it’s not. There’s a lot of joy in it and a lot of humour and a lot of fun.” Some of that fun comes from the music, and when speaking of working with Ricky Ross, Higgins is only excited: “It’s been great. We’ve had our ups and downs, as you would when collaborating with anyone, particularly when you work in different fields as well. He’s concentrating on the music and I’m concentrating on the drama and sometimes they can come into conflict a little bit... but we’ve done it, you know. It feels amazing. And as Ricky says, we’ve made something completely new. A brand new play, all the songs are brand new. It’s not a jukebox musical, it’s not taken from a film, its not an adaptation of a novel. It’s brand new and that doesn’t happen that often any more.” Of course, Higgins started as an actor and this works directly into his writing: “One of the actors was laughing at me the other day because he saw me writing. I was doing a little rewrite, and I’m acting the whole thing out in front of my laptop, mouthing the lines,” he jokes, but with obvious truth behind it. “When I imagine scenes, I imagine what it will be like to get them on their feet and I hope everyone’s got enough to do, people aren’t just left standing around. It’s quite hard to write for 12 people, you don’t see that very often actually. Even a play with a cast of 12 the scenes are often two handers, four handers, people coming and going. There’s a bit of that in this play but for a lot of it everyone’s in the room. I try to make sure every line of dialogue is true to that character, and an actor will be able to say it and to feel comfortable saying it.”

Scott Reid and Writer Paul Higgins

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And writing his own work changes his approach to taking on roles as well: “I find myself getting much more fussy with writing. When I read plays I think, ‘Ah, come on. This is not good enough.’ Writing is hard. I’m not being disparaging to other writers but if you’re very demanding of your own work you want other people to be demanding of theirs.” With an acting career that takes him across both film and television, Higgins has a film in mind for his next project, and can see the filmic nature of The Choir. “There’s lots of different scenes and lots of locations in it which has been quite a challenge for Dominic Hill, the director, to make it all happen on one set. But the scenes move very fluidly from one to the other, sometimes intertwining. I really like the freedom to be able to do that.”

“I recently read a play that was all completely doom and gloom. Life isn’t like that” Paul Higgins

It sounds in that sense like a production on a very grand scale, though Higgins emphasises the lo-fi nature of the content itself: “Imaginatively, I think it is on quite a grand scale. It could be a really exciting night in the theatre. I’m hoping it will be a real, proper live event which often theatre isn’t, even though that’s all it has really going for it, that it’s live. Sometimes what you see is a tired reproduction of something that was once alive in rehearsals or in previews and has become kind of a facsimile. So I’m hoping it will be a proper, live experience every night and that people will get something out of it.” The Choir, Citizens Theatre, 24 Oct-14 Nov, 7.30pm (2.30pm) citz.co.uk/whatson/info/the_choir/

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Credit: Tim Morozzo

Another Roll of the Dice With board game sales growing every year, we take a look at the state of modern tabletop gaming and examine why, in a digital age, the industry is experiencing such a boom

here is a renaissance taking place in the world of board games. A healthy scene consisting of meet-ups, gaming sessions and the occasional convention exists throughout the Northwest. In the heart of Manchester there is Fan Boy Three, which hosts gaming sessions every night, while in Liverpool, the Scythe and Teacup cafe offers food and board games to the masses. The board game or tabletop scene is thriving, not just in these cities, but across the country. It’s a puzzling phenomenon for those for whom the phrase ‘board games’ may call to mind traumatic memories of parents passive-aggressively playing out their unspoken marital issues across a Monopoly board, or conjure up latent resentment over games of Scrabble lost to a precocious younger sibling. But the contemporary world of board games has little or nothing to do with these dated ‘classics.’ Instead, the variety of games available on the shelves of your local game shop is likely to cater to any taste you can imagine. Take, for example, Dixit. Released in 2008, Dixit is a French card game designed by Jean LouisRoubira and wonderfully illustrated by Marie Cardouat. Each player holds a hand of the game’s cards, which feature surreal, dream-like images. Players take it in turn to become the Storyteller, who selects a card from their hand and gives a clue as to what it is. That clue can be anything: a story, a single word, a song, whatever you like. Mysterium, meanwhile, is a more recent Polish game, set for its first English language release later this year. Like Dixit, there is a collection of cards bearing strange and beautiful art work. It’s essentially a ‘whodunnit’ murder mystery where all but one of the players takes the role of a psychic. The remaining player is a ghost who must use these cards to create a dreamscape for the psychics. The psychics then interpret these visions in order to deduce who the murderer is. By allowing players such creative freedom, these games bring out the best of each participant’s imagination. They come alive not because of their rules and mechanics but because of the people playing them. They change and adapt to different groups and take place almost entirely inside the players’ heads. Perhaps you want something a bit chewier? Games like Pandemic are played co-operatively, each of the players taking on the role of an emergency response operative fighting to contain global outbreaks of deadly viruses. A big map of the world is laid out across the table and you and your friends dart around it trying to beat back these deadly contagions. Pandemic is currently being adapted by game design maverick Rob Daviau. His adaptation, entitled Pandemic Legacy, is set for release later this year. In Legacy, the actions you take in every game will have consequences for each subsequent game. This could include placing stickers over certain sections of the rule book, opening sealed boxes with new components hidden away, or even tearing up some of the games cards so that they can never be used again. Daviau has done things like this before, and it’s a perfect example of how designers are bringing fresh ideas to games that confound expectations and subvert conventions. Cooperative or team based games, where communication is key, will be familiar to digital gamers but the joy of Pandemic, and co-op games like it, is that the planning and execution of your grand strategy is done in your own living room with your pals sat across from you, not at the other end of a headset. This social aspect is a key com-

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Interview: Liam Patrick Hainey Illustration: Josie Sommer

ponent of the successful tabletop resurgence. Indeed there are countless games that rely on the social dynamics and thought processes that being in a group creates. Dead of Winter, which was released late last year but seems only now to be reliably available in UK stores, is a zombie survival game set in a bleak post-apocalyptic winter. This game will ask you to make terrible choices: do you rescue the children hiding in the wilderness outside your compound knowing full well they’re just more mouths to feed? Like Pandemic, Dead of Winter is a cooperative game. However, every time you play, one of those in your group may or may not be a traitor working towards their own ends rather than the good of the whole team. So while you’re forced to work together, suspicion and paranoia hang heavy over the table. Games like Dead of Winter create a palpable atmosphere that relies entirely on the interactions between players. There is a humanity to games like these that video gaming cannot hope to replicate. This is not to denigrate video games but rather to point out that tabletop gaming offers something that the digital realm simply can’t – and, though board games cannot hope to compete with the sheer scale of the video gaming industry (for comparison’s sake, the North American tabletop gaming industry is worth something in the region of $700 million to the video game industry’s $70 billion), what’s interesting is that the tabletop gaming figure has been growing at somewhere between 15% and 20% for the last few years. While it’s difficult to pinpoint the exact cause or moment that represents the start of this renaissance, there are a few things that it’s fair to assume have contributed. Kickstarter has certainly helped. In 2013 there was more money pledged to support board games than video games by a margin of around $7 million. Board games are expensive things to produce and, due to their bulky nature,

ship. Kickstarter provides publishers a guaranteed level of interest and minimises the guesswork involved in production numbers: Euphoria from Stegmaier Games and the hugely lucrative Zombicide series from Guillotine Games are examples of successful products with outstanding production values delivered via crowdfunding. Another factor that has led to a renewed interest in tabletop gaming is the drift of ‘geek culture’ from the peripheries of society and into the mainstream. With the advent of geek chic came the demystification of comic books, video games, cartoons and whatever else them nerds get up to. No longer was the local comic book store a place of dread but rather a gateway into an interesting new subculture.

“Even American Football players have succumbed to the charm of tabletop gaming” While this shift was important to the resurgent games industry, there is one particular game that deserves a lot of credit for getting it to where it is: the granddaddy of contemporary gaming, Settlers of Catan. First published in 1995 by German designer Klaus Teuber, it was, and continues to be, a runaway success. Key to its success is that it resembles many game elements that someone who has only ever been exposed to Monopoly would be familiar with.

TECH

Little wooden houses that you have to build, trade and negotiation with other players, a couple of dice – all are present. But the way that Catan uses these tools of game design is quite unlike Monopoly. There’s no rolling to see what space you land on, there is nothing that makes you skip a go and there are definitely no beauty contests. But by the very fact that Catan includes pieces and components which are immediately recognisable to anyone makes it less scary for the player whose most adventurous gaming experience so far is the Harry Potter version of Risk. It’s somewhat illuminating that the Green Bay Packers, one of the best known NFL teams, are enthusiastic Catan players. Even American Football players, pop culture’s definition of the anti-nerd, have succumbed to the charm of tabletop gaming. Waterstones and, before its demise, Borders have also played their part. Every one of the big bookshops has always had a game section, and stocking Catan next to Cluedo and Jenga carries the implication that Catan isn’t that intimidating or complex – and that’s the truth. Many of these games aren’t any more complex than the games you played in your childhood; most of them are certainly mercifully shorter than Monopoly, and many of them are better. New designers with new ideas are emerging constantly, and while the very notion of unplugged gaming might at first glance seem to be a thing of the past, its reliance on the physical world and its insistence on the proximity of participants seems almost radically fresh in a time where we rely on softly glowing LED screens for all our entertainment. So next time you wander past your local game store, pop in, browse the shelves and absorb the different games you’ll find there. Then, once you’ve done that, invest in a big old box of fun – you and your friends won’t regret it.

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The Alternative Foodie Gift Guide Imagine the food-obsessed person in your life. Now picture them on Christmas day – the third Toblerone; a novelty apron; an elaborate nut-cracking set. Look at their face. It doesn’t have to be this way. The Skinny’s Alternative Foodie Gift Guide is here

Serious Gifts

Sarcastic Gifts

hocolate equals life, we all know this. But look beyond the Cadbury’s selection box and there’s a whole world out there. Take Mast Brothers, for example; award-winning, Brooklyn chocolatiers who put innovation, craftsmanship and an eye for design at the centre of their offering. Not only do their bars taste amazing, with flavours such as Black Truffle, Goat Milk and Almond, but they look incredible too. Each bar comes in a unique, wallpaper-like wrapper, inspired by everything from The Memphis Group to geology. £7, mastbrothers.co.uk Have you ever settled down to watch your favourite film and felt that a can of Tango wasn’t quite the right match? Enter Cocktails of the Movies by Will Francis; a look into the elaborate world of mixology in film. Featuring clever illustrations from Stacey Marsh, it covers the recipes and back stories behind beverages featured in 64 iconic films, including The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Big Lebowski and A Clockwork Orange. The Moloko Plus is a highlight, minus the added opiates of course. A must for cocktail and film-buffs alike. £14.99, amazon.co.uk For those who like to get their kicks via more wholesome pursuits, there’s always TWIG Teas. This cold-brew tea brand was inspired by a trip to a Japanese teahouse, where leaves are steeped in cold water rather than hot in order to produce a smoother, sweeter brew. The Keemun Brew is the brand’s most popular, and is known for its malty, nutty flavour. Every bottle is hand-made in East London and they look pretty neat on your kitchen counter, too. £12 for 4, tastemakr.co

Sometimes a practical gift just won’t cut it, and while some men just want to watch the world burn, others will settle for the world being confused at its Christmas presents. For those people, we recommend the Dream Griddle’s combination alarm clock and hot plate. Well, recommend may be too strong a word, for the Dream Griddle isn’t a real item. It’s one of a range of prank gift boxes, designed to emulate bizarre gifts while also offering a handy receptacle in which to place a real gift. Let’s turn to the Amazon reviews for a second: “Completely fooled my aunt into thinking she had gotten a combination clock/griddle; needless to say, she was a bit disappointed…” Imagine that; come Christmas morning that could be you, disappointing your loved ones. Well, more so than usual. £10, amazon.co.uk Next, Firebox’s Molecular Gastronomy Kit, the food equivalent of a video game cheat code that sends you straight to the final boss. A set of equipment designed to aid in experimenting with a host of super-modern techniques, it essentially boils down to a series of pipettes, spoons and sachets, an instructional DVD and a firm handshake for good luck (handshake provided separately). Can your siblings bring the world of scientific fine dining into your kitchen on Boxing Day? Probably not, but we may as well watch them try. £49, firebox.co.uk Or why not try the Bar-ista, a device to clamp a coffee cup to your bicycle. A hot cup of coffee attached to the front of a moving bike – the only way this could go wrong is if the cyclist had to stop suddenly, or go uphill, or downhill, or over a bump. Sounds fine to us.

November 2015

Words: Lauren Phillips and Peter Simpson Illustration: Andy Carter

It’s a great gift for that friend who likes to take slow rides on completely flat roads with no traffic, rather than headcase commuter cyclists who think they’re in the Thunderdome; after all, second-degree burns are for life, not just for Christmas. $20, ridepdw.com

“Second-degree burns are for life, not just for Christmas” Scottish Gifts Let’s not be local for localism’s sake – a hometown Christmas present is great, but it’s important not to lose the sense of novelty that’s key to any good gift. What you need is a foodie Christmas present that has a local angle, but is also reasonably offthe-wall – such as a bottle of rum endorsed by the lovely lads from Glasgow’s very own Mogwai. The snappily-titled ‘Rockact81r’ is a 12year-old demerara from Guyana’s award-winning Diamond Distillery, available exclusively through Good Spirits Co. in Glasgow. It also packs a 50% a.b.v., so it’ll definitely encourage some festive jollity. Gift now, prepare for attempted singalongs to vocal-free passages from Mr Beast later. £55, thegoodspiritsco.com If you’re looking for a quaffable gift without the rock element, you could do worse than

FOOD AND DRINK

heading to Demijohn. The Edinburgh and Glasgow ‘liquid deli’ sell all manner of liquids, from bespoke liqueurs and spirits through to oils, vinegars and jams. The set-up is straightforward enough; pick your receptacle, have it filled with whatever takes your fancy, drink the contents, then take it back to the shop and decide what to fill it with next. It’s a gift with genuine longevity, and people like those. Victoria St, Edinburgh; Byres Rd, Glasgow; demijohn.co.uk For a Christmas gift that can be taken into the office without provoking a disciplinary, try the Eteaket tea club. The Edinburgh teamongers send out a bumper package of a different loose leaf tea every month, provide copious notes on what’s in that month’s cuppa, and throw in a snazzy polka dot teapot to make sure friends and colleagues know what’s up. Tea’s up, that’s what. £69 for six months, eteaket.co.uk And if you’re still stuck for a gift for the sweettoothed on your Christmas list, Gillian Kyle’s range of Tunnock’s-themed homeware features something for everyone. Seriously, that’s not just patter – this range is outrageous. Teacake on a tote bag? Check. Apron emblazoned with a Caramel Wafer? There are two to choose from. Two! Mugs, notepads, biscuit tins, and – brace yourself – a £1500 armchair are all on offer, decked out in the livery of Scotland’s greatest chocolatebased export. Choose wisely. gilliankyle.com, available at various stockists including Papyrus & Felix and Oscar, Glasgow; The Edinburgh Bookshop & Blackwell’s, Edinburgh.

Lifestyle

Food News Words: Peter Simpson

his month’s food round-up begins in a big field in Fife, with the autumn edition of the Cambolicious beer festival taking place in the outbuildings of the Cambo Estate in the East Neuk. Beers from a host of local breweries, live music and a host of other activities beckon, although given the fading light at this time of year it’s probably just as well that the axe-throwing of the festival’s summer edition is taking a break. 7 Nov, Cambo Estate nr Kingsbarns, £10, tickets via Eventbrite Right, that’s the outdoors dealt with; let’s move inside. We’ll start with the return of the El Perro Negro burger pop-up to Brewdog in Glasgow. Prepare yourself for a day of delicious sandwiches and no-holds-barred grease-on-chin action – get there early, and wear a dark t-shirt. 8 Nov while stocks last, 1397 Argyle St, @brewdogglasgow Head to the southside the following day and you’ll find an event from Soul Food Sisters, part of the CCA’s ongoing Cooking Pot programme highlighting Glasgow’s multi-faceted relationship with food. Soul Food Sisters are a collective of female cooks from across the globe, who have teamed up

to recreate recipes submitted by members of the local community – their Cooking Pot event at Bakery47 will see them present the finest recipes Garnethill’s amateur chefs have to offer. 9 Nov, 6:30pm, 47 Victoria Rd, free (ticketed), book via cca-glasgow.com Over in Edinburgh, Summerhall’s FestivALE returns with a huge selection of beer under one arm, and a this’ll-never-get-old title under the other. Puns aside, the FestivALE – it’s a festival of ale, geddit? – is in no danger of outstaying its welcome, with the exciting addition of the ‘CoLab Bar’ to the line-up. The CoLab features an eight beer line-up born of collaborations between some of Scotland’s top craft breweries and on-site Summerhall brewer Andrew “Barney” Barnett. There will also be bespoke food stalls matched to the beers on offer, as well as an “experimental bottle bar” stocked with some more unusual beers, a dedicated rum bar, and contributions from Alloa brewery Williams Bros and Summerhall’s own Pickering’s Gin. 6-7 Nov, various times, 1 Summerhall Pl, £8, summerhall.co.uk

Phagomania: Pizza All The Time Songwriting duo The Pizza Collection have just rolled out their 100th pizza song. Pizza Song, you ask? Allow us to introduce the madness… Words: Lewis MacDonald

theskinny.co.uk/food

Food & Drink Survey 2016: The Final Four Voting in our 2016 Food and Drink Survey comes to a close this month – we run through its final four categories Illustration: Mica Warren

e’re into the final stretch of our 2016 Food and Drink Survey, which feels strange given that it isn’t even December yet. Strange or not, we’ll plod on with a final reminder to cast your votes in this year’s survey at theskinny.co.uk/food by 27 November. We went over the pub, cafe, date place and best newcomer categories last month, so now let’s take a peek at the other four categories in this year’s survey, starting with food-on-the-go. Eating on the move has seen its image take a boost in recent years, with the quality of the handheld end of the food pyramid improving all the time. Plus the whole concept of street food basically forces you to eat as you go (probably on your way to that other street food stand). Anyway, name your favourite place for food on the move. Next, beer! There’s lots of it around – we hear it’s very popular among ‘da yoof ’ – and we want to know which is best. Specifically, we’re looking for local Scottish breweries of all shapes and sizes, from the lone brewer in his shed to the group of brewers spending their days in a beer facility not unlike the silo level from N64 classic Goldeneye. Large or small breweries

Lifestyle

is our point; just let us know which is your fave. Eventually, we all have to cook, or at very least bring food into our homes and hope it cooks itself, and that is where your favourite food and drink shops come into play. Greengrocers with incredible fresh produce, cheesemongers with an endless supply of free samples, off-licences who will humour your attempts to understand wine notes before picking the bottle with the biggest dimple because “dimples mean quality” – they’re all part of our foodie tapestry, so name your favourite one and we’ll make a note of it. And finally, best international food. That’s right, once again we’ve asked you to name your favourite world food place out of all the places in your city, and somewhat ignored the fact that, almost by definition, everything is international. Well don’t get annoyed – this is a chance to celebrate the fact that so much of the world’s food is available on our doorstep, then to go through the difficult process of making a snap decision on your favourite world food spot before realising you’ve forgotten your other favourite. Make your choice quickly, mind – we haven’t got much time.

o you remember those awful music compilations from late night TV ad breaks? Short snippets of song would fly by as we learned about an indispensable collection of lone-driving, ultimate love-making, or country line-dancing anthems. An American duo have been busy covering a breadth of genres, transforming hits into a fictitious ‘Pizza Collection’. Endless cover songs, with lyrics changed to be about pizza? Bear with us on this one, for it’s the sheer relentlessness and ridiculousness that starts tickling the funny bones. Much like Stewart Lee talking about crisps for 10 minutes, the trick seems to be to keep repeating the gag until you’ve won everybody over. Highlights among the insistent pizza punnery are a take on Macy Gray’s I Try (“though I try to hide it, it’s clear, I eat pizza when you are not there”), The Lion King’s Hakunah MaPizza, Queen’s Another Stuffed Pizza Crust, and the epic West Side Story parody My Pizza (“I’ll never stop eating my pizza”). We talked to creators (ahem, sorry, “sales associates”) Sam Wachs & Will Drinker to find out more – they were dead set on staying in character as two ardent employees of US mail-order institution Time Life pushing their fictitious ‘Pizza Collection’ product. So what’s it all about? “Do you remember the songs of the pizza shop?” they chime. “Of course you do! But now you don’t have to because all your favorite pizza songs

are finally available in one collection for your listening pleasure! What’s a pizza song? It’s a song about pizza, of course! What’s a pizza? Are you serious!?” “With Time Life’s Pizza Collection, enjoy over eight hours of feel-good pizza songs, covering all genres, decades, and toppings – without having to track down the original 45s and 8-track tapes. Doesn’t it feel good to have all the hit pizza classics in one place so you can listen to them without a compact disc player? Order today!” Okay, but why pizza? “Pizza is not just international,” they retort, “it’s universal, the only food synonymous with the word ‘Party!’” Right, we can see where this is going. Wachs & Drinker have brought the concept to life by sharing live bills with unfortunate, aspiring singer-songwriters. “‘Time Life Pizza Collection: Live!’ is a presentation of selected songs from the collection by our enthusiastic sales reps,” they explain. And does it go down as well as a slice of pizza pie? We reckon you’ll either love or hate it, but we’ll give the Collection the last word: “The most common response is, ‘Where can I buy this? I’ll pay anything!’ If this is how you feel too, simply make out a cashier’s check to ‘The Time Life Pizza Collection’, put it in the mail, and it WILL get to us. You can count on that!” http://thepizzacollection.bandcamp.com/releases

theskinny.co.uk/food-and-drink/survey/

FOOD AND DRINK

THE SKINNY

November 2015

Too Much Fun Club T

he Too Much Fun Club is a visual art collective based in Edinburgh with connections worldwide. They’re a special breed of art collective – best known for their live art and mural work, they regularly complement that with other multimedia projects and events. Essentially operating as a creative network and art agency, they also however work with musicians, festivals, venues and promoters all year round to put on unique happenings based around art and music. Officially formed in 2009 by a group of five friends, some of the club have been collaborating since 2002 and now their numbers have grown to more than 20. With members coming from a wide variety of backgrounds and disciplines they muster a large diversity of skills and styles. The artwork of the TMFC covers many areas of visual art including (but not limited to) murals, illustration, live art, installations and exhibitions, design, festival décor, photography, animation, projection mapping, digital art, branding, concept art, live visuals, doodles, signwriting… Evolving as they work, they say they’re happy changing up mediums and aesthetics, often from project to project. The collective is still growing steadily, finding the right people and situations and building on those relationships, so they are always open to collaboration with other creatives. The music side of things is smaller and newer but just as exciting – several TMFC artists are producers and DJs who are developing audio-visual projects along with a whole host of musician friends. In the last month they’ve created a 12 foot long mural at the Scottish Learning Festival for Creative Scotland, followed closely by a 44 foot mural to celebrate our 10th Birthday here at The Skinny. With several events coming up in November and an exhibition on currently at The Outhouse on Broughton Street Lane, the group keeps itself busy. Over winter they will be working on a new animated music video, as well as planning some inner city murals, comic strips and pretty soon starting on next summer’s festival projects! For a large part of the summer they are lucky enough to have the amazing grounds of Kelburn Castle and Country Estate as a playground for their ideas, creating décor for nearly

SHOWCASE

all of the events run by Kelburn Productions. On top of the décor there The TMFC run several of the music sessions, as well having their own music stage deep in the woods of the glen. Their ongoing working relationships for creating décor and murals with Kelburn and a series of other festivals – including Knockengorroch, Eden, Boomtown and Audio Soup – keeps them busy throughout the festival season. The next TMFC audio-visual show will be a humorous hip-hop game show called Sketch the Rhyme on 8 November at Studio 24. A highly entertaining live show combining freestyle hip-hop, live art and audience participation, it consists of games in which artists draw pictures that are projected live onto a screen on the stage, from which emcees have to freestyle lyrics while trying to decypher the solution, conclusion or narrative... It includes game show-style contests judged by audience response and even live animation narrated by the emcees. Started by Big Village, a team of artists and musicians from Sydney, Australia, Sketch the Rhyme came to Scotland on a world tour in August 2011. After doing the art for its premier in the Edinburgh Festival that year, The TMFC became the only crew outside of the originators permitted to use the format and name to recreate the show. On the Friday night of the following weekend, under the designation of The Too Much Funk Club, they are hosting a special event at The Electric Circus for the launch of OneTzu’s new EP Life In The Grease Trap. OneTzu is without a doubt one of Edinburgh’s brightest, most talented and prolific hip-hop lyricists, performing here with his crew ESP and a whole host of special guest MCs and DJ talent in support, including Gasp, Delighted Peoples frontman TH!NK, El Ritmo Latino’s Surfin Bear, Messenger’s Brother Most Righteous and more. The TMFC Annual Outhouse Exhibition, until the end of November Sketch the Rhyme at the DJ Format & Abdominal Reunion Tour-Edinburgh Show, Studio 24, Sun 8 Nov, 10pm The Too Much Funk Club Presents OneTzu’s Life In The Grease Trap EP Launch, Electric Circus, Fri 13 Nov, 11pm-3am

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October 2015

SHOWCASE

Wool wrap - Xinyue Zhang, Sweater - Yifei Liu

Feature

FASHION

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Coat - Xinyue Zhang, Trousers & top - Yifei Liu

Dress - Xinyue Zhang, Boots - Zara

Shoot Credits

Photographer & Styling: Bethany Grace Make Up & Hair Styling: Molly Sheridan Model: Paighton @ Model Team

Top - Xinyue Zhang, Trousers - Yifei Liu

November 2015

FASHION

Lifestyle

Gay Malaise As a young gay man, the prospect of approaching other men is often more than just nerve racking – it’s dangerous. Deviance investigates… Words: Toby Sharpe Illustration: Elena Boils

ou’re a gay man. Life’s not been great, necessarily, but you can get married now (though not in Northern Ireland), and society seems to believe that everything is now utterly peachy – equality has been won. In reality, the rainbow of your gay life is now so vast and overwhelming it just looks grey. Even the simplest of situations are fraught with tension. Take walking down the street. If you look at a guy, perhaps your eyes will meet: maybe you’ll fall in love, move to a semi-detached in Fulham, have a brood of beautiful and academically successful children. Or, if you’re unlucky, perhaps he’ll punch you because he’s uncomfortable that you’re gay and appeared to be checking him out. Depressingly, that man may very well head further down the street and whistle at a passing woman. He will not notice the irony. In an art gallery this summer, I gazed mournfully at a man, only to write about him in my journal rather than asking him out. My friends later asked why on earth I hadn’t asked for his number. Truth is, I could handle the indignity and the humiliation of being rejected (or being told he was flattered but heterosexual) – but honestly, I feared getting a big old slap. A broken nose wouldn’t look good on me. It may sound hyperbolic, but rates of homophobic hate crime aren’t dwindling (in fact, they rapidly bloomed from 2013 to 2014 according to The Guardian and Stonewall’s report). It is not often safe to be perceived as gay, particularly the further one edges away from metropolitan hubs, but even the cities aren’t safe. Recently, there have been high-profile hate crimes on the streets of major cities across the UK; take, for example the murder of Ian Baynham in Trafalgar Square, just minutes from SoHo and the most supposedly queer-friendly spaces in the country.

Margaret Atwood once said that men fear that women will laugh at them, whereas women fear men will kill them. A tired adage that floats around the internet is that the true definition of homophobia is that men fear they will be treated by other men as they treat women. As a skinny gay guy wandering the streets, both phrases ring true. As one passes packs of men on a night out, one observes the socially accepted norm – that the patriarchy grants men free rein to leer, ogle and catcall women as much as they wish. But for a man to look at a man is charged in a different way – the voyeur risks becoming a victim. I’ve been sneered at, yelled at, charged at, and those are only the examples where the bark has been worse than the bite.

“Perhaps you'll fall in love. Or, maybe he'll punch you” What’s a boy to do? Acting like the worst of the lads is not an option. At best, it’s aggressive, and at worst it plunges you into danger. Straight men are at liberty to act chivalrously or with gracious vulnerability when approaching women, whereas gay men are unable to emulate that behaviour. A nervous gay man hitting on a straight guy is still too fraught with risk, and perhaps only indicates further one’s precarious position. With few options at hand for gay men seeking lovers, we risk melting into the background, becoming a silent minority in a heteronormative world. I do not in any way think that this gay issue rivals the violence and micro aggressions that

women face every day. I am concerned, though, that as gay rights superficially advance and provision is made for gay men to have active sex lives and avenues of expression, some basic equalities are denied. Equalities like the freedom to walk round without staring at the ground whenever another man passes by.

Which brings us back to the topic at hand – gaze. Particularly as homophobic crime is disproportionately targeted against the young, it is imperative that young people coming to terms with their sexuality are shown that it is permissible to look around them. Not just to see if there’s someone giving them a saucy wink, but in order to gauge whether danger’s headed their way.

And Now For Something Completely Deviant… Crikey Moses – we’re considering renaming Deviance! But we’re not doing it without you...

ast month, The Skinny turned ten. We threw a sparkly shindig with a Skinny cake and a gulf of gin, all in celebration of the papery delights we’ve placed under your loyal eyeballs over the last ten years. But that’s not where it ended. Our section editors also got glittery-eyed as they reminisced over the histories of their respective sections. From Music to Books, Theatre to Film, there are many yarns to be spun for each... But none more than the luscious, pink-fonted arena of debate that is Deviance. I got in touch with the very first Deviance editor – Nine – and we had a chinwag about the section. We dished all the Deviance dirt back in October, but to catch you up, let’s just say it hasn’t always been smooth sailing – especially when it came to what the hell we should be calling this section. During the interview, it transpired that Nine was still unkeen on ‘Deviance’. That, among countless other things, left us all wondering whether it is, indeed, time for change.

Lifestyle

Yep. We’re proposing to rename Deviance. But, wait – don’t lose your shit just yet! Yes, change is ruddy uncomfortable at the best of times. Also, the task of finding a name for this section which is accurate, appropriate, striking and nonoffensive is a harder balance to strike than cracking a Mary Berry florentine recipe. But we’re not doing this without you, our readers. You refuse to let shitty things happen, or, if they’ve already happened, you refuse to let them continue. Head to the website, tinyurl.com/deviance-survey, to cast your vote. We trust you. So pick well. Option 1: Intersections Conceptually, Intersectionality means acknowledging that, in short, it’s difficult to be a woman in a patriarchal world, but it’s even harder to be a woman of colour, or a less able woman, or a trans woman, or a woman with a low income (the list continues). Deviance is committed to that ideology; but the section’s intentions extend beyond

that. Nine puts it pretty well: “Gender and sexuality aren’t just issues for those from the margins... One of the main goals should be to amplify marginalised voices. But at the same time, people whose identities carry more privilege are also affected by gender and sexuality issues that aren’t talked about enough... It’s good to have a space where all of that can potentially be tackled.” It also refers nicely to the intersections at which people stand when making the sorts of life decisions we discuss in Deviance. Option 2: FLESH A bit of a wildcard, perhaps. It’s in capitals because it’s an acronym for a bunch of the things we regularly cover in Deviance - Feminism; Love and LGBTQIA* issues; Equality; Sexuality and Spectrums; Human rights. Deviance is dedicated to the things that affect human beings, universally and individually – and flesh is the human common denominator. It’s got a good ring out-loud too: ‘The FLESH section.’

DEVIANCE

Words: Kate Pasola Option 3: Deviance Deciding to keep the name ‘Deviance’ is as much of a statement as changing it, hence it is one of our four options. It was originally chosen in order to reclaim a term often used as a weapon against those who don’t conform. Out of context, it perhaps comes across as a little offensive or reductive – but it’s also a name held close to the hearts to a number of Skinny writers and readers. Option 4: I’ve Got A Better Idea, and It’s “_______” Don’t fancy any of the above? Come on then, hit us up with your best idea, and maybe you’ll wind up being responsible for our brand new name. Wouldn’t that be exciting? Voting happens at tinyurl.com/deviance-survey

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Meet the Studioholders

We take a tour around The Distillery in Glasgow's Whisky Bond to meet some of the freelancers and organisations who make up the building's creative community

utside The Whisky Bond is a fledgling community garden, and new moorings where barges will next year be set up as living spaces. These are only the peripheral developments that are taking place around the gradual upward spread of TWB into newly refurbished floors. Talking now to the longer-term residents like product design company Fearsome and one of TWB’s first tenants, digital fabricators Flux, this former industrial building is well-known as a hub of creative activity and a growing community. Across the board, the tenants have committed to an atmosphere of idea exchange and an exciting and committed work environment. Within The Whisky Bond is The Distillery, an open plan, flexible, coworking space. In one of the two adjoining spaces there are fixed desks and the other blends into hot desking. These are essentially ready-made offices, with a stylish design (designed and fabricated by Glasgow-based designers and makers) and a strong community of freelancers and small start-ups from all disciplines within the creative industries. All the members share a large kitchen space, and the shelves full of different jars, cereals and loaves of bread are a subtle sign that this is a space for early starts and full and concentrated working days. Euan Robertson, in one of the fixed desk spaces, starts by 8.30am at the latest. Running his own business as a photographer and filmmaker, discipline is an obvious priority. Ewan worked from home for four years before he made the decision that he needed a dedicated space. “Initially I thought I’d do it for a few months for a bit of a break, but I’m a long-termer now.” In the beginning, there was a lot of appeal for him that the space is rented on a month to month basis. Spaces outside The Distillery, the larger whole office units are “on a more fixed-term basis. The Distillery is a nice way to break yourself in and see if it works for you,” he says. Speaking of the kind of atmosphere he finds beneficial, it’s as simple as “just coming in and having a cup of tea and chatting to people. There are a few other photographers that work in here as well. It’s really good for bouncing ideas off of each other, and talking through really dull techy things. You can ask the questions online, but I don’t think that’s a substitute for sitting down and being able to chat to people.” The Whisky Bond has grown over the past few years on the strength of word of mouth, events, and recommendations between friends and communities. One of photographer Euan’s friends Alan

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Parks now rents a space on the strength of Euan’s experience. Alan is himself a commissioner for bands and musicians, providing them with artwork and photography. Last week Alan and Euan completed a photoshoot together of Chloe Leon, a musician from Birmingham.

“The Whisky Bond has grown over the past few years on strength of word of mouth, events, and recommendations between friends and communities” Alan’s own experience follows a common thread in conversations with The Distillery members, that at a certain point working from home becomes an untenable set-up. “I was spending all my time at the kitchen table and it was driving everyone at home nuts. I’m not in every day but a few days a week. You can separate things a bit better that way. Sometimes I’ll have meetings here and they can come in and have chat.” There’s a productive buzz of activity around The Distillery, with enough quiet to stay concentrated. Coming to each different user of the space, in a sign of mutual consideration they all suggest moving to one of the more social areas to talk. A recent commissioner of Euan’s is just a few desks over. David McGinty, who makes up half of the digital and creative agency Walnut Wasp, was working on a project with his photographer business partner Gail Kelly. For this project, she was shooting video, so for the photographic element they needed an extra hand. As well as acting as commissioners, Walnut Whip also helped Fearsome, a business across the hallway with their rebrand. He’s aware of the other creative businesses and arts practitioners spread throughout the building through, for example, the internal show and tell events when different tenants from

around the building present their work. It’s clear that for all the different members up and down the entire building, that there is a strong network of mutual interest, engagement and support. David speaks of the “incredible value for money” of the space, and has watched first-hand as it’s filled up over the last year and as the entire building’s expanded into the fourth, fifth and sixth floors. For him, The Whisky Bond is important in itself as a place of inspiration, and he’s been allowed in the past the flexibility to shoot photography within some of the other spaces in the building. He also gives a shout out to the ground floor cafe, that have been very accommodating at making some dietary requirement-friendly cheese-free sandwiches for him. While some of the tenants use the space on a more permanent basis, software and app developer Craig Champion makes the most of its dual flexibility and continuity. Often working on more intensive contracts elsewhere, he uses The Distillery TWB as a base. “I’m back for a couple of months. It’s the flexibility that I need. I might be away for a few months, then come back. The other option is that I need to endlessly sort out a new place, or that I work from home. But I like coming somewhere.” He also highlights the meeting rooms available, which for him are very important because in general “people don’t like endlessly meeting at different places.” Lisa Pasquale uses her dedicated desk space for her business 6 Cylinder Limited, specialising in building performance. She explains, “I work

Words: Adam Benmakhlouf

with architects and engineers to design the lowest energy buildings.” She works for herself, which is appropriate for her field. “There’s only a small handful that do what I do in the industry.” Lisa has only very recently relocated to Glasgow from London, and having built stable professional relationships decided to find her own space. “I was also hitting the point where I was getting up in the morning and tripping over reports. My dining room table had receipts all over it. I needed an out.” Coming from an architectural background and education, Pasquale was immediately interested in coworking spaces. “For what I do, even though it’s quite technical, I actually find it very helpful to be around people that are creative. Otherwise I’ll just spend all my time looking at spreadsheets and numbers. It’s sort of like small children when they do parallel play. They do totally different activities next to each other. This is the adult version of that.” Available on a month to month basis, The Distillery makes the creative community of The Whisky Bond accessible to self-employed professionals and independent creatives. Speaking to companies like new startup Hectares, who make “sweet potato chips and absolutely nothing else”, they’ve just recently moved from The Distillery to a much larger space upstairs. Members of The Distillery enjoy the ideal set-up of flexibility and stability, with TWB matching the community’s strong ambition and aspirations by providing plenty of opportunities and room to grow.

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Credit: Sam Huddleston

Credit: Sonia Mallan

Credit: Kate Johnston

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Deerhunter

METZ

Gig Highlights Defy the dark days to take in the likes of Deerhunter, Slayer, Ibeyi, Zu and a double-whammy from Public Enemy and The Prodigy this November

omplaining may well be a national pastime, but let’s face it, by November, there are only so many more times we can go on about crappy weather, dark days and bone-aching cold. So let us instead focus our energies on the task at hand – taking in as many stellar gigs as the coming winter can offer. Playing it safe this November would be a crime with so many up-and-comers just waiting to be your new favourite band. Start by checking out surfpsych trio The Wytches (Sneaky Pete’s, 10 Nov). They’ve been kicking about since 2011, and with a well-received debut released last year, their star is on the up. Also setting foot on the Sneaky Pete’s stage later in the month and continuing in the psych vein, albeit with a dash more garage-grunge, are dapper London three-piece YAK (26 Nov). The frenetic rock’n’rollers dropped overlooked gem Hungry Heart earlier this year and with support from the equally rakish Hidden Charms, you’ll be bragging to your mates that you saw them here first. Let’s not forget our homegrown talent either – Glaswegian post-electro masters and Mogwai stable mates Errors will be one to watch at La Belle Angele (28 Nov). The local stalwarts hinted at a slight evolution with this year’s Lease Of Life, their fourth record to date. Vocals are at the forefront of the mix and the subsequent clarity of sound promises a dynamic live show. Quirky duo Bdy_Prts, whose lush vocal harmonies and arty stageplay are winning them a growing wave of admirers, play Bloc on 24 Nov as part of a fifth anniversary shindig by Detour, and Scottish indie-trailblazers Idlewild keep up their indefatigable touring schedule with a spot at the beloved Barrowlands (27 Nov). If you’re after something completely different, November’s got that too. Ibeyi are twin sisters Lisa-Kaindé Diaz and Naomi Diaz (who sing in both English and Yoruba, a language spoken in West Africa) and you can marvel at their jazz-soul fusion and traditional percussive beats at King Tut’s (10 Nov). Meanwhile, down in the snug subterranean surrounds of The Hug and Pint, experimental Atlanta, Georgia outfit Algiers will run the sonic

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gamut with everything from gospel, post-punk, industrial noise rock and soul (6 Nov). The brilliantly oddball beats of Public Service Broadcasting, a London duo who have produced two entirely unique albums by repurposing archived news footage and propaganda films, will make for a fun concept-art romp at The Queen’s Hall (17 Nov). And come the end of the month, definitely don’t miss the uniquely talented Willis Earl Beal when he brings his stark, emotive techno-soul hybrid to Broadcast (30 Nov). As the days are getting shorter and darkness abounds, it’s only fitting that November should be a month of hard-hitting noise. If you like some gloom with your tunes, Italian noise-metal legends Zu – who have teamed up with such notables as The Melvins and Mike Patton – will shred the stage at Bloc on 23 Nov, with support from local duo Cutty’s Gym. A reputation for loud, abrasive noise rock almost precedes Bristol newcomers Spectres – bring your earplugs when they blow apart Sneaky Pete’s (20 Nov). METZ (with Protomartyr in tow) deliver a hit of Canadian noise rock to Stereo on 5 Nov, and brace yourself for the godfather of alt metal, Mr Marilyn Manson himself, who is still satisfyingly shocking some twenty years on from the seminal Antichrist Superstar (O2 Academy, 22 Nov). If all that cacophony isn’t enough (you masochist, you!) then steel your nerves for the ultimate in thrash metal – it’s a colossal double act when breakneck rockers Slayer and Anthrax hit town on 25 Nov. How the O2 Academy will contain these two giants remains to be seen – thrash metal aficionados, rejoice. We don’t like to play favourites, but it certainly has been Julia Holter’s year. The LA native has reached new heights with her fourth full-length release, Have You In My Wilderness – the album earned a rare five-star review in these very pages. Holter brings her ethereal vocals and blossoming melodies to an intimate show at The Hug and Pint (13 Nov) – get in quick for this one. Still want more? Fear not, for November is the month that keeps on giving. There’s a serving of classic hip-hop when Talib Kweli, a long-time

Words: Claire Francis

Mos Def collaborator, plays Glasgow’s Audio on 13 Nov, and it will no doubt be a raucous evening when Sheffield rockers Rolo Tomassi, known for their haphazard live performances, launch their experimental math rock at Stereo (10 Nov) with support duties from Dutch punk rockers John Coffey and hardcore outfit Employed To Serve. The brilliantly idiosyncratic indie darlings Deerhunter play SWG3 on the back of this year’s consummate Fading Frontier – Brandon Cox’s volatile yet charismatic stage ensures that no two Deerhunter gigs are the same. North America is further represented by the king of lo-key slacker rock icon Kurt Vile (16 Nov, O2 ABC) whose b’lieve I’m goin’ down is a sure album of the year contender and by 90s indie rock powerhouse Built To Spill (if you haven’t heard their cover of Neil Young’s Cortez The Killer, head to YouTube right now). They play The Art School on 27 Nov with support from Swiss group Disco Doom. In addition, there’s the delightful

psych pop of Wavves to brighten The Bongo Club on 14 Nov, plus Daughter’s winsome, ambient neo-folk is sure to charm The Art School crowd on 16 Nov. Finally, the award for revivalist act of the year surely goes to… no, it’s not dreamy alt champions Mercury Rev, although you can catch them at The Art School on 20 Nov; nor is it veteran rockers Killing Joke (3 Nov, O2 ABC Glasgow) who after nearly four decades and a blistering new album Pylon are as tenacious as ever. Our comeback heroes are the one and only New Order; their latest incarnation sees the return of Gillian Gilbert and continued absence of yer man Hooky. Music Complete could nevertheless be the most accurate album title of the year, with production from Chemical Brothers’ Tom Rowlands, and guest vocals from the likes of Elly Jackson and Iggy Pop. New Order are back, in a bigger way than perhaps any of us could have predicted (O2 Academy, 19 Nov).

Do Not Miss The Prodigy / Public Enemy, SSE Hydro, 23 Nov The Prodigy are arguably the progenitors of modern electronic dance music, coming to prominence in the early 90s with Music For The Jilted Generation, which debuted at number one in the UK album charts. Public Enemy are arguably the world’s most influential hip-hop act, known for their innovative scratching techniques and furious, politically charged lyrics. To see either one of these monoliths in the flesh is a bragging right indeed – to witness both in the one evening is a music lover’s coup. This is no nostalgia trip, either – both groups have proven their relevance and staying power in recent years. The Day Is My Enemy ranks amongst The Prodigy’s most aggressive work to date, and

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at their electric T in The Park slot in July, Keith Flint and co left no doubt that they remain the godfathers of rave. Likewise, Chuck D’s men have kept up a steady stream of tour dates and now, in support of their latest album Man Plans God Laughs and in the context of the ongoing racial tension and police brutality in the States, their message is as relevant now as ever. You may be old enough to remember the day that Public Enemy released 1990’s Fear of a Black Planet, or you may have been born in the same year that The Prodigy graced us with 1997’s The Fat of The Land – in either event, consider this show an essential musical education. [Claire Francis]

Preview

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HEALTH

Stereo, Glasgow, 26 Oct

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It’s just gone quarter to eight in a half packed Stereo on a dreary Glasgow night, but looking at the hyperactive Michael Kasparis it might as well be New Year’s Eve on the main floor of Berghain. Seeing Apostille live is always a treat as Kasparis casts an entrancing spell upon the uninitiated amid a hail of propulsive proto-punk and industrial analogue electronics. For his final act, the artiste finishes up prostrate in the middle of the crowd after a frantically demented rendition of Powerless’ opening track, Life, which sounds a bit like Sparks as distilled by Suicide. Folk have been waiting for HEALTH to come back to Glasgow for over half a decade, which makes it all the stranger that most of the near sell-out crowd stands seemingly ossified throughout.

Along with the likes of Abe Vigoda and No Age, the band originally cut their teeth at LA experimental space The Smell, so they’re well acclimatised to sweat lodges like our beloved Stereo. With a six-year gap and a Max Payne score inbetween records, there’s an understandable stylistic dissonance in the set which isn’t always bridged; somewhat surprisingly, it’s the newer, poppier Death Magic material that elicits the biggest cheer. The gargantuan soundscapes of New Coke make a racket comparable to Godzilla undergoing defibrillation, while the rolling war toms of Men Today reach a decibel level loud enough to have a few unlucky souls reconsidering their standing position in front of the speakers. Flat atmosphere or not, the performance in itself justifies the wait. [Graeme Campbell] youwillloveeachother.com

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Photo: Rita Azevedo

Beneath the tall Dissection Room ceiling, and alone on stage, cheery Olga Bell is a diminutive figure; it’s only fitting that her synth-yoked sound is a feisty, fulsome presence. Though a seasoned musician (she plays keys for Dirty Projectors), she’s new-ish to the solo circuit, and, initially, her timidity shows. She loosens up with her set’s progression, her vocals flexing to a where-is-that-coming-from kind of power, until she’s dancing like we’re not even here. Sometime Fence Records artist James ‘Barbarossa’ Mathé is up next, two percussionists in tow. In a hefty hiatus between his debut record and his latest output, he switched out the acoustic guitar for a mean line in electronics. And boy, when this set peaks, it’s like house music; Imager, from the new album of the same name, carries a Caribou-like vocal across a triangular bass loop,

and marks the neon zenith of the night. A tough act to follow, then, for New York’s prodigal Son Lux, aka Ryan Lott and his virtuoso guitarist (Rafiq Bhatia) and drummer (Ian Chang). Son Lux may have begun as Lott’s brainchild, and it’s his orchestration that floors the audience tonight, but few bands have felt as singularly, mathematically tessellated as this threesome. Not a beat or note out place: Chang pulverising his kit, Bhatia slicing his guitar lines like a hot wire through butter. Working predominantly from newest LP Bones, Lott leads the way on keys and his chesty, bassy vox, that first ‘This moment changes everything’ refrain ringing both choral and cinematic. Forays into Lanterns, particularly Easy and a showstopping encore of Lost It To Trying, show just how cohesive his opus is; melodies (and choruses) blend as they self-sample and live remix, elevating this set to Olympian heights, and leaving us slackjawed in its wake. [George Sully]

Photo: John Graham

Summerhall, 22 Oct

Photo: John Graham

Photo: Rita Azevedo

Son Lux / Barbarossa / Olga Bell

Rudi Zygadlo

Pinned in earlier days as a thoughtful genre-blending polymath (with two albums of somewhat mixed fare under his belt), the lanky maestro rrrrr now seems to be rebranding himself as a purveyor A lone, smokily backlit William Arcane haunts the of catchy, hook-driven electro-pop. support slot tonight, faceless over his cables and Most conspicuous are the newer tracks – Black dials. Favouring the increasingly popular combiBile’s hip-gyratingly dancey keytar, Sympathies nation of lushly preprogrammed synth loops with Scrapbook’s separated-at-birth twin to Miaoux a ghosting, distant live falsetto, Arcane might nod Miaoux’s latest record – which typify his new vibe, at a few contemporaries as he goes (Baths, SOHN, rich in candied synthesiser and sultry vocals. He’s a touch of Massive Attack), but he glides past them switched styles before (as often as his location: to his own distinct destination. It’s his first time Dumfries-born, once Glasgow-based, then Berlin, playing in Scotland, let alone Sneaky’s, and though now London), but this, now, has a decidedly most of the crowd might be barside just now, eyes poppier bent. and ears are no doubt drawn to the boy’s low-slung There’s something in his cheeky, self-conscious electronic grooves. singing style and wiry dance moves which might Turns out he’s also part of Rudi Zygadlo’s entou- divide an audience, but it can’t be denied he’s a rage, though now it’s to provide a backing – along- consummate, playful performer. This is a top show, side Kate Tempest’s keyboardist Clare Uchima – for all its posturing, and this crowd is most definiwith a touch more chomp. Zygadlo the man is kind tely on board. [George Sully] of like his name: all knees and elbows, but confident rudi-zygadlo.tumblr.com without taking himself – or his art – too seriously. Sneaky Pete’s, 13 Oct

Review

Prehistoric Friends

The Hug & Pint, Glasgow, 23 Oct

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“Some say we turn into ghosts/or that we become one of the stars,” intones singer/keyboardist Liam Chapman, at the helm of the surging pop epic Mammals. We’re nearing the end of Prehistoric Friends’ superb, emotionally vibrant set, and on the strength of a blissfully atmospheric performance tonight, it’s the latter – the prospect of stardom – that this outfit assuredly deserve. Our primordial friends have been more than ably supported, too. Replete with the kind of welloiled, moseying basslines that transform The Hug & Pint’s subterranean band room – decked out tonight in a forest of potted greenery – into a snug speakeasy, Dave Frazer & The Slave Labourers have the joint at near capacity for their opening slot. The Antipodean frontman matches a Mark Knopfler-esque huskiness to his group’s benevolent blues rock. When they cede the stage to

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Edinburgh’s string virtuosos eagleowl, there’s a warming energy that forges a complementary link between tonight’s supports. The spotlight, though, belongs to Prehistoric Friends, an accomplished bunch drawn together from the likes of Admiral Fallow, Miaoux Miaoux and Friends in America. If their debut is a neatly cut fossil – clean, cohesive, and well polished; onstage, the group breathe life into the bones of their selftitled record. The yearning Wisdom Tooth is fleshed out with a rumbling rhythm section and Nichola Kerr’s lithe viola, whilst Bermuda Triangle springs into action on a bundle of bossa nova beats. Chapman and Kerr give us value for money in the between song banter department too (the track Gentle Giant now forever ingrained in our minds as the slightly less decorous ‘Genital Giant’). Plants, fossils, keyboards and laughs – it’s a delight from start to finish. Primeval they may call themselves, but Prehistoric Friends are very much a band of the moment. [Claire Francis] prehistoricfriends.com

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illuminating insight into the kind of themes she will explore on her album. “My first single, Catacombs is about relationships between mother and daughter,” she continues. “In that sense my songs are very personal, some of them are very feminist. That’s something that’s always been important to me. As a kid I loved Kate Bush – even though my mum wouldn’t let me play her as she hated her voice. I remember listening to Running Up That Hill under the covers and thinking she was talking about swapping roles with a man; I thought it was her power song about women getting to the top. I used to wonder why all bosses were men since I was tiny. I was very aware of the differences in the way girls and boys were treated. It felt so silly to me. I think that has fed itself into part of me.”

“I had to start writing my own music. It’s not really a choice” Zyna Hel

Constellation Woman Zyna Hel – aka visual artist Elisabeth Oswell – is intent on creating a world of her own with her dark electro pop. Taking inspiration from the likes of Britney, Kate Bush and Goldfrapp, she explains how a French childhood first lit her creative flames Interview: Chris McCall Photography: Mihaela Bodlovic

he town of Pont-Audemer in Haute-Normandie was thankfully spared the devastation endured by neighbouring settlements during the D-Day landings and subsequent battle between the Allies and Nazi occupiers. Its historic half-timbered buildings and canal-lined streets give it an otherworldly feel; a perfect place then for children with fertile minds. This was the home of Elisabeth Oswell, aka electro pop singer Zyna Hel, until the age of 12. She followed her parents across the channel from England and fell in love with this unique place. Her music, accompanied by a striking visual style, combine to create an ethereal atmosphere that a growing number of people are choosing to explore. “I’m really fascinated by the occult and consciousness,” she explains. “When I was eight, my dad brought home a book club catalogue, and told me I could have any book I wanted. I vividly recall finding this book called Le Pendule – meaning The Pendulum – all about dowsing. I’ve always had a strong connection to those things; I’ve read the tarot since I was 14. I’m really interested in Carl Jung and the collective consciousness.” Zyna – pronounced Xena, like the Warrior princess – has released less than a handful of songs, but has already caused a stir; playing one of her first gigs at All Tommorow’s Parties and a wellreceived appearance at the Wickerman Festival in July. She’s now ready to record her debut album

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with respected Glasgow producer Julian Corrie, having won a grant from Woman Make Music, part of the PRS for Music Foundation. It seems the ideal time to find out more about this singular performer. The Skinny meets Zyna on a weekday night in a Byres Road coffee shop; it’s so busy it more resembles a city centre bar on a Friday. “I thought it would be quiet!” she smiles. Back to the name. Zyna means ‘the welcoming one’ and is from the Greek Xenia. Hel is the Norse goddess of the underworld. Glasgow has been home for several months. Previously, she lived in Brighton, studying music and visual arts, and singing with Hush Arbors, Keith Wood’s American psych-folk project. While the former provided valuable training, and the latter offered exciting opportunities to support the likes of Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jnr, Zyna was set on pursuing her own musical vision. “Hush Arbors was someone else’s music, someone else’s hard work,” she recalls. “I realised I wanted to do something myself and I had to start writing my own music. It still feels like it’s not really a choice. If someone came along and told me to give this up I couldn’t; it’s a compulsion. I think creativity can be unpleasant. It’s this nebulous thing you have to chase and sometimes it’s not there. It can wake you up in the middle in the night. Especially when you haven’t made anything in a while, but then when you do create, it feels like nothing else.”

It was while living in Normandy that Zyna first tasted performance, courtesy of a son et lumière, an outdoor show in which the whole community was invited to take part. “People don’t separate what they do with their kids in the same way as they do in the UK. It’s a more open culture in so many ways. We would go out for dinner with our parents and just fall asleep at the table. When I moved back to the UK I found it quite jarring. I love the UK, but I feel a strong connection with French culture. I feel maybe that’s shaped my personality.” As entertaining as it was, it was music – specifically the work of one French pop sensation – and not theatre group that really opened her eyes to boundless creative possibilities. “The first time I remember being completely blown away by a performer was when I saw Mylène Farmer,” she enthuses. “She’s huge in France – but no one has heard of her here. She has this song about knowing she was a boy, written about a trans-woman. I thought it was a really powerful song, and there was such conviction in the way she delivered it. She was always kind of half-naked in her music videos, but not in a provocative way... she was just really comfortable with her sexuality. I was really blown away the first time I saw her. Every strong female performer gives me permission to do that myself.” Two of Zyna’s songs already in circulation, Constellation Woman and Catacombs, provide an

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Following on from her love of Mylène Farmer and Kate Bush, Zyna Hel was gradually drawn to other strong female performers. “I loved Britney, Destiny’s Child, Madonna... all of those people have been a huge influence on me. Maybe not always musically, but in terms of being singularly themselves. I loved Alison Goldfrapp. My mum used to say to me: ‘When I was growing up, I could either be a cook or a secretary.’ She wasn’t from a rich family. I guess maybe my generation are some of the first who can decide to go out and do what we want to. It might still be hard, it might still be a journey for all sorts of reasons, but there aren’t the same sorts of external limitations for the most part.” The aforementioned Catacombs was produced by Ben Power, better known as one half of Fuck Buttons, and now recording as Blanck Mass. It’s illustrative of the dark, enchanting electro that provides an ideal backdrop for Zyna Hel’s unique vocals. She has already built up a solid working relationship with Corrie, who will oversee the recording of her first LP this month. “I’ve worked with so many people; I’m such a perfectionist,” she smiles. “The music might sound good, but there’s no point if it doesn’t feel right. I’ve worked with people who have done some amazing things and it’s just not felt right. I think Julian has an insight into my music.” While the album is still some way off from being released, the music industry has already taken notice. “I’m already speaking to some labels but I’m not supposed to talk too much about that,” she laughs. “I’m only going to go with a label if it feels right. I have a very strong idea of what I want and I would only go with a label who were on board with that. One of the downsides of how the music industry is changing is that labels don’t take the chance to develop artists anymore. They don’t give them the chance to see what they can really do. More and more artists are having to incubate themselves. People making music now have to be tenacious. You have to love it. It’s fucking hard work, because you’re having to do it yourself. Things have really shifted in the last 10 years.” Those who have been fortunate to witness one of Zyna Hel’s rare live shows – “I haven’t played loads as I’ve been developing the music and the visual aspect” – will have an idea of what to expect from her album when it does appear. Yet the only person who really knows what’s in store is Zyna herself. “I want to create a world that other people can step into,” she says. “Maybe it’s because of growing up in a world where you feel you don’t belong, so you create a world where you feel safe and comfortable in – but also because it’s really fun. For me that’s what great art does – it creates a space and atmosphere of its own.” zynahel.com

Review

Album of the Month Oneohtrix Point Never

Garden of Delete [Warp, 13 Nov]

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If 2013’s R Plus Seven was a landscape of delicate synthwork and angelic choral sounds glossing over a murky atmosphere, then Garden of Delete flips the script in this seemingly aggressive record; muscular in tone, schizophrenic in delivery, all the while possessing a maniacal grin on its face. Take Mutant Standard, an eightminute epic that eagerly builds on an understated mix of ambient synth washes and a muted bass rhythm only to be obliterated by a myriad of trance patterns that hurtle into something resembling a cyber mosh pit.

Bill Wells And Friends

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Collaborative Works [Erased Tapes, 30 Oct]

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Ólafur Arnalds and Nils Frahm

Nursery Rhymes [Karaoke Kalk, 20 Nov] Reworked nursery rhymes, you say? Recorded by musical catalyst Bill Wells alongside collaborators old and new? Ok, whatever. Yo La Tengo announce their presence early on, lighting up Three Blind Mice with their familiar krautfuzz glow before cracking open Humpty Dumpty’s tumbling rhythm in a manner entirely appropriate to the song’s doomed hero. Wells’ own arrangements are gorgeous too, falling majestically into the space between Amy Allison’s doleful rendition of Shoo Fly and Bridget St John’s unexpectedly sensuous Ding Dong Bell. There are some marvellous performances here. When problems do arise, it’s not courtesy of the musicians themselves, but the nauseous guff that plagues some of the source material: for example, the dulcet tones of Syd Straw cannot rescue the familiar-yet-moronic melody of Oranges And Lemons. Still, it’s the darkness at the heart of the songs that provides the album’s spark – when everything ignites, it’s all sorts of spectacular. [Will Fitzpatrick]

Even the angsty I Bite Through It feels less glowering and more like a fit of rage, each stutter of overdriven melody like you’re stuck in the endless glitch of a shoot ’em up; even an attempt at a guitar solo goes hilariously awry. Each track is a tightly compacted exercise in aural vertigo save for Animals, sounding like Daft Punk on a major comedown and the lush, schmaltzy closer No Good, alluding to Oneohtrix’s penchant for the kitsch. Arguably this is Oneohtrix’s antiambient record, where rhythm takes centre stage and refuses to be polite; just listen to the exhilarating metal drums in Sticky Drama. Deep thrills. [Jon Davies]

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Individually, Ólafur Arnalds and Nils Frahm have been making some of the finest ambient, neoclassical music of the past decade, seemingly relentlessly and at will. Both have demonstrated a collaborative bent in the past (special nod to Frahm’s stellar 9Fingers with Anne Muller from 2010) and in recent weeks, the Icelander and German have together accelerated their prolific, collegiate natures. Collaborative Works is a double album, collating four EPs the pair have recorded and the soundtrack of a live visual show, Trance Frendz. While the EPs are peppered with beauty and some surprising snippets of glitch, it’s disc two that thrills most. Trance Frendz is an improvised masterpiece, showing why these two young composers are often cited as the vanguard of the nebulous classical indie scene. There’s much to love here, and many subtleties that will escape the casual listener, but which will keep unravelling and revealing themselves to those willing to dedicate the headspace. [Finbarr Bermingham]

Cloning [Chemikal Underground, 6 Nov]

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Over their various iterations, Edinburgh collective FOUND have reshaped and overhauled their sound accordingly. Now down to a bare-bones two piece after the departure of fellow founder Tommy Perman, remaining duo Ziggy Campbell and Kev Sim have cleared the decks once again for fourth album Cloning. After the relative simplicity of 2011’s Factorycraft it’s clear that the creeping bent of FOUND’s more experimental leanings are returning to the fore here. Burgeoning with vintage synths, toying with 80s sci-fi soundscapes and shot through with a filmic quality, Cloning is an album of growing depth and nuance. However, it’s tempered by more immediate melodies and a penchant for buoyant, victory lap style bass riffs from extended opener A Souvenir For Every Hope You Had onwards. Small pockets of entwining interludes and some recurring themes give Cloning some scale and gravitas, but underneath the layers it’s a wonderfully warm and welcoming record. [Darren Carle] chemikal.co.uk

arnaldsfrahm.com

Holy Sons

Darren Hayman

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Fall of Man [Thrill Jockey, 13 Nov] For a man who once admitted to taking drugs every day since he was 16, Portland songwriter and drummer Emil Amos is a prolific musician. Claiming to have written over a thousand songs, Amos also plies his trade in both post-rock favourites Grails and doom metallers OM, with his Holy Sons project allowing this languid polymath to stretch out and indulge his love of avant-folk and classic ‘70s balladry. The ghosts of troubled, cracked and paranoid forefathers like Skip Spence and Dennis Wilson haunt this album’s vaguely sad air but what wins through is the sheer listenability of so many of these songs. I Told You is full of warm Deep Purple-esque organs, while dreamy guitar lines and Amos’ own sweet double-tracked vocals emerge as if from nowhere on Boil It Down. The spooky but skilful production only adds to the impression Amos has a come a long way from his roots in lo-fi home recording. Long may he stay there. [Jamie Bowman]

Florence [Fika Recordings, 6 Nov]

Disappears

Low: Live In Chicago [Sonic Cathedral, 20 Nov]

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Tender hearts beware. Hayman’s second album of 2015 is a significant step down from the orchestrations of his stirring William Morris tribute, Chants For Socialists. But its modesty does little to diminish its unerring eye for the lovelorn, the lonely and the lost. Florence takes its name from the city Hayman recorded it in, and indie pop purists will pounce on the fact that his ‘studio’ was no less than Elizabeth ‘Allo Darlin’’ Morris’s apartment in the city. With titles like Didn’t I Say Don’t Fall In Love With Him, When You’re Lonely Don’t Be and Break Up With Him (“He don’t even know what to do / With a sweet little mess like you”), Hayman’s songs play out like an all too convincing been-there-done-that commentary from the sidelines. An open-hearted exercise in melancholy, Florence is the work of a man who, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, still believes in a thing called love. Amen to that. [Gary Kaill]

Philip Glass aside, why on earth would anyone choose to take on Bowie’s Low? There is context: the opening of last year’s Bowie exhibition in Chicago, and the opportunity for acts to reinterpret back catalogue over a series of live events. Disappears certainly don't lack ambition, but still; for a guitar-centric band to take on musical territory of considerable nuance (and considerable Brian Eno) without significant structural deviation feels pedestrian – particularly on the poppier tracks Breaking Glass and Sound and Vision, the riff-work cute but crying out for something beyond the bierkeller cover-band treatment. Side B – perhaps Bowie at his most experimental – is more of a success, the guitars and pedals forced to transcribe Eno’s brooding, counter-intuitive synth cadences. Yet even here the question of why? remains unanswered. Maybe you had to be there. [Duncan Harman]

hefnet.com

disappearsmusic.com

holysons.bandcamp.com

David Mackenzie & Tony Doogan

Video

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Starred Up: Film Music Reworked [Good Grace, 6 Nov]

The Entertainers [Third Man Records, 13 Nov]

You could be forgiven for responding to news of Starred Up: Film Music Reworked with the question: what film music? Within the context of David Mackenzie’s searing prison drama, the score played an almost invisible role, residing in the bottom end of the mix and only occasionally making its presence more obvious. Now, however, the material gets a chance at the spotlight, albeit having first undergone significant renovations. The results don’t need moving images to feel cinematic, particularly more abstract tracks like Respite/Paradise and Violence – the latter of which conjures a palpable air of danger in keeping with its title. Similarly confrontational is Crossing the Line, which opens with a barrage of digital noise before introducing an ominous, pulsating theme straight out of the John Carpenter handbook. But it’s Credit that will keep you coming back, its soaring melody reaching out through the bars to touch the sky. [Chris Buckle]

“I will achieve and fulfill my destiny!” snarls Daniel Fried. Can’t fault his conviction, that’s for sure – not content with releasing some of the best gritty power pop in recent memory with Radioactivity and Mind Spiders, he returns to this garage rock outfit for a second album via Jack White’s label. Know what? This ain’t bad either. The Entertainers suggests Fried (playing under his ‘TV’s Daniel’ pseudonym) owns some pretty good records: hints of Hot Snakes and New Bomb Turks pepper the likes of New Immortals, draping post-hardcore angularity all over their too-punk-to-suck sass. Muddy psych-blues grooves and a new wave shimmy also rear their heads on occasion, keeping things nice’n’spiky just when you think you’ve got ‘em pegged. The only thing missing, annoyingly, is truly essential songs – it’s all enjoyable enough, but there’s little to get you scrabbling for the repeat button. [Will Fitzpatrick]

sigmafilms.com/films/starred-up/

facebook.com/cultofvideo

Review

RECORDS

Lanterns On The Lake

Beings [Bella Union, 13 Nov]

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Beyond the success of 2013’s Until the Colours Run, Newcastle’s Lanterns On The Lake continue to maintain their commitment to producing high quality soundscapes with a unique sensibility. Beings is haunting and delicate, with a soulful self-effacing aura to put a tremor in your bones. Hazel Wilde’s vocals evoke a mystical narrative accompanied by the tiptoe of the ride cymbal in songs such as Faultlines, while humble and poignant piano glazes the space between this constructed dream world and reality in Stepping Down. Tracks travel fluidly between each other, creating a velvet mélange of acoustic rock with elements of pop and grunge; Of Dust and Matter explores the emotional cracks between reason and experience, gleaned with a morose ecstasy hard to find in modern indie rock. A truly excellent work that rarely falters, representative of the band’s creative prowess and untempered dreams. [Mina Green] Playing Glasgow King Tut’s on 4 Dec | lanternsonthelake.com

THE SKINNY

Soldiers Of Fortune

USA Nails

The Silent Set

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Early Risers [Mexican Summer, 6 Nov]

No Pleasure [Smalltown America, 6 Nov]

Teeth Out [mini50, 6 Nov]

Not to denigrate the indie rock royalty gathered here, but this supergroup impresses more convincingly by dint of the recording credits than the fruit of their endeavours. Matt Sweeney (Chavez) and Kid Millions (Oneida, Man Forever… how long have you got?) are undoubtedly phenomenal musicians, responsible for some truly killer records – it’s nice to hear ‘em having fun on the Stephen Malkmus-led Campus Swagger and the surging Nails. Still, ‘fun’ often depends on which side of the microphone you’re sat. Soldiers Of Fortune are essentially a jam band: regardless of the talent, energy or CVs of those involved (including guests like Cass McCombs and Comets On Fire’s Ethan Miller), too many tracks devolve into predictable bar-band blues with little payoff. It’s not a sign of diminishing powers; just some laffs between pals, better served in the practice room than etched into a slab o’wax. [Will Fitzpatrick]

Let’s get it out of the way: USA Nails are a post-hardcore supergroup featuring members of the British underground scene’s finest acts of the past decade, including Oceansize, Future Of The Left, Kong and Silent Front. However, while their previous effort Sonic Moist sounded a bit like a side project, No Pleasure has a red-eyed life of its own; roadworn and irritated, its rabid face pressed against the glass. Out the window went the awkward techy moments replaced by a mix of Drive Like Jehu headbangers, nods to psychedelia and a throttling of hardcore for good measure. In fact it’s the sharp injecting of speed that stands out, the album’s midpoint Laugh It Up hammering home the maniacal nature of No Pleasure, while the amp-hissing closer I Cannot Drink Enough sends the album into a psychotic delirium. [Jon Davies]

The curious may well be pulled in by the presence of Nils Frahm and Heather Woods Broderick (whose recent Glider album is one of the unsung jewels of 2015), but The Silence Set are a stout enough proposition to make their case without the need for starry patronage: their guests merely add colour. Teeth Out, an exquisite display of baroque songcraft, took three years to shape and record and, in line with its provenance, it takes its time getting under your skin. The Swedish pairing of Dag Rosenqvist and Johan G Winther employ simple and largely traditional instrumentation, with just enough electronic accompaniment and processing to add drama and bite. At its best, as on Woods Broderick’s Worry, Glory or the startling opener We Will Die Enraged, The Silence Set are largely true to their name but the effect is often shattering nevertheless. [Gary Kaill]

soldiers-of-fortune.bandcamp.com

facebook.com/usanailsband

mini50records.bandcamp.com

Floating Points

Black International

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Elaenia [Pluto, 6 Nov] As one of the well-known faces of Shoreditch’s now defunct Plastic People nightclub (further alumni include Caribou and Four Tet), Floating Points’ debut album has finally arrived after multiple well-received EPs and five long years in the works. As befitting a music obsessed neuroscience graduate, the sounds here are as eclectic as much as they are cerebral, with Kenny Wheeler, Toru Takemitsu and Moreton Subotnick all cited as influences. Automated synths play out a like a Tarkovskian dream sequence on opener Nespole, while closing track Peroration Six sounds not a million miles away from Radiohead’s Everything in it’s Right Place if it were to be somehow channeled through a prog rock, jazz-fusion prism. Single-handedly justifying the wait is the three-part, 10minute chef-d’œuvre that is Silhouettes (I, II & III), which could almost pass as a threnody with its weaving, elegiac strings and operatic vocals. A sublime introduction. [Graeme Campbell] Playing A Night with Derrick Carter at Glasgow Hillhead Bookclub on 26 Dec floatingpoints.co.uk

Steeple Remove

A Lesson In Repression [Good Grief, 30 Oct]

Position Normal [Gonzai Recordings, 20 Nov]

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Having grinded on the Scottish circuit for several years now, powerhouse drummer Craig Peebles and guitarist/frontman Stewart Allan return with a refined sophomore excursion. The Edinburgh duo’s second offering regularly deviates from its predecessor’s straightjacket of punk rock, transformative in its abilities to push boundaries. It’s a textured beast, with a sound that ricochets through its own essence, ghost-like and enchanting yet frivolous in its experimental prowess. Their sound is riddled with euphoric bursts and prolonged lapses between the gritty, scratching guitar and occasional strum of a lone acoustic. The dirty, visceral punk of Silence is contrasted with songs such as Panopticon, acting as a mellow, reflective companion with a dark reverb through the soundscape of its own breath. Deliciously self-aware, the record forces its fingers around the throats of our preconceptions, at least temporarily quenching the thirst for that much-needed full-blown punk rock revival. [Mina Green]

The French experimentalists’ fifth long player – out in their homeland at the beginning of the year – receives its physical UK release amidst a mélange of Motorik grooves, power-pop persuasion and measured (if occasionally feisty) atonality. Not that the charm is Gallic in nature; the reference points suggest a night in with Echo and the Bunnymen, early Ride and Spacemen 3, what with all the strident synth motifs (Silver Banana; Imaginary Girl), scuzzy guitars (Calling Up) and bass-pinioned momentum (Sunshine) on offer. Maybe not the most stylistically original record you’re likely to hear, but there’s enough tricks up Steeple Remove’s sleeves to keep interest levels high – particularly the way in which Mirrors and Home Run both spiral out of focus at the mid-point, exposing the bones of each track through tangential prodding at melody and beat. The unpredictability here helps to push at perception, and while you’re never quite certain where the agenda may sit, it’s a rewarding uncertainty nonetheless. [Duncan Harman]

Playing Edinburgh Kirk O Field on 21 Nov | blackinternational.co.uk

facebook.com/SteepleRemoveFR

CocoRosie

!!!

Trust Fund

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Heartache City [Lost Girl, 13 Nov]

As If [Warp, 6 Nov]

How sad this is to see: ‘freak folk’ twosome CocoRosie, somehow missing their proverbial ‘spark’. Bianca and Sierra Casady, the pixie-larynx’d sisters with a decade of bewitching, occult records under their belts, hit a few dud notes with the tranquilised Heartache City. As if with the sponge tool on Photoshop, most of the colour’s been sapped away. It’s only in rare glimpses (the full-bodied chorus in Lost Girls, or the title track’s handclap beat) that we’re reminded of their former textures. It’s an otherwise stripped-down affair, reduced to sobering piano and conventional drums, without the eccentric electronics and beatboxing of yesteryear. Even the off-kilter rap-poetry appears joyless (Forget Me Not, Tim and Tina); they’ve always been the lyrical equivalent of touching something slimey in the dark, but here the spooky words sound neutered. Opting for a sparser sound can work its own magic, of course, but for CocoRosie, the result is a malnourished record, lacking the rosier cheeks of past efforts. [George Sully]

!!! – the band so obnoxiously named that knowing how to pronounce the symbols certifies you a know-it-all – have returned with a record of flamboyant dance music that’s as supremely confident as their hard-to-Google title. The irreverent Californian outfit have always had a rebellious streak, and it’s currently best reflected in how decidedly un-hip this record is. Single Freedom! 15 has a prolonged, outrageously disco-vibed “ba-a-byy-y” taking pride of place within its chorus, and the slick, bassy breakdown is built for multiple enthusiastic shoulder shimmies. There’s a lot of silliness, but !!! are strict ringmasters. A precisely calibrated, thoroughly considered act, it takes a real head for heights to loop “I got this funk” with a relatively straight face, and without putting a single foot wrong. While As If probably isn’t a reference to Cher’s timeless catchphrase in Clueless, the record definitely embodies something of Alicia Silverstone’s unquestionable teen sass; a hair-flicking, impeccably dressed triumph. [Katie Hawthorne]

cocorosiemusic.com

chkchkchk.net

Tuff Love

Parquet Courts

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Dregs EP [Lost Map Records, 6 Nov]

Junk. Dross. And now Dregs. Tuff Love are nothing if not self-effacing but the Glasgow duo’s apparent modesty belies the sly sophistication and developing craft behind their three EPs to date. Those of us who’re pinning our hopes on Julie Eistenstein and Suse Bear making the leap from homespun, DIY promise to an act with real stature and – whisper it – an album in them, can start to breathe easy. If Dregs really is true to its name, then a full length set has ‘down in one’ written all over it. Pitched somewhere in that dreampop netherworld between breezy and melancholy, the pair’s stock in trade harmonies and chiming guitar reveal more than a hint of shoegaze. Both Duke and Crocodile draw a line back to early Lush, and surely it’s no coincidence that Tuff Love toured with Ride recently. Five tracks: every one a woozy doozy. So, what do you think of the show so far? [Gary Kaill] Playing Edinburgh Voodoo Rooms on 7 Nov and Glasgow Hug & Pint on 21 Nov lostmap.com/tuff-love

November 2015

Monastic Living EP [Rough Trade, 13 Nov] Parquet Courts have been busy on the road, and they want you to know. Monastic Living is a surprisingly chaste title for a compilation of thoughts from a touring rock band, but in their quasi-religious vow of silence (the record’s 99% instrumental) the New York four-piece explore some pretty revealing territory via wonky walls of noise, experimenting with abrupt scene changes and weird new backdrops. The record is impulsive, flickering, ideas caught in pencil lines on scrunched pages. Some sketches are hard to penetrate, intentionally obtuse. Other tracks, like the swaggering snippet Poverty and Obedience, feel a bit like reading the first page of a brand new novel – only to have it wrested from your hands. The dusty, bass-heavy slow jam Prison Conversion is fully fleshed, one of the few tracks permitted the space to fully expand... and it makes you wonder; what’s the deal? Is Monastic Living just a postcard from the van, or an outline of the shape of things to come? [Katie Hawthorne]

Seems Unfair [Turnstile, 30 Oct] Forget connotations of entitlement, Trust Fund have an almighty work ethic. Seems Unfair is Ellis Jones and co.’s second album this year, following the release of (excellent) debut LP No One’s Coming For Us back in February. It bursts with all the energy and shiny-eyed excitement of a band just realising the power at their fingertips. Creepy indie-pop that glows in the dark, Seems Unfair daubs its brighter, hookier hooks with a pragmatic dose of doom and gloom. “Everybody’s body freaks them out,” sings Jones on Football – both caustic and empathetic, like a best friend who won’t tolerate your bullshit. Tracks like the quietly anthemic Big Asda have floated on Trust Fund’s corner of the internet for a while now, and it’s truly exciting to hear them put to record by prolific Leeds producer MJ (of Hookworms). Life’s not fair, but Trust Fund’s got your back. Emotionally, not financially. [Katie Hawthorne] trustfund.bandcamp.com

The Top Five 1

Oneohtrix Point Never

Lanterns On The Lake

Garden of Delete Beings

!!!

As if

USA Nails

Floating Points

No Pleasure

Elaenia

parquetcourts.wordpress.com

RECORDS

Review

Repeat Offender

By mid-2013, the film was in the can and on its way to success on the festival circuit and beyond, but Mackenzie found he wasn’t quite ready to put the music to bed. “That original soundtrack, you know, that’s out, that’s available on iTunes if anyone wants it. But I sort of thought, well there’s another way of presenting this material, that’s still got some of that energy but with a bit more shape.” Hence Reworked, designed to be “more of an audio journey rather than just the underscore of the film.” “You tend to have to be very surgical when you’re doing film score stuff,” Mackenzie elaborates. “You know, you’ve got a 25-second piece to get from A to B or whatever, so they tend to be tiny little chunks, which is not very nice to listen to. So, Tony and I would go in and mix a few tracks together, we edited and expanded stuff, we opened things up. When you don’t have to worry about the timeline of the film, you have a different kind of freedom.”

On its release last year, David Mackenzie’s Starred Up turned heads and earned plaudits for its intense portrayal of prison life. Now the film’s score has undergone the remake treatment, Mackenzie explains why he’s still immersed in the music Interview: Chris Buckle

“When you don’t have to worry about the timeline of the film, you have a different kind of freedom” David Mackenzie

Raymond MacDonald on Straight Sax

ppropriately for a film set entirely within prison walls, Starred Up is full of sounds that signal confinement: the grating clink of locking bolts; the jangle of keys; the clang of doors slamming shut. They contribute to an immersive sound design dominated by diegetic details, from the echoes that bounce down under-lit corridors to the metallic whir of a revolving door pointedly spinning to a stop in the final moments. The effect is stark and largely naturalistic, underscoring the rawness exhibited by the film’s other elements. Less apparent, particularly on first encounter, is the ambient score lurking beneath these surface sounds. Barely there and barely music, it sits so low in the mix as to be almost subliminal, making Starred Up: Film Music Reworked an intriguing prospect. Revisiting the original recordings with producer and co-composer Tony Doogan, David Mackenzie has overhauled the score’s abstract soundscapes and fashioned a satisfying standalone listening experience; still subtle and often amelodic, but nonetheless a major changeup for material previously designed to go all but unnoticed. “The whole idea of the music in Starred Up, and I guess part of the reason why I myself was allowed to do it, as somebody who’s not really an expert in the field as it were, was because we wanted something that didn’t sound too musical,” Mackenzie explains, taking a break from packing to discuss the score’s route from reel to record. In a few days he’ll fly back to the States to complete post-production on Comancheria, a heist drama shot in New Mexico over the summer with Jeff Bridges, Ben Foster and Chris Pine in the lead roles; ‘til then, he’s appreciating the chance to look back and “re-engage with the music side of things” once more. “We wanted something that felt like it was coming through the pipes, something that had that kind of atmospheric element to it,” he continues. “And obviously a lot of that is down to

Review

the sound design, but the current of the musical elements was a way of bringing things together.” Mackenzie describes his decision to “have a go” at doing the score himself as “a progression, for me, of all the films that I’ve done. I’ve always had an interest in music, and I’ve got to work with some great people” – a roster that includes The Pastels (The Last Great Wilderness), David Byrne (Young Adam) and Max Richter (Perfect Sense). Mackenzie also references 2007’s Hallam Foe, “where I decided I wasn’t going to have a composer at all and was just going to curate the score from bits and pieces from Domino Records” as a key step towards the level of autonomy demonstrated on Starred Up. “Doing it myself, or myself with a lot of help, felt like the right sort of experiment for this film,” he concludes. “There was something about the intensity of the way we made it, that felt appropriate to be a bit more DIY in that department.” He’s referring here to Starred Up’s telescoped production, whereby the whole film was shot in sequence and edited in tandem – an approach that undoubtedly contributes to the film’s edgy energy. Writing and recording the score was a similarly fast, instinctive process: starting with some “sketchy” ideas put together on an iPad, Mackenzie and Doogan entered the studio, cued up the relevant scenes, and started “throwing things at the wall [to] see what came out.” In all, it was a positive experience the director hopes to repeat on future projects. “I don’t want in any way to suggest any disrespect to those great people that I have worked with, because they do what they do and it’s excellent,” he stresses. “But it’s a different thing to have some ideas and try and get them out yourself – rather than trying to communicate your ideas to someone else who’s much more skilled but who has got their own take on things… It’s only appropriate in certain projects, but in this case it felt right.”

One of the most significant shifts was the broader range of instrumentation available this time round, courtesy of an expanded studio line-up. Belle & Sebastian’s Chris Geddes was brought back, having previously worked on the original soundtrack sessions, with Ewen Bremner and Raymond MacDonald invited along to complete the ensemble. Both new recruits have worked with Mackenzie before: Hallam Foe and Perfect Sense each feature a memorable supporting performance from Bremner (best known for his acting but with an accomplished musical sideline under the name Exitman), while MacDonald (saxophonist, composer, Glasgow Improvising Orchestra founder and noted academic) collaborated on David Byrne’s Young Adam score. Mackenzie and MacDonald also form two-thirds of an ongoing art project called Scarecrows and Lighthouses, working together with Turner-winning sculptor Martin Boyce on a variety of interdisciplinary artworks. “Raymond’s an improvising genius,” Mackenzie enthuses, “and he would always say that anyone’s

MUSIC

a musician to some extent. We did a lot of experiments and produced some really interesting stuff, and that was a deliberation for me to think, ‘Ok, well as someone who isn’t necessarily trained as a musician and who doesn’t have certain skills – that doesn’t mean that you can’t be making music.’” Informed by these past collaborations, improvisation became a key part of the Reworked ethos. “I think it’s fascinating, when you have some raw material and you bring musicians in, and the direction is very limited – it’s just ‘find the material, don’t overwhelm it, and see what happens’. To see how things can evolve in that way…” He pauses, mulling over comparisons with his regular line of work. “It’s very intuitive. The exploration can go wherever the exploration goes, which is really nice. It’s not like filmmaking, where you’ve got a script.” Surely there are some similarities though, between on-set improvisation and its musical equivalent? “Well, I mean I always try in my films to mess around with improvisation,” Mackenzie replies, “but usually you’ve got a scene to be told. You know roughly where you’re going, so the improvisation is sort of within those parameters… But having the freedom to do that both musically and within a dramatic piece – I definitely think there are parallels. Even that word, ‘improvisation’, is one that’s used very comfortably in both media.” While Mackenzie won’t be scoring Comancheria, he confirms it’s something he’d like to investigate further on future features. Ironically, a project that began with themes of incarceration and confinement has wound up “opening doors” for the filmmaker. “It’s quite nice to be able to do something that’s complementary to what you’re doing, but also is creatively quite a different thing,” he suggests. “I really enjoyed working with Tony and I’d like to do that again; I’d like to do some music with Tony that has nothing to do with a film as well.” Even Reworked isn’t necessarily the last word on the Starred Up material; is he really considering making further alterations, as indicated by previous comments to The Skinny? “Ha! Well, I mean I’ve had the pleasure of hearing Credit on the radio a couple of times in the last couple of weeks, which has been great, and although it plays really nicely I think it would be quite fun to get some lyrics on there, get some really belting vocals on there. It could really expand that track… I’d almost love just to do it as an experiment and see what happens”. Reworked Reworked? “Yeah, exactly, exactly,” he laughs. “Well, I mean there are plenty of artists who keep exploring themes and going deeper and deeper into those themes, so there’s something that could be worth exploring there… ” Starred Up: Film Music Reworked is released on 6 Nov. Starred Up is currently showing on Film4 sigmafilms.com/starred-up

Starred Up

THE SKINNY

Soul Power Having earned their stripes in the clubs of Stirling and Glasgow, Jelly Roll Soul now take the leap into releasing records, kicking things off with the distinctive Tanz EP from Sirrahtam Interview: Ronan Martin

rom their earliest parties in Glasgow, the promoters behind Jelly Roll Soul have had a clear interest in the grittiest and most innovative forms of house music. Setting out their stall in 2010, Stirling natives Jamie Alexander, Robert Tomlinson and Ryan Coyle share a love for the classic deep and dusty sounds of Detroit and Chicago, as well as for talented producers from closer to home – the likes of Space Dimension Controller and the often mind-melting Funkineven both made their Scottish debuts for Jamie and co. Their musical interests span decades and cross genre boundaries, but their abiding passion is for music with real substance and ingenuity. It is from that grounding that the trio now launch the Jelly Roll Soul label this month, enlisting talented up-and-comer Sirrahttam to deliver their first EP. Unsurprisingly, the first outing bodes well for the label’s commitment to quality and originality. From the skewed rhythmic shuffle of opener Linear Patterns, to the idiosyncratic charm and warped brilliance of Trees, and the crisp electro vibe of closer Moving on Slowly, Sirrahttam has certainly done his part to get the label off and running in the right direction. Checking in with Jamie as the crew prepare for the label launch party at La Cheetah, we are left in no doubt about the ethos that will guide the label forward. “There will be no insipid deep house plodders and there will be no unnecessary identikit club bangers, albeit there may well be some necessary club bangers.” As a golden rule, that seems pretty water-tight to us. The Skinny: For those not familiar with your background, can you tell us a bit about how and why Jelly Roll Soul was first established and what makes the three of you tick musically? Jamie: We’ve been mates for years, bonding over music, as you do – Detroit techno and house music primarily for us, but loads of other stuff too. Me and Robert were in a punk band for a few years for example. We had been running parties and DJing around Stirling for the best part of 10 years, which helped us cut our teeth. We started Jelly Roll Soul as we felt there weren’t any nights going on in Glasgow that were playing the music we wanted to hear. We were influenced by going to see the Detroit DJs playing – Theo [Parrish], Moodymann etc – and we didn’t feel anyone was doing anything with that rougher, eclectic approach. So we started out with the aim of replicating that. There were also a lot of DJs we wanted to hear that no one seemed to be booking at the time, so it gave us the chance to bring a lot of people we respected to Scotland – DJs like Kyle Hall and Funkineven made their Scottish debuts with us. Then you took the decision to move the club night to your hometown of Stirling a few years back. Can you elaborate on that decision a bit and tell us what it’s been like to bring some fairly big names to a place not particularly wellknown for its clubbing scene? We did it because we felt things were becoming quite saturated in Glasgow – a lot of other parties sprang up with similar ideas and we didn’t

November 2015

feel we were contributing anything different. So we felt it would be better to move back to Stirling where, for a period, we had a free reign – we could book who we wanted without having to worry about clashing with anyone else and splitting crowds. There was no pressure in pulling a crowd or breaking even – it didn’t matter if it was an international name like Specter or Jay Daniel, or if it was mates we respected like Mark Maxwell or Pro Vinylist Karim. We could even do a resident’s night and get a good turnout regardless, so it was very liberating compared to the pressures we faced doing parties in Glasgow. We’ve used a few makeshift venues and have settled eventually in the basement of a tapas restaurant in town. It’s an amazing wee space. We work with a local soundsystem crew, Wolfcry, and turn the place into a proper sweaty club with amazing sound – all the things we want in a club space. Now in Stirling we’ve had a lot of new nights starting up and there’s a bit of scene going here. It’s all very friendly, but the licensing authorities have responded by clamping down on granting late licenses which unfortunately massively restricts what we can do here – which is a real shame and there’s a big question over whether we can carry on. Moving onto the label, the first release comes from Matt Harris AKA Sirrahttam and has the kind of richness you would expect from someone aligned with Jelly Roll Soul. How did you first encounter Matt’s music and what can you tell us about the Tanz EP? Alex McVey, of Ander-Traxx fame, switched us on to Matt’s music via Soundcloud and we had been following him for a while. He is amazingly prolific and we could hear the progress he was making. Going back to why we started the night, we wanted to offer something different and that’s what Matt’s music does. You would think that after 30 years of house music it would be hard to do something fresh and new sounding (and much of what you hear is terribly derivative) but Matt’s managed to come up with his own unique take on the genre – it’s very much his own sound and that’s not an easy thing to achieve. The music on this EP is actually quite old as it’s taken us a while to raise the cash etc to get this out. The stuff he is coming up with now is even more sharp and adventurous sounding. This is just the starting point for him really – he really is an exciting prospect. Most people familiar with the club nights will be expecting the deepest of deep house and perhaps bits and pieces of techno from the label. Do you have such a specific remit or are you open to keeping things more broad in scope? There’s so much music available out there that we do feel duty bound to try to be selective and add something new or interesting to the conversation – so the main criteria will be ‘does it do that?’ There will be no insipid deep house plodders and there will be no unnecessary identikit club bangers, albeit there may well be some necessary club bangers. Our output will likely be house music of some form or another for the foreseeable future, but you never know how things will develop. We’re open minded in our tastes.

Credit: Kevin Porter

We understand the label will be vinyl only. Is format something that is particularly important to you? Robert and I are the main DJs within the crew, although when Ryan is in the mood you’ll encounter one of the best 70s/80s jazz-funk sets you’ll ever hear. We only play vinyl at our parties and just about all of the guests we’ve booked have done so as well. It’s not like we brief them beforehand, it just so happens that all the DJs we’ve booked also seem to have the same preference. For me, it’s not really an ideological thing though – it’s not a choice we’ve consciously made. Robert started buying records around 1994 and I started out in 1999, so there was no choice then, vinyl was the only format. When Serato and stuff came out, it made no sense to us, because we didn’t have laptops, our IT skills are shit and it was all really expensive. The thought of trying to set up a laptop in a DJ booth is just scary to us – we wouldn’t know where to plug it in. We know where we are with a set of 1210s, a mixer and a bag of records. Luddites, you might say! The label being vinyl only is just an extension of that – we wouldn’t know where to start with Beatport and stuff like that; it’s just not part of our world.

CLUBS

You’ll be properly launching the label with a party in La Cheetah at the end of the month. What can you tell us about that night and can we expect more frequent Glasgow outings from the crew? Yes, we are doing a label launch party on Friday 27 Nov with Sirrahttam coming up from London to play with us. We’ve been speaking to [the club’s owner] Dario and [Events Programmer] Wardy about coming back for a while, so we’re really looking forward to it. We are definitely hoping to do semiregular parties back in La Cheetah next year. Good news! What else is on the horizon for Jelly Roll Soul for the rest of this year and beyond? We’ve also got a party in Stirling in December but, given the licensing problems, the longer term prospects are difficult for us there. The label will be our main focus though – we’ve got another two releases planned which, given the pathetically slow pace we’re working at, will take us well into 2016! Jelly Roll Soul returns to La Cheetah on Friday 27 Nov, with guest Sirrahttam

Feature

Clubbing Highlights Words: Ronan Martin Illustration: Fran Caballero

ur first pick falls on the first Thursday of the month and sees the inimitable Auntie Flo take to the Sub Club to launch his new album, Theory of Flo. While many artists quickly stagnate and peddle the same formulas over and over, Auntie Flo seems to simply become more accomplished and more ambitious with each production. Comparing his most recent material with his 2011 debut single Oh My Days – itself a bold and inventive club track – it’s hard not to notice how an artist who once appeared to dabble in electronic music containing mere fragments of global influences has evolved an increasingly vibrant sound which is now fully immersive and crosses countless borders (both geographically and in genre terms). His more elaborate offerings are finely balanced with joyous club tracks so we expect everyone will be kept happy here (5 Nov, £5 adv, £7 on the door). On the same night, across the M8, Truant host the peerless Levon Vincent at Cabaret Voltaire for what promises to be a cracker. A decade and a half into his career, the New Yorker has proven himself to be one of the most reliable names in house music and he shows no signs of letting up. First coming to the attention of many through his 2005 acid stormer Love Technique, Vincent has since shown many different sides to his game, with dark introspective offerings coming as naturally to him as dancefloor destroyers. His DJ sets are also pleasingly varied, though he excels most when dipping into deep, dub-infused cuts and vibrant synth excursions, of the type found on this year’s self-titled full length record (5 Nov, £5-10). Next up, Glasgow punters – and anyone else wise enough to travel through to Paisley for the night – are in for a rare treat at The Club. None other than Mad Mike of seminal techno outfit Underground Resistance is in town, along with labelmate Mark Flash for a collaborative live set under the Depth Charge alias. Though the specifics of their set remain to be revealed, ‘Mad’ Mike Banks comes with a serious reputation. Founding UR,

Review

CLUBS

alongside fellow Detroit pioneer Jeff Mills, and later joined by Robert Hood, Banks has always been staunchly committed to the underground sound of his city’s darkest recesses. Whether producing glowering minimalist techno as in his early days, punchy electro, gloriously uplifting futurist jazz or more breaks-based hip hop tracks, Mike’s passion is always evident. It is also extremely rare that you get the opportunity to see him in Europe, let alone in a basement in Paisley. Easy tip of the month, this one! (7 Nov, £18-20) We have another iconic figure in our sights on Sat 7 Nov, this time a legend of the UK’s electronic scene since its earliest days. The Reading Rooms plays host to one of the first acid house kings from these shores, a member of the mighty 808 State, and producer of the classic Voodoo Ray... not a bad legacy for A Guy Called Gerald. Known to play sets for hours on end, there is no doubt Gerald will be fully equipped to do the damage in Dundee (£12). Moving back to Glasgow, La Cheetah take on the second part of their sixth birthday celebrations in style when they welcome Objekt to the basement of Max’s. At first pushing a sub-heavy form of techno, which owed as much to bass music, as it did to anything else, TJ Hertz has continued to evolve his sound – evident in his debut full length, Flatland, and also in the excellent warped electro he produced for a split EP with Dopplereffekt last year. Joining Hertz is ever-impressive local artist Alex Smoke, who has similarly developed his sound beyond his excellent early minimal techno forays and will perform live ahead of a new album dropping in the coming months (13 Nov, £10). Finally, a couple of other Edinburgh nights worth catching are Borrowed Identity’s appearance for Lezure at The Mash House (13 Nov, £5/6) and Substance and Pulse’s night with Blawan at The Bongo Club (27 Nov, £10), while techno heads in Glasgow should certainly be eyeing up Truncate, who plays for Code at La Cheetah on 21 Nov (£6-10).

THE SKINNY

Art News

Credit: Robert Ormerod

This month sees Luc Tuyman’s first Scottish exhibition and a foregrounding of important Scottish women artists of the 19th and 20th centuries, as well as open call shows from Embassy and the RSA

Master Rock on BBC Radio rrrrr For those who weren’t lucky enough to experience Maria Fusco’s Master Rock being performed live inside the hollow core of Ben Cruachan mountain, clicking on the digital radio and tuning in provides an alternative means of encountering her work. Requiring the removal of 220,000 cubic meters of hard granite rock, the construction of Cruachan power station is a great feat of engineering. Yet rather than celebrating this grand human achievement, this subtly shifts the focus via three voices onto the nitty-gritty interaction between human body and rock face. Drilling and blasting, drilling and blasting, the first voice is the staccato granite-rasp of the tunnel labourer. His prosaic description of harsh repetitive labour against rock is only undercut by distant shattering explosions, a weighty sonorous thrumming and a brittle, high-pitched fracturing sound. This last sound must belong to the rock’s voice, an ambient other, personified by crackling

electrostatic feedback and likened to ‘bone, decomposed rock, bone’. Elizabeth Falconer’s mural sits aloof from this dirty chaotic soundscape. Smooth, proclamatory, leaden and heavy in its delivery, the mural tells the story of the power station through idiosyncratic reference to Gaelic folklore, Celtic crosses and electrification iconography. Her reading in its detachment marks out a secondary space that is only partially present within the chambered rock. Often words and sound, music and noise, are indecipherable from one another, like seeing only the white paper of a page of printed text. Sound forms space; the tongue and skull of the speaker resonate together, the voice and the cave are mutually determining. Then they collapse into one another, just as the analogue audio signal is digitised below ground, compressed and released for transmission above ground, where it enters the radio antenna to reform as an echo in the room. [Jessica Ramm] Master Rock was commissioned as part of a wider collaboration between Art Angel and BBC Radio4, and will be available online til 17 Nov

Credit: David Grinly

Master Rock by Maria Fusco, performed inside Cruachan Power Station, 2015

Reservoir II

Adrian Morris 42 Carlton Place

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Unfurling itself from the 1960s still into the 21st century, British painter Adrian Morris’s work gives itself well to return viewings and some consideration. There is first a sense of bulky shape, and an ascetic restriction of motif and colour. Across the lot of them, there are blue skies with a terracotta ground, and again. In one work, Foundation I, there are four elements banding across the image. Two are earthy pink, two are blue. In the latter, there’s an almost frustrating difference in hue between the two forms that makes for a more complicated sense of spatial relationship and form. There might be self-imposed restrictions across the works, yet there’s still allowance made for marked variations. Within the images themselves, some include their own frames, flat colour painted around a composition in the centre.

November 2015

Concrete Building 00

In one, the dark blue gives the centre the clean borders of a projection in a dim room. The thinness of an orange trim in another, combined with an aerial view that is almost precariously leaning in, makes for a clumsy bigness, gangly excess. Also undermining any dry execution, Morris makes a feature out of scoring into plonked thick paint. There are lashed surfaces in some, elsewhere paint has the surface of a residue or dried-in spill. Miserliness isn’t the right analogy for Morris’ meagreness of means; more like making a decent meal from scraps. Combining and altering, rather than making additions, there’s an awareness of the responsibility of association for each painterly decision. There’s the kind assumption of an audience not needing entertained by the heaping of bric-abrac distraction, but engaged, and keen and understanding of sleight. [Adam Benmakhlouf] Adrian Morris – New Foundations can be viewed by appointment during the first week of Nov

hroughout this month until 19 December, influential German painter Luc Tuymans presents his first exhibition in Scotland in the Talbot Rice Gallery. Widely credited as one of the artists responsible for the revival of painting in the 90s, Tuymans is known for a certain cynical acidity in attitude, as well as his muted palette and aloof remove from his subject matter. These new paintings take significant Scottish Enlightenment portrait painter Henry Raeburn’s images of ‘sombre black-robed academics’ as their subject, combined with images of canaries and silkscreens of crowds. On 7 November, Generator open their brand new multi-functional artist hub from 7-9pm. As a new part of the physical space, it opens out the organisation to the community, and is designed for talks, screenings and workshops. It will also hold a number of contemporary publications and afford access to the gallery’s archives. A week later, on 14 November, Generator open their new exhibition Small Gate, Infinite Field. For this show, emerging artist Christopher Macinnes presents new work using sound, moving image and script to create an immersive environment of industrial substation transformers, contrast with growths of ‘vital matter’. In David Dale Gallery, painters France-Lise McGurn and Matthew Musgrave exhibit a twoperson show, put together on their shared fragmentary, esoteric and abstracted misquoting of images, and making thoroughly extrinsic the suggested points of reference. Both work in painting styles that often leave the bare canvas showing, with an emphasis on linearity, pushing their large scale works towards a technical execution associated with drawing while retaining a very painterly dragging of a brush until it’s dry. Titled Only With A Light Touch Will You Write Well, Freely And Fast (in reference to texts on alternative alphabets

ART

Jessica Harrison at RSA Open 2014

to Latin), McGurn and Musgrave’s show previews 6 November (7-9pm), then continues until 12 December. In Modern Two in the National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh, from 7 November, there is Modern Scottish Women Painters and Sculptors 1885-1965. During the 80 years specified by the show, there was an unprecedented rise in women artists in Scotland. There is a wry comment on the operation of the usual canon, with a deliberate emphasis in part on rarely exhibited works. Also included is an appreciation and discussion of the material conditions and difficulties that these particular artists faced during this point in history. Entry is £9 (7), and the exhibition continues until 26 June 2016. You can also read our extended preview at theskinny.co.uk/art. Also from the 6-8 November, Embassy are screening the submissions received during a call out to members for artists’ moving image works. On Friday there will be a free screening of all the works from 7-10pm in the gallery, then during the following two days the works will be available to be viewed from 12-6pm – free admission again. This is in advance of their Artist Moving Image Event in December for the inaugural Edinburgh Artist Moving Image Festival. For those who prefer their images still, on the wall in rows and on top of one another, the salon hang of the 2015 Royal Scottish Academy Open Show will be an exciting event. Annually, the Edinburgh-based RSA invite through an open call artists from Scotland and beyond to submit their work to be exhibited in their Open Show. Generously using the available space, usually with an emphasis on painting, the show makes for an experience of pleasurable overload and an exercise in finding the parts you need to see. After their usual marathon hanging session, the Open Show commences on Saturday 28 November.

Review

Film Event Highlights German cinema, the Scottish Gone with the Wind and the Star Wars movie that George Lucas really doesn't want you to see Words: Jamie Dunn

Carol

erman cinema is celebrated this month in new season Fokus, a joint venture from Glasgow’s Goethe-Institut and Edinburgh’s Filmhouse. There are two mint fresh Berlin odysseys in the programme getting Scottish premieres: breakneck thriller Victoria, which was shot straight through in one take with no edits (20 Nov), and documentary B-Movie: Lust & Sound in West-Berlin 1979-1989, a vibrant look at the underground music scene of the German capital in the years before the fall of the Wall. Fokus also pays homage to Rainer Werner Fassbinder with airings of two of his masterpieces, Fox and His Friends (25 Nov) and The Marriage of Maria Braun (26 Nov). As well as Filmhouse, you’ll find other Fokus screenings at venues across Scotland. For full listings, go to filmsfromgermany.co.uk Keen to see Terence Davies’ latest masterpiece a month before the rest of the UK? The Scottish premiere of Sunset Song takes place 11 Nov at Filmhouse, with Davies and his stars Agyness Deyn and Kevin Guthrie in tow to present the film. Those on the West Coast can catch it the following night at GFT, which will also include a Q&A. We called Davies’ film “a Scottish answer to Gone with the Wind.” Don’t miss it. Another unmissable screening is GFT’s showing of John Cassavetes’ A Woman Under the Influence (15 Nov), one of the very best films of the 70s, from 35mm. It’s the story of a married couple (played by Gena Rowlands and Peter Falk) where the wife is edging towards madness, and Cassavetes’ probing camera rings every inch of drama and turmoil from the simple set-up.

Steve Jobs

Carol

Steve Jobs

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Director: Todd Haynes Starring: Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara, Kyle Chandler Released: 27 Nov Certificate: 15

Director: Danny Boyle Starring: Michael Fassbender, Kate Winslet, Seth Rogen Released: 13 Nov Certificate: 15

“I’m charting the correlation between what characters say and what they mean,” says a film buff while watching Sunset Boulevard in Todd Haynes’ Carol. This gloriously romantic film’s dialogue needs similar decoding, but not so its glances. As soon as flinty store clerk Therese (Mara) meets eyes with our title character (a radiant Blanchett) across a teeming department store, we palpably feel their attraction. This is the 1950s, though, and Therese is reticent to express her feelings: “I want to ask you things, but I’m not sure you want that.” “Ask,” replies Carol, achingly. These women are trapped by their era’s conformity. Carol and Therese try to kindle a love affair, but the men who wish to own them continually snuff it out. Haynes’ images mirror the couple’s imprisonment, framing them in doorways and through windows. But like Carol says to her jealous exhusband (Chandler), love is “like science, it’s like pinball.” Haynes is telling us that, thrillingly, passion burns hotter than fear. For Carol and Therese, the chemical reaction has begun; the ball bearings are in motion. [Jamie Dunn]

There are few writers operating in mainstream media today who exhibit the kind of auteurial control we see from Aaron Sorkin. His screenplay for Steve Jobs – full of the breakneck dialogue and quick-witted humour that characterises his work – even manages to overpower the trademark panache of Danny Boyle. If the film is a symphony then Sorkin is its conductor, and he’s fortunate to have Michael Fassbender in first chair, giving a remarkable performance as the fabled Apple co-founder. Myth-making is the film’s raison d’être. This is not a traditional biopic, but rather a character study meticulously constructed to reflect both incredible vision and inescapable faults. Separated into three 40-minute sections, each one chronicles a fictionalised version of the minutes immediately before a big product launch: the Macintosh in 1984, the NeXT in 1988, and the iMac in 1998. Accused by some of being a character assassination, this is much more than that: it’s a nuanced portrait of an undoubtedly great man through several complicated and sometimes fraught relationships. [Ben Nicholson]

Tangerine

Brooklyn

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Director: Sean Baker Starring: Kitana Kiki Rodriguez, Mya Taylor, Mickey O’Hagan Released: 13 Nov Certificate: 15

Director: John Crowley Starring: Saoirse Ronan, Emory Cohen, Domhnall Gleeson Released: 6 Nov Certificate: 12A

“Merry Christmas Eve, bitch!” So goes the opening line of Tangerine, a single-night screwball set on the West Hollywood strip that comes at you like a Jim Jarmusch movie on amphetamines. This exchange is between Sin-Dee (Rodriguez) and Alexandra (Taylor), who are best friends, trans women and working girls. They’re celebrating Sin-Dee’s recent emancipation over a donut when Alexandra lets slip that Sin-Dee’s pimp/boyfriend has been cheating on her with a “real fish” (meaning a non-trans woman). So sets off an apoplectic Sin-Dee out for revenge and a hilarious chain of events that ends before the night is through at the same crummy donut shop. Director Sean Baker’s expressive camera (remarkably, this gorgeous film was shot using iPhone 5s) keeps pace with his firecracker heroines – both non-actors – following their adventure through LA’s shimmering afternoon light. The film is so rambunctious and fast-paced that you hardly notice it slip into a humanist drama just sweet enough to oust It’s a Wonderful Life from your Christmas movie rotation. [Jamie Dunn]

Adapted from Colm Tóibín’s beloved novel, Brooklyn is a refreshingly oldfashioned melodrama with depths that transcend its initial lightweightlooking tearjerker packaging. Saoirse Ronan makes an impressive move towards adult leading roles as Eilis, a young Irish immigrant navigating her way through Brooklyn of 1952, her older sister having funded her move there for a “better life”. Devastating homesickness eventually makes way for hard-hitting romance as she falls for Italian-American lad Tony (Cohen, very sweet). But a disruption back in Ireland sees her return there for a while, subsequently falling for another man (Gleeson) as other forces seem determined to prevent her returning to her new home. Despite little flair in the visual storytelling department, Brooklyn is a touching romance and nuanced exploration of how perceptions of home and family shift as life throws us new opportunities. It’s also, despite the tragedy and longing, one of the year’s funnier films thanks to a game cast and Nick Hornby’s screenplay, the latter commendable for engaging with various ethnicities head-on without resorting to stereotypes. [Josh Slater-Williams]

Radiator

My Skinny Sister

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Apocalypse Now

An equally potent representation of madness is captured in Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (Filmhouse, 1 Dec), which sees Martin Sheen’s Captain Willard track Marlon Brando’s Colonel Kurtz up the rivers of Vietnam. You need to see this big to appreciate its sound and fury. There’s another chance to get inside Brando’s head with ace new doc Listen to Me Marlon, which also plays Filmhouse 23-26 Nov. And finally, to whet your appetite for the release of a certain space epic set a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, the fellows over at Watch Bad Movies with Great Comedians (CCA, 2 Dec) have got their hands on the notorious Star Wars Holiday Special (George Lucas evidently failed in his attempt to “smash every copy with a sledgehammer”). If you haven’t seen the bootleg on YouTube, imagine Attack of the Clones, but even clunkier, with added songs and loads of incomprehensible proto-Skype calls with Chewbacca’s family. [Jamie Dunn]

Review

Director: Tom Browne Starring: Richard Johnson, Gemma Jones, Daniel Cerqueira Released: Out now Certificate: TBC

Radiator ranks British film venerates Barbara Broccoli and Rachel Weisz among its squad of executive producers. Though this muscle is scarcely to be seen in a quiet effort from director Tom Browne, who also shares writing duties with co-star Daniel Cerqueira. The latter plays fictional Daniel, a middle-aged bachelor bidden to return from London to rural Cumbria by Maria, his fraught mother (Gemma Jones). She’s ostensibly concerned for the well-being of ageing patriarch Leonard (Richard Johnson). Just which of her two men, husband or son, she’s truly looking out for becomes less clear as things unravel. Johnson is certainly strong as the dying old lion to Cerqueira’s slightly wan whelp, but it’s Jones at the top of the acting triumvir. She’s both stoic and brittle in the face of her tyrannical invalid husband. She also does the best with Browne and Cerqueira’s occasionally stagey, self-conscious dialogue. Radiator is a thoughtful film, though, and not without moments of lightness and beauty. It gently probes the line between companionship and dependence. [Angus Sutherland]

FILM

Director: Sanna Lenken Starring: Rebecka Josephson, Amy Deasismont, Annika Hallin Released: 27 Nov Certificate: 15

My Skinny Sister follows the trials of bulimic teenage ice skater Katja (Deasismont) as seen from the viewpoint of her bright younger sister Stella (Josephson). With a mixture of awe and jealousy, Stella regards her older sister as an idol to be emulated, and it’s through Stella that with creeping dread we realise the extent of Katja’s eating disorder. Stella comes across Katja binging on crisps from the dustbin, peeks in through the toilet door to see her purging and witnesses her fainting on the ice. Coupled with Katja’s nose bleeds and increasingly panicked behaviour around family meals, My Skinny Sister offers one of the most accurate portrayals of bulimia on screen, and touches on the almost virus-like way in which eating disorders can spread to those around the sufferer, with Stella scrutinising herself in the mirror, losing body confidence and refusing food like her tortured sister. This strength is also Lenken’s film’s weakness, however. By the film’s denouement, Katja is little more than an object in Stella’s character development. [Rachel Bowles]

THE SKINNY

Bard is a Four-Letter Word Consider the pen and page with two exciting new collections and the announcement of the Saltire poetry book award nominees. We also chat to the newly appointed BBC Scotland Poet in Residence, Rachel McCrum – one half of Rally & Broad

fter a week’s tutoring at Moniack Mhor, returning to the city is a rude awakening. While I did work in my off duty hours, if the job at hand is writing there’s something about being in a remote highland cottage that makes it feel part of a holiday. You can stroll the hillside with your notebook or, if it rains, lounge pretentiously on the couch with your feet up, gazing into an open fire and pretending to be one of the Shelleys. One of the best parts of this week by far has been talking to new people about poetry and writing, and not only the ones I’ve met on the course. The other day I had the joy of interviewing Rachel McCrum over the phone – half of poetry performance duo Rally & Broad and newly named Poet in Residence at BBC Scotland – while looking over the uninterrupted mountain view from my desk. Mind you, this would be a pleasure even without the sight of sun-dappled peaks and rolling bracken to set the mood; Rachel has a voice that would put warm molasses, double cream and dark chocolate fondant to shame. Just saying hello gives me the urge to reach for a long spoon. Happily, these sultry tones are attached to a very cheerful and down-to-earth individual, who is as approachable as she is audio-friendly. Her position was one for which over 70 people applied last May, and she was up against several she knew in the final rounds. You’d think this would be awkward, but apparently not – by that stage all the shortlisted artists knew that

Ghost: 100 Stories to Read with the Lights On By Louise Welsh

their work was of a sufficient calibre to be chosen. “It’s not a validation of talent,” she says, “everyone does something different.” The contract is surprisingly short – 12 weeks’ worth of different projects, meaning a lot of work over a very concentrated time period. “I think it’ll be a bit of a kick up the backside,” laughs Rachel, a self-confessed slow writer. She’s really looking forward to the opportunities this residency will give her to just ‘get out and do stuff’. She will be doing a project with BBC Lab, which will involve two primary schools, a project with the Scottish Refugee Council and even one about football. I ask Rachel what she will be most keen to explore or address over the coming weeks, and it’s all to do with the meeting of what, more or less up to this point, have been very separate voices. “My background is spoken word poetry, which started off as a means of expression for marginalised groups, whereas the BBC is all about establishment and impartiality – I’m not used to this way of speaking. It will be interesting to see how the personal voice and professional voice will combine during the residency.” It does sound like a refreshing combination. Even without all this it would be a crazy time for her, as Rally & Broad have just launched their new programme of poetry and cabaret, to be played over a series of evenings in both Edinburgh and Glasgow. The opening nights hosted an array of talent, including Harry Giles, whose exciting

first collection, Tonguit, has just reached bookshelves. For poetry fans who want to get face to face with the craft, Rally & Broad will continue their fourth season over the coming months in both Stereo and The Bongo Club. Rachel was also much in evidence as co-presenter at the Saltire Literary Award nominations 2015, where two previous Makars, a former vice chairman of the Poetry Society and the Poet in Residence at Edinburgh City Libraries have been shortlisted to win Scottish Poetry Book of the Year.

“Rachel has a voice that would put warm molasses, double cream and dark chocolate fondant to shame” The elemental-flavoured Cream of the Well by Valerie Gillies and rural character sketches found in Jim Carruth’s Killochries will certainly be interesting opponents for the emotional jour-

Words: Clare Mulley

ney presented in Ryan Van Winkle’s The Good Dark and Roddy Lumsden’s tightrope walk between hope and doubt, Not All Honey. Sleeping above a poetry library all week has triggered what can only be described as a reading binge. Among the collections sampled, the most recent was John Glenday’s latest, The Golden Mean. Already shortlisted for both the Ted Hughes Award and the Griffin Poetry Prize (for Grain, 2009), Glenday also works as an addictions counsellor for NHS Highland; maybe it is this side of him that has shaped what I believe to be one of the collection’s main triumphs – its simultaneously poignant and plain-spoken approach to the untouchable and unexpected in everyday life. So many of the poems provide a unique lorgnette on this theme, whether it’s the way Buddleia thrives in urban dirt, the tug of a Northeasterly wind on the emotions, the unborn dead as represented by a specimen humpback whale foetus, or a child’s portrayal of alcohol as a pint of light. Mulling over the past few days, with nothing between me and the next mountain save miles of clear air, it’s no wonder that the closing lines of The Skylark stick in my head: ‘one cloud, one thread of wind/ one song to hang/ like nothing over everything.’ Rally & Broad Season 4 takes place monthly in Edinburgh and Glasgow at The Bongo Club and Stereo All books mentioned above are out now: Tonguit and Killochries published by Freight, The Golden Mean publi-shed by Picador, Cream of the Well published by Luath, The Good Dark published by Penned in the Margins, Not all Honey published by Bloodaxe

List of the Lost

Pond

Dancing in the Dark

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By Morrissey

By Claire-Louise Bennett

By Karl Ove Knausgaard

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Certain writers you’d expect to see in a collection of ghost stories: Edgar Allan Poe and Bram Stoker, of course. But how about Hilary Mantel, Kazuo Ishiguro, Graham Greene, D.H. Lawrence, and Elizabeth Gaskell? Louise Welsh has had the terrifying task of gathering together the best ghost stories of all time – tales of things that go bump in the night, cannibals, poltergeists, haunted houses, the lot. And it turns out that everyone’s been at it. There are ghost stories here from Pliny the Younger right through to the modern master of shorts, Helen Simpson. Sir Walter Scott even makes an appearance. The cast is broad and the book itself a monster, at nearly 800 pages. The ghost story is infinitely adaptable, if this collection is anything to go by. These are just the most recent forms of a tale told ever since two people sat alone in the dark. Pliny tells us about a haunted house. Burns sings of Tam O’Shanter. Ishiguro steps into his creepiest mode to tell the story of a gourmet cannibal – tired of the trend for human flesh, his hunger compels him to eat a ghost. The ghost story isn’t always so earnestly chilling: P. G. Wodehouse tips up to have a spot of fun with the genre, as does Oscar Wilde. But whether humorous or unsettling, one thing is clear. Every writer has a skeleton in their closet. [Galen O’Hanlon] Out now, published by Head of Zeus, RRP £20

November 2015

Never meet your heroes. And never read their books it seems. I have, and heaven knows I’m miserable now. In List of the Lost, Morrissey – a 56 year old virgin novelist, untouched by editorial hands – delivers this absurd tale, built around the blunt metaphor of a track relay team. The text, unfettered by grammar yet encumbered with juvenile alliteration, is impenetrable (as is one character in a hilariously confused sex scene). This inscrutability is unrelated to any depth or complexity, but instead simple illiteracy – the author’s mock-classic prose reading like Mills & Boon on ketamine. Working through its 128 pages feels like freefalling through a garbled dream. Time and place remain opaque and characterisation stretches barely beyond names, while single sentences stretch over half pages. Worst of all is a godlike ‘voice of Morrissey’ narration which digresses into diatribes on his favourite subjects – vegetarianism, establishment, monarchy – like a thematic stalker, dragging the reader so far from the narrative path we forget where we were. It is tempting to believe this is grand jest rather than pretentious folly. That Morrissey will announce that reversing the first and last words of each sentence transforms this unfinished puzzle into some sort of masterpiece. But, tragically no. The truth is that if 100 monkeys with 100 typewriters will eventually produce Hamlet, a solitary baboon could turn this out in a week. [Alan Bett]

A nameless woman is lost in her solitude, her thoughts and wishes. Nature and mundane objects come to life and find their voice in Pond, a collection of short stories by emerging talent Claire-Louise Bennett – originally discovered and published by Irish literary magazine Stinging Fly. Introducing a fresh 21st century version of the modernist stream of consciousness, Pond appears as a detailed account of the rumbling mind of the text’s one and only protagonist, alongside her relationship with her surroundings. Generally funny and dainty, although inexplicably enigmatic at times, it is a collection that leaves plenty of room for the reader’s own personal interpretation. It is therefore sure to attract and delight a like-minded creative and contemplative audience, yet, with its lack of a traditional narrative, perhaps puzzle more literal minds. However, the beauty of Bennett’s poetic writing style is undeniable. Her ability to smoothly merge everyday activities and lifeless entities, such as ottomans and control knobs, with more profound considerations and past experiences is rare and uncanny. A pond of timeless dreams, riddles, intimate thoughts, melancholy and almost-forgotten memories. In the heart of the collection, A little Before Seven and Finishing Touch are the finest examples of Bennett’s literary talent and attention to detail, as well as her delicate sensibility. Definitely a promising author to keep an eye on. [Vanessa Piras]

Out now, published by Penguin, RRP £7.99

Out now, published by Fitzcarraldo Editions, RRP £10.99

BOOKS

Since the first of the series was originally published in 2009, Karl Ove Knausgaard’s My Struggle has sent a literary shockwave rippling down through every level of the cultural hierarchy, simultaneously becoming a national bestseller with unparalleled mass appeal and sweeping up award after award as critics heralded it as one of the great works of its time. A novel in six volumes charting his growth into a writer, the book stands as its own origin story and has been constantly compared to Proust’s In Search of Lost Time, in terms both of its structure and significance. While each volume drifts dreamily between different points in Knausgaard’s life, Dancing in the Dark (My Struggle: 4) focuses mainly on the author at 18 years old. He spends his days teaching at a tiny village school in northern Norway and his nights in a drunken haze, thrashing about in the dark in a frenzied pursuit of meaning, art and sex. It’s at this time that he soaks up the works of writers like Hemingway, whose plain-spoken, understated style he would eventually make his own, lending his prose its unembellished beauty. As the English version of each volume arrives, the comparisons to Proust start to sound less and less hyperbolic, and Knausgaard’s status as a giant of contemporary literature moves further beyond question. He tells his story and builds his literary legacy with each turning page. [Ross McIndoe] Out now, published by Vintage, RRP £8.99

Review

Chrysalis Festival is Born Here's The Skinny rundown of what to expect from the Traverse's inaugural Chrysalis festival Words: Emma Ainley Walker

Natalie Radmall-Quirke & Daniel O'Keefe

Credit: Wes Storey

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Under The Covers

his November, the Traverse Theatre plays host to the inaugural Chrysalis festival, which showcases and celebrates young theatre companies and the work they produce from Scotland and beyond. With the Scottish theatre scene suddenly lacking The Arches and therefore Arches Live, the performance spaces and festivals in Scotland that offer a way in to young and emerging artists seem painfully reduced. Enter Chrysalis festival, which is not only giving these emerging artists the chance to perform in a space as great and as renowned as the Traverse but is bringing them together with their peers and their audiences to open up discussion about what young performers can bring to theatre and what theatre can bring to them. Invited company Junction 25, usually based in Glasgow’s Tramway theatre are bringing their already acclaimed piece of work I’d Rather Humble Than Hero. Formed In 2005, the group uses weekly workshops to create their own work, often with very personal themes and stories; using their own names, hopes and worries to create work that looks at the nature of what it is to be young, among many other themes. I’d Rather Humble takes all of this and more into a piece devised entirely by the young performers themselves. Also invited are the young company from Manchester’s Contact Theatre. They bring Under The Covers, developed earlier this year with help from artists including Amy and Rosanna Cade. The piece looks at young people’s attitudes to sex, questioning the myths and taboos that surround it. Initially, Under the Covers was performed as part of Manchester’s Sick! Festival, confronting the physical, mental and social challenges of life and death. Also travelling to Scotland from the NorthWest are 20 Stories High, the Liverpool-based company who believe “everybody has a story to tell and their own way of telling it.” Their Young Actors Company are embarking on a mini-tour, taking Headz around the UK, which includes an appearance at Chrysalis. The show is a selection of funny and gritty monologues which the company themselves advertise as ‘Spike Milligan meets Alan Bennett’ – certainly an intriguing combination.

Finally, the Citizens Theatre Young Company are bringing Southside Stories, inspired by Douglas Maxwell’s Fever Dream: Southside. A cast of 18 draw on interviews with inhabitants of Glasgow’s Govanhill. The production also utilises new music created and performed by the Young Company band. It’s a great combination, with the Citz doing great cultural and community work for The Gorbals, and now reaching out to another vibrant and diverse area of Glasgow on the cultural upswing.

There is no doubt that Marius von Mayenburg’s new play Martyr touches on a sensitive contemporary nerve. It is about extremism and tolerance; religious fanaticism and political correctness. It is about how far fundamentalism can be accepted, ignored or written off as youthful angst. Mayenburg has penned the conversation that society is eager to dodge. This is a production that does not dodge. Daniel O’Keefe, who plays teenage protagonist and Christian fundamentalist Benjamin, seems to burst from the set. Exploding with fiery scripture, strutting naked and forcibly upending the wooden palettes making up the floor, he pitches his performance at uncontrollable. His war on depravity is fierce, beginning by targeting bikini-clad classmates and escalating to anti-Semitic plots of violence against his biology teacher (Natalie Radmall-Quirke).

This vision of youthful extremism is pervaded by burgeoning sexuality, misogyny and a growingpains-esque rage at powerlessness. Turning a blind eye is shown to fuel the flames, as the school’s ‘hands-off ’ attitude merely allows bullying and sexism to burn with zeal. A supposedly ‘liberal’ laissez-faire attitude is dangerously close to the evil of inaction: the often repeated thought, famously espoused by Albert Einstein, that ‘the world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything’ is the ideological core of the play. At times the fervency misses the mark, as some performances strike as falsely over-ardent. However, the boldness with which it deals with these ideas is commendable, and the absurdist closing tableaux reverberates with energy. A passive reaction is impossible. [Eloise Hendy] Martyr, Traverse Theatre, run ended atctheatre.com/productions/martyr

“Young artists are already out there if you know where to look” These four performances may not, when it comes down to it, have much in common except the age range of their performers, but to put them side-by-side showcases that these young companies are firmly on the pulse of society. From sex to the cultural landscape, they question issues and intrigues faced by society with new, fresh perspectives. The companies all perform work to a professional standard, tackling big themes that plague artists twice their age, proving that they too can be seen on a level playing field with more experienced contemporaries. Each of these shows has been performed before, and each of these companies continues to make new work, showing that young artists are already out there if you know where to look. If YTAS’s goal with this festival is to open new audiences to the work of young companies, and in turn to open these young companies to new audiences, it’s hard to see how these four shows could fail to impress, to spark discussion, or simply to entertain. Chrysalis Festival, Traverse Theatre, 6-7 Nov, times vary. traverse.co.uk/whats-on/event-detail/692/chrysalisfestival.aspx

Billy Riddoch as Jacob Engstrand (with Scarlett Mack and John Hogg) Ghosts, Tron Theatre Company

Ghosts

The Tron, 17 Oct

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If you’re looking for a faithful adaptation of Ibsen’s famously scandalous play, prepare to be very disappointed. However, if you have opened your mind to a re-written piece based only very loosely on the original, yet exploring taboo contemporary issues, prepare to be thoroughly shocked. Megan Barker transports the Scandinavian play to the Scottish Highlands, and the stark set feels chilly just to look at. The 19th century tale of affairs, sexually transmitted disease and euthanasia is transformed entirely into revelations of child abuse committed by those in positions of power, and how they tear apart the lives of the family involved. Ibsen’s original needs updating to feel as horrific for a modern audience as it would at the time.

These new revelations almost make you feel sick, and for that, writer Megan Barker should be given credit. However, the play swings between believable and very unconvincing – at times it is truly poignant, at others simply sensationalist. The language is sometimes poetic, though never as beautiful or haunting as Ibsen intended. The play feels rather like an explosion, which has both merits and flaws. With such a fast pace, there is no time to really digest anything. Although the cast are good, the characters from the original are stretched so far that they become sketches and so their relationships with each other never feel quite as convincing as intended. Megan Barker has a very strong idea that never quite hits the nail on the head as an Ibsen adaptation. However, for all its limitations as an adaptation, this is still a fast-paced and thrilling night at the theatre. [Alice Lannon] Ghosts, Tron Theatre, run ended | tron.co.uk/event/ghosts

Review

THEATRE

THE SKINNY

Credit: John Johnston

Martyr

the Traverse, 15 Oct

Magic Mike XXL

The Skull

Brand: A Second Coming

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Director: Gregory Jacobs Starring: Channing Tatum, Joe Manganiello Released: 30 Nov Certificate: 15

Magic Mike XXL, which swaps the original film’s ‘stripper Boogie Nights’ beats for a looser road movie set-up, may initially seem like a typical cash-in sequel, albeit one retaining most of the first’s key personnel – Steven Soderbergh is still around on cinematography duty, with directing handled by long-time collaborator Gregory Jacobs. In a most welcome surprise, not only is the euphoric, ofthilarious XXL a better film than its predecessor, it’s a revelation as the most (casually) progressive mainstream movie of recent memory. An all-inclusive film overflowing with positive energy and life, it has real depths (if you’re not completely inattentive) regarding notions of women’s sexuality, body-positivity and platonic male love, but never stops to pat itself on its back. Elsewhere, the cast is exceptionally entertaining, especially a revelatory Jada Pinkett Smith, replacing and outshining Matthew McConaughey in the role of magnetic impresario. This is the Nashville of male-entertainer films. [Josh Slater-Williams]

Director: Freddie Francis Starring: Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee Released: Out now Certificate: 12 Produced by Amicus Productions – Hammer Films’s big rival – and featuring Hammer’s two most recognisable stars, Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, The Skull epitomises British horror cinema in the 60s. Directed by Academy Award-winning cinematographer Freddie Francis, the film trails Peter Cushing’s occult expert as he spirals into a dark underworld touched by madness and death after coming into contact with the exhumed skull of the Marquis de Sade. The somewhat rote script is lent gravitas by Cushing and Lee (in a rare non-villainous role) and the film is elevated by a couple of inspired sequences – in particular, a chilling near-silent game of Russian roulette that acts as a centrepiece. Those not already fans of Hammer’s and Amicus’s particular brands of Gothic horror are unlikely to be won over, but for fans of the studios The Skull is sure to be a welcome addition to their DVD collection. [Michael Jaconelli]

Director: Ondi Timoner Starring: Russell Brand, Noel Gallagher Released: 9 Nov Certificate: 15 “I’d rather you shoot my pets than release this film.” So Russell Brand is reported to have told director Ondi Timoner prior to a premiere from which he was conspicuously absent. One struggles to comprehend the comic’s reservations, however, given his evident egotism and the extent to which he’s deified by Brand: A Second Coming. The documentary peddles a narrative in which Brand found himself disenchanted with the spiritually unfulfilling world of celebrity and instead decided to direct his energies toward political activism. If various talking heads are to be believed, he’s a taboo-busting iconoclast in the mould of Lenny Bruce, and it’s on this basis that his recent activity is considered. Viewers are free to contemplate the man’s motivations and psyche, but no more so than when watching his past body of work. Timoner seems reluctant to probe him and consequently offers little in the way of revelation. [Lewis Porteous]

Ant-Man

Dragon Inn

The Naked Prey

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Director: Peyton Reed Starring: Paul Rudd, Michael Douglas Released: 30 Nov Certificate: 12 As self-aware as the name demands, Marvel’s latest hero belies his size to be a hugely enjoyable addition to the studio’s growing superhero universe. Helmed by Peyton Reed, enlisted after the departure of Edgar Wright, Ant-Man is like a super-powered heist movie, mixing fantastic invention with a tried, tested and all-too-familiar formula. Michael Douglas is perfect as the exposition-spouting Hank Pym, who entrusts his natty shrinking suit to ex-con Scott Lang (Rudd) for one big job. Rudd effortlessly embodies one of the little guys in this big world. His easy charm and deadpan delivery is deployed for emphatic leading-man harmony, although the uproarious Michael Peña threatens to steal the show. Though perhaps not as mould-breaking as some hoped, there’s plenty to enjoy here, with a punch-up in a briefcase and a final showdown on a toy train-set in a little girl’s bedroom inspired subversions of Marvel Studio’s already wearisome tropes. [Ben Nicholson]

November 2015

Director: King Hu Starring: Bai Ying, Shang Kuan Ling-Feng Released: Out now Certificate: 12 It’s 15th-century China. A noble minister has been executed and his children exiled by ferocious eunuch Cao (Ying). Despatched to murder the exiles before they reach the border, Cao’s secret police commandeer the isolated Dragon Gate Inn to await their quarry. They are met there by swordsman Xiao (Jun) who seems determined to get in the way. Dragon Inn is a clear ancestor of films like Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Action blossoms from controlled, elegant moves into bursts of superhuman speed and agility. Bodies pirouette across vivid landscapes and through the air, the camera their graceful partner in motion. Its flowing sequences would be reason enough to seek out this wuxia landmark. But what sets Dragon Inn apart is the deadly precision of its dialogue – nimble wit that stalks, pounces and often prevails in tandem with the action, until the final scene, where it finds its mark. [Kirsty Leckie-Palmer]

DVD

Director: Cornel Wilde Starring: Cornel Wilde, Gert van der Berg Released: Out now Certificate: 12 60s survival thriller The Naked Prey sets off on a bad footing, with an uncomfortable voiceover that’s liable to trigger alarm bells in modern audiences (“A hundred years ago, Africa was a vast, dark unknown… And man, lacking the will to understand other men, became like beasts”). The suspicions linger into an opening act that prefigures the ‘savage tribe’ brand of video nasty typified by Cannibal Holocaust, as a group of white hunters are set upon by barbaric natives and subjected to graphically inventive tortures. Then, gradually, over the course of an extended cat-and-mouse chase across scorched scrubland, a more nuanced, critical work emerges. Ex-matinee idol Cornel Wilde impresses on both sides of the camera, giving a committed, physical performance in the lead role and keeping the action lean and relentless in his capacity as director, and, while some representational choices have dated better than others, the final result more than holds up. [Chris Buckle]

Review

Credit: Richard Davenport

Win £100 Worth of Thaikhun Vouchers!

An Austentatious Christmas Christmas is coming early this year – Austentatious ride back into Edinburgh for a one-off show as part of the festive season in St Andrew’s Square. Cariad Lloyd talks to The Skinny about bringing an Austen novel into the world of comedy Interview: Jenni Ajderian

hough not – ahem – universally acknowledged by academics, the forgotten works of Jane Austen have been causing mild cases of hysteria across the country of late, and for good reason. Who could forget the swooping prose of Tents and Tent Stability, or the swimsuit scene in Man-Filled Park Pride? Unfortunately, even a masterpiece such as Pride and Predator was long overlooked as Austen’s more genteel counterparts took precedence. Thankfully, this literary injustice came to an end thanks to the cast of Austentatious – the comedy troupe dedicated to showcasing even the least-known of Austen’s diverse works. Actor, writer, comedian and literature enthusiast Cariad Lloyd talked us through the group’s maiden days: “We weren’t being particularly savvy. We all just liked Jane Austen. We’d all like to be in a Jane Austen adaptation, and that hadn’t happened yet, so it was sort of like living out that fantasy.” Of course, these hour-long regency romps are anything but canon. Believe it or not, Fear and Loathing in West Hampshire isn’t a classic work from one of Britain’s most celebrated writers, but was instead made up on the spot by this group. Taking nothing but a suggested title from the audience, the seven Austentatious players spin out a comedic play in the key of Austen, with everything – from the witty repartee of a pair of sparring lovers to the derogatory wails of a wronged matriarch – completely improvised. “We started improvising in that language and in that world, and it became obvious that it really suited it. It’s very dialogue-driven, characterdriven, and plot-driven. Dickens is a lot of description and atmosphere, but Jane is more about great characters driving a great narrative, with an incredible way of speaking. That’s also partly why there have been so many Jane Austen TV adaptations.” Austentatious first brought their whirlwind comedy to the Counting House in 2012, when fortunate Austenophiles could watch them on the Free Fringe. They have since become a Fringe institution, this year packing out Underbelly. They now make a special trip back north for an Edinburgh Christmas to perform another forgotten classic for the festive season. With literary witticism and strong characterisation, Austentatious reach a wide audience. Even those who haven’t read Northanger Abbey

Review

will probably have seen one of umpteen TV adaptations or spoofs, and Austen’s characters and convoluted romantic plots have more than made their way into the mainstream. “Lots of people know that world,” says Lloyd, “it’s not like doing improvised John Steinbeck. It’s a very accessible world. Some people love Jane Austen, others just love the comedy, others just love the improv.

rom the streets of Bangkok to Silverburn Shopping Centre... Thaikhun is a Thai street food restaurant, coming soon to Glasgow. Taking their name from the Thai word 'Khun' (meaning 'yours'), Thaikhun – pronounced 'tycoon' – promise a fun, tasty, authentic and affordable Thai dining experience. With locations across the UK, they pride themselves on fostering a sense of ownership and belonging, making diners feel as welcome as they would in Thailand. To celebrate the imminent opening of their Glasgow restaurant, the good folks at Thaikhun have £100 worth of vouchers to give away to readers of The Skinny. For your chance to win, simply head

to thaikhun.co.uk/theskinny and answer the following question. Where is Thaikhun opening? a) Silverburn Shopping Centre b) City Centre c) The Fort Competition closes midnight Sun 29 Nov. Entrants must be 18 or over. Winners will be notified via email within two working days of closing and will be required to respond within 48 hours or the prize will be offered to another entrant. Our Ts&Cs can be found at theskinny.co.uk/about/ terms-and-conditions

“We’d all like to be in a Jane Austen adaptation, and that hadn’t happened yet, so it was sort of like living out that fantasy” “If you’re playing a strong woman who wants to marry for love, you don’t have to be playing Lizzie Bennet. You’re playing a version of that, which people recognise because it’s such a great character. If you’re playing that in a show called Strictly Come Darcy, and it culminates with you having to do a dance routine with Mr Darcy to prove that you’re worthy, people still recognise the woman who has to realise she’s been too proud.” Austentatious have earned more stars and accolades than you can shake a lacy fan at. Furthermore, each show is a one-night-only treat, so though you won’t see crime thriller Double-0 Darcy again, or the tantalising Fifty Shades of Jane, we can guarantee an excellent night, stellar comedy and more than a few dashing gentlemen. Austentatious play St Andrew’s Square, Edinburgh, Fri 27 Nov, 9.30pm, £18 edinburghschristmas.com/whats-on/austentatiousan-improvised-jane-austen-novel austentatiousimpro.com

COMEDY / COMPETITIONS

THE SKINNY

Glasgow Music Tue 03 Nov

Thu 05 Nov

BLOC+, 21:00–01:00, FREE

ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:00, £10

CHERRI FOSPHATE

Indie-rock foursome hailing from Glasgow and East Ayrshire, out launching their new LP. KILLING JOKE

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £22.50

Jaz Coleman’s uncompromising post-punk unit tour once again. SNAKECHARMER (BAD TOUCH)

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £17.50

Blues rock six piece, made up of members of various rock band heavyweights, including Whitesnake, Thunder and Heartland. JOE SATRIANI

GLASGOW ROYAL CONCERT HALL, 19:00–22:00, FROM £34.50

American instrumental rock guitarist and multi-instrumentalist, with a touring history that reads like a who’s who of rock, now out on a solo tour. LUSTS (PALE FIRE + BROKEN BOY)

KING TUT’S, 20:30–23:00, £6

The Leicestershire brothers Andy and James Stone tour off the back of new single Waves. NAH

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:00, £8

Philadelphia producer/drummer blending live and programmed drums with off-kilter electronic elements, found sounds and heavily manipulated samples. ELIOT SUMNER

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 19:30–23:00, £7

Italian-born musician formerly of band name I Blame Coco. THE BABE RAINBOW

BROADCAST, 19:00–23:00, £5

The Aussie kitsch folk-rockers take to the road. DEERHUNTER

SWG3 GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00, £15

Having operated amongst a mire of genres within their selfproclaimed ‘ambient punk’ label, Deerhunter take to the road to tour their sixth LP – a gem of a thing built on scuzzy garage riffs and heavily treated, lo-fi vocals.

Wed 04 Nov

THE MEDIA WHORES (THE REVERSE COWGIRLS + BABYLON DUB PUNKS)

BROADCAST, 19:00–23:00, £7

Scottish rock’n’roll quintet bursting with hooks, riffs and powerpop melodies. POST WAR GLAMOUR GIRLS

BLOC+, 21:00–01:00, FREE

The alternative Leeds quartet make the trip up’t north, taking a decidedly heavier bent of late. TOM BAXTER

THE GLAD CAFE, 19:30–22:00, £SOLD OUT

Suffolk-born, London-based singer/songwriter building his sound on his masterful guitar-playing and raw, confessional lyrics. DINOSAUR PILE-UP (ARTIE ZIFF)

KING TUT’S, 20:30–23:00, £8

Leeds-based alternative rock lot led by singer and guitarist Matt Bigland. BANE (CODE ORANGE + KINGPIN + ADJUST)

CLASSIC GRAND, 18:30–22:00, £11

Hardcore punk lot who began life as a side project between Aaron Dalbec (then of Converge) and Damon Bellardo. TWENTY ONE PILOTS

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £SOLD OUT

Ohio-born synthpop duo on the Fueled by Ramen roster. 50 CENT

THE SSE HYDRO, 18:30–22:00, FROM £40

American rapper known to his mammy as Curtis James Jackson III. RATS ON RAFTS

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:00, £7.50

Psychedelic popsters of the hard bass and bad ass variety. TIGERCUB (YOUTH MAN)

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 19:30–23:00, £7

THE CORONAS

Irish indie-rockers led by Danny O’Reilly, who started penning tunes at the tender age of 13. RICHARD HAWLEY

BARROWLANDS, 19:00–23:00, £25

The Sheffield crooner melts some hearts with his trademark luscious odes. THE FRATELLIS

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £SOLD OUT

Glasgow indie-rockers led by lead vocalist and guitarist Jon Fratelli, who’s also forged a solo career for himself of late. METZ (PROTOMARTYR)

STEREO, 19:00–22:00, £12

The Toronto-based grunge trio bring the energy and volume as only they know how. ABC

GLASGOW ROYAL CONCERT HALL, 19:00–22:00, FROM £35

The 80s English new wave group from Sheffield – now essentially just Martin Fry – takes to the road once more. DONNIE WILLOW (DOLPHINBOY + PENROSE TRIANGLE)

BLOC+, 21:00–23:00, FREE

The tuneful Glasgow math rock trio launch their new LP. JENNY HVAL

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:00, £8.50

The affecting singer and sharp vocalist continues to tour her beautiful new LP Apocalypse, Girl. CASPIAN (QUAIL)

CLASSIC GRAND, 18:30–22:00, £12

The Massachusetts rockers tour their new LP Dust and Disquiet. BOBBY LONG (ANTHONY MOORE + SEAN MCANENY + MICHAEL TIMMONS) KING TUT’S, 20:30–23:00, £10

The acoustic folk singer/songwriter returns to British shores. BRIAN AUGER

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £15

English jazz and rock keyboardist, specialised in playing the Hammond organ. LOVEYDOVE (CHRISSY BARNACLE + YOUNGSTRR JOEY)

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 19:30–23:00, £7

New project of lo-fi underground pop sensations Azalia Snail and Dan West. MARIBOU STATE

THE ART SCHOOL, 20:00–23:00, £9

Atmospheric post-dubstep vibes care of the UK garage duo.

Fri 06 Nov

THE WEDDING PRESENT

THE ART SCHOOL, 20:00–23:00, £17.50

David Gedge takes his cult 80s concern out on the road for a special set of dates.

THIS FEELING (THE TREND + OUR FUTURE GLORY)

KING TUT’S, 20:30–23:00, £5

The London rock’n’roll night takes a trip north with a selection of live bands taking to the stage. ALGIERS

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:00, £8

The Atlanta trio brings a visceral assault. Your way with their gospelinfluenced post-punk sands. ASTRAL BLACK

THE ART SCHOOL, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£4)

Burgeoning label Astral Black stage a venue takeover, with special guests Knxwledge and Drae Da Skimask joining the residents. In the Vic Bar. ULTIMATE PAINTING (THE BELLYBUTTONS + VITA IDLES)

MONO, 19:30–22:00, £7

New project featuring Veronica Falls’ James Hoare and Jack Cooper from Mazes, dealing in slightly rough-edged but sweetly melodic indie-pop. THE CHRISTIANS

ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:00, £18.50

Brighton trio of an escapist, post-grunge, post-everything wall of sound.

The Ferry Across The Mersey hit makers return ahead of their new album.

THE ART SCHOOL, 19:30–23:00, £25

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00, £14

SILENT HILL

Special live event celebrating the first live performance in the UK from Japanese video game composer and sound director Akira Yamaoka.

November 2015

JESS GLYNNE

Wild-haired British singer/ songwriter.

OXYGEN THIEF (STRANGE PLANES) NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 19:30–23:00, £6

Solo musical project of Bristol’s Barry Dolan, taking to the stage as a louder, more electric live band three piece. HOTHOUSE FLOWERS

BARROWLANDS, 19:00–23:00, £25

Dublin ensemble combining traditional Irish music with influences from soul, gospel and rock. SCO: EMMANUEL KRIVINE

CITY HALLS, 19:30–22:00, £29

Principal guest conductor Emmanuel Krivine directs the SCO in a programme of romantic-themed music. JOHN LILL: BEETHOVEN

GLASGOW ROYAL CONCERT HALL, 19:30–22:00, FROM £5

Rare Glasgow recital appearance by John Lill CBE, performing the composer with whom he is so inextricably linked: Beethoven. U2

THE SSE HYDRO, 19:30–22:00, FROM £33.60

Bono et al play indoor arenas for the first time in a decade.

GOLD: THE SONGS OF RYAN ADAMS (ANTON AND THE COLTS + BLACK AND WHITE BOY + MARK COPELAND) THE GLAD CAFE, 19:30–22:00, £7

Various local artists take on the songs of acclaimed alt. country crooner Ryan Adams. OKAY KAYA

BROADCAST, 19:00–23:00, £6

New York-based Norwegian artist of the dreamy acoustica.

Sat 07 Nov THE BEVVY SISTERS

THE GLAD CAFE, 19:30–22:00, £8 ADV. (£10 DOOR)

All-female Edinburgh trio uniting the richly seasoned voices of Heather Macleod, Kaela Rowan and Roberta Pia. THE LAFONTAINES

BARROWLANDS, 19:00–23:00, £14

Motherwell outfit deftly combining portions of hip-hop, pop, rock and electro into one thumping melodic block of noise. BILL RYDER-JONES

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:00, £10

The masterful Wirral songwriter heads our way. GUM TAKES TOOTH

THE FLYING DUCK, 20:00–22:30, £5

Two man everything-machine of dark and primal proportions. TOM ROBINSON

ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:00, £20

The British singer/songwriter and broadcaster dips into his justreleased new LP. RSNO: ROMEO AND JULIET

GLASGOW ROYAL CONCERT HALL, 19:30–22:00, FROM £27

The RSNO perform a duo of takes Shakespeare’s greatest love story: Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet Overture-Fantasy and Prokofiev’s Suite from Romeo and Juliet. YELAWOLF

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £15

Alabama hip-hopster, aka Michael Wayne Atha. BOY AND BEAR

KING TUT’S, 20:30–23:00, £10

Sydney-based indie quintet deftly mixing driving indie-folk sounds with dainty choral harmonies.

Sun 08 Nov VINTAGE TROUBLE

BARROWLANDS, 19:00–23:00, £22.50

R’n’B and soul project of Canadian duo Ty Taylor and Nalle Colt, brought to life in their basic home studio in Venice Beach. WILLIWAW

THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS , 18:00–20:00, FREE

Expect ukulele mayhem as Williwaw brings his merry cavalcade of melodious din to a live setting once more. THE PARLOTONES (THE LAST SECRET)

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £16

South African rockers who have achieved multi-platinum status in their own country – go them! MS MR

THE ART SCHOOL, 19:30–23:00, £13.50

New York-based duo, made up of vocalist Lizzy Plapinger and producer Max Hershenow, who also run indie label Neon Gold Records.

ELLA EYRE (JASMINE THOMPSON + FLAWES) O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £16

Young Brit School graduate built on feisty songwriting, a bountiful crop of curly hair and powerhouse vocals that belie her years.

CONNOR AND CAMERON PRESENTS... (THOMAS LINDSAY + JASON CAMPBELL + END OF JUNE + ANIMALS TO CREATORS + FAIR WEATHER FRIENDS) RECORD FACTORY, 19:00–22:00, £6

New gig night giving small, unsigned and new start up bands a stint on the stage. J FERNANDEZ (DEARNESS)

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:00, £7.50

DIY-styled singer/songwriter drawing inspiration from the chaos of his neighbourhood in Chicago. JR GREEN

KING TUT’S, 20:30–23:00, £6.50

Two brothers from Strontian on the west coast of Scotand, bringing a youthful edge to folk and traditional music.

Mon 09 Nov

RADIO X ROAD TRIP (BLOC PARTY)

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £19.50

DAVE MATTHEWS BAND

MANDOLIN ORANGE

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, 18:30–22:00, £35

BROADCAST, 19:00–23:00, £6

American rock unit led by founder and songwriter/guitarist Dave Matthews.

North Carolina duo laced with bluegrass, country and folk.

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:00, £5

TRAMWAY, 19:30–22:00, £20 (£16)

SLOWCOACHES

London-based trio of the slack metal variety.

Thu 12 Nov STRUGGLE

BLOC+, 21:00–23:00, FREE

Monthly punk and post hardcore selection of bands from DIY collective Struggletown. BEANS ON TOAST

STEREO, 19:00–22:00, £12

Politically-charged one man folkmachine from London, via Essex. LEGENDARY SHACK SHAKERS

BROADCAST, 19:00–23:00, £TBC

The American goth rockers bring the rammy, led by hellraiser of a frontman JD Wilkes. EVERYTHING EVERYTHING

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £17.50

Manchester residing indie-rock quartet.

LAURA ST. JUDE (THE ROTATIONS)

MONO, 19:30–22:00, £5

To celebrate its launch, new national station Radio X hits the road with breakfast show host Chris Moyles and a selection of live acts – including Bloc Party.

Glasgow-based lass on vocals and electric guitar, doing a good line in emotional torch songs.

Tue 10 Nov

THE GLAD CAFE, 19:30–22:00, £10 ADV. (£12 DOOR)

MAVERICK SABRE

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £16.50

London born, Irish-raised, soulful hip-hop singer/songwriter discovered by Plan B. THE WATERBOYS

GLASGOW ROYAL CONCERT HALL, 19:00–22:00, FROM £25

Longstanding Mike Stott-led ensemble, basing their sound on a mix of Celtic folk and rock. ROLO TOMASSI (EMPLOYED TO SERVE)

STEREO, 20:00–22:00, £5

The electronica-tinged spazzcore kids bring the chaos to a live setting near you. Amen. YOUNGHUSBAND (GRIMM GRIMM)

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:00, £7.50

London-based alternative trio that started life as vocalist Euan Hinshelwood’s bedroom recording project – now joined by Adam Beach (guitar), Joe Chilton (Bass) and Pete Baker (drums). SKINDRED (CROSSFAITH + YASHIN)

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £20

Longstanding Welsh rockers mixing heavy metal, alternative rock, punk rock and reggae into their mash-up mix. IBEYI

KING TUT’S, 20:30–23:00, £12.50

Lustrous-haired French/Cuban musical duo consisting of twin sisters, Lisa-Kaindé and Naomi Diaz. TRIPTYCH + EYES OF OTHERS

BLOC+, 21:00–01:00, FREE

A mix of minimalist and often sinister electronic mastery from the duo of Glaswegian acts.

Wed 11 Nov JOE PUG

BROADCAST, 19:00–23:00, £8

Chicago-based singer/songwriter who abandoned playwriting in favour of becoming a musician. THE WATERBOYS

BARROWLANDS, 19:00–23:00, £27.50

Longstanding Mike Stott-led ensemble, basing their sound on a mix of Celtic folk and rock. JOZEF VAN WISSEM

THE GLAD CAFE, 19:30–22:00, £8 ADV. (£10 DOOR)

Brooklyn-based Dutch minimalist composer and lutenist, also known as one-half of Brethren of the Free Spirit. TARIBOWEST

BLOC+, 21:00–01:00, FREE

A selection of super-heavy live band sounds curated by Vasa’s J Niblock and Detour’s Ally McCrae. F*CK YES (YOUNG AVIATORS + ACRYLIC + THE RISING SOULS)

KING TUT’S, 20:30–23:00, £5 (£4)

Monthly gig showcase from F*ck Yes Glasgow. EAGLES OF DEATH METAL

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £18.50

Queens of the Stone Age man Josh Homme heads out on the road with his pal Jesse Hughes. CHARLIE WORSHAM

ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:00, £12.50

The Warner Music-signed Nashville songwriter crosses the pond.

DEAN OWENS AND THE WHISKY HEARTS

Scottish singer/songwriter filtering his love of Americana through a gritty yet lyrical Scottish sensibility.

LIGHT YOU UP (WSTR + BEAUMONT)

CLASSIC GRAND, 18:30–22:00, £8

Birmingham alternative rockmeets-pop fivesome. EVERY TIME I DIE

KING TUT’S, 20:00–23:00, £14

New York-hailing metalcore bunch

Fri 13 Nov

SCOTTISH ENSEMBLE: GOLDBERG VARIATIONS

Dance meets live orchestral magic as Scottish Ensemble collaborate with Swedish contemporary dance company Andersson Dance to create a new 21st-century interpretation of J.S. Bach’s iconic masterpiece.

Sat 14 Nov UNITED FRUIT

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:00, £7

Mighty Glasgow quartet known for their all-out post-hardcore abrasion served at F1 velocity. FUSE ODG

BARROWLANDS, 19:00–23:00, £13

London-born Ghanian muso with a fondness for baseball caps worn backwards. Ain’t we all.

TRACER

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £13

Rock trio with a sound reminiscent of 90s grunge and stoner rock, pumped up with stadium-sized riffs. FRANK TURNER AND THE SLEEPING SOULS

BARROWLANDS, 19:00–23:00, £25

The former Million Dead singer turned folk troubadour does his thing – full of his usual rockabilly charm – backed by his live band, the Sleeping Souls. THE MOUNTAIN GOATS (THE WEATHER STATION)

THE ART SCHOOL, 19:30–23:00, £20

John Darnielle, the face behind the Goats, brings his unique nasal quality and lyrical dexterity to bear – moving from acoustic-rock to barbershop folk. JULIA HOLTER

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:00, £15

The LA-based musician again displays her gift for merging high concept, compositional prowess and experimentation with pop sensibility. Go marvel.

LIGHTWORKS: INSTALLATION V

BROADCAST, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Kami-O curates a night of hip-hop and experimental music, taking in seven musicians over four hours including Arm Watches Fingers, Wuh Oh and more. DOGFEET (APOSTILLE + KASPER HAUSER)

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 19:30–23:00, £5 ADV. (£7 DOOR)

Fledgling goth-noise-rock troupe from London.

KING TUT’S, 20:30–23:00, £16.50

NECRO

GLASGOW ROYAL CONCERT HALL, 19:30–22:00, FROM £27

Tue 17 Nov

Conductor Peter Oundjian leads the RSNO in a recital of Brahms’ lush Violin Concerto. ABELA RAFIEE DUO

THE GLAD CAFE, 19:30–22:00, £TBC

Contemporary classical duo comprised of Anglo- Maltese contemporary classical guitarist Thomas Abela and Iranian Oud player/ classical guitarist Ali Rafiee. DAN ANDRIANO

STEREO, 19:00–22:00, £12.50

The Alkaline Trio takes to the road solo for a headline set. EARTHEATER

THE FLYING DUCK, 20:00–22:30, £5

KLAUS KINSKI (ANTIQUE PONY + BRITNEY)

Manchester-based noise rock fiends featuring ex and current members of Queer’d Science, GNOD, Irma Vep and Desmadrados Soldados De Ventura. SCOTTISH ENSEMBLE: GOLDBERG VARIATIONS

TRAMWAY, 19:30–22:00, £20 (£16)

BRANTLEY GILBERT

ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:00, £16

Bringing raw, emotive country and southern rock, all the way from Jefferson, Georgia. THE WAILERS

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £19.50

The reggae legends perform their album, erm, Legend in its entirety. EZRA FURMAN (THE BIG MOON)

THE ART SCHOOL, 19:00–23:00, £13.50

American singer/songwriter gaining increasing mileage on national radio.

EDINBURGH QUARTET: INTIMATE VOICES

CITY HALLS, 19:30–22:00, FROM £5

The local quartet take in a series of classical favourites, this time spotlighting works with an intimate expression at their core. NITEHAWKS (FARSEER + VIKING GALAXY)

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 19:30–23:00, £5

O.T.T. heavy power metal from Italy. ROMANCE (EVIL EDISON + THE WHITE BLIND)

KING TUT’S, 20:30–23:00, £7

Rock foursome from London, led by vocalist Jamie Lovatt. LA PRIEST

BROADCAST, 19:00–23:00, £9.0

Former Late Of The Pier frontman in his solo psych-pop guise.

Sun 15 Nov

The former lead guitarist with Canned Heat et al returns to the touring circuit.

HAPPY MONDAYS

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00, £28.50

The full line-up take to the stage – as in Bez, Gary Whelan, Mark Day, Paul Davies, Paul Ryder, Rowetta and Shaun Ryder. WE ARE THE OCEAN (TALL SHIPS + ALLUSONDRUGS)

KING TUT’S, 20:00–23:00, £12

Essex-based rock quartet led by Liam Cromby and his catchy choruses. IMAGINE DRAGONS

THE SSE HYDRO, 18:30–22:00, £33.60

THE WILDE (RORY INDIANA + DIVIDES)

The fledgling pop/rock juggernaut head out on their biggest UK tour to date.

JESUS JONES (THE STRIKE NINETEENS)

RSNO: BRAHMS’ VIOLIN CONCERTO

Solo side project of Real Estate’s Matt Mondanile, making shimmery guitar pop sounds.

CLASSIC GRAND, 18:00–22:00, £6 ADV. (£8 DOOR)

Moody and electronic folk-esque melodies from the London-based trio, formerly just the solo work of Elena Tonra.

Don’t let this Brooklyn-based hardcore rapper’s name fool you... no, actually do.

CITY HALLS, 19:30–22:00, £29

SCO: SIBELIUS SYMPHONY NO 3

DAUGHTER

THE ART SCHOOL, 19:00–23:00, £17.50

The SNJO bring composer Glenn Miller’s music to life.

More beat-heavy indie-rock, laced with raspy vocals and infectiously catchy lyrics, as the Las Vegasdwellers head out on tour.

The SCO celebrate the 150th anniversary of the great Finnish composer.

Surrey-based rockers pushing the genre in some fresh and unexpected ways.

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £14

THE MILK (TOY TIN SOLDIER)

KING TUT’S, 20:30–23:00, £8

ARCANE ROOTS

STEREO, 19:00–22:00, £12

SNJO: THE GLENN MILLER SOUND

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 19:30–23:00, £5 ADV. (£7 DOOR)

Essex rock’n’rollers led by Rick Nunn, throwing some soul, pop, dance and R’n’B into their mighty mix.

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £15

The Philadelphian chap and his merry band bring it with a set of accessible melodies cocked askew, marrying the introspection of the nocturnal stoner with the exploration of a troubadour frontiersman.

GLASGOW ROYAL CONCERT HALL, 19:30–22:00, FROM £5

SECC, 19:30–22:00, FROM £35

The one-time Pop Idol singer/ songwriter tours on the back of his latest studio album.

KURT VILE

The original Jesus Jones line-up take to the road again, 27 years after first forming.

New York-based distillation of voice, synths, guitar and electronic production techniques.

WILL YOUNG (LEMAR)

Mon 16 Nov

DUCKTAILS

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 19:30–23:00, £10

KACEY MUSGRAVES

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £SOLD OUT

Young American country music songstress, in her time nominated for myriad Country Music Association awards. CHRISTIAN DEATH

BROADCAST, 19:00–23:00, £11.0

LA-based gothic death rock lot, offending followers of organised religion since 1979. WAVVES

STEREO, 19:00–22:00, £15

Californian rock unit formed and led by singer/songwriter Nathan Williams.

Wed 18 Nov

WALTER TROUT (STEPHEN DALE PETIT)

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £25.00

THE BLOCKHEADS

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £17.50

The punk generation legends take to the stage to share their genre defying jazz, rock’n’roll, funk, and reggae sound. STRIKING MATCHES

MAX JURY THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:00, £10

Young Iowa singer/songwriter built on a love of great American songwriting from the likes of Bob Dylan, Gram Parsons and Paul Simon. SLAVES

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £SOLD OUT

Two white middle class guys named Slaves. Hmm. Standard two-piece rock. BRIX AND THE EXTRICATED

BROADCAST, 19:00–23:00, £14.0

Live band unit featuring none other than former Fall member Brix Smith-Start. JACK AND JACK

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £SOLD OUT

American pop-rap duo made up of Jack Johnson and Jack Gilinsky. DEAD CITY RIOTS (ECHO BASS + MONKEY PUZZLE)

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 19:30–23:00, £3

90s grunge-inspired alternative rockers formed in Glasgow back in 2001. ELVIS PERKINS

KING TUT’S, 20:30–23:00, £6.50

The American folk-rock singer/ songwriter heads to our shores. NITIN SAWNEY

THE ART SCHOOL, 20:00–23:00, £22

British electronic and fusion music producer/songwriter. TYCI (LOS CAMPESINOS!)

STEREO, 19:00–22:00, £12

The all-female collective, blog and fanzine bring together a selection of live acts and DJs for their monthly party night – this edition with energetic Welsh ensemble Los Campesinos! In tow. ULTRADEMON

BLOC+, 21:00–01:00, FREE

Alternative sounds from the French underground, followed by Fox Gut Daata and DJ Calmonte.

Fri 20 Nov

CRAFT SPELLS (SILVER CAVES)

THE GLAD CAFE, 19:30–22:00, £8.50 ADV. (£10 DOOR)

Four Seattle lads playing some fine indie-pop tunes for your general delectation. MAXIMO PARK

BARROWLANDS, 19:00–23:00, £SOLD OUT

The British alternative rock quartet take to the road to celebrate their 10th anniversary. BLACK LIGHTS (THE NORTHERN + VELOCITIES)

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £6

Electro-tinged indie anthems that you can all sing-along to, should you wish. COMMON GROUND (THE SSS + THE MONA LISAS )

STEREO, 19:00–22:00, £7

Raw young quintet rising from Kilwinning’s post industrial landscape. MDOU MOCTAR

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:00, £10

Tuareg songwriter and musician based in Agadez, Niger, one of the first musicians to perform modern electronic adaptations of Tuareg guitar music. OPPORTUNITY CLUB (BLACKBEAR DELAWARE)

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 19:30–23:00, £5

ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:00, £15

Indie-pop foursome playing song in the major and minor keys.

JOHN JOSEPH BRILL

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 19:30–23:00, £5.50

American alternative hip-hop chappie, aka Charles Andrew Bothwell when he’s off duty.

OTHERKIN

THE ART SCHOOL, 19:00–23:00, £22.50

Country rock duo who’ve been featured on the NBC hit drama series Nashville. JJB (no, not the sports store) play a headline set.

ASTRONAUTALIS

BROADCAST, 19:00–23:00, £9.0

MERCURY REV (NICOLE ATKIN)

KING TUT’S, 20:30–23:00, £6.50

The 80s-formed alternative rock stalwarts take their new LP out on the road.

BETUNIZER (BAD AURA + GARDEN OF ELKS)

Sat 21 Nov

The Dublin-hailing grunge posters encourage some moshing. BLOC+, 21:00–01:00, FREE

Bass-led noise rock from the foot of Spain.

Thu 19 Nov NEW ORDER

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00, £SOLD OUT

The mighty New Order return to a live setting on the back of their first studio LP release in a decade, Music Complete. RAIL FAN (KING OF BIRDS)

THE GLAD CAFE, 19:30–22:00, £6

Stirling born and bred post-blues indie outfit channeling a distinctly Americana vibe.

SPECTRES

BROADCAST, 19:00–23:00, £6.50

Formidable Bristol noise rockers who recently sought to oust Sam Smith and confuse newspapers with their own soundtrack for new Bond film Spectre. THE WOLFE TONES

BARROWLANDS, 19:00–23:00, £20.0

Alternative Irish chaps, incorporating elements of traditional Irish music into their sound. VIGO THIEVES

THE ART SCHOOL, 19:00–23:00, £TBC

Wishaw alternative indie quartet, rich with synthesizers and emotionally-charged vocals, hopefully still riding high on the fact John-bloody-Leslie was in one of their first videos.

Listings

BOOK GROUP (JUTLAND SONGS + THE SONS) NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 19:30–23:00, £5

The guitar’n’drums-styled Edinburgh ensemble do their noise-pop thing. ALBERT HAMMOND JR

CCA: CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART, 19:30–22:00, £12.50

ZU (CUTTY’S GYM) BLOC+, 21:00–01:00, FREE

Ultra-cult Italian noise rock/ proto-jazz pioneers.

Tue 24 Nov

DAVE HUGHES (BETTIE AKKEMAAI + ROSCOE VACANT)

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:00, £5

LA-based musician, best known as The Strokes guitarist and for being Albert Hammond’s wee lad.

The off-beat Glasgow folkie plays backed by his rather epicallynamed Renegade Folk Punk Band.

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:00, £8

Trip-hop duo, made up of DJ, singer and producer Syd tha Kyd and producer Matt Martians (of OFWGKTA).

TUFF LOVE (BRATAKIS + LIFE MODEL)

Female-fronted trio of the fuzzy lo-fi guitar pop variety, built on wispy soft vocals and loud instruments. PRIDES

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £12.50

Glaswegian synthpop trio who had the honour of performing at the Commonwealth Games closing ceremony. RSNO: SAINT-SAËNS’ ORGAN SYMPHONY

GLASGOW ROYAL CONCERT HALL, 19:30–22:00, FROM £27

The RSNO take on Saint-Saëns much-loved classic, Symphony No3 Organ.

ONDER INVLOED (THE COLOUR OF WHISKY + WASHINGTON IRVING + TOMMY REILLY + PRONTO MAMA + ALISTAIR OGILVY + IONA MACDONALD) THE GLAD CAFE, 19:30–22:00, £5

Musical project of Dutch journalist Matthijs van der Ven – where he films musicians covering their favourite songs for the Onder Invloed live sessions. OH WONDER

KING TUT’S, 20:30–23:00, £8

London-based pop duo, consisting of Josephine Vander Gucht and Anthony West.

Sun 22 Nov

REVEREND AND THE MAKERS

KING TUT’S, 20:30–23:00, £14.50

Jon McClure and his band hit the road to showcase tracks from their new album. HUGH CORNWELL

ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:00, £20

The Stranglers frontman heads out on his own, joined by a select batch of musical pals. LOSCIL (PHOENE + TALVIHORRUS)

THE GLAD CAFE, 19:30–22:00, £10 ADV. (£12 DOOR)

Vancouver-based electronic chap weaving his magic on a series of cinematic-sounding pieces rich with his trademark beautiful textures. MARILYN MANSON

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00, £SOLD OUT

The shock rock heavyweight tours his new LP The Pale Emperor. RAKETKANON

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:00, £8.50

Belgium mob built on noisy guitars, blasting drumbeats, deformed vocals and droney bass synths.

Mon 23 Nov OF MONSTERS AND MEN

BARROWLANDS, 19:00–23:00, £22.50

Lovely folk-pop Iceland sextet our celebrating the release of their second LP. MODESTEP

KING TUT’S, 20:30–23:00, £14

London dubstep-styled rockers out and touring some new tunes. CLUTCH

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00, £18

Incendiary southern hard rock ensemble formed in 1990, fronted by Neil Fallon. AKALA

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:00, £11

Award-winning hip-hop artist and younger brother of rapper Ms. Dynamite, currently carving out his own path with his rap, rock and electro influences. DUNE RATS

STEREO, 19:00–22:00, £7

The Aussie stoner pop ensemble take to the road. BACKYARD BABIES

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £16.00

Swedish rock troupe on the go since 1987. THE PRODIGY (PUBLIC ENEMY)

THE SSE HYDRO, 18:30–22:00, FROM £31.20

The electronic ravers tour their new LP The Day Is My Enemy, with support from old skool heroes Public Enemy.

Listings

THE INTERNET

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £15.00

BRING ME THE HORIZON

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00, £TBC

Yorkshire lads known for their rock and metal musical stylings. PAUL WELLER

THE SSE HYDRO, 19:30–22:00, £42.55

The Jam and The Style Council singer/songwriter, doing his solo thing with that haircut. PSYDOLL (HOOR PAAR KRAAT + SEMPER FI)

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 20:00–23:00, £5

Tokyo cyberpunksters who incorporate industrial and electropop with cyberpunk imagery, musical and lyrical content. ROISIN MURPHY

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £20.00

Best known as vocalist of late 90s favourites Moloko, Ms Murphy tours her latest – and rather glorious – solo LP.

JUDAS PRIEST (MICHAEL SCHENKER)

BARROWLANDS, 19:00–23:00, £38.50

The Birmingham heavy metal unit do their noise-heavy thing. MAXI JAZZ AND THE E-TYPE BOYS

KING TUT’S, 20:30–23:00, £12.50

The Faithless lead vocalist takes to the stage with his live band project. DETOUR (BDY_PRTS + TYCI DJS)

BLOC+, 21:00–01:00, FREE

As part of their 6th birthday celebrations, Glasgow’s Detour make merry with live sets from lush collaborative duo Bdy_Prts and the TYCI DJ crew.

Wed 25 Nov GHOSTPOET

THE ART SCHOOL, 19:00–23:00, £13

Experimental hip-hop producer and one-time Mercury Prize nominee. MARINA AND THE DIAMONDS

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £SOLD OUT

Marina Lambrini Diamandis plays under her stage name, knocking out the new-wave pop hits. WIDOWSPEAK (SAINTSENECA)

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 19:30–23:00, £10

American indie/folk duo hailing from Brooklyn, comprised of Molly Hamilton’s syrupy-sweet vocals, with Robert Earl Thomas on’t guitar.

HATCHAM SOCIAL (SECONDS + DAVE FRAZER)

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:00, £8

Indie pop lot hailing from London, named after the old English word, Hatcham, meaning a ‘clearing in the woods’, don’tchaknow. YAK (HIDDEN CHARMS)

BROADCAST, 19:00–23:00, £7

Psych pop types, one of whom used to play in Peace for a bit. FOREVER CULT (BLUE NOVA + VOLKA)

BLOC+, 21:00–01:00, FREE

The Leeds-based grunge threepiece make the trek across the Pennines. ALL TVVINS

KING TUT’S, 20:30–23:00, £7

The new solo pop guise of exAdebisi Shank member, All Tvvins. SLAYER (ANTHRAX + KVELERTAK)

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00, £39.50

The thrash titans tour their twelfth studio LP Repentless.

FAITHLESS (UNTIL THE RIBBON BREAKS)

THE SSE HYDRO, 19:00–22:00, £39.75

The electronic dance unit tour on the back of their 20th anniversary remix compilation LP Faithless 2.0. THE MEN THAT WILL NOT BE BLAMED FOR NOTHING

STEREO, 19:00–22:00, £7

The 2008-formed steampunks do their thing.

Thu 26 Nov

MURDERBURGERS (RATIONAL ANTHEM + DEAD NECK + PMX)

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 19:30–23:00, £TBC

Glasgow’s own pop-meets-punk princes take to the fore with another reliably unique brand of upbeat bangers. CHAD VALLEY (OSLO PARKS + FEATHERWEST)

O2 ABC, 18:00–22:00, £10

More warm and bubbly discostyled chillwave courtesy of the one-man band that is Hugo Manuel. DISCLOSURE

THE SSE HYDRO, 18:30–22:00, £30.10

Garage-meets-house duo made up of brothers Guy and Howard Lawrence. WHYTE HORSES (MT WOLF + MY GREY HORSE)

STEREO, 19:00–22:00, £10

Manchester duo making breezy psychedelic dream pop. VENNART

KING TUT’S, 20:30–23:00, £11

The former Oceansize frontman and Biffy Clyro touring member tours his new project. APOCALYPTICA

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £16.50

Finnish metal unit composed of a trio of cellists and a drummer. REVERIEME + BEAM + ANDREW PEARSON

13TH NOTE, 20:30–23:00, £5

Enchanting evening of gorgeous folk-tinged indie-pop, fun and frolics. ELECTRIC SIX: THANKSGIVING EXTRAVEGANZA

ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:00, £16.50

Detroit underdogs with enough joyful hooks, mischievous wordplay and unexpected pathos to worm their way into your heart, out for a special ‘Thanksgiving’ tour.

TEENCANTEEN PRESENTS... THE GIRL EFFECT #2 (KATHRYN JOSEPH + BROKEN RECORDS + BMX BANDITS + SONNY MARVELLO + THE CAIRN STRING QUARTET + BODYHEAT + SHARPTOOTH + THE JUST JOANS + SKIES FELL + HENRY & FLEETWOOD + RANDOLPH’S LEAP + JO MANGO) MONO, 19:30–22:00, £10

After the success of the first event, TeenCanteen host The Girl Effect #2 – inviting various musos to cover girl groups past and present, including Broken Records, Kathryn Joseph, BMX Bandits, Jo Mango and more. Profits go to Scottish Women’s Aid.

Fri 27 Nov PALMA VIOLETS

ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:00, £12

South London garage-rock quartet, based on the musical partnership of frontmen Sam Fryer and Chilli Jesson. THE CUT THROAT RAZORS (SUPA & DA KRYPTONITES)

STEREO, 19:00–22:30, £6

The raggle-taggle Glasgow eightpiece continue to tour their new EP, a reliably eclectic mix of ska, northern soul, jazz and punky-pop. ZEDD

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00, £20

One of the EDM scene’s brightest new stars, Zedd (aka Anton Zaslavski), brings the energy for the evening. TIGERTAILZ

CLASSIC GRAND, 18:00–22:00, £10

The Welsh glam legends do their darndest to sleaze things up. SCHNARFF SCHNARFF

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 19:30–23:00, £6

The Inverness chappies do their inimitable line in staccatto grunge pop. BEARTOOTH

SWG3 GLASGOW, 18:00–22:00, £TBC

Fast and heavy riffs courtesy of the Columbus five-piece. IDLEWILD

BARROWLANDS, 19:00–23:00, £20

The Scottish indie-rock mainstays plays tracks from their twoyears-in-the-making new LP Everything Ever Written, alongside a selection of hits. SCO: STEVEN ISSERLIS PLAYS SCHUMANN CELLO CONCERTO

CITY HALLS, 19:30–22:00, FROM £15

Renowned British cellist Steven Isserlis indulges his love for Schumann’s music.

BOSSY LOVE THE HUG AND PINT, 20:00–22:00, £6

Experimental duo formed of singer/mechanical scientist Amandah (of Operator Please) and ex-Dananananaykroyd chappie John Baillie Jnr, out marking their first headline show. TOTAL CONTROL

BROADCAST, 19:00–23:00, £10

Australian post-punk lot formed in 2008 by Eddy Current Suppression Ring band member Mikey Young and UV Race’s Dan Stewart. AUTONOMOUS AFRICA LP LAUNCH (GOLDEN TEACHER + SACRED PAWS + GHANA SOUNDZ + SORDID SOUND SYSTEM DJ) THE ART SCHOOL, 22:00–03:00, £7 ADV. (£8 DOOR)

Late night music party with a selection of local live acts celebrating their involvement in Green Door Studio’s collaborative recording project.

Sat 28 Nov

WE CAME FROM WOLVES

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 19:30–23:00, £TBC

Post-rock foursome all about the harmonic, melodic soundscapes with hook-laden, euphoric choruses. SIMPLE MINDS (THE STRANGLERS)

THE SSE HYDRO, 18:30–22:00, FROM £44.25

The Jim Kerr-led classic rock outfit play the hits, alongside tracks from new LP Big Music. RANDOLPH’S LEAP (URVANOVIC)

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:00, £6

The Glasgow melody merchants continue to twist the folk-pop genre into odd knots, creating witty ear-worms of joy as they go. MOLOTOV JUKEBOX (THE CHURCH)

KING TUT’S, 20:30–23:00, £10

Genre-bending six-piece outfit blending gypsy, samba, ska and dubstep influences into one danceable whole. THE ORB

SWG3 GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00, FROM £18

The legendary ambient producers drift dreamily towards the end of their third decade in existence. IAIN MORRISON (THE ALBATROSS)

THE GLAD CAFE, 19:30–22:00, £SOLD OUT

Son of Iain Morrison Senior, out launching his sixth LP Eas.

Sun 29 Nov SAINT RAYMOND

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £12.50

Indie singer/songwriter, aka Callum Burrows, continues his ascent. ASHTON LANE

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:00, £10

Scottish troupe imbued with catchy radio hits and uplifting soulful melodies.

Edinburgh Music Tue 03 Nov AQUILO

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00, £9

Electronic duo, dreamily atmospheric and addicted to melancholy.

Wed 04 Nov NELL BRYDEN

THE CAVES, 19:00–22:00, £15

The young New York-based singer/ songwriter plays a solo set. DARLIA

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 19:00–22:00, £11

Blackpool boys done good bringing their hard-lined rock music to the masses.

RAGS AND FEATHERS (SLOTH METROPOLIS + KIERAN ROBINSON)

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 19:30–23:00, £5

Glasgow-based folk-indie-country-pop lot formed by songwriter/ vocalist Tom Davis.

Mon 30 Nov

SANDI THOM (PAUL WOOLFORD + B. TRAITS + JONAS RATHSMAN)

MONO, 19:30–22:00, £16.50

The Scottish singer/songwriter and mulit-instrumentalist plays an intimate set. ANDY ALLO

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £12.50

Cameroonian-born singer/songwriter, guitarist, pianist, model, actress and all-round woman of many talents. HEY VIOLET

KING TUT’S, 20:00–23:00, £10.50

All-girl LA rock unit who live for the touring.

The Edinburgh post-rockers launch their new EP. PARANOID VISIONS + OI POLLOI

BANNERMANS, 22:00–23:00, £8 ADV. (£10 DOOR)

Punk showcase night for all your Saturday noise needs.

LIMBO: 8TH BIRTHDAY (TUFF LOVE + GARDEN OF ELKS + STAR ROVER)

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 20:00–23:00, £5

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00, £5

Sun 08 Nov

BANNERMANS, 18:00–23:00, £13 ADV. (£15 DOOR)

FIST CITY

Southern Alberta quartet signed to London’s Transgressive Records.

Thu 05 Nov Y&T

THE LIQUID ROOM, 19:00–22:00, £16.50

Rock’n’roll long-timers, continuing to melt faces some 30 years on. ATTICA RAGE (NEST OF VIPERS)

BANNERMANS, 20:00–23:00, £9 ADV. (£11 DOOR)

The Ayrshire heavy rockers take to the stage for their usual bonerattling live outing. TOM BAXTER (TOM BAXTER)

THE CAVES, 19:00–22:00, £12

RORY MCLEOD

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 19:30–23:00, £10

An ex-circus clown and fire eater, Rory McLeod does his one-mansoul-band thing, employing harmonica, spoons and finger cymbals into his mighty mix. As you do. VIGO THIEVES

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00, £7

Wishaw alternative indie quartet, rich with synthesizers and emotionally-charged vocals, hopefully still riding high on the fact John-bloody-Leslie was in one of their first videos. SIOBHAN WILSON

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 19:30–23:00, £8

Suffolk-born, London-based singer/songwriter building his sound on his masterful guitar-playing and raw, confessional lyrics.

The mellifluous chanteuse heads out on autumn tour, having dropped her Ella the Bird moniker.

USHER HALL, 19:30–22:00, FROM £11

Mr Ross draws from his extensive songwriting catalogue of 30 years from Deacon Blue and beyond.

SCO: EMMANUEL KRIVINE

Principal guest conductor Emmanuel Krivine directs the SCO in a programme of romantic-themed music. RADIATOR HOSPITAL (MARTHA + SLOWLIGHT)

THE BANSHEE LABYRINTH, 20:00–22:30, £6

Cool freaks bearing torch songs from Philadelphia.

RICKY ROSS

THE QUEEN’S HALL, 19:00–22:00, £20

Mon 09 Nov THE PARLOTONES

CABARET VOLTAIRE, 19:00–22:00, £15

South African rockers who have achieved multi-platinum status in their own country – go them!

Fri 06 Nov

BULLETBOYS (THE DARKER MY HORIZON + WHITE COAST REBELS + SOUL REMOVER)

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 19:00–22:00, £7

BANNERMANS, 20:00–23:00, £11 ADV. (£13 DOOR)

PRONTO MAMA

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 20:30–23:00, £5

The Manc indie foursome round off a year and a bit of touring, festival slots and a #3 charting LP.

OPIUM, 19:00–22:00, £6

Jizzy performs 25 years of Blackout In The Redroom.

JIZZY PEARL (HEARTBREAK REMEDY + THE KING LOT)

GLASGOW ROYAL CONCERT HALL, 19:30–22:00, FROM £28

COURTEENERS

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 19:00–22:00, £16.50

THREE DAYS FROM RETIREMENT (WE CAME FROM THE NORTH + VASA + GOONIES NEVER SAY DIE)

Longstanding Edinburgh gig-ina-club night Limbo celebrates its 8th year this month with a duo of outings, first with the Limbo 8th Birthday bash official (joined by Tuff Love, Garden Of Elks, and Star Rover), before decamping to The Mash House on 28 Nov.

RONNIE SPECTOR

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00, £SOLD OUT

Shirley Manson et al play a special show in celebration of the 20th anniversary of their self-titled debut LP. DREADZONE

Up-beat tunes from the Glasgow polyrhythmic indie-rockers/super cool dudes.

The rock songstress pays tribute to the girl group she co–founded as a teenager, the Ronettes.

GARBAGE (DUTCH UNCLES) USHER HALL, 19:00–22:00, £27.50

THE BADWILLS

Edinburgh’s Italian musical collective host a night of music, dance and stories from Italy – performing a mix of tarantella, pizzica and tammuriata. KIRSTEN ADAMSON (KING EIDER + BLET PROJECT)

CABARET VOLTAIRE, 19:30–22:00, £10

The Gillyflowers’ lass in her solo project guise, out launching her new LP. TOM ROBINSON

THE QUEEN’S HALL, 19:00–22:00, £20

The British singer/songwriter and broadcaster dips into his justreleased new LP. RSNO: ROMEO AND JULIET

USHER HALL, 19:30–22:00, FROM £12

The RSNO perform a duo of takes Shakespeare’s greatest love story: Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet Overture-Fantasy and Prokofiev’s Suite from Romeo and Juliet. NEW URBAN FRONTIER

WEE RED BAR, 19:00–22:00, £5

Edinburgh-based politicised punk/ dub/soul/ska seven-piece.

Sat 07 Nov

EDINBURGH LIGHT ORCHESTRA

THE QUEEN’S HALL, 19:30–22:00, FROM £8

The local concert orchestra take in a programme of stage and screen favourites. THE FRATELLIS

THE LIQUID ROOM, 19:00–22:00, £20

Glasgow indie-rockers led by lead vocalist and guitarist Jon Fratelli, who’s also forged a solo career for himself of late.

Marq Torien-led glam lot with a blues twist. SOUNDHOUSE @ TRAVERSE THEATRE (APRIL VERCH BAND)

TRAVERSE THEATRE, 20:00–22:00, £10

Continuing its weekly residency at Traverse Theatre, departed Edinburgh music venue Soundhouse hosts the latest in its gig series helping raise funds for The Soundhouse Organisation.

Tue 10 Nov

THE WYTCHES (BABY IN VAIN + PRISON WHITES)

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00, £10

Brighton band making dark and flowery psychedelia, with surf riffs straight outta 1950. JR GREEN

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 19:00–22:00, £6

Two brothers from Strontian on the west coast of Scotand, bringing a youthful edge to folk and traditional music. MARK PONTIN GROUP

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 19:00–23:00, £10

The British Blues Awards finalists tour in support of their new LP Textures.

Wed 11 Nov JAMMIN’ AT VOODOO

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 21:00–23:00, FREE

Monthly live jam session with a selection of Scottish musicians playing lounge grooves from myriad genres. KARIMA FRANCIS

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 19:00–22:00, £6

Nest-haired, quirky-voiced singer/ songwriter from Blackpool. EDINBURGH QUARTET: INTIMATE VOICES

THE QUEEN’S HALL, 19:30–22:00, £15 (£12)

The local quartet take in a series of classical favourites, this time spotlighting works with an intimate expression at their core.

CHERIE CURRIE (THE LAST GREAT DREAMERS) BANNERMANS, 20:00–23:00, £15 ADV. (£18 DOOR)

The voice of The Runaways plays her first UK dates in 35 years.

Thu 12 Nov

HOLD UP THERE’S HOPE (NORTHERN NIGHTLIGHTS)

STUDIO 24, 19:00–22:00, FREE

Edinburgh-based unit of the poppunk variety play their final gig. THE ORDINARY BOYS

THE LIQUID ROOM, 19:00–22:00, £10

Preston et al take to a live setting in a slightly rejigged line-up, with the addition of ex-Spectrals guitarist Louis Jones. LITTLE KINGDOM

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 19:30–23:00, £4

Fledgling Edinburgh outfit combining uplifting vocals, guitars, weaving violin melodies, bass lines and drumbeats. PATERSANI

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00, £6

Glasgow indie-rock unit led by vocalist and guitarist Craig Paterson.

SCO: SIBELIUS SYMPHONY NO 3

THE QUEEN’S HALL, 19:30–22:00, FROM £11

The SCO celebrate the 150th anniversary of the great Finnish composer.

THE EROTICS (THUNDERFUCK AND THE DEADLY ROMANTICS)

Eclectic UK bunch fusing elements of dub, reggae, techno, folk and rock into their own musical soundscapes. NILS LOFGREN (GREG VARLOTTA)

THE QUEEN’S HALL, 19:00–22:00, FROM £32.50

The long-time member of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band brings his own show to town. WAVVES

THE BONGO CLUB, 19:00–22:00, £15

Californian rock unit formed and led by singer/songwriter Nathan Williams. MAMMOTH PENGUINS (VIOLET WOODS + PLASTIC ANIMALS)

WEE RED BAR, 19:00–22:00, £6

Fortuna Pop-signed unit fronted by Emma Kupa, formerly of Standard Fare, playing fuzzy power-pop in sublime three minute bursts. VIC GODARD AND THE SUBWAY SECT

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 19:30–23:00, £14

Punk legend Vic Godard returns with the latest incarnation of the Subway Sect, including ex-Sex Pistol Paul Cook on drums. GOODCOPGREATCOP (RED RETRO PILOT + THE ANGLES)

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00, £12

Vibrant, emo-tinged indie rockers from Perth.

Sun 15 Nov UNITED FRUIT

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00, £6.50

BANNERMANS, 20:00–23:00, £7 ADV. (£9 DOOR)

Mighty Glasgow quartet known for their all-out post-hardcore abrasion served at F1 velocity.

Fri 13 Nov

THE LIQUID ROOM, 19:00–22:00, £18.50

The NYC rockers return with their controversial frontman. BEANS ON TOAST

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 19:30–23:00, £10

Politically-charged one man folkmachine from London, via Essex. NEWTON FAULKNER

THE LIQUID ROOM, 19:00–22:00, £SOLD OUT

London-based singer/songwriter known for his guitar playing which involves rhythmically tapping and hitting his guitar’s body.

THE INDOS (DALRIATA + ATOMIC DAYDREAMERS + ROSS HEATHERILL)

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00, £6

Edinburgh-based indie rockers led by Michael Knowles on lead vocals and guitar. THE QUIREBOYS (AARON WRIGHT)

BANNERMANS, 20:00–23:00, £15 ADV. (£18 DOOR)

Hard rock group formed in 1984 in London – on-and-off until 2001, when they reformed with their current line-up. SOUL FOOD (LO BIRD + THE BLUESWATER + IFRO)

THE CAVES, 20:30–03:00, £5

Six-hour ‘soul fiesta’, featuring a trio of soul acts, followed by the best in soul and funk vinyl. SNJO: THE GLENN MILLER SOUND

THE QUEEN’S HALL, 19:30–22:00, FROM £22.50 (£20)

The SNJO bring composer Glenn Miller’s music to life.

RSNO: BRAHMS’ VIOLIN CONCERTO

USHER HALL, 19:30–22:00, FROM £12

Conductor Peter Oundjian leads the RSNO in a recital of Brahms’ lush Violin Concerto. PLASTIC BARRICADES (THE SESH + VACANT LIFE)

OPIUM, 19:00–22:00, £5 ADV. (£8 DOOR)

Experimental London trio made up of Dan Kert (guitar, keyboards and vocals), Daniele Borgato (bass) and Frazer Webster (drums). TEMPLE OF THE DEAD MOTH (THE FNORDS + EMPORIUM)

WEE RED BAR, 19:00–22:00, £5.00

Debut gig of the full band incarnation of the alternative grunge Edinburgh outfit. DAN ANDRIANO

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 19:00–22:00, £14.50

The Alkaline Trio takes to the road solo for a headline set.

Sat 14 Nov

VICTORIAN TROUT CONSPIRACY

LA BELLE ANGELE, 19:00–22:00, £8 (£6)

The high-energy Edinburgh tenpiece bring the dirty ska ghetto soundscapes.

STIFF LITTLE FINGERS

70s punk-pop foursome par excellence, on the go now for a ridiculous amount of years.

TONGUES + STILLHOUND + GLAMOUR MUSCLE

PARADISE PALMS, 18:00–22:00, FREE

The second in Paradise Palm’s series of monthly shows, giving a little insight into the venue’s very own label – this time in the form of local talent Tongues, Stillhound (formerly Discopolis) and Glamour Muscle. THUS (THUNKFISH)

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 19:00–22:00, £7

Ever-evolving music project coordinated by Sean Quinn, born from the ashes of Vasquez.

EDINBURGH OMID (PAUL GILBODY + DOUGLAS KAY + GOL + JAMES BROWN IS ANNIE + THE RISING SOULS) THE VOODOO ROOMS, 19:00–23:00, £DONATION

Live music fundraiser in aid of Radio Lollipop Edinburgh and Nasser Khosrow Children’s House in Tehran.

Mon 16 Nov JAMES MORRISON

THE QUEEN’S HALL, 19:00–22:00, £26.50

Solo singer/songwriter who started his days as a busker in Cornwall, before being propelled into the spotlight with his twomillion selling debut LP. SWALLOWS

BANNERMANS, 20:00–23:00, £6

Melodic hardcore Glasgow mob, served up abrasive, tough... and usually shirtless. THE DEXTERS

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 19:00–22:00, £7

Indie rock five-piece hailing from East London, a dab hand at penning catchy wee guitar anthems. SOUNDHOUSE @ TRAVERSE THEATRE (TIM KLIPHUIS TRIO)

TRAVERSE THEATRE, 20:00–22:00, £10

Continuing its weekly residency at Traverse Theatre, departed Edinburgh music venue Soundhouse hosts the latest in its gig series helping raise funds for The Soundhouse Organisation.

Tue 17 Nov

PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING (FRANCOIS AND THE ATLAS MOUNTAINS) THE QUEEN’S HALL, 19:00–22:00, £20

Experimental duo made up of J. Willgood Esq and his drumming companion Wrigglesworth, sampling old public information films and archive material and setting them to new music.

THE SKINNY

THE MOUSE OUTFIT LA BELLE ANGELE, 19:00–22:00, £12 (£10)

Nine-piece Manc hip-hop juggernaut led by MCs Dr Syntax and Sparkz, fusing funk, soul and jazz into their mix. THE 1975

CORN EXCHANGE, 19:00–22:00, £21

The Manc indie-rock unit head Edinburgh-way. ELLE EXXE

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00, £8.50

London-based, Scottish singer/ songwriter who’s just released her second single.

Wed 18 Nov LAWSON

THE LIQUID ROOM, 19:00–22:00, £15

London-based foursome completed by the later addition of singer/songwriter Andy Brown, who apparently bonded with the rest of the band over pear cider, as you do. NITE HAWKS

BANNERMANS, 18:00–23:00, £6

The Italian rockers return after a killer set supporting Phil Lewis back in January.

Thu 19 Nov ADMIRAL FALLOW

LA BELLE ANGELE, 19:00–22:00, £TBC

Louis Abbott and his merry ensemble stage their usual rousing collective rabble of a thing. KATZENJAMMER

THE QUEEN’S HALL, 19:00–22:00, £15.50

All-female Norwegian quartet whose musical style is a fusion of pop/rock and country-folk. THE BLOCKHEADS

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 19:30–23:00, £22

The punk generation legends take to the stage to share their genre defying jazz, rock’n’roll, funk, and reggae sound. BOOK GROUP (HANS KLAMMER)

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 19:00–22:00, £6

The guitar’n’drums-styled Edinburgh ensemble do their noise-pop thing.

CHEATAHS (HIDDEN CHARMS + AMERICAN CLAY)

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00, £8

London-based grunge rock-revival four-piece now in possession of their second LP. JOHN AND JACOB

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 19:30–23:00, £12

Alabama five-piece build on a hazy diet of feel-good melodies and lyrics.

Fri 20 Nov SPECTRES

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00, £7

Formidable Bristol noise rockers who recently sought to oust Sam Smith and confuse newspapers with their own soundtrack for new Bond film Spectre. DEAD BOY ROBOTICS

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 22:30–03:00, £5

Edinburgh trio incorporating laptops, guitars, vocal yelps and tribal drumming into their rather epic brand of new wave, out launching their new LP in a special late night gig setting. MICKEY 9S

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 19:00–22:00, £7

Glaswegian foursome offering up a manic fusion of bass, beats, onstage bodypopping and ski masks (yes, really). DEAF HAVANA (THE EXCERTS)

LA BELLE ANGELE, 19:00–22:00, £TBC

Four East Coast Village lads making a rammy of rock sounds. SCOTS FIDDLE FESTIVAL: HABADEKUK + BOTTLE BANK BAND

THE QUEEN’S HALL, 19:30–22:00, £18 (£15)

Fiddle fest special with Denmark folk unit Habadekuk and Tyneside fiddle ensemble Bottle Bank Band. RSNO: SAINT-SAËNS’ ORGAN SYMPHONY

USHER HALL, 19:30–22:00, FROM £12

The RSNO take on Saint-Saëns much-loved classic, Symphony No3 Organ.

LEONARD COHEN TRIBUTE NIGHT (NORMAN LAMONT + GRAEME MEARNS + ROSS NEILSON) THE VILLAGE, 19:30–22:00, £DONATION

Belated birthday evening of Cohen tributes, who turned 80 in September. Raising funds for various refugee charities and Scottish foodbanks.

November 2015

Sat 21 Nov

THE TREACHEROUS ORCHESTRA

STUDIO 24, 19:00–22:00, £10 ADV (£14 DOOR)

Vibrant Glasgow folk collective mixing traditional rootsy Scottish tunes with contemporary influences, all bagpipes and whistles and loveliness. THE BURLESQUE BALL

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 21:00–01:00, £TBC

Well-kent burlesque producer Chaz Royal puts on a spread of sparkle-packed burlesque guests for your general pleasure.

SCOTS FIDDLE FESTIVAL: THE WRIGLEY SISTERS + IAIN MACFARLANE & INGRID HENDERSON

THE QUEEN’S HALL, 19:30–22:00, £18 (£15)

Fiddle fest special with twin sisters Jennifer and Hazel Wrigley (aka The Wrigley Sisters) and multi-instrumentalists combo Iain MacFarlane and Ingrid Henderson. MDOU MOCTAR

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 19:00–22:00, £10

Thu 26 Nov

WARRIOR SOUL (A RITUAL SPIRIT + YOUNG LUST + BRITTLE HEAD GIRL)

BANNERMANS, 20:00–23:00, £12 ADV. (£15 DOOR)

The political party rockers return to do their guitar-laden noise of a thing, playing 20 Years Of The Space Age Playboys live and in its entirety. DAVE ARCARI

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 20:00–23:00, £8

Talented blues rocker playing a mix of guitar-driven blues and trash country. JAWS

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 19:00–22:00, £8

Brummy four-piece making carefree, breezy music. And not a shark in sight. YAK (HIDDEN CHARMS + DTHPDL)

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00, £7

Psych pop types, one of whom used to play in Peace for a bit. SCO: STEVEN ISSERLIS PLAYS SCHUMANN CELLO CONCERTO

Tuareg songwriter and musician based in Agadez, Niger, one of the first musicians to perform modern electronic adaptations of Tuareg guitar music.

Renowned British cellist Steven Isserlis indulges his love for Schumann’s music.

WEE RED BAR, 19:00–22:00, £4

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 19:30–23:00, FREE

ALL THE FRANKLINS (MADGERLAD + THE DRAYNES + LAND OF CAKES)

Alternative psychedelic foursome hailing from Crawfordjohn. GND BLUES BAND

BANNERMANS, 22:00–23:00, £5

Live blues rock ensemble.

Sun 22 Nov

PSYDOLL (NIGHTMARE FREQUENCY)

BANNERMANS, 20:00–23:00, £7

Tokyo cyberpunksters who incorporate industrial and electropop with cyberpunk imagery, musical and lyrical content. SCOTS FIDDLE FESTIVAL: THE NORDIC FIDDLERS BLOC + GREG LAWSON & PETE GARNETT

THE QUEEN’S HALL, 19:00–22:00, £18 (£15)

Fiddle fest special with talented trio The Nordic Fiddles Bloc and Greg Lawson and Pete Garnett from Moishe’s Bagel in their new duo, Caper.

Mon 23 Nov SKINNY MOLLY

BANNERMANS, 20:00–23:00, £12 ADV. (£15 DOOR)

Tennessee residing rock’n’rollers featuring former members of Lynyrd Skynyrd and Blackfoot. PRIDES

THE LIQUID ROOM, 19:00–22:00, £12.50

Glaswegian synthpop trio who had the honour of performing at the Commonwealth Games closing ceremony.

Tue 24 Nov AKALA

LA BELLE ANGELE, 19:00–22:00, £13 (£10.50)

Award-winning hip-hop artist and younger brother of rapper Ms. Dynamite, currently carving out his own path with his rap, rock and electro influences. DUNE RATS (MOLLY)

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 19:00–22:00, £9

The Aussie stoner pop ensemble take to the road. FOREVER CULT

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00, £7

The Leeds-based grunge threepiece make the trek across the Pennines.

Wed 25 Nov

AVERAGE WHITE BAND (JAMES BROWN IS ANNIE)

THE QUEEN’S HALL, 19:00–22:00, £20

The legendary Scottish soulmeets-funk outfit play a set of hits.

BRING ME THE HORIZON (NECK DEEP + PVRIS) CORN EXCHANGE, 19:00–22:00, £TBC

Yorkshire lads known for their rock and metal musical stylings. BEASTO BLANCO (FALLING RED + RUSTED HERO)

BANNERMANS, 18:00–23:00, £15 ADV. (£18 DOOR)

Chuck Garric (aka Alice Cooper’s bassist) brings his supergroup back to the ‘burgh. THE ELEPHANT SESSIONS

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 19:30–23:00, £9

Award-winning neo-trad quintet forged in the Highlands of Scotland.

THE QUEEN’S HALL, 19:30–22:00, FROM £11

Fri 27 Nov SOULACOASTER

12-piece monster of a soul ensemble, packed with classic hits made famous by the genres legendary singer/songwriters.

VANTAGE POINT (THE BLOOD AND THE GOLD)

BANNERMANS, 20:00–23:00, £5

The Edinburgh metallers play a hometown gig. THE RETROPHONES

THE CAVES, 19:00–22:00, £5

Edinburgh-based retro-styled funk outfit built on female vocals and a full-on horn section. HUE AND CRY

THE QUEEN’S HALL, 19:00–22:00, £25

The Coatbridge duo showcase tracks from their new LP September Songs. THE ORB

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 19:00–22:00, £18

The legendary ambient producers drift dreamily towards the end of their third decade in existence. FOR THE RECORD

SUMMERHALL, 19:30–23:00, £8 (£6)

Faber Social and Book Week Scotland present a night of storytelling, performance and more with folkie Fifer James Yorkston, music journalist and radio DJ Vic Galloway and author Richard King. SINK (KATE YOUNG)

THE BISCUIT FACTORY, 19:30–23:00, £5

The acoustic, instrumental-led unit unit launch their new LP Ossicles.

Sat 28 Nov

LIMBO (MICAH P. HINSON + JAMES GRAHAM AND DELTA MAINLINE + SUPERMOON

THE MASH HOUSE, 19:00–22:00, £10 EARLYBIRD (£12 THEREAFTER)

Second November outing for the Limbo lot (see also 7 Nov), this time decamping to The Mash House for a beefed-up special headlined by Micah P Hinson and band, with support from Delta Mainline and Supermoon LAU (SIMI STONE)

THE QUEEN’S HALL, 19:00–22:00, FROM £16 (£14)

Award-winning Scottish folk trio, made up of Kris Drever, Martin Green and Aidan O’Rourke, out touring their new LP The Bell That Never Rang. ERRORS

LA BELLE ANGELE, 19:00–22:00, £TBC

The Glasgow electronic indie rockers air tracks from their more organic-sounding new LP Lease of Life, which finds ‘em complementing their trademark liberal use of vocals with pleasingly straight-cut melodies. STEREOPHONICS

USHER HALL, 19:00–22:00, £SOLD OUT

The Welsh rockers take in some “intimate” dates ahead of their arena tour in December. BLOCO VOMIT

WEE RED BAR, 19:00–22:00, £5

Edinburgh-born ensemble who mix various rhythms from Brazil with primarily punk, reggae, r’n’b, rock and garage.

THE MONA LISA’S (A MODERN MASQUERADE + THE TRIPPS + THE CARVELLES) SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00, £6

The Fife rock’n’rollers make the trip Edinburgh-way.

EUJENIC + DEADFIRE (DEADFIRE)

BANNERMANS, 20:00–23:00, £5

A double whammy of noise-laden touring bands collide.

Sun 29 Nov SKJOR

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 19:00–22:00, £7

The indie, funk and alternative trio play a hometown set.

Mon 30 Nov

KATE ROYAL + ROGER VIGNOLES

THE QUEEN’S HALL, 19:45–22:00, FROM £13

Soprano Kate Royal and pianist Roger Vignoles take in a programme of songs by Robert and Clara Schumann, Mahler and Barber. RACING GLACIERS

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 19:00–22:00, £5

Post-rock unit lazing a trail through reality since summer 2013. CHASTITY

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00, £7

Noisy rock lot who turned their suburban wake up calls into a debut collection of songs, then burned ‘em onto 1134 blank discs. SOUNDHOUSE @ TRAVERSE THEATRE (THE WIYOS)

TRAVERSE THEATRE, 20:00–22:00, £10

Continuing its weekly residency at Traverse Theatre, departed Edinburgh music venue Soundhouse hosts the latest in its gig series helping raise funds for The Soundhouse Organisation.

Sat 14 Nov

THE MILK (SAMPLE ANSWER)

READING ROOMS, 22:00–03:00, £6

Essex rock’n’rollers led by Rick Nunn, throwing some soul, pop, dance and R’n’B into their mighty mix. ANGELIC UPSTARTS

BEAT GENERATOR LIVE!, 20:00–23:00, £10

The Northern punk outfit make the journey up to Dundee.

Sun 15 Nov

SCOTTISH ENSEMBLE: GOLDBERG VARIATIONS

CAIRD HALL, 19:30–22:00, £15 (£5)

BUSKERS, 19:00–22:00, £5

Melodic hardcore Glasgow mob, served up abrasive, tough... and usually shirtless.

VIC GODARD AND THE SUBWAY SECT (STOOR + A HOOKER WITHOUT JESUS)

BEAT GENERATOR LIVE!, 20:00–23:00, £8

Punk legend Vic Godard returns with the latest incarnation of the Subway Sect, including ex-Sex Pistol Paul Cook on drums.

Wed 18 Nov KYLE EASTWOOD BAND

THE GARDYNE THEATRE, 19:30–22:00, £18

Jazz-inflected bassist and composer, who also happens to be the son of a certain Mr Clint Eastwood.

Sat 21 Nov

DEAF HAVANA (THE XCERTS)

Dundee Music Thu 05 Nov

VIGO THIEVES (OUR FUTURE GLORY + HELLO FUTURE + THE SESH)

BUSKERS, 19:30–22:00, £7

Wishaw alternative indie quartet, rich with synthesizers and emotionally-charged vocals, hopefully still riding high on the fact John-bloody-Leslie was in one of their first videos.

Sat 07 Nov

ROCK THE TAY: PART IIII (THE TALKS + ESPERANZA + SALEMSTREET + THE PURPLE FELTS + BIG FAT PANDA + THE UN-ROMANTICS) BUSKERS, 19:00–22:00, £7

Weekend-long music festival takeover alighting at Drouthys (6 Nov) and Buskers (7 Nov), taking in sets from Esperanza, Atlas:Empire, Big Fat Panda and more. ROCK THE TAY: PART IIII (CLOSURE IN MOSCOW + ICARUS THE OWL + THE SPARROWHAWK ORKESTRAL + ATLAS:EMPIRE)

DROUTHY’S, 19:00–22:00, £6

Weekend-long music festival takeover alighting at Drouthys (6 Nov) and Buskers (7 Nov), taking in sets from Esperanza, Atlas:Empire, Big Fat Panda and more.

VLADIMIR (SAHARA + MELOPHOBIA + FRANCIS DUFFY AND THE KINGPINS) BEAT GENERATOR LIVE!, 20:00–23:00, £5

Noisy indie-rock ensemble hailing from Dundee.

Wed 11 Nov

GINA MCCORMACK + NIGEL CLAYTON

MARRYAT HALL, 19:30–22:00, £14 (£7)

Violinist Gina McCormack and pianist Nigel Clayton combine their talents for a chamber music special. RICKY ROSS

THE GARDYNE THEATRE, 20:00–22:30, £20

Mr Ross draws from his extensive songwriting catalogue of 30 years from Deacon Blue and beyond.

Thu 12 Nov

RSNO: BRAHMS’ VIOLIN CONCERTO

CAIRD HALL, 19:30–22:00, £17 (£12.50)

Conductor Peter Oundjian leads the RSNO in a recital of Brahms’ lush Violin Concerto.

BUSKERS, 19:00–22:00, £15

Four East Coast Village lads making a rammy of rock sounds. EAST COAST YOUTH JAZZ DAY

THE GARDYNE THEATRE, 16:00–17:30, £5

The East Coast of Scotland young jazz musicians present a special concert with students from the Durban City Music School from South Africa.

IAN SIEGAL (MICKY MOODY & PAPA GEORGE)

THE GARDYNE THEATRE, 19:30–22:00, £15

Contemporary blues singer/songwriter rich with passionate guitar playing and soul-infused vocals.

Sun 22 Nov HEART OF A COWARD

BEAT GENERATOR LIVE!, 20:00–23:00, £8

UK groove metal outfit with Jamie Graham at the helm.

Thu 26 Nov RACING GLACIERS

BEAT GENERATOR LIVE!, 20:00–23:00, £TBC

Post-rock unit blazing a trail through reality since summer 2013.

Fri 27 Nov

BOOK YER ANE FEST IX

BUSKERS, 19:00–22:00, £25 WEEKEND

Three head-pounding days of DIY punk, hardcore and emo goodness from Make-That-A-Take Records, including the likes of Murderburgers, Womps, Chrissy Barnacle, Billy Liar and more. Profits going to Safe-Tay.

Sat 28 Nov BOOK YER ANE FEST IX

BUSKERS, 19:00–22:00, £25 WEEKEND

Sun 29 Nov BOOK YER ANE FEST IX

BUSKERS, 19:00–22:00, £25 WEEKEND

Mon 30 Nov NEON WALTZ

BEAT GENERATOR LIVE!, 20:00–23:00, £5

Psychedelic indie-rock ensemble from the wilderness of Caithness, where they write and play melodic, sun-drenched, sonic soundscapes in a remote croft.

Glasgow Clubs Tue 03 Nov KILLER KITSCH

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Eclectic midweeker playing the best in house, techno and electronic – or, in their words ‘casually ignoring shite requests since 2005.’

ALTEREGO CLASSIC GRAND, 23:00–03:00, £1 (£6 AFTER 12)

New night of rock, rap, metal and more with DJ Scapegoat. NUMBERS (LEVON VINCENT)

SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £10 EARLYBIRD (£12 THEREAFTER)

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, FREE

The Numbers pary crew hand over the decks to NY resident Levon Vincent for a four-hour set of techno-heavy beats.

I AM: SIMIAN+MOBILE FREAKSHOW

THE ART SCHOOL, 23:00–03:00, FROM £7

DARK PARTIALS PROJECT

Mixed bag of house and techno obscurities. SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £10

Resident young guns Beta & Kappa host a belated Halloween special, with electronic duo par excellence Simian Mobile Disco on guest duties. Dressing up encouraged.

Wed 04 Nov TAKE IT SLEAZY

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, FREE

An unabashed mix of 80s pop, electro and nu-disco. They will play Phil Collins. SUB ROSA

SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5

Subbie’s regular student night with residents Spittal and Nowicki at the helm.

Thu 05 Nov HIP HOP THURSDAYS

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Euan Neilson plays the best in classic r’n’b and hip-hop. SO WEIT SO GUT

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, FREE

The party sounds of residents Fergus Clark, Gareth Roberts, Ruaidhri McGhee and their special guests. JELLY BABY

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £4

Thursday nighter of chart, disco and party tunes. Can’t say fairer. GONZO

BLOC+, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Alternative club fun night playing 90s/00s nostalgia. PVC

THE ART SCHOOL, 23:00–03:00, FREE

All-new Thursday nighter playing r’n’b, pop, hip-hop and more, plus live dance and performance. HUNTLEY AND PALMERS (AUNTIE FLO)

SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5 ADV. (£7 DOOR)

On the eve of launching his Theory of Flo LP, Auntie Flo mans the decks for the full four hours.

Fri 06 Nov OLD SKOOL

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£6)

Connoisseur’s mix of old-school jazz, funk and soul for your jivin’ pleasure. PROPAGANDA

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £5

Student-orientated night playing the best in new and classic indie. JAMMING FRIDAYS

MAGGIE MAY’S, 22:00–03:00, FREE (£5/£3 STUDENT AFTER 12)

Indie rock’n’roll from the 60s to 00s with resident tune-picker DJ Jopez. MISSING PERSONS CLUB

LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–03:00, FREE (£3 AFTER 12)

Residents-manned evening of the finest techno and house offerings from the MPC crew. ASTRAL BLACK

THE ART SCHOOL, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£4)

Burgeoning label Astral Black stage a venue takeover, with special guests Knxwledge and Drae Da Skimask joining the residents. In the Vic Bar. DIRTY SIRENS

BLOC+, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Crossover vintage rap, pop and hip-hop from the up-and-coming DJ fatale. WTF FRIDAYS

SHED, 22:30–02:00, FREE (£6/£4 STUDENT AFTER 11)

Student-friendly Friday night party, playing – as one might expect – cheesy classics of every hue. SHEIKH

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, £3

Philanthrobeats residents MLW and Janneman team up with SERV head honcho Magil for a night of disco grooves.

TRIBAL PULSE (RAMON TAPIA)

The Tribal Pulse crew welcome electronic musician Ramon Tapia for a guest set.

Sat 07 Nov NU SKOOL

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£6)

Nick Peacock spins a Saturdayready selection of vintage disco, soul and funk. THE ROCK SHOP

MAGGIE MAY’S, 22:00–03:00, FREE (£5/£3 STUDENT AFTER 12)

Rock, indie and golden indie classics with resident DJ Heather McCartney. LOVE MUSIC

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £5

Saturday night disco manned by your man Gerry Lyons and guests. SINGLES NIGHT

THE FLYING DUCK, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Andy Divine and Chris Geddes’ gem of a night dedicated to 7-inch singles from every genre imaginable. DEATHKILL 4000

BLOC+, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Industro-rock noise party with live players and bespoke visuals to boot. GUILTY PLEASURE

SHED, 22:30–02:00, £7 (£5)

Frothy mix of guilty pleasures, old and new, for your Saturday night dancing needs. CLASSIC SATURDAYS

CLASSIC GRAND, 22:30–03:00, £6

Alternative blowout of metal, industrial, pop-punk, rock, emo and more. LETS GO BACK… WAY BACK (DJ JOSHUA)

LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5 ADV. (£7 DOOR)

Residents Bosco and Rob Mason bring acid-house, techno and rave back to the dancefloor – joined by up-and-coming Glasgow DJ Joshua from Stay Fresh. BIRDCAGE: 3RD BIRTHDAY

BROADCAST, 23:00–03:00, FREE

The Birdcage residents reunite for four hours of eclectic tunes, out celebrating their 3rd birthday in style with Poisonous Relationship on guest duties. SUBCULTURE (FRANKEY AND SANDRINO)

SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £10

Long-running house night with residents Harri & Domenic joined by Innervisions, Drumpoet Community and Moodmusic regulars Frankey and Sandrino for a deep and melodic session. HUNTLEY AND PALMERS

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, £3

H+P’s Andrew and pals play tunes across the board.

NIGHT OF THE JAGUAR (THE COSMIC DEAD)

THE ART SCHOOL, 23:00–03:00, £4

The NOTJ collective play a set of all things musically unusual, as is their merry way – this edition joined for a live set by The Cosmic Dead. In the Vic Bar.

STEREO’S 8TH BIRTHDAY (JOEY FOURR + DOUBLE PUSSY CLIT F*CK + JAK SOROKA + SUE TOMPKINS + LEECHER + HQFU + CAMILLA PIA + DJ CAL MONTE + FOX GUT DAATA + REBECCA WILCOX + LETITIA BEATRIZ + VSO) STEREO, 20:00–03:00, £3

The Glasgow institution that is Stereo gets into party mode for its 8th birthday, putting together two floors of live music, DJs, projections, visual art, free food and booze. Profits go to Glasgow Women’s Night Shelter.

Sun 08 Nov FLY CLUB (MR NIGHT)

SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £15 EARLYBIRD (£20-£25 THEREAFTER)

Edinburgh and Glasgow-straddling night, with a powerhouse of local residents joined by a selection of guest talent – this time with Mr Night taking control for the full four hours.

Mon 09 Nov BURN

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3/FREE WITH WAGE SLIP)

Long-running trade night with Normski and Mash spinning the disco beats.

Tue 10 Nov KILLER KITSCH

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Eclectic midweeker playing the best in house, techno and electronic – or, in their words ‘casually ignoring shite requests since 2005.’ I AM

SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5 (FREE VIA IAMCLUB.CO.UK)

Resident young guns Beta & Kappa play the usual fine mix of electronica and bass, oft joined by a guest or two.

Wed 11 Nov SUB ROSA

SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £7

Subbie’s regular student night with residents Spittal and Nowicki at the helm. BASSMENT

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, FREE

Kris Breezy and Kensho play a range of garage, house, disco and bass.

Thu 12 Nov HIP HOP THURSDAYS

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Euan Neilson plays the best in classic r’n’b and hip-hop. JELLY BABY

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £4

Thursday nighter of chart, disco and party tunes. Can’t say fairer. IN THE BASEMENT

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, FREE

Thursday session of the finest in northern soul and rock’n’roll. PVC

THE ART SCHOOL, 23:00–03:00, FREE

All-new Thursday nighter playing r’n’b, pop, hip-hop and more, plus live dance and performance. SHOW GLASGOW

SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £TBC

The Show crew return to Subbie, a guest or two likely in tow.

Fri 13 Nov OLD SKOOL

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£6)

Connoisseur’s mix of old-school jazz, funk and soul for your jivin’ pleasure. PROPAGANDA

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £5

Student-orientated night playing the best in new and classic indie. DANSE MACABRE

THE ART SCHOOL, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£4)

The Danse Macabre regulars unite those two happiest of bedfellows – er, that’d be goth rock and classic disco – in their new home of The Art School. COMMON PEOPLE

THE FLYING DUCK, 21:00–03:00, £5

Celebration of all things 90s, with hits a-plenty and a pre-club bingo session. JAMMING FRIDAYS

MAGGIE MAY’S, 22:00–03:00, FREE (£5/£3 STUDENT AFTER 12)

Indie rock’n’roll from the 60s to 00s with resident tune-picker DJ Jopez. ENJOYABLE MOMENT

BLOC+, 23:00–03:00, FREE

The Cosmic Dead chaps trip out with an evening of rollin’ Krautrock DJing for your general aural pleasure. WTF FRIDAYS

SHED, 22:30–02:00, FREE (£6/£4 STUDENT AFTER 11)

Student-friendly Friday night party, playing – as one might expect – cheesy classics of every hue.

Listings

ALTEREGO CLASSIC GRAND, 23:00–03:00, £1 (£6 AFTER 12)

New night of rock, rap, metal and more with DJ Scapegoat.

LA CHEETAH CLUB: 6TH BIRTHDAY, PART 2 (OBJEKT + ALEX SMOKE)

LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–04:00, £10

La Cheetah Club enters its 6th year with a two part celebration, with part two seeing ‘em welcome two of the club’s favourite producers: Objekt and Alex Smoke. RETURN TO MONO (BEN SIMS + EDIT SELECT)

SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £10 EARLYBIRD (£12 THEREAFTER)

Following its 11th birthday bash last month, the monthly Soma Records night celebrates November by handing over the decks to a duo of guests: Ben Sims and Edit Select. THE KIBOSH (JD TWITCH)

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, £3

All-new night with Mother, former assistant to John Peel, playing reliably random selections – this edition joined by Optimo’s JD Twitch.

Sat 14 Nov SUBCULTURE

SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £8

Long-running house night with residents Harri & Domenic manning the decks. THE ROCK SHOP

MAGGIE MAY’S, 22:00–03:00, FREE (£5/£3 STUDENT AFTER 12)

Rock, indie and golden indie classics with resident DJ Heather McCartney. LOVE MUSIC

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £5

Saturday night disco manned by your man Gerry Lyons and guests. OSMIUM

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, £3

Italo, disco, synthpop and funk with the e’er capable Osmium residents. SYMBIOSIS

AUDIO, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Innovative D’n’B beats in a relaxed, bass-rich environment. GUILTY PLEASURE

SHED, 22:30–02:00, £7 (£5)

Frothy mix of guilty pleasures, old and new, for your Saturday night dancing needs. MONSTER HOSPITAL

BLOC+, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Energetic club outing from DJ duo Beyvnce Nailz and C4lvin Malice. CLASSIC SATURDAYS

CLASSIC GRAND, 22:30–03:00, £6

Alternative blowout of metal, industrial, pop-punk, rock, emo and more. ANNIE MAC PRESENTS...

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, 22:00–03:00, £18

The Radio 1 DJ brings her club night north of the border, joined by a host of handpicked dance and electronic talent. ICY PRESENTS... WEN

LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£7 AFTER 12)

For their second night down’t La Cheetah, ICY welcome grime, dubstep and funky-influenced chappie Wen. PARADOX

THE FLYING DUCK, 23:00–03:00, £5

First of a series of unorthodox parties aiming to showcase the most interesting underground acts around. INCEPT (HARVEY MCKAY)

THE ART SCHOOL, 23:00–03:00, £10 EARLYBIRD (£12 THEREAFTER)

iNCEPT makes its return, welcoming one of Scotland’s biggest underground music names – Glasgow’s own Harvey McKay. CONCRETE CABIN

THE ART SCHOOL, 23:00–03:00, £4

Selectors DJ Crud and Mother play selections of jungle, hardcore, forgotten grime instrumentals, OG dubstep and noisy sub bass experiments.

Sun 15 Nov

FLY CLUB (NICOLAS JARR)

SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £10 EARLYBIRD (£12-£20 THEREAFTER)

Edinburgh and Glasgow-straddling night, with a powerhouse of local residents joined by a selection of guest talent – this time in the form of Nicolas Jarr.

Listings

Mon 16 Nov BURN

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3/FREE WITH WAGE SLIP)

Long-running trade night with Normski and Mash spinning the disco beats.

Tue 17 Nov KILLER KITSCH

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Eclectic midweeker playing the best in house, techno and electronic – or, in their words ‘casually ignoring shite requests since 2005.’ ENSOUL

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, FREE

Selections of sonic soul for your Tuesday pleasure. I AM (PAUL THOMSON)

SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £TBC

EZUP (DOM CAPPELLO VS DIXON AVENUE BASEMENT JAMS) LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5 EARLYBIRD (£7-£10 THEREAFTER)

The EzUp crew welcome Subculture resident and 7th Sign Records boss Dom Cappello for a head-to-head with Dixon Avenue Basement Jams. NITRIC ACID

THE FLYING DUCK, 23:00–03:00, £TBC

Primitive rave noise, via selections of old school acid, new beat and ket gabber. THUNDER DISCO CLUB (BEN UFO VS BAKE VS NICK CRADDOCK)

SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £8 EARLYBIRD (£10-£12 THEREAFTER)

Thunder Disco guest takeover with Hessle Audio co-founder Ben UFO, Glaswegian All Caps label owner Bake and time honoured London DJ Nick Craddock. JAK: 4TH BIRTHDAY

Resident young guns Beta & Kappa play the usual fine mix of electronica and bass, this edition welcoming Franz Ferdinand’s Paul Thomson for a special guest set.

Techno, electro and experimental night in birthday celebratory mode.

Wed 18 Nov

THE ROCK SHOP

NOT MOVING

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, FREE

South African house, grime, jungle, r’n’b and hauntology – a tropical mix, ayes – from yer wumman Laurie Pitt. SUB ROSA

SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5

Subbie’s regular student night with residents Spittal and Nowicki at the helm.

Thu 19 Nov HIP HOP THURSDAYS

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Euan Neilson plays the best in classic r’n’b and hip-hop. JELLY BABY

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £4

Thursday nighter of chart, disco and party tunes. Can’t say fairer. PVC

THE ART SCHOOL, 23:00–03:00, FREE

All-new Thursday nighter playing r’n’b, pop, hip-hop and more, plus live dance and performance. STEREOTONE (TELFORT + ARCHIE LAMONT)

LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £3

Thursday night party with resident Wheelman joined by Telfort and Stereotone family member, Archie Lamont. GRAEME PARK + WOODY

SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £TBC

Subbie showcase special, welcoming Graeme Park and Woody for a deck takeover.

Fri 20 Nov OLD SKOOL

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£6)

Connoisseur’s mix of old-school jazz, funk and soul for your jivin’ pleasure. PROPAGANDA

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £5

Student-orientated night playing the best in new and classic indie. JAMMING FRIDAYS

MAGGIE MAY’S, 22:00–03:00, FREE (£5/£3 STUDENT AFTER 12)

Indie rock’n’roll from the 60s to 00s with resident tune-picker DJ Jopez. SUGO

BLOC+, 23:00–03:00, FREE

The Italian trashy disco returns for another night of supremely danceable carnage. WTF FRIDAYS

SHED, 22:30–02:00, FREE (£6/£4 STUDENT AFTER 11)

Student-friendly Friday night party, playing – as one might expect – cheesy classics of every hue. ALTEREGO

CLASSIC GRAND, 23:00–03:00, £1 (£6 AFTER 12)

New night of rock, rap, metal and more with DJ Scapegoat.

THE TIME FREQUENCY (DYMENSION + GEORGE BOWIE + SCOTT BROWN + JOE DEACON + MARC SMITH + OBSESSION + MARC LOAGE + T’JAY) O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, 20:00–03:00, £15 EARLYBIRD (£20 THEREAFTER)

The Time Frequency play a live set alongside a who’s who of Scottish DJ legends, taking control of the O2 Academy for two consecutive nights (20 & 21 Nov).

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, £3

Sat 21 Nov MAGGIE MAY’S, 22:00–03:00, FREE (£5/£3 STUDENT AFTER 12)

Rock, indie and golden indie classics with resident DJ Heather McCartney. LOVE MUSIC

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £5

Mon 23 Nov BURN

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3/FREE WITH WAGE SLIP)

Long-running trade night with Normski and Mash spinning the disco beats.

Tue 24 Nov KILLER KITSCH

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

Eclectic midweeker playing the best in house, techno and electronic – or, in their words ‘casually ignoring shite requests since 2005.’

New night of rock, rap, metal and more with DJ Scapegoat. JELLY ROLL SOUL (SIRRATTHAM)

LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5

DANSE MACABRE: PSYDOLL AFTERPARTY

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, FREE

The Danse Macabre regulars unite those two happiest of bedfellows – er, that’d be goth rock and classic disco – popping up for a special Psydoll after-bash at Sleazy’s.

Wed 25 Nov SUB ROSA

SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5

Thu 26 Nov

WRONG ISLAND

CLASSIC GRAND, 23:00–03:00, £1 (£6 AFTER 12)

Known for their raucous parties, the Stay Fresh mob touch down at Subbie for a guest set with Miss Honey Dijon.

Resident young guns Beta & Kappa play the usual fine mix of electronica and bass, oft joined by a guest or two.

BLOC+, 23:00–03:00, FREE

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, £3

ALTEREGO

SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5 (FREE VIA IAMCLUB.CO.UK)

I AM

Saturday night disco manned by your man Gerry Lyons and guests. Messy Saturday night uberdisco armed with Erasure and Papa Roach discographies.

Student-friendly Friday night party, playing – as one might expect – cheesy classics of every hue.

Jelly Roll Soul welcome Sirrahttam for a guest set, whose Tanz EP release is handily the first to see light on the new Jelly Roll Soul imprint.

Subbie’s regular student night with residents Spittal and Nowicki at the helm.

FANTASTIC MAN

WTF FRIDAYS SHED, 22:30–02:00, FREE (£6/£4 STUDENT AFTER 11)

HIP HOP THURSDAYS

STAY FRESH (MISS HONEY DIJON)

SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £TBC

PRESSURE: 17TH BIRTHDAY (MARCEL DETTMANN + NINA KRAVIZ + SLAM + CARL CRAIG & STACEY PULLEN + LINDSEY & KENDAL + NICK MORROW) SWG3 GLASGOW, 21:00–03:00, £TBC

The Slam crew celebrate a mighty 17 years of Pressure with a bounty-load of guests, amongst them Marcel Dettmann, Nina Kraviz and more.

Sat 28 Nov THE ROCK SHOP

MAGGIE MAY’S, 22:00–03:00, FREE (£5/£3 STUDENT AFTER 12)

Euan Neilson plays the best in classic r’n’b and hip-hop.

Rock, indie and golden indie classics with resident DJ Heather McCartney.

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £4

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £5

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

JELLY BABY

LOVE MUSIC

Mon 30 Nov BURN

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3/FREE WITH WAGE SLIP)

Long-running trade night with Normski and Mash spinning the disco beats.

Edinburgh Clubs Tue 03 Nov I LOVE HIP HOP

THE BONGO CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £4

Weekly selection of hip-hop classics and brand-new classics to be. TRASH

THE HIVE, 22:00–03:00, FREE

Alternative anthems cherrypicked from genres of rock, indie, punk, retro and more. HECTOR’S HOUSE

CABARET VOLTAIRE, 23:00–03:00, £4

The HH crew serve up their usual fine mix of electronic basslines cooked up with house beats.

Wed 04 Nov COOKIE

THE HIVE, 22:00–03:00, FREE

Resident midweek student rammy of chart, club and electro hits. WITNESS

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, FREE

House, garage, bass and grime adventures with Blackwax and Faultlines. TRIBE

THE LIQUID ROOM, 22:30–03:00, £5 (£4)

The legendary Teamy and Dirty Larry spin some fresh electronics for your aural pleasure.

Thursday nighter of chart, disco and party tunes. Can’t say fairer.

Saturday night disco manned by your man Gerry Lyons and guests.

Weekly selection of dance bangers played by residents Khalid Count Clockwork and Craig Wilson.

THE FLYING DUCK, 23:00–03:00, £5

BLOC+, 21:00–01:00, FREE

SWG3 GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00, FROM £18

CABARET VOLTAIRE, 21:00–03:00, FREE

GIMME SHELTER

Varied night moving from the 50s to present day, via selections of rock’n’roll, soul, garage, psych and r’n’b. CODE (TRUNCATE)

LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £6 EARLYBIRD (£10 THEREAFTER)

Underground techno specialists Code man their monthly La Cheetah club night, bringing techno heavyweight Truncate (aka Audio Injection) all the way from LA for a return set. GUILTY PLEASURE

SHED, 22:30–02:00, £7 (£5)

Frothy mix of guilty pleasures, old and new, for your Saturday night dancing needs. CLASSIC SATURDAYS

CLASSIC GRAND, 22:30–03:00, £6

Alternative blowout of metal, industrial, pop-punk, rock, emo and more.

THE TIME FREQUENCY (GBX ANTHEMS + NJOI + SCOTT BROWN + GEORGE BOWIE + MALLORCA LEE + TREVOR REILLY + JOE DEACON + T’JAY + FASTBUCK) O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, 20:00–03:00, £SOLD OUT

The Time Frequency play a live set alongside a who’s who of Scottish DJ legends, taking control of the O2 Academy for two consecutive nights (20 & 21 Nov). SONGS YA BASS: 3RD BIRTHDAY

BUFF CLUB, 19:00–23:00, FREE

A birthday outing for ‘the club night for people who don’t really go clubbing anymore’, taking in punter-generated requests before finishing at the beauty sleepfriendly hour of 11pm. SUBCULTURE (ÂME + DIXON)

SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £TBC

STRETCHED (ANTELOPE)

Jazz-influenced sound sauna, moving through mathcore to postrock, with a few live acts thrown in for good measure. BEAT SURFING

VARIETY BAR, 20:00–00:00, FREE

DJ Frizzo plays selections of nu jazz. LANCE VANCE DANCE

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, FREE

Red-hued adventure travelling through 70s funk, motown and 80s r’n’b, highlighted with glorious rays of disco sunshine. Or summat. PVC

THE ART SCHOOL, 23:00–03:00, FREE

All-new Thursday nighter playing r’n’b, pop, hip-hop and more, plus live dance and performance. HIGH RISE (JD TWITCH)

LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £3 (£5 AFTER 12)

The High Rise crew call in the talents of Optimo music maestro JD Twitch for a three-hour set. VICIOUS CREATURES (HUXLEY)

SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £6

FLY CLUB (JORIS VOORN)

Edinburgh and Glasgow-straddling night, with a powerhouse of local residents joined by a selection of guest talent – this time in the form of Joris Voorn.

BLOC+, 23:00–03:00, FREE

The legendary Glaswegian club institution lives again, back and in its indie stride with special live guests. NOTSOSILENT (MOSCA)

LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £8 EARLYBIRD (£10-£12 THEREAFTER)

Belch and crew bring the best in underground house, joined on the night by guest DJ Mosca and his deep house selections. GUILTY PLEASURE

SHED, 22:30–02:00, £7 (£5)

Frothy mix of guilty pleasures, old and new, for your Saturday night dancing needs. CLASSIC SATURDAYS

CLASSIC GRAND, 22:30–03:00, £6

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £5

THE FLYING DUCK, 23:00–03:00, £5.0

PROPAGANDA

DIVINE: 25TH ANNIVERSARY

THE ADMIRAL, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£5)

MOMENTUM

Student-orientated night playing the best in new and classic indie.

Saturday dance party down’t the Duck.

MAGGIE MAY’S, 22:00–03:00, FREE (£5/£3 STUDENT AFTER 12)

SUB CLUB, 23:00–04:00, FROM £10

JAMMING FRIDAYS

Hip-hop and gangsta rap brought to you by the Notorious B.A.G and pals.

SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £15 EARLYBIRD (£20 THEREAFTER)

OLUM (APACHE DARLING)

Midweek fun night playing soul, funk, jazz, ska, disco and more.

Eclectic, diverse and dancefloororientated beats.

Connoisseur’s mix of old-school jazz, funk and soul for your jivin’ pleasure.

OLD SKOOL

HARSH TUG

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, £3

SHAKE APPEAL

BLOC+, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Monthly evening of hip shakers and neck breakers, combining everything from Buddy Holly to Motorhead. ZEDD

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00, £20

One of the EDM scene’s brightest new stars, Zedd (aka Anton Zaslavski), brings the energy for the evening.

Midweek party with DJs Thom and Pagowsky playing disco and deep house into the wee hours. In the cafe space. LOCO KAMANCHI

Stellar mix of classic and rare 60s and 70s psych, soul, freakbeat, ska and funk dug deep from Andrew Divine’s vinyl archives, this edition out celebrating the night’s 25th anniversary.

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£6)

THE GETTUP

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, £3

Fri 27 Nov

THE ART SCHOOL, 23:00–03:00, FROM £5

Sun 22 Nov

TROPICAL

Alternative blowout of metal, industrial, pop-punk, rock, emo and more.

Indie rock’n’roll from the 60s to 00s with resident tune-picker DJ Jopez.

MIKEQ

The legendary ambient producers drift dreamily towards the end of their third decade in existence.

Fledgling party night intent on breaking free from the norm, this edition welcoming deep house producer Huxley for a guest set.

Long-running house night with residents Harri & Domenic welcoming Âme and Dixon for a deck takeover. The much-lauded New York DJ take control of the decks.

THE ORB

SUBCULTURE (STEFFI + TELFORD)

THE BONGO CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£4 GUESTLIST)

Thu 05 Nov

TRUANT (LEVON VINCENT)

CABARET VOLTAIRE, 23:00–03:00, £TBC

FLY CLUB: DON’T DROP TAKEOVER

SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £TBC

ELECTRIKAL (SLIMZEE + RIKO DAN + KAHN & NEEK)

THE BONGO CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £6 EARYBIRD (£9-£12 THEREAFTER)

Soundsystem party-starters, part of a music and art collective specialising in all things bass – this edition joined by DJ Slimzee, cofounder of Rinse FM and member of the Pay As You Go Cartel. FAR OUT

WEE RED BAR, 22:30–03:00, £5

Jazz, world music and experimental electronica selections. Raising funds for Refugee Action. DRUID SEQUENCE (ASIMILION + QUADRANT + AES DANA)

STUDIO 24, 21:00–03:00, £6 (£8 AFTER 12)

Psytrance psychedelic night presented by the Lak’ech Collective.

ETC 30: ALICE IN WONDERLAND (CHRIS LIBERATOR)

THE MASH HOUSE, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£5 IN FANCY DRESS)

Edinburgh Tekno Cartel bring the sleazy bass and techno beats once more, this time with an Alice in Wonderland (aka make like a Cheshire Cat) – bolstered by a live set from respected acid techno DJ Chris Liberator. LYF: HIP-HOP

LA BELLE ANGELE, 23:00–03:00, £5

Head-to-head affair with DJs Neil McBabes Spence and EH1 manning the veteran corner as they take on young guns Peter Quinn and Sean Mitchell.

Sat 07 Nov TEASE AGE

CITRUS CLUB, 22:30–03:00, FREE (£5 AFTER 11)

Long-running indie, rock and soul night, traversing the spectrum of classic and modern. THE GO-GO

STUDIO 24, 23:00–03:00, FREE (£5/£4 STUDENT AFTER 12)

Long-running retro night with veteran DJs Tall Paul and Big Gus. MUMBO JUMBO

THE BONGO CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £3 (£7/£5 STUDENT AFTER 12)

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£6 AFTER 12)

JUICE

Pumped Thursday nighter with the resident DJs making weird waves through house and techno. HULLABALOO

THE BONGO CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £3 (£2)

Mash-up of beats, breaks and hip-hop from Trendy Wendy and Steve Austin. HI-SOCIETY

THE HIVE, 22:00–03:00, FREE

Student-friendly chart anthems, bolstered by hip-hop, r’n’b and urban in the back room. HEADS

LA BELLE ANGELE, 22:00–03:00, £10 (£8)

Fledgling music/DJ showcase night, this edition with High Focus record bosses and long-time UK hip-hop poster group The Four Owls on guest duties.

Fri 06 Nov FUCK YEAH

THE HIVE, 21:00–03:00, FREE (£4 AFTER 10)

Chart, indie and rock anthems spread over two rooms. PROPAGANDA

FLY CLUB

Edinburgh and Glasgow-straddling night, with a powerhouse of local residents joined by a selection of guest talent – this edition handing over the reins to the Don’t Drop mob.

CITRUS CLUB, 22:30–03:00, £5 (£6 AFTER 1)

Weekly dabblings in indie and alternative tuneage.

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, FREE

THE ART SCHOOL, 23:00–03:00, £11

Sun 29 Nov

KINKY INDIE

Funk, soul, beats and mash-ups from the Mumbo Jumbo regulars and pals.

Student-orientated night playing the best in new and classic indie.

SOMETHING WICKED (LUKE VIBERT)

Danceable – nae, jiveable – tunes with DJ Cheers and Coconut Smoke.

Fledgling club night playing and anything and everything good, with special guests to boot.

Long-running house night with residents Harri & Domenic welcoming Dutch-born Panorama Bar resident, producer, label owner and underground embracer of electronic culture Steffi for a set with resident lad Telford. Rave god Luke Vibert plays a special guest set, with support from label mate Konx-Om-Pax.

JIVE & DUTY ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 23:00–03:00, FREE (£3 AFTER 12)

THE LIQUID ROOM, 22:30–03:00, £5 (£3 GUESTLIST)

STACKS

THE MASH HOUSE, 23:00–03:00, £5

Rare funk, soul and r’n’b night, with free mix CDs on the door. CABARET VOLTAIRE, 23:00–03:00, £7

Edinburgh and Glasgow-straddling night, with a powerhouse of local residents joined by a selection of guest talent. IN DEEP: ONE NIGHT STAND (CHEAP PICASSO, EYEMEN - BATTLE OF THE ZOO)

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, £5 (MEMBERS FREE)

Cheap Picasso and pals now in a bimonthly slot, playing everything good in house and beyond.

SPEAKER BITE ME

The Evol DJs worship at the alter of all kinds of indie-pop, with their only rule being that it’s gotta have bite. EASTERN HEIGHTS

WEE RED BAR, 22:30–03:00, £5 (£3 WITH FLYER)

Afro, disco, Latin and jazz selections from DJ Alex Eugenio, up from London marking the project’s first Edinburgh outing. BUCKFEST!

STUDIO 24, 21:00–03:00, £5 (£2.50 WITH FLYER)

Club celebration of the dubious purple nectar, with Live music from KDY funk lot Snapping Turtles, plus a bouncy castle, Buckfast samples and more. HECTOR’S HOUSE PRESENTS... NO STRINGS ATTACHED (STEVE CASS + JUSTIN WILSON)

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, FREE BEFORE MIDNIGHT / £6

Hector’s House present their bimonthly residency, joined by the duo behind one of the UK’s longest running club nights, No Strings Attached.

Sun 08 Nov COALITION

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Weekly bass institution hosted by DJ Believe and pals. ATOMIC BONGO

THE BONGO CLUB, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Free entry Sunday fun night playing funk, soul and old school hip-hop.

DJ FORMAT + ABDOMINAL: REUNION TOUR

STUDIO 24, 22:00–03:00, £8

That’s right, the dynamic duo are back with new material, playing their first UK dates in some ten years!

Mon 09 Nov MIXED UP

THE HIVE, 22:00–03:00, FREE

Monday-brightening mix of hiphop, r’n’b and chart classics, with requests in the back room. NU FIRE

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, FREE

DJ Fusion and Beef servin’ up the hip-hop and bass classics since 2008.

Tue 10 Nov I LOVE HIP HOP

THE BONGO CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £4

Weekly selection of hip-hop classics and brand-new classics to be. TRASH

THE HIVE, 22:00–03:00, FREE

Alternative anthems cherrypicked from genres of rock, indie, punk, retro and more. HECTOR’S HOUSE

CABARET VOLTAIRE, 23:00–03:00, £4

The HH crew serve up their usual fine mix of electronic basslines cooked up with house beats.

Wed 11 Nov COOKIE

THE HIVE, 22:00–03:00, FREE

Resident midweek student rammy of chart, club and electro hits. WITNESS

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, FREE

House, garage, bass and grime adventures with Blackwax and Faultlines. TRIBE

THE LIQUID ROOM, 22:30–03:00, £5 (£4)

Weekly selection of dance bangers played by residents Khalid Count Clockwork and Craig Wilson. THE GETTUP

CABARET VOLTAIRE, 21:00–03:00, FREE

Midweek party with DJs Thom and Pagowsky playing disco and deep house into the wee hours. In the cafe space. LOCO KAMANCHI

THE BONGO CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£4 GUESTLIST)

Midweek fun night playing soul, funk, jazz, ska, disco and more.

Thu 12 Nov TRUANT

CABARET VOLTAIRE, 23:00–03:00, £TBC

Fledgling club night playing and anything and everything good, with special guests to boot. CHAMPION SOUND

LA BELLE ANGELE, 23:00–03:00, £3

Midweek celebration of all things dub, jungle, reggae, dancehall and everything inbetween. HULLABALOO

THE BONGO CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £3 (£2)

Mash-up of beats, breaks and hip-hop from Trendy Wendy and Steve Austin. HI-SOCIETY

THE HIVE, 22:00–03:00, FREE

Student-friendly chart anthems, bolstered by hip-hop, r’n’b and urban in the back room. JUICE (PUBLIC POSSESSION)

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Pumped house and techno Thursday nighter, this edition joined for a guest set by Resident Advisor ‘label of the month’ Public Possession.

Fri 13 Nov FUCK YEAH

THE HIVE, 21:00–03:00, FREE (£4 AFTER 10)

Chart, indie and rock anthems spread over two rooms. FOUR CORNERS

THE BONGO CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £3 (£5 AFTER 12)

Soulful dancing fodder, moving from deep funk to reggae. PROPAGANDA

THE LIQUID ROOM, 22:30–03:00, £5 (£3 GUESTLIST)

Student-orientated night playing the best in new and classic indie. UNPOP

WEE RED BAR, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£5 AFTER 12)

Jovial indie-pop dance party for the twee of heart and loose of limb. FLY CLUB

CABARET VOLTAIRE, 23:00–03:00, £7

Edinburgh and Glasgow-straddling night, with a powerhouse of local residents joined by a selection of guest talent. SOUL FOOD (LO BIRD + THE BLUESWATER + IFRO)

THE CAVES, 20:30–03:00, £5

Six-hour ‘soul fiesta’, featuring a trio of soul acts, followed by the best in soul and funk vinyl.

THE SKINNY

Edinburgh Clubs

HECTOR’S HOUSE CABARET VOLTAIRE, 23:00–03:00, £4

The HH crew serve up their usual fine mix of electronic basslines cooked up with house beats.

Wed 25 Nov SURE SHOT ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 23:00–03:00, FREE (£3 AFTER 12)

Fledgling night spanning 80s-00s hip-hop and r’n’b, manned by The Skinny’s own Peter Simpson and one half of Edinburgh’s Kitchen Disco, Malcolm Storey. KINKY INDIE

CITRUS CLUB, 22:30–03:00, £5 (£6 AFTER 1)

Weekly dabblings in indie and alternative tuneage. ANYTHING GOES STEAMPUNK

STUDIO 24, 23:00–03:00, £5

Eclectic night of techno and minimal offerings, this edition with a ‘steampunk’ theme and a free prize for the first 100 down. IN DEEP: MEDLAR

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, £5 (MEMBERS FREE)

The In Deep troops welcome Medlar for a four-hour takeover.. PULSE: 6TH BIRTHDAY (CHRIS LIEBING)

LA BELLE ANGELE, 23:00–03:00, FROM £12.50

Pulse welcome techno legend Chris Liebling to help them turn the grand old age of six.

Sat 14 Nov TEASE AGE

CITRUS CLUB, 22:30–03:00, FREE (£5 AFTER 11)

Long-running indie, rock and soul night, traversing the spectrum of classic and modern. BIG ‘N’ BASHY

THE BONGO CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£6 AFTER 12)

Mighty mix of reggae, grime, dubstep and jungle played by inimitable residents Brother Most Righteous, Skillis, Era and Deburgh. TORTURE GARDEN

THE CAVES, 21:00–03:00, £20

Infamous fetish club spread over three dungeon-themed playrooms in the cavernous surrounds of The Caves. Dress code: all the PVC you can slither into. BEEP BEEP, YEAH! (BEEP BEEP, YEAH!)

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 23:00–03:00, £5

Retro pop stylings from the 50s to the 70s, via a disco tune or ten. RHYTHM MACHINE

SUMMERHALL, 23:00–03:00, £5

The Soulsville crew present an all-new night centered around the evolution of African drum beats in an electronic age. Raising funds for the International Rescue Committee. WEE DUB PRESENTS... MUNGO’S HI-FI SOUNDSYSTEM

STUDIO 24, 22:00–03:00, £10

The Wee Dub Festival crew keep the party going with another of their occaisonal club outings, capably manned by Mungo’s Hi-Fi Soundsystem. TEESH (LOCKAH)

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, £5.00

DJ Cheers – frequent flyer at many a Sneaky’s night – finally gets his own show on the road, this edition joined by electro DJ/Producer Lockah. NIGHTVISION PRESENTS... MUSIKA

THE LIQUID ROOM, 21:00–03:00, FROM £12.50

Edinburgh club series Nightvision continues, with the Musika crew taking the reins once again – Leeds talent Paul Woolford, Swedish spinner Jonas Rathsman and more.

Sun 15 Nov COALITION

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Weekly bass institution hosted by DJ Believe and pals. ATOMIC BONGO

THE BONGO CLUB, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Free entry Sunday fun night playing funk, soul and old school hip-hop.

Mon 16 Nov MIXED UP

THE HIVE, 22:00–03:00, FREE

Monday-brightening mix of hiphop, r’n’b and chart classics, with requests in the back room. NU FIRE

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, FREE

DJ Fusion and Beef servin’ up the hip-hop and bass classics since 2008.

November 2015

Tue 17 Nov TRASH

THE HIVE, 22:00–03:00, FREE

Alternative anthems cherrypicked from genres of rock, indie, punk, retro and more. HECTOR’S HOUSE

CABARET VOLTAIRE, 23:00–03:00, £4

The HH crew serve up their usual fine mix of electronic basslines cooked up with house beats.

Wed 18 Nov COOKIE

THE HIVE, 22:00–03:00, FREE

Resident midweek student rammy of chart, club and electro hits. WITNESS

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, FREE

House, garage, bass and grime adventures with Blackwax and Faultlines. TRIBE

THE LIQUID ROOM, 22:30–03:00, £5 (£4)

Weekly selection of dance bangers played by residents Khalid Count Clockwork and Craig Wilson. THE GETTUP

CABARET VOLTAIRE, 21:00–03:00, FREE

Midweek party with DJs Thom and Pagowsky playing disco and deep house into the wee hours. In the cafe space. LOCO KAMANCHI

THE BONGO CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£4 GUESTLIST)

Midweek fun night playing soul, funk, jazz, ska, disco and more.

Thu 19 Nov I LOVE HIP HOP

THE BONGO CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £4

Weekly selection of hip-hop classics and brand-new classics to be. TRUANT

CABARET VOLTAIRE, 23:00–03:00, £TBC

Fledgling club night playing and anything and everything good, with special guests to boot. JUICE

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Pumped Thursday nighter with the resident DJs making weird waves through house and techno. HULLABALOO

THE BONGO CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £3 (£2)

Mash-up of beats, breaks and hip-hop from Trendy Wendy and Steve Austin. HI-SOCIETY

THE HIVE, 22:00–03:00, FREE

Student-friendly chart anthems, bolstered by hip-hop, r’n’b and urban in the back room.

Fri 20 Nov FUCK YEAH

THE HIVE, 21:00–03:00, FREE (£4 AFTER 10)

Chart, indie and rock anthems spread over two rooms. PROPAGANDA

THE LIQUID ROOM, 22:30–03:00, £5 (£3 GUESTLIST)

Student-orientated night playing the best in new and classic indie. MJÖLK

WEE RED BAR, 23:00–03:00, £3 (£5 AFTER 11.30)

Regular fun night playing the finest in Swedish indie pop, plus 60s, 70s and independent tunes from near and far. FLY CLUB

CABARET VOLTAIRE, 23:00–03:00, £7

Edinburgh and Glasgow-straddling night, with a powerhouse of local residents joined by a selection of guest talent. HEADSET

THE BONGO CLUB, 23:00–03:00, FREE (£5 AFTER 11.30)

Fledgling night mixed up by a selection of Edinburgh DJs, including the chaps behind the Witness, Coalition and Big ‘n’ Bashy nights. DILF

STUDIO 24, 23:00–03:00, £6

New gay night playing a heady mix of house and techno. KINKY INDIE

IN DEEP: FIRECRACKER RECORDINGS (LORD OF THE ISLES + HOUSE OF TRAPS) SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, £5 (MEMBERS FREE)

The In Deep troops make merry for a Firecracker Records showcase special, with label boss House Of Traps going head-to-head with Lord Of The Isles.

Sat 21 Nov TEASE AGE

CITRUS CLUB, 22:30–03:00, FREE (£5 AFTER 11)

Long-running indie, rock and soul night, traversing the spectrum of classic and modern. THE EGG

WEE RED BAR, 23:00–03:00, £3 (£5 AFTER 12)

Art School institution with DJs Chris and Jake playing the finest in indie, garage, soul and punk – now taking up a monthly Saturday slot, in what is their 20-somethingth year. THE GREEN DOOR

STUDIO 24, 22:30–03:00, £2 (£5/£4 STUDENT AFTER 12)

Surf, blues and rockabilly from the 50s and early 60s, plus free cake. Job done.

House, garage, bass and grime adventures with Blackwax and Faultlines. TRIBE

THE LIQUID ROOM, 22:30–03:00, £5 (£4)

Weekly selection of dance bangers played by residents Khalid Count Clockwork and Craig Wilson. THE GETTUP

CABARET VOLTAIRE, 21:00–03:00, FREE

Midweek party with DJs Thom and Pagowsky playing disco and deep house into the wee hours. In the cafe space. LOCO KAMANCHI

THE BONGO CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£4 GUESTLIST)

Midweek fun night playing soul, funk, jazz, ska, disco and more.

Thu 26 Nov I LOVE HIP HOP

THE BONGO CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £4

Weekly selection of hip-hop classics and brand-new classics to be. TRUANT

CABARET VOLTAIRE, 23:00–03:00, £TBC

POP ROCKS

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Raw, high energy r’n’b from DJs Francis Dosoo and Cameron Mason. ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£6 AFTER 12)

Pop and rock gems, taking in motown, 80s classics and plenty danceable fare (well, the Beep Beep, Yeah! crew are on decks after all).

JUICE

Pumped Thursday nighter with the resident DJs making weird waves through house and techno.

THE BONGO CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £10

THE BURLESQUE BALL

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 21:00–01:00, £TBC

Well-kent burlesque producer Chaz Royal puts on a spread of sparkle-packed burlesque guests for your general pleasure. WASABI DISCO (GABE GURNSEY)

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, £5 / £8

Factory Floor’s main man Gabe Gurnsey makes a special appearance at Wasabi Disco.

THE CAVES, 23:00–03:00, £8

Mash-up of beats, breaks and hip-hop from Trendy Wendy and Steve Austin. HI-SOCIETY

THE HIVE, 22:00–03:00, FREE

Student-friendly chart anthems, bolstered by hip-hop, r’n’b and urban in the back room.

Fri 27 Nov FUCK YEAH

THE HIVE, 21:00–03:00, FREE (£4 AFTER 10)

Chart, indie and rock anthems spread over two rooms. PROPAGANDA

THE LIQUID ROOM, 22:30–03:00, £5 (£3 GUESTLIST)

Student-orientated night playing the best in new and classic indie. ANIMAL HOSPITAL

LA BELLE ANGELE, 23:00–03:00, £5

NIGHTVISION PRESENTS... CHAMPAGNE STEAM ROOMS (KURUPT FM + ONEMAN + BARELY LEGAL)

The Animal Hospital troops continue to medicate Edinburgh with their unique blend of techno, house and minimal.

THE LIQUID ROOM, 21:00–04:00, FROM £12.50

CABARET VOLTAIRE, 23:00–03:00, £7

FLY CLUB

Fri 06 Nov

CITRUS CLUB, 22:30–03:00, FREE (£5 AFTER 11)

READING ROOMS, 22:30–03:00, £10

TEASE AGE

Long-running indie, rock and soul night, traversing the spectrum of classic and modern. RIDE

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, £5 (MEMBERS FREE)

The Ride girls play hip-hop and dance, all night long – now in their new party-ready Saturday night slot. BETAMAX

STUDIO 24, 23:00–03:00, £2 (£5/£4 STUDENT AFTER 12)

MESSENGER SOUND SYSTEM

THE BONGO CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £6 (£7 AFTER 12)

KEEP IT STEEL

STUDIO 24, 23:00–03:00, £5

THE POP BINGO DISCO

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£8 AFTER 12)

Clubbing-meets-bingo (finally, right?), with danceable beats and live bingo. NO MORE FUCKING ABBA

WEE RED BAR, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£5 AFTER 12)

New alternative indie dance party for the queer at heart, with Abba tunes firmly banned.

NIGHTVISION PRESENTS... ANNIE MAC (STORMZY + REDLIGHT + MELE + MONKI) CORN EXCHANGE, 21:00–03:00, FROM £20

Edinburgh club series Nightvision continues, handing over the reins to Radio 1 lass Annie Mac, joined by a hand-picked line-up of her favourite artists of the year so far.

Sun 29 Nov COALITION

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Weekly bass institution hosted by DJ Believe and pals. ATOMIC BONGO

THE BONGO CLUB, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Sun 22 Nov

The legendary ambient producers drift dreamily towards the end of their third decade in existence.

Mon 30 Nov

ATOMIC BONGO

THE BONGO CLUB, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Free entry Sunday fun night playing funk, soul and old school hip-hop.

Mon 23 Nov MIXED UP

THE HIVE, 22:00–03:00, FREE

Monday-brightening mix of hiphop, r’n’b and chart classics, with requests in the back room. NU FIRE

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Tue 24 Nov TRASH

THE HIVE, 22:00–03:00, FREE

Alternative anthems cherrypicked from genres of rock, indie, punk, retro and more.

HEY QT!

WEE RED BAR, 22:30–03:00, £3

Sweaty dance disco for queer folk and their pals. NOTSOSILENT (JON RUST)

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, £8 ADV. (£10 THEREAFTER)

One of NTS Radio’s hottest DJs joins the Notsosilent crew at their November party. KINKY INDIE

CITRUS CLUB, 22:30–03:00, £5 (£6 AFTER 1)

MIXED UP

Sat 07 Nov A GUY CALLED GERALD

READING ROOMS, 22:30–03:00, £12

ASYLUM

Best of selection of rock, metal and alternative tunes to get your Saturday night movin’.

Thu 12 Nov ROOMS THURSDAYS

READING ROOMS, 22:30–02:30, £4 (£5 AFTER 11.30)

Thursday nighter (as the name would suggest), with Dunc4an, Typewriter and guests playing anything and everything ‘good’.

Fri 13 Nov CONTOUR

READING ROOMS, 22:30–03:00, £TBC

More fresh beats and flashy visuals from the Contour crew. WARPED

KAGE, 23:00–03:00, £4

Ska, screamo and pop-punk offerings now in a weekly Friday slot, moving from Alkaline Trio to Zebrahead as it goes.

Sat 14 Nov ASYLUM

KAGE, 23:00–03:00, £4

Best of selection of rock, metal and alternative tunes to get your Saturday night movin’.

BOOK CLUB

READING ROOMS, 22:30–03:00, £TBC

ASYLUM

Best of selection of rock, metal and alternative tunes to get your Saturday night movin’.

Glasgow Theatre CCA: Centre for Contemporary Art CIRCLE WORK

30 NOV, 7:30PM – 9:30PM, FREE (BUT TICKETED)

Glasgow-based visual artist Ruth Barker unveils her ambitious new performance piece – an immersive experience adopting the form of a provisional séance, layered with spoken word, installation and costume elements.

Citizens Theatre THE CHOIR

VARIOUS DATES BETWEEN 24 OCT AND 14 NOV, 7:30PM – 10:30PM, FROM £8.50

READING ROOMS, 22:30–03:00, £5

Young Dundee veterans Teddy Hannan and Correlate & George invite Edinburgh lot Lezure over for a guest set. WARPED

KAGE, 23:00–03:00, £4

Sat 21 Nov LOCARNO

READING ROOMS, 22:30–03:00, £5 (£7 AFTER 12)

Rockabilly, doo-wop, soul and all things golden age and danceable with the Locarno regulars. ASYLUM

KAGE, 23:00–03:00, £4

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 22:30–03:00, FREE (£3 AFTER 12)

Thu 26 Nov ROOMS THURSDAYS

READING ROOMS, 22:30–02:30, £4 (£5 AFTER 11.30)

Thursday nighter (as the name would suggest), with Dunc4an, Typewriter and guests playing anything and everything ‘good’.

Matthew Bourne (y’know, he who is tirelessly reimagining just about every classic in theatrical existence) presents a re-telling of the classic fairytale, set to Tchaikovsky’s original score. Matinee performances also available.

Tron Theatre

MRS BARBOUR’S DAUGHTERS

4–7 NOV, 7:45PM – 10:00PM, FROM £10

Playwright AJ Taudevin charts a family history of sisterhood and betrayal interwoven in a social history of women’s resistance incorporating worker, protest and popular songs from the last 100 years. GOLDEN ART THEATRE PROJECT

4 NOV, 8:30PM – 10:30PM, £7.50

Mix of live music and theatre featuring new short works by some of Scotland’s leading playwrights – including Clare Duffy and Isabel Wright – all inspired by the songs of Edinburgh indie-pop band Golden Arm. SLEEPING BETTY

VARIOUS DATES BETWEEN 27 NOV AND 3 JAN, TIMES VARY, FROM £9

The Tron’s annual irreverent festive panto, featuring daft character creations fairy godmother Flambonia Plunge, Handsome Dan the Fanciest Dancer in All the Land and Fairly Evil the Evil Fairy. Matinee performances also available.

Edinburgh Theatre Assembly Roxy BALLADYNAS AND ROMANCES

9–10 NOV, 7:00PM – 9:00PM, £12 (£10)

Gritty yet heart-warming musical play by Paul Higgins and Ricky Ross about a group of strangers who come together, not always willingly, to sing in a community choir. Matinee performances also available.

3–7 NOV, 7:00PM – 10:30PM, FROM £9

Festival Theatre

VANYA

Rising playwright Sam Holcroft presents his response to Chekhov’s masterpiece Uncle Vanya. Matinee performances also available. THE RIFLES

5–7 NOV, 7:30PM – 10:30PM, £10 (£6)

Glasgow Royal Concert Hall

PHAZED (LEZURE)

Best of selection of rock, metal and alternative tunes to get your Saturday night movin’.

50s rock’n’roll, disco, dirty blues and more, plus live midnight sets from local acts.

Sat 28 Nov

Fri 20 Nov

Thursday nighter (as the name would suggest), with Dunc4an, Typewriter and guests playing anything and everything ‘good’.

Weekly dabblings in indie and alternative tuneage. RUMBLE

Ska, screamo and pop-punk offerings now in a weekly Friday slot, moving from Alkaline Trio to Zebrahead as it goes.

READING ROOMS, 22:30–02:30, £4 (£5 AFTER 11.30)

ROOMS THURSDAYS

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, FREE

NU FIRE

WARPED

KAGE, 23:00–03:00, £4

Musical play telling the stories of the Cameronians at war in France during WWI, based on personal diary extracts, letters, newspaper articles and historical accounts from South Lanarkshire’s Cameronians collection. Matinee performances also available.

Thu 19 Nov

Monday-brightening mix of hiphop, r’n’b and chart classics, with requests in the back room. DJ Fusion and Beef servin’ up the hip-hop and bass classics since 2008.

VARIOUS DATES BETWEEN 17 AND 21 NOV, 7:30PM – 10:00PM, FROM £10

KAGE, 23:00–03:00, £4

WARPED

Ska, screamo and pop-punk offerings now in a weekly Friday slot, moving from Alkaline Trio to Zebrahead as it goes.

THE HIVE, 22:00–03:00, FREE

READING ROOMS, 22:00–03:00, FROM £5

New Reading Rooms’ resident night, playing deep house and techno – joined for its second club outing by The Warehouse Project resident Krysto.

KAGE, 23:00–03:00, £4

Ska, screamo and pop-punk offerings now in a weekly Friday slot, moving from Alkaline Trio to Zebrahead as it goes.

KAGE, 23:00–03:00, £4

50s-themed party fun night, with Frankie Sumatra, Bugsy Seagull, Dino Martini, Sam Jose and Nikki Nevada. Plus Vegas showgirls ago-go, natch.

MATTHEW BOURNE’S SLEEPING BEAUTY

WAVES: PART II (KRYSTO)

The Good Stuff DJs spin all genres of disco house and techno, alongside anything else they damn well fancy.

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 20:30–01:00, £6

VEGAS!

Fri 27 Nov

Headway bring Nonplus+ label boss Boddika to town for his Dundee debut.

Monthly offering of new wave, disco, post-punk and a bit o’ synthtastic 80s with your hosts Chris and Big Gus.

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 19:00–22:00, £18

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, FREE

HEADWAY (BODDIKA)

Manchester-born Gerald Simpson, famous for his early work in the late 80s Manchester acid house scene, takes to the decks for a Reading Rooms club takeover.

Free entry Sunday fun night playing funk, soul and old school hip-hop.

Weekly bass institution hosted by DJ Believe and pals.

ROOMS THURSDAYS

READING ROOMS, 22:30–02:30, £4 (£5 AFTER 11.30)

Sat 28 Nov

Edinburgh and Glasgow-straddling night, with a powerhouse of local residents joined by a selection of guest talent.

COALITION

Thu 05 Nov Thursday nighter (as the name would suggest), with Dunc4an, Typewriter and guests playing anything and everything ‘good’.

Edinburgh club series Nightvision continues, this edition welcoming the Kurupt FM lot as they bring us their big Champagne Steam Rooms imprint to Edinburgh.

THE ORB

Dundee Clubs

The Jackhammer crew provide our dose of all things techno, joined by Hobo, plus support from residents Wolfjazz & Keyte.

HULLABALOO

THE BONGO CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £3 (£2)

Pulse and Substance join forces to welcome percussive maestro Blawan to their lair, with support from Gavin Richardson and Darrell Harding.

JACKHAMMER (HOBO)

The Keep It Steel DJs play the best in heavy metal and hard rock.

CHAMPION SOUND

STUDIO 24, 22:30–03:00, £2 (£5/£4 STUDENT AFTER 12)

SUBSTANCE VS PULSE (BLAWAN)

Celebration of all things acid, techno and debaucherous, this edition with a one-off ‘jungle’ theme. Discounted entry in an animal onsie (we know you secretly own one).

LA BELLE ANGELE, 23:00–03:00

DECADE

Fresh playlists spanning metal, pop-punk and alternative soundscapes.

STUDIO 24, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£6 AFTER 11.30/£3 IN ANIMAL ONSIE)

Conscious roots and dub reggae rockin’ from the usual beefy Messenger soundsystem.

Midweek celebration of all things dub, jungle, reggae, dancehall and everything inbetween.

THE MIGHTY JUNGLE

Local talent Tex’book Tam, Somek and Frozen P take control of the Ghost Sound System.

WITNESS

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Fledgling club night playing and anything and everything good, with special guests to boot.

SOULSVILLE

DJ Fusion and Beef servin’ up the hip-hop and bass classics since 2008.

STUDIO 24, 23:00–03:00, £5

Resident midweek student rammy of chart, club and electro hits.

THE BONGO CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5

CITRUS CLUB, 22:30–03:00, £5 (£6 AFTER 1)

Weekly dabblings in indie and alternative tuneage.

THE HIVE, 22:00–03:00, FREE

SHAKE YER SHOULDERS: JUNGLE SPECIAL

SAINT PETERSBURG CLASSIC BALLET: THE NUTCRACKER

15–16 NOV, 7:30PM – 10:00PM, FROM £19.50

Saint Petersburg Classic Ballet’s retelling of the dance classic, ripe for the (almost) festive season with its dreamlike narrative and Tchaikovsky’s magical score.

The Mitchell Library REVOLVER

6 NOV, 8:00PM – 10:00PM, £15 (£9)

Electronic music performance that uses motion data to generate playful musical patterns, exploring the parallels between the effects of sound and light on marine mammals and the human senses. Part of Sonica festival.

Theatre Royal AN INSPECTOR CALLS

VARIOUS DATES BETWEEN 3 AND 7 NOV, 7:30PM – 10:00PM, FROM £10

New production of J.B. Priestley’s classic thriller, fresh from its fourth West End season. Matinee performances also available.

CARMEN

3 NOV, 6 NOV, 12 NOV, 14 NOV, 7:15PM – 10:15PM, FROM £18

Scottish Opera’s retelling of the timeless musical tale of seduction and obsession, a revival of the 1999 co-production with Welsh National Opera. Matinee performances also available. KING CHARLES III

16–21 NOV, 7:30PM – 10:00PM, FROM £15

Mike Bartlett’s critically acclaimed new future history play, starring Robert Powell as King Charles III. Matinee performances also available. RAMBERT: DARK ARTERIES

26–28 NOV, 7:30PM – 10:00PM, FROM £14

Showcase special, with Dark Arteries forming the centrepiece of a triple bill of stunning dance, which also includes Transfigured Night and The 3 Dancers.

King’s Theatre Edinburgh HANDBAGGED

VARIOUS DATES BETWEEN 2 AND 7 NOV, 7:30PM – 10:00PM, FROM £14

The smash hit West End show, which pits Queen Elizabeth II against Margaret Thatcher. Whoever wins, we lose. Matinee performances also available. SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS

VARIOUS DATES BETWEEN 28 NOV AND 17 JAN, TIMES VARY, FROM £14

Your annual opportunity to boo Grant Stott, who returns in the King’s festive panto as the Wicked Queen. Matinee performances also available.

Royal Lyceum Theatre TIPPING THE VELVET

28 OCT – 14 NOV, NOT 1 NOV, 2 NOV, 8 NOV, 9 NOV, 7:30PM – 10:00PM, FROM £10

Playwright Laura Wade brings Sarah Waters’ bestselling novel to the stage. Matinee performances also available.

Listings

Theatre THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE VARIOUS DATES BETWEEN 28 NOV AND 2 JAN, 7:00PM – 10:00PM, FROM £10

For that Christmassy feelgood feeling, the Lyceum stage a magical retelling of C.S. Lewis’ classic tale of enchanted wardrobes and evil witches. Matinee performances also available.

The Edinburgh Playhouse SHREK: THE MUSICAL

VARIOUS DATES BETWEEN 20 OCT AND 8 NOV, 7:00PM – 10:00PM, FROM £15

Musical telling of a hulking green ogre who, after being mocked and feared, retreats to an ugly swamp to exist in happy isolation before... well, you know the rest. Matinee performances also available. MACK AND MABEL

VARIOUS DATES BETWEEN 10 AND 21 NOV, 7:30PM – 10:00PM, FROM £15

Major new production of the classic Broadway musical starring double Oliver award-winning Michael Ball as Mack Sennett. Matinee performances also available.

Traverse Theatre TRAVERSE HOTHOUSE

10–13 NOV, 8:00PM – 10:00PM, £6 (£4)

The homegrown theatre showcase returns, with four selected companies sharing their newest creations, at varying stages of development. See traverse.co.uk for full programme. CHRYSALIS FESTIVAL

6–7 NOV, TIMES VARY, £12 (£10)

Inauguraul youth theatre festival bringing together various companies from across the UK for a two-day celebration of original performance by talented young performers. See traverse.co.uk for full programme. NORDDANCE FESTIVAL

Dundee Theatre Dundee Rep

JEEVES AND WOOSTER: PERFECT NONESENSE

VARIOUS DATES BETWEEN 9 AND 11 NOV, 7:30PM – 10:00PM, £21.50 (£18.50)

New stage adaptation from the works of P.G. Wodehouse, with a trip to the countryside soon taking a turn for the absurd. Matinee performances also available. THE GREAT GATSBY

2–6 NOV, 7:30PM – 10:00PM, £19 (£15)

New theatrical production based on the classic Jazz Age novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Matinee performances also available. FOR NOW, I AM

14 NOV, 8:00PM – 10:00PM, £14 (£9)

Disabled theatre company Marc Brew Company’s new piece exploring the journey of getting to know and learning to accept a changed body, with newly commissioned music score by Claire McCue and visual projections by Jamie Wardrop.

The Gardyne Theatre HECTOR

7 NOV, 7:30PM – 9:30PM, £12

Powerful drama based on a true story about a soldier posted to Ceylon who encounters a brutal and unforgiving British Empire and Establishment outpost.

Glasgow Art Art Pistol

ART PISTOL’S WINTER SHOW

VARIOUS DATES BETWEEN 7 NOV AND 24 DEC, TIMES VARY, FREE

CCA: Centre for Contemporary Art KATHY HINDE: TIPPING POINT

29 OCT – 8 NOV, NOT 2 NOV, TIMES VARY, FREE

Audio visual artist and composer Kathy Hinde explores the sonic complexities and possibilities of combining glass vessels with shifting water levels. Part of Sonica festival. OLIVIER RATSI: ONION SKIN

29 OCT – 8 NOV, NOT 2 NOV, TIMES VARY, FREE

French visual artist and co-founder of Antivj, Olivier Ratsi unveils a fictional, 3D environment using perspective mapping, with a score composed by fellow Antivj artist Thomas Vaquié. Part of Sonica festival. MICHELLE HANNAH: BLU_ANGL

13–27 NOV, NOT 16, 23, TIMES VARY, FREE

Solo exhibition and durational performance by Michelle Hannah, encompassing Leopardi’s conversation between fashion and death, corporate aesthetics and post-vaporwave sonance.

Listings

FRANCE-LISE MCGURN + MATTHEW MUSGRAVE: ONLY WITH A LIGHT TOUCH WILL YOU WRITE WELL, FREELY AND FAST

JOMPET KUSWIDANANTO: ORDER AND AFTER

29 OCT – 8 NOV, TIMES VARY, FREE

Indonesian artist Jompet Kuswidananto presents a speciallycommissioned new body of work focused on the period known as Reformasi, a democratic change that allowed for greater freedom of expression within the arts. Part of Sonica festival.

RGI Kelly Gallery ALLUSION

VARIOUS DATES BETWEEN 23 OCT AND 14 NOV, TIMES VARY, FREE

Selection of work by more than a dozen of the elected RGIs – including June Carey, Jim Dunbar and Adrian Wiszniewski – into which the viewer is invited to read their own narratives.

VARIOUS DATES BETWEEN 7 NOV AND 12 DEC, 12:00PM – 5:00PM, FREE

The Modern Institute @ Airds Lane

VARIOUS DATES BETWEEN 24 OCT AND 29 NOV, TIMES VARY, FREE

First major UK solo show for Grace Ndiritu since 2007, including a specially-commissioned new film of a performance staged at The Glasgow School of Art.

HAYLEY TOMKINS

VARIOUS DATES BETWEEN 12 SEP AND 7 NOV, 12:00PM – 5:00PM, FREE

ROBBIE THOMSON: THE NEW ALPS 29 OCT – 8 NOV, TIMES VARY, FREE

Following its successful showing at Fort du Bruissin’s Centre d’Art Contemporain in Franchville, Lyon, visual artist Robbie Thomson presents his immersive sculptural work, The New Alps, in Glasgow. Part of Sonica festival.

Glasgow Science Hillhead Library Centre FUTUREPROOF 2015 In celebration of the UNESCO International Year of Light and Light-based Technologies, emerging artists Wintour’s Leap present their first major installation, Helmholtz, commissioned as part of Imogen Heap’s Reverb Festival 2014. Part of Sonica festival.

Glasgow Sculpture Studios

NICOLAS DESHAYES: DARLING, GUTTER

VARIOUS DATES BETWEEN 26 SEP AND 12 DEC, 11:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

Solo exhibition of newlycommissioned work from the London-living, France-born artist, marking his largest solo exhibition to date in Scotland.

GoMA

THE BALLET OF THE PALETTE

20 FEB – 24 JAN, TIMES VARY, FREE

Showcase exhibition of 20th century paintings selected from Glasgow Museums’ collection, chosen by a selection of contemporary artists who exhibited work in the 2013 exhibition, A Picture Show. RIPPLES ON THE POND

27 MAR – 28 FEB, TIMES VARY, FREE

28 SEP – 19 NOV, TIMES VARY, FREE

Annual showcase of new photographic talent selected from across Scotland’s Photography and Fine Art degree courses, with work previously on show at Lillie Art Gallery decamping to Hillhead Library for an extended run.

Hunterian Art Gallery TRAVELLERS’ TAILS

VARIOUS DATES BETWEEN 1 OCT AND 25 FEB, TIMES VARY, FREE

Themed exhibition on exploration, art and science, inspired by the National Maritime Museum’s acquisition of the Kangaroo and Dingo by English painter George Stubbs, with the on-loan Kangaroo forming the exhibition’s centrepiece.

Mary Mary

MATTHEW BRANNON + MILANO CHOW + ALAN REID: I HOPE TO GOD YOU’RE NOT AS DUMB AS YOU MAKE OUT

VARIOUS DATES BETWEEN 26 SEP AND 7 NOV, 12:00PM – 6:00PM, FREE

Triple-header exhibition from artists Matthew Brannon, Milano Chow and Alan Reid. Also one of the best exhibition titles we’ve seen in a long while. ALEXIS TEPLIN: DRAG, PUSH, HOOT

Glasgow Museums’ collection exhibition designed as a conversation between works by women on paper and moving image, taking as its starting point recent acquisitions from the Glasgow Women’s Library 21 Revolutions series.

New body of work from the California-born, London-living artist, whose practice is routed in abstract painting that extends to include sculpture and performance.

18 SEP – 28 FEB, TIMES VARY, FREE

People’s Palace

DEVILS IN THE MAKING

Group exhibition exploring Glasgow Museums’ contemporary art collection through connections with Glasgow School of Art, including work by Christine Borland, Jim Lambie, Victoria Morton and Simon Starling.

Selection of work from Glasgowbased designer and maker Kate Colin, featuring a lighting installation which illustrates how colour and geometric form respond to the presence of light.

Mixed group show taking in work by Lucas Arruda, Anna Bella Geiger, Paloma Bosquê, Mariana Castillo Deball, Adriano Costa, Paulo Nazareth, Solange Pessoa, Celso Renato and Daniel Steegmann Mangrané.

New body of work from Fiona Watson, characterized as ever by a whimsical but sometimes cynical playfulness.

2 OCT – 12 DEC, TIMES VARY, FREE

KATE COLIN: COLOUR AND LIGHT II

27 NOV – 5 JAN, TIMES VARY, FREE

KITI KA’AETÉ

FIONA WATSON: ALL OF THIS IS ANYTHING

GRACE NDIRITU: A RETURN TO NORMALCY

Solo showcase of work by Adam Piggot, director of the Glasgowbased creative micro-agency Red Empire, featuring patterns created by light from remote sources.

30 OCT – 18 DEC, NOT SUNDAYS, TIMES VARY, FREE

Glasgow Print Studio

Glasgow School of Art

ADAM PIGGOT: BORROWED LIGHT 20 NOV – 5 JAN, TIMES VARY, FREE

The Modern Institute

Double-header exhibition taking its unwieldy title from Read’s Suggestions for writing appendix to the Shavian Alphabet edition of Androcles and The Lion, with each artists’ work each containing glyphs and exploring themes of symbols.

WINTOUR’S LEAP: HELMHOLTZ

Saleable exhibition of ‘beautiful and peculiar’ fine art from the likes of Coll Hamilton, Rogue-One, Ashley Cook and many more.

David Dale Gallery and Studios

15 OCT – 29 NOV, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

20–21 NOV, 7:30PM – 9:30PM, £12 (£10)

Celebration of dance that connects Scotland and the Nordic countries, created and programmed by Dance Base. See traverse.co.uk for full programme.

Art

Govanhill Baths

VARIOUS DATES BETWEEN 21 NOV AND 23 JAN, 12:00PM – 6:00PM, FREE

ART OF BILLY CONNOLLEY

VARIOUS DATES BETWEEN 28 AUG AND 21 FEB, TIMES VARY, FREE

Exhibition of comic Billy Connolly’s artworks, shown together with a range of objects from Glasgow Museums’ collection – including those famous banana boots and his guitar made from a White Horse whisky box.

Street Level Photoworks SURFACE TENSION

VARIOUS DATES BETWEEN 3 SEP AND 8 NOV, TIMES VARY, FREE

Showcase of four contemporary artists who variously use intuitive processes to produce tactile, lyrical and multi-layered artworks: Lorna Macintyre, Susanne Ramsenthaler, Karen L Vaughan and Catherine Cameron. NVA, JAMES JOHNSON + ALAN MCATEER: ISLAND DRIFT

VARIOUS DATES BETWEEN 14 NOV AND 24 JAN, TIMES VARY, FREE

Immersive photographic installation produced in partnership with Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park, following an 8-month residency at Loch Lomond producing a series of fine art landscape photographs.

The Common Guild

THOMAS DEMAND: DAILY SHOW

VARIOUS DATES BETWEEN 26 SEP AND 12 DEC, TIMES VARY, FREE

Solo exhibition by German artist Thomas Demand, including new and recent works from his series ‘The Dailies’, in an installation devised specifically for The Common Guild space.

The Glue Factory

Installation of new work from Glasgow-living artist Hayley Tompkins, addressing her interest in natural phenomena and colour saturated technology explored through various different ideas.

SIMON STARLING: NINE FEET LATER

VARIOUS DATES BETWEEN 14 NOV AND 2 JAN, 12:00PM – 5:00PM, FREE

New body of work from the Turner Prize-winning conceptual artist who emerged from the Glasgow art scene in the early 1990s.

Tramway

TURNER PRIZE 2015

VARIOUS DATES BETWEEN 1 OCT AND 17 JAN, TIMES VARY, FREE

The prestigious visual art award comes Scotland for the first time, with a programme of workshops, talks, tours and activities accompanying the exhibition showcase.

iota @ Unlimited Studios FAIR AND FOUL

Collective Gallery

HARDEEP PANDHAL: HOBSONJOBSON

VARIOUS DATES BETWEEN 14 NOV AND 17 JAN, 10:00AM – 4:00PM, FREE

Solo showcase of new work from the British artist of Indian origin, currently living and working in Glasgow, encompassing new drawings and videos telling conflicted stories around the artist’s own identity.

Dovecot Studios SELECTED 2015

21 NOV – 23 DEC, NOT SUNDAYS, 10:30AM – 5:30PM, FREE

Selling exhibition of contemporary Scottish craft and design – now in its third year – showcasing local makers across disciplines including jewellery, silversmithing, ceramics, glass, textiles and furniture.

Gayfield Creative Spaces DEIRDRE MACLEOD: FROM THE GROUND UP

7–11 NOV, 12:00PM – 6:00PM, FREE

New work by Edinburgh-based artist and recent ECA graduate Deirdre Macleod, including a series of large-scale, abstract pencil drawings with a technical drawing aesthetic, drawings on Perspex and small-scale 3D constructions.

Ingleby Gallery

JAMES HUGONIN: BINARY RHYTHM

10 OCT – 21 NOV, NOT SUNDAYS, 10:00AM – 6:00PM, FREE

Royal Scottish Academy RSA RSA OPEN 2015

28 NOV – 14 FEB, TIMES VARY, FREE

Exhibition of small works sourced by open submission from artists across Scotland, including paintings, drawings, sculptures, prints and photographs – all available to buy – from around 400 different artists. Expect the usual pick’n’mix wonderland.

Scottish National Gallery ROCKS AND RIVERS: THE LUNDE COLLECTION

3–30 APR, TIMES VARY, FREE

Long-term loan from one of the finest private collections of 19thCentury Norwegian and Swiss landscape paintings, American collector Asbjörn Lunde, taking in 13 works by artists including Johan Christian Dahl, Alexandre Calame and Thomas Fearnley. ARTHUR MELVILLE

10 OCT – 17 JAN, TIMES VARY, £9 (£7)

First exhibition in over 35 years devoted to the art of innovative Scottish painter Arthur Melville, a close associate of the Glasgow Boys.

D.Y. CAMERON: THE SPIRIT OF LINE

24 OCT – 21 FEB, TIMES VARY, FREE

Selection of prints and watercolours from the Scottish National Gallery’s extensive collection of Sir David Young Cameron’s work, marking the 150th anniversary of his birth.

New exhibition celebrating the completion of James Hugonin’s Binary Rhythm sequence, with seven of the nine indentically-sized abstract paintings on show.

Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art

National Museum of Scotland

14 MAR – 10 JAN, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

THE SILVERSMITH’S ART

18 SEP – 4 JAN, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

Celebration of the artistry and skill of British modern silversmiths, presenting work from the Contemporary Silver Collection of the Goldsmiths’ Company, London, dating from the millennium to present day.

ROY LICHTENSTEIN

A special three-room ‘Artist Rooms’ display dedicated to works by celebrated American pop artist Roy Lichtenstein, bringing together a newly assembled group of works care of the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation and the Estate of Roy Lichtenstein.

14–28 NOV, NOT 15, 16, 22, 23, TIMES VARY, FREE

Joint show of paintings by Richard Walker and Andrew Cranston, whose contemporary works explore light, darkness, poetry, space, representation, iconography, sign and mark-making.

Edinburgh Art

MORTONUNDERWOOD: CONTRA

29 OCT – 7 NOV, NOT 2 NOV, 3 NOV, TIMES VARY, FREE

MortonUnderwood present a Giant Feedback Organ re-configured as an interactive sub-bass sound installation where deep drones emanate, interplay and reverberate around the room. Part of Sonica festival.

The Lighthouse THE NATURE OF ART NOUVEAU

17 OCT – 24 DEC, TIMES VARY, FREE

Exhibition conceived by Catalan art historian Teresa-M. Sala, based on both encyclopaedic information and individual experimentation, using photographs and documents, together with a dynamic scenography created by Antoni Garau. KATHY HINDE: SUBMERGE

29 OCT – 10 JAN, TIMES VARY, FREE

Exhibition exploring Glasgow’s now forgotten streams using Kathy Hinde’s interactive sound map, combining intriguing underwater sounds with scientific data. Part of Sonica festival.

City Art Centre THE ARTIST AND THE SEA

26 SEP – 8 MAY, TIMES VARY, FREE

Themed exhibition by a range of different artists capturing the character of the sea, taking in painting, drawing, printmaking, photography and sculpture, and including works by John Bellany, William McTaggart, Joan Eardley and Elizabeth Ogilvie. WILLIAM GEAR 24 OCT – 14 FEB, TIMES VARY, FREE

Retrospective exhibition of the British abstract painter, tracing his influence through his association with CoBrA in the 1940s, right through to his later work and death in 1997. JAGGED GENERATION: WILLIAM GEAR’S CONTEMPORARIES

24 OCT – 7 FEB, TIMES VARY, FREE

Selection of artworks from the City Art Centre’s collection, chosen to complement the exhibition retrospective of William Gear, which runs alongside.

PHOTOGRAPHY: A VICTORIAN SENSATION 19 JUN – 22 NOV, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, £10 (£8 STUDENT/£6.50 CHILD)

Illuminating showcase of over 1,500 photographs charting the changing techniques used by photographers and studios during the 19th century, exploring the stories of the people both in front of and behind the camera.

Rhubaba

LUCY PARKER: BLACKLIST

VARIOUS DATES BETWEEN 20 NOV AND 6 DEC, 12:00PM – 5:00PM, FREE

Artist-cum-filmmaker Lucy Parker reflects on her year-long research project into the experiences of blacklisted construction workers, developing ideas for the production of a new film.

REFLECTIONS 14 MAR – 10 JAN, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

Changing series of displays showcasing the work of a diverse range of internationally-renowned contemporary artists, including newly commissioned work by contemporary artists Michael Fullerton and Julie Favreau.

MODERN SCOTTISH WOMEN: PAINTERS AND SCULPTORS 1885-1965

7 NOV – 26 JUN, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, £9 (£7)

Showcase exhibition of work by Scottish women artists, concentrating on painters and sculptors, covering the period from 1885 to 1965.

THE SKINNY

Dundee Art

Comedy

Cooper Gallery

COMEDIAN RAP BATTLES

TOMORROW WAS A MONTAGE

30 OCT – 19 DEC, NOT SUNDAYS, 11:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

Group show of work by Polish and Hungarian artists and filmmakers from three generations, featuring graphic design, animation, artists’ films and performances by Wojciech B kowski, Roman Cieslewicz, György Kovásznai, Jan Lenica and Zbigniew Rybczynski.

DCA: Dundee Contemporary Arts Scottish Talbot Rice National Portrait Gallery LUC TUYMANS: BIRDS OF A FEATHER Gallery 31 OCT – 19 DEC, NOT SUNDAYS, TIMES HEAD TO HEAD: PORTRAIT SCULPTURE – ANCIENT TO MODERN

6 JUN – 31 JAN, TIMES VARY, FREE

Exhibition of portrait sculpture from across the National Galleries of Scotland’s collection, moving from ancient to modern and executed in a range of media, illustrating how sculptors continue to reference the illustrious tradition of the portrait bust. DOCUMENT SCOTLAND: THE TIES THAT BIND

26 SEP – 24 APR, TIMES VARY, FREE

Photographic collective comprising of Colin McPherson, Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert, Sophie Gerrard and Stephen McLaren – four Scotsborn photographers, each exponents of documentary photography – featuring 50-75 photographs of, and about, Scotland. BP PORTRAIT AWARD 2015

10 OCT – 28 FEB, TIMES VARY, FREE

Annual showcase of the best in contemporary portrait painting from around the world, now in its 34th year and marking the sixth time the Scottish National Portrait Gallery has hosted the exhibition.

St Margaret’s House MEDLEY 3

24 OCT – 15 NOV, 10:00AM – 6:00PM, FREE

Interdisciplinary show taking in various media by invited artists and designers, including work by MIX collective, current textile students from Edinburgh College of Art, and artist William J Gall. RE:SEE IT 3

24 OCT – 16 NOV, 10:00AM – 6:00PM, FREE

Various artists respond to the concepts of environmental sustainability, aimed at encouraging a Scotland-wide artistic response to global climate change.

Stills

JILL TODD PHOTOGRAPHIC AWARD 2015 7 NOV – 17 JAN, 11:00AM – 6:00PM, FREE

Annual photography award showcase, featuring the work of this year’s winning entrants Matt Hay, Alan Knox and Mhairi Law, plus works by a selection of commended entrants.

Summerhall

THE KOESTLER SCOTLAND EXHIBITION

7–29 NOV, 11:00AM – 6:00PM, FREE

Exhibition of artwork from prisons, secure hospitals, secure children’s homes, immigration detention centres and community justice services in Scotland, selected by artist Ruth Ewan from entries to the 2015 Koestler Awards.

VARY, FREE

Special showcase marking Luc Tuymans’ first exhibition in Scotland, including new paintings and drawings made for Edinburgh, exhibited alongside works by Scottish Enlightenment portrait painter Henry Raeburn. IMPULSES TOWARDS LIFE

31 OCT – 19 DEC, NOT SUNDAYS, TIMES VARY, FREE

Collection of drawings and paintings from the Edinburgh College of Art collection, emphasising the reimagining of the human form in the last century, including early drawings by William McTaggart, John Bellany, Elizabeth Blackadder, Henry Moore and more.

The Biscuit Factory PATHS

5–8 NOV, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

Group exhibition of site-specific installationsandsculptureexploring the theme of paths, taking in work by Ben Martin, Clare Flatley, Emma MacLeod, Holly Clement and Nazia Mohammad.

The Fruitmarket Gallery ANOTHER MINIMALISM

14 NOV – 21 FEB, TIMES VARY, FREE

Group show bringing together a select group of current artists with that of two pioneers of West Coast American minimalism (Robert Irwin and Larry Bell), examining the impact of California Light and Space art on artists working today.

The Queen’s Gallery

SCOTTISH ARTISTS 1750-1900: FROM CALEDONIA TO THE CONTINENT

6 AUG – 7 FEB, 9:30AM – 6:00PM, £6.60 (£6 STUDENT/£3 UNDER 17S)

First ever exhibition devoted to Scottish art in the Royal Collection, bringing together paintings, drawings and miniatures collected by monarchs from George III to Queen Victoria.

HIDEYUKI KATSUMATA: USO DE HONTOU

3 OCT – 15 NOV, 11:00AM – 6:00PM, FREE

THE THURSDAY SHOW (TOM STADE + SUZI RUFFELL + JIM SMITH + ROB KANE + MC BRUCE DEVLIN) THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:30, £10 (£7 STUDENTS/£5 MEMBERS)

Weekend-welcoming selection of handpicked headline acts and newcomers over a two-hour showcase. YESPBAR VIRGINS

YESBAR, 21:00–22:30, £3

28 NOV – 14 FEB, 11:00AM – 6:00PM, FREE

A selection of top names in professional comedy work through new material.

IC-98: DRAWN INTO TOMORROW

Showcase of work by the artist duo IC-98 in their largest UK show to date, fresh from representing Finland at the 2015 Venice Biennale.

Generator Projects

CHRISTOPHER MACINNES: SMALL GATE, INFINITE FIELD

VARIOUS DATES BETWEEN 14 NOV AND 13 DEC, 12:00PM – 5:00PM, FREE

Solo presentation of new work from emerging artist Christopher Macinnes, incorporating moving image, sound and script.

Hannah Maclure Centre AH-BIN SHIM: 2

9 NOV – 12 FEB, WEEKDAYS ONLY, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

Solo exhibition by Korean visual artist Ah-Bin Shim as part of NEoN Digital Arts Festival – whose work explores conflict, both conceptually and in its materiality.

Tin Roof Studios IN NO CITE THERE IS SURRENDER

COMEDY IN PROGRESS

TRON THEATRE, 20:30–22:30, £7.50

Fri 06 Nov

THE FRIDAY SHOW (TOM STADE + SUZI RUFFELL + JIM SMITH + ROB KANE + MC BRUCE DEVLIN)

THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:30, £12 (£10 STUDENTS/£6 MEMBERS)

Prime stand-up from the Scottish and international circuit, hosted by a rotating selection of Stand stalwarts. LAUGHTER EIGHT

YESBAR, 20:00–21:30, £8

Regular comedy slot kicking off at, aye, 8pm – manned by a selection of hot talent from the local circuit. GILDED BALLOON COMEDY @ DRYGATE (ROB ROUSE + LUCY BEAUMONT + JOHN GAVIN + MC SCOTT GIBSON)

DRYGATE BREWING CO., 20:00–22:00, £12.50 (£11.50)

Long-running comedy club the Gilded Balloon hits up Drygate for a new residency, combing the joys of a craft brewery setting with a rotating schedule of live comedy talent.

RED RAW

THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:30, £2

Open-mic style beginners showcase, plus some old hands dropping by to roadtest new material.

Wed 11 Nov NEW MATERIAL NIGHT

YESBAR, 20:00–22:00, £3

Resident host Julia Sutherland introduces a variety of stand-up comedians from the Scottish circuit delivering all new material. BBC COMEDY PRESENTS...

THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:30, £4

BBC-selected sketch comedy showcase where handpicked new acts get their chance to shine – with each performer getting a quickfire 5-10 minutes on stage.

Thu 12 Nov

THE THURSDAY SHOW (MARKUS BIRDMAN + SUSIE MCCABE + TOM TOAL + LIAM WITHNAIL + MC BILLY KIRKWOOD)

THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:30, £10 (£7 STUDENTS/£5 MEMBERS)

Weekend-welcoming selection of handpicked headline acts and newcomers over a two-hour showcase. YESPBAR VIRGINS

YESBAR, 21:00–22:30, £3

Graham Barrie introduces a selection of fledgling comedy talent handpicked fae Scotland.

Fri 13 Nov

THE FRIDAY SHOW (MARKUS BIRDMAN + SUSIE MCCABE + TOM TOAL + LIAM WITHNAIL + MC BILLY KIRKWOOD)

THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:30, £12 (£10 STUDENTS/£6 MEMBERS)

Prime stand-up from the Scottish and international circuit, hosted by a rotating selection of Stand stalwarts. LAUGHTER EIGHT

YESBAR, 20:00–21:30, £8

Regular comedy slot kicking off at, aye, 8pm – manned by a selection of hot talent from the local circuit.

THE ADMIRAL, 20:00–22:30, £14 (£10)

Live stand-up, magic and burlesque dancing combined in one heady whole. LAUGHTER EIGHT

YESBAR, 20:00–21:30, £8

Regular comedy slot kicking off at, aye, 8pm – manned by a selection of hot talent from the local circuit.

Mon 16 Nov

INSANE CHAMPIONSHIP WRESTLING: HAVE I GOT CHAIR SHOTS FOR YOU

THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:30, £6 (£5)

The stand-up comedy show by wrestling fans, for wrestling fans, makes its return – with team captains pro-wrestlers Chris Renfrew and Jack Jester, plus host Billy Kirkwood, at the helm.

Tue 17 Nov RED RAW

THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:30, £2

Open-mic style beginners showcase, plus some old hands dropping by to roadtest new material.

Wed 18 Nov NEW MATERIAL NIGHT

YESBAR, 20:00–22:00, £3

Resident host Julia Sutherland introduces a variety of stand-up comedians from the Scottish circuit delivering all new material.

GLASGOW STRAIGHT TALK BENEFIT

THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:30, £7 (£5)

Comedy fundraiser in aid of Glasgow Straight Talk.

Thu 19 Nov

THE THURSDAY SHOW (CAREY MARX + DEIRDRE O’KANE + SCOTT GIBSON + OWEN MCGUIRE + MC JOE HEENAN)

THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:30, £10 (£7 STUDENTS/£5 MEMBERS)

Weekend-welcoming selection of handpicked headline acts and newcomers over a two-hour showcase. YESPBAR VIRGINS

YESBAR, 21:00–22:30, £3

Graham Barrie introduces a selection of fledgling comedy talent handpicked fae Scotland. MICHAEL MCINTYRE: HAPPY AND GLORIOUS

THE SSE HYDRO, 20:00–22:00, FROM £39.20

21–24 NOV, 3:00PM – 7:00PM, FREE

The English comic (of the Michael McIntyre Comedy Roadshow) takes to the road again no doubt flopping his head about in a silly way.

Double-header exhibition bringing together two ‘languages’ of abstraction: Natasha Djikhoff’s expressionism, alongside James Lee’s minimalism.

FESTIVAL OF THE SPOKEN NERDS: JUST FOR GRAPHS

University of Dundee

ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:00, £15 (£13)

Live comedy for the sci-curious, with geek songstress Helen Arney, science expert Steve Mould and stand-up mathematician Matt Parker

MAT FLEMING

30 OCT – 9 JAN, NOT SUNDAYS, TIMES VARY, FREE

Solo showcase presenting the works developed by artist Matt Fleming during his 10-month residency at LifeSpace. In the LifeSpace Gallery.

Fri 20 Nov

THE FRIDAY SHOW (CAREY MARX + DEIRDRE O’KANE + SCOTT GIBSON + OWEN MCGUIRE + MC JOE HEENAN)

THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:30, £12 (£10 STUDENTS/£6 MEMBERS)

Prime stand-up from the Scottish and international circuit, hosted by a rotating selection of Stand stalwarts.

Glasgow Comedy

7–12 NOV, TIMES VARY, FREE

THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:30, £2

RED RAW

Open-mic style beginners showcase, plus some old hands dropping by to roadtest new material. HARRY ENFIELD AND PAUL WHITEHOUSE: LEGENDS!

SECC, 19:30–22:00, FROM £36.40

The comedy double act revive a quarter of a century of classic comedy characters, expect Loadsamoney, Kevin the Teenager, Julio Geordio, The Scousers and more.

Wed 04 Nov NEW MATERIAL NIGHT

YESBAR, 20:00–22:00, £3

Resident host Julia Sutherland introduces a variety of stand-up comedians from the Scottish circuit delivering all new material.

November 2015

Thu 05 Nov

Graham Barrie introduces a selection of fledgling comedy talent handpicked fae Scotland.

Tue 03 Nov

Edinburgh living and painting artist, with a studio based in Summerhall, painting colourful abstract expressions echoing places she remembers or places she may visit someday.

Ro Cambell and The Wee Man’s comedian rap battle-off, where a select batch of comics compete to see who’s got the most swagger when it comes to hippity-hop wit.

Largest exhibition to date from the Tokyo-born and living artist, featuring a selection of murals, prints and motion video works.

Whitespace Gayfield Square ANNA SOMERVILLE

THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:30, £6 (£4)

Tue 10 Nov

ENTERTEASEMENT (VLADIMIR MCTAVISH + GRAHAM MACKIE + GREGG WILSON + FRITZ + PEACHY MALONE + MISS LUCIE-FURR)

LAUGHTER EIGHT

Sat 07 Nov

THE SATURDAY SHOW (TOM STADE + SUZI RUFFELL + JIM SMITH + ROB KANE + MC BRUCE DEVLIN) THE STAND GLASGOW, 21:00–23:00, £15

Packed Saturday evening bill of stand-up headliners and resident comperes to jolly along your weekend. LAUGHTER EIGHT

YESBAR, 20:00–21:30, £8

Regular comedy slot kicking off at, aye, 8pm – manned by a selection of hot talent from the local circuit.

Mon 09 Nov

SCOTTISH LIVING WAGE CAMPAIGN BENEFIT (SCOTT AGNEW + MARC JENNINGS + MC BILLY KIRKWOOD)

THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:30, £7.85 (£5)

Comedy fundraiser in aid of the Scottish Living Wage Campaign.

YESBAR, 20:00–21:30, £8

DAN CLARK: ME, MY SELFIE & I ORAN MOR, 20:00–22:00, £10

Best known as Don Danbury from BBC3’s cult hit sitcom How Not To Live Your Life and Johnny Two Hats from The Mighty Boosh, Dan Clark returns for a solo outing.

Sat 14 Nov

THE SATURDAY SHOW (MARKUS BIRDMAN + SUSIE MCCABE + TOM TOAL + LIAM WITHNAIL + MC BILLY KIRKWOOD)

THE STAND GLASGOW, 21:00–23:00, £15

Packed Saturday evening bill of stand-up headliners and resident comperes to jolly along your weekend.

Regular comedy slot kicking off at, aye, 8pm – manned by a selection of hot talent from the local circuit. GILDED BALLOON COMEDY @ DRYGATE (MATT FORDE + JOHNNY PELHAM + JIM SMITH + MC RAY BRADSHAW)

DRYGATE BREWING CO., 20:00–22:00, £12.50 (£11.50)

Long-running comedy club the Gilded Balloon hits up Drygate for a new residency, combing the joys of a craft brewery setting with a rotating schedule of live comedy talent. MICHAEL MCINTYRE: HAPPY AND GLORIOUS

THE SSE HYDRO, 20:00–22:00, FROM £39.20

The English comic (of the Michael McIntyre Comedy Roadshow) takes to the road again no doubt flopping his head about in a silly way.

Sat 21 Nov

THE SATURDAY SHOW (CAREY MARX + DEIRDRE O’KANE + SCOTT GIBSON + OWEN MCGUIRE + MC JOE HEENAN)

THE STAND GLASGOW, 21:00–23:00, £15

Packed Saturday evening bill of stand-up headliners and resident comperes to jolly along your weekend. LAUGHTER EIGHT

YESBAR, 20:00–21:30, £8

LAUGHTER EIGHT YESBAR, 20:00–21:30, £8

Regular comedy slot kicking off at, aye, 8pm – manned by a selection of hot talent from the local circuit.

Sun 29 Nov

MICHAEL REDMOND’S SUNDAY SERVICE (VIV GEE + DEREK JOHNSTON + MICHAEL REDMOND)

THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:30, £6 (£5 STUDENTS/£1 MEMBERS)

Regular comedy slot kicking off at, aye, 8pm – manned by a selection of hot talent from the local circuit.

Chilled Sunday comedy showcase manned by resident Irish funnyman Michael Redmond and his handpicked guests.

THE SSE HYDRO, 20:00–22:00, FROM £39.20

Mon 30 Nov

MICHAEL MCINTYRE: HAPPY AND GLORIOUS

The English comic (of the Michael McIntyre Comedy Roadshow) takes to the road again no doubt flopping his head about in a silly way.

Sun 22 Nov

MICHAEL REDMOND’S SUNDAY SERVICE (BRUCE FUMMEY + ERIC DAVIDSON + DAISY EARL + MICHAEL REDMOND)

THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:30, £6 (£5 STUDENTS/£1 MEMBERS)

Chilled Sunday comedy showcase manned by resident Irish funnyman Michael Redmond and his handpicked guests.

Mon 23 Nov

SO... THAT WAS NOVEMBER?

THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:30, £7 (£5)

Messrs McTavish, Nelson and McAllister return with another show in their pre/post-election series – offering leftfield stand-up, chat and comment on the political state of the world.

Tue 24 Nov RED RAW

THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:30, £2

Open-mic style beginners showcase, plus some old hands dropping by to roadtest new material. ANDY PARSONS: LIVE AND UNLEASHED

ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:00, £15

Mock the Week funny-man out on UK tour.

Wed 25 Nov NEW MATERIAL NIGHT

YESBAR, 20:00–22:00, £3

Resident host Julia Sutherland introduces a variety of stand-up comedians from the Scottish circuit delivering all new material.

Thu 26 Nov

THE THURSDAY SHOW (MICHAEL FABBRI + JOHN ROSS + AIDEEN MCQUEEN + WAYNE MADZADZA + MC STU MURPHY)

THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:30, £10 (£7 STUDENTS/£5 MEMBERS)

Weekend-welcoming selection of handpicked headline acts and newcomers over a two-hour showcase. YESPBAR VIRGINS

YESBAR, 21:00–22:30, £3

Graham Barrie introduces a selection of fledgling comedy talent handpicked fae Scotland.

Fri 27 Nov

THE FRIDAY SHOW (MICHAEL FABBRI + JOHN ROSS + AIDEEN MCQUEEN + WAYNE MADZADZA + MC STU MURPHY) THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:30, £12 (£10 STUDENTS/£6 MEMBERS)

Prime stand-up from the Scottish and international circuit, hosted by a rotating selection of Stand stalwarts. LAUGHTER EIGHT

YESBAR, 20:00–21:30, £8

Regular comedy slot kicking off at, aye, 8pm – manned by a selection of hot talent from the local circuit.

Sat 28 Nov

THE SATURDAY SHOW (MICHAEL FABBRI + JOHN ROSS + AIDEEN MCQUEEN + WAYNE MADZADZA + MC STU MURPHY)

THE STAND GLASGOW, 21:00–23:00, £15

Packed Saturday evening bill of stand-up headliners and resident comperes to jolly along your weekend.

MY SUPER SWEET CHUNKS 16

THE GRIFFIN, 21:00–23:00, FREE

Anarchic night of live comedy comprised of variety acts, sketches, monologues, character bits, animations, inanimations, contemporary dance, readings, or indeed just anything silly. RHONA MCKENZIE WHEELCHAIR BENEFIT

THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:30, £10

Comedy fundraiser in aid of comedian Rhona McKenzie’s wheelchairs.

Edinburgh Comedy Tue 03 Nov

RICHARD MELVIN PRESENTS... RADIO RECORDINGS

THE STAND EDINBURGH, 20:00–21:00, FREE (BUT TICKETED)

Funnyman Richard Melvin introduces an all-star cast of comedy stalwarts currently recording radio shows. And all for gratis!

Thu 05 Nov

THE THURSDAY SHOW (DAVE FULTON + CHRIS FORBES + TANIA EDWARDS + DANIEL WEBSTER + MC RAYMOND MEARNS)

THE STAND EDINBURGH, 21:00–23:00, £10 (£7 STUDENTS/£5 MEMBERS)

Weekend-welcoming selection of handpicked headline acts and newcomers over a two-hour showcase.

MONKEY BARRELL COMEDY: NEW MATERIAL NIGHT

BEEHIVE INN, 20:30–22:30, £3

A selection of Edinburgh’s top stand up comedians test new material in front of a live audience.

Fri 06 Nov

THE FRIDAY SHOW (DAVE FULTON + CHRIS FORBES + TANIA EDWARDS + DANIEL WEBSTER + MC RAYMOND MEARNS)

THE STAND EDINBURGH, 21:00–23:00, £12 (£10 STUDENT/£6 MEMBERS)

Prime stand-up from the Scottish and international circuit, hosted by a rotating selection of Stand stalwarts. MONKEY BARRELL COMEDY FRIDAY SHOW

BEEHIVE INN, 20:30–22:30, £10

Regular weekend comedy showcase featuring a selection of up-and-coming acts from Scotland and beyond, topped with a guest headliner. See Facebook on the day for line-ups.

Sat 07 Nov

THE SATURDAY SHOW (DAVE FULTON + CHRIS FORBES + TANIA EDWARDS + DANIEL WEBSTER + MC RAYMOND MEARNS)

THE STAND EDINBURGH, 21:00–23:00, £15

Packed Saturday evening bill of stand-up headliners and resident comperes to jolly along your weekend. GILDED BALLOON COMEDY @ DRYGATE (ROB ROUSE + LUCY BEAUMONT + JOHN GAVIN + MC SCOTT GIBSON)

FESTIVAL THEATRE, 20:00–22:00, £12.50 (£11.50)

Long-running comedy club the Gilded Balloon hits up Drygate for a new residency, combing the joys of a craft brewery setting with a rotating schedule of live comedy talent.

Listings

IMPROV GAMES

STU & GARRY’S FREE IMPROV SHOW

THE TRON, 19:00–22:00, FREE

THE STAND EDINBURGH, 13:30–15:30, FREE

A selection of Scottish improv comedy talent perform short-form games for laughter and points. MONKEY BARRELL COMEDY SATURDAY SHOW

BEEHIVE INN, 20:30–22:30, £10

Regular weekend comedy showcase featuring a selection of up-and-coming acts from Scotland and beyond, topped with a guest headliner. See Facebook on the day for line-ups.

Sun 08 Nov

Long-running improvised comedy show with resident duo Stu & Garry weaving comedy magic from offthe-cuff audience suggestions.

Mon 16 Nov RED RAW

THE STAND EDINBURGH, 20:30–22:30, £2

Open-mic style beginners showcase, plus some old hands dropping by to roadtest new material.

SO... THAT WAS NOVEMBER?

THE STAND EDINBURGH, 20:30–22:30, £7 (£5)

Long-running improvised comedy show with resident duo Stu & Garry weaving comedy magic from offthe-cuff audience suggestions.

Messrs McTavish, Nelson and McAllister return with another show in their pre/post-election series – offering leftfield stand-up, chat and comment on the political state of the world.

Mon 09 Nov

Thu 19 Nov

RED RAW

Open-mic style beginners showcase, plus some old hands dropping by to roadtest new material.

Tue 10 Nov

WATCH BAD MOVIES WITH GREAT COMEDIANS PRESENTS: THE AVENGERS

THE STAND EDINBURGH, 20:30–22:30, £5

Joe Heenan and Billy Kirkwood bring their Watch Bad Movies... event to Edinburgh for its debut, screening Jeremiah Chechik’s reliably rubbish The Avengers with laugh-a-long live commentary.

Thu 12 Nov

THE THURSDAY SHOW (JEFF INNOCENT + NICK CRANSTON + AMY HOWERSKA + ROSCO MCSKELTON + MC JOE HEENAN)

THE STAND EDINBURGH, 21:00–23:00, £10 (£7 STUDENTS/£5 MEMBERS)

Weekend-welcoming selection of handpicked headline acts and newcomers over a two-hour showcase.

Fri 13 Nov

THE FRIDAY SHOW (JEFF INNOCENT + NICK CRANSTON + AMY HOWERSKA + ROSCO MCSKELTON + MC JOE HEENAN) THE STAND EDINBURGH, 21:00–23:00, £12 (£10 STUDENT/£6 MEMBERS)

Prime stand-up from the Scottish and international circuit, hosted by a rotating selection of Stand stalwarts. MONKEY BARRELL COMEDY FRIDAY SHOW

BEEHIVE INN, 20:30–22:30, £10

Regular weekend comedy showcase featuring a selection of up-and-coming acts from Scotland and beyond, topped with a guest headliner. See Facebook on the day for line-ups.

Sat 14 Nov

THE SATURDAY SHOW (NICK CRANSTON + ALLYSON JUNE SMITH + ROSCO MCSKELETON + MC JOE HEENAN) THE STAND EDINBURGH, 21:00–23:00, £15

Packed Saturday evening bill of stand-up headliners and resident comperes to jolly along your weekend. MONKEY BARRELL COMEDY SATURDAY SHOW

BEEHIVE INN, 20:30–22:30, £10

Regular weekend comedy showcase featuring a selection of up-and-coming acts from Scotland and beyond, topped with a guest headliner. See Facebook on the day for line-ups.

Sun 15 Nov

MICHAEL REDMOND’S SUNDAY SERVICE (TOM TOAL + KEIRON NICHOLSON + LARAH BROSS + JACK CAMPBELL + MC MICHAEL REDMOND)

THE STAND EDINBURGH, 20:30–22:30, £6 (£5 STUDENTS/£1 MEMBERS)

Chilled Sunday comedy showcase manned by resident Irish funnyman Michael Redmond and his handpicked guests.

Listings

THE THURSDAY SHOW (ROB DEERING + ABIGOLIAH SCHAUMAUN + DAVEY CONNOR + ANDREW LEARMONTH + MC STU MURPHY) THE STAND EDINBURGH, 21:00–23:00, £10 (£7 STUDENTS/£5 MEMBERS)

Weekend-welcoming selection of handpicked headline acts and newcomers over a two-hour showcase.

THE BLUNT CLUB (BONNIE FAIRBRASS + JANE WALKER + ELAINE MILLER + JAY H MILES + MICHAEL DAVIOT + FIONA HERBERT)

BURLINGTON BERTIE’S, 20:00–23:00, FREE

Stand-up comedy from a selection of up-and-coming comedians, based on the previous month’s audience suggestions. MONKEY BARRELL COMEDY: NEW MATERIAL NIGHT

THE TONY LAW SHOW

THE STAND EDINBURGH, 20:30–22:30, £8 (£6)

The multi award-winning Canadian nonsense-maker pitches up with his particularly addictive brand of silliness.

Thu 26 Nov

THE THURSDAY SHOW (PETE JOHANSSON + JOHNNY CANDON + STUART MITCHELL + STEPHEN BUCHANAN + MC SUSAN MORRISON) THE STAND EDINBURGH, 21:00–23:00, £10 (£7 STUDENTS/£5 MEMBERS)

Weekend-welcoming selection of handpicked headline acts and newcomers over a two-hour showcase. PLANET CARAMEL’S HOT BED

OPIUM, 20:30–22:30, £3

Monthly night of sketches and characters bringing a bit of the Fringe back to Edinburgh all year round, with special guests handpicked from the team’s Fringe favourites.

Fri 27 Nov

THE FRIDAY SHOW (PETE JOHANSSON + JOHNNY CANDON + STUART MITCHELL + STEPHEN BUCHANAN + MC SUSAN MORRISON) THE STAND EDINBURGH, 21:00–23:00, £12 (£10 STUDENT/£6 MEMBERS)

Prime stand-up from the Scottish and international circuit, hosted by a rotating selection of Stand stalwarts.

Fri 20 Nov

BEEHIVE INN, 20:30–22:30, £10

THE FRIDAY SHOW (ROB DEERING + ABIGOLIAH SCHAUMAUN + DAVEY CONNOR + ANDREW LEARMONTH + MC STU MURPHY)

THE STAND EDINBURGH, 21:00–23:00, £12 (£10 STUDENT/£6 MEMBERS)

Prime stand-up from the Scottish and international circuit, hosted by a rotating selection of Stand stalwarts. MONKEY BARRELL COMEDY FRIDAY SHOW

BEEHIVE INN, 20:30–22:30, £10

Regular weekend comedy showcase featuring a selection of up-and-coming acts from Scotland and beyond, topped with a guest headliner. See Facebook on the day for line-ups.

MONKEY BARRELL COMEDY FRIDAY SHOW

Regular weekend comedy showcase featuring a selection of up-and-coming acts from Scotland and beyond, topped with a guest headliner. See Facebook on the day for line-ups.

Sat 28 Nov

THE SATURDAY SHOW (PETE JOHANSSON + JOHNNY CANDON + STUART MITCHELL + STEPHEN BUCHANAN + MC SUSAN MORRISON) THE STAND EDINBURGH, 21:00–23:00, £15

Packed Saturday evening bill of stand-up headliners and resident comperes to jolly along your weekend.

THE HAROLD IMPROV COMEDY SHOW

THE TRON, 19:00–22:00, £5 (£4)

Sat 21 Nov

Various improv teams and improvisers perform improvised comedy theatre pieces based upon a one-word suggestion.

THE STAND EDINBURGH, 21:00–23:00, £15

BEEHIVE INN, 20:30–22:30, £10

THE SATURDAY SHOW (ROB DEERING + ABIGOLIAH SCHAUMAUN + DAVEY CONNOR + ANDREW LEARMONTH + MC STU MURPHY)

Packed Saturday evening bill of stand-up headliners and resident comperes to jolly along your weekend. MONKEY BARRELL COMEDY SATURDAY SHOW

BEEHIVE INN, 20:30–22:30, £10

Regular weekend comedy showcase featuring a selection of up-and-coming acts from Scotland and beyond, topped with a guest headliner. See Facebook on the day for line-ups.

Sun 22 Nov

THE SUNDAY NIGHT LAUGH-IN (ABIGOLIAH SCHAUMAUN + GARETH WAUGH + ARTHUR JOHNSTON + MC ROBIN GRAINGER) THE STAND EDINBURGH, 20:30–22:30, £6 (£5 STUDENTS/£1 MEMBERS)

Chilled comedy showcase to cure your Sunday evening back-towork blues.

STU & GARRY’S FREE IMPROV SHOW

THE STAND EDINBURGH, 13:30–15:30, FREE

Long-running improvised comedy show with resident duo Stu & Garry weaving comedy magic from offthe-cuff audience suggestions.

The ever-funny Bill Bailey tours his new show, Limboland, exploring the gap between how we imagine our lives to be and how they really are.

BRIGHT CLUB

BEEHIVE INN, 20:30–22:30, £3

A selection of Edinburgh’s top stand up comedians test new material in front of a live audience.

BILL BAILEY: LIMBOLAND THE EDINBURGH PLAYHOUSE, 20:00–22:00, £26

THE STAND EDINBURGH, 20:30–22:30, £5

Wed 25 Nov

Wed 18 Nov

THE STAND EDINBURGH, 20:30–22:30, £2

Tue 24 Nov

THE STAND EDINBURGH, 20:30–22:30, £5

UPDATE DISABILITY INFORMATION SCOTLAND BENEFIT

THE STAND EDINBURGH, 20:30–22:30, £6 (£5 STUDENTS/£1 MEMBERS)

STU & GARRY’S FREE IMPROV SHOW

THE STAND EDINBURGH, 20:30–22:30, £2

Open-mic style beginners showcase, plus some old hands dropping by to roadtest new material.

Tue 17 Nov

Comedy fundraiser in aid of Update Disability Information Scotland.

THE STAND EDINBURGH, 13:30–15:30, FREE

RED RAW

A selection of comedic academics do a stint of stand-up for your entertainment and enlightenment. Laughs and learning in one neat package = tick.

THE SUNDAY NIGHT LAUGH-IN (MIKEY ADAMS + JELLYBEAN MARTINEZ + ROB KANE + THOMAS BLACK + MC SUSIE MCCABE)

Chilled comedy showcase to cure your Sunday evening back-towork blues.

Mon 23 Nov

Dundee Comedy Sat 07 Nov

CRAIG HILL: PLAYING WITH MY SELFIE

DUNDEE REP, 19:30–21:30, £17.50 (£13.50)

The kilted cheeky chappie brings his new show to Dundee, following a stint at Edinburgh’s Fringe earlier in the year.

Thu 12 Nov JUST LAUGH

DUNDEE REP, 20:00–22:00, £12

Monthly comedy showcase bringing a selection of UK stand-ups to Dundee. ANDY HAMILTON: CHANGE MANAGEMENT

THE GARDYNE THEATRE, 19:30–21:30, £18

That wee fella who pops up making wry jokes on Have I Got News For You returns with a new solo comedy show.

Thu 19 Nov

DEL AND RODNEY: A COMEDY DINNER SHOW

DUNDEE REP, 19:30–22:00, £29.50

Character piece with Del, Rodney, Uncle Albert and co. your hosts for a site-specific themed comedy experience. Dinner included.

Fri 20 Nov

DEL AND RODNEY: A COMEDY DINNER SHOW

DUNDEE REP, 19:30–22:00, £29.50

Character piece with Del, Rodney, Uncle Albert and co. your hosts for a site-specific themed comedy experience. Dinner included.

Sat 21 Nov

DEL AND RODNEY: A COMEDY DINNER SHOW

DUNDEE REP, 19:30–22:00, £29.50

Character piece with Del, Rodney, Uncle Albert and co. your hosts for a site-specific themed comedy experience. Dinner included.

Sun 22 Nov

FRANKIE BOYLE: HURT LIKE YOU’VE NEVER BEEN LOVED

CAIRD HALL, 20:00–22:00, £20

After a couple of teasing months of Work in Progress shows, Frankie Boyle hits up the King’s for the only performances of his new show, Hurt Like You're Never Been Loved, a goading response to Compton hip-hopster Kendrick Lamar’s last album.

MONKEY BARRELL COMEDY SATURDAY SHOW

Regular weekend comedy showcase featuring a selection of up-and-coming acts from Scotland and beyond, topped with a guest headliner. See Facebook on the day for line-ups.

Sun 29 Nov

THE SUNDAY NIGHT LAUGH-IN (RO CAMPBELL + PHIL DIFFER + MC JAY LAFFERTY)

THE STAND EDINBURGH, 20:30–22:30, £6 (£5 STUDENTS/£1 MEMBERS)

Chilled comedy showcase to cure your Sunday evening back-towork blues.

STU & GARRY’S FREE IMPROV SHOW

THE STAND EDINBURGH, 13:30–15:30, FREE

Long-running improvised comedy show with resident duo Stu & Garry weaving comedy magic from offthe-cuff audience suggestions.

Mon 30 Nov RED RAW

THE STAND EDINBURGH, 20:30–22:30, £2

Open-mic style beginners showcase, plus some old hands dropping by to roadtest new material.

THE SKINNY

Tribe After Tribe The 25th anniversary reissue of People’s Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm opens a retrospective phase in A Tribe Called Quest’s legacy. We speak to the founding quartet about resolving beats, rhymes and strife Interview: Ciaran Thapar

ew artists in music have led their fans on a longer, bumpier journey than A Tribe Called Quest. In 2011, the most talked-about hip-hop documentary of all time, Michael Rapaport’s Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest, hit cinema screens, telling the story of the group’s rise and fall from mellow, Afrocentric teenage beginnings in the early 1990s, to multi-platinumselling stardom to ego-driven civil war. With this backdrop in mind, and the way the film finished by alluding to the sixth and final album still owed as part of their initial record deal, it appears impossible to discuss Tribe in any detail without also trying to understand what new equilibrium, if any, the group has reached in 2015. It has taken four years for the dust to settle. And not only has it settled: it has been brushed off the record shelves to make way for the November reissue of People’s Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm – the group’s classic freshman album, first released in 1990, whose 25th birthday was in April earlier this year. The release includes an A-list roster of remixes from Pharrell, J. Cole and Cee-Lo. It is yet another example of a golden era outfit meeting the nostalgic demand for oldschool authenticity that lives on in the genre’s marketplace. Although it would be their multi-platinum selling sophomore release, The Low End Theory, that took Tribe to worldwide acclaim in 1991, People’s Instinctive Travels should need no introduction. The album spawned three singles – I Left My Wallet in El Segundo, Bonita Applebum and Can I Kick It? – each with an iconic accompanying video. It was born out of a time and place whose precise context cannot be ignored in any discussion about the roots of hip-hop: Queens, New York, at the dawn of a new decade and musical era. Pro-blackness and street commentary were still developing as central lyrical themes. This was back when the genre was bubbling away in the urban melting pots of East and West coast America, barely getting radio play, largely ignored by the mainstream. Q-Tip’s smooth, upbeat flow and conscious tongue-in-cheek raps, and the crew’s eclectic use of jazz and soul sampling throughout the album, were all sonically unprecedented elements, rolled into one. As industry bible The Source’s Matty C concluded at the time, in his now-cherished review (in which he gave the albumone of the magazine’s first-ever ‘5-Mic’ ratings): “Ultimately what makes this album so slamming is the skilful synthesis of beats we love under samples we’ve never heard. Quest has carved out their own distinctive groove within hip-hop’s spectrum of styles. All we have to do is drop the needle in it, kick our corns up, and start traveling.” Speaking to the group in the here and now, The Skinny seeks to clarify a few matters early on; does this re-release mean anything for the future of A Tribe Called Quest?

November 2015

“No – unfortunately, I wouldn’t say that,” answers Tribe’s feisty MC, Phife Dawg, quite frankly. “Given that we aren’t even a group any more, and we’re not doing shows, if people still have a craving for that album, we might as well give it. It’s the 25th anniversary, so it’s only right… but in terms of any new material? Nah, I don’t think that’s going to happen.” Over the course of the same evening, we also speak – separately – to Jarobi White, Tribe’s bouncy, on-and-off member, who first left the group back in 1991, as well as veteran producer Ali Shaheed Muhammad (enigmatic frontman Q-Tip responds via a concise e-mail). Though it’s clear that these men are still artistically bound by their memories of youth, and are all similarly humble and excited about reminiscing on their success, there is an undeniable sense of closure in their voices. The focus now is on making the name last, according to Q-Tip, who suggests that his simple wish is to “hopefully extend what we’ve done as a group and elevate it further.” “Right now, our focus is on celebrating our rich legacy,” Ali expands. “There are a lot of people out there still raising their kids on Tribe – no different to how my mom raised me on Ella Fitzgerald and Stevie Wonder. To fast-forward twenty-five years and be considered as part of that ilk? We want to celebrate that.” For seasoned fans it’s often difficult to hear artists talk like this – about having moved on from the output that initially bound us to them, emotionally. The collective tone from the four men, however, is nonetheless one of unwavering acceptance; honest, as ever, but uplifting rather than cynical. This is in stark contrast to some of the scenes of tense bickering between Q-Tip and Phife Dawg shown in Rapaport’s documentary, which many people criticised for diverting attention away from the exploration of Tribe’s roots and genius, towards the reality TV style drama of a soured relationship. “Now, what happened, happened… everything was real. But they paid too much attention to it. Everybody says their favourite part of that movie is when Tip breaks down the Can I Kick It? drums. I think people wanted to see more of that. The production techniques, the artists we sampled, what inspired us,” Jarobi suggests.

His words are echoed by Ali, who describes the film as a “missed opportunity” for its lack of conversation about the depth and meaning of their music. As is perhaps expected, Phife’s analysis is most grounded: “I thought the documentary was cool for the simple fact that it’s life… you can’t have beats and rhymes without the life.” Having addressed the issue of group dynamics, we move swiftly onto the music. Broadly speaking, each member has his own way of explaining two things. At first they seem to share a mutual peace with the idea that A Tribe Called Quest ought to be, above all, cherished in retrospect – no longer discussed as an active artistic vehicle, but instead, viewed fondly with respect, like a golden-framed group portrait on hip-hop’s mantlepiece.

“There are a lot of people out there still raising their kids on Tribe” Ali Shaheed Muhammad

“We are all in our 40s, you know? I was in New York City the other day and a little kid came up and was like, ‘Yo, Jarobi! My Dad would totally bug out right now,’” the group’s so-called ‘spiritual leader’ exclaims, chuckling in near disbelief. “It’s crazy… but every generation goes through this. For my parents, it was the 25th anniversary of Motown, honoring people like Smokey Robinson and the Temptations. 25 years from now, people are going to be playing Fetty Wap and Future and Drake. That’s how the cycle goes.” Second, they all express the belief that People’s Instinctive Travels should serve as a reminder of the originality-driven ethos of early New York hip-hop. Each discusses this view in particular reference to the current state of the genre, and the tendency of modern rappers to stick to tried-and-tested formulae, rather than break the mould.

“I think in hip-hop as a whole, there is a lot of laziness going on,” Phife Dawg suggests. “This rapper sounds like that rapper who sounds like that rapper. Back in the early 1990s, everybody had their own way.” To some, this might sound like the spiel of an artist simply failing to come to terms with the way things have changed. But few would deny that the mass influence Phife and his group of childhood friends have had over the way hip-hop has evolved into an international phenomenon is enough to qualify his opinion. “You have a select few who stand out, like J. Cole, Kendrick Lamar, Joey Bada$$ and the whole Pro Era Crew… the whole of Top Dawg Entertainment…they aren’t interested in sounding like the next man,” he continues. “With the music right now… you can only talk about the same sort of subjects – hooking up with a bunch of women, drinking and smoking – for so long. There is more to real life than that. That’s why people look back to when things were more meaningful,” Ali says, going into greater depth. “Our aim as kids was to think outside the box; be part of the conversation, you know, with the likes of Run DMC and Public Enemy… but keep our own identity. Exploring the backdrop of being young New Yorkers in a way that was honest and sincere.” Q-Tip makes two important associations that reveal his stylistic origins as an MC: “My main source of inspiration came from watching and listening to Slick Rick and Rakim.” Of course, it is all too easy to dismiss the present way of doing things in rose-tinted remembrance of the past. The fact remains, however, that A Tribe Called Quest’s long, winding path in 2015 seems to now be entering a calmer, more reflective phase than ever before. The musicmaking epoch of their careers may no longer be active. But neither is the tension that has plagued the group since 1998. With the re-release of People’s Instinctive Travels comes the twofold opportunity to make greater sense of both the past and present of hip-hop – and do so whilst nodding your head to the immovable rhythm of Tribe’s legacy. Peoples’ Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm, 13 Nov via Legacy Recordings. atribecalledquest.com

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