The Skinny November 2021

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November 2021 Issue 190

Time for Action COP26 Coalition are mobilising for climate justice

January 2020

Books

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Art January 2020

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The Skinny's favourite protest song?

The Cranberries – Zombie The cast of the 2014 film Pride - Bread and Roses BTS – Silver Spoon Britney Spears – Piece of Me Robert Wyatt – Shipbuilding Edwin Starr – War Björk – Declare Independence Florence Reece – Which Side Are You On? The Corries – Flower of Scotland Rage Against the Machine­– Killing in the Name Of Cake – Carbon Monoxide Prophets of Rage – Unfuck the World The Undertones – It's Going to Happen!

Manu Pilas – Bella Ciao

Listen to this playlist on Spotify — search for

Issue 190, November 2021 © Radge Media Ltd.

November 2021

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Championing creativity in Scotland

Meet the team We asked – What's the best thing you've seen in the natural world?

Editorial

Rosamund West Editor-in-Chief "Ecuador's primary rainforest – ancient trees holding each other up with vines, spiders that look like droplets of silver, orchids that bloom for an hour then disappear."

Peter Simpson Digital Editor, Food & Drink Editor "The Blue Mountains were pretty cool, and a lot bluer than expected."

Anahit Behrooz Events Editor "The sea, but specifically that moment of catching a glimpse of the sea for the first time as a kid."

Jamie Dunn Film Editor, Online Journalist "I mean, any bog-standard sunset or sunrise is hard to top."

Tallah Brash Music Editor "Probably the geothermal Blue Lagoon spa in Iceland, but the Montserrat mountain range just outside Barcelona is also pretty breathtaking."

Nadia Younes Clubs Editor "El Peñón de Guatapé in Colombia – the view *almost* made me forget about being crippled by mosquito bites."

Polly Glynn Comedy Editor "Real big horse.

Also my cat."

Katie Goh Intersections Editor "The sea around Langkawi."

Eliza Gearty Theatre Editor "Big happy swimming turtles."

Heather McDaid Books Editor "Stood at the most western point on mainland Britain and watched the sea in every direction."

Sales & Business

Production

Dalila D'Amico Art Director, Production Manager "A seagull stealing my fish and chips."

Adam Benmakhlouf Art Editor "Did you know a meteor shower is called a "celestial event"? I saw one in a Yorkshire village (so no light pollution) in about 2015 and it was a lot."

Phoebe Willison Designer "My friend Holly doing an emergency al fresco nature poo next to a Historic Scotland monument"

Sandy Park Commercial Director "The sunrise from the steps of Angkor Wat."

Tom McCarthy Creative Projects Manager "I love to see nature reclaiming urban spaces.

Nothing makes me happier than seeing a dandilion poking out of a cracked paving slab."

George Sully Sales and Brand Strategist "An urban fox slurping at a discarded smoothie at 1am in the Meadows playground."

Laurie Presswood General Manager "I love those heartwarming videos where different species of animal become friends. My favourite is that one where the frog and the pig get married."

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Editorial Words: Rosamund West

T

he world’s eyes are on Glasgow this month as the UN Climate Change Conference, aka COP26, arrives in the city. Which is all well and good for the world leaders, diplomats and attendant business influencers (also Matt Damon), but offers very little in the way of access for actual people at this crucial moment of climate emergency. Which is where the COP26 Coalition comes in – we talk to the organisers of this grassroots fringe, which marshalls over 200 organisations to create a People’s Summit and Global Day of Action as well as sharing a diverse programme of events, workshops, and actions.

Developing on this celebration of activism, we learn about Lighthouse Books’ new accessible video series – Read, Think, Act – which invites viewers and readers to take action in their local community. We meet author Alison Rumfitt to hear about Tell Me I’m Worthless, her gothic haunted house tale which explores hyper-contemporary right-wing politics. One of the many many cultural events happening in connection with COP26, This is a Love Story is a musical which imagines a love story between the Earth and humanity, and arrives on the Dundee Rep stage this month. We meet its creators. In the final part of our writing series developed in partnership with LUX Scotland and Alchemy Film & Arts, we take a deep dive into the question of accessibility in the arts, from the point of view of artist development, platforming, funding.

Concluding our theme of change makers, we meet Brat Coven, Uninvited and Tamara Schlesinger from Hen Hoose to hear about the rise of Scottish women in the music industry.

Music also meets Linzi Clark, who talks to us about her debut album All I Have Now, and also makes an unexpected argument for Paisley being a better place for a creative than Glasgow. As a pair of long-delayed multi-venue music festivals arrive in

Scotland, the Great Eastern in Edinburgh and the Great Western to Glasgow, we talk to Anna B Savage (performing at the east coast leg) about her debut album A Common Turn. Also appearing on the bill is local favourite Callum Easter, here to discuss his politically charged, stylistically challenging new album System. Finishing the music features with a bang, we meet Mykki Blanco to talk about the importance of vulnerability in their art ahead of their theatrical live tour.

Art takes the opportunity of two tapestry exhibitions arriving in Edinburgh this month to interview 21 separate artists working in tapestry (tapestryers? tapestryists? tapesters?) about this oft-overlooked form. Film meets Céline Sciamma to learn more about Petite Maman, her new time-travel film in which a grieving eight-year-old girl meets her mother at the same age.

Hungarian director Dénes Nagy discusses his new World War Two film Natural Light, delving into the legacy of the conflict in his homeland, and exploring the idea that in war, brutality and routine go hand in hand.

Clubs meets London-based DJ iona, going B2B with Redstone Press’s label co-founder Lewis Lowe in Sneaky Pete’s this month. Comedy talks to Robert Ross, whose new book Forgotten Heroes of Comedy shines a light on more than a century of overlooked comic genius. In this month’s ICYMI, Zoë Tomalin watches 1999’s American Pie for the first time, and arrives at the unexpected thesis that this film about a group of teenage boys trying to have sex is “a radical statement about how sex doesn’t exist and losing your virginity is an act of pure spectacle for the benefit of others.”

Finally, on our last page you’ll find The Skinny on… Kobi Onyame, talking about, amongst other things, being reincarnated as an eagle and pretending to be his own manager.

Cover Artist

November 2021 — Chat

Nänni-Pää is primarily an illustrator who focuses on a more linear, isometric & minimal style of drawing. She looks at everyday experiences and picks up on several simultaneous moments that pose as layers in her work. From depicting empowered women to exploring inner turmoils, tribulations and human connection ,she's got it covered. If she isn't drawing she is tufting rugs, painting murals, making jewellery or cutting about on her moped.

She founded and currently runs The Woom Room – a small shop in Glasgow that sells prints, jewellery and clothing created by Scottish artists. Its ethos centres around sustainability and creating accessible work everyone can understand. @nanni_paa nannipaa.bigcartel.com

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Love Bites

Love Bites: Self-Love Selling Out This month’s columnist explores the crisis of commodified self-love Words: Funmi Lijadu

I

November 2021 — Chat

’m bored of hearing about self-love. Completely burnt out. The shifting goalposts that define the concept mean that time and time again, true self-appreciation keeps slipping from my grip.

Seeing Instagram ads about a new product that will make me love myself is sickening. Even hearing the term gives me the same sinking feeling that I got back in 2013 when the sickly-sweet optimism of Pharrell’s song Happy went viral.

The act of loving yourself is no longer a state of mind, but a status symbol that can be achieved with enough cash, a version of self-love that one must flaunt, prove and share online. And it begs the question – what would we want and who would we be if nobody was watching?

But the crisis of self-love is not just about social media. It’s about a world where we are sold the lofty heights of affluence through influencers’ lifestyles, yet face tax increases, rent hikes and a culture of overworking ourselves.

There’s no guide to loving yourself during what feels like the end of the world. Maybe cultivating a sense of acceptance is the right start. But healthy self-image takes a village, and most of our villages are poisoned with elaborate façades, both online and offline.

So, where does that leave us now? In an age when nurturing yourself is commodified, the only option is to reimagine ways of appreciating ourselves that can’t be sold back to us. The secret may lie in ancestral histories, and the stories and lessons that the past may hold.

It’s hard to imagine giving up a world of convenience for one that’s slower and less efficient, but since the world as it is doesn’t seem to be making many of us happy, I’d be willing to educate myself and take that risk.

Crossword Solutions Across 1. COUNCIL 5. HOUSING 9. RESOURCES 10. TROPE 11. OMIT 12. NAOMI KLEIN 14. FULFILMENT 16. DODO 18. ORBS 20. POLYGRAPHS 23. PERMAFROST 25. FLAG 27. INFER 28. KANGAROOS 29. THUNDER 30. RUMBLES Down 1. CARBON FOOTPRINT 2. UPSKILL 3. CRUX 4. LYCRA 5. HUSH MONEY 6. UPTAKE 7. IN ONE GO 8. GREENHOUSE GASES 13. AID 15. MOONRAKER 17. TRY 19. BIRD FLU 21. PALM OIL 22. MADRID 24. SONAR 26. MAIM

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Appropriately for COP26, this month sees a stunning line-up of politically engaged events take the stage, from activism exhibitions to cathartically angry punk.

Heads Up

Compiled by Anahit Behrooz

Heads Up

Various venues + online, Dundee, 10-13 Nov This year’s NEoN Digital Arts, Scotland’s festival dedicated to the intersection of arts and technology, is themed around Wired Women, exploring and celebrating the contribution of women in tech-driven creative practices. Leading the hybrid programme is Assuming the Ecosexual Position by Beth Stephens and Annie Sprinkle, a groundbreaking series of digital collages that takes a radically feminist, queer, and materialist approach to the environment.

Hit the Road

Inverness Film Festival Eden Court, Inverness, 5-11 Nov

Howardena Pindell: A New Language Fruitmarket, Edinburgh, 13 Nov-2 May 2022 The first solo exhibition of artist and activist Howardena Pindell to take place in the UK, A New Language takes its cue from Pindell’s decades-long work into institutionalised whiteness, disenfranchisement, and the possibility of radical empowerment.

Featuring her large-scale abstract paintings, as well as intricate text-based collages, this collection is a stirring call to action from within the art world.

Assuming the Ecosexual Position, Beth Stephens and Annie Sprinkle

Inverness Film Festival’s programme this year is – there’s no other word for it – stacked, featuring all the biggest hits from this year’s Cannes, Venice, and London Film Festivals. There’s barely a bad film among them, but some unmissable screenings include Jane Campion’s eerie and magnificent The Power of the Dog, Palme D’Or winner Titane, and an Afternoons in Iran strand featuring the joyously perfect Hit the Road.

Miss World: Darwin

Image: courtesy of Sneaky Pete's

Image: courtesy of CCA and Alexis Grefa

Image: Courtesy of the artist, Garth Greenan Gallery, New York

Sneaky Pete's, Edinburgh, 6 Nov, 11pm Miss World, Edinburgh’s all-female DJ collective dedicated to promoting female and queer DJs, is throwing another glorious party at their beloved Sneaky Pete’s, this time welcoming DJ, label head and activist Darwin to the stage. A dance music polymath, the Berlin-based musician has a bass-heavy, very dreamy sound that is perfect for a late night on the Cowgate.

Miss World Darwin

Photo: Bill Cooper

Portrait of Howardena Pindell, 1973

Image: Courtesy of Inverness Film Festival

Image: courtesy of NEoN Digital Arts Festival

NEoN Digital Arts

COP26 Coalition

If Not Us Then Who?

Want to engage with COP26 but don’t know where to start?

Glasgow’s CCA should be your first port of call. In collaboration with If Not Us Then Who?, an organisation highlighting the role indigenous and local peoples play in protecting our planet, they have assembled a brilliant programme of exhibitions, talks, and performances that speak to some of the most pressing and neglected effects of climate change.

Ballet Black Senior Artists Jose Alvez and Cira Robinson in The Waiting Game choreographed by Mthuthuzeli November

SWG3, Glasgow, 13 Nov, 7pm

Festival Theatre, Edinburgh, 18 Nov, 7:30pm Making seismic changes to the landscape of classical ballet across the UK and internationally is Ballet Black – a professional company dedicated to dancers of Black and Asian descent.

Their latest offering is a thrilling programme of new and original works, featuring a blend of ballet, poetry and music by Royal Ballet choreographer Will Tuckett in Then Or Now, and the mesmerizingly dynamic The Waiting Game by Mthuthuzeli November.

Les Misérables Theatre Royal, Glasgow, 23 Nov31 Dec Photo: Michael Le Poer Trench

Image: courtesy of FUSE

Rina Sawayama Photo: Greg Lin

Photo: Kate Johnston

November 2021 — Chat

CCA: Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow, Until 11 Dec

Ballet Black

Grace Petrie FUSE w Sicaria Sound

Grace Petrie Beat Generator Live!, Dundee, 18 Nov, 7:30pm

Rina Sawayama

FUSE x FatKidOnFire Stereo, Glasgow, 26 Nov, 11pm

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Les Misérables

THE SKINNY

Image: El Hardwick

Edinburgh's Radical Book Fair Assembly Roxy, Edinburgh, 11-14 Nov

Porridge Radio The Mash House, Edinburgh, 28 Nov, 7:30pm Porridge Radio

This Is a Love Story

Great Western + Great Eastern

Image: courtesy of Dundee Rep

Dundee Rep, Dundee, 6 Nov, 7:30pm A bold, exhilarating new take on our collective relationship with our planet, This Is a Love Story is a bold pop musical that charts the millennia-old love story between Earth and Humanity.

With just one performance over COP26, there are a wealth of viewing options available, from streaming tickets to limited seats right on the stage itself.

Heads Up

Image: courtesy of Pluto Press

Scream until you’re hoarse with delightful indie punk outfit Porridge Radio, whose growling vocals, momentous energy, and jaggedly honest song-writing gave us one of the best records of 2020 with their second studio album Every Bad. This is music that simultaneously wounds, exposes, and gives longed for catharsis – it’s not always pretty, but it is definitely beautiful.

It has been, to put it mildly, a terrible time, but Lighthouse Books are setting the world somewhat to rights with the return of the Radical Book Fair.

Featuring talks, workshops, and the entirety of Assembly Roxy heaving with books, the four-day event revolves around “Futures Worth Fighting For”, finding paths of optimism and activism in topics as diverse as dismantling the hostile environment and fighting fast fashion.

Various venues, Glasgow + Edinburgh, 13 + 27 Nov

Laura Spark in This Is a Love Story

Leah Cowan, Radical Book Fair

The wonderfully eclectic Great Western is back in Glasgow for its second year, this time bringing along the newly minted Great Eastern especially for Edinburgh music lovers. Taking place across two Saturdays in November, Great Western kicks off the action with music from Anna Meredith, Pillow Queens and TAAHLIAH, with Great Eastern platforming the likes of Free Love and Swim School two weeks after.

Photo: Craig McIntosh

Photo: Jodie Canwell

Image: courtesy of the artist and Tramway Calling for Rain, Khvay Samana

Free Love

Khvay Samana: Calling for Rain Tramway, Glasgow, 19 Nov-6 Mar 2022

Eliza Shaddad

Drawing on ancestral mythologies, spiritualism, and folklore from his native country of Cambodia, this exhibition by artist Khvay Samnang is especially designed for children, young people, and adults alike, combining poetry and ritual in order to create narratives of resistance that tackle our many local and global environmental crises such as deforestation and forced displacement.

The Hug and Pint, Glasgow, 20 Nov, 7:30pm

All details were correct at the time of writing, but are subject to change. Please check organisers’ websites for up to date information.

Floi, Studio Imposters

Various venues + online, Edinburgh + Glasgow, 11 Nov-2

The Nowhere Inn

Studio Imposters: Floi Summerhall, Edinburgh, 11 Nov-23 Dec

Play Poland Film Festival

Image: courtesy of Play Poland

Image: courtesy of Doc'n'Roll Festival

Various venues, Glasgow + Edinburgh, 13-14 Nov Photo: Brian Sweeney

Photo: Nikita Wolfe Murray

Stag & Dagger

Doc'n'Roll Carla J Easton

Various venues, Glasgow + Edinburgh, 1-14 Nov

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Leave No Traces

November 2021 — Chat

Eliza Shaddad

Eliza Shaddad’s long-awaited return to Glasgow, delayed since March 2020, coincides with the release of her latest remarkable album The Woman You Want. Blending dreamy folk-inspired sounds with a deeply emotive grunge edge, Shaddad’s music is intimate and wonderfully introspective, perfect for the tiny stage and low-key vibes of The Hug and Pint.

November 2021

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What's On Photo: @tatyanajintorutherston

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Photo: Martyna Maz

Photo: Flavien Prioreau Auntie Flo

Clubs There’s a B2B of B2Bs from the undisputed champions of B2Bs at La Cheetah Club on 5 November, as Missing Persons Club residents DJ Smoker and Lovejoy warm up ahead of the main pairing. Mála Ádh label boss Céilí goes B2B with Athens-born DJ MarcelDune – who recently featured on the label’s debut release, LUCKYBAG001 – for the main event. Meanwhile, in Edinburgh there’s a homegrown label boss/label affiliate B2B, as Hobbes and Auntie Flo headline Hobbes Music’s eighth birthday party at The Bongo Club.

It’s another fully Scottish affair at The Ice Factory on 6 November as brand new party Planet Dance launches with man of the moment Ewan McVicar headlining and support from Perth locals Craigie Knowes and JAIMIE. And in Edinburgh on the same night, following up last month’s shimmering musical beauty pageant with India Jordan, Miss World is back. This time, it’s former Griessmuehle resident, and Queen Reef herself, Darwin taking the reins.

It feels a bit like there’s a not-so-secret competition for ‘most ridiculous DJ name’ doing the rounds at the moment, and certainly in the running for the top prize is Glasgow’s DJ Accident At Work. He’ll be bringing his signature blend of

BEAK>

Marcel Dune

November 2021 — Events Guide

Photo: Allan Lewis Be Charlotte

Photo: Martyna Maz

LVRA

Music Starting things off in beautiful fashion this month, queer artist Mykki Blanco brings their gorgeous theatrical show to Glasgow’s Stereo (3 Nov). On 6 November you are spoiled for choice in Edinburgh with Katherine Aly at Sneaky Pete’s, Brooke Combe at The Mash House and Admiral Fallow at Summerhall while Self Esteem brings her exceptional second album, Prioritise Pleasure, to The Bongo Club.

On 8 November, prolific San Franciscans Oh Sees stop by Edinburgh’s Liquid Room for what is sure to be quite a raucous affair, while Portuguese-born, Danish singer-songwriter Erika de Casier brings her latest album, Sensational, to Sneaky Pete’s, playing Glasgow’s Broadcast the following night. Glasgow country-tinged pop artist Rianne Downey has a couple of back-to-back shows this month too as she plays Edinburgh’s Sneaky’s Pete’s (9 Nov) and Aberdeen’s The Tunnels (10 Nov).

The second weekend of the month is a busy affair with quirky Edinburgh four-piece Buffet Lunch playing Glasgow’s Flying Duck (12 Nov), before pop queen Rina Sawayama swings by the city’s SWG3 the following night (13 Nov). Multi-venue festival The Great Western also takes place on 13 November across various venues in Glasgow with artists like Anna Meredith, Traceyanne & Danny and Yard Act all playing, while the Stag & Dagger festival takes place on the same day in Glasgow before heading to Edinburgh for a packed day of music on Sunday 14 November – expect sets in both cities from Working Men’s Club, Gwenno and Nova.

Dundee’s Be Charlotte plays a run of dates across Scotland this month too, with shows at Edinburgh’s Mash House (15 Nov) and Glasgow’s King Tut’s (16 Nov) before a final date at Dundee’s Church (17 Nov). Following the announcement of Euphoria, their debut EP due in the new year, Glasgow industrial post-punk band VLURE also have a couple of Scottish dates this month – they play Aberdeen’s The Tunnels (18 Nov) and Edinburgh’s The Mash House (20 Nov). On the same day in Glasgow, Sudanese-Scottish artist Eliza Shaddad brings her latest album, The Woman You Want, to The Hug & Pint while Welsh electronic producer Kelly Lee Owens brings her 2020 album Inner Song to SWG3.

A week later, on 27 November in Edinburgh check out multi-venue festival The Great Eastern, with sets from Anna B Savage, Free Love, BEAK> and more.

On the same day in Glasgow, the Scottish Alternative Music Awards (SAMAs) bring their 2021 awards ceremony to St Luke’s with live performances from TAAHLIAH, Union of Knives and the newly crowned Sound of Young Scotland – LVRA, while the following night A Fundraiser for Tiny Changes welcomes The Twilight Sad, Cloth, Lizzie Reid and more to the same venue. [Tallah Brash]

THE SKINNY

Craigie Knowes

INGOMA by Ballet BlacK

Film French cinema is having a bit of a moment. If you need any evidence, just take a peek at this year’s stacked French Film Festival (3 Nov-15 Dec) programme. This annual snapshot of contemporary Francophone filmmaking features new work from – deep breath – Jacques Audiard (Paris, 13th District), Arnaud Desplechin (Deception), Céline Sciamma (Petite Maman), Bruno Dumont (On a Half Clear Morning aka France), Mahamat-Saleh Haroun (Lingui), Emmanuelle Bercot (Peaceful) and Joachim Lafosse (The Restless).

Add to that hefty list the latest in the ridiculously goofy Jean Dujardinstarring Bond spoof series OSS 117 (this one’s titled, probably problematically, From Africa with Love); Kaamelott: The First Chapter, a new retelling of the King Arthur legend; and two hits from Cannes: Playground, which depicts the tinderbox atmosphere of a kids’ schoolyard with the kind of intensity usually reserved for a prison movie, and the wildly provocative psychothriller Titane, which walked off with the Palme d’Or. The festival kicks off in Scotland on 5 November at Filmhouse with Emmanuel Courcol’s The Big Hit, a comedy following a has-been actor as he tries to stage a version of Waiting for Godot in a prison, and you’ll find other screenings throughout Scotland, including at Aberdeen’s Belmont, the Bo’ness Hippodrome, Dundee Contemporary Arts, Glasgow Film Theatre, Inverness Eden Court, and the Dominion, the French Institute and Summerhall in Edinburgh. Full details at frenchfilmfestival.org.uk FFFUK isn’t the only show in town, however. Ace music documentary festival Doc'n Roll also returns this month, with a quartet of film screenings at Glasgow Film Theatre and Cameo in Edinburgh. Highlights look to be The War Is Never Over, a cinematic portrait of No Wave icon Lydia Lunch and the extremely meta Nowhere Inn, which stars real-life pals Annie Clark (aka St Vincent) and Carrie Brownstein (of Sleater-Kinney and Portlandia) as they attempt to collaborate on a doc about Clark’s touring life and on-stage persona. Screening details at docnrollfestival.com Short film fans should be psyched for the Edinburgh Short Film Festival, which this year celebrates its tenth edition. Taking place 5-21 November at Summerhall Cinema, the programme is a typically varied affair, taking in awardwinning shorts from all over the world. If you’re looking for a local gem, however, we reckon you should catch Scuzz, Alia Ghafar's vivid Glasgow-set drama following the unlikely friendship that forms between an art school hipster and a musicobsessed ne’er-do-well after the latter steals a guitar off of the former’s bandmate. Find it in the programme titled Lost and Found on 14 November. Full programme at edinburghshortfilmfestival.com [Jamie Dunn] Theatre COP26 is in full swing and all those delegates, activists, environmentalists and journalists – not to mention Glasgow’s regular residents – are going to need a place to escape, let off steam and emotionally process everything that is going on. Enter Scotland’s galleries, cinemas, music venues and, of course, theatres, to happily provide that cultural and creative nourishment that everybody needs.

And talking of cultural and creative nourishment, what better place to start than Shakespeare? The Tron’s movement-based version of The Tempest is running right the way through the COP26 summit (untill 13 Nov). If you’re planning to be at or around the COP26 conference at all, arts pop-up The Landing Hub – where you can catch performances such as Katy Dye’s Climate Grief Karaoke (12 Nov), Penny Chivas’ dance-theatre work Burnt Out (12 Nov) and Judith Williams’ movement workshop Space In The Body and The Body In Space (11 Nov) – is just a 15 minute walk away from the main site. Craving relief from COP city chaos? Head straight to the Kings Theatre. The world premiere of a new production of Bedknobs and Broomsticks (2-7 Nov) will be just the ticket you need to soothe any eco-anxiety and escape from the madness.

In Edinburgh, The Lyceum are staging a version of Pedro Calderón’s Life Is A Dream (29 Oct-20 Nov), translated by playwright Jo Clifford. The original play is a classic of the Spanish Golden Age, and tells the story of a prince who has been isolated since birth and is suddenly released into the world. Elsewhere in Edinburgh, Ballet Black are bringing a brand new bill of dance to Festival Theatre (18 Nov).

In Dundee, Dundee Rep and Scottish Dance Theatre are celebrating their new status as a Tayside Climate Beacon with a brand new musical about the — 12 —

SCUZZ

Photo: Lewis Hayward

November 2021 — Events Guide

Titane

self-dubbed ‘drillelectro’ and garage to Dundee’s Beat Generator Live for Guesthaus on 13 November – and, hopefully, leaving unscathed. Another one for the garage fans, Shelflife invites Manchester’s Interplanetary Criminal to The Mash House in Edinburgh on 25 November for their debut event and, if previous sets are anything to go by, it’s sure to be an energetic one.

Otherwise, if parties in traditional wedding venues are your thing, then it’s your lucky month because there are two taking place in Scotland in November.

The first, Tribal Pulse, takes place at Mains Castle in Dundee on 6 November, with DJ sets from Boom Merchant, Harri & Domenic, Echoplex and more. The second, Szentek, takes place at Kinkell Byre in St Andrews on 18 November and the festival is celebrating their fifth birthday this year, so you can definitely expect big things from this year’s line-up. [Nadia Younes]

Climate Grief Kareoke, Katy Dye

THE SKINNY

Photo: Khvay Samnang Photo: Pascal Gadroy

Art Opening the month, Transmission Gallery is the venue for an exhibition (running 1-7 Nov) curated by Glasgow artist Cat Dunn in direct response to COP26, climate change and racism. For the show, Dunn has assembled a range of contributions from China, Cuba, Portugal and the USA to make the connections between the climate crisis and racial bias, patriarchy and colonialism.

Also linking into the themes of COP26, Tramway will show a work by multimedia storyteller Khvay Samnang titled Calling for Rain (19 Nov-6 Mar), specifically created for children and young people. The work in Tramway is inspired by a Cambodian epic poem and philosophical allegory, Reamker, using fantastical story to speak about the challenges of the climate crisis faced by Indigenous communities in contemporary times.

CCA also deals directly with issues surrounding COP26, in its exhibition The Word for World is Forest (29 Oct until 11 Dec). This show brings together two organisations that work directly with Indigenous people and localities affected by the climate crisis to make filmic and photographic responses, and German photographer Sophie Reuter whose photo-series focuses on an eco-activist struggle to save the remaining part of the Hambacher forest located between Cologne and Aachen, decimated in the hunt for fossil fuel.

In Edinburgh, the Fruitmarket Gallery opens a show of work by artist and anti-racist campaigner Howardena Pindell. Drawing from her lived experience of racism in the USA, Pindell uses an idiosyncratic method of spray painting through hole-punched stencils to make intricately layered works about “war, Apartheid, police violence, the AIDS crisis, slavery and the environment.” The exhibition brings together works on paper and two videos, and runs from 13 November - 2 May. In Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, the Beacon Tower is now inhabited by the work of sound artist and musician Raheel Khan, titled ‫راثآ‬ (Traces). Through collaboration with the Multi-Cultural Family Base, Khan has made a composition of new music and recordings with the new residents of Edinburgh as they re-create in sound their impressions and experiences of the city. The new work can be visited until 15 January 2022.

Also continuing in Glasgow, 16 Nicholson Street’s exhibition Thriving in Disturbed Ground brings together five artists whose practices in different ways challenge dominant forms of labour and knowledge-making, looking instead to pre-industrial making, the paranormal, and cosmology. Until 21 November.

[Adam Benmakhlouf]

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Damien Barr

November 2021 — Events Guide

Photo: Ollie Grove Denise Mina

Poetry Live, in-person poetry events are back, and it’s a delight to see Kevin P. Gilday (formerly of Sonnet Youth) hosting The Scribbler’s Union LIVE, 6 November at 13th Note in Glasgow. Help the Scribblers celebrate their poetic triumphs at this COP26 special (and at £6 a ticket it’s a steal, with poets such as Iona Lee, as well as comedian Richard Brown, taking the stage).

Taproot Press has an incredibly exciting title ready for publication: Brian Holton’s Hard Roads an Cauld Hairst Winds: Li Bai an Du Fu in Scots. Holton has not only taken the works of 8th-century Chinese poets Li Bai and Du Fu and – as you may have guessed – translated them into Scots, but has also transposed the poets’ worlds into Scotland’s own, modern living. The book will likely be available at the end of November, with the final publication date TBC. I Am Loud Productions is continuing season two of Return to Form: a digital project aimed to increase accessibility and awareness around poetry in all its forms, from spoken word to villanelles and back again. Resident poetic producer, Dr Katie Ailes, will lead audiences through this succession of poetic forms, with guest poets such as Joelle Taylor, Kate Tough, and Tyrone Lewis bringing new work to the platform.

Entropie Books, in association with Edinburgh College of Art Library, is hosting a celebration of Leonard McDermid. The exhibition, Fair Winds and Following Seas, has been curated by Jane Furness and Entropie’s Barbara A Morton, and will run in the Library until the end of November. Fair Winds features a personal selection of McDermid’s own work, alongside appreciations of his art from friends such as Julie Johnstone and Thomas A Clarke.

Vahni Capildeo’s highly anticipated new collection, Like a Tree, Walking, will be available to purchase from 25 November. Publishing with Carcanet, the poet relishes in their interest in ecopoetics and silence, and – as ever – continues to use the page in fresh, innovative ways.

Damian Barr’s third season of the Big Scottish Book Club is back on BBC Scotland and iPlayer on 10 November. Barr’s stellar line-up of established authors includes Denise Mina and James Robertson, but his list of poets and spoken word performers is just as exciting. Expect work from Scots word-of-the-day Len Pennie, renowned storyteller Mara Menzies, Bee Asha Singha (formerly of The Honey Farm), and Neu! Reekie!’s very own Michael Pedersen. [Beth Cochrane]

Untitled, Howardena Pindell

Photo: Jonathan Ring

Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop

Image: Courtesy of the artist

Preah Kunlong, 2016-2017, Khvay Samnang

relationship between people and the planet called This Is A Love Story (6 Nov). We interview the brains behind the show, Jack Godfrey and Ellie Coote on p25. We’ll save most Christmassy stuff till next month but A Christmas Carol is also running at Dundee Rep from 27 Nov, for those of you who like to get excited early. Bah humbug ... [Eliza Gearty]

November 2021

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5 Meet the Team — 6 Editorial — 7 Love Bites — 8 Heads Up 11 What’s On — 16 Crossword — 48 Albums — 50 Film & TV 53 Design — 55 Food & Drink — 56 Books — 57 Comedy — 58 Listings 62 The Skinny On… Kobi Onyame

Features 19 As COP26 arrives in Glasgow, we meet some of the organisers from COP26 Coalition working to open up the debate beyond the elite confines of the conference.

23 Lighthouse Books’ new Read, Think, Act video series inspires audiences to take action in their communities.

24 Alison Rumfitt introduces new novel Tell Me I’m Worthless.

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25 The creators of new musical This Is A Love Story imagine the Earth and Humanity as star-crossed lovers.

26 As COVID-19 threatens to increase the diversity deficit in the arts, we discuss how to create an inclusive arts sector in the UK. 28 Hen Hoose, Brat Coven and Uninvited on the post-lockdown rise of Scottish women in music.

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30 Rising Paisley talent Linzi Clark discusses her debut album, All I Have Now. 32 As two tapestry exhibitions arrive in Edinburgh, we weave together interviews with 21 practitioners.

34 We speak to Anna B Savage about her debut album, A Common Turn.

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39 Director Céline Sciamma returns to the world of childhood in her intimate time-travel film Petite Maman.

40 London-based DJ iona on developing her style and keeping it fun.

On the website...

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39 Image Credits: (Left to right, top to bottom) Nänni-pää; Kirkwood Brothers; courtesy of Alison Rumfitt; courtesy of Ellie Coote; courtesy of Alex Callaghan; courtesy of Uninvited; Bovine; courtesy of Gordon Brennan; Jem Talbot; Petite Maman; Natural Light; Ella Hagi

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A chat with the creators of literary accessibility guide Inklusion; a Spotify playlist with our favourite tracks from the month’s new albums; the component parts of our brand-new Glasgow Guide; loads more theatre, gig and film reviews...

November 2021 — Contents

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38 Hungarian director Dénes Nagy discusses his bracing new World War Two film Natural Light.

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Shot of the month Joesef at La Belle Angele, by Roosa Päivanäsalo

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Across 1. Municipal body – advisory group (7) 5. Accommodation (7)

November 2021 — Chat

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9. User score (anag) (9) 10. Cliche – motif (5)

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11. Leave out (4)

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12. Canadian author (b.1970) of This Changes Everything (5,5)

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14. Achievement of something predicted – meeting of a requirement (10)

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16. Famously extinct bird (4)

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20. Lie detectors (10)

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18. Balls (4)

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23. Old cold stuff – past reform (anag) (10) 25. A country's logo (4)

Down 1. Measurement of CO2 released (6,9) 2. Learn new things – teach new things (7) 3. Nub – most decisive point (4) 4. Spandex (5) 5. A bribe paid for silence (4,5) 6. Absorption – use (6) 7. All at once (2,3,2) 8. Burning fossil fuels emits these (10,5) 13. Help (3) 15. Bond saves the world from space (9) 17. Attempt (3) 19. Avian virus (4,3)

27. Deduce (5)

21. Food ingredient linked to widespread deforestation (4,3)

28. Marsupials from the family Macropodidae (9)

22. City where 2019's COP25 took place (6)

29. Clouds go boom (7)

24. Echolocation (5)

30. Resounds (7)

26. Injure permanently (4)

Compiled by George Sully

Turn to page 7 for the solutions — 16 —

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November 2021

available in 21 colours

THE PERFECT COFFEE FOR EVERY MOMENT — 17 —

November 2021

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Change Makers

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s COP26, the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, arrives in Glasgow along with its delegates, world leaders, high profile activists and Matt Damon, all eyes turn to Scotland. But, as our lead feature explains, the meaning of this meeting remains somewhat obscure to the average local, even if its effects on daily life, from banners on Buchanan Street to snipers on the roads around SWG3, are all too real.

Surrounding the elite conference will be a parallel People’s Summit and Global Day of Action, organised by the COP26 Coalition. Grassroots activism is being coordinated like never before – we take a look at how they’re marshalling 200+ organisations to fight for climate justice at this unprecedented moment for the future of humanity.

Continuing in the spirit of change-making, we take a look at Lighthouse Books’ new accessible video series Read, Think, Act, which aims to inspire audiences to take action in their communities. We take a deep dive into issues of disabled cultural access, focusing specifically on funding structures, and how they influence exclusionary decision-making at every level.

Exploring change through a more allegorical lens, we talk to the creators of Dundee Rep’s new musical This Is A Love Story (which imagines the Earth and Humanity as star-crossed lovers) and meet Alison Rumfitt to hear how her new novel Tell Me I’m Worthless explores the effects of contemporary right-wing politics through the medium of a haunted house.

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Mobilising for Climate Justice Intersections

COP26 has finally arrived in Glasgow. We speak to the COP26 Coalition, a fringe movement of over 200 civil societies, about mobilising to fight for climate justice during the conference and far beyond Interview: Eilidh Akilade Illustrations: Nänni-pää

November 2021 — Feature

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ities don’t usually get this hyped for conferences – for networking, free pens and hotel-pressed suits. But, as the banners lining Buchanan Street and the predicted travel disruptions remind us, COP26 (aka the United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties) is not just any conference. This is a big deal, for Glasgow, the UK and the planet. It’s a breaking point for the climate crisis: there’s a sense that time is running out, that this is our last shot to save ourselves and the environment we’ve so violently exploited. The COP26 Coalition, a fringe group building a movement around the conference, knows this all too well: for them, the run up to COP looks like 12-hour workdays, international Zoom calls at 5am and – despite the exhaustion – genuine excitement.

The COP26 Coalition is a UK-based coalition of over 200 civil societies, mobilising around climate justice during the 13 days of COP26. Rather than green-washed promises of net zero (a target for the amount of greenhouse gas produced and the amount removed from the atmosphere to be balanced), the Coalition wants governments to take responsibility for the climate crisis, and to take action to ensure climate justice is met. They’re not anti-COP, per se. As Tess Humble, the Coalition’s Mobilisation Officer puts it, they’re simply using the conference as “a point of leverage for long-term movement building.”

This particular COP is set to be one of the most inaccessible to date: from vaccines to travel visas, it’s proving difficult for representatives from the Global South to attend the conference. Moreover, Glaswegians themselves are seemingly being kept out of the loop. “What’s the substance of this? What are these talks? What the hell does COP stand for?

No Glaswegians are having that explained to them,” notes Humble. It’s true: COP has slipped into our daily vernacular and taken over the city, and yet, many of us are shocked to hear that the C doesn’t actually stand for climate. The Coalition, unsurprisingly, takes issue with all of this, and, as a result, they’re offering – and encouraging – an alternative.

This alternative comes in the form of the COP26 Coalition’s Global Day of Action and People’s Summit. For accessibility and decentralising purposes, both are hybrid events, held in person and online. The Global Day of Action on 6

“We believe the best way to overcome the climate crisis is by empowering and listening to minoritised and Indigenous communities” Kimi Jolly, ESA Scotland November will consist of mass mobilisations across the country and the globe. It’s a coming together of multiple groups – antiracist, migrant, trade unions, youth-focused – all expressing in their own way what climate justice means to them. “If that’s [through] poetry, or political speeches, or massive bands, or coming in national dress, or whatever – it needs to be colourful, it needs to be beautiful, because that’s tapping back into our humanity and getting away from the system,” Humble explains.

The following days, 7-10 November, will consist of the People’s Summit, largely organised by Jana Ahlers, the COP26 Coalition’s Programme Coordinator. Ahlers explains that it’s a festival of sorts, made up of talks, workshops and performances, getting people together and connecting over climate justice. It’s set to be joyous and exciting, showing just how central the arts are to activism. However, aside from this, Humble adds: “The People’s Summit is going to be educational as hell.”

Any and all elitism is stripped away: the climate justice movement is something you can be involved in and care about, regardless of prior knowledge. It’s a space for guilt-free learning – certain activist circles can be rife with snobbery – and the Coalition knows that true climate justice cannot accommodate such attitudes.

This sense of openness is key to the very structure of the Coalition itself. It’s got the range, from Christian Aid to Wretched of the Earth. “There’s a lot of diverse thinking within that, and some from very different ends of the spectrum,” says Humble. And yet, unity takes precedence over further divisions. “We’re hoping to create spaces, in more ways than just having a room; [it’s about] creating space for difficult conversations,” comments Ahlers.

Humble expands: “That will always be on a spectrum

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Intersections

and the importance of the environment,” Humble notes. For example, Glasgow-based imam Hassan Rabbani has long discussed the climate crisis in his sermons. Now, he’s working with the Coalition to involve other imams around the city. “The Muslim world, from Bangladesh and all the way to Morocco, has been hit hard by climate change, so this is very real for a lot of diaspora communities,” explains Humble. “Again, it’s about tapping into those voices and how we connect [with them] because that work is already going on.”

At its core, the Coalition is based on relationships – between people, groups, cultures and faiths. “We want these bonds,” says Humble. “We want these to be long-lasting, meaningful bonds that exist in little centres across all the UK and across all the world, because that is what’s going to keep the movement alive.” The Coalition’s hope is that you’ll go to the Global Day of Action, and then, perhaps, the next day you’ll attend an event at the People’s Summit and see a few familiar faces from the day before. They hope you’ll meet new people and have conversations that will stick with you, and that you will stay in touch and come together again – for climate justice, for anti-racism, for workers’ rights. “That’s how trust is built,” says Humble.

COP26 is a moment – and one that needs to be seized upon. “It’s this first potential high after the pandemic,” notes Ahlers. Mobilising around a single event, it would be easy for the COP26 Coalition to shrink back and quiet down after the conference, once all has been said and done by those in power.

But the Coalition is structured with these particular struggles in my mind. It’s not the Coalition itself, but the relationships fostered through its work that will hopefully sustain the movement. They’re already considering points of reflection: in the months after COP26, they aim to look at what worked, what didn’t, and what the future holds. “We’ve not done enough,” Humble says. “There’s a lot more that needs to be done.”

The Coalition isn’t interested in making icons out of themselves: this is activism without the idol. Their focus is on building a long-term collective movement through local hubs around the world. The COP26 Coalition will dissolve – but the climate justice movement mustn’t. This is just the beginning.

The Global Day of Action takes place on 6 Nov; The People’s Summit takes place 7-10 Nov

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November 2021 — Feature

– you’ll never be able to take it to what might be read by some ‘less radical’ groups as a ‘radical’ endpoint. But what we can do, and I think we have done quite well as a coalition, is to force through to the more radical end of the spectrum.” Oftentimes the ‘radical’ end of things is, quite simply, where justice lies.

This justice is what the Coalition is looking to.

One group within the Coalition is ESA (East and Southeast Asian) Scotland. Kimi Jolly is the Lead Campaigns Officer for ESA Scotland. Jolly is also a Kelabit, an Indigenous tribe from the Highlands of Borneo. “I have chosen to be part of the Coalition because I demand that Indigenous and minoritised voices be at the forefront of climate action policies and conversations,” Jolly says. “Climate change interacts with and worsens existing inequalities in society that are often shaped by racism and colonialism. Climate action requires an intersectional approach that takes into account the most impacted communities. And we believe the best way to overcome the climate crisis is by empowering and listening to minoritised and Indigenous communities.”

The Coalition demands reparations and redistributions to Indigenous communities and the Global South. There’s little room for palatable chats around the climate crisis; rather, there’s a need to admit how we got here and what we’re going to do about it. As Humble explains, “The climate crisis is just the latest expression of a whole load of violence across a whole load of people and their lands around the world.” Jolly echoes this sentiment: “The violence and demise is hidden out of sight, in rural and remote parts of the world where minoritised and Indigenous peoples are not seen or heard and mostly forgotten.”

The Coalition recognises that voices representing populations who have been underserved by various climate movements have the answers and have been offering these answers for a long time.

However, they’re careful to emphasise that they’re disinterested in, as Jana puts it, this “classic token discussion we’ve seen in recent years.” The Coalition is currently working closely with Glasgow’s Muslim community. “The Quran talks about the environment a lot,

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November 2021 — Feature

Advertising Feature

Fife Actually We take a look at some of the great Christmas Markets and festive events happening across Fife this winter Words: Tallah Brash

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ith supermarket shelves already stacked high with huge tubs of festive chocolates and shop-bought mince pies already being ranked from best to worst, it can mean only one thing – Santa is coming! Alongside the main event, winter is about getting out and about with family and friends, and Fife has loads of great events happening over the festive season. As the song goes, ‘Oh the weather outside is frightful, but Fife is so delightful...’

Getting the season off to a flying start is the Teasses Christmas Market on Saturday 4 December. Back after a year off, Teasses will host a craft market in the estate’s beautiful walled garden, food and drink in the stables courtyard, festive storytelling and a special guest appearance from the big man himself – Santa – making for a magical family day out. Teasses Estate, Leven, 4 Dec, 11am-4pm, free entry, welcometofife.com On the same weekend you can also check out the Crail Christmas Fayre (4-5 Dec). Taking place in the Crail Community Hall, visitors can explore a vast selection of creative gift ideas from local vendors, meaning you might be able to get a lot of your Christmas shopping out of the way early on. While the fair itself is free entry, there will be Christmas crafting and cake decorating activities for the kids (£5 per session) and the whole weekend will conclude with a special Christmas concert on Sunday 5 December at 7.30pm (£10 for adults, £5 for children).

Crail Community Hall, Crail, 4-5 Dec, 11am-4pm, free entry; more info on the ticketed events can be found at ticketsource.co.uk/crail-community-partnership More family fun can be found at Dunfermline’s Carnegie Hall this December as it’s set to be transformed into a winter wonderland for The Magic of Christmas. Taking place every Saturday and Sunday

in the lead up to Christmas, The Magic of Christmas is a collaborative event with Pitlochry Festival Theatre taking visitors on an hour-long festive journey which includes a screening of an adventure to find the North Star, a trip through a super-sized Advent Calendar and a visit to Santa in his grotto, naturally. ‘Departures’ leave five times a day from the Carnegie Hall foyer, with the option to end at Tiffany’s cafe for a post-event winter warmer.

Carnegie Hall, Dunfermline, Fridays and Saturdays, 4-19 Dec, 11am, 12.30pm, 2.30pm, 4pm, 7pm, £8.50-10, onfife.com/ event/the-magic-of-christmas-ca44 Also in Fife this year is the brand new Dunfermline Winter Festival. From 12 to 20 December, expect a mix of jazz, classical, swing and Christmas carols across a number of venues like the Alhambra Theatre, Fire Station Creative and the Glen Pavilion, bringing something new to Fife’s festive calendar. Venues, dates, times and prices vary; find more information at tuttievents.com If by the middle of the month you’re still looking for the perfect gift, the perfect cheese for your Christmas cheeseboard or the perfect festive day out, the Bowhouse Christmas Market on 11 and 12 December is a must. The market will boast a huge variety of food and drink traders including St Andrews Farmhouse Cheese, Strathearn Cheese, Cocoa Tree chocolatiers, Wasted Degrees Brewery and Tay Spirits. There will also be 20 different craft stalls, and Christmas trees available to buy. In addition there’ll be live music both days between 12-3pm as well as street food from Rost, Fish and Frites, Mac Love and House of Tapas. Bowhouse, St Monans, 11-12 Dec, 10am-4pm, bowhousefife.com/ event/christmas-market-weekend No festive season would be complete without a trip to the theatre for some panto, so you’ll be relieved to hear Fife has you covered with Ya Wee Sleeping Beauty, starring award-winning actor Billy Mack.

Taking place at the newly refurbished Kings Theatre in Kirkcaldy between 1 December and 16 January, best limber up your ‘Heeeee’s behind yooooou’ lungs now and get ready to experience — 22 —

a very Scottish take on a classic. Kings Theatre, Kirkcaldy, dates, times and prices vary; find more information at kingstheatrekirkcaldy.com There’s something about a ceilidh that just screams Christmas so you’ll be chuffed to hear the Forgan’s Weekend Ceilidh is taking place every Friday and Saturday from 10:30pm. While Saturdays are more of a ‘hooley’, Fridays are beginner-friendly so if you’ve never done Scottish dancing before, this would be a great way to start. Forgan’s, St Andrews, Fridays and Saturdays, 10.30pm, booking essential, forgans.co.uk/st-andrews/events/ceilidh Finally, why leave all your Hogmanay partying to the last day of the year when you could get the party started a day early with the Red Hot Chilli Pipers at the Alhambra Theatre in Kirkcaldy? No, not the Red Hot Chili Peppers, but rather the Celtic rock band composed of three Highland pipers, traditional marching snare drum, a full band and highland dancers. Covering everything from Queen and Coldplay to Snow Patrol and Journey, the band came to prominence after winning When Will I Be Famous in 2007. Expect a festive fusion of traditional and contemporary anthems. Alhambra Theatre, Kirkcaldy, 30 Dec, 3pm & 7.30pm, £25-27.50 + bf, alhambradunfermline.com/ event/the-red-hot-chilli-pipers To find out what else is on over the festive period in Fife visit welcometofife.com/events

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On books and activism Lighthouse Books have launched a video series looking to explore the connections between books and activism. The Skinny speaks to Digital Campaigns Manager Jessica Gaitán Johannesson to learn more

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do. This often involves suggestions of campaigns and organisations to get involved with; particular issues to oppose, but also ways in which we can live differently.”

The series so far includes environmental campaigner and writer, Dr Mya-Rose Craig, who featured in the inaugural video. “The very basis for her book We Have a Dream is to celebrate and connect young indigenous environmental activists and environmental activists of colour, to champion inclusivity in the environmental movement,” explains Johannesson. “She spoke beautifully about how any meaningful climate action cannot be separate from anti-racism and working for equality. We also talked to Joe Mulhall, Senior Researcher at HOPE not Hate and author of Drums in the Distance, a book which lays out the current state of the global far-right. In the video, he explores what kind of action people can take in their everyday lives to fight racism and fascism.

“I’ve spoken to scholar and activist Andreas Malm about his books How to Blow up a Pipeline and White Skin, Black Fuel. Andreas is such an incredible, honest and bold thinker who’s written about strategies in climate activism as well as the threat of the far right in a world of climate breakdown.

We also have an episode coming up with Yassmin Abdel-Magied talking about her stunning middle-grade book Listen, Layla about revolution, identity, courage and belonging.

Particularly, I’d love to invite more fiction writers and poets who are also really active in social and political change-making to take part.

“We’re currently scheduling a whole bunch of recordings, so watch this space!”

Watch Lighthouse’s Read Think Act series on their YouTube channel, search for ‘Lighthouse Bookshop’ Edinburgh’s Radical Book Fair, presented by Lighthouse, takes place at Assembly Roxy, 11-14 Nov lighthousebookshop.com — 23 —

Here’s Jessica’s pick of books that really bridge the gap between reading and on-the-ground activism in imaginative, inspiring ways: This Brutal House by Niven Govinden Hope in the Dark by Rebecca Solnit Consumed by Aja Barber What White People Can Do Next: From Allyship to Coalition

by Emma Dabiri Men Who Hate Women by Laura Bates On Fire by Naomi Klein Crosshairs by Catherine Hernandez

November 2021 — Feature

ead Think Act is really a continuation of the way we do all our bookselling at Lighthouse, with community action and solidarity at its heart,” explains Jessica Gaitán Johannesson, on the bookshop’s new video series.

“Be it through the books we stock and recommend, or in the authors we invite for events, we want the work we feature to empower readers to make positive change, while fostering a supportive local community.”

Lighthouse is a beacon in Edinburgh’s book scene, with the team tirelessly pushing to do more for audiences beyond just Scotland’s capital, the latest of which – their video series – explores the intersections of books and activism, diving a little deeper with the authors into respective topics. “During the pandemic, like everyone else, we had to think about ways of moving online, to still offer that inspiration and presence with physical restrictions in place. I joined Lighthouse as Digital Campaigns Manager in May, and found that our ethos of Read Think Act – already present through blogs and lists on our website – was key to expanding our accessibility, offering discussions around books for people who couldn’t get to the shop, or don’t have time for a full-hour event.

It was also a way of making the connection between reading and activism more explicit.”

Books are inherently linked to activism in its many forms – they disseminate information and ideas, dissect overarching structures in society, and posit ways of revolution and change. They platform ideas, provoke thought and action, and can inspire on an individual and more society-wide level. Accessibility is core to the bookshop’s ethos, and access to this information – offering insight into topics and ideas without the presumption of time or existing knowledge – is equally as important.

“Personally, I think that there’s often an assumption that books are almost inherently activist, that they change lives in and of themselves,” notes Johannesson. “I don’t disagree with the latter, but I do think there’s a gap between an author’s concern, the issues of a book, and what people can do, practically, on the ground. Minds need to be changed, but after that we desperately need real, concrete action. It’s also something I’ve thought about a lot as an author who’s also a climate justice activist, the two being hugely interlinked. Our aim with the set-up of the videos (the way they’re divided into their three parts) is to be able to talk to authors about what people can

Books

Interview: Heather McDaid Illustration: Kirkwood Brothers

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House of Horrors We meet Alison Rumfitt to hear about Tell Me I’m Worthless, her hyper-contemporary new novel connecting haunted houses and right-wing politics

“I

love gothic horror, I love haunted houses,” says writer Alison Rumfitt, on the starting point for Tell Me I’m Worthless, a dark and unflinching novel from Cipher Press. “I was thinking a lot about haunted houses and what, thematically, I could do with a haunted house, and I just sort of fell on the idea of using it to explore these ideas of right-wing politics. I’m not the first person to ever write something with a haunted house that’s representing fascism, but I think I’m the first person to do it in the way that this book does it.”

The way that this book does it is to place women at its centre, and explore the very real horrors of trauma, creeping fascism and life – especially queer life – in England in the current day.

The novel follows Alice, who sells videos of herself cleaning to make money, and goes to parties with people she hates; and Ila, who finds herself on the frontline of the TERF wars. Still haunted by the night they spent in an enigmatic house three years ago, the two women have to face the horrors that

November 2021 — Feature

Image: courtesy Alison Rumfitt

occurred there in order to find out what happened to Hannah, the friend who went into the haunted house with them but never came out.

With its unflinching depiction of trans life and right-wing politics, it’s a book that’s so contemporary, it feels like it’s being written as you’re reading it. I ask about this compulsion, to run towards things that other writers might shy away from. “I’m quite tuned into discourse, in a way that can be bad for my own health, I think, constantly keeping track of what arguments are happening |on Twitter and what different political trends there are and what they mean. I wasn’t necessarily setting out to write a book about the contemporary moment – I definitely ended up there! – but it wasn’t my initial idea.

“It’ll be interesting to see if it ends up hurting the novel. It’s so contemporary that I don’t know, in five or ten years, what it’ll be like for people to read it, whether it’ll feel out of step. But if that is the case then that’s fine, and that’s what the book is.”

Despite its uncompromising nature, it’s a darkly funny book.

There’s a memorable moment when Alice is visited by the ghost of Morrissey, emerging from a haunted poster. Rumfitt laughs when I bring this up. “I don’t know what you’re

“I’m not the first person to ever write something with a haunted house that’s representing fascism, but I think I’m the first person to do it in the way that this book does it” Alison Rumfitt

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Image: courtesy Alison Rumfitt

Books

Interview: Michael Lee Richardson

talking about, there’s no character in the book called Morrissey!” She’s right, there isn’t. “I was surprised by how many people really seem to fixate on this. I mean, I think it’s funny. When I was first writing it, it was mostly a joke, and I still think it’s a joke.

What did surprise me is that people say that they found that section quite frightening.” It is.

Rumfitt wears her influences on her sleeve, referencing other haunted house novels and novelists like Shirley Jackson and Jane Eyre throughout the book. But her other influences are from further off the beaten track. “Honestly, the other trans writing that I’ve read, that I’ve felt a kinship with, has often been very, very small press and self-published stuff. Gretchen Felker-Martin is doing some stuff I really love, and there’s a book of wonderfully violent poetry called No Tiger by Mika.

My friend Christie Evelyn is an amazing writer, and she hasn’t yet had a publishing deal but I hope she does. In my head I’m like, well, if someone likes my writing they should be reading her writing as well.

There are writers I feel kinship with but they’re often people you have to look for on Itch and places like that, more than stuff you’re going to immediately find in a Waterstones.

“I found out the other day that I’ve been put in a subgenre which I didn’t know existed!” she continues. “Apparently I’m part of a subgenre called ‘the new gross’. I don’t know when this happened, I don’t know whose decision it was that I’m part of the new gross, but apparently it’s a thing, and I’m part of it. I’m guessing it’s just new writing that’s gross, I don’t know! For a long period, the trend in literary genre fiction, especially literary horror fiction, has been towards restraint and subtlety, and that has its place, I really enjoy some books that do that. But I think there is a real swing the opposite way, towards literary horror that’s extreme, borrowing stuff from splatterpunk in the 90s, that sort of thing. Maybe that’s what the new gross is, I can’t say. You’d have to ask the person who came up with the phrase!”

Tell Me I’m Worthless is out now via Cipher Press cipherpress.co.uk/tellmeimworthless

THE SKINNY

Planet Love Dundee Rep’s new musical This Is A Love Story, imagines the Earth and Humanity as star-crossed lovers. We chat to creators Jack Godfrey and Ellie Coote about the show, the planet and why it’s important to make space for optimism Theatre

Interview: Eliza Gearty

Image: courtesy Magda Paduch

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This Is A Love Story is at Dundee Rep on 6 Nov. Buy tickets here: dundeerep.co.uk/ whats-on/this-is-a-love-story

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Ellie Coote

November 2021 — Feature

ideas was to use the moon as another kind of ‘person’ in the show that humanity goes and cheats on Earth with.” Grounding such a big concept down with a metaphor that feels so real and relatable was a breakthrough. “[We realised] we can be truthful to human history and truthful to [the metaphor of] the relationship at the same time.”

In today’s world, with young people at the forefront of the climate movement, it’s perhaps no surprise that the next generation of creatives are writing romantic tragicomedies about the planet rather than each other. After all, a recent survey found that almost 60% of respondents under 25 reported feeling ‘extremely worried’ about the climate crisis, with 45% saying that negative feelings about it ‘impact their day-to-day lives.’ Who’s got time to fret about someone not texting back when the world is in flames? “Everyone talks a lot about it,” says Coote, when asked why she wanted to make a show about climate change. “It’s the biggest worry for so many people, especially our generation and younger,” adds Godfrey. “Giving people new ways to think about it feels important.” When it came to her own eco-anxiety, Coote found creating This Is A Love Story was a cathartic experience. “Writing the show was quite helpful in terms of processing,” she says, “because the climate crisis is an emotional thing to think about.”

Crucially though, This Is A Love Story seems to avoid the sense of doom and gloom that characterises so much art that is made about climate change. Interestingly, the show is called this is a love story rather than this is not one. Putting it this way feels somehow gentler and more forgiving – it indicates that we humans are loving creatures at heart, who could still find our way back to the path we have strayed from. “Finding a space to be optimistic in the climate crisis is so important,” says Coote. “That’s one thing we are trying to discover with this show – presenting something truthful and not shying away from the difficult parts of the relationship, but ultimately realising that we have to be optimistic in order to solve the crisis. The show is fun, it’s pop, it’s silly, and for me that makes the difficult moments hit harder. We never want to be preachy – when you’re thinking about a romantic relationship, that’s not relevant in a way. And we’re seeing [the crisis] completely through that lens.”

Image: courtesy Magda Paduch

e all know the score – humanity has been pretty bad for the planet. In fact, if the planet had a friend, they’d probably tell it to dump us. Earth was doing just fine before we came along – now it’s stuck in a bit of a toxic relationship. Its partner keeps promising to change, only to go back to the same old unhealthy patterns of behaviour.

But for years, the planet and humanity were pretty compatible.

Earth nurtured the humans, and the humans were grateful. Earth really was the best version of itself in those Jack Godfrey halcyon days. It was a give and take relationship, not just take take take.

If only things could go back to how they once were…

See the parallels? Composer and lyricist Jack Godfrey and director and dramaturg Ellie Coote had been “talking for a while about wanting to write something about the climate crisis and the planet”, when inspiration struck. “I’d been writing pop songs about my own life and my relationships,” explains Godfrey. “One day I was cycling through London and singing one of those songs in my head – a sad breakup song – and I was like, hold on a second: what if this is humanity singing to the Earth? So I messaged Ellie like, do you think this is a thing?”

“What you actually said was, 'is this a terrible idea or a good one?' laughs Coote. “And I said, 'no, it's good, it's exciting.'”

The pair, who met working on a previous musical together, got to work constructing a ‘pop musical’ about the 200,00-year love story between Earth and Humanity. Before the pandemic they pitched the idea at the BEAM Musical Theatre showcase to a panel that included acclaimed producer Vicky Graham. She liked it. Now the show is premiering at Dundee Rep on 6 November during COP26. It’s also the first show celebrating Dundee Rep’s new status as a Climate Beacon – a Scotland-wide collaborative project between climate change or environmental organisations and arts, heritage and cultural organisations.

“What we really wanted to do was to get the audience to really sympathise and empathise with the Earth as a character,” says Godfrey of This Is A Love Story. “We’re trying to think of a new way to get people thinking about these big issues that are sometimes difficult for people to connect with emotionally. You can look at statistics and data and see what changes have happened over what number of years, but it’s difficult to emotionally connect with that.” The personification used in the show is a clever way to make the issue of climate change, usually so weighed down by political and scientific jargon, more engaging.

“When you’re putting humanity and Earth in a relationship, it’s holding quite a big metaphor,” notes Coote. “One of our earliest

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How open is the door?

As COVID-19 threatens to increase the diversity deficit in the arts, it’s more important than ever to create an inclusive arts sector in the UK Art

Interview: Lauren La Rose

November 2021 — Feature

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rts councils, Creative Scotland and even the government (both Scottish and UK) praise diversity, but in practice struggle to accommodate the many societal barriers facing the disabled and/or chronically ill. The future may be accessible, but will it be equitable?

Alex Callaghan is an artist, activist and researcher currently studying an MA in Arts, Cultural and Festival Management at Queen Margaret University. Inspired by disability-led movements, he is focusing his dissertation on a non-hierarchical, participatory research project.

He conducted an online survey and facilitated disabled-led focus groups in order to co-design disability policy recommendations for Creative Scotland’s consideration.

Collective projects like Not Going Back to Normal (NGBTN) have laid the groundwork for Callaghan’s research, especially Nelly Dean’s three key demands in their Manifesto. In the opening essay, The Impossible World, artists and curators Harry Josephine Giles and Sasha Callaghan propose a radical future without normality. They say representation of disabled people in Scotland is “woefully small” – that the challenge is no longer identifying barriers, but “winning the resources to change them”.

In Manifesto, Dean writes about the history of the Disability Discrimination Act (now known as the Equality Act). Before 1995 it was legal to discriminate against disabled people in the UK. Tired of everyday occurrences of discrimination, disabled and deaf artists led the campaign with direct action. That’s why Dean’s question is so urgent: “Why are we still having to fight the same ignorant discrimination and lack of voice in the arts nearly 30 years on?”

It’s all about the money As inclusivity and diversity have become buzzwords, conversations around access start and end with money. Even with more festivals going entirely online, recent research shows that although online delivery may initially increase access, it has the potential to create more barriers for people with protected identities in the long term.

Callaghan’s research shows that without policy change, diversity will not increase and may in fact lessen. He says: “Accessibility is one key part of the picture. Another is actually making things more inclusive for disabled people to produce art.” He goes on to say that “funding

bodies may listen and talk about the barriers, but if you’ve got a lack of people with lived experience working internally then it’s hard to get a grasp on things, [and] how to actually change them.”

Stigma, coupled with a lack of clear policies put in place for disabled artists, makes it incredibly hard to find inclusive opportunities.

In Scotland, fewer than 5% of the permanent and freelance staff in visual arts Regularly Funded Organisations (RFOs) have identified issues related to gender, ethnicity and disability. Survey findings from the 2021 #WeShallNotBeRemoved campaign reveal the shocking insecurity facing disabled and BAME artists, with one third describing themselves as precariously employed or on a zero-hours contract, a further third having experienced homelessness, and nearly two-thirds worried that they will have to leave the creative industries. While diversifying the arts has become a marketable catchphrase for institutions, no arts councils have formally responded to the findings from the survey.

“Disabled people should be ‘visibly’ (and I don’t mean only visibly disabled) on TV, in film, on stage, in galleries, as well as all the unseen and essential roles in the arts” Helen Fox According to Creative Scotland’s EDI (Equality, Diversity and Inclusion) policy, the door is open for disabled and deaf artists, but Callaghan asks, “How open is the door? On what grounds do you get through the door?” Financial recovery plans have been criticised for prioritising organisations rather than workers, and that project-based business models further alienate workers with protected characteristics. Even with the protection of the Equality Act, there is limited — 26 —

financial support for the many different types of experiences disabled artists face. Helen Fox, a writer, actor, and active participant in the focus groups, says: “We are not a small group of people but are often divided into our separate disability groups and so suppressed as minority groups that there is no financial assistance or support for.”

Scottish scholar Ruth Eikhof argues that workers from ‘at risk’ groups are more likely to experience discrimination because of COVID-19.

“Workers who require additional safety measures, for instance, extra space, physically separated workspaces or extra cleaning, as well as more in-depth, individual consultations… make them ‘costlier’ human resources.” Pre-COVID research also shows that employers’ lack of knowledge about disability made them less likely to even consider hiring a disabled person, even if no reasonable adjustments were required. It is likely that the lack of clarity about ‘at risk’ workers post-COVID will make employers ‘play safe’ and favour workers without potential ‘at risk’ characteristics. Such practices would particularly negatively impact BAME and disabled workers, for whom infection and mortality rates have been reported to be significantly higher.

Quotas for change In order to make the arts sector more inclusive we need more than progressive policy changes, but industry-wide change. Eikhof writes about three drivers of unequal workplace participation and advancement in the cultural economy: first, a Eurocentric, white, middle class, non-disabled and male idea of talent; second, the persistence of misogynist and discriminatory working cultures; third, the typical business models and their resultant exclusionary work and employment practices. A social model of disability (whereby people are disabled by societal barriers rather than by their impairment or difference) means that policy and industry-wide change needs to be able to name and dismantle these unjust drivers.

It’s complex, but not impossible.

Collectivising works, and Callaghan and Fox have felt energised by the passion for change from the focus group participants. “It’s become evident [that] Creative Scotland is a key part of the picture” says Callaghan, “but I also think that the Scottish government is a key part. I think that a way for influencing change where disabled artists are supported far better is trying to link the two

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Image: courtesy of the artist

still important: “Some things have changed, but the root causes of things like discrimination are firmly embedded in so many institutions.” Fox asks, meanwhile, “Does our voice matter? Nothing changes if we are not prepared to speak up and say something.”

It’s all about the art Disabled-led groups like #NGBTN and #WWNBR have amplified disabled voices in Scotland, reaching a global audience. While there is a passion for change, there is a real concern that Disability arts is a silo, often leaving disabled artists without the means to integrate into mainstream projects. Fox expresses her frustration: “Disabled people shouldn’t be seen as ‘other’.

The idea of a ‘disabled’ festival is really off-putting — 27 —

Earlier this year Alchemy Film & Arts, LUX Scotland and The Skinny worked together to offer an open-call programme of writing workshops for early-career writers, addressing artists’ moving image and experimental film. This text is the third in a new series of commissioned writing that resulted from this partnership programme

November 2021 — Feature

up. Perhaps there’s room to argue that the Scottish government should actually be providing Creative Scotland with the resources to ensure that they can better support disabled people.”

For the focus group, policy recommendations are just the start. Callaghan says: “I feel that opening up the conversation by asking questions that aren’t regularly being asked is a promising starting point to working towards something that can actually reduce these barriers.” People are committed to creating a genuinely diverse creative sector, “there is a real appetite to see progressive change in the arts,” they add, “with a key emphasis on ensuring that disabled people can maintain and build careers.” There’s a lot to be optimistic about.

Callaghan admits that it remains tricky to make universal policy change, but that change is

Art

What’s on My Mind, 2020, Alex Callaghan

to me. It feels like we’d be corralled into a space, given funding so the mainstream wouldn’t have to ‘deal’ with us… I have thus far avoided writing a play specifically about disability because it feels ‘otherish’. I want to, but I fear it. Disabled people should be ‘visibly’ (and I don’t mean only visibly disabled) on TV, in film, on stage, in galleries, as well as all the unseen and essential roles in the arts. It should be ‘normal’ to see several disabled people in productions without it being about disability. Nearly a quarter of all people are disabled. Where do you see this quarter of people represented?”

In the last paragraph of Dean’s Manifesto, they write: “Art organisations treat Disabled and Deaf Artists differently – they don’t see our work as quality, they don’t understand the politicalness of it. They judge it as inferior. That needs to change.” This sentiment was shared throughout the 33 responses to Callaghan’s online survey.

Many respondents were unaware that there is even public funding available, which according to Callaghan suggests a need for greater outreach.

He elaborates: “There was quite an overriding impression from the survey responses that Creative Scotland don’t offer enough support for things like filling out applications, but some people weren’t even aware that they have a service to support people with their applications, which is open to non-disabled people as well. Again, if people aren’t aware of this maybe it suggests that Creative Scotland should be doing more to showcase that there is enough support for people who need it.”

Creative Scotland are setting up their own EDI communities, but there is scepticism as to whether these groups have any teeth to make change. Callaghan worries that a lack of autonomy could result in more gatekeeping and cherry-picking of policies that are easier to implement. “I think widening diversity right now is almost becoming a marketing brand in itself,” he says, “where certain protected characteristics will be in fashion for a couple of years and then there will be a move, and then it goes around the wheel again... There’s a lot of performativity within government agencies, but then it comes back to why I am really convinced that having a national Disability Arts body that has agency and autonomy, that does receive regular funding, could be a way to ensure that things don’t just get talked about and then sidelined.”

As Dean writes: “Look around – there are some great people out there who are Disabled, Deaf, are BAME, LGBTQI+, have Learning Disabilities, Refugees, Asylum Seekers and Migrants. There is rich talent that is being ignored... until our creative voices are filling submissions for funding. When it becomes competitive then funders have done their work right.” If we truly want equality in the arts sector we have to create it. Building collective agency works. Even if it starts small.

Music

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Level the Playing Field We chat to Tamara Schlesinger from Hen Hoose, Brat Coven and Uninvited about the rise of Scottish women in music: a post-lockdown grrrl power resurgence Interview: Jodie Leith

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Hen Hoose Tamara Schlesinger, aka MALKA, is the founder of musical collective Hen Hoose, who release their debut album, Equaliser, on 5 November. Funded by Creative Scotland, Hen Hoose is composed entirely of female and non-binary artists, spanning a variety of genres, with Equaliser mixed by producer Susan Bear and mastered by an all-female production team at Novasound.

“I’ve been doing music for a long time,” Schlesinger, formerly of 6 Day Riot, tells us. “I was lucky with the success I had, but as I became older and began receiving fewer opportunities I became aware of ageism and sexism within the industry. The idea behind Hen Hoose is to shine a light on how many incredible female songwriters and producers get overlooked.”

Hen Hoose has an especially unique manifesto. In addition to Equaliser, there’s also the goal for the collective to work as a production house, monetising their work and pitching tracks (known as syncs) to be used in film, television and adverts – already their music has been included in the ScotGov vaccine campaign. “All of us are together on a springboard pushing each other off and raising each other up; it was incredibly inspirTamara Schlesinger, aka MALKA ing,” Schlesinger says.

Photo: @cursetheseeyes

November 2021 — Feature

hile much of the music industry struggled under the limitations of lockdown, with a halt to live performances and studio production, Scotland’s DIY music scene flourished with newly established female and non-binary artists. We catch up with some of Scotland’s talented and newly formed female and non-binary collectives who have risen from the flames of isolation to shine a light on the importance of gender equality in music and representation of women in the Scottish music scene.

“Lockdown and isolation really put everyone on the same playing field” Taylor-Ray Dillon, Uninvited “There were times when I felt tearfully proud about the project.

We had a support network of being together – we’d collaborate and inspire each other.”

Schlesinger admits that lockdown was largely responsible for the existence of Hen Hoose: “Part of the problem is that if you’re not allowing women and non-binary artists to get credits, then they have no CV to show off their skillset,” Schlesinger says. “Amandah Wilkinson (who features on and produces Equaliser) said it was life-changing for her – her first credit as a record producer.

“There was almost an excitement with being in lockdown.

Lockdown levelled the playing field; everyone was in the same situation. I think so many women and non-binary people formed bands because they were so used to going into a studio with a man. When they weren’t there, they had to set up studios and do it for themselves.” Schlesinger continues: “That gave us the confidence to take on roles. We know we don’t need to have someone else around to do the work. We can do it, if not better, than the rest.” Where will Hen Hoose go? “I’d love to do another round and bring some up-and-coming songwriters together with some experienced writers, but I’m definitely looking at Hen Hoose as a production house. Instead of going to LA and London to write pop songs, why not come to Glasgow?”

Brat Coven Also established during lockdown were Glasgow-based, riot grrrl-inspired three-piece Brat Coven, composed of Beth McLeish, Lucy ‘Luce’ Smith, and Sarah-Jane ‘S-J’ Mellin. “We wanted to start a band that represented our version of riot grrrl and create a safer and more inclusive space in the scene,” McLeish says. Mellin adds: “We had a lot to say – a lot of pent-up anger – with the UK Government’s treatment of vulnerable people and minorities and the increase of gender-based violence. We knew we had to use our platform to make them heard.” Brat Coven are successfully reviving the riot grrrl manifesto but updating it. “We love the riot grrrl movement,” Smith says. “However, it did have limitations towards middle class, cis, thin, white women – which is something we want to change.”

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Photo: Uninvited

Uninvited Formed through “chance meetings on public transport and a little help from Instagram,” Uninvited were welcomed with waves of support. The lockdown-formed alt-rock four-piece from Glasgow were signed to 7 West Music and reached over a thousand followers on Instagram in a matter of weeks – all before releasing any music. “It’s so amazing to read/hear the response. It means so much to us and boosts our motivation to continue – because it is a tough industry to crack,” vocalist and bassist Taylor-Ray Dillon begins. “Personally, I wanted to create a band I wish were already around. We wanted people to be able to relate to us, our songs, and show that the male-dominated music scene is changing; to prove that gender does not limit ability.”

Gillian Dhlakama (vocals/guitar) reflects: “We found that lockdown was beneficial for the creative process as it allowed us to improve individually and as a band before getting thrown into the scene. We had loads of time to grow to love each other – it’s important to create a solid bond with each other. Now

we’re on the other side of lockdown, it’s time for us to display everything we’ve worked on.”

Did lockdown encourage the band to adapt to a DIY mentality? Agreeing with Hen Hoose’s Schlesinger, Dillon adds: “Lockdown and isolation really put everyone on the same playing field. The studios and venues usually dominated by male artists and producers were no longer available – to anyone! I think that made it a lot less daunting for people to get involved without feeling intimidated.”

Reflecting on women and non-binary people in music, Dhlakama notes: “We find in music there can be a lot of gatekeeping, which really inhibits women, non-binary people, and minority groups from accessing resources and opportunities to share and expand their musicality. It can be as simple as buying or borrowing a cheap guitar and watching some videos, teaching yourself some chords or mimicking tunes.”

Following on from singles Tomboy and Diet Cigarette, what’s next for the four-piece? “We’ve got another single to be released by the start of 2022,” Dillon says, “but our focus until then will be gigging. We want to build our fan base as much as we can and enjoy the live music scene!”

Brat Coven

“It can be exhausting being someone who has to give 110% all the time” Lucy ‘Luce’ Smith, Brat Coven

Hen Hoose release their debut album Equaliser on 5 Nov via Tantrum Uninvited play A Fundraiser for Tiny Changes at St Luke’s, Glasgow, 28 Nov henhoose.com bratcoven.bandcamp.com instagram.com/officialuninvited Brat Coven play Stag & Dagger Glasgow, 13 Nov

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Uninvited

November 2021 — Feature

Photo: Will Downe

Time for change So, are we seeing a positive change in the Scottish music scene? All the artists seemed to agree. “We are seeing change,” hesitates Brat Coven’s Smith, “But at a snail’s pace. Incredible women are working behind the scenes, but a lot are turned off to even try, based on the representation and treatment [once you’re part of the scene]. It can be exhausting being someone who has to give 110% all the time.”

“I’ve noticed a small change but nothing to really make noise about,” Uninvited’s Dhlakama considers. “I feel there is a lot more work that needs to be done in giving non-male musicians a chance to make themselves known and heard, and to disassemble this hierarchy that has been built over the years in this (cis) male-dominated scene.”

“Coming out of lockdown was depressing,” adds Schlesinger. “Suddenly, we’re back to reality, and it’s all men booking the festival slots and it feels like nothing’s changed.

But now is a good time for women and non-binary artists in the industry; people are trying hard to ensure there is more visibility and more representation. There is an acknowledgment – not everywhere – to try and make sure that the playing field has been levelled a little bit more. Women feel empowered to shout about it more in recent years, but a huge change is required across the industry – we can’t do it ourselves.”

Music

Their unapologetic, breakneck debut single, White Noise, released earlier this year, is accompanied by a VHS-style homemade music video with each Brat performing in their separate rooms as lead singer Smith roars into a makeup brush: ‘Don’t break me down for fighting for the girls’. It’s the epitome of the authentic bedroom/DIY phenomenon, perhaps heightened by the Government ban on studio use at the time.

Although the gig prospects seem to be rolling in for the Coven now, lockdown presented both opportunities and obstacles.

“It was a slower process to get music written and recorded,” Mellin explains. “We released our first song with a music video, without ever being together.” The upside? “Lockdown allowed us to focus on Brat Coven,” Mellin continues. “We have always had a DIY ethos; it’s rewarding and we enjoy having full creative control.

Since we couldn’t get to a studio or practice together, we had no choice but to do it ourselves and record our parts at home.”

McLeish adds: “Our drummer mixed everything for us, and S-J’s boyfriend did the mastering. Our social media is entirely run by us. We put together all our promo stuff – graphics, a website and a store. It’s all us – which is very important to us.”

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Music

Photo: Bovine

Music of the Night We catch up with rising Paisley talent Linzi Clark to discuss her debut album, All I Have Now Interview: Maeve Hannigan

November 2021 — Feature

S

itting in a coffee shop, with Vengaboys blaring, singer-songwriter Linzi Clark assures us that Paisley is where it’s at. It’s clear that the Glasgow scene of raging mullets and brassy improvs is not the birthplace of her sound.

Instead, she identifies with Paisley: a smaller pool of collaborative artists. “I think because my songwriting has been a bit of a journey – starting out at 19, going to gigs on my own and being intimidated by the whole industry,” she says, “I was just aware of how much better it would be with a supportive group. When I went to university I found that and I felt so grateful that I had this safe place to explore who I am as an artist.”

Clark’s upcoming debut album, All I Have Now, takes a loving step away from the electro-pop of her duo DRIFT towards an intimate conversation with oneself. “Obviously, with DRIFT, I’ve felt proud of that, but I think because this album feels very much just me, I’ve never had that feeling of contentment.” She continues: “It feels like, finally, this is what I wanted my songs to sound like and it’s strange not to feel embarrassed by them; it feels good to be unapologetic. It’s kind of sad because I’ve been doing this for maybe ten years now and I’m just at the point of feeling proud of it.”

Through the process of songwriting, Clark inhabits the complex space between imagination and reality through delicate observations on love, identity and growth. “I love trying to describe the indescribable because it’s such a universal feeling that everyone has but is so hard to describe – I love the challenge of that,” she says. “I don’t think I will ever run out of ways to write a love song.”

Clark’s work does not seek to solve life’s equations but is evidence of the process. “I’m

always looking to question and find the truth in things,” she says. “The process is very personal – exploring things that are going on in my life at that moment. I find it hard sometimes to articulate myself as I’m quite rambly, so when it comes to songwriting, it feels like I can finally say what I’ve been wanting to say about things. It’s almost self-indulgent.”

And what do you want to say? “I guess about inner processing and how that reflects life: relationships, personal identity, navigating your way through situations to do with being a woman. I was quite surprised at that. I always think of myself as being quite open. If anything I can’t help but say what I think a lot of the time. But I look back at the songs and that seems to be a theme, that inner conflict.”

Clark is confident in energy but humble at heart. “I feel if I didn’t have songwriting, there would be a huge part of me that would be hidden away.”

The DIY nature of All I Have Now is what connects Clark’s personal inklings to the outside space she so honestly occupies. Her songs are intimate diary entries, written late at night, waiting for the world to sleep. “There’s something about the stillness of [late at night]: most people being asleep, me not having to be anywhere,” she says. “I think when I’m tired as well I seem to get into this state of being more open to ideas.”

Finding this unrestricted process in songwriting is what Clark believes comes from a place of being confident in the unknown. Conversing with Regina Spektor melodies that tickle the mind and fleeting feelings that are rooted in Americana, Linzi Clark’s sound is honest. “Part of the whole learning journey of realising that the things I felt were holding me back by doing it on my own, were — 30 —

“If I didn’t have songwriting, there would be a huge part of me that would be hidden away” Linzi Clark actually strengths of mine,” she says. “My lack of technical skills meant that I had no structure at all to follow and I didn’t know what the rules were.”

By turning weaknesses into strengths, Clark has been able to hone the rawness of her material through an unrestricted manual and the technical touch of Paisley producer Bovine: “I found someone who was technically so gifted and talented but that wasn’t his style of working. He was very much all about the atmosphere of the song and the vibe, someone who understood what I wanted the feeling of the song to be like,” she says.

With You, Balancing Act and The Kitchen are just a few of the released chapters in Clark’s memoir. It’s a universal process Clark gives dialect to, embracing what it is to be human. “I’ve never thought about how the reason I’m probably writing a lot of songs is probably so I can speak to myself,” she admits. And if your music could offer something to people? “If people just understood me – that would be enough.”

All I Have Now is self-released on 5 Nov; Linzi Clark plays The Hug and Pint, Glasgow, 30 Nov linziclark.com

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Art

Image: courtesy of the artist Another Country, Joanne Soroka

November 2021 — Feature

Fresh Fruit of the Loom We’ve woven together interviews with 21 tapestry makers to bring some insight into what it means to work with a medium that’s often more associated with antiques than contemporary art Interview: Adam Benmakhlouf

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n the era of the All-Media Artist, when an Adobe Creative Suite subscription is more important than a studio, it’s with some surprise that this month brings two separate tapestry group shows to Edinburgh. One is in the City Art Centre, opening in the middle of this month, the other already open in Inverleith House, the Cordis Prize 2021.

In a time when virtual artworks can fetch dizzying sums sold via hi-tech non-fungible tokens, Cordis Prize shortlister Zhanna Petrenko asks, now that so much “is digitised, what value can the tangible object have? Galleries are becoming online platforms, artists are communicating and making experiences with each other less and less… [literally] quarantined all over the world.”

Petrenko’s own work is a response to the ongoing

military action in the South of Ukraine. She uses images that for her draw attention to the “information warfare in the media,” using tapestry to make “the pixels disappear.”

With relatively few chances to see tapestry IRL, there might be some misconceptions about what goes into making one. Joanne Soroka, who is exhibiting in the City Art Centre explains: “What we do is tapestry weaving. A lot of people who talk about ‘tapestry’, it’s actually embroidery they’re talking about.” The latter being the kind of work made using ‘tapestry kits’. With these, people stitch along according to a guide on top of an existing textile, sewing threads into it to make an image, “whereas what we do starts from scratch.”

On this point, see also Maija Fox’s Cordis entry, — 32 —

a 3D woven sculpture using traditional Finnish textile weaving techniques and hand stitching, repurposing techniques usually used in making hardy snow-socks.

If this sounds time-consuming, it’s because it absolutely is. But as Sara Brennan (in the City Art Centre show) explains, after decades of working with tapestry, “you can do things that you can’t do with any other medium… Wool absorbs the light. It makes for a different kind of black compared to painting, which makes a reflective surface.” Fellow Cordis exhibitor Fiona Rutherford, whose tapestries resemble gestural hand-drawn marks, picks up this point with regards to her work. “It wouldn’t work as strong as a painting. The depth of colour and the texture would be absent.”

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Image: courtesy Zhanna Petrenko

“Anything can be woven really!

Dog leads, bank statements, maybe even scaffolding” Patrick Stratton For Nakahiro Misako, based in Japan, it was the raft of new visual forms of COVID social regulation that became her inspiration for her Cordis submission. Her tapestry could be a distorted Op Art work, neon yellow and white stripes melting out of alignment, looking like a sheet of hazard stripes reflected in a funhouse mirror. “I created this work during such a chaotic time. Yellow is often used as a colour of caution. I wove this picture of stubborn stripes distorting as a symbol of hope in a world where [new rules are everywhere].” Speaking of the slowness of image-making that tapestry represents, Misako sums up: “There are things that only become clear when the time is taken to understand them.”

As much as tapestry might take a lot of time, for all its regal associations, the amount of tech needed to make an impressively scaled work isn’t as outrageous as might be expected. Elaine Wilson describes being furloughed from her tapestry weaving apprenticeship at the start of 2020, and how she furnished herself with what she needed to make her first independently woven tapestry. “I didn’t have my own loom at home, or any materials required for tapestry weaving; so I ordered an industrial clothing rail to warp up and use as a — 33 —

Zhanna Petrenko

loom, and a selection of wool so I could get to work.” A trained painter, Wilson’s tapestry is a technically complicated abstract titled Blue Splash, representing thrown and dripping paint using tapestry techniques.

In City Art Centre, there is inclusion of works by artists like Tessa Lynch, Gordon Brennan and Henny Burnett whose common denominator is their departure from an early training in Tapestry. This allows certain aspects of tapestry-making to be shown to cross over to other media. Take Henny Burnett’s 365 Days of Plastic. Burnett slowly accumulated her own plastic waste, and cast it dedicatedly in pink dental plaster throughout the year. Lines of association emerge between her methodology and the iterative and patient build-up of a tapestry.

Or take Tessa Lynch’s Handhelds, smaller scale aluminium sculptures, “based on buildings in plan that I moved through on my commute, then I made them into perforated net type shapes.” Lynch mentions as one potential parallel to the tapestry process, the “very methodical [and] mathematical way of making them.”

Gordon Brennan’s works on show are the latest in his materially experimental practice which extends several decades back to his seven-year apprenticeship in Dovecot Studios. When he went to study in ECA, he applied principles of tapestry to casting and sculpture, namely that the work doesn’t need a “backdrop” and instead – as Joanne Soroka already mentions above – “the form, the surface and the colour is all cast into one thing.” In his exhibited work, he shows some of his experiments with works that have a base and skin, but also perforations that allow the wall to be seen behind. He suggests in a way this makes for a shared characteristic with tapestry, “which is draped, it’s not flat,” namely that “you’re aware of the wall behind.”

To finish, a note of caution on tapestry from Cordis award winner and City Art Centre exhibitor Susan Mowatt. “It can produce pretty bogging, horrible stuff. Lots of people seem to think if they spent three months making them, it’s somehow valuable.” It’s a useful dousing of the infectious enthusiasm that comes from interviewing 21 tapestry-makers. But it’s still just a medium like any other, with just enough exceptional and era-defying examples to act as reminders that stunning visuals don’t always need a high-powered server attached.

The 2021 Cordis Prize exhibition continues in Inverleith House until 12 Dec; Tapestry: Changing Concepts is at City Art, Centre 13 Nov-13 Mar 2022

November 2021 — Feature

Photo: Shannon Tofts Fleeting Glimpse, 2018, Jo Barker

While some artists bring materials into their tapestries that aren’t classically used, Cordis exhibitor Anne Bjørn pushes at the expectations of what a tapestry can hold by incorporating hi-tech processes into her making process, as she uses laser cutting to create a grid, which is then woven with paper yarn. They blow up the usually imperceptible kinds of connections and knots that make up a tapestry. Similarly, Patrick Stratton pushes at the lo-fi associations of tapestry. His woven and cartoonish looking illustrations of mundane daily activities – as a twist – include kinetic, motorised elements, making the images literally move.

While material experimentation and technological additions are some ways of bringing the show up to date, contemporary social issues are the motor behind the works by Cordis shortlist artists Anna Olsson and Nakahiro Misako.

Through making portraits from selfies of friends in the asylum process, Olsson attempts to confer some of the status of tapestry to people that have been refused institutional recognition and so denied the means for their own survival. She breaks the mould of the dawn-til-dusk weaver, as her time is split between her work in textiles and as a psychologist for young people fleeing persecution, seeking refuge in Sweden.

Art

The unique woollen black is also mentioned

by Katja Beckman, whose Cordis work is indeed a black monochrome rectangle in portrait orientation.

It’s also covered “in thin rya [threads] knotted in and hanging from the woven fabric. Rya has a unique quality to create a living surface. It has an inviting effect, you want to get close and touch it.”

As well as allowing for visual impact and presence that other media can’t reproduce, Patrick Stratton from the Cordis shortlist assures that the process is also “supremely addictive.” For him, despite its long and somewhat illustrious history, tapestry is still a mostly untapped medium in terms of the potential that still exists within it. “It isn’t material dependant, it’s just a process of making a form of fabric. Anything can be woven really! Dog leads, bank statements, maybe even scaffolding.

That’s what I think it can offer contemporary art, along with a rich history of making.”

Tapping straight into this history, Chrissie Freeth is the most classically-inspired maker. While Freeth’s tapestries are close interpretations of Medieval works (speaking to her other life as an archaeologist) they delicately subvert existing antique forms of the medium. For instance as a “play on medieval hunting tapestries” and as a response to the self-reflection many had no choice but to engage in over lockdown, Freeth shows a stylised landscape and set of characters, one of whom is looking for their own likeness. Instead of a deer or boar, “it is the self that is being sought.”

In contrast, across both shows there are artists – like Jo McDonald, Angela Maddock, Fiona Hutchison and Susan Mowatt – who put their tapestry training to work, but use materials that wouldn’t have been envisioned by Medieval makers of “portable wallpaper”, as Cordis exhibitor Martin Nannestad Jørgensen describes the classical use of tapestry. Once upon a time, they were moved around the stone walls of towers to keep the inhabitants from catching a draught. Instead, for the kinds of experimental weavers on show, works are made using paper streamers, repurposed plastic packaging, or torn-out pages from books.

Somewhat reminiscent of Sheila Hicks’ heftily piled floor-based textile works, Angela Maddock’s Cordis entry work is a meditation on absence, isolation and loss, made from second-hand garments that have been carefully sliced apart then “reassembled here through knotting and weaving. … Shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, thigh to thigh...”

Her work contains, among other things, leggings, pants, pyjamas and sweatshirts, no fewer than 96 T-shirts all “otherwise destined for the ragpile.”

THE SKINNY

Photo: Ebru Yildiz

Five Must-See Artists Playing The Great Western

Various Venues, Glasgow, 13 Nov

Music

Anna Meredith The prodigious South Queensferry composer has gone from receiving commissions from the BBC Proms and the 2012 Cultural Olympiad to scoring the sublime Eighth Grade and releasing her own interpolation of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, but it is her searing, provocative solo electronic records Varmints and Fibs that stand above all else.

Yard Act One of the buzziest bands in the UK, the Leeds quartet are set to release their debut album, The Overload, in January, following their highly celebrated singles Fixer Upper and Dark Days. The sharp, acerbic wit of frontman James Smith is matched by the chippy, angular post-punk of the rest of the band. Catch them before they become a huge deal.

November 2021 — Feature

Cassandra Jenkins The Brooklyn alt-folk singer-songwriter’s second studio album, An Overview on Phenomenal Nature, is one of the year’s most acclaimed releases, a delicate blend of conversational writing and precious, ambient-flavoured atmospherics. Her light, dream-like touch should not be underestimated, however: Jenkins’ songs conceal profound emotional depths too.

Nuha Ruby Ra An effortlessly cool performer, Nuha Ruby Ra is a London-based composer and singer who channels the spirit of Poly Styrene and FKA twigs, without sounding much like either.

Her debut EP, How to Move, is an innovative, original statement, offering a path through the darkness for its listeners, just as it did for Nuha herself. An emerging name to keep an eye on.

Oracle Sisters Woozy, psychedelic vibes inhabit the Paris-based duo’s two Paris EPs, marrying strung-out sundrenched indie guitars with electronic flourishes. Invoking the 60s pop greats in much the same way as The Lemon Twigs or Foxygen, they are the perfect act for a long day at a festival. tgwfest.com

Want and Hope Ahead of her appearance at The Great Eastern festival this month, we speak to Anna B Savage about her debut album, A Common Turn Interview: Max Pilley

T

he only person involved with A Common Turn who is still unaware of the praise that has been lavished upon it is its creator, Anna B Savage. The London singer-songwriter’s debut album has rightly been hailed as a provocative, grandiose and authentic first statement, but Savage herself refuses to engage with people’s reactions to it.

“I think it’s very unhealthy to be able to read what people think of you all the time,” she says.

“My curiosity doesn’t dominate my self-protection.

— 34 —

If people don’t like my album, it’s like, ‘OK, you don’t like me as a person.’ As a perpetual people pleaser, the worst thing in the world is for people not to like me.”

It is a policy that dates back to her debut EP in 2015. That release also got more than its fair share of positive feedback, including from the likes of Jenny Hval and Father John Misty, but Savage struggled to process the compliments. “The main thing was just having incredibly low self-esteem at that point in my life,” she reflects. “And then

THE SKINNY

“I think it’s very unhealthy to be able to read what people think of you all the time” Anna B Savage

Five Must-See Artists Playing The Great Eastern

Various Venues, Edinburgh, 27 Nov

BC Camplight The Manchester-based cult singersongwriter has endured personal tragedy, an enforced deportation and myriad other unfortunate events, but his spirit has never dimmed. 2020’s Shortly After Takeoff was the third in an outstanding trilogy of albums.

Expect soaring melodies, caustic storytelling and, very possibly, a lot of drinking.

Tracyanne & Danny The collaborative project between Tracyanne Campbell (Camera Obscura) and Danny Coughlan (Crybaby), they released their sole album three years ago and this re-emergence is most welcome. A showcase for Campbell’s iconic vocal talents, the pair keep the flame of nostalgic indie pop burning, aided by Coughlan’s subtle, intricate arrangements. (They also play The Great Western, Glasgow, 13 Nov) Deadletter The South London quartet caught the attention with their breakout 2020 single Fit for Work, a blistering attack on government policy with skronking sax screaming over furious, deadpan lyrics. Part of the scene around the Brixton Windmill, Deadletter will bring their intensity to Edinburgh ahead of their expected debut album in 2022.

Anna B Savage

Anna B Savage plays The Great Eastern, Edinburgh, 27 Nov annabsavage.com

Strange Bones Eardrum-threatening electro-punk from a Blackpool band that howls with the pain of a young generation that feels left out by the world.

The Bentham brothers don’t deal in subtleties, they deal in huge, groundshaking beats, soaring guitar solos and screaming, no-prisonerstaken vocals. thegreateastern.org

November 2021 — Feature

BABii The project of Margate musician Daisy Warne, BABii exists in a world somewhere between the slinky, lush R’n’B of Kelela and the playful, clattering electronic production of PC Music. Her second album, Mirror, was released earlier this year and is one of 2021’s most forwardlooking releases.

— 35 —

Music

“As a perpetual people pleaser, the worst thing in the world is for people not to like me”

Photo: Jem Talbot

people having a positive reaction to it, it was a split between thinking, ‘they do not understand how shit I am’ and also, ‘well if they think it’s good, then I’m a piece of shit and I’m never going to be able to write something as good as that ever again’.”

Savage entered a period of radio silence as an artist for five full years following that EP. It was a difficult period of introspection, but after periods of therapy and “working really fucking hard” to like herself again, she found herself working on the set of songs that would become A Common Turn.

Looking back, she accepts that she could never have given up making music for good, but at the same time, she never dared to expect that the album would be the success that it has been.

“There’s a difference between wanting it to happen, expecting it to happen and hoping it will happen. I was definitely in the want and hope categories, but I just didn’t see a way that it would. My main thing was getting the album done just for me.”

It is not altogether surprising that Savage would be so affected by outside opinions of her work, given the amount of her true self that is buried into the tracks. Her songs tell refreshingly honest tales of growth, self-doubt and sexuality, always striking a treacherous balance between fragility and defiance, all the while maintaining a wry, darkly comic worldview. Take Chelsea Hotel #3, an eye-wateringly frank account of a sexual encounter that finds her resorting to mental images of ‘Tim Curry in lingerie’ or Y Tu Mama Tambien for satisfaction.

With the album having been out since January, Savage recently completed her first run of live dates in over five years and is now gearing up to play at The Great Eastern Festival in Edinburgh on 27 November. “They were fucking amazing!” she says about her return shows. “I was quite nervous about it, but I feel like it really went incredibly well.”

Part of her band for the current shows is William Doyle, the Mercury Prize-nominated musician and composer who has also recorded under the name East India Youth. Savage reached out to Doyle when he wrote an Instagram post looking for artists who need a producer, and they hit it off immediately. “I was like, ‘He’s the missing piece! He’s the one who makes it sound how I imagine it sounding!” she says with a glint. Doyle’s production on A Common Turn was integral enough to the album’s DNA that Savage felt he had to be a part of its live incarnation as well.

Savage’s stunning vocal style is another essential element to the mix, a deep, vibrato croon that brings to mind the likes of Scott Walker and ANOHNI. She has been singing for as long as she can remember, thanks in part to both of her parents being professional classical singers. It was

a childhood of choir camps and watching her parents’ opera productions, and she remembers filling her hours poring over Ella Fitzgerald and Whitney Houston records and trying to emulate them. “The Ain’t No Sunshine bit where Bill Withers does the 25 ‘I knows’,” she says, “I remember sitting on my bed and repeating the song over and over again until I could do all that in one breath, and I was probably ten.” Any suggestions that she might follow her parents into the classical world, however, were soon quashed by a streak of teenage rebellion and she started to pursue the life that she now enjoys.

After the next live dates, thoughts will start to turn to putting together her second album.

Where A Common Turn emerged from a process of “torture and pain”, she hopes the next project will be a more enjoyable affair, with more creative time spent in the studio and with the possibility of more open collaboration. Might such a change radically alter her sound? “I don’t know,” she says, “this is what I’m intrigued by. Would it still be so fucking melodramatic? I am a drama student, I do love a bit of melodrama, but I don’t know. I’m excited to find out!”

THE SKINNY

Music

Photo: John Mackie

Make a Statement One of Scotland’s most beguiling artists , Callum Easter, is back with a politically-charged, stylistically challenging new album Interview: Joe Goggins

November 2021 — Feature

“I

had some time on my hands, and that drove me crazy.”

In Callum Easter’s world, time to ruminate could lead to all manner of musical possibilities. The Leith-based multi-instrumentalist is impossible to pigeonhole; one part futureblues singer, one part one-man band, he’s a relentless experimentalist, and after the events of the past 18 months meant that his work schedule was suddenly empty, he set about following up his searing debut, 2019’s Here or Nowhere.

The result is System, an exhilarating odyssey into Easter’s mind that’s by turns fiercely political and deeply personal. Like most of his work, the record came together piece by piece in his Edinburgh studio, lending it a kaleidoscopic air. “It’s quite a rigorous process,” he says over the phone from that same room. “I was aiming for fewer layers this time. I felt like it would be good to set myself some parameters – it’d be easier to write that way, but then I look around the studio and see all these instruments I’ve got… somebody loaned me a Nightshade synthesizer, so that had to go on there, and you throw all of these bizarre instruments on there and before you know it, you’ve got all these crazy songs, and you have no idea how you’re going to make them work live!”

Easter’s stylistic wanderlust is scored through System, which takes his long-established love of rock’n’roll and augments it by exploring a spectrum of different sounds. Like his fellow Leith men and occasional collaborators Young Fathers, Easter’s work feels maximalist sonically, and like that band, too, he has zeroed in on political themes on System, even if the world around him still feels like a little bit of an enigma.

“It’s funny, because I’ve probably been trying to avoid the news and stay away from social media,” he says, with a grim laugh. “I feel like I’m just using the songs to interpret what’s going on around me, and try not to shy away from making a statement. I was up and down on singing ‘fuck the system’ [on the title track] – I wondered, can I get away with that kind of thing? But whether it’s a melancholy love song or something more jagged about what’s happening in the world, I think there’s always some darkness in there.”

He cites, for instance, some of the love songs on the album, “which are about the peaks and troughs of relationships, and I’ve certainly been having a few of those recently. I probably should have just written a whole bunch of love songs, but then I’ll think about the fact that the Saudis are bombing Yemen with arms we sold them, and I can’t help myself but put it into the music.”

Despite that, Easter says he’s eager to “have a bit more of a party on stage.” You never quite know which version of him you’re going to get when he performs live, other than that he’s likely to have a set-up that presents him as some kind of musical mad professor. When he launched his Green Door Sessions EP last year – which included reworks of his past songs, in a manner not dissimilar to the way they constantly evolve live – he played under a Leith bridge, using portable radios instead of speakers and powering a cornucopia of musical curios, including an FM transmitter, from a 12-volt battery.

“I like the idea of what FM radio used to be,” he says, explaining the unusual choice. “In that you’d be tuning it and tuning it until you found something, and that might be how you discovered — 36 —

“I was up and down on singing ‘fuck the system’ – I wondered, can I get away with that kind of thing?”

Callum Easter Little Richard, or something. Those gigs gave me a lot of thoughts about what I could do next, but I think I’ll have to get my foot off my own neck to get them to work. It’s easy to dig a bit of a hole for yourself when you go down the rabbit holes of these weird ideas.”

With a highly ambitious television special in the works, featuring dancers and a range of guest performers, Easter has been keeping himself busy in the build-up to the album’s release in multidisciplinary fashion, with a full tour planned behind it for 2022. What form that’ll take is yet to be determined, though. “It’s not a bad problem to have!” he says of myriad possibilities. “I feel like I could put together a really poppy set, at this point. I’d like to get a room bouncing, if I can. I just really enjoy singing and squeezing the accordion! But I’m always tweaking and rejigging things. It’ll be a case of finding my feet again.”

System is released by Moshi Moshi and Lost Map Records on 19 Nov; Callum Easter plays The Great Western, Glasgow, 13 Nov; Lost Map’s Christmas Humbug, Summerhall, Edinburgh, 3 Dec

THE SKINNY

Shifting Perspectives Ahead of their upcoming tour, we speak to Mykki Blanco about the importance of vulnerability in their art and the theatricality of their live show

W

Mykki Blanco For Blanco, the evolution of their sound is interwound with their evolution as an artist and their selfhood. “I didn’t start making music until I was 25, and now I’m 35. The last ten years have been an education through each of my projects and releases and becoming more in touch with my music – really growing more as a performer and a musician.

— 37 —

flutes and keyboards and guitar,” they say. “If people have been fans of mine for a long time, they’ll recognise that the live show really reflects how I played with different genres in my career.

And if people are just discovering my music, I think that they’re going to be really excited. They’ll really feel like they’re part of something.”

It remains a joy to see Blanco’s artistry continually grow and expand and evolve over the years. “It’s a blessing that, for me, I was one of the first queer artists of colour really pushing open these doors,” they reflect. “Because if it wasn’t for an artist like me, younger artists would be walking into a world with a very different atmosphere.”

Mykki Blanco tours the UK and Ireland from 1 Nov, playing Stereo, Glasgow, 3 Nov Broken Hearts & Beauty Sleep is streaming now, vinyl and CD released on 19 Nov via Transgressive mykkiblan.co

November 2021 — Feature

“I don’t know how I could operate in the world if I didn’t remain vulnerable”

“After my last album I toured for about two years.” Blanco adds: “Then I stopped and took a break because I realised that one of the things I hadn’t done before was give myself an entire year off from playing shows, just to focus on music.

With time in the studio I was really able to put my energy, not outward, but inward into my creative practice. That changed everything.”

On Broken Hearts…, themes of heartbreak and longing merge with a certain defiant optimism – a desire to remain open to connection and all the love that is still out there. Given this, how does Blanco see the role of vulnerability in their art? “I think vulnerability is so important. On a really personal level, I don’t know how I could operate in the world if I didn’t remain vulnerable. In my personal life, I’ve experienced a lot of traumatic things that I feel like a lot of people would maybe be scarred for life from.

“But I think one of the ways in which you recover, heal yourself and bounce back is being able to still remain sensitive. A lot of the world experiences levels of pain and discomfort that I could never imagine.” They continue: “When I shift my perspective to realising that I’m just a small puzzle piece of a whole entire world, that allows me to see that I can wake up the next day – and maybe I’ll be sad for a week – but I need to get up, and I need to wake up, and I need to face the world to face the challenges that are ahead of me with an open heart. Because if I closed myself off, I might as well be dead.”

In a few weeks, Blanco will return to the stage to perform a mixture of new tracks and some classic favourites. It would be reductive to describe a Mykki Blanco concert as anything less than an immersive performance – and this remains the case for their upcoming tour. “I keep on using the word ‘theatrical’ because I feel like the show happens in three acts,” Blanco explains. “We start really high-energy and then we change the mood up – really, like, sultry and soulful.

“And then we have these kinds of electronic rave moments – and we have moments where we play with hiphop – but we also have these beautiful transitions where it’s just sax and

Photo: Luca Venter

hen we speak to Mykki Blanco, they’re fresh from rehearsing for their upcoming UK and European tour – and even through the phone, their warmth radiates through.

“It’s been a really cool experience,” Blanco tells us. “The show right now feels really theatrical, with a lot of different genres we’re playing with, but that’s kind of my favourite thing to do.”

Indeed, over Blanco’s decade-long musical career they’ve never been one to shy away from traversing the boundaries of genre – if not reimagining them entirely. Coming up as an underground performer, their artistry has encompassed and blended elements of rap, club and trap with noise and experimental elements into a vision – an experience – uniquely their own. Much like queerness defies neat categorisation, so too does Blanco’s artistry embody this fluidity. “I didn’t come into this industry as a pop star – I’ve reached different heights and levels with my career choices and the things that I decided to do,” they say. “It’s been a really exciting journey.”

Blanco’s latest mini-album, Broken Hearts & Beauty Sleep, marks the next stage of this ongoing journey and creative evolution. Their first release since their self-titled 2016 album, Broken Hearts… marks a significant transformation both sonically and in creation, with early 80s-inspired soul and lush instrumentals a backdrop to Blanco’s incisive verses. “This change was definitely a conscious choice,” Blanco tells us. “It came from this decision not to sample, to build all of my songs organically before adding electronic elements – like Ableton – adding those elements in only after we had a really strong organic skeleton.”

Music

Interview: Anita Bhadani

THE SKINNY

The Fog of War Hungarian director Dénes Nagy discusses his bracing new World War Two film Natural Light, which follows a Hungarian soldier tasked with keeping order in occupied Ukraine at the behest of the Axis Powers

Photo: John Mackie

Film

Interview: Patrick Gamble

November 2021 — Feature

“M

y grandfather once told me about the time he was ordered to shoot a partisan,” Hungarian director Dénes Nagy confides to us as we sit down to discuss his Second World War film Natural Light. “Luckily fate intervened and he didn’t have to kill this man, but I was curious to know how he felt in that moment.

However, when I asked him he couldn’t give me a clear answer, he just told me he didn’t remember.”

Heavy and malodorous with memories that refuse to be chased away, Natural Light is far from a conventional war film. It takes place in occupied Ukraine, where the Hungarian army – aligned with the Axis Powers – were tasked with maintaining order. “My grandfather’s stories about the war always sounded like they were from an action movie; he rarely talked about what he really experienced,” Nagy tells us as he discusses the legacy of the Second World War in his homeland.

“We Hungarians know very little about the war because we became part of the Eastern Bloc as soon as it ended. It was taboo to talk about what we did to the Soviet soldiers.”

The war persists in the popular imagination as a period of history when everyone fought against the same foreign threat, but in Hungary it’s more complicated. Instead of focusing on heroic tales of valour, Natural Light revolves around questions of individual responsibility and a desire to prompt collective remembering. “It was only possible to talk about the war after the fall of the Communist government in 1989. All of a sudden new history books were published, but it was too late. Many of the people who had served in the army had died and their secrets were buried with them.”

A loose adaptation of Pál Závada’s novel of the same name, Natural Light immerses us in the experiences of István Semetka, a farmer who serves in the Hungarian army as a corporal scouting the Ukrainian countryside for partisan groups.

“I always knew I wanted to make a film about these occupied territories,” Nagy tells us when asked what drew him to Závada’s novel. “It’s a huge book, covering 20 years of Hungarian history, but the film focuses on this tiny passage about a man who goes to war and finds himself implicated in the atrocities committed by the Hungarian army.”

Semetka is a morally mottled protagonist; not particularly heroic or wholly evil, he’s a simple man who struggles to square his desire to do the right thing with the primal urge to survive. Played

by Ferenc Szabó, his deep-set eyes and blank expression depict the exterior of a man who has already grown used to the flavour of his own suffering. It’s a mesmerising performance made all the more remarkable given the film was cast entirely with non-professional actors from rural Hungary. “It took two years to find the right people,” says Nagy. “It was important for me to find actors who had lived the same lives as these soldiers. I wanted people who had worked the land and experienced their own hardships. I feel that my role as a director is not to tell actors what to do. My responsibility is to find the right actors and allow them to give themselves to the film.”

While travelling to a remote village, Semetka’s company falls under enemy fire and his commander is killed. As the highest-ranking officer, he is forced to take over and finds himself faced with some difficult decisions. “Semetka’s experiences are based on the stories I read in the war diaries I discovered in the Budapest military archive,” Nagy says, adding: “These stories opened up a whole new world to me. They weren’t written by intellectuals, they were scrawled in pencil by labourers and farmers. Their stories are very matter of fact. I was fascinated by how the brutality and routine of war go hand-in-hand. They would describe arriving at a village, having dinner there, going to the church to pray, and then returning later that night to burn it to — 38 —

“We Hungarians know very little about the war because we became part of the Eastern Bloc as soon as it ended. It was taboo to talk about what we did to the Soviet soldiers” Dénes Nagy the ground. The only visual boundaries between these soldiers and the villagers they encounter is their uniforms; they were basically the same people.”

As soon as Semetka takes charge of his unit an air of detachment surrounds his actions and the film’s dark finale builds barometrically in the background. Is Nagy suggesting that our reluctance to interrogate the past leaves us blind to tragedies of the present? “For me, the film isn’t that complicated,” he tells us. “I want to make the audience feel like they’re lost. We all pretend that we know how to separate right from wrong, but when you find yourself in a position like Semetka, you quickly realise you are alone with your judgements. None of us knows how the decisions we make will be remembered, the tragedy is that we still have to take responsibility for them.”

Natural Light is released 12 Nov by Curzon

THE SKINNY

Time Warp Portrait of a Lady on Fire and Tomboy director Céline Sciamma returns to the world of childhood in her intimate time-travel film Petite Maman, in which a grieving eight-year-old girl meets her mother at the same age Film

Interview: Anahit Behrooz

I

Still from Petite Maman

“It’s a time travel film, but it’s timeless” Céline Sciamma own their right to emotional complexity with sober determination, led by a director who takes their experiences always, unwaveringly seriously.

“It’s like with women characters,” Sciamma says. “It’s about giving the full range to a child character and respecting them fully, looking at how serious and committed they are, how much they care. When you collaborate with kids, you have access to all of that. So it really doesn’t feel like a fantasy.” This approach, rooted in mutual trust and recognition, spills over on to her management of the set, which emphasises collaboration and confidence while also entrusting her young actors – in this case sisters Gabrielle and Joséphine Sanz, who play mother and daughter Marion and Nelly respectively – with her script.

“Directing an actor is a lot to do with rhythm and choreography,” Sciamma adds, “whether you’re working with Adèle Haenel or Joséphine Sanz. It’s about: ‘OK, the scene is you getting from the kitchen to the room, we’ve got to find the rhythm together.’

It’s like music. I see it much more as music.”

And Petite Maman is just that: a delicate composition of care and attention that bind together a world ready to unravel, an orchestration of tenderly collapsed boundaries that defines Sciamma’s work. “In each film, we take some time — 39 —

out of the world to love each other, to meet each other,” Sciamma says of her filmography. “And I think this has a lot to do with the fact that I’m looking at women characters. If you want to see them in their full range and outside of performing for society, you have to put them on an island.

Even in a time travel machine. It’s always about finding the room where you can be yourself; a room of one’s own but for two people, or three.”

It is hard not to think of Portrait of a Lady on Fire here – a lesbian love story set on a Breton island that set the film world appropriately ablaze – and it is striking how often Sciamma herself references it. “But they’re kind of the same, right?” she asks eagerly. “But more democratic. Some people couldn’t take to Portrait of a Lady on Fire because they couldn’t see themselves in it. I really wanted to put everyone in the room this time: mothers, grandmothers, kids. It’s this cinematic experience of feeling seen, which is more and more my obsession. But Petite Maman and Portrait of a Lady on Fire are holding hands.” Sciamma smiles.

“I always picture my films like that. Holding hands.”

Petite Maman will be showing in cinemas from 19 Nov and streaming on MUBI on 4 Feb 2022

November 2021 — Feature

t all started, somewhat unexpectedly, with a courgette. At least, that’s what Céline Sciamma – the acclaimed director of Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Tomboy and Girlhood – recalls when tracing the origins of her new film Petite Maman, a tale of an eight-year-old girl encountering a childhood version of her mother after a family loss. Absorbed in writing what would become her magnificent Portrait of a Lady on Fire and promoting My Life as a Courgette, a stop-motion animation for which she wrote the script, the inspiration for Petite Maman suddenly struck.

“For the first time in my life, I actually had the idea for a film while [writing another], which never happens,” Sciamma laughs. “But My Life as a Courgette was the first time I officially wrote for a kid audience and I learned a lot from that process. I think even Portrait of a Lady on Fire benefitted from the fact I had been writing characters who are very straightforward with their emotions and dialogues – it freed me regarding expressing feelings. I’d been struggling with writing Portrait of a Lady on Fire, a film I gave up on multiple times, and suddenly this image appeared of two little girls building a treehouse, and one of them was the mother of the other.”

It might sound – and indeed is – fantastical, but Petite Maman’s most magical quality lies in Sciamma’s signature intimacy, an understated and profoundly honest naturalism which even the most genre-heavy of stories cannot shake. Absent is the elaborate worldbuilding that might be expected from a time-bending narrative: instead, Petite Maman’s world is stripped back, small and gentle, inhabited by two little girls bound to each other by a tender and very serious love. “It’s a time travel film, but it’s timeless,” Sciamma stresses. “It’s not tourism in the past or in the future. It’s intimate time travelling, about finding a common time and a common space.”

There is perhaps no greater shared commons than that of childhood, yet very few adults – let alone directors – are able to recall its wonder, possibility and liminality with the uncompromising sincerity that underlies Sciamma’s craft. My Life as a Courgette might have been her first film for a young audience, but Sciamma has been writing children for years: awkward, gangly Marie, desperately desiring a fellow classmate in Water Lilies; the grave Laure/Mickaël exploring their gender identity in Tomboy. Their worlds may be small, their language direct, but Sciamma’s child characters

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The Language of Pop The first guest to grace the booth at Redstone Press’s new party series at Sneaky Pete’s is London-based DJ iona, going B2B with label co-founder Lewis Lowe. She tells us about getting into DJing, sourcing music and the importance of the element of fun Clubs

Interview: Nadia Younes

November 2021 — Feature

Photo: Ella Hagi

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ondon-based DJ iona has made a name for herself DJing at the much-loved Dalston nightclub Dance Tunnel – now sadly closed – and as a resident at secret location festival Field Maneuvers. This month, she’s going B2B with Redstone Press co-founder Lewis Lowe for the launch of their new party series at Edinburgh’s Sneaky Pete’s, so we caught up with her ahead of the show to discuss her career so far and what we can expect on the night.

You credit working at Dance Tunnel and Field Maneuvers as formative experiences in your career. How did you get into those roles and what is so special about them?

I got my job working at Dance Tunnel after fortuitously meeting a woman on the bus after a night out… I hadn’t been part of an institution or group of people who had such similar musical interests

as me before, so it felt like it suddenly got a lot easier to casually have the kinds of night out that I wanted to, and my working life was almost always soundtracked by great music.

I made good friends with my manager at the time and Field Maneuvers is the festival he runs with close friends, so I started volunteering to do the driving/artist liaison for them...

Field Maneuvers became a special place to me because it was so different to any festival I’d been to before at that time... The people on the dancefloors are really engaged and open-minded, which encourages DJs to play their best sets and in those small dance tents that kind of mutual energy gets really electric.

Your mixes and DJ sets are generally described as uptempo and fun, and you often incorporate comedic elements. How did you develop your DJ style?

I haven’t consciously tried to develop a particular style, but the element of fun has definitely always been a central theme to orbit my selections around. I play music to make people dance; to try and provide an environment where people can have a release… Some of the tracks I play might be seen as comical or as curveballs, but they are always things I listen to in my own time that make me want to move.

You have a knack for sourcing interesting reworks of popular songs. Where do you source your music and do you ever worry about the reaction a track might get?

I usually feel quite confident when I play a rework of something popular. It’s usually popular for good reason and I think people enjoy hearing a new spin on something they like already. I don’t indiscriminately play any pop edit I can find; I put a lot of care into choosing the ones I think will really go off. If it doesn’t hit me in the sweet spot, it doesn’t get airtime! So I don’t worry about the reaction; if I like it I expect that the crowd will probably like it too, and if not, no harm done. I find most of my music by subscribing to Bandcamp email updates... I also get sent lots of cool stuff over email.

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How are you finding DJing in clubs post-pandemic? Have you had to adapt your DJ style at all?

I definitely had trepidation reentering the club environment as I really couldn’t visualise what the landscape would be like... I think I leaned on my fancy for reworks of familiar anthems in those first weeks back and they went down well, maybe reassuring people with a singalong and reminding everyone we speak pop as a common language.

I was playing it quite safe then, keeping things light, wanting to make sure everyone had a really fun time, but I’m starting to get back to a pre-pandemic level of self-assuredness where I can weave those familiar elements into a set that is a bit more varied and interesting.

“I don’t indiscriminately play any pop edit I can find... if it doesn’t hit me in the sweet spot, it doesn’t get airtime!” iona You’re going to be playing B2B with Lewis Lowe of Redstone Press at the launch of the label’s new party series at Sneaky Pete’s this month. How do you approach a B2B differently from a solo set and what can we expect on the night?

I’ve never done an all night long B2B at a club before so I am approaching this with a little more planning than usual… We’ve discussed a rough plan BPM-wise. Even if we deviate from this it’s good to have that discussion, otherwise we could have really different visions and prepare completely different sets of music which would be difficult to pull off for that length of time… On the night you can expect the full vibe spectrum from me, from cumbia and beats, bass, Amapiano and Kwaito, through funky house and edits, breaks and hardcore, rounding off with a healthy dose of 160 bpm+ nonsense!

Redstone Press & Friends: iona B2B Lewis Lowe, Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh, 5 Nov

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Comedy Heroics Comedy historian Robert Ross talks to us about his new book, which shines an overdue spotlight on more than a century of overlooked comic greatness Interview: Louis Cammell

Comedy

Photo: Claire Jonas

November 2021 — Feature

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lmost 20 years have passed since the late Terry Jones first put to Robert Ross the idea of writing Forgotten Heroes of Comedy. In the years that followed, publishers seemed turned off by the word ‘forgotten’. If they’re forgotten heroes, who will want to know? Yet with the arrival of the book’s eventual publisher, Unbound, Ross and Jones were finally able to answer that very question. Inside are the names of everyone who pledged through Unbound’s crowdfunding platform, on which only the projects that are fully-funded go to print. The results are often passion projects like this one, or Terry Jones Evil Machines, “which was book number one for Unbound. So that was the beginning, via Terry, really,” says Ross.

A friend to the likes of the Pythons and Barry Cryer, Ross has written 18 books on comedy. His last was a biography of Marty Feldman, perhaps best remembered as Young Frankenstein’s Igor. But so many legacies remain unpreserved. So, here it is; what one might be tempted to call a definitive encyclopaedia of overlooked comics. Encyclopaedia, yes; definitive, certainly not. “It was just a sort of wayward labour of love really… celebrating people that myself and Terry really admired and felt had been neglected or had fallen between the gaps in social and comedy history,” he says. “[We sat down] in a pub in north London just to make a long list of people we thought should be in it, and it was very much a personal choice. But there’s more than enough for volume two and volume three if I’ve got enough years in me to write them.”

Seeing the 100-or-so mini-biographies bound together like this, it’s tempting to siphon the acts into reasons for their obscurity. Some are painfully practical: “A lot of the [footage] was junked of course… The TV stuff either went out live or the recordings were subsequently erased and re-used.

So the actual lack of archive stuff is important.”

Other reasons will be familiar to fans of modern entertainment of any kind, owing to an industry where talent comes second to image. The forgotten George Williams, for example, was jailed in the 1950s for his sexuality. The book features one of his contemporaries whose act walked a fine line to avoid the same fate. Ross tells us: “There’s a comedian in it called Rex Jameson who did a sort of drag act as Mrs Shufflewick. [He] obviously was a gay performer, but because he went so extreme [with] this mad, honest deconstruction of the pantomime dame… he got away with it. But it’s a shame [that] it’s really why some people are sort of putting it in the dustbin of showbiz history.”

Across the pond, racial stereotypes limited the opportunities of performers like Willie Best.

“I’m a huge fan of his,” says Ross. “His one major performance is a thing called The Ghost Breakers [1940]. He’s a man-servant in it, but he’s a doubleact with Bob Hope [and] that was all they got offered, African-American performers... It was either do those or not work, basically.”

Of course, the same has always been true for women. Those featured in the book brought their overlooked talent to much-limited roles. For the great Patsy Rowlands, those were Carry On... wives — 42 —

“You would rub away the edges of your early life to get more work” Robert Ross which later led to peer snobbery; for Debbie Linden in the 70s, underwritten glamour-girls.

Don Arrol and Harold Berens sidestepped their own potential pigeonholes with bold personas. Both hailed from Glasgow yet one affected an American Broadway twang, while the other gave off the air of ‘a long-established East End tailor’. “You [would] rub away the edges of your early life to get more work,” says Ross.

Whatever the reasons for these comics to have left public consciousness, the book isn’t an investigation into what makes a lasting legacy. Nor does it try to criticise. Its aim is to “make people go back and reassess these people if they fancy. After reading four, five, six, seven pages about them, hopefully they’ll invest in an LP or a Blu-ray box set or something and try to find more about them.”

Ultimately, Ross says, “I’m hoping that if even three of these people strike you as somebody [who makes you think] ‘Oh, I want to look into more of their work’, then that’s job done really.”

Forgotten Heroes of Comedy: An Encyclopaedia of the Comedy Underdog is out now via Unbound

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A Decade of Connection As Creative Edinburgh celebrate its tenth birthday and its annual awards show, we take a look at why the organisation was started, and how it has evolved Interview: George Sully

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Creative Edinburgh Birthday Bash, 4 Nov, 7-9pm Live Awards Ceremony, 18 Nov, 7-9pm creative-edinburgh.com/awards/2021

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Janine Matheson

Social Award and were nominated for the Student Award. Similarly, The Leith Collective houses over 130 artists all working together to promote their work, sustainability and support for their local community, and have been nominated numerous times. Sara Thomson, founder of the collective, is also a COP26 Climate Ambassador for the ‘One Step Greener’ campaign and recent recipient of the Prime Minister’s Points of Light award.

SPLINTR, a multidisciplinary design studio and workshop also based in Leith, won 2020’s Commercial Award for their Safe Server – an ingenious, simple and practical solution for retail and hospitality businesses needing to trade safely amid COVID restrictions.

This year has seen Creative Edinburgh's highest number of awards applications to date, and “it’s quite heartwarming to see what people have been up to over the last year,” says Wojtkiewicz. And as in CE’s first year, it’s as much about the big exciting projects as it is about the smaller (but no less meaningful) hidden gems.

Matheson, meanwhile, continues to be in touch with the organisation and its annual awards.

“I just saw the nominations for this year and they’re really brilliant,” she says. “So I think whoever wins, everyone’s very deserving.”

Events

“I remember going to the meeting and feeling like it needed some kind of push from a more grassroots perspective, someone that was hustling”

Sulaiman was the next permanent director to then run Creative Edinburgh in the wake of winning this funding.

“I was starting at a time that felt like a new chapter in a lot of ways, because as an organisation we felt that we’d been given legitimacy by the industry,” she says. But joining the ranks of the RFOs didn’t compromise the community-based vision of the organisation. “It was a really good time to build on that grassroots movement that Janine started.”

As Sulaiman succinctly summarises: “There’s two main parts to Creative Edinburgh. There’s the part where you make friends, and there’s the part where you get work. And those two bits intersect very neatly, and they’re both equally important.”

CE has seen a number of directors at the helm in its decade of facilitating creatives. But arguably none have faced the breadth of existential challenges that the organisation’s newest leader, Ola Wojtkiewicz, now faces. Namely, the COVID-19 pandemic, a post-Brexit creative sector, and the looming fireball that is the climate crisis.

But she is unfazed; her ambitions are bold, comprehensive and far-reaching, but Wojtkiewicz recognises the work involved. “This is not going to be a short run, it’s going to be a marathon,” she cautions. “But I’m definitely up for it and have loads of energy and ideas and look forward to the process.”

This also doesn’t mean the grassroots ethos has been forgotten – in fact, Wojtkiewicz hopes to decentralise some of Creative Edinburgh’s work.

Which is to say, “take our services and our offering in terms of, for example, mentoring or events to places on the outskirts of the city to tap into those communities, who may not be able to travel to the centre or have the confidence to do so,” she explains. “Because creatives are based everywhere.”

Like working with WHALE Arts, for example – a 2020 award nominee and winner of 2016’s Social Award – who are a community-led arts charity and social enterprise based in Wester Hailes. Indeed many of Creative Edinburgh’s award winners and nominees reflect the organisation’s aspirations, be they social, cultural, commercial or environmental.

Established in 2018 by Alycia Pirmohamed and Jay G Ying, the Scottish BAME Writers Network – which ‘provides advocacy, literary events and professional development opportunities for BAME writers based in or from Scotland’ – won 2019’s

Photo: Mihaela

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reative Edinburgh now boasts a membership of over 5500 individuals and organisations based in and around Scotland’s capital. Its year-round programme of events, workshops and networking opportunities supports creatives of all levels, and the annual awards shine a spotlight on the amazing work they produce.

But it took a lot of effort – and careful stewardship by the past decade’s various directors – to get to this profile within the city.

While the organisation had existed in a looser form since 2008, 2021 marks ten years since it took on its first director, Janine Matheson, who shaped many of its principles and ambitions.

“I was keen to hear what this organisation would do to support me as a creative that lives here,” Matheson recalls when pitching for the job (she was running the not-for-profit gallery Sierra Metro at the time). “And I remember going to the meeting and feeling like it needed some kind of push from a more grassroots perspective, someone that was hustling.”

Collaboration has been fundamental to the organisation from day one, as perhaps exemplified by the fact Matheson initially shared the director position with Lynsey Smith, now a programme manager at the British Council. In that first year, “we had three words that we connected to everything that we did: unite, inspire, promote.”

These values also formed the basis for the very first Creative Edinburgh Awards, which was a chance to not only celebrate its members’ efforts in a fun way (“We were surrounded by all these business awards and we thought they’re just completely not how I want to celebrate creativity!”, says Matheson), but to also celebrate the growth and survival of the organisation itself.

Matheson remained director until 2016, when the organisation had submitted its first application for Regular Funding to Creative Scotland. Yasmin

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School’s Out The Glasgow Creative Accelerator – a programme designed to advise and support start-ups and early-stage businesses – took place in the spring. Six months on, we meet some of the participants to hear what they took away from the experience

Elevator

Interview: Jamie Dunn

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ack in April, we met some of the creative businesses based in Glasgow who were taking part in the city’s first Creative Accelerator, a 12-week programme from social enterprise group Elevator, aiming to offer targeted support to help creatives reach their full potential.

Given the chaos of the last 18 months, we can’t think of a better time to have some support for your fledgling business.

According to Lynne Martin, the Creative Accelerator Manager at Elevator, the Glasgow leg of the scheme was a resounding success.

Particularly pleasing was the breadth of creative businesses – dubbed ‘Founders’ – that took part in this inaugural year. “It was great to work with such an eclectic mix of creatives who have really interesting and valuable skillsets who want to make the world a better place with them,” Martin says. “I had the pleasure of getting to work with graphic designers, clothing manufacturers,

November 2021 — Feature

Photo: Ruth Esme Mitchell

musicians, filmmakers, storytellers, confidence builders, news organisations and more.”

One downside of the Creative Accelerator taking place in the spring was that Scotland was still in strict lockdown, meaning the programme took place virtually. But this didn’t mean the energy of the event was any less lively. “The fantastic thing about it is when you get all these people in a room – even a virtual one – they spark off each other, learn from each other and provide each other with support and advice and connect in a really meaningful way,” says Martin.

One of those ‘Founders’ was Katie Eyre, a visual artist who expanded her practice in early 2020 to form Tarney and Dolan. Inspired by her grandmother, Tarney and Dolan is a brand of wearable sculptures that explore the female experience throughout history. “I wanted to take part on the accelerator course because I wanted to grow the seed of a business that I had already created into a successful, visible and financially viable Scottish jewellery brand,” Eyre tells us. “I didn’t have a clear idea of how to do that and I felt that the course was one building block that I could utilise to make that happen.”

Graphic designer Laura Hurst took part in the accelerator with Eyre. She’s been an entrepreneur from a young age – “I was 14 selling handmade jewellery on eBay!” – and began freelancing in 2018 after university under the moniker Laurabelle (“it’s a nickname from my granny”), although she’s now in the middle of rebranding her company Paper Arcade Design Studio. For Hurst, the creative accelerator was an opportunity to reassess her business’s future.

“The pandemic had me feeling a bit lost and I was craving structure and direction,” Hurst explains. “I felt like I needed some perspective – it’s too easy to get lost in the minutiae when running your own business.”

She was also drawn to the community aspect of the project. “I wanted to meet more like-minded creative business owners. Being a business owner is one thing but being a creative business owner is a whole different ball game!”

Hurst says her main takeaway from the course was finding answers to the more existential questions of

Tarney and Dolan

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“Being a business owner is one thing but being a creative business owner is a whole different ball game!”

Laura Hurst, Paper Arcade Design Studio running a business. “I have a much more solid understanding of why I run my business, who I do it for and why it’s needed,” she says. “It sounds a bit abstract and woo-woo but having that strong foundation touches every element of the business, so it’s really important to have that nailed.”

Eyre, meanwhile, has embraced more practical elements. “The business model canvas (BMC) was not familiar to me before the course and now it’s central to how I view my business, in particular in terms of planning and implementing progress for my brand,” she says. “Through this planning, I have recently secured a resident’s space within the Vanilla Ink jewellery school where I have begun to foster skills in ancient jewellery making techniques such as sand casting, enamelling and granulation.” Since attending the course, Eyre has also placed her designs in the Scottish Design Exchange store in Buchanan Galleries, and will be doing pop-ups this November and December at Princes Square, BAaD and the WASPS Christmas market. “This was exactly what I needed at the exact right time,” she says of the course.

For Hurst, the creative accelerator didn’t simply prove a learning ground. Through the course, she also secured her first client as Paper Arcade – and that client was Lynne Martin, the Creative Accelerator Manager! “I’m super excited to be working with Laura at Paper Arcade as her first client as I launch my own creative business – she’s designing my branding,” Martin explains.

“It’s great to know that I can use my own creative practice to provide paid work to support awesome new ventures like hers.”

If it isn’t already clear, Martin is passionate about the project. “Every time I run one of these accelerators I meet with new and brilliant creatives, and I am grateful that this is what I do for a living.”

To find out more about future Creative Accelerators, head to elevatoruk.com/accelerators/glasgow-creative-accelerator

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Books

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November 2021

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Music Now

Spanning a multitude of genres, from rock’n’roll to hip-hop via folk and experimental, November is another busy month in Scotland’s release calendar Words: Tallah Brash rich-in-strings Tropic, with a key change and twinkling chimes so glorious in the final third of the song it becomes almost dreamlike. Most importantly, bolstered by beautiful piano and string arrangements, Lazybody places Booth’s voice front and centre, offering up an intimate quality most find hard to achieve on record.

For a more experimental approach to string compositions you’ll want to seek out the debut solo release from composer Rufus Isabel Elliot. Due via GLARC (Greater Lanarkshire Auricular Research Council) on 28 November, A/am/ams is a “story of two characters, A/am/ams and E/e/e, walking forever down an eternal beach [...] an apocalyptic story about love and loss”. Brought to life by Scots traditional singer Josie Vallely, aka Quinie, it’s a uniquely rewarding listen for those who have the patience. Of the release Elliot says: “This work crosses traditional and experimental practices with classical music. It has an intersectional approach, bringing folk together from both within and [outwith] the trans and non-binary community. We all have different voices, and that is really important.”

On 10 November, Glasgow-based, Australian-born Zerrin releases her debut EP, Consolations. Written, recorded and self-produced at home during lockdown, its five tracks are tantalisingly atmospheric, dark and moody, as they tackle topics like self-esteem, the pressure to succeed and anxiety about the future. Zerrin’s vocals bring to mind the playfulness and acrobatics of The Long Blondes’ Kate Jackson, especially on lead single Give Them What They Want, one moment deep and rich, the next high-pitched and gleaming.

With a mature sound well beyond her 23 years, Cara Rose releases five gorgeous piano ballads that make up her stunning How It Feels EP (19 Nov), while a week later Ask Alice releases her Heartwork EP. On 12 November, Robert Sotelo releases Celebrant, his latest album on Upset the Rhythm. There are some great singles out this month too, including Swamp Monster, the latest slice of fun from Crush Mouse (3 Nov); Linburn releases his debut single, Anderson Shelter (4 Nov); Dio Zelus and Bluewave release the bright and summery what I want (5 Nov) via Ayrshire College label Sun Turtle Records; and Katherine Aly releases the soft and heartfelt Rules (26 Nov).

Zerrin

November 2021 — Review

Photo: Debora Maité

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Music

Photo: Madeleine Grace Anderson

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ll-female and non-binary songwriting and production collective Hen Hoose release their debut album, Equaliser, on 5 November via Tantrum. An astounding piece of work, it traverses pop, rap, R’n’B, folk and more, featuring myriad talents like Emma Pollock, Amandah Wilkinson (Bossy Love), MALKA, Elisabeth Elektra and Beldina Odenyo (Heir of the Cursed); produced by Susan Bear, it flows effortlessly, pleasing at every turn and with every collaboration. Read our chat with Hen Hoose founder Tamara Schlesinger (MALKA) on p28 and find our full review of the album on the next page. Overleaf you’ll also find some thoughts on The Idea of You, the first record in six years from Cara Rose Glasgow outfit Admiral Fallow.

Paisley singer-songwriter, and one half of electro-pop outfit DRIFT, Linzi Clark releases her debut album on 5 November. Exploring love, identity and growth in her songwriting, All I Have Now is an exquisite debut bringing to mind the likes of Julia Jacklin – read our full feature on p30.

We also speak to the inimitable Callum Easter this month (p36) about System, the politically-charged follow-up to his debut studio album, Here or Nowhere.

Due on 19 November via Moshi Moshi Records (in association with Lost Map Records), System sees Easter evolving as an artist and is his most fully-formed release to date. Bringing to mind Mungo Jerry on Little Honey and glam rock on Find Em A Home, oftentimes across System it feels like Easter is either channelling Marc Bolan or Tom Waits and it’s a thrill; the addition of the Leith Congregational Choir across the record is inspired, while the instrumentation from start to end is nothing short of enticing, with unexpected staccato panpipes, interesting percussive elements and pleasing synth squelches in all the right places. What’s more, the catharsis in the lyricism on the title track – ‘Come on, fuck the system’ – feels much needed right now.

Following a 2018 SAY Award-shortlisted nomination for his 2017 album Gold, Kwame Barfour-Osei, aka Kobi Onyame, returns this year after a pretty busy 18 months which, as well as writing this new record, saw him get married and become a dad.

In a world filled with relentlessly releasing artists, four years can seem like a long time between records, but Don’t Drink the Poison (26 Nov) is more than worth the wait. Combining African highlife rhythms with hip-hop beats, the love Barfour-Osei has for his wife is a prominent topic across a record brimming with hope, buoyant instrumentation and rich production.

Also releasing her first album since 2017 this month (19 Nov) is the supremely talented Annie Booth. Due on Last Night From Glasgow, Lazybody is a beautiful collection of songs.

A storyteller at heart, a real high point of Booth’s record comes near the middle with the back-to-back punch of the eerie spoken word Nightvan and the hopeful, warm and

Albums

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Hen Hoose Equaliser Tantrum, 5 Nov

rrrrr

November 2021 — Review

isten to: The Best Is Yet to Come, L Burn It All

Admiral Fallow The Idea of You Chemikal Underground, 5 Nov rrrrr isten To: Sleepwalking; The Grand L National, 1993

Frustrated by a music industry that can so often feel inert at best and oppressive for women at worst, Tamara Schlesinger, aka MALKA, assembled an all-star line-up under the Hen Hoose moniker to allow for anything-goes collaboration with an empowering heading.

It’s worked, too; this tremendously diverse debut collection, Equaliser, boasts career-best work at every turn, whether it be undulating synthpop work on the opening one-two from Emma Pollock, Rachel Swinton (Cloth) and Pippa Murphy or the shimmering, maddeningly catchy electronica of The Best Is Yet to Come, a three-way collaboration between Schlesinger, Carla J. Easton and Amandah Wilkinson (Bossy Love).

Elsewhere, Murphy and Sarah Hayes turn in the gorgeous soft anthemics of A Change in the Light; Hayes and Elisabeth Elektra channel the latter’s outstanding debut album to produce a pop stomper in Make It Alright; and Beldina Odenyo (Heir of the Cursed) and Inge Thomson team up for a quietly epic closer, Burn It All. This record is a stirring argument for the art of collaboration, and a terrific advert for the female and non-binary talent fuelling everything good about Scotland’s alternative scene at the minute. Unmissable.

[Joe Goggins] Glasgow’s Admiral Fallow are nobody’s idea of prolific, but this band could be your life if you’re an acolyte of masterful musicianship, mosaic melodies and literary lyrical intrigue.

As accomplished musically as they are economic and understated, Louis Abbott’s band could be Scotland’s best since The Delgados.

With an unchanged line-up, Admiral Fallow recorded their first album in six years back in 2019 and sat on its quiet storms as the world changed. Now The Idea of You has peered above the parapet and sent its woodwind, wonky rhythms and charming broadside ballads into the fray. ‘I’d never seen anything quite like those shoulders before’, sings Abbott on the wonderfully woozy The Grand National, 1993 and Admiral Fallow give up their secrets in a slow coach home of heavenly harmonies and a languid chorus to die for.

It’s not all laid-back and lilting: Dragonfly motors along like Belle and Sebastian listening to Can, Tuesday Grey has a twitching urgency to match its intimate details and The Possibility races itself all the way to the end of the taut tale it tells. Closer Soliton is a mini symphony in blue and the melodic fingerpicking on the sublime Sleepwalking will break your heart. [Alan O’Hare]

Converge and Chelsea Wolfe Bloodmoon: I Epitaph, 19 Nov

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isten to: Blood Moon, Scorpion’s L Sting, Failure Forever

Curtis Harding If Words Were Flowers ANTI-, 5 Nov rrrrr isten to: Where’s The Love, L Hopeful, I Won’t Let You Down

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The concept of the “collaborative album” has thrown up mixed results in the past, but sometimes a combination comes along that makes so much sense, you wonder how it hasn’t been done before. Converge passed their 30th anniversary last year, during the pandemic, and just last month marked the 20th anniversary of their game-changing, incendiary, landmark album Jane Doe. On the Salem, Massachusetts quartet’s tenth full-length, the band enlist goth-rock artist Chelsea Wolfe and her writing partner/bandmate Ben Chisholm along with Stephen Brodsky (Cave In) to create a seven-piece supergroup. The results are unlike anything the band has produced before, operating at Wolfe’s gloomy, more considered blues-rock tempo, such as on Scorpion’s Sting, while Brodsky’s input is very much felt on Failure Forever.

On the album’s opener and title track, we’re introduced to this haunting world created by vocalist Jacob Bannon, with a devastating climactic riff that is sure to knock for six when performed live. Bar a brief blast of Converge’s signature chaos on Viscera of Men, Bloodmoon: I has otherwise pushed the band out of their comfort zone with only Wolfe and Brodsky’s voices to guide them through the dark.

[Adam Turner-Heffer] Curtis Harding is an enigma, a throwback in a modern world, hypnotised by the psychedelic horns of jazz and the soothing grooves of soul. As contemporary R’n’B embraces the electronic, his third album, If Words Were Flowers, remains grounded in the simple beauty of live instrumentals. This is a collection of songs that are sleek and polished without being overproduced.

There’s a haunting choir harmony in the background of Hopeful and operatic strings that soar throughout With You, but it’s just enough as he straddles the line between lovelorn crooner and fatalistic commentator. Where’s The Love, reminiscent of Gil Scott-Heron, invokes a cinematic tension as Harding pointedly asks for empathy in an increasingly divided world over a sparse but dramatic beat.

So Low is the closest we get to Harding embracing the 21st Century, where – with an 808s & Heartbreakinspired vocoder over his vocals – he gives in to the vulnerability that’s eating through his body and soul and creates the most experimental song in his catalogue. As an album, If Words Were Flowers won’t win Harding any new fans but it is a contemplative, thoughtful exploration of modern love through the prism of traditionalist soul.

[Sam Moore]

THE SKINNY

Snail Mail Valentine Matador, 5 Nov rrrrr isten to: Ben Franklin, Light Blue, L Madonna

In three years of silence since her explosive debut Lush, Snail Mail’s Lindsey Jordan has been on a journey.

During a stint in an Arizona recovery clinic, Jordan – separated from her instruments – began to (quite literally) pen arrangements purely from imagination. These ideas became Valentine.

Where Lush was agonised, anxious, Valentine finds a new serenity; Jordan takes a step back from her emotions and makes deeper observations of her experiences. Still, there are flashes of the stubborn candour that made Lush so memorable.

Valentine is an album of growers, taking its time to reach unconventional climaxes. But there’s nothing fluffy about it; Jordan’s delivery is clean, precise and exudes confidence well beyond her years. It’s sonically varied too, with synth-led numbers like Valentine and Forever (Sailing) balanced by signature Snail Mail guitardriven rock tracks Headlock and Glory.

Jordan ties off the record with its most vulnerable moment. Mia is an aching lullaby that sounds like a sequel to Lush’s delicate closer, Anytime. Sitting starkly over the gentle instrumentals, the rawness of Jordan’s vocals make the sentiment all the more endearing, as without bitterness or derision she simply admits: ‘I wish that I could lay down next to you’. [Katie Cutforth]

isten to: Return, Body, L In My Afterlife

Courtney Barnett Things Take Time, Take Time Marathon Artists, 12 Nov rrrrr isten to: Rae Street, Here’s the L Thing

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Melbourne’s guitar queen Courtney Barnett was nothing short of majestic on her rendition of I’ll Be Your Mirror on the recently released Velvet Underground tribute album. So going into her third album, anticipation is understandably strong. Things Take Time, Take Time was recorded during lockdown at the tail end of last year. It’s infused with the selfreflectiveness we all encountered during these times, showing a more intimate side to Barnett than we’ve previously encountered.

Here’s the Thing echoes with quirky, Lump-like tones and introspective lyrics: ‘I’m not afraid of heights / Maybe I’m just scared of falling’, while Barnett’s acute observations of modern society blossom on album opener Rae Street: ‘Time is money / And money is no man’s friend’. However, the album embodies the lethargy of its title towards its closing stages. Things start to feel monotonous and samey by If I Don’t Hear From You Tonight and Splendour and there’s none of the brazen intensity or deadpan delivery that graces Tell Me How You Really Feel to behold here, which is a shame.

But still, Barnett impresses on this album. Her lyricism still dazzles brighter than most, just more pensively this time around. [Jamie Wilde]

November 2021 — Review

isten to: The Cormorant, Polaris, L Combustion

Emma Ruth Rundle Engine of Hell Sargent House, 5 Nov rrrrr

Emma Ruth Rundle’s music bears a great weight. That’s clear on her previous full-band records with her textural guitar work, and on her recent collaboration with sludge metal band Thou. In the video for Return, the first single from her new record Engine of Hell, the blackcloaked figure from the May Our Chambers Be Full cover makes a reappearance, caressing Rundle. It’s a callback that shows how dark figures from the past can remain stuck to you.

That’s a fitting image to return to, as Engine of Hell is also a heavy album that reaches unflinchingly back into the past, though this time Rundle’s music is stripped of the sonic indicators of heaviness, using only acoustic instruments; she has likened piano – prevalent across these eight songs – to a time machine.

Sparseness can often lend a chilliness, but Rundle’s work here can be grippingly hot and suffocating – the feeling of air being sucked out of a room – as she recalls past traumas, as on Blooms of Oblivion: ‘Down at the methadone clinic we waited, hoping to take home your cure’. The lack of adornment underscores the strength required to convey the vividness of painful memories often left unspoken.

[Tony Inglis]

Albums

Damon Albarn The Nearer the Fountain, More Pure the Stream Flows Transgressive Records, 12 Nov rrrrr

Inspired by the panoramic views from his home in Iceland, Damon Albarn’s new record is a study in painting landscapes with sound. It began its life before lockdown, when Albarn met with a classical ensemble and improvised an orchestral sketch of the surrounding mountains, black sands and water birds. The album mixes these recordings with found sounds, pop beats and lyrics exploring loss and renewal, creating an arresting blend of ecopoetics and meditations on grief.

Albarn’s appetite for eclectic instrumentation shines through, with a grab bag of sounds showing nature’s changeable face. Slow piano chords merge with lingering synth notes and the occasional bleep in the title track, evoking the otherworldliness and solitude in Iceland’s scenery. Ululating flute and scraping violins veer into nature’s chaotic side in Combustion, while Polaris juxtaposes lines about lost travellers with a jaunty piano tune.

Although not strictly about climate change, Albarn’s album captures the natural world’s majesty with great tenderness, and a sense of endings runs throughout. One particularly poignant image in The Cormorant imagines a cruise ship hosting the last party at the end of the world. Personal and social tragedies are twinned in this record, which looks for solace in the land. [Becca Inglis]

THE SKINNY

Scotland on Screen: Stef Smith Film

We speak to acclaimed playwright Stef Smith about her first TV show, Float, an innovative, heartfelt and mint fresh micro-drama centred on a tender lesbian romance

Interview: Jamie Dunn Playwright: Enough (2019), Girl in the Machine (2017), Swallow (2015), Roadkill (2010) Screenwriter: Float (2021)

November 2021 – Review

t: @stefsmith stefsmith.co.uk

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tef Smith has been a big deal in UK theatre for over a decade now. Her debut play, Roadkill, premiered at the 2010 Edinburgh Fringe, picking up a mess of awards, including a Fringe First Award, an Olivier Award and the Amnesty Award for Freedom of Expression. It put her on the map instantly and gave a taste of the work to come, which would be characterised by raw emotions, explosive subject matter and inventive use of form.

The reason Smith is being profiled in the Film & TV section – if you’re wondering – is that she’s just made her first foray into screenwriting with six-part BBC drama Float. On the surface, it’s a rather gentler prospect than her stage work. It’s a tender lesbian romance set in and around a small-town swimming pool, and centres on Jade, a spiky young woman who’s returned to her coastal hometown after mysteriously dropping out of uni in Glasgow. While slumming it as a lifeguard, a romantic relationship blossoms between Jade and her seemingly straight colleague Collette.

Like Float’s protagonist, Smith also grew up gay in smalltown Scotland, specifically Aberfoyle, but she’s quick to point out the show is not autobiographical. Smith did have her 18-year-old self in mind while writing, however. “I am very aware that where I grew up is sorely underrepresented on screen,” she says. “And definitely, it’s sorely represented through the eyes of the LGBTQ+ community. As a gay woman, I certainly saw no one like me on screen, so I wanted Float to be an offering and a gesture towards the importance of telling LGBTQ+ stories, but also telling stories from Scotland that are outside of the urban centres as well.”

Where Float does chime with the daring of Smith’s stage work is in its form. Eschewing the typical hour or half-hour episode structure, each instalment comes in at a tight ten minutes. But this innovative, micro-drama format proved tricky. “You would think, ‘It’s less content so it must be easier,’” suggests Smith. “But actually it’s quite the opposite because you’ve got to be so concise with your storytelling. The technical aspect of what it means to tell a story in ten minutes is daunting. It both has to have closure within those ten minutes, but also enough of a hook to lead you into the next episode.”

What made Float even more of a challenge is that around Jade and Collette is an ensemble cast with their own little

dramas and romantic imbroglios. “We had to make sure that each of those characters had depth and there was more to them than simply just being plot devices to help facilitate the main story,” she explains. “So it was a challenge. The first drafts of all the episodes were too long, so it became a matter of editing and redrafting as much as anything else.”

Smith’s background in theatre did help in this regard, though. “I’ve done a lot of short plays over the years, sort of rapid response pieces, so I was sort of aware of ten minutes being quite a difficult time to write a complete story in. And I think more generally, coming from a theatre background, you’re used to writing for smaller casts, and also for singular spaces, so I didn’t feel the lack of being able to write big setpieces or anything like that.”

While LGBT stories on the small screen are still incredibly rare – particularly in Scotland – they are not without their clichés. It’s something Smith, and the production team in

“I wanted Float to be an offering and a gesture towards the importance of telling LGBTQ+ stories” Stef Smith general, were wary of. “We definitely wanted to step away from that very shiny, American version of being a lesbian or queer woman that you get in series like The L Word,” she says.

“We wanted to give it a bit more grit and to ground it more in the reality of young people’s lives at the moment.”

There was another massive cliché of queer cinema that Smith was keen to avoid: tragedy. “I felt a lot of responsibility when portraying Jade and Collette on-screen. It’s obviously a real trope of LGBTQ+ fiction in general, but specifically for gay and queer women, their stories often end badly. And so while Float doesn’t exactly give them a Hollywood happy ending, it does at least give them hope. At the end, I wanted you to feel these characters will go on and thrive.”

Float began life as a pitch to the BBC Writersroom Scotland as part of a programme to develop and commission content for young underrepresented audiences in Scotland. The scheme paired TV greenhorn Smith with established Scottish production house Black Camel to develop the drama. Smith clearly enjoyed the collaboration and suggests the success is down to Black Camel taking the project seriously. “I thought Black Camel were an amazing team and they really treated this as they would any production,” she says. “There wasn’t any sense that because it was smaller, or for a younger audience, that it was somehow lesser; not at all. They really gave it respect and also resources... they gave it their all basically.”

Float is streaming on the BBC and iPlayer

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THE SKINNY

Film Friends and Strangers Director: James Vaughan Starring: Fergus Wilson, Emma Diaz, Greg Zimbulis

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Friends and Strangers

The Card Counter

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There is very little card counting in The Card Counter, Paul Schrader’s muchanticipated follow-up to his searing 2017 drama First Reformed. Ex-military interrogator Will (Oscar Isaac) counts cards, sure, but Schrader’s latest steers clear of the gimmicky tricks of the gambling movie subgenre in lieu of building a tense, morally complex portrayal of yet another haunted man in search of redemption.

“I stick to modest goals," says Will when describing his modus operandi. And modesty certainly comes to mind to illustrate the settings in which he plays, which are the stark opposite of the opulent casinos usually brought to screen in gambling films.

Schrader wants nothing to do with glamour, moving his narrative from one

Director: Céline Sciamma Starring: Joséphine Sanz, Gabrielle Sanz, Nina Meurisse, Stéphane Varupenne, Margot Abascal

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The brilliant French writer-director Céline Sciamma returns to the world of childhood that characterises her greatest cinematic achievements (Tomboy, My Life as a Courgette) with Petite Maman. The story follows a precocious eight-year-old girl, Nelly (Joséphine Sanz), who makes a wonderful discovery one day in the woods behind the house that used to belong to her gran, which is being packed up after her recent death. While playing she meets Marion, a girl with a striking resemblance to her (she’s played by Gabrielle Sanz, Joséphine’s twin). It’s no wonder there’s a similarity: Marion is Nelly’s mother.

The time-space continuum breach that allows a mother and

The Card Counter

decrepit room to the other, the halls as unremarkable as the people in them.

Time, in this decaying underworld, is an inescapable vortex where day and night blend under bright fluorescent lights.

Will sticks to a carefully crafted routine, from covering every surface of his shabby motel rooms in white sheets to the small-wins, small-losses philosophy he adheres to when playing. Alas, this meticulousness goes out the window when the sombre ex-con meets Cirk (Tye Sheridan), a young man with a bill to settle and La Linda (Tiffany Haddish), an expert in settling bills. From here onwards, The Card Counter melts into a masterclass of tension that manages to dwell on the many dichotomies of morality while never once flinching to the horrors that lie deep within the human condition, which in Schrader’s vision is a mesmerising perpetual cycle of violence and guilt. [Rafaela Sales Ross] Released 5 Nov by Universal; certificate 15

Petite Maman

Spencer Director: Pablo Larraín Starring: Kristen Stewart, Timothy Spall, Sean Harris, Sally Hawkins, Jack Farthing

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Spencer, Pablo Larraín’s Princess Diana anti-fairy tale, begins right at the heart of Charles and Diana’s marital dissolution, as the latter – played with tremulous theatricality

by Kristen Stewart – struggles to find Sandringham despite its neighbourly proximity to her childhood home.

Larraín deftly imbues the haunted house of a royal residence with horror: endless blood-red corridors stretch into the distance while a sign in the kitchen reads ‘Please keep noise to a minimum, they can hear you’. Hallucinations and nightmares mount; Anne Boleyn haunts Diana with grim-faced solidarity while pearls from a necklace fall into soup and are crunched.

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daughter to meet at the same age – lonely kid’s daydream or Back to the Future-esque time-travel? – is left ambiguous initially, with Sciamma instead happy to let us enjoy the magic of child and parent meeting at the same eye level. We watch them build a fort and act out a goofy murder-mystery play and simply delight in each other’s company.

Sciamma’s previous two features, the social-realist coming-ofage film Girlhood and her sweeping lesbian romance Portrait of a Lady on Fire, were more ambitious in scope and themes, but Petite Maman should be no-less celebrated. The filmmaking is simple and the story slim (the runtime is an all-too-brief 72 minutes), but this elegiac fairytale is brimming over with emotion and, like its young protagonists, surprisingly wise in its explorations of grief and love. [Jamie Dunn] Released 19 Nov by MUBI; certificate U

Spencer

Lavishly anarchic, perhaps, but at its feverish heart Spencer is – there is no other word for it – sad. A strange predicament in a world where chauffeurs hold doors open for dogs, but the force of Larraín’s anti-royalist spectacle is its pinpointing of tragedy not within Diana’s personal predicament, but within the structures of power that mandated it.

Wealth becomes a trap: a solid gold scale mercilessly weighs a bulimic woman, a rack of decadent clothes dictates her intimacies by the minute. No one is happy – not the Queen, presiding with Miss Havisham-like spectrality; not Charles, his face tight with careless misery. The pearls fall through the cracks, the hunted pheasants are thrown away. A young woman is driven insane. What, Larraín asks, gesturing at the wreckage, is the point of it all? [Anahit Behrooz] Released 5 Nov by ErosSTX; certificate 12A

November 2021 – Review

Director: Paul Schrader Starring: Oscar Isaac, Tiffany Haddish, Tye Sheridan, Willem Dafoe

Released 10 Nov by MUBI; certificate TBC

Petite Maman

Film

This fantastic, sometimes deliriously strange Australian comedy centres on Ray (Wilson), a low-energy 20-something who makes a living as a wedding videographer. He’s not the most decisive type.

He gets tied up in knots when asked about his video work’s earning potential.

“Remunerative” or “piddling”, he doesn’t seem sure. “Nice but earnest” is how one character aptly describes him.

The film opens with the most toe-curling camping holiday since Mike Leigh’s Nuts in May, when on a whim Ray goes on a road trip with a girl (Diaz) he barely knows. When the action moves to more urban spaces, our hero is similarly ill at ease. He’s continually getting into

situations where he’s compared with or intimidated by more earthy men; the kind of ruddy-cheeked, lager-chugging, cheerily malevolent blokes common in Aussie cinema.

James Vaughan’s dialogue has the throwaway, seemingly inconsequential casualness of those American films from the mid-00s given the ‘mumblecore’ moniker. Visually, though, Friends and Strangers is Antonioni-like in its rigour and eye for architectural detail. The compositions are often startling and off-kilter, with the fixed camera prone to missing some of the action as characters walk in and out of frame. Tone is similarly at odds. The droll humour and easy-going naturalism of the first half slowly transform into a nervy screwball with more than a hint of the surreal. The film world is not short of tales of postmillennial malaise and male insecurity, but this one is as fresh and crisp as a schooner of Tooheys. [Jamie Dunn]

THE SKINNY

Plug In

NEoN Digital Arts Festival returns with a hybrid programme that harnesses the power of arts communities both on and offline

Words: Anahit Behrooz

Film

Water Makes Us Wet Screening + Q&A, online, 1 Nov, 6pm In celebration of Beth Stephens and Annie Sprinkle’s exhibition Assuming the Exosexual Position, NEoN will be screening their lyrical film Water Makes Us Wet, a wry, warm examination of the pleasure and politics of water and the power of ecosexuality in addressing the climate crisis. The screening will be followed by a dynamic Q&A with the artists.

Press Play

Taking Space: Digital, online and Dundee, 10-30 Nov This collaboration between theatre company hidden route, theatremaker Hayley Blakeman and NEoN creatively explores the boundaries around women’s safety online. Through in-depth workshops held with women and girls across Dundee’s communities, this project will culminate in a series of striking artistic digital provocations exhibited online and across Dundee’s public spaces.

Gathering Multitudes: A Bag of Stars, online, 10-13 Nov A uniquely collaborative mode of online world-making, this gorgeously designed game by artist Padmini Ray Murray explores the data commons through a metaphor of seeds and growing. Users will be able to upload items in order to see their digital plants grow, all while thinking through ideas of data ownership and exploitation.

INTER/Her, Overgate Shopping Centre, 10-13 Nov, 10am-4pm Camille Baker’s new multi-sensory, immersive art piece is a staggering,

Photo Courtesy of NEoN Digital Arts

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aking place on our screens and throughout Dundee in early November, the theme of this year’s NEoN Digital Arts Festival is Wired Woman: think plenty of boundary-pushing art and performance exploring the digital gender divide and the invaluable contribution of women and non-binary artists in shaping all things tech and art related. We’ve picked some of our highlights from the festival – take a peek and head to NEoN’s website to book into your favourite of the stacked programme’s events. All events require booking but are absolutely free of charge.

Spectral Constellations, Semiconductor

unforgettable look at the intersection between women and healthcare, examining Baker’s own experience being diagnosed with a post-reproductive disease. Incorporating Virtual Reality, soundscapes, and haptic elements, this installation is a rallying cry for improved research and attention.

AI: A Future of Autobiography, online, 6 Nov, 11am This workshop by School of Cyborg and research centre Her: She Loves Data explores the relationship

between humans and AI, asking how living and not living beings can interact in creative and productive ways. Drawing on both theoretical and practical strategies, AI: A Future of Autobiography offers a dynamic consideration of how our identities and positions can be formed and shaped by technological tools.

NEoN Digital Arts Festival, Dundee, 10-13 Nov, free neondigitalarts.com

Play Poland returns after a four-year hiatus to bring the best of contemporary Polish cinema to Scottish audiences

Words: Jamie Dunn

November 2021 — Review

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oland’s contribution to world cinema should not be underestimated. From past greats like Andrzej Wajda and Krzysztof Kieslowśki to current masters like Agnieszka Holland and Paweł Pawlikowski to rising stars like Agnieszka Smoczynska and Małgorzata Szumowska, this Central European nation has often pushed above its weight in the world of arthouse cinema. Yet despite this pedigree, not to mention the number of Poles who now call the UK home, Polish film still remains underrepresented on UK screens.

In direct reaction to this paucity of Polish film on our screens, Play Poland – the celebration of Polish cinema, art and culture that ran annually from 2011 to 2016 – is making a comeback. “We feel a need to bring back the festival to be able to present many aspects of Polish culture through films to diverse audiences, especially that we feel that the gap after the last edition of PPFF in 2016 has not been filled [elsewhere],” the festival’s organisers told us ahead of Play Poland 2021.

This year’s edition will be a hybrid.

A physical programme of feature films

25 Years of Innocence, Robert Palka

will be presented at Glasgow Film Theatre and Filmhouse, Edinburgh, while Screen Academy in Edinburgh will host short film screenings and some workshops. The rest of the programme is available online. “We are very excited about the online version of the festival as it will allow more people to participate, especially those with limited access to cinemas or not attending public events due to various medical reasons or Covid restrictions,” say the festival organisers.

The programme is split into three axes – society, culture and ecology – and kicks off in physical form on 11 November at Filmhouse with 25 Years of Innocence, the true story of Tomasz Komenda’s quartercentury incarceration for a crime he did not commit. Another powerhouse true-life story is Leave No Traces (13 Nov, Filmhouse; 12 Dec, GFT), Jan P Matuszyński’s political thriller based on the murder of a young student by heavy-handed police officers in 1980s Communist Poland.

Be sure to make time for Mariusz Wilczyński’s extraordinary Kill It and Leave This Town (14 Nov,

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Filmhouse), a darkly comic animation exploring grief and memory, where the aesthetic suggests a hand-drawn nightmare. Also catching the eye is Amateurs (15 Nov, Filmhouse; 29 Nov, GFT), a wry backstage comedy following a troupe of actors with learning difficulties who have to step up to the big leagues when they win a prestigious festival award.

Play Poland also celebrates the life and legacy of the great Polish writer Stanisław Lem, best known for his 1961 sci-fi novel Solaris. The festival will showcase several Leminspired short films – The Room (Krzysztof Jankowski), The Mask (Hanka Brulińska), The Advisers of King Hydrops (Natalia Brożyńska) – and the first documentary about Lem (titled simply, Autor Solaris), which hopes to shed light on the social and historical forces that shaped him as an artist.

Play Poland, 11 Nov-2 Dec; screenings at Glasgow Film Theatre, and Filmhouse and Screen Academy in Edinburgh and online; full programme details at playpoland.org.uk

Photo: Rebecca J Kaye

THE SKINNY

Design

Natura Blanket

Mapping Earth We meet Rebecca J Kaye, the designer behind Ploterre, an Edinburgh-based design studio creating prints, textiles and apparel informed by systems found in the natural world

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Both the sites without protection status and sites with species at risk are signified in turquoise.

The sites are also arranged by grid reference so St Kilda is top left and Dumfries and Galloway is bottom left.”

Working with data to inform her design work allows Kaye to bring her skills as a mathematician together with an eye for colour and pattern.

“The challenges are coming up with formulas to translate what I want to happen in the design. This ultimately means writing a programme that translates the values in a spreadsheet to marks and points on a page. Maths and visual communication really complement each other in terms of skills.

They’re both problem solving to some degree and I find that I can come up with a design framework but then allow the data to make what would ultimately be the aesthetic choices. I really love this element in particular. The data element adds a story (and purpose) to the design.

The Rivers screenprint illustrates the 127 rivers running through the British Isles and uses data from OS Maps to calculate each of their lengths and locations. The rivers have been listed from the most northerly, River Hope, in the north of Scotland at the top of the print to the most southerly, River Kennall in Truro at the bottom. These are limited editions and printed in Somerset using teal and white water based inks on imperial blue paper.

The Dazzle T-shirt is inspired by the dazzle camouflage used to conceal the location, direction — 53 —

and speed of naval ships. The data has been used to literally create the marks and the shapes for the pattern and are based on a snapshot of real-time data on wave height, swell direction and location of 56 buoys dotted around the British Isles.

The design revolves around a grid pattern where each square indicates a different buoy. These have been arranged by longitude and latitude with the top right representing the northern tip of the Shetland Islands and the bottom left indicating the southern coastline of the Scilly Isles.

The flashes of fluorescent pink/orange are a nod to the faded buoys seen from harbours and bays and highlight the areas where the wave height was more than 1 metre for a given day.

Ploterre have an upcoming exhibition in Glasgow with Concrete Nature: Walk the Talk is a multi-site exhibition set across the West End and Southside of Glasgow from 1–12 November which coincides with COP26. The studio will also be selling work at the V&A Dundee Festive Design Market with Tea Green Events 6-7 November; the Spot Design Market on 5 December and the Bowhouse on 11 December. The Natura blanket is available at Barn Arts (Banchory) and most products are available to purchase online at ploterre.com localheroes.design @localheroesdesign ploterre.com @ploterre

November 2021 — Review

ebecca J Kaye is interested in bringing environmental data to life by combining mathematics and design to visualise the patterns in data or quite literally, ‘plotting the Earth’. Originally from North Wales, Kaye first studied mathematics at the University of Manchester, followed by visual communications in Edinburgh. Here, she began combining the three things she loved most: mathematics, design and the natural world; and so began Ploterre – a studio that researches and analyses the natural world with the aim of unearthing stories and insights that have been “hibernating among spreadsheets.”

Ploterre have just launched the Natura blanket, a collaboration with Fold, a craft and design shop that is part of The Barn art centre in Banchory. The blanket uses the natura dataset; a European-wide data collection that records areas of special conservation including animals and species that are at risk of extinction.

“The design focuses on Scottish sites – each square represents a different site and there are four sites in Scotland that have species at risk.

Every element of the blanket has been created in Scotland, from the wool in Fife to the knitwear in the Borders. As a nice twist of fate, both these manufacturers are close to sites that have been woven into the design. The horizontal lines depict marine sites and vertical are terrestrial sites. There are also sites that have species of conservational interest but don’t have any legal protection status.

Interview: Stacey Hunter

November 2021

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THE SKINNY

TOLLCROSS STREET FOOD, EDINBURGH

Words: Peter Simpson

Food

A trio of shipping containers bring the colour and chaos of street food to central Edinburgh – we check out Kaptain Karaage, Exile Cooks and Radge Chaat

Photo: Peter Simpson

Radge Chaat, Kaptain Karaage, Exile Cooks 5 W Tollcross, Edinburgh, EH3 9QN ig: @whatsyerchaat @exilecooks @kaptainkaraage Wed-Sat, times vary

But then again, maybe ‘the point’ of street food is that it gives chefs the space to try lots of different things, and to experiment in an informal environment. That’s the vibe behind the yellow door at Exile Cooks, with a menu loaded with intriguing and occasionally headscratching flavour combos. We roll the dice on the Soft Shell Crab Burger (£8), because we like to see big dramatic moves, and they don’t come much more dramatic than a whole crab poking out of a jet-black bun.

Char siu jam, kimchi mayo, deep-fried soft shell crab, a charcoal bun… it’s just a little bit too much all at once. It’s well made – the crab is nicely cooked, crunchy outside and softly flaky within, and the kimchi has a suitably puckering impact. It’s an interesting idea, and a visually striking object, but one that doesn’t really work as an actual plate of food.

We admire the gusto, but when you experiment a lot, they won’t all be winners.

On the other hand, does street food need to have ‘a point’? Does it not spark joy to walk through Tollcross’ architectural hodgepodge and find three brightly coloured shipping containers wedged between Photo: Peter Simpson Radge Chaat

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Exile Cooks

a nightclub and a fire station? Isn’t it lovely to be able to grab an enormous pile of crunchy, spicy Indian treats and eat them in the shadow of a bronze swan?

In the blue corner, Radge Chaat’s take on the classic chaat is a perfect encapsulation of this joyous anarchy, and it’s also ideal for autumn. There’s plenty of heat to distract you from the cold, and the brilliantly crunchy pakora are a great reminder that, even if your shoes are a bit damp, ‘soggy’ doesn’t need to be the default at this time of year.

The Big Radge (£10) offers endless flavours to dig into, from sweet pomegranate and tamarind to the earthy spice of the chana masala, as well as being a serious amount of food for the money. Great flavours, exciting aromas, all presented in a box so full that the lid won’t stay on.

This is what street food has to offer – layering up and bringing an umbrella seems like a fairly small trade-off.

November 2021 – Review

Photo: Peter Simpson

It’s November, in a cold, northern European city constantly on alert for wind and rain. What, you may be tempted to ask, is the need for street food right now? Hunker down in the pub and live off Monster Munch, book weeks ahead to get into your third-favourite restaurant, you could even bite the bullet and cook your own dinner… anything but eating Out There, in That Weather.

Street food’s bloody-mindedness is one of its great traits, whether it’s vans hewing to their esoteric principles or punters simply pretending that it is not, in fact, pissing it down. Sticking to your guns and using your limited space and odd set-up to your advantage are two of street food’s best weapons, and they’re both on display in a pink shipping container in Tollcross.

Kaptain Karaage have a few things on their menu, but only one of those things is in the name above the hatch.

Their focus on the delicate yet very definitely deep-fried Japanese snack pays off; the paper-thin coating stays crispy even after a brief stroll to the canal, and the trio of spicy, soy-rich sauces blend together pretty effortKaptain Karaage lessly. The Chicken Karaage (£6) is sweet, savoury and surprisingly light, while the Cauliflower Karaage (£6) swaps the fat and umami for a freshness that matches the small pile of pickles in the corner of the tray. Fried chicken where the veggie alternative *isn’t* a poor relation? These street food folk can do anything with enough practice!

THE SKINNY

Books

Book Reviews

Crushing

Cosmogramma

The Selfless Act of Breathing

By Sophie Burrows

By Courttia Newland

By JJ Bola

November 2021 — Review

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Things We Do Not Tell the People We Love

By Huma Qureshi

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Crushing is a tale of two people. She is lonely and searching for connection. He is lonely but afraid to reach out. Sophie Burrows’ graphic novel is a tale of isolation, of being around people while being utterly alone, and it’s a calm and silent book. Through its lack of words, all that’s left to read is the feeling – of searching, of wanting, of moving through the world day after day.

Being alone, both literally and emotionally, is a notion many have lived with for a long time, and many more have been forced to confront in this recent lost year. A muted palette with pops of reds and pinks guide the reader through many days that could blur into one another, each having their own small significance in moments that in other stories wouldn’t warrant mention, or are mere background details. This isolation, repetitiveness, is this story’s main thread.

Crushing is an exploration of that feeling’s silent weight – the gentle claws that pull you in one direction of hope, towards company or solitude, of comfortable sameness. A wanting and not-wanting in one. It’s warm, it’s funny – a subtle read, resting in the minor moments – the kebab shop visits, supermarkets, being curled up on the couch watching TV. More than words, Crushing is a feeling; a comforting, quiet feeling – just a really nice and relatable read for our times.

[Heather McDaid]

Courttia Newland’s last book, A River Called Time, was a masterpiece in Afrofuturism, set in a dystopian London in a parallel world where slavery had not existed. Now, he is back with Cosmogramma, a collection of wide ranging speculative fiction spanning robocalypse to time travel. The stories are primarily focused on the moral depravity of humans and the perils of technological advancements; those that revolve around interstellar colonies and alien invasion might be polarising depending on your interest in space-based stories.

Newland weaves classic tropes of science fiction into contemporary themes like Brexit, racial justice and human greed. His stories convey strong socio-political moral lessons while featuring androids, robots and merpeople. A minor gripe with some of the stories is that they feel like preludes, since the premise is so grand, the short story format does not do the concept full justice. It would be great to see some of the short stories featured here being developed as standalone novels at some point in the future.

Cosmogramma brazenly dabbles in various subgenres of sci-fi from space opera to eco-fiction and manages to weave a message of censuring discrimination, racial or otherwise, in all of them. Newland is an exciting voice in sci-fi and, for fans of Dune and Black Mirror, this is a must read. [Rabeea Saleem]

The Selfless Act of Breathing is a novel about one man’s loss and the ramifications it causes from childhood into adulthood. Its set-up is quick: with $9,021 in his savings account, Michael will journey across the United States until he runs out of money and then he will kill himself.

JJ Bola splits Michael’s journey into past and present, allowing Michael to narrate the events that led him to quit his teaching job and set off for the United States. In turn, we follow Michael’s present moves as narrated in the third person. In London, Michael is fighting a losing battle to protect his students from a life of street violence. Elsewhere in his life, he is both counsellor and confidante for friends and family, but those closest to him don’t realise the deep seeded anguish he harbours.

Bola often draws on poetic qualities that make his prose vibrant and colourful, but just as Michael closes himself off from loved ones, it also feels as if he is keeping the reader at bay, never really allowing us to fully comprehend the source of his pain. Despite the novel’s serious subject matter, it is often difficult to empathise with Michael, who at times feels one-dimensional.

Although the reader never truly learns of his past, it is around his students that Michael’s sadness and joy feel most authentic and affecting.

[Andrés Ordorica]

Exhausted mothers, frustrated women and lovers in crisis make up the characters of Huma Qureshi’s short story collection, Things We Do Not Tell the People We Love, which marks the journalist’s first foray into fiction. Qureshi’s first book, a memoir, was published in early 2021, and throughout this debut collection of short stories, she employs a confessional tone, as if each story’s narrator were crafting their own miniature memoir. While this voice gives the collection its throughline, it also means that the stories blend together. No one story particularly stands out – although The Jam Maker, which won Harper’s Bazaar’s Short Story Prize in 2020, is undoubtedly the book’s strongest – but, rather, the collection works as one voice exploring the similar themes through different angles.

The collection’s interweaving thematic connections is its strongest asset. Lonely narrators, family secrets and homesickness give the collection a yearning sense of melancholy. Who are we without our roots? How does shame severe us from our own sense of self? These questions, and plenty more, are prodded at by Qureshi.

Unfortunately, some of the collection’s weaker stories end by falling into plot clichés of the genre, but overall, Things We Do Not Tell the People We Love is a sturdy, and very often moving, debut collection.

[Katie Goh]

David Fickling Books, 4 Nov, £16.99

Canongate, Out now, £12.99

Dialogue Books, 4 Nov, £14.99

Sceptre, 11 Nov, £16.99

canongate.co.uk

littlebrown.co.uk

hachette.co.uk

— 56 —

THE SKINNY

ICYMI Comedian, writer, producer and Edinburgh International TV Festival ‘One to Watch’ Zoë Tomalin takes a trip back to 1999 and immerses herself in teen comedy American Pie Illustration: Heedayah Lockman

“American Pie isn’t just a good comedy film, it’s a radical statement about how sex doesn’t exist”

Zoë Tomalin is a comedian, writer and producer. You can listen to her awardwinning comedy-horror sketch show SeanceCast on Spotify, iTunes and Acast; follow her on Twitter @ZoeTomalin zoetomalin.com

— 57 —

November 2021 — Review

In the final section of the film, the main virgin boy – a sentient Weezer song called Jim – blows up about his group’s obsession with getting laid: “I am so sick and tired of all this bullshit pressure.

I’ve never even had sex and already I can’t stand it. I hate sex!

And I’m not going to stand around here busting my balls over something that, quite frankly, isn’t that important.”

By the end of the movie, all the protagonists reach this realisation: that the dick jokes, the constant pressure to ‘do it’, and the speculations about which baked good best replicates the texture of a vagina, ARE ‘sex’, not the physical act of intercourse. Gyrating on top of another person is revealed to be just another unmagical diversion from the screaming black void of adult life. LOL! This realisation that sex is just a weird social construct is very similar to the experience of graduating high school, right?

Suddenly all these structures of unchallengeable power that have kept you in check for years are unmasked to be… just people saying stuff.

In this way, American Pie is a truly great coming of age film.

It explores the existential mindfuck of realising that without the disciplinary forces of childhood – teachers, parents, Stifler – you have to create your own emotional infrastructure to survive day-to-day existence. Also a guy jizzes in a beer that another guy drinks by accident which is pretty funny.

Having said all this, the film does make light of a sex crime which gets a woman deported. I thought I’d wait until the middle of the article to say that, because it might prejudice you against American Pie, a film which I apparently now stan unreservedly.

Jim secretly films and livestreams Nadia, the beautiful ‘Czechoslovakian chick’ from school, changing in his room, and invites all his sick little forum buddies to watch. Horrible and illegal. But when Jim gets to his pal’s house to watch the stream, Nadia starts jerking off. Urged on by his fellow sex criminals, Jim runs back to proposition her. But uh-oh!

He’s accidentally streaming to the whole school, who are now rooting for Jim to lose his virginity.

For me, this is the movie’s central image: virginity as a performance of entry (do not, ever, pardon the pun) into adulthood, which is solely to please an imagined audience of peers, and has nothing to do with actual physical sex. Indeed, all Jim does with Nadia is perform a bizarre dance and ejaculate in his underwear which, at least according to patriarchal heteronormative standards, is not proper fucking.

Oh and Nadia gets sent back to her country when her sponsor sees the secretly-filmed video because as we all know, if you’re a woman, it’s illegal to be the victim of a crime.

Despite this, I really enjoyed American Pie. Not only did it coin the term MILF – a diagnosis of human sexuality so influential that Stifler’s Mom stands beside Sigmund Freud – it’s also a lot of fun. And if you don’t like it, it does feature Alyson Hannigan talking about putting a flute in her vagina, so you can always imagine, as I did throughout, that it’s just a deranged piece of Buffy fanfiction.

Comedy

F

or those of you who haven’t seen it, American Pie (1999) is a movie about a group of teenage boys who make a pact to lose their virginity before graduating high school.

It’s set pre-Reddit so the guys have to meet up in person to discuss their misogyny, which is really wholesome.

This film passed me by because I was a teenage edgelord who thought watching mainstream movies carried the risk of making me likeable. I haven’t stopped being an edgelord – it’s just now I’m an adult millennial, the edgiest thing I can do is enjoy a problematic 90s sex comedy.

My expectations of this horny juggernaut were mixed. Since it’s a comedy classic, I assumed that the script was going to be jam-packed with gags… but that every single one of them was going to be dripping with proto-incel loathing for hot blonde girls.

I was totally wrong.

American Pie isn’t just a good comedy film, it’s a radical statement about how sex doesn’t exist and losing your virginity is an act of pure spectacle for the benefit of others. OK, hear me out.

THE SKINNY

Listings Looking for something to do? Well you’re in the right place! Here's a rundown of what's happening across Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dundee this month.

To find out how to submit listings, head to theskinny.co.uk/listings

Glasgow Music

KID KAPICHI (PROJECTOR + PERMO)

Tue 02 Nov

TEMPESST

Alt-rock from Hastings.

KING TUT’S, 20:00– 23:00

Alt-indie from Australia.

BARROWLANDS, 19:00– 23:00

BARROWLANDS, 18:0023:00 DJ and producer

GABRIEL PROKOFIEV + UNLTD COLLECTIVE

HOLLY HUMBERSTONE

Indie pop from Grantham.

HOLDING ABSENCE

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 19:00–23:00

Rock from Cardiff.

AVALANCHE PARTY (DROP THE BABY + ALUMINIUM HANDS) BROADCAST, 19:00– 23:00

Garage punk from Yorkshire.

M(H)AOL (GAY PANIC DEFENCE) THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–23:00

Post-punk from Ireland.

Wed 03 Nov ENTER SHIKARI

QUEEN MARGARET UNION, 19:00–23:00

Rock from Hertfordshire.

MYKKI BLANCO

STEREO, 19:00–23:00

Rapper from the US.

ODD MORRIS (DUSK AMADEUS) THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–23:00

Post-punk from Dublin.

Thu 04 Nov TRICKY

November 2021 — Listings

ORAN MOR, 19:00–23:00

Rapper and producer from Bristol.

CHRIS ANDREUCCI

BLOC+, 19:00–23:00

Country from Scotland.

VOODOOS

KING TUT’S, 20:00– 23:00

Indie rock from Glasgow.

ENTER SHIKARI

QUEEN MARGARET UNION, 19:00–23:00

Rock from Hertfordshire.

MILBURN

ST LUKE’S, 19:00– 23:00

Indie rock from Sheffield.

FALSE HEADS (EVERYDAY PHARAOHS + THE MUSICIANS OF BREMEN)

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–23:00

BROADCAST, 19:00– 23:00

PATRICK TOPPING

from Newcastle.

Electronic from London.

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–23:00

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–23:00

MALACHY

ROOM 2, 19:00–23:00

Busker songwriter from Australia.

Sat 06 Nov

LONDON GRAMMAR

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 19:00–23:00

Shoegaze from Glasgow.

Pop from Glasgow.

Mon 08 Nov JANE WEAVER

KING TUT’S, 20:30– 23:00

Synth pop from Manchester.

DAYTIME TV (BLUE VIOLET)

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 19:00–23:00

Dreamy pop from the UK. KING TUT’S, 20:30– 23:00

Alt-rock from Edinburgh.

PEACHED (JOSHUA + THE CICEROS) NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 19:00–23:00

Indie from the UK.

FRENCH THE KID

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 19:00–23:00

Hip hop/rap from Essex.

IMPERIAL WAX (TV DEATH) BROADCAST, 19:00– 23:00

Alt-rock from the UK. AURORA + NICK MULVEY + SAM FISCHER + BEMZ

ST LUKE’S, 19:00– 23:00

LORD APEX

Rap from London.

ISHMAEL ENSEMBLE BROADCAST, 19:00– 23:00

ARLO PARKS

Indie folk from London.

THE NIGHTINGALES (PETE ASTOR + KAMURA OBSCURA) THE HUG AND PINT, 19:00–23:00

Punk from Birmingham.

TRUNKY JUNO

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 19:00–23:00

Lo-fi pop from Newcastle.

MILLIE MANDERS AND THE SHUTUP BROADCAST, 19:00– 23:00

Pop from London.

Pop-rock from Oxford.

BARROWLANDS, 19:00– 23:00

JARV IS...

YUSSEF DAYES

Alt-indie from the UK.

ST LUKE’S, 19:00– 23:00

Drummer and producer from London.

TOO MANY ZOOZ

DRYGATE BREWING CO., 19:00–23:00

Brass house from New York.

IAN MILES

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:00–23:00

Post-punk from Creeper guitarist.

Tue 09 Nov

HAYSEED DIXIES

Bluegrass from Nashville.

MARTHA TILSTON

Modern folk from Cornwall.

THE K’S

KING TUT’S, 20:30– 23:00

Rock’n’roll from Earlestown.

NEWDAD

Singer-songwriter from England.

Party funk from Glasgow.

KING TUT’S, 20:00– 23:00

DRYGATE BREWING CO., 19:00–23:00

KOJAQUE

SHREDD (THE BLEEDERS + FIENDZ YT + PERMO + LO RAYS + FAERIE LIQUID)

Rap from Dublin.

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–23:00

Live local line up.

Sun 07 Nov JOEP BEVING

Piano and composition.

SWG3, 20:00–01:00

DJ and producer from the US. BRIGID DAWSON & THE MOTHERS NETWORK

BROADCAST, 19:00– 23:00

Psychedelic folk.

PHIL CAMPBELL AND THE BASTARD SONS THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 19:00–23:00

Rock from Wales.

ERIKA DE CASIER

BROADCAST, 19:00– 23:00

Experimental pop from Denmark.

EASY LIFE

BARROWLANDS, 19:00– 23:00

Alt-R'n'B from Leicester.

Wed 10 Nov SOFT CELL

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, 19:00–23:00

80s synth pop from the UK.

Folk pop from Scotland.

THE JESUS AND MARY CHAIN

BE CHARLOTTE

KING TUT’S, 20:00– 23:00

Classic pop-rock from Glasgow.

Pop from Scotland.

Electronic hip-hop from the UK.

SOVIREZ (ICARUS MOON + USUAL SUSPEX)

SWG3, 19:00–23:00

GNOD

Pop-rock from Greenock.

Indie rock from Hertfordshire.

Tue 16 Nov

LOLA YOUNG

GRACE PETRIE

Alt-pop from London.

Queer folk from Leicester.

STEREO, 19:00–23:00

DYLAN JOHN THOMAS ST LUKE’S, 19:00– 23:00

Singer-songwriter from Glasgow.

THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS, 19:00–23:00

Nu-metal from the UK.

Sun 14 Nov O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, 19:00–23:00

Prog rock from Dalkeith.

KING TUT’S, 20:00– 23:00

Alt-rock from Manchester.

SWG3, 19:00–23:00

Rock from London.

RATS

Indie rock from Liverpool.

POP MUTATIONS PRESENTS: BUFFET LUNCH

FLATS AND SHARPS THE HUG AND PINT, 19:00–23:00

Bluegrass from Cornwall.

Sat 13 Nov

Celtic rock from London.

LEWSBERG (SPREAD EAGLE + DINNER NIGHT) THE HUG AND PINT, 19:00–23:00

Alt-rock from Rotterdam.

Wed 17 Nov

A CERTAIN RATIO (THE EMPEROR MACHINE) KING TUT’S, 20:30– 23:00

New wave punk from Manchester.

GEORGIA

SWG3, 19:00–23:00

Dance pop from the UK.

Sonic rock noise from Manchester.

WEIRD MILK

SWG3, 19:00–23:00

Indie from London.

SECRET AFFAIR

ST LUKE’S, 19:00– 23:00

Mod revival from London.

MADDERAM

THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS, 19:00–23:00

Trad music from Glasgow.

BROKEN CHANTER (WOJTEK THE BEAR) CCA: CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART, 19:30–23:00

Alt-pop from Glasgow.

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:00–23:00

ST LUKE’S, 19:00– 23:00

Rapper from London.

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, 19:00–23:00

SORRY

KRIS DREVER

Post-punk pop from London.

Folk from Scotland.

BAD TOUCH (PISTON)

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:00–23:00

Rock from Norfolk.

EARL SLICK

Acoustic blue rock from New York.

RAYE

SWG3, 19:00–23:00

Pop from London.

KEIYAA

BROADCAST, 19:00– 23:00

R'n'B from New York.

Neo-soul from London.

— 58 —

KING TUT’S, 20:30– 23:00

Singer-songwriter from Waterford.

BULLET GIRL

Thu 18 Nov

Post-punk from Dublin.

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 20:00–23:00

KELLY LEE OWENS

KING TUT’S, 20:00– 23:00

SWG3, 19:00–23:00

EVERYONE YOU KNOW

SWG3, 19:00–23:00

Indie rock from Falkirk.

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 19:00–23:00

Jungle from London.

ELECTRIC LITANY (DEER LEADER + AINAKO)

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:00–23:00

Post-rock from London.

SAM BROOKES

SWG3, 19:00–23:00

Singer-songwriter from Bristol.

WARGASM

CATHOUSE, 19:00–23:00

Electronic rock from London.

SOMEBODY’S CHILD

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 19:00–23:00

Indie rock from Dublin.

BESS ATWELL

BROADCAST, 19:00– 23:00

Alt-indie from Brighton.

JACK LUKEMAN

THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS, 19:00–23:00

Singer-songwriter from Ireland.

Alt-pop from Iceland.

TEETH OF THE SEA (THE UTOPIA STRONG)

PLEASURE HEADS

Garage rock from London.

Dance trip-hop from the UK.

HEADIE ONE

Indie rock from Hertfordshire.

KING TUT’S, 20:30– 23:00

SÓLEY

THE OVO HYDRO, 18:30–23:00

CLOUD 9INE (MUTUAL DECISION + FROG FOUNTAIN)

CARRIE BAXTER

THE RIFLES (TONY MAC)

FATBOY SLIM

Sat 20 Nov

ST LUKE’S, 19:00– 23:00

ORAN MOR, 19:00–23:00

Country pop from Glasgow.

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 19:30–23:00

Dancehall pop from Angola.

JOY CROOKES

THE MEN THEY COULDN’T HANG

ST LUKE’S, 19:00– 23:00

Sun 21 Nov

STEREO, 19:00–23:00

MONO, 19:00–23:00

Psych rock from Edinburgh.

ASHTON LANE

FRED AGAIN

Classic pop-rock from Glasgow.

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, 19:00–23:00

THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS, 19:00–23:00

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 19:00–23:00

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:00–23:00

PONGO

THE HUNNA

EAT THE FRIEK (DRAGGED UP + GELATINE)

THE HUNNA

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, 19:00–23:00

Indie from London.

STEAM DOWN

Neo-jazz from London.

Punk rock from Denmark.

Punk acoustic from Scotland.

Indie rock from West Lothian.

Mon 15 Nov

ST LUKE’S, 19:00– 23:00

REBECCA LOU

Singer-songwriter from Jersey.

ROOM 2, 19:00–23:00

THE FLYING DUCK, 19:00–23:00

Pop from Scotland.

KING TUT’S, 20:00– 23:00

NERINA PALLOT

BROADCAST, 19:00– 23:00

THE JESUS AND MARY CHAIN BARROWLANDS, 19:00– 23:00

SWG3, 19:00–23:00

TOM MCGUIRE & THE BRASSHOLES

Punk rock from Motherwell.

Alt-pop from London.

SLEEP TOKEN (A.A. WILLIAMS)

Fri 12 Nov

BROADCAST, 19:00– 23:00

ORAN MOR, 19:00–23:00

RINA SAWAYAMA

THE HARA

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:00–23:00

Alt-rock from Galway.

ORAN MOR, 19:00–23:00

ELIZA SHADDAD

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:00–23:00

Lol-fi pop from Glasgow.

FISH

ST LUKE’S, 19:00– 23:00

THE LANGAN BAND

THE LAFONTAINES

Singer-songwriter from Falkirk.

STARVED (THE HUMAN VEIL)

GLASS ANIMALS

Fri 19 Nov

DRYGATE BREWING CO., 19:00–23:00

THE FLYING DUCK, 19:00–23:00

Thu 11 Nov

LLOYD’S HOUSE (COUNT FLORIDA + AVOCADO HEARTS)

ORAN MOR, 19:00–23:00

SWG3, 19:00–23:00

ST LUKE’S, 19:00– 23:00

BARROWLANDS, 19:00– 23:00

KING TUT’S, 20:30– 23:00

SWG3, 19:00–23:00

Jazz from Bristol.

STEPHEN FRETWELL

Multi-genre line up for COP26.

HONEY DIJON

REV MAGNETIC

RED HEARTED VIBRATIONS

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, 19:00–23:00

Fri 05 Nov Rock from London.

STEREO, 19:00–23:00

Electronica from the UK.

ORAN MOR, 19:00–23:00

ORAN MOR, 19:00–23:00

Art rock from London.

REAL LIES

Punk from England.

SPECTOR

PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING

KING TUT’S, 20:00– 23:00

CRAIG EDDIE

Electronica from Wales.

VOKA GENTLE

Psych indie from London.

YOUNG KNIVES

STEREO, 19:00–23:00

Indie rock from England.

THE GRACIOUS LOSERS (IN THE FOREST)

CCA: CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART, 19:30–23:00

Indie from Glasgow.

CCA: CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART, 19:00–23:00

L.A PEACH (ZANG + JACK WAKEMAN AND THE DREAMSTRIDERS) THE HUG AND PINT, 19:00–23:00

New wave pop from London.

Mon 22 Nov

DECLAN WELSH & THE DECADENT WEST SWG3, 19:00–23:00

Political indie pop-rock from Glasgow.

BOOZE & GLORY

BROADCAST, 19:00– 23:00

Street punk from London.

FRANK CARTER AND THE RATTLESNAKES BARROWLANDS, 19:00– 23:00

Punk rock from England.

SVALBARD

STEREO, 19:00–23:00

Hardcore punk from Bristol.

Tue 23 Nov SOEN

KING TUT’S, 20:30– 23:00

Prog metal from Sweden.

DADI FREYR

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 19:00–23:00

Electronica from Iceland.

THE SKINNY

MONOLORD

STEREO, 19:00–23:00

Doom metal from Sweden.

ALFA MIST

ST LUKE’S, 19:00– 23:00

Rapper and producer from London.

OWEN (S.T.MANVILLE) THE HUG AND PINT, 19:00–23:00

Singer-songwriter from the US.

Wed 24 Nov

THOMAS HEADON

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, 19:00–23:00

Singer-songwriter from London.

I AM KAWEHI

SHED SEVEN

BARROWLANDS, 19:00– 23:00

Alt-rock from York.

RED SNAPPER

STEREO, 19:00–23:00

Dark funk from London.

BLUSH CLUB

THE FLYING DUCK, 19:00–23:00

Indie pop from Glasgow.

THE DEARS

DRYGATE BREWING CO., 19:00–23:00

Lo-fi dark pop from Canada.

Sat 27 Nov SKINNY LISTER

Edinburgh Music Tue 02 Nov

ORCHESTRAL MANOEUVRES IN THE DARK USHER HALL, 19:00– 23:00

Classic electronic music from Wirral.

GEORGE IV + JACK STORM

KING TUT’S, 20:00– 23:00

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–23:00

PORRIDGE RADIO

OCTOBER DRIFT

Genre-bending dance.

KING TUT’S, 20:30– 23:00

Folk punk from London.

BLACK SPIDERS

Post-punk from Brighton.

THE MASH HOUSE, 19:00–23:00

Rock from Sheffield.

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 19:00–23:00

Wed 03 Nov

THE CAPOLLOS

USHER HALL, 19:00– 23:00

Electronic from the US.

MONO, 19:00–23:00

Indie music from Taunton.

CATHOUSE, 19:00– 23:00

BLEED FROM WITHIN

NEW MODEL ARMY

Heavy metal from Glasgow.

SUEDE

Rock from Bradford.

BROADCAST, 19:00– 23:00

Rock from London.

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 19:00–23:00

JAPANESE TELEVISION

Alt-rock from Aberdeen.

SHED SEVEN

LANGKAMER (BUFFET LUNCH)

Psych surf from London.

Alt-rock from York.

Rock from Bristol.

STEREO, 19:00–23:00

CLANNAD

BROADCAST, 19:00– 23:00

GREENTEA PENG

STEREO, 19:00–23:00

Neo-soul from London.

LICE

THE FLYING DUCK, 19:00–23:00

Prog rock from Bristol FREYA BEER

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:00–23:00

Folk pop from the south coast.

Thu 25 Nov

CHRISTINE BOVILL ORAN MOR, 19:00– 23:00

Folk jazz from Scotland.

HEAVEN 17

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, 19:00–23:00

Synth pop from the UK. KAWALA (MASTER PEACE)

KING TUT’S, 20:00– 23:00

Alt-indie from North London.

ALABASTER DEPLUME BROADCAST, 19:00– 23:00

Folk jazz from Manchester.

UB40

BARROWLANDS, 19:00– 23:00

Reggae from England.

EVIL HOUSE PARTY THE FLYING DUCK, 19:00–23:00

Dark pop from Copenhagen.

SAINT PHNX

Pop-rock from Scotland.

PEGGY SUE (GRIP TIGHT)

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:00–23:00

Indie from London via Brighton.

CALUM INGRAM (SADIE MARIE)

ROOM 2, 19:00–23:00

BIS + THE FAT COPS

Indie pop from Scotland.

THE OFFSPRING THE OVO HYDRO, 19:00–23:00

Punk rock from California.

BEACH RIOT

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:00–23:00

Lo-fi rock from London.

STANLEY ODD

ROOM 2, 19:00–23:00

Hip-hop from Scotland.

Sun 28 Nov LITTLE SIMZ

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, 19:00–23:00

Rap from North London.

ELOISE

KING TUT’S, 20:00– 23:00

Jazz and soul from France.

YAKUL

BROADCAST, 19:00– 23:00

Neo-soul from Brighton.

WILLIAM DOYLE

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:00–23:00

Synth pop from Bournemouth.

Mon 29 Nov

JADE HELLIWELL + KEZIA GILL

KING TUT’S, 20:30– 23:00

Country pop from West Yorkshire.

EAGLES OF DEATH METAL SWG3, 19:00–23:00

Rock from the US.

MOUTH CULTURE

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 19:00–23:00

Rock from Leicester.

FALSE FRIENDS

BROADCAST, 19:00– 23:00

Indie pop from Northern Ireland.

Experimental cello from Paisley.

Tue 30 Nov

Fri 26 Nov

KING TUT’S, 20:00– 23:00

MAN OF MOON

ORAN MOR, 19:00– 23:00

FENNE LILY

Folk indie from Dorset.

JAMIE WEBSTER

Psychedelic rock from Edinburgh.

SWG3, 19:00–23:00

KING TUT’S, 20:30– 23:00

BROADCAST, 19:00– 23:00

BOBBY LEE

GIRLI

Cosmic country folk from the US.

Bubblegum pop from London.

SWG3, 19:00–23:00

ST LUKE’S, 19:00– 23:00

PALACE WINTER

Folk from Liverpool.

PSYCHIC MARKERS

Pop from Copenhagen.

Alt-indie from London.

MONO, 19:00–23:00

STEREO, 19:00–23:00

BABII

Electronica from Margate.

YOU ME AT SIX

CATHOUSE, 19:00– 23:00

Rock from Surrey.

DAVID KEENAN

Folk from Ireland.

JAMES (HAPPY MONDAYS)

THE OVO HYDRO, 19:00–23:00

Classic rock from Manchester.

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–23:00

Thu 04 Nov USHER HALL, 19:00– 23:00

Trad and alt folk from Ireland.

DAYTIME TV

THE LIQUID ROOM, 19:00–23:00

Alt-rock from Edinburgh.

Fri 05 Nov

RODNEY RELAX’S ALTERNATIVE (THOUGHT CONTROL + BRAIN ANGUISH + ANDY T BAND) BANNERMANS, 19:00– 23:00

Punk rock from the UK.

Sat 06 Nov SELF ESTEEM

THE BONGO CLUB, 19:00–23:00

Experimental pop from the UK.

THE EARL SLICK BAND

REN HARVIEU

Punk from Stirlingshire.

Acoustic blue rock from New York.

Pop from Salford.

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 19:30–23:00

THE MEN THEY COULDN’T HANG

THE LIQUID ROOM, 19:00–23:00

Celtic rock from London.

INDYA

BANNERMANS, 19:30– 23:00

Prog rock from Essex.

JIM BOB

SUMMERHALL, 19:00– 23:00

Indie punk from the UK. WOLFGANG FLÜR

OH SEES

LA BELLE ANGELE, 19:30–23:00

THE LIQUID ROOM, 19:00–23:00

Ex-Kraftwerk percussionist from Germany.

Punk rock from Los Angeles.

ERIKA DE CASIER

Sat 13 Nov

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–23:00

Experimental pop from Denmark.

Tue 09 Nov

MADELEINE PEYROUX USHER HALL, 19:00– 23:00

Jazz singer-songwriter from the US. RIANE DOWNEY SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–23:00

Acoustic singer-songwriter from Glasgow.

YUSSEF DAYES

SUMMERHALL, 19:00– 23:00

Drummer and producer from London.

Wed 10 Nov

CHRIS HOLMES (W.A.S.P) (THE WICKED JACKALS + ALEXA DE STRANGE) BANNERMANS, 18:30– 23:00

Classic heavy rock from the US.

CORKY LAING PLAYS MOUNTAIN BANNERMANS, 19:30– 23:00

Classic hard rock from Canada.

PEAT & DIESEL

THE QUEEN’S HALL, 19:00–23:00

Indie rock from Stornoway.

Pop from Coatbridge.

FORGETTING THE FUTURE (LUKE HUNTER + RHYS HEAVEN ) SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–23:00

Indie rock from Thurso.

65DAYSOFSTATIC

SUMMERHALL, 19:00– 23:00

Dustpunk from Sheffield.

RATS

Sun 14 Nov

PIJN (WE CAME FROM THE NORTH + CODESPEAKER + WE ATE THEM OFF THE FLOOR) BANNERMANS, 16:00– 23:00

ARLO PARKS

Post-metal from Manchester.

Indie folk from London.

SUMMERHALL, 19:00– 23:00

THE LIQUID ROOM, 19:00–23:00

GRACE PETRIE

Rock’n’roll from Edinburgh.

DED RABBIT

Queer folk from Leicester.

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–23:00

Alt-pop from Edinburgh.

ADMIRAL FALLOW

Mon 15 Nov

SUZANNE BUTLER

Electric rock from Edinburgh.

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 19:30–23:00

SUMMERHALL, 19:00– 23:00

Fri 12 Nov

FEROCIOUS DOG

BANNERMANS, 19:30– 23:00

Indie from Glasgow.

LA BELLE ANGELE, 19:00–23:00

Ballads from East Lothian.

LEWSBERG

SPACE

Britpop from Liverpool.

Alt-rock from Rotterdam.

THE QUEEN’S HALL, 19:00–23:00

THE MASH HOUSE, 19:00–23:00

Celtic folk-punk from England.

PEAT & DIESEL

Sun 07 Nov

Indie rock from Stornoway.

GEORGIA CÉCILE THE JAZZ BAR, 21:15–23:00

New wave jazz from Scotland.

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–23:00

IAN SIEGAL

BE CHARLOTTE

Pop from Scotland.

Tue 16 Nov

THE CAVES, 19:00– 23:00

WARD THOMAS

Blues from the UK.

PILLOW QUEENS

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 19:00–23:00

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 19:30–23:00

GREENTEA PENG SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–23:00

Neo-soul from London.

Sat 06 Nov

Rock from Middleton.

BERWYN

THE CAVES, 19:00– 23:00

USHER HALL, 19:00– 23:00

THE QUEEN’S HALL, 19:00–23:00

Folk-rock from the UK. EMMA STEVENS SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–23:00

Folk-pop from Surrey.

Fri 19 Nov BLACK MIDI

SUMMERHALL, 19:00– 23:00

Math rock from London.

Sat 20 Nov

BESS ATWELL (MAGPIE BLUE + ROSA ZAJAC) SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–23:00

Alt-indie from Brighton.

VLURE

THE MASH HOUSE, 19:00–23:00

Post-punk electronics from Glasgow.

Sun 21 Nov

UB40

Reggae from England.

JAWS

THE MASH HOUSE, 19:00–23:00

Indie rock from Birmingham.

Thu 25 Nov YOU ME AT SIX

THE LIQUID ROOM, 19:00–23:00

Rock from Surrey.

FREYA BEER

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–23:00

Folk pop from the south coast.

BLACK SPIDERS (CELLAR DOOR MOON CROW + PINK CIGS) LA BELLE ANGELE, 19:00–23:00

Rock from Sheffield.

BLACK FOXXES

THE MASH HOUSE, 19:00–23:00

Indie rock from Exeter.

Fri 26 Nov

GEORGIA CÉCILE

THE QUEEN’S HALL, 19:30–23:00

New wave jazz from Scotland.

PETER BRUNTNELL TRIO

THE CAPOLLOS (BLISS + CRASHKID )

Singer-songwriter from England.

Alt-rock from Aberdeen.

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 19:30–23:00

AMY DUNCAN

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 19:30–23:00

Intimate piano and electronica from Scotland.

Mon 22 Nov FÉLIX RABIN

BANNERMANS, 19:30– 23:00

Blues rock from Montreux.

GLASS ANIMALS

USHER HALL, 19:00– 23:00

Pop-rock from Oxford.

Tue 23 Nov

FRANK CARTER AND THE RATTLESNAKES

O2 ACADEMY EDINBURGH, 19:00–23:00

Punk rock from England.

DECLAN WELSH & THE DECADENT WEST

BEN OTTEWELL

O2 ACADEMY EDINBURGH, 19:00–23:00

COURTEENERS

Rock blues from Italy.

THIS IS THE KIT

Fri 05 Nov

BEAT GENERATOR LIVE!, 19:00–23:00

Rapper and producer from East London.

BANNERMANS, 19:30– 23:00

Dundee Music

Wed 24 Nov

ELIANA CARGNELUTTI

Vintage-inspired pop from Brighton.

THE LIQUID ROOM, 19:00–23:00

Bluegrass from Nashville.

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–23:00

Wed 17 Nov

HUE & CRY

BLACK CAT BONE

KATHERINE ALY (DEEP. SLEEP)

Folk-pop from Edinburgh.

Country blues from the US.

Punk from Birmingham.

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 19:30–23:00

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–23:00

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–23:00

Punk from London.

THE CAVES, 19:30– 23:00

CHAMELEON LADY (LUKE HUNTER + JORDAN PHILLIPS )

FUR

THE MASH HOUSE, 19:00–23:00

THE NIGHTINGALES

Spiky pop bangers from Derry trio.

Thu 18 Nov

THE LIQUID ROOM, 19:00–23:00

Thu 11 Nov

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00

USHER HALL, 19:00– 23:00

HAYSEED DIXIES

Indie rock from Liverpool.

CHERYM

SEASICK STEVE

CHUBBY AND THE GANG

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–23:00

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 20:00–23:00

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–23:00

Sat 27 Nov LISSY TAYLOR

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–23:00

Indie rock from Stoke.

Sun 28 Nov JOHN MURRY

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 19:30–23:00

Genre-bending rock from Mississippi.

PORRIDGE RADIO (NAIMA BLOCK) THE MASH HOUSE, 19:00–23:00

Post-punk from Brighton.

Indie rock from England.

ANTI NOWHERE LEAGUE

BEAT GENERATOR LIVE!, 19:00–23:00

Punk rock from the UK.

Thu 11 Nov RATS

BEAT GENERATOR LIVE!, 19:00–23:00

Indie rock from Liverpool.

Fri 12 Nov

MAN OF MOON

THE HUNTER S. THOMPSON, 19:00–23:00

Psychedelic rock from Edinburgh.

Sat 13 Nov THE K’S

THE HUNTER S. THOMPSON, 19:00–23:00

Rock’n’roll from Earlestown.

Wed 17 Nov BE CHARLOTTE

CHURCH, 19:00–23:00

Pop from Scotland.

Thu 18 Nov GRACE PETRIE

BEAT GENERATOR LIVE!, 19:00–23:00

Queer folk from Leicester.

Fri 19 Nov

THE COCKNEY REJECTS

BEAT GENERATOR LIVE!, 20:00–23:00

Punk rock from East London.

THE BLOOD RED MOON (KADDISH + SPEEDRUNNER)

CONROY’S BASEMENT, 19:00–23:00

Psych rock from Sweden.

Sun 21 Nov BAD TOUCH

BEAT GENERATOR LIVE!, 19:00–23:00

Rock from Norfolk.

Tue 23 Nov BOOZE & GLORY

BEAT GENERATOR LIVE!, 19:00–23:00

Street punk from London.

Sat 27 Nov

HAPPY TEARS (JESHUA + PLASMAS)

BEAT GENERATOR LIVE!, 19:00–23:00

Indie from Scotland.

Tue 30 Nov

BEACH RIOT (SINTIDE + DOOTCHI) SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–23:00

Lo-fi rock from London.

THE QUEEN’S HALL, 19:00–23:00

THE CAVES, 19:00– 23:00

Pop from Hampshire.

Political indie pop-rock from Glasgow.

Fri 26 Nov

Sat 06 Nov

Wed 10 Nov

THE BONGO CLUB, 22:00–03:00

THE BONGO CLUB, 23:00–03:00

Indie rock from Ireland.

Clubs Glasgow Clubs Fri 05 Nov

ANNA & HOLLY’S DANCE PARTY

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00

Vintage rock’n’roll, popcorn, and dance.

CYBOFREQ_005.EXE

THE BERKELEY SUITE, 23:00–03:00

Ft. Kamus, Liam Doc & PinballSpider.

GOOD THING

ROOM 2, 23:00–03:00

Sat 06 Nov

FUSE X FATKIDONFIRE POWERED BY BASS WARRIOR SOUND SYSTEM

THE BERKELEY SUITE, 23:00–03:00

Ft. FKOF, Xivro, Feena, VAJ. Power and Kami-O.

STEREO, 23:00–03:00

SUPERMAX

Ft. DJ Billy Woods.

RETURN TO MONO X ACID FLASH

Edinburgh Clubs

DJ from Slam and IDA.

Fri 05 Nov

Fri 12 Nov

SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00

Thu 18 Nov

EATS EVERYTHING 10TH ANNIVERSARY TOUR

ROOM 2, 23:00–03:00

DJ and producer from England.

REDSTONE PRESS & FRIENDS - IONA B2B LEWIS LOWE SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00

Obscure club bangers and edits.

Ft. Big Miz & Nightwave.

SSL XL MESSENGER SOUND SYSTEM

Dubstep and grime ft.

Rapture 4D, RUDA and Anikonik.

HYPNOTIKK PRESENTS: CHANGSIE

Dubstep and bass from Tokyo DJ.

MISS WORLD: DARWIN

Thu 11 Nov

Dance music from Berlin.

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00

Mon 08 Nov

CHAOS IN THE COSMOS PRESENTS: REBECCA VASMANT SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00

Funk and disco.

MIDLAND

Club favourite.

Sat 13 Nov

THE MIRROR DANCE PRESENTS DAR DISKU + HIBA SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00

Bristol based label.

Mon 15 Nov

AGORA X SIGNAL: RESIDENTS PARTY (LWS, GREGOR, AIDAN GIBSON)

Fri 12 Nov

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00

Thu 18 Nov

HOT MESS (SIMONOTRON)

A party for queer people and their friends.

Agora pair and EHFM resident.

GREENHOUSE RECORDS (SPOOF J + ICED GEM) SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00

Party vibes.

— 59 —

November 2021 — Listings

ST LUKE’S, 19:00– 23:00

BARROWLANDS, 19:00– 23:00

Mon 08 Nov

THE MEDIA WHORES (THE KAPLANS)

THE SKINNY

Fri 19 Nov DJ SEINFELD

THE CAVES, 23:00– 03:00

Dance and jungle from Sweden.

TONTO TECHNO PRESENT: JULIAN JEWEIL

THE LIQUID ROOM23:00– 03:00

Techno via Berlin.

AQUELARRE: SACRED KEYS (EH-FM) + PAKO VEGA (SOUNDS OF OGIGIA) SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00

Industrial sounds.

Sat 20 Nov

WE ARE THE BRAVE X NIGHTVISION THE LIQUID ROOM, 21:00–03:00

Ft. Alan Fitzpatrick, Rødhåd and others.

PROSUMER PRESENTS HEYDAY (PROSUMER)

Fri 26 Nov

LIONOIL WITH PERCY MAIN (PERCY MAIN (ALL NIGHT)) SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00

The Bongo Club

SATURDAYS (LAST OF THE MONTH)

TUESDAYS

Sat 27 Nov

MIDNIGHT BASS, 23:00

Monthly no holds barred, down and dirty bikram disco.

Alternative Tuesday anthems cherry picked from genres of rock, indie, punk, retro and more.

House and disco.

HYBRID MINDS

THE LIQUID ROOM 22:30–03:00

Drum’n’bass and jungle.

Dundee Clubs Beat Generator Live!

FLOORABOVE PRESENTS: RANDOMER

5 NOV, 11:00PM – 3:00AM

Electronic dance and house.

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00

Fat Sam’s

Thu 25 Nov

20 NOV, 9:00PM – 3:00AM

A queer frolic.

EDINBURGH DISCO LOVERS PRESENTS ALL NIGHT PASSION (EDINBURGH DISCO LOVER RESIDENTS, ALL NIGHT PASSION) SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00

Disco grooves.

Regular Edinburgh club nights

ALL GOOD PRESENTS: SOLARDO

House from Manchester.

SECTOR EVENTS PRESENT: DARREN STYLES

TUESDAYS

Big basslines and small prices form the ethos behind this weekly Tuesday night, with drum'n'bass, jungle, bassline, grime and garage aplenty.

Sneaky Pete’s TUESDAYS

POPULAR MUSIC, 23:00

DJs playing music by bands to make you dance: Grace Jones to Neu!, Parquet Courts to Brian Eno, The Clash to Janelle Monáe.

WEDNESDAYS

HEATERS, 23:00

Heaters resident C-Shaman presents a month of ambiguous local showdowns, purveying the multifarious mischief that characterises Sneaky’s midweek party haven.

SATURDAYS

SUBCULTURE, 23:00

Long-running house night with residents Harri & Domenic, oft' joined by a carousel of super fresh guests.

Electronic dance.

MONDAYS

BARE MONDAYS, 23:00

Cathouse CATHOUSE WEDNESDAYS, 23:00

#TAG TUESDAYS, 23:00

DJ Jonny soundtracks your Wednesday with all the best pop-punk, rock and hip-hop.

THURSDAYS

UNHOLY, 23:00

Cathouse's Thursday night rock, metal and punk mash-up.

FRIDAYS

CATHOUSE FRIDAYS, 22:30

Screamy, shouty, post-hardcore madness to help you shake off a week of stress in true punk style.

SATURDAYS

November 2021 — Listings

The Garage Glasgow Lasers, bouncy castles and DJ Gav Somerville spinning out teasers and pleasers. Nice way to kick off the week, no?

WEDNESDAYS

CATHOUSE SATURDAYS, 23:00

Or Caturdays, if you will.

Two levels of the loudest, maddest music the DJs can muster; metal, rock and alt on floor one, and punky screamo upstairs.

SUNDAYS (FIRST OF THE MONTH) HELLBENT, 23:00

From the fab fierce family that brought you Catty Pride comes Cathouse Rock Club’s new monthly alternative drag show.

SUNDAYS (SECOND OF THE MONTH) FLASHBACK, 23:00

Pop party anthems & classic cheese from DJ Nicola Walker.

SUNDAYS (THIRD OF THE MONTH) CHEERS FOR THIRD SUNDAY, 23:00

DJ Kelmosh takes you through Mid-Southwestern emo, rock, new metal, nostalgia and 90s and 00s tunes.

SUNDAYS (LAST OF THE MONTH)

SLIDE IT IN, 23:00

Classic rock through the ages from DJ Nicola Walker.

SUNDAYS

COALITION, 23:00

Believe presents the best in bass DJs from Edinburgh at his weekly Sunday communion.

The Liquid Room

TUESDAYS

Indoor hot tubs, inflatables as far as the eye can see and a Twitter feed dedicated to validating your drunk-eyed existence.

WEDNESDAYS

GLITTERED! WEDNESDAYS, 23:00

DJ Garry Garry Garry in G2 with chart remixes, along with beer pong competitions all night.

THURSDAYS

ELEMENT, 23:00

Ross MacMillan plays chart, house and anthems with giveaways, bouncy castles and, most importantly, air hockey.

FRIDAYS

FRESH BEAT, 23:00

Dance, chart and remixes in the main hall with Craig Guild, while DJ Nicola Walker keeps things nostalgic in G2 with flashback bangers galore.

SATURDAYS

I LOVE GARAGE, 23:00

Garage by name, but not by musical nature. DJ Darren Donnelly carousels through chart, dance and classics, the Desperados bar is filled with funk, G2 keeps things urban and the Attic gets all indie on you.

SUNDAYS

SESH, 23:00

Twister, beer pong and DJ Ciar McKinley on the ones and twos, serving up chart and remixes through the night.

CCA: Centre for Contemporary Art PHONE CALL TO THE WORLD 4-13 NOV, 7:30PM – 9:00PM

Multi-genre performances responding to the climate crisis.

BURNT OUT

8 NOV, 8:30PM – 9:30PM

Dance and physical theatre exploring the Black Summer of Australia’s bushfires.

Oran Mor

A PLAY, A PIE AND A PINT: OPENING TIME 1-6 NOV, 1:00PM – 2:00PM

A story told in song, about lockdown and coming out of it.

A PLAY, A PIE AND A PINT: THE STORM 8-13 NOV, 1:00PM – 2:00PM

A darkly comic drama exploring the impact of fake news both in the past and in the present.

A PLAY, A PIE AND A PINT: MARY & ADA SET THE WORLD TO RIGHTS 15-20 NOV, 1:00PM – 2:00PM

Mary Somerville and Ada Lovelace meet in this invigorating new play.

A PLAY, A PIE AND A PINT: MR MOONLIGHT 22-27 NOV, 1:00PM – 2:00PM

A personal history of Frankie Vaughan in Glasgow.

The King’s Theatre

BEDKNOBS AND BROOMSTICKS

2-7 NOV, TIMES VARY

Magical musical based upon the classic film.

CINDERELLA

27 NOV-2 JAN 22, TIMES VARY

Pantomime production of the beloved fairy tale.

WEDNESDAYS

COOKIE WEDNESDAY, 22:00

90s and 00s cheesy pop and modern chart anthems.

THURSDAYS

SATURDAYS (FIRST OF THE MONTH)

Student anthems and bangerz.

Monthly party night celebrating the best in soul, disco, rock and pop with music from the 70s, 80s, 90s and current bangers.

FLIP FRIDAY, 22:00

REWIND, 22:30

The Hive MONDAYS

MIXED UP MONDAY, 22:00

Monday-brightening mix of hip-hop, R'n'B and chart classics, with requests in the back room.

Theatre Glasgow Theatre

TRASH TUESDAY, 22:00

HI-SOCIETY THURSDAY, 22:00

19 NOV, 10:00PM – 2:00AM

Regular Glasgow club nights Sub Club

SOUL JAM, 23:00

FRIDAYS

Yer all-new Friday at Hive.

Cheap entry, inevitably danceable, and noveltystuffed. Perrrfect.

SATURDAYS

BUBBLEGUM, 22:00

Saturday mix of chart and dance, with retro 80s classics thrown in for good measure.

SUNDAYS

SECRET SUNDAY, 22:00

Two rooms of all the chart, cheese and indiepop you can think of/ handle on a Sunday.

BALLET BLACK

18 NOV, 7:30PM – 10:00PM

Theatre Royal

PRISCILLA QUEEN OF THE DESERT 1-6 NOV, TIMES VARY

A life-affirming jukebox musical about three drag queens traversing the Australian outback.

LES MISERABLES

23 NOV-31 DEC, TIMES VARY

The acclaimed musical set in 19th-century Paris goes on tour.

Tramway

ALANNA MITCHELL: SEA SICK 2 NOV, 7:30PM – 8:30PM

Acclaimed documentarylike production about the climate crisis and our oceans.

A blend of classic and contemporary ballet from an all-Black company.

DIRTY DANCING

8-13 NOV, TIMES VARY

Classic musical based on the cult 80s film. Matinée performances also available.

King’s Theatre Edinburgh THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG 2-7 NOV, TIMES VARY

Smash hit comedy from meta theatre company Mischief Theatre. Matinée performances also available.

DEATH DROP: DRAGATHA CHRISTIE

17-20 NOV, TIMES VARY

Tron Theatre

Drag show meets murder mystery from RuPaul’s Drag Race stars. Matinée performances also available.

2-13 NOV, TIMES VARY PRICES VARY

8-13 NOV, TIMES VARY

THE TEMPEST

This all-female, movementbased performance of Shakespeare’s classic examines the play’s environmental undertones.

THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW

Classic Hallowe’en play.

Royal Lyceum Theatre LIFE IS A DREAM

1-20 NOV, TIMES VARY

Edinburgh Theatre

A classic of Spanish Golden Age theatre by Pedro Calderón and translated by celebrated Scottish playwright Jo Clifford.

Assembly Roxy The Edinburgh THE DOCK BRIEF Playhouse 15 NOV, 1:00PM – 2:00PM

Comedy play about a murder trial gone farcically wrong.

Festival Theatre

SCOTTISH OPERA: THE GONDOLIERS

4-6 NOV, TIMES VARY

Chaotic, irresistible fun abounds in this opera about two gondoliers who discover one of them may be the air to the throne of a distance kingdom.

SCOTTISH OPERA: UTOPIA, LIMITED 5 NOV, 7:15PM – 10:00PM

Classic British opera by Gilbert & Sullivan.

DISNEY’S BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

2-27 NOV, TIMES VARY

Beloved childhood musical gets a new lease of life with this spectacularly innovative theatre production.

Dundee Theatre Dundee Rep

THIS IS A LOVE STORY 6 NOV, 7:30PM – 8:30PM

Pop musical telling the millennia-long love affair between the Earth and humanity.

Art Glasgow Art CCA: Centre for Contemporary Art THE WORD FOR WORLD IS FOREST

2 NOV-11 DEC, TIMES VARY

Film and photography exhibition focused on the climate crisis and indigenous rights.

Glasgow Print Studio JOHN MACKECHNIE: SHIFTING SANDS

2-20 NOV, 11:00AM – 5:00PM

An exhibition of new and existing works in print by prolific Glasgow printmaker.

Glasgow Women’s Library

JOAN EARDLEY: A CENTENARY OF LIVES AND LANDSCAPES 1 NOV-12 FEB 22, TIMES VARY

Exhibition of five paintings celebrating the birth of renowned Scottish artist Joan Eardley.

MAKING HER MARK

17-29 NOV, TIMES VARY

Multimedia community exhibition about the hidden lives of Renfrewshire women.

26 NOV-3 DEC, TIMES VARY

Multimedia exhibition by City of Glasgow College students responding to the climate crisis.

South Block SCOTTISH CIVIC TRUST: MY PLACE

1-22 NOV, 9:00AM – 5:00PM

Multimedia exhibition showcasing community-led built environment projects.

BACKSPIN

24 NOV-13 DEC, 9:00AM – 5:00PM

Multimedia exhibition platforming the work of numerous artists.

Street Level Photoworks

FOREVER CHANGES 2 NOV-30 JAN 22, TIMES VARY

Contemporary Nordic photography addressing climate change.

Studio Pavilion at House for an Art Lover RICHARD GASTON + LAUREN DENT + JENNIFER KENT

2-21 NOV, 11:00AM – 4:00PM

This group exhibition by photographer Richard Gaston, colourist and hand embroiderer Lauren Day and textile designer Jennifer Kent explores the translation of colour through different mediums.

SIMON MCAULEY + CAMERON MORGAN 2 NOV-30 JAN 22, 11:00AM – 4:00PM

VICTORIA MORTON: SLEEP LINE

1 NOV-31 DEC, TIMES VARY

Victoria Morton blends abstraction and vivid colour to create compelling, barely recognisable dreamscapes.

Tramway

KHVAY SAMNANG: CALLING FOR RAIN 19 NOV-6 MAR 22, TIMES VARY

Multimedia exhibition by Cambodian artist drawing on folklore to explore our relationship with the Earth.

Wasps Artists’ Studios Hanson Street LOUISE SCOTT: PLANET

1-19 NOV, TIMES VARY

Photography exhibition depicting Earth’s various environments.

Edinburgh Art &Gallery

KARINE LÉGER: UNMAPPED

2-3 NOV, TIMES VARY

Juxtaposing textures and soft patterns, Karine Léger’s paintings reveal a delicate and thoughtful sensibility.

EMILY MOORE: FROM BERLIN WITH LOVE 6 NOV-1 DEC, TIMES VARY

An exhibition of paintings depicting urban landscapes.

Arusha Gallery JOHN ABELL: THROUGH GREAT WATERS

GoMA

Collaboration between Studio Pavilion and Project Ability.

1 NOV-23 JAN 22, 11:00AM – 4:00PM

The Briggait

A new body of surreal, figurative landscapes by Welsh folk artist.

1-12 NOV, TIMES VARY

City Art Centre

DRINK IN THE BEAUTY

Inspired by Rachel Carson’s groundbreaking environmental treatise Silent Spring, this exhibition features artists engaging with our connection to the nonhuman, and thinking through the ethics and aesthetics of how we record nature.

ALAN GIGNOUX: BRUISED LANDS

Photography exhibition documenting the effect of fossil fuels.

ZOE WALKER + NEIL BROMWICH: THE ENCAMPMENT OF ETERNAL HOPE

1-10 NOV, TIMES VARY

Immersive sculpture installation exploring Indigenous voices.

Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum The Common FRANCE-LISE Guild MCGURN: ALOUD 1 NOV-1 JUN 22, 11:00AM – 4:00PM

France-Lise McGurn’s newly commissioned installation draws on her personal experiences of Kelvingrove Art Gallery and MuseuMcreating bewitching, almost sculptural forms that fill the museum’s gallery.

FRANCE-LISE MCGURN: ALOUD 1 NOV-1 JUN 22, 11:00AM – 4:00PM

France-Lise McGurn’s newly commissioned installation draws on her personal experiences of Kelvingrove Art Gallery and MuseuMcreating bewitching, almost sculptural forms that fill the museum’s gallery.

RGI Kelly Gallery

URBAN POTENTIALS

2-13 NOV, TIMES VARY

Platforming the very best of the city’s architects, designers, artists, and printmakers, this exhibition showcases the creativity and dom Glasgow’s urban landscape.

URBAN POTENTIALS

2-13 NOV, TIMES VARY

Multimedia exhibition exploring Glasgow’s urban landscape.

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METAMORPHOSIS

SHARON HAYES: RICERCHE

2-6 NOV, TIMES VARY

A suite of three films by American artist Sharon Hayes, drawing on Pier Paolo Pasolini’s cinema as a guidepost for examining gender, sexuality and contemporary collective identifications. Exhibited at 5 Florence Street.

The Modern Institute

ALEX DORDOY: THE WEATHER CHANNEL

1 NOV-31 DEC, TIMES VARY

Alex Dordoy infuses his landscapes with the nostalgia of vintage travel posters, constructing a sublime, almost artificial view of nature that resists modernity.

The Modern Institute @ Airds Lane

MARTIN BOYCE: NO CLOUDS OR STREAMS NO INFORMATION OR MEMORY 1 NOV-31 DEC, TIMES VARY

6 NOV-19 DEC, TIMES VARY

REFLECTIONS: THE LIGHT AND LIFE OF JOHN HENRY LORIMER (1856-1936) 6 NOV-20 MAR 22, TIMES VARY

The first retrospective of Fife painter’s work.

TAPESTRY: CHANGING CONCEPTIONS 13 NOV-13 MAR 22, TIMES VARY

Group exhibition of 19 contemporary artists associated with the former Tapestry Department at Edinburgh College of Art.

Collective Gallery

MINA HEYDARI-WAITE: IN SLEEP IT MADE ITSELF PRESENT TO THEM 2-21 NOV, 10:00AM – 5:00PM

Reconstructing the ancient city of Perspepolis through a CNC-machined, flatpacked kit, this installation is a dreamy, destabilising exploration of Iranian diasporic identity.

ACTS OF OBSERVATION

2-25 NOV, 10:00AM – 5:00PM

Spanning Collective’s entire site, this group exhibition presents as a series of “acts” throughout Collective’s physical and digital spaces, including the transformation of the City Dome into a functioning casino.

THE SKINNY

Dovecot Studios

MAKING NUNO: JAPANESE TEXTILE INNOVATION FROM SUDŌ REIKO 1 NOV-8 JAN 22, 10:00AM – 5:00PM

An innovative exhibition examining the life work of renowned Japanese textile artist Sudo Reiko, Making NUNO spotlights her unconventional practice and radical play with materiality.

Royal Scottish Academy RSA

20TH CENTURY BOYS: A MEMORIAL 1-21 NOV, TIMES VARY

Exhibition of paintings commemorating five midcentury Scottish artists.

PAUL FURNEAUX: MADO 目の戸

1-21 NOV, TIMES VARY

Solo exhibition drawing on Japanese woodblock printing techniques.

Scottish National 1 NOV-5 FEB 22, Gallery of 10:00AM – 5:00PM A series of paintings explor- Modern Art KURT JACKSON: MERMAID’S TEARS

ing the devastating effect of plastic pollution in the oceans.

RAY HARRYHAUSEN: TITAN OF CINEMA

Edinburgh Printmakers

This once-in-a-lifetime exhibition brings together the life work of a giant of cinematic history and the grandfather of modern special effects, showcasing some of his most iconic designs and achievements.

SONIA MEHRA CHAWLA: ENTANGLEMENTS OF TIME & TIDE 2-21 NOV, 11:00AM – 4:00PM

A merging of visual arts and science, this exhibition explores the ecosystems of the North Sea, striving for an empathetic understanding of the oceans and the relationship between the human and nonhuman.

JESSICA RAMM: STUMBLING BLOCK

1 NOV-20 FEB 22, 10:00AM – 5:00PM

JOAN EARDLEY: CATTERLINE

1 NOV-9 JAN 22, 10:00AM – 5:00PM

Celebrating the life and work of the artist Joan Eardley, this exhibition focuses on her post-war works created in Catterline.

JODI LE BIGRE: OUR UNFATHOMABLE DEPTHS 11 NOV-23 DEC, 12:00PM – 5:30PM

Exhibition of lithography exploring our relationship to coral.

SCOTT HUNTER: AM I THE WASTELAND

11-23 NOV, 12:00PM – 5:30PM

Experimental photography exhibition exploring the harmful legacy of fossil fuels.

Talbot Rice Gallery

ANGELICA MESITI: IN THE ROUND 1 NOV-19 FEB 22, TIMES VARY

One of Australia’s leading artists explores how performance can be used as a mode of social and political storytelling, examining ideas of colonialism and environmental collapse through dance and sound.

The Scottish Gallery

BARRY MCGLASHAN: BETWEEN THE DREAM AND WAKING 2-27 NOV, TIMES VARY

An exhibition of romantic landscape paintings.

PAST & PRESENT PRINTMASTERS

Scottish An exhibition of vintage and National contemporary printmakers.

Print series created through Portrait AKIKO HIRAI + JASON household chemicals.

COLLINGWOOD: NUNO Gallery Fruitmarket RUINED: REINVENTING TO DORO 2-27 NOV, TIMES VARY

2-12 NOV, 11:00AM – 4:00PM

JYLL BRADLEY: PARDES

27 NOV-18 APR 22, 10:00AM – 7:00PM

Exhibition of sculptures paying homage to Fruitmarket’s industrial and agricultural past.

HOWARDENA PINDELL: A NEW LANGUAGE

13 NOV-2 MAY 22, 10:00AM – 7:00PM

Multimedia exhibition spanning the artist’s decades-long career and her anti-racism activism.

Ingleby Gallery MOYNA FLANNIGAN: MATTER

3 NOV-18 DEC, 11:00AM – 5:00PM

Following an exhibition at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Moyna Flannigan continues her investigation of collage as a means of exploring the fragmentation of society and civilisation.

SCOTTISH HISTORY

4-13 NOV, 10:00AM – 5:00PM

Four young Scots reinvent the bloody complexity of Scottish history, drawing on and subverting works from the National Portrait Gallery to pull visitors into an immersive, disorienting, and radical reimagination of our collective past.

ALISON WATT: A PORTRAIT WITHOUT LIKENESS 4 NOV-8 JAN 22, 10:00AM – 5:00PM

A body of new work created in response to celebrated eighteenth-century portraitist Allan Ramsay, Alison Watt’s paintings play with detail and ideas of femininity, exploring the art of portraiture beyond the subject.

THOMAS JOSHUA COOPER: THE WORLD’S EDGE

KEITH EPPS

The only artist to have ever taken photographs of the two poles, Thomas Joshua Cooper is known for working in the extremes, pushing the boundaries of both creative practice and human endurance.

Series of landscape paintings by Edinburgh artist.

ALEX BOYD: PROJECTS 20

Open Eye Gallery

TOM MABON: OUT OF STILLNESS

2-20 NOV, TIMES VARY

Exhibition of landscape paintings by Scottish artist.

2-20 NOV, TIMES VARY

PAUL BARNES: SHOWCASE

2-20 NOV, TIMES VARY

Folkloric paintings exploring the relationship between the human and nonhuman.

Out of the Blue Drill Hall PETER KENNARD: CODE RED

6-26 NOV, 10:00AM – 4:00PM

Print installation by one of Britain’s foremost political artists.

Stills

2-13 NOV, 12:00PM – 5:00PM

A presentation of work from the series ‘Tir an Airm’ (Land of the Military) by Scottish-German visual artist Alex Boyd, examining the militarisation of the Scottish landscape.

Summerhall

MARIA MCCAVANA: WOMEN’S WORK 11 NOV-23 DEC, 12:00PM – 5:30PM

A multimedia exhibition exploring the material tools of women working in the NHS.

A series of ceramics and woven rugs drawing on Japanese and British techniques.

MARIANNE ANDERSON: ORNAMENTAL BEAUTY

A LOVE LETTER TO DUNDEE: JOSEPH MCKENZIE PHOTOGRAPHS 19641987 2 NOV-1 MAR 22, 10:00AM – 5:00PM

Turning to black and white photography from the 1960s-1980s, this exhibition charts the changing landscape of Dundee’s waterfront and the evolution of the City’s fortunes and its people.

THE STREET AT THE MCMANUS 13 NOV-22 OCT 22, 10:00AM – 5:00PM

Immersive exhibition looking at Dundee’s historical architecture.

V&A Dundee NIGHT FEVER: DESIGNING CLUB CULTURE 1 NOV-9 JAN 22, 10:00AM – 5:00PM

The perfect exhibition in the light of the last year, Night Fever explores the relationship between vibrant global club culture and fashion, architecture, and graphic design, giving an intoxicating glimpse into the art that informs our nights out.

WHAT IF…?/SCOTLAND 1-21 NOV, 10:00AM – 5:00PM

Designed to be staged at the Venice Biennale, this exhibition responds to the festival’s theme “How will we live together?” by collaborating with and involving local communities, highlighting and seeking to return to the civic responsibility of design.

2-27 NOV, TIMES VARY

Jewellery exhibition of highly ornamental pieces.

Torrance Gallery

JESSICA OLIVER + NERINE TASSIE

2-13 NOV, 11:00AM – 5:30PM

Bringing together two Scottish landscape artists, each with a unique and distinctive take on their natural environments.

WINTER EXHIBITION 20 NOV-8 JAN 22, 11:00AM – 5:30PM

Annual winter exhibition featuring a range of artists and media.

Dundee Art

November 2021 — Listings

4 NOV-22 JAN 22, 10:00AM – 5:00PM

2-27 NOV, TIMES VARY

The McManus

DCA: Dundee Contemporary Arts

CHIKAKO YAMASHIRO: CHINBIN WESTERN 1-21 NOV, TIMES VARY

Drawing on influences as diverse as industrial landscapes and traditional Japanese theatre, Chikako Yamashiro’s filmmaking and photography practice explores themes of neocolonialism and collective memory.

MARY MCINTYRE: PLACES WE THINK WE KNOW 1-21 NOV, TIMES VARY

Engaging with ideas of spatiality and psychogeography, Mary McIntyre’s quiet interior photographs are presented in a uniquely sculptural way that pulls the gallery space into her work.

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THE SKINNY

The Skinny On...

The Skinny On...

Kobi Onyame With a brand new album due out this month, former SAY Award nominee Kwame Barfour-Osei, aka Kobi Onyame, takes on this month’s Q&A

Photo: Matt Marcus

What’s your favourite place to visit?

Cape Town, South Africa. There’s a peace and tranquility I feel whenever I’m in Cape Town.

When did you last cry?

My aunt passed away in 2020. | She was my second mother.

What’s your favourite colour?

Any natural, earthy colour really. It’s my favourite palette. Again, I think it has to do with a peaceful vibe.

What are you most scared of?

I’m terrified of snakes. Terrified!

Who was your hero growing up?

My father. He still is Superman in my eyes.

Tell us a secret?

I pretend to be my own manager at times. I’m sure there’s people who still think Kwame and Kobi are two different people.

Whose work inspires you now?

Little Simz. She’s the greatest hip-hop artist we have in the UK right now. I just think she’s very confident in her artistry and has really paved her own lane sonically. I like artists who pave their own lane. There’s no traffic when you’re in your own lane.

November 2021 — Chat

What’s your favourite meal to cook at home?

Eggs. Poached, fried, boiled, all of it.

I think my wife would say I make a decent egg and salmon breakfast.

What three people would you invite to a dinner party?

Kanye West for the conversation, Pastor Mike Todd to say grace and perhaps Kevin Hart for some comic relief.

What’s the worst film you’ve ever seen?

The bad ones are worth forgetting anyway! I didn’t like the Coming to America sequel. It just wasn’t necessary. I’ll stick to the original thanks.

How have you stayed inspired during the past 18 months?

I’ve mostly tried to stay solid in God. I got married and we had our first child all in the last 18 months so my new family inspires me tremendously. I’ve done a lot of writing over the last 18 months. It helps to dissect emotions and really dig into the questions of life.

What books would you read if you had to self-isolate for the next ten days?

The Alchemist [by Paulo Coelho], The Bible and probably a ‘How to… for dummies’ book if I can find one.

Who’s the worst?

‘The people.’ Contrary to popular opinion, I don’t think power

should be in the hands of ‘the people.’ Have you seen how ‘the people’ behave!?

If you could be reincarnated as an animal which animal would it be?

An eagle. I like travelling. I like planes. I enjoy my own company.

Can you imagine being able to just take off and go!? An eagle, definitely.

You’ve got a new album coming out this month, how would you convince someone to listen to it in one sentence?

Ha. Imagine what your favourite hearty meal would sound like sonically!

What are your plans for the new album? Will you be touring ?

The album comes out on 26 November and the plan is to simply let it live. I hope to play as many shows as possible in 2022/23 with this album and hopefully inspire other creative ways of furthering the spirit and message of the album.

Apart from your new album, which future releases by other artists are you most looking forward to coming out soon?

Excited to hear what young BEMZ and the wonderful Heir of the Cursed will produce for their debut albums whenever they come out. Also looking forward to hearing some new Kendrick and Young Fathers.

What has been your favourite release by another artist of 2021 so far?

Little Simz – Sometimes I Might Be Introvert

Kobi Onyame Don’t Drink the Poison is out on 26 Nov — 62 —

THE SKINNY

October 2020

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November 2021 — Chat

The Skinny On...

THE SKINNY

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