The Skinny December 2023 by The Skinny

November 2023

THE SKINNY

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THE SKINNY

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November 2023 – Feature

Media Partner

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THE SKINNY

The Skinny's songs of the year

CMAT — Stay for Something Romy — She's On My Mind Young Fathers — Holy Moly Olivia Dean — The Hardest Part Kylie — Padam Padam Troye Sivan — Rush Alice Faye & Julen Santamaria — Later, Later On Sufjan Stevens — Shit Talk Troye Sivan — Got Me Started Fever Ray — Kandy Shygirl — Playboy/Positions Aliyah's Interlude — It Girl JPEGMAFIA x Danny Brown — God Loves You

Issue 215, December 2023 © Radge Media Ltd. December 2023 - Chat

Get in touch: E: hello@theskinny.co.uk The Skinny is Scotland's largest independent entertainment & listings magazine, and offers a wide range of advertising packages and affordable ways to promote your business. Get in touch to find out more. E: sales@theskinny.co.uk All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part without the explicit permission of the publisher. The views and opinions expressed within this publication do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of the printer or the publisher. Printed by DC Thomson & Co. Ltd, Dundee ABC verified Jan – Dec 2019: 28,197

printed on 100% recycled paper

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Championing creativity in Scotland Meet the team We asked – Fuck, marry, kill your favourite Christmas trinity? Editorial

Rosamund West Editor-in-Chief "Fuck a French hen, marry a French hen, kill a French hen."

Peter Simpson Deputy Editor, Food & Drink Editor "Marry Gromit, fuck the Wrong Trousers, compromise Feathers McGraw to a permanent end."

Anahit Behrooz Events Editor, Books Editor "Fuck the frankinscence man (he has lubricant!), marry the myrrh man (he smells nice :’)), kill the gold man (anticapitalist praxis!). "

Jamie Dunn Tallah Brash Film Editor, Online Journalist Music Editor "Shag Jimmy Stewart’s character "From The Muppet Christmas from Shop Around the Corner, marry Carol: marry the Ghost of ChristJimmy Stewart’s character from It’s a mas Present, kill the Ghost of Wonderful Life and massacre everyone Christmas Past, fuck the Ghost from Love Actually. " of Christmas Yet to Come."

Cammy Gallagher Clubs Editor "Fuck Michael Bublé, marry Rudolf, kill the Grinch

Polly Glynn Comedy Editor "Also from The Muppet Christmas Carol: shag Gonzo, marry Rizzo, kill Michael Caine."

Rho Chung Theatre Editor "Fuck the father, gaslight the son, ask the holy spirit how it got into this line of work."

Eilidh Akilade Intersections Editor "Okay so all three google searches that didn't help and I gave up on: fuck 'christmas trios' (all); marry 'christmas threes' (not trees); and, kill 'christmas themes' (not all)."

Business

Production

Laurie Presswood General Manager "Kill mash potatoes, marry roast potatoes, fuck 'pigs in blankets' flavoured crisps."

Dalila D'Amico Art Director, Production Manager "Rudolph."

Harvey Dimond Art Editor "Kill all of the three wise men 2023 showed me that men are not wise but that they are the messengers of Satan."

Ellie Robertson Digital Editorial Assistant "Tim Allen showed that killing Santa will give me his powers. Just to be sure, I'll also fuck Mrs Claus. That leaves me married to Rudolph, but it's a small price to pay."

Sales

George Sully Sales and Brand Strategist "Fuck the past, kill the future, marry the present. ...out of the Christmas ghosts, I mean. Read into that what you will."

Tom McCarthy Creative Projects Manager "I'm going with Shane Black scribed Christmas action movies: Fuck Lethal Weapon, kill The Last Boy Scout and marry The Long Kiss Good Night."

Sandy Park Commercial Director "Fuck Mariah Carey, marry Dolly Parton, kill Michael Bublé."

Phoebe Willison Designer "Shag NYE (here for a good time), marry Boxing Day (so chill, don't have to talk to anyone, soft life), kill Christmas Day (it's either choas or boring, overrated)."

THE SKINNY

Editorial Words: Rosamund West

December 2023 — Chat

n our final issue of the year, we look back on the last 12 months in music and film, polling the writers to compile a top ten rundown of our favourite releases. Here you will find the definitive best of 2023 – no other list of things people like is as objectively correct. As well as the best films of the year, our team have also highlighted their most underrated films of the year, spotlighting some under-the-radar gems so you don’t accidentally miss them. It has been, as always, a tumultuous 12 months in Scottish culture, with what feels like an even bigger axe than usual hanging over all of the cultural funding. We look back on the year in music, from the highs of Young Fathers’ Heavy Heavyrelease-slash-triumphant-takeover of these very pages, to the lows of cancelled festivals and venue closures. Looking beyond our borders, we consider our (nation’s) complicity in the atrocities that are occurring, and how that complicity is baked into our culture. In Books, Anahit reflects on author Adania Shibli’s cancellation from Frankfurt Book Festival, where she was due to be celebrated for her novel Minor Detail, seemingly for the sole reason of being Palestinian. She situates this cancellation within a western tradition, centuries old, of othering and extraction, a process currently playing out before our very eyes. In Intersections, one writer discusses the value of online activism, building online solidarity and holding truth in times such as these. In Film, our Theatre editor continues last month’s job swap with an analysis of Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget, and its potential as an analogy for settler-colonialism. Truly essential reading, all three. Legendary film editor Thelma Schoonmaker discusses the artistry of Michael Powell and her efforts to bring his works with

Emeric Pressburger back to the big screen, and we take a look back on the year in Scottish cinema, specifically. Music has a piece written by The Spook School, who’re looking back on ten years since their debut Dress Up. They claim to have been living on the moon since their last gig, and only returned to Earth to do their ‘big shop’, so we’re pretty lucky to have them. We also meet songwriter and smallpipes player Brìghde Chaimbeul who, as a Skye native, is surely no stranger to the ‘big shop’ concept. She explains a thing or two about the distinction between pipe sizes, and offers an insight into her time taking the traditional form from the glens to the pop universe. Theatre looks at play and participation in new kids’ show Ginger, arriving in Tramway this month. Comedy has a rundown of the best books by comedians to be released in 2023. Art visits the Rising Tide exhibition in the National Museum of Scotland, which explores the impact of the climate crisis in the Pacific islands. We also talk to artist and curator Shalmali Shetty, to hear more about her international curatorial practice and the experience of working between Scotland and India. Clubs talks to KAVARI, aka Cam Winters, ahead of the release of her debut Against the Wood, Opposed to Flesh. As is now traditional, our centre spread contains a beautiful sheet of illustrated paper which can be pulled out and used for your Christmas wrapping. You can of course use any of our pages to wrap your presents, but this one makes it look like you thought about it. Finishing in festive style, we close the magazine with a Q&A with the reigning dame-slash-godfather of Scottish panto, Johnny McKnight, who’s bringing three shows to the stages of Glasgow and Stirling this December.

Cover Artist Monika Stachowiak is a visual communicator with experience in illustration for animation and motion graphics, visual identity, packaging and press illustration. She is a prolific artist, with more than four years of professional experience as an illustrator in the creative industry. She is a world-observer with a great passion for traveling and outdoors. Monika translates her experiences into unique and creative pieces of art, inspired by nature and adventures. IG: @mst_illo mstillustration.com

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THE SKINNY

This month’s columnist reflects on navigating an illness in teenagehood as a relationship

Love Bites

Love Bites: A Stranger I Never Expected to Meet Words: Cammy Gallagher

December 2023 — Chat

hen I was 15, I met a stranger that changed my life forever. I can still recall the wailing chorus of my parents shudder through my spine, as the walls separating my bed-bound self from the Relatives’ Room shook in the wake of my fate. An X-ray revealed I was operating on half a lung, as a large tumour located in my chest had begun to drown me in my sleep. I was diagnosed with cancer. Though, in living with the illness, I saw it not as a fight, but more of a relationship. You’re forced into this bond with an abusive, controlling, partner – who dictates your mental and physical state, leaving you sick, scarred, and confused. As with any companion I was apprehensive about bringing them into my life. The effect of its presence was polarising: whilst floods of messages from the unknown came in, some of my previously closest didn’t know what to say or do. But this is only natural because there’s nothing anyone can really say or do, except acknowledge this. I’d be lying if I said it came without benefits. The morphine was great, and I enjoyed the few advantages of being legally disabled for a handful of years, alongside possessing the ultimate pity card. But I tried not to bask in it because you don’t just want to be known as the kid who has cancer. When the time came to split, it was a messy break-up that left my place in a bit of a state. And, despite switching locks, with every healthy hiccup, I’m still reminded of the intruder that needs no key. Still, not everyone is fortunate enough to move past derailing relationships, and I consider every day since a blessing. Sometimes it takes the possibility of losing it all, in realising how important it all really is. Now I’m left with the memories and lessons from time spent with a stranger I never expected to meet.

Crossword Solutions Across 1. PITYING 5. TEARS OF THE KINGDOM 14. WRITERS’ STRIKE 15. LIP-SYNCHING 16. RETRAINS 17. SAFARI 18. TWICE A DAY 20. BARBENHEIMER 23. TIMELESSNESS 26. OAR 27. IRONING OUT 29. ARTIFICIAL 32. OINK 33. TAE 34. ATM 36. SEE 37. RARE 38. HA 40. HO 41. PM 43. AN 45. OMIT 47. RAGE 49. ECHO 51. ETNA 52. TO 54. EG 55. BRO 56. ISLE 58. UNIT 60. LE 61. CHATGPT 66. MINI 67. AS 68. DOOR 69. IV 70. NEO 71. CC 73. GS 74. EE 78. TALL 79. LION'S SHARE 82. RECREATION 84. NHS 85. INTELLIGENCE 89. STOCKTON RUSH 94. CASTAMERE 95. TORPOR 96. EQUALITY 99. AMATEUR HOUR 100. DOOMSDAY CLOCK 101. PHANTOM OF THE OPERA 102. ENDINGS Down 1. POWER 2. TWITTER 3. ITERATE 4. GESUNDHEIT 5. TATE 6. ANIMATE 7. SEESAW 8. FELLINI 9. HYPOTHESIS 10. KEY LIME PIE 11. NUCLEUS 12. DWINDLE 13. MUGGY 19. DIRGE 20. BEYONCE 21. BARK 22. ROTA 23. TRAM 24. NEAR 25. SLEEP 27. IN CONTROL 28. NARCOTICS 30. FEVER TREE 31. LAZY SUSAN 35. THREADS 38. HI 39. AT 40. HO 41. PG 42. ME 43. AH 44. NO 46. MA 48. AG 50. COG 52. TIN 53. YES 55. BAO 57. EYELASH 58. UM 59. NI 60. LA 61. CD 62. HO 63. PI 64. TV 65. ENNUI 72. CHEESED OFF 73. GENE 75. EARTHQUAKE 78. TOUR 80. ICE 81. SPICED RUM 82. RSS 83. RICK 86. TOSTADA 87. LEANEST 88. CATARRH 90. TWOSOME 91. NUANCED 92. UNICORN 93. FREDDO 94. CLASP 97. YIKES 98. ASIA

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THE SKINNY

Heads Up

As the year (finally) wraps up, we look at the best club nights, theatre shows, and festive treats to throw yourself into as a last hurrah. Image: courtesy of the Artist and Ingleby, Edinburgh. Photo: John McKenzie

Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh, until 17 Feb Using scent to conjure up the first and last forest on Earth – a symbol of both creation and crisis – Katie Paterson’s To Burn, Forest, Fire is a timely and time-bound exhibition. At 3pm each day, two incense sticks are burned, one drawing on plant species from 385 million years ago, and the second the endangered biome of the Amazon rainforest, alongside a hanging embroidery.

Evergreen by Katie Paterson

The Studio, Edinburgh, 1 Dec, 7:30pm A runaway hit from the 2022 Summerhall Fringe programme, Ghosts of the Near Future is a hallucinatory, cryptic journey through landscapes past and future. A Vegas magician performs one final disappearing act against a backdrop of hauntings and extinction, told through a collage of micro-cinema, storytelling, and music. This is experimental theatre at its finest, melding genre and gorgeous Anthropocene poetics. Image: courtesy of Amazon Studios

Talisk

Ghosts of the Near Future

Photo: Mihaela Bodlovic

Heads Up

Katie Paterson: To Burn, Forest, Fire

Compiled by Anahit Behrooz

Ghosts of the Near Future

The Green Knight

Beat Generator Live!, Dundee, 15 Dec, 7:30pm There’s very little that matches the sheer joyousness and energy of a Talisk gig. The Glasgow-based threepiece folk outfit, armed with a guitar, fiddle and concertina, have been playing their heart-rushing, infectious brand of Scottish trad for the better part of a decade. Now with their third album – the appropriately optimistic Dawn – under their belt, their live performance is a perfectly honed treat.

Christmas at Glasgow Film Theatre

Photo: Reed Swier

Photo: Nikita Hossain

Photo: Agnieszka Straburzynska-Glaner

Glasgow Film Theatre, Glasgow, 8-24 Dec Is there a more festive feeling than curling up in front of the TV and watching The Muppet’s Christmas Carol for the twelve millionth time? Take it to a whole new level this year with Glasgow Film Theatre’s Christmas programme, featuring a perfectly curated selection of films from the classic to the contemporary, the cosy to the downright strange. Choose amongst the likes of Meet Me in St Louis, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and The Green Knight.

Nappy Nina Talisk

Nappy Nina

December 2023 — Chat

JAIVA x The Glad Cafe NYE Party The Glad Cafe, Glasgow, 31 Dec, 8pm Join Glasgow club night JAIVA at the Glad Cafe for a stunning wrap up of a year’s worth of excellent parties, playing a smooth mix of jazz, disco, house, amapiano and Afro house. Heading up the decks is JAIVA founder and pioneer of Afro house in Scotland ButhoTheWarrior, with support from Bhangra and UK garage-influenced DJ Hu-Sane.

Hu-Sane

Image: Phoebe Willison

Photo: Mihaela Bodlovic

SWG3, Glasgow, 15-22 Dec

Tea Green Winter Market Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow, 2-3 Dec, 10am Photo: Dylan Drummond

Image: courtesy of Sneaky Pete's

Replicants: Examining the Future of the Creative Industries

Summerhall, Edinburgh, 15 Dec, 7:30pm Oakland-raised, Brooklyn-based rapper Nappy Nina draws on multiple diverse influences, from the Bay Area slam poetry scene to New York hip-hop. Her work focuses on intricate, lyrical storytelling, based in observational detail and a striking vulnerability that explores ideas of mental health, intimacy and Black queer experiences. Find her at Summerhall this month, with support from the ever brilliant Bee Asha.

RARE: Tibasko

Cinders!

RARE: Tibasko Replicants

Scottish Ballet: Cinders!

Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh, 13 Dec, 11pm

Sarah Koetsier at Tea Green Winter Market

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Theatre Royal, Glasgow, 9-31 Dec, various times

THE SKINNY

Photo: Tysen Arts

Christmas Arts Markets Out of the Blue Drill Hall, Edinburgh, 2-3 + 9-10 Dec, 11am So many Christmas markets, so little time! If the crowds at the main Edinburgh Christmas markets seem a little overwhelming, head to Out of the Blue for a gorgeously curated double weekend of local crafts and art. Stock up on all your Christmas gifts, as well as little treats for yourself: take your pick from prints, ceramics, jewellery, and clothing.

Take One Action Film Festival

Nkem Okwechime: Okolo Generator Projects, Dundee, until 17 Dec The second solo exhibition by Scotland-based artist and printmaker Nkem Okwechime this year, Okolo features a stunning collection of the artist’s recent work, from tender photography depicting his South London community to Nigerian-inspired textile work and a lush 220 metres-worth of beautiful hand-printed wallpaper spilling out over Generator Projects’ unique industrial space.

Christmas Arts Market at Out of the Blue

Heads Up

Photo: Ben Douglas

Photo: Jacquelyn Mills

Various venues, Glasgow, 6-10 Dec The 16th edition of Take One Action takes place this year in Glasgow, exploring the cinematic, environmental, and social possibilities of renewal. Highlights from the programme include Jacquelyn Mills’ rhythmic, encompassing documentary Geographies of Solitude, about an environmentalist living on the remote Sable Island, and White Plastic Sky, a dystopia in which the climate crisis is managed by the eventual transformation of people into trees.

Geographies of Solitude at Take One Action Okolo by Nkem Okwechime Photo: Mihaela Bodlovic

Photo: Spit Turner

Photo: Celine Antal

Hollie McNish

Cold Turkey’s Festive Frolic Summerhall, Edinburgh, 8 Dec, 7pm A festive poetry feast for the senses (mainly the ears, but others may be involved), this sixth edition of Cold Turkey features co-founders Michael Pedersen, Hollie McNish and indie musician Withered Hand, as well as Welsh legend Charlotte Church (yes, that one!) and writer, DJ and producer Gemma Cairney. Expect spoken word, music, and general artsy shenanigans. Feena for Headset

Ponyboy x Stereo Hogmanay

Headset NYE

A Christmas Carol Dundee Rep, Dundee, until 30 Dec, various times

Photo: Matt Crockett

Photo: Mohammed Chiba, courtesy Jhaveri Contemporary

Edinburgh Playhouse, Edinburgh, 7 Dec-14 Jan, various times

Photo: Tommy Ga-Ken Wan

Photo: Katie Sylvester

Wicked

Ponyboy x Stereo Hogmanay

Stereo, Glasgow, 31 Dec, 11pm Find even more Hogmanay celebrations (can you tell we are excited for a new year) at Stereo with a starstudded, dazzling lineup to give 2023 the boot. Techno, hyperpop, bass and hardcore tunes take over the night as anarchic queer club night Ponyboy plays host to queer DJ legend TAAHLIAH. What better tone to set for 2024.

The Mud and The Rainbow, Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran installation view Flyte

Wicked

Flyte

A Christmas Carol

Òran Mór, Glasgow, 4 Dec, 7pm — 9 —

Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran: Idols of Mud and Water Tramway, Glasgow, until 21 Apr

December 2023 — Chat

The Mash House, Edinburgh, 31 Dec, 9pm Pick your poison at Headset this New Year’s Eve with four whole rooms filled with unique, handpicked DJs. Taking over the first room is the usual Headset crowd playing techno, electro and deep house, balanced out by funk, soul and dub reggae in the second. Messenger Sound System are curating the music in the third room, while the fourth is set to remain a mystery until the night itself – guaranteeing something for almost all tastes.

December 2023

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What's On All details correct at the time of writing

Photo: Paul Grace JOHN

Kohla

December 2023 — Events Guide

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Photo: Rhianonne Stone

Photo: Marilena Vlachopoulou Humour

Music The gig landscape is surprisingly busy for this time of year with an abundance of out of towners joining us for the Scottish legs of their tours. Noisy band of two Johns, JOHN, play both Glasgow and Edinburgh dates at the top of the month, with shows at Broadcast and Sneaky’s respectively on 1 and 2 Dec. Also on the 2nd, everyone’s favourite Icelandic Eurovision entry, Daði Freyr, bring their dance moves, matching sweaters and, presumably, their music to the O2 Academy Glasgow, while a couple of days later choose between Mercury Prize-nominated Shygirl at QMU or Fred Armisen at Mono. Yes, he of Portlandia fame and one-time member of Devo. On the 5th, a massive hip-hop tour rolls into the OVO Hydro featuring Ice Cube, Cypress Hill and The Game, while on the same night at the other end of the M8, catch glam rockers The Darkness at the O2 Academy Edinburgh where maybe, if luck is on your side, they might play their Christmas banger. It is December after all. If not, there’s another chance on 11 December when they play Glasgow’s Barrowlands. On 9 December in Glasgow, London trio The Big Moon bring their infectious brand of indie-pop to SWG3, before STRFKR play Mono (13 Dec). Meanwhile, back in Edinburgh, catch Oakland rapper and producer Nappy Nina at Summerhall on the 15th. When it comes to local musical delicacies, Arab Strap kick off the Scottish leg of their stripped back Philophobia Undressed tour with a special show at the V&A in Dundee on 4 December, followed by dates in Dunfermline (PJ Molloys, 5 Dec), Aberdeen (Lemon Tree, 6 Dec), Galashiels (MacArts, 7 Dec), Stirling (Tolbooth, 8 Dec), Glasgow (Saint Luke’s, 9 Dec) and Edinburgh (Summerhall, 10 Dec). PAWS take their fifth studio album PAWS on the road this month too with shows in Aberdeen (Tunnels, 7 Dec), Edinburgh (Wee Red Bar, 8 Dec) and Glasgow (Poetry Club. 9 Dec). Also on the 9th in Glasgow, catch post-rockers healthyliving at The Flying Duck or country singer-songwriter Rianne Downey at SWG3. Core. festival bring the first of their local noise showcases to The Hug & Pint (10 Dec), with Moni Jitchell, Kute and Wreaking Joy all set to play. AMPLIFI’s final gathering of the year takes place at The Queen’s Hall (13 Dec) with LAMAYA, Ziggy and CH Unspoken; Roddy Woomble’s Almost Nothing project plays The Hug & Pint (15 Dec); Kohla plays a headline show at The Poetry Club (19 Dec), and Logan’s Close launch their debut album with a show at The Liquid Room (29 Dec). If you’re looking for some festive cheer, in Glasgow on the 16th choose between the Glad Community Choir Christmas Concert at Re:Hope or Tommy Reilly’s All Star Christmas 8 at The Rum Shack. In Dundee, on the 23rd choose between A Swinging Christmas with The Vintage Girls at Clarks on Lindsay Street or The Cool Cat Club presents a pie eyed Tayside yuletide joyride at Beat Generator Live! with live music from Spare Snare, Echo Machine and Rrrapid Kool. In Edinburgh, the 1 December sees Psychedelic Santa (festive) and Supper Club (less festive) DJ Other Other Music at Leith Depot, with live music from Hans Klammer, Lowlands and Aurora Engine, while the 8th brings Charlotte Church and Withered Hand to Summerhall for Cold Turkey’s Festive Frolic. A week later, head to the Vitamin C Xmas Dance Party (15 Dec) at Leith FAB Cricket Club with live performances from Humour and rEDOLENT, plus

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John Waters' Polyester

Clubs Though sunlight subsides, Scotland’s clubbing calendar sheds light in December, gifting naughty line-ups alongside the advent of 5am licenses. Kollektiv & FLOOR ABOVE team up in welcoming Dublin’s techno native Tommy Holohan to King’s Dundee (1 Dec). In Glasgow, Civic House join forces with Rubadub, as Parveen’s Canteen serve their final dinner bowls of 2023 from 5pm (1 Dec). Later, head to Maxwell Street to see the official 2024 Ponyboy calendar take shape in real time over 2 consecutive nights at EXIT (1 & Sat 2 Dec). In Edinburgh, Volens Chorus host HEDO HYDR8 at Sneaky Pete’s for a high-energy UK debut (7 Dec). Hawkchild DIY returns to Glasgow (8 Dec) for a sold-out sensory assault at Stereo with Trance Party boss Evian Christ – 12kw strobes confirmed. At Sub Club, techno giants DVS1 & Slam go three hours each behind the booth. Lena Williams lands at La Cheetah for ilex with Sofay & Ribeka (8 Dec). Sneaky Pete’s stage Simo Cell for an early weekend affair in Edinburgh with Red Room Sound (Thu 14 Dec). Back at EXIT, industrial UK pioneers Regis and Russell Haswell celebrate 30 YEARS OF DOWNWARDS, whilst new school operatic gabber duo, ascendant vierge, take their live show to Stereo (both 15 Dec). If techno isn’t your jam, Basshaus bring DnB to The Classic Grand with Mrs Magoo, while Rebecca Vasmant offers a Queer

Ponyboy

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LAMAYA

The Green Knight

Photo: Tiu Makkonen

Photo: Kate Mamahon

December 2023 — Events Guide

Decades of Dub 2 White Plastic Sky

Film Take One Action (6-10 Dec, GFT & CCA), the UK’s leading global change film festival, makes a much-welcome return this month with a programme aiming to examine the idea of ‘renewal’ – of art, material, environment and society. Among the highlights are three films with a focus on the renewing power of nature: specifically trees. There’s Uýra: The Rising Forest (8 Dec, CCA), in which a trans-indigenous artist travels through the Amazon forest on a journey of self-discovery; Forest for the Trees (10 Dec, GFT) examines the gruelling but transformative work of tree planting in the wilderness of British Columbia, and animation White Plastic Sky (9 Dec, GFT) takes us to a society where at the age of 50, every citizen is turned into a tree – imagine Logan’s Run with an ecological message. Also look out for TOA gathering Imagining Better Futures for the Arts (CCA, 8 Dec) which will offer a space for people from across the Scottish art scene to imagine how the art sector could look without precarity, burnout, and capitalism, and there’s a day of action for Palestine which coincides with the Global COP Day of Action, underlining that there is no climate justice without a free Palestine (9 Dec, see takeoneaction.org.uk for details). The other festival to look out for this month is Queer East, which comes to Summerhall in Edinburgh with five screenings (28 Nov-2 Dec). Among them are Rebels of the Neon God, the 1992 film that introduced the world to the filmmaking genius of Tsai Ming-liang, and dreamy romance The Love Eterne, from 1963, in which a young woman convinces her parents to allow her to dress as a boy and attend university. Pack a thermos of coffee because all-nighters are back at Cameo cinema in Edinburgh. On 2 December you can stay up into the early hours with three tantalising programmes. One is a Detective All-Nighter featuring top-notch noirs and whodunits like The Long Goodbye, The Big Lebowski and Knives Out. Another pays tribute to the Pope of Trash, John Waters, and if anyone’s filmography is perfect for after hours, it’s his. And for the adventurous, there’s a Pot Luck screening with five mystery films. And of course, it being December, there are Christmas films galore playing at cinemas across Scotland. Glasgow Film Theatre go particularly hard with all the usual suspects (It’s a Wonderful Life, Die Hard, Elf etc etc) but they also have some lesser-spotted Christmas titles to look out for too. We recommend the Jacques Demy musical The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (13 Dec), Satoshi Kon’s delightful chosen family anime Tokyo Godfathers (18 & 21 Dec) and David Lowery’s sorely underrated fantasy The Green Knight (23 & 24 Dec). [Jamie Dunn]

Photo: Kim Simpson

DJ sets from John Maclean (Beta Band, not Die Hard, iykyk) and DJ Anorak, or Lost Map’s Christmas Humbug with Free Love, Weird Wave, Islet, Sulka and more. Then rounding out the year, Pulp play the Hogmanay Concert In the Gardens show on New Year’s Eve, before a packed afternoon of local performances takes over various venues in the Capital for First Footin’ on New Year’s Day, with performances from Kathryn Joseph, Bemz, Cloth, No Windows, Becky Sikasa and more. [Tallah Brash]

Rubadub at Civic House

THE SKINNY

Image: courtesy of the artist Corin Sworn, In Reflection, Shimmer

Ginger

December 2023 — Events Guide

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Jumana Emil Abboud and Issa Freij, still from I Feel Everything

Image: courtesy of Tortoise in a Nutshell

Theatre This month, festive shows dominate the Scottish theatre scene. It’s a great time to bring the whole family along, with a varied menu of innovative and kid-friendly projects all over Scotland. In Glasgow, Tortoise in a Nutshell brings their community-driven childrens’ show, Ginger, to Tramway (6-10 & 12-16 Dec). The one-hour event is half performance, half cookie decorating activity. Created for ages 3-7, Ginger is sure to delight children and parents alike, and you can read more about it in our feature for this month. Scotland is bursting with more children’s theatre, including Cinderella at Platform in Glasgow (5-23 Dec). Developed for audiences over five, this is a fun-filled adaptation of the classic tale. For audiences under five, Stirling’s Macrobert Arts Centre offers Eric the Elf (5-31 Dec), a music-filled adventure with BSL interpreted performances and a relaxed performance. Beyond strictly holiday-related theatre, Visible Fictions brings their adaptation of Simon Puttock’s acclaimed children’s book, A Ladder to the Stars, to Lanternhouse in Cumbernauld (2-30 Dec). This heartwarming story has something to offer children and their families – creativity, hope, and possibility. In the Borders, koi collective brings Sally MacAlister’s new play, Hysterical, to the Heart of Hawick (9 Dec). Suitable for ages 14+, the play interrogates the concept of “hysteria” – how the (mis)diagnosis was and is wielded to silence and marginalise women in particular. The play was originally commissioned by Live Borders Arts & Creativity for the Scottish Mental

Blawan

Image: courtesy of the artist

Photo: Jo Underhill Michelle Williams Gamaker, Our Mountains Are Painted on Glass

Art To accompany her current exhibition The Unbearable Halfness of Being at Cample Line, three films made by Jumana Emil Abboud in collaboration with photographer Issa Freij are available to view online until 17 December. The films are shot around ‘Ein Qiniya, a village in the West Bank in Palestine and locations of haunted water sources (spirit-waters) across the West Bank, Jerusalem and northern Israel. At the start of the month, Transmission in Glasgow hosts Grey, a new body of work by Eden Dodd. The exhibition works with the symbol of the werewolf as representative of masculine, feminine and trans selves. (1-5 Dec). At The Common Guild’s temporary new space on Glasgow’s York Street, Corin Sworn’s In Reflection, Shimmer forms the final instalment of their Moving in Relation project, a series of public events and collaborative research into human interrelationships with technology, cloud computing and datafication. Continues until 16 December with an artist talk from 6-8pm on 7 December. Also in Glasgow, at David Dale Gallery, Marija Nemčenko’s exhibition SWANBACK (until 16 Dec) centres on a hybrid film that blends documentary and fictional narratives examining how the symbolism of the swan emerges in both British and Russian imperialism as a method of enforcing and strengthening structures of oppression. At the National Museum of Scotland, Rising Tide: Art and Environment in Oceania explores humanity’s damaging relationship with the planet and how this is deeply felt in vulnerable communities across Pacific islands. The exhibition features works from a number of Indigenous Australian and Pacific Islander artists, as well as historical materials in the museum’s collection that were taken from the region. Continues until 14 April. At Dundee Contemporary Arts, Our Mountains Are Painted on Glass by British-Sri Lankan artist Michelle Williams Gamaker opens on 9 December. The exhibition includes her new film Thieves, shown alongside an installation of props and sets used in the film, as well as a number of films created by Gamaker from earlier in her career. [Harvey Dimond]

Photo: Marie Staggat

History of Jazz at The Rum Shack (15 Dec). Ilian Tape roll through the following day, as La Cheetah presents: Skee Mask & Zenker Brothers. Meanwhile in the Capital, it’s Circle 14 with Kairogen at The Mash House (16 Dec). Numbers boast a stacked Boxing Day in Glasgow, bringing Rustie, Hudson Mohawke, Éclair Fifi and Spencer along to Sub Club (Tue 26 Dec). Glasgow’s Animal Farm mark 19 years of techno in style, celebrating with Blawan at Sub Club (Fri 29 Dec). Edinburgh’s Hogmanay sees Skillis’ Headset NYE spread across four floors at The Mash House till 5am. In Glasgow, La Cheetah‘s two-floor NYE 2023 delivers DjRum and Detroit In Effect, alongside local favourites (Sun 31 Dec).

THE SKINNY

Image: courtesy of Glasgow Zine Library

Photo: John Mackie Susan Riddell

Marjolein Robertson

Photo: Aemen Sukkar

Comedy Alongside the boatload of funny festive gigs at our fave comedy clubs across Edinburgh and Glasgow, there are a few extra special comedy show-ho-hos coming our way in December. A very good place to start is Edinburgh on 2 Dec. We’ve got Aurie Styla previewing his new show, The Aurator, at Monkey Barrel Comedy, while just down the road, Richard Herring’s Leicester Square Theatre Podcast hits the Queen’s Hall. Guests confirmed are Ian Rankin (classic) and Skinny-favourite, Shetland’s own Marjolein Robertson! Sunday 10 December, you’re really spoiling us. West coast folk, the brilliant Rosco McClelland graces The Stand Glasgow with Slug Nudger, a live recording of the comic’s best sets and more, with support from the mighty Christopher Macarthur-Boyd. Spontaneous Potter follows Rosco with improv antics (very loosely) based on the boy wizard. Eastside at Monkey Barrel, mod-haired surrealist Tom Ward tests out some new material about him never owning a smartphone! Also that week, Belfast up-and-comer William Thompson tours his debut Fringe hour The Hand You’re Dealt to The Stand’s Scottish venues. For something a little different, aimed at those wanting to get involved in comedy or clowning, the brilliant Elf Lyons is delivering a two-day Clowning Workshop 16-17 December at Monkey Barrel). It’ll focus on physicality, movement and embracing your silliness. This month’s Dream Gig host, Susan Riddell, invites you to her new show, Self on the Shelf (Stand Glasgow; 17 Dec Stand Edinburgh 20 Dec). Audiences are encouraged to cathartically revel in her dating mishaps so you don’t make the same mistakes this festive season. And FINALLY, get your airhorns poised for the bombastic return of CHUNKS, Glasgow’s flagship alternative comedy show (McNeill’s, 18 Dec). It’s guaranteed to be loud, dumb and incomparably silly. It’s the best early xmas present we could have asked for. [Polly Glynn]

Glasgow Zine Library

Photo: Trudy Stade

Photo: Mark Liddell

December 2023 — Events Guide

Iona Lee

Books It’s a bit of a quiet month for books, as the publishing industry slows down in the run-up to the festive period. Still, there’s some cosy launches, readings, and book groups to get stuck into, perfect for adding to your holiday reading list. Gorgeous Scotland-based literary magazine Extra Teeth launch their eighth (!) issue at The Portobello Bookshop on 30 Nov. Over at Lighthouse, dig into the dark side of consumerism with authors Andrew Simms and Leo Murray and their new book Badvertising (7 Dec). For some festive performance, join Michael Pedersen, Hollie McNish, Withered Hand and Gemma Cairney for the annual spoken word bash Cold Turkey’s Festive Frolic on 8 Dec at Summerhall. There’s more music and spoken word in-the-round over at Hame-ish (10 Dec, Augustine United Church), ft. folk music from The Jellyman’s Daughter and poetry from Iona Lee, while Loud Poets hold their December edition at The Scottish Storytelling Centre (8 Dec). There’s cosy story time (for adults!) at the Glasgow Women’s Library with Story Café (14 Dec), and a hands-on opportunity to help Glasgow Zine Library catalogue their collection of queer zines (10 Dec). [Anahit Behrooz]

Christopher Macarthur Boyd

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December 2023 — Events Guide

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December 2023

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THE SKINNY

5 Meet the Team — 6 Editorial — 7 Love Bites — 8 Heads Up 11 What’s On — 18 Crossword — 19 Ask Anahit — 40 Wrapping Paper by Twinkel Achterberg — 42 Intersections — 61 Music — 62 Film & TV — 66 Design 69 Food & Drink — 70 Books — 71 Comedy — 73 Listings 78 The Skinny On… Johnny McKnight Features 22 Albums of the Year – our top ten, as voted by the music team. 28 The highs, the lows – it’s Scotland’s year in music. 30 Our writers’ top ten Films of the Year. 22

36 Is Chicken Run 2: Dawn of the Nugget a potent analogy for colonialism? 38 Play and participation in Tramway’s Ginger production. 39 We revisit Adania Shibli’s Minor Detail in the wake of the bombardment of Gaza. 44 The Spook School on returning from the moon and ten years since Dress Up.

47 Brìghde Chaimbeul talks smallpipes and collaboration. 50 Legendary film editor Thelma Schoonmaker on the artistry of Michael Powell. 54 Rising Tide at the National Museum of Scotland explores the impact of the climate crisis on the islands of the Pacific. 55 Writer and artist Shalmali Shetty reflects on living and working between Scotland and India.

On the website... All the festive treats from our Guide to Christmas and Hogmanay, more Films of 2023 chat on The Cineskinny podcast, and all the info from the Creative Edinburgh Awards.

Image Credits: (Left to right, top to bottom) Ebru Yildiz; courtesy of The SAY awards; All the Beauty and the Bloodshed; Connie Noble; courtesy of Tortoise in a Nutshell; Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons; The Spook School, Camille Lemoine; courtesy of Thelma Schoonmaker; Stewart Attwood; Alan Dimmick; Spit Turner.

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December 2023 — Contents

58 Cam Winters, aka KAVARI, on debut album Against The Wood, Opposed To Flesh.

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Down 1

3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

19 20

26 27

33 38 45

58 65

71 79

54 61

50 56

74 82

93 94

98 99

100

101

102

Compiled by George Sully

Across

December 2023 — Chat

14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 20.

23. 26. 27. 29.

Oh my god, does this crossword actually have '2023' hidden in its design? Yes! Was it worth it? Probably not! I hope you like 2-letter answers because BOY are there a lot of them – enjoy! Anyway, first clue is: Feeling sorry for (7) Long-awaited 2023 sequel in The Legend of Zelda video game series (5,2,3,7) Historic industrial action in Hollywood by SAG-AFTRA (7,6) Mouthing along (3-8) Teaches or learns a new skill (often for a new job) (8) Animal-spotting trip (6) Recommended teeth-brushing frequency (5,1,3) Portmanteau of two very different films which released on the same day this year (12) Classicness – the state of never going out of fashion (12) Paddle (3) Smoothing wrinkles (7,3) (& 85 Across) Computer sentience? (10,12)

Feedback? Email crossword@theskinny.co.uk

32. 33. 34. 36. 37. 38. 40. 41. 43. 45. 47. 49. 51. 52. 54. 55. 56. 58. 60. 61. 66. 67. 68.

Squeal (4) Scots word for 'to' (3) Cash machine – currently (init.) (3) View (3) Uncommon (4) A singular laugh (2) (& 40 Down & 62 Down) Santa's iconic guffaw (2,2,2) Person who runs the country (init.) (2) Indefinite article (2) Leave out (4) Fury (4) Reflected sound (4) Volcano in Italy (4) Preposition (2) For example (2) Less formal than 'brother' but more formal than 'bruh' (3) E.g. Man, Wight, Skye (4) Component – denomination (4) French definite article (2) A form of 29 Across that you can ask questions (7) Small (4) The 'A' in 'AF' (2) Entry and/or exit (4)

69. 70. 71. 73.

Number 4 in Roman numerals (2) Protagonist of The Matrix (3) Copy (someone into an email) (2) My initials (no I am not scraping the barrel for 2-letter answers) (2) 74. Mobile phone network (2) 78. (Of a person) long, in an upwards sense (4) 79. Majority – slain horse (anag) (5,5) 82. Fun – remake (10) 84. UK's healthcare system (3) 85. (See 29 Across) 89. CEO of OceanGate (d.2023) – crush to knots (anag) (8,4) 94. Song from Game of Thrones – The Rains of ___ (9) 95. Lethargy – PR root (anag) (6) 96. Fairness (8) 99. Open mic (7,4) 100. Symbolic countdown to the apocalypse (8,5) 101. Longest-running Broadway musical which had its final performance this year (7,2,3,5) 102. Conclusions (7)

Turn to page 7 for the solutions — 18 —

21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 27. 28. 30. 31.

84 85

9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 19. 20.

36 41

47 52

1. 2.

35. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 46. 48. 50. 52. 53. 55. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 72. 73. 75. 78. 80. 81. 82. 83. 86. 87. 88. 90. 91. 92. 93. 94. 97. 98.

Strength (5) Social network trying to make 'X' happen (7) Do again – eat tire (anag) (7) Bless you (10) Gallery in London (4) Bring to life (7) Vacillate – playground apparatus (3-3) Federico ___, Italian filmmaker (d.1993) (7) Theory (10) Citrus dessert (3,4,3) Centre (7) Diminish (7) Humid (5) Sad song – requiem (5) Pop star whose album Renaissance was our 2022 Album of the Year (7) A dog's shout (4) Timetable (4) Not quite a train, not quite a bus – Edinburgh's line extended this year (4) Close (4) Night-time unconsciousness (5) On top of things (2,7) Drugs (9) Fancy brand of tonic water (5,4) Rotating food and condiment distributor (4,5) Instagram's attempt to copy 2 Down (7) Hello! (2) Preposition (2) (See 40 Across) Film classification for young ‘uns (2) Not you (2) Expression of mild surprise (2) Chemical symbol for nitrogen (2) Shorthand for a Masters degree (2) Chemical symbol for silver (2) Part of a machine (has teeth) (3) Metal (3) Affirmative (3) Chinese steamed roll (3) Little hair – a shy eel (anag) (7) Expression of uncertainty (2) Famous Monty Python knight utterance (2) City in California (init.) (2) Vinyl sales outperformed this other physical media this year (2) (See 40 Across) 3.14 (2) Idiot box (init.) (2) Fancy French boredom (5) Annoyed (over spilt milk?) (7,3) Trait – DNA (4) Ground tremor (10) Circuit – multi-stop journey (4) Frozen water (3) Infused booze (6,3) Web feed (init.) (3) This cartoon character got a new voice actor this year (4) Deep-fried tortilla – toast ad (anag) (7) Sveltest – least substantial (7) Mucus – arch tar (anag) (7) Duo (7) Subtle (7) National animal of Scotland, supposedly (7) Chocolate frog (6) Clutch – latch (5) Expression of alarm (5) Continent (4)

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As winter fully settles in, this month’s advice column looks at how you can have sex when it’s too cold to take your clothes off How does one have great sex during an Edinburgh winter? I have been here for almost five winters and it’s now pretty obvious my sex drive just plummets this time of year. The desire is there but it’s too cold to undress, let alone wear sexy things. I can’t afford to put my heating up to steamy temperatures (it stays at 17 and that already costs me A LOT). I have even tried prepping the bed with a hot water bottle but it sure doesn’t set a sexy or spontaneous mood. How do people do it out here in the winter gloomy cold months??

December 2023

God bless you friend, for this seasonally appropriate question that I will answer – in detail! – in the magazine my parents subscribe to. Perhaps I will print them a redacted copy, but in the meantime – oh boy, yeah, it’s rough (cold) out there (inside). And it’s not just the cold! It’s dark! Everyone’s depressed! It’s really hard to find good lighting! I truly love Scotland so much but I also can’t believe we live like this. No wonder this country’s so repressed. So, some practicalities. I am loath to tell you to buy a gimp suit, even though they sure do look toasty, but there are sexy, long-sleeved things you can wear that aren’t skimpy lingerie. Anything sheer with nothing on underneath is super hot, and very much giving Franz Rogowski in Passages (do not copy any of the rest of his behaviour). I also think having sex with chunky socks on, whatever Rachel Green says, is cute, but what do I know. High denier stockings are also a vibe (Nicole Beharie wore them in Shame, and what is that film if not an advert for commendable sex). Due to health and safety laws I cannot tell you to fuck under an electric blanket, but I can suggest putting one in the bed and whipping it out as soon as the door buzzes. I do think, though, that you’re concerned less with how to have sex than how you feel about it. There’s a term in sexology (OK, Lizzy Caplan) called sexual currency, which is the maintaining of an erotic charge through words, touch, looks etc. We’re not always able to function at a super high sex drive in terms of actual “consummation” (maybe you’ve just had a baby, maybe it has been raining for eight days on end), but it is possible (and essential!) to keep reacting to each other as desirable and desired beings. After all, sex is better when it’s an energy that builds; otherwise it’s just something that… happens. I guess what I’m saying is, take those nudes, send those disgusting texts, flirt like crazy. If it’s too cold to take your jumper off, you don’t have to stop having a horny time.

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December 2023

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THE SKINNY

The Year in Review

Illustration: Monika Stachowiak

s we reach the end of another tumultuous year, we look back on 2023 in culture. The music team have been rigorously surveyed to compile a rundown of the top albums of the past twelve months, and we also cast an eye back over the year in Scottish music, specifically. The film writers have submitted their picks for the films of the year and also the underrated films of the year that may have passed you by. Find out if your favourites made the cut on the following pages.

Wrapping Paper Artist: Twinkel Achterberg Twinkel Achterberg is an illustrator from The Netherlands. Her work is playful and colourful and full of texture and detail. She loves to bring creative ideas and meaningful stories to life through her illustrations. IG: @twinkelachterberg www.twinkelachterberg.com — 21 —

Albums of the Year

THE SKINNY

Best Albums of 2023 As is tradition, we've once again polled our music writers for their standout records of the year; as is to be expected, 2023's list features a gorgeously diverse range of artists, including everyone's favourite local boy band

Released in February, This Is Why, Paramore’s first studio album in almost six years, is a post-punk tour-de-force that set a very high bar for other rock acts to follow throughout the year. The album is filled front to back with real quality, with a plethora of catchy riffs and even catchier choruses. There are fast-paced pop-punk anthems like The News, that harken back to Paramore’s early days, as well as slower, more introspective songs like Liar, that show how they have expertly expanded their musical horizons. The influence of the early noughties garage-rock boom is clear, with a particular debt being owed to the likes of Bloc Party and The Strokes. But perhaps the most impressive thing about This Is Why is that it is experimental. Nostalgia is big business these days, and it would have been so easy for Paramore to cash in and put out a record with minimal effort while taking a headline slot at the next festival capitalising on a fondness for the golden days of pop-punk emo supremacy. Instead, they gave us one of their best albums, and one of the real rock highlights of the year. [Logan Walker]

#9: Lankum – False Lankum

False Lankum was released on 24 Mar via Rough Trade lankumdublin.com

When Lankum performed their rendition of The New York Trader at London’s Barbican earlier this year, the crowd were whipped into a state of gloried frenzy. Rising from their seats and flooding the aisles, they were enthralled by the raw droning power of this old Jonah Ballad. A work of finely honed beauty and cumulative power, False Lankum was conceived during Dublin’s recurring pandemic lockdowns. Successfully drawing a line between the past and the present, its 12 tracks (a mix of traditional folk songs and the group’s own compositions) combine the anxieties of that period with the hardship and desperation that haunt these centuries-old ballads. From gothic opener Go Dig My Grave to the keening textures and melancholic tones of tracks like Newcastle and On a Monday Morning, these songs move fluidly from moments of glee to intense, all-consuming horror. It’s something perhaps best observed on Master Crowley’s, an invigorating jig that gradually succumbs to a subterranean drone that groans and heaves like a ship being dragged towards the bottom of the ocean. If False Lankum is to rightfully be termed a modern classic, it’s because of these unexpected and expansive moments that push these songs into new extreme territories. [Patrick Gamble] — 22 —

This Is Why was released on 10 Feb via Atlantic Records paramore.net

Photo: Sorcha Frances Ryder

December 2023 – Feature

Photo: Zachary Gray

#10: Paramore – This Is Why

THE SKINNY

Photo: Justin French

Photo: Nick Walker

Raven was released on 10 Feb via Warp Records

oliviarodrigo.com

kelela.co

#8: Olivia Rodrigo – GUTS

#7: Kelela – Raven

Enjoying a banner year with GUTS, Olivia Rodrigo swaggered past the sophomore slump, loaded with pop-rock ammo, bon-mots and volatile ballads. In both aggro and gentle expressions, Rodrigo erroneously makes her way through young adulthood, navigating the entropic period of being not a girl, not yet a woman. And GUTS chronicles her backslides into bad decisions with winks, whispers, and wails. Diaristic in her admission of fears and ouroboros fuck-ups, she tries to deal with her dysfunction. But with an overbearing weight of anxieties, the Gen-Z laureate’s sense of self is a listing ship. On bad idea right? Rodrigo self-acquits from her rampant self-sabotage with a comically unconvincing ‘Fuck it, it’s fine’. It’s a heedless heel-turn away from good choices and her most addictive song to date. Debilitating cringe defines the thundering anthem ballad of a homeschooled girl, while making the bed plainly describes a burning self-contempt, lamenting a malaise of her own design. Finally, get him back! is a heady toss-up between revenge and reconciliation with a lover. She battles competing instincts: cater to him or clobber him? GUTS rejects pieties and tugs at maturity. It’s a prismatic burst from a self-aware and mordant mind. [Lucy Fitzgerald]

On Raven, even when Kelela is still, she’s on the move. It begins with a cleansing synth rushing over her – it washes her away on the current, fading away into the horizon. Later, she’s more in control: ‘on the run’, ‘pushing a rock up a mountain’, ‘fighting the tide’, grasping out. This constant movement illuminates Kelela’s journey towards Raven. Encumbered by a creative block in the shadow of her brilliant debut, Take Me Apart, six years previously, she did what she’s constantly doing on this record – she fought forward: getting political, engaging with her Blackness and its artistic history. The physicality of the music on Raven encapsulates this, not as some direct statement but as clarity of focus, newfound direction. When you are listening to Raven, you are truly in it – its fluidity and considered consistency create a bubble with a thick, impenetrable surface. Within it, she conjures a sonic mélange drawing on UK 90s garage, Afrofuturism, Alice Coltrane-inspired new age and jazz, and ambient. Even when the shuddering beats temper on Holier, the bone-rattling bass keeps you moving. By the wordless improvisations of closer Far Away – initially mirroring the swells of the album’s introduction, and then transcending them – Kelela, and all listening, are finally in a place of ecstatic peace. [Tony Inglis]

Photo: Ebru Yildiz

AOTY #20 to #11 #20 Wednesday – Rat Saw God

#18 Sampha – Lahai The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We was released on 15 Sep via Dead Oceans

#17 CMAT – Crazymad, For Me

#15 Troye Sivan – Something to Give Each Other #14 Fever Ray – Radical Romantics #13 Hamish Hawk – Angel Numbers #12 Lana Del Rey – Did you know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd #11 JPEGMAFIA & Danny Brown – SCARING THE HOES

#6: Mitski – The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We Mitski’s seventh studio album sees an about-turn in form; rooted and organic in its instrumentation and composition, pared back when compared to last year’s pop-inflected Laurel Hell. Sonic flourishes are highlighted – choral hits in Bug Like an Angel, percussive intensity as The Deal rushes to an end – as rare stylistic punches amongst the effective acoustic simplicity of Mitski and producer Patrick Hyland’s arrangements, themselves measured leanins to the warmth of Americana. This soundscape provides a rootedness; a buttress for Mitski’s aphoristic and forlorn lyricism, parsing fatalism (I’m Your — 23 —

Man), death (My Love Mine All Mine) and touching on alcoholism (Bug Like an Angel). There is light amongst the shade, however. A thrilling pang of hope and liberty in Buffalo Replaced; resounding, triumphant pride in album closer I Love Me After You. It’s this mastery of each component – sequencing, theme, songwriting, compositional intelligence – that Mitski and Hyland contribute to The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We that frames its successes: it is resultantly emotionally erudite, classic in sound and presentation, and a jewel in the crown of one of America’s finest contemporary musicians. [Rhys Morgan]

mitski.com

December 2023 – Feature

#19 Chappell Roan – The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess

#16 Mandy, Indiana – i’ve seen a way

Albums of the Year

GUTS was released on 8 Sep via Geffen Records

THE SKINNY

Photo: Alexander Richter

#5: Billy Woods & Kenny Segal – Maps Billy Woods will not be at soundcheck. On Maps, the Brooklyn rapper is a world-wise curmudgeon, maintaining his humanity in the no man’s land of overseas touring. Instead of glamorous boat trips and afterparties, it’s EasyJet layovers, gentrified weed and missed FaceTime calls. Touring is tough for any independent musician. It’s even tougher when dealing with ‘survivor’s guilt with a side of buyer’s remorse’, as he raps on NYC Tapwater. His frequent production partner Kenny Segal matches the dread, humour and heart found in the lyrics with grit-flecked beats. Like Nas/Hit-Boy or Little Simz/Inflo, the duo have a rare bond. It’s allowed them to create a tone and story that’s all their own. There are, of course, countless quotables and killer punchlines with a writer as sharp as Woods. Every beat delivers. We expect that, now. But what’s made Maps connect beyond his cult fanbase is its focused themes and personal approach. Never has Woods sounded more open than when rapping about taking his kid to the park after a hectic tour. Moments like Agriculture and Hangman are emotional gut-punches that explain and elevate his slippery and standoffish demeanour. And after the twentieth listen, it’s still revealing secrets. [Skye Butchard]

Maps was released on 5 May via Backwoodz Studioz Albums of the Year

billywoods.bandcamp.com

Photo: Shervin Lainez

#4: boygenius – the record the record is the first proper album from boygenius, the supergroup consisting of Lucy Dacus, Julien Baker and Phoebe Bridgers, and it is something very special indeed. The album opens with Without You Without Them, a stripped back mission statement of togetherness from the trio; ‘I want to hear your story and be a part of it’, they sing in pitch-perfect harmony, before lurching into life on the Baker-led juggernaut $20, an adventure movie about motorcycles, arsonists and empty pockets which plays out over choppy guitars. The bulk of the album occupies these two spaces as it examines the relationships within the band itself, but in a refreshing twist on that rock’n’roll tradition; it’s friendship not romance which takes centre stage. But make no mistake, these are love songs. Lyrics like, ‘You could absolutely break my heart / That’s how I know we’re in love’ (We’re In Love), or the tender refrain, ‘I never thought you’d happen to me’ at the end of Leonard Cohen (a song about a clumsy formative roadtrip the group took together) shine a rare light on the intimacy and nourishment friendship provides. Having dissolved into this deep connection, boygenius have become more than a sum of their (already very good) parts and the record is all the better for it. [Tara Hepburn]

xboygeniusx.com

Sufjan Stevens’ tenth studio album is yet another masterpiece of intimate, carefully considered indie-folk storytelling. The songs are packed with allusive details that hint at regret and loss (‘In the future there will be a terrible cost / For all that we’ve left undone’, ‘I was the man still in love with you / When I already knew it was done’), but the subtle orchestral arrangements are more hopeful than the grief-stricken Carrie & Lowell, its closest musical forebear. Two personal details help explain the contrast which is struggled with throughout the album: 1) the death of his partner Evan Richardson earlier this year; 2) Stevens’ recent recovery from the debilitating Guillain–Barré syndrome. These contextual clues, along with the essays and ‘imaginative art’ that accompany the album, are nice to have, but the songs themselves are worthy of celebration regardless. My Red Little Fox is a waltzing nursery rhyme that explores the delirium of love via the Pentecost; Everything That Rises has a hushed vocal intricacy to rival Nick Drake or Vashti Bunyan, and Will Anybody Ever Love Me? is simply another in a long line of ornate, breathtaking explorations of the soul that has cemented Stevens’ legendary status over the past 25 years. [Lewis Wade]

Javelin was released on 6 Oct via Asthmatic Kitty sufjan.com

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December 2023 – Feature

Image: Sufjan Stevens

#3: Sufjan Stevens – Javelin

the record was released on 31 Mar via Interscope

THE SKINNY

Photo: Aidan Zamiri

#2: Caroline Polachek – Desire, I Want to Turn Into You

Albums of the Year

At the time of writing, Caroline Polachek is freshly nominated for the Grammy for Best Engineered Album (Non-Classical). And as much as big industry awards are full of nonsense and essentially meaningless, that’s pretty exciting, because Desire, I Want to Turn Into You is exactly the sort of work a music lover wants to see recognised in that category. More than any of Polachek’s work to date, Desire... pairs the rhapsodic hooks of mainstream pop with a more inquisitive, even artisanal, approach to production. There are audio curiosities and international influences everywhere (Bunny Is a Rider features birdsong and a baby’s laughter; Blood and Butter features Brìghde Chaimbeul on the smallpipes), making it an album that rewards a second, fifth, or hundredth listen. Polachek’s voice also remains fascinating – she’s leaned further into a singing technique she calls ‘vocal flipping’, whereby she exploits the jump from chest voice to head voice to create more harshly defined edges between notes. It may sound on first listen like an effect created in the 90s to help sell Cher records, but it’s actually the technique behind yodelling. That same technique gives her the power to explore the subcurrent of grief running through the album. It’s not a joyous sound in the traditional sense, but you might say it’s cathartic. [Laurie Presswood]

Desire, I Want to Turn Into You was released on 14 Feb via Sony Music/The Orchard/Perpetual Novice carolinepolachek.com

December 2023 – Feature

Photo: Nico Utuk

#1: Young Fathers – Heavy Heavy

Heavy Heavy was released on 3 Feb via Ninja Tune young-fathers.com

This year’s album of the year was a clear stand-out from the start. On Heavy Heavy, Edinburgh’s Young Fathers have captivated us once more, with a career-defining album radiating celebratory joy through its very soul. The title is described by the band on their Spotify bio in turn as encapsulating everything from a mood, to the bass notes that reverberate across the ten tracks, or the ‘joyous burden’ coming from the toll of living. Drawing from an eclectic range of genres, stylings and place are the calling card of Young Fathers, and on Heavy Heavy this is taken to ever greater heights. Soul meets folk meets hip-hop meets noise meets ululation in a smorgasbord of sound. Each track exists almost as a world unto its own: the folksy blues of opener Rice to the synthscapes of Geronimo; the clashing drums of Be Your Lady and the gospel-like communal cry of Holy Moly. The lyricism can often be cutting in its beauty. ‘Want me to turn water to wine / I’m so hollow inside when you push in the knife’ is crooned sweetly on Be Your Lady. Elsewhere this poeticism is interpolated with humour: ‘Sunset gremlin with a snidey-wee smile’ is snarled on I Saw, before the undeniably — 26 —

catchy, tongue-in-cheek refrain of ‘Brush your teeth / Wash your face’. It’s a very Scottish sensibility of not taking yourself too seriously, a levity and lightness that’s genuine and warm. Elsewhere this warmth burns bright on Ululation, which sees Kayus Bankole’s close friend Tapiwa ‘Taps’ Mambo take to the mic to sing in the Zimbabwean language Shona, the lyrics speaking of excavating gratitude even in the midst of deep pain, finding healing through feeling. Heavy Heavy finds synergies in energy across cultures in a way that’s genuinely fresh and exciting. Heavy Heavy doesn’t shy away from the heavy – the subject matter ranges from gold miners destroying natural resources in Africa (Rice) to the pressures of gendered expectations and the vulnerability in simply wanting to love and be loved (Be Your Lady). But it treats pain as not an end, but the start of something new. We are not fated or defined solely by tragedy: there is joy in life and it’s worth fighting for. Where sometimes life can feel bleak, Heavy Heavy offers a promise – joy comes part and parcel with the riotous messiness, pain and exhilarating rush of what it means to live today. [Anita Bhadani]

THE SKINNY

Nu-Age Sounds Ahead of the SNJO's forward-thinking 2024 Nu-Age Sounds series, we chat to some of the artists and arrangers involved – Liam Shortall, aka corto.alto, kitti and Fabia Mantwill Words by: Tallah Brash Advertising feature

Photo: Sophie Jouvenaar

Photo: Gavin McCourt

Fruitmarket (2 Mar) and Edinburgh’s The Queen’s Hall (3 Mar), a trio of kitti’s songs are set to be rearranged by composer, saxophonist and vocalist Fabia Mantwill. “I am honestly overwhelmed with joy at the idea of my music being arranged by Fabia,” kitti tells us. “Her achievements are endless and to just have her listen to one of my songs would be a big deal! I truly can’t wait to hear her arrangements and perform them live to audiences across Scotland with the SNJO.” kitti’s excitement at having her music arranged by Mantwill isn’t misplaced. The Berlin-based composer Fabia Mantwell has won awards for her work, including the 2021 German Jazz Prize for Arrangement of the Year, the same year she first worked with the SNJO on their The Apparition Bridge series. “I’m thrilled to be involved in the Nu-Age Sounds programme and to collaborate with the SNJO again,” Mantwill tells us. “For this programme, I’ll be arranging a longer piece that incorporates three songs by the talented Scottish singer-songwriter kitti. Her soulful and touching voice reminds me a bit of Aretha Franklin, which is something I definitely want to capture in the arrangement. But most important for me is to emphasise and colour kitti’s personal stories. And being able to use the rich and diverse sound palette of the SNJO for that is, of course, fantastic.” All three artists we speak to are quite clearly excited for these forthcoming concerts of collaboration which, in corto.alto keeping with the forward-thinking idea behind them, will also take a different form on the night than the SNJO audience are perhaps au fait with – the shows will be standing, and will incorporate video and projections into the performance. “It is essential that institutions like the SNJO are looking beyond the traditional view-point that a lot of people restrict the genre of jazz to,” kitti tells us. “Jazz is a wonderful spectrum that plays with the mixing of genres, colours and textures. Each musician is unique in their writing and self-expression. By selecting the musicians and writers that the SNJO has for these Nu-Age Sounds shows, they are beautifully representing Scotland’s jazz scene as it really is.” Photo: Devile Sormokas

In An Ellington Mood takes place at Royal Concert Hall (New Auditorium), Glasgow, 8 Dec; Laidlaw Music Centre, St Andrews, 9 Dec; The Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh, 10 Dec Nu-Age Sounds takes place in 2024 at Dundee Rep, Dundee, 1 Mar; Old Fruitmarket, Glasgow, 2 Mar; The Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh, 3 Mar snjo.co.uk

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December 2023

his December, the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra (SNJO) and guest vocalist Lucy-Anne Daniels are gearing up to perform the music of jazz pianist and composer extraordinaire Duke Ellington for their In An Ellington Mood nights across Glasgow, St Andrews and Edinburgh. We’ve started to look forward to their 2024 scheduling, and are particularly excited for their brand new series – Nu-Age Sounds. Bringing together a handpicked selection of eight pioneers who are helping put the Scottish jazz scene on the map, Nu-Age Sounds will see the music of Liam Shortall, Anoushka Nanguy, Helena Kay, kitti, Ewan Hastie, Matt Carmichael, Fergus McCreadie and KARMA brought to life in new and exciting ways, with pieces reworked, rearranged and in some cases performed by others in a celebration of Glasgow and Scotland’s interesting and growing jazz scene and emerging talent. Ahead of the series, which runs in March 2024, we catch up with a few of the musicians and composers involved. Liam Shortall has been living and working as a musician in Glasgow since 2013, joining the SNJO’s trombone section in 2017. In 2019 he began making music as corto.alto, releasing his debut album Bad With Names in October. Enthusiastic about the new series, Shortall tells us: “It’s very inspiring to have our national orchestra form a project that has a focus on what’s going on within the young Glasgow improvised music scene. I’m excited to kitti see how this collaboration can introduce new audiences to both the musicians featured as guests in Nu-Age Sounds as well as the SNJO. The artists chosen as guests for this project are very musically diverse, which really represents the variety of music happening within Scotland’s young jazz scene right now. “As part of corto.alto’s collaboration, I will be writing arrangements of some of my music for jazz orchestra.” He continues: “This is an opportunity that is, although quite daunting and a first for me, one that I am very excited to showcase.” As well as musicians who already have a history with the SNJO, artists like vocalist and songwriter kitti are excited to be working with the orchestra for the first time. “I’m a lover of big band swing music, as I was raised listening to the likes of Duke Ellington’s orchestra,” she tells us, “so to have been contacted by the SNJO was a big surprise for me!” Having been working within the Scottish music scene for over eight years now, kitti “can’t wait to hear how everyone else’s compositions are going to sound,” and says that she’s “bursting with excitement for these Nu-Age Sounds shows.” Across three nights at Dundee Rep (1 Mar), Glasgow’s Old

THE SKINNY

Highs and Lows From venue closures and festival cancellations to award-winning artists and community radio birthdays, we take a look at the highs and lows of the year in Scottish music

December 2023 – Feature

s festival lineups start getting announced for 2024 – some more palatable than others, of course – it’s time for us to reflect on 2023 as it comes to a close. January brought a plethora of local shows to The Hug & Pint and King Tut’s in Glasgow, as is tradition, with another successful year for the UNESCO city of music’s flagship Celtic Connections festival, which saw the likes of Amadou & Mariam, Rozi Plain and Hen Hoose all take to the stage. January also saw community radio station Radio Buena Vida move into their new space on Victoria Road, and Joesef released his soulful debut album, Permanent Damage, which has landed in The Skinny’s top ten Scottish albums of the year, as selected by our writers. Here’s what we said about it earlier in the year: “Permanent Damage is a thoroughly impressive and self-aware debut from an artist who is unafraid to wrestle with feelings of loneliness, alienation, and self-destructive tendencies out in the open.” While January was ticking away, we were already working on our February issue, which was an ambitious one as it featured a takeover from Leith trio Young Fathers. Ahead of releasing Heavy Heavy, we joined them in their studio and rehearsal spaces for a photoshoot and interview, and then had them help curate other features in our themed pages. We explored Tanzania’s underground Singeli music scene, got their former manager Tim London to write a deeply personal account of working with the band, extensively covered the trio’s influences on Heavy Heavy, they selected an artist for our monthly free poster, and we got their live band member and forever live support act Callum Easter to take on that month’s Q&A. In the same month, there were also exceptional releases from two other Scottish acts – Hamish Hawk released the sublime Angel Numbers, and husband and wife duo Free Love released INSIDE, of which we said: “Scotland’s premier electronic synth-pop and guided meditation duo still have plenty of surprises up their sleeves.” After a very exciting and intimate performance in La Belle Angele from Young Fathers in February, thanks to Assai Records, March then saw the trio play two nights in Glasgow at the O2 Academy, a month that also brought Self Esteem, Lizzo and Death Cab For Cutie north of the border. April was another busy release month for albums that have featured in our Scottish end of year list. Bemz released his third record, Nova’s Dad, on the 5th, Brìghde Chaimbeul released Carry Them With Us (14 Apr), her collaborative record with avant-garde musician Colin Stetson, while the end of the month brought us Music For First Contact (28 Apr) from Post Coal Prom Queen, a record that

Image: courtesy of SAY Award

Music

Words: Tallah Brash

Alloysious Massaquoi accepts the 2023 SAY Award for Young Fathers

came to light after writing their choose-your-ownending space opera of the same name for 2022’s Hidden Door festival. Here’s what we said: “The sound of Music For First Contact juxtaposes the chilling emptiness of space, with the terrifying prospect of a galaxy bursting with life [...] PCPQ’s ruminations on our extraterrestrial opportunities are just as prescient and visionary as their avantgarde capabilities.” In May, two pairs of Glasgow siblings brought us exquisite second records, with Cloth releasing Secret Measure and comfort What’s Bad Enough?, an electronic punk record with a sociopolitical bent. In an interview with comfort, frontwoman Natalie McGhee told us: “I guess it’s really — 28 —

angry in a lot of ways, but also defiant because it’s about knowing that you are worth more than that. And it’s about the struggle of accepting your worth. It’s about accepting that if you’ve got breath in your lungs, you are worth it. And that should be enough.” The month also brought with it some absolute titans of pop music to Edinburgh, with both Harry Styles and actual BEYONCÉ playing Murrayfield Stadium. Beyoncé’s impending visit led to one of our big music issues of the year – the POP issue – where we got to spotlight and showcase local forward-thinking collective Popgirlz. And of course May was the true start of festival season. Radio 1’s Big Weekend made its

THE SKINNY

The Skinny’s Scottish Albums of the Year

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#2 Hamish Hawk Angel Numbers [Post Electric, 3 Feb]

#7 Post Coal Prom Queen Music For First Contact [Self-released, 28 Apr]

#3 Cloth Secret Measure [Rock Action, 5 May]

#8 corto.alto Bad With Names [New Soil x Bridge The Gap, 6 Oct]

#4 Bemz Nova’s Dad [Self-release, 5 Apr] #5 Brighde Chaimbeul Carry Them With Us [tak:til/ Glitterbeat, 14 Apr]

#9 comfort What’s Bad Enough? [FatCat Records, 5 May] #10 Free Love INSIDE [Lost Map, 24 Feb]

December 2023 – Feature

triumphant return to Dundee with whinging rock duo Royal Blood leaving a lasting impression for all the wrong reasons, while Knockengorroch World Ceilidh celebrated their 25th year in the Carsphairn Hills of Kirkcudbrightshire. June brought more festivals to Scottish fields, and at the end of the month we returned to curate The Pyramid Stage at our beloved Kelburn Garden Party, with AiiTee, comfort and Sacred Paws our respective headliners, while further afield Young Fathers continued to dominate on the world stage as they took Glastonbury by storm. It wasn’t, of course, all rosy for festivals this summer, and following months of controversy, Doune the Rabbit Hole finally pulled the plug on their 2023 edition, claiming its cancellation to be “a result of the call for a boycott of the event by BECTU.” But by this point, many bands had already spoken out on socials about not having been paid for playing the Port of Menteith festival in the past, so when they announced their cancellation, it felt like it had been in the post for some time. The Scottish musical landscape was further soured in July with the unfortunate last minute cancellation of the Tiree Music Festival due to extreme weather conditions. And deeper in the month there was further controversy as The 13th Note announced its sudden closure on the 19th following a dispute “over fair pay and improved working conditions which led to historic industrial action: the first strike by hospitality staff in Scotland in over 20 years.” The Edinburgh International Festival returned to the Capital in August with new director Nicola Benedetti, and we’re sad to say this, but the

#6 Joesef Permanent Damage [AWAL, 13 Jan]

Music

The 13th Note

contemporary music programme just wasn’t what it used to be, feeling more like an afterthought than an integral part of the programming. But, there were successful outings once more for Connect at the Royal Highland Showgrounds in Edinburgh, and new celebration of noise festival Core. in Glasgow. September was a very big month for the Scottish music scene. The Scottish Awards for New Music were dished out at the CCA on the 1st, while the 7th saw Young Fathers beamed into our living rooms as they were once again up for the Mercury Prize. On the 8th, Monorail Music launched their new series The Glasgow School, with The Way of the Vaselines available for the first time on vinyl. The 16th saw Dundee’s V&A celebrate five years with a big party featuring live music from Andrew Wasylyk and Be Charlotte, and on the 21st, Arusa Qureshi was announced as the new Music Programme Manager for Edinburgh’s Summerhall arts venue. October was similarly chocka. At the start of the month, corto.alto released his highly anticipated debut album Bad With Names, which we crowned Album of the Month. Here’s what we said: “Forward-thinking, cohesive, complete... Bad With Names marks a new high point for Scottish jazz music.” On the 7th, community radio station EHFM celebrated five years of broadcasting with a party at Sneaky Pete’s, while Sneaky Pete’s later celebrated its 15th birthday with a huge party in Fruitmarket’s Warehouse space. Towards the end of the month, Young Fathers were crowned third time winners of the Scottish Album of the Year Award for their fourth album, Heavy Heavy, Paolo Nutini took home the Modern Scottish Classic Award for his debut, 2006’s These Streets, and Edinburgh duo No Windows won the Sound of Young Scotland Award. The 25th Specsavers Scottish Music Awards then came in November with awards for Bemz, Joesef, Rebecca Vasmant, Dead Pony and Katie Gregson-MacLeod, whose star continues to rise, while BBC 6 Music brought their New Music Fix Live to Glasgow, with a live performance for broadcast from corto.alto, rounding out what’s been an exceptional year for the talented musician and composer. And as we write this before December arrives, here’s what you should look out for in the month of our dear lord and saviour, Santa. The winners of the Scottish Alternative Music Awards (SAMAs) will be announced in a ceremony at Saint Luke’s on 1 December, the MG Alba Scots Trad Music Awards take place at Dundee’s Caird Hall on the 2nd, while back in Glasgow the 2023 Scottish Jazz Awards will take place on the 7th.

#1 Young Fathers Heavy Heavy [Ninja Tune, 3 Feb]

December 2023 – Feature

Films of the Year

THE SKINNY

Protest, narcissists and genre reinvention The best films of the year feature acts of protest and resistance alongside work that reckons with horrors wreaked by abusers, narcissists and racists, which seems particularly apt for 2023

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed

1. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed

2. Killers of the Flower Moon

Dir. Laura Poitras This year – both cinematically and politically – has been characterised by crisis, a refrain it seems we have been singing for almost a decade now. How warm, and gorgeous, and vital, then, to have the film of the year be based entirely on the Earthshattering possibilities of resistance and struggle. Entangling myriad narratives of grief and sheer, vibrating rage with near impossible scope, Laura Poitras’ blazing documentary All the Beauty and the Bloodshed – created in collaboration with her subject, photographer and activist Nan Goldin – reminds us of the power we all have to refuse the terms of our blood-soaked world. [Anahit Behrooz] Killers of the Flower Moon

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Dir. Martin Scorsese Along with Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street and The Irishman, Killers of the Flower Moon constitutes a stunning late-career trilogy examining moral rot in 20th-century America. Discarding the investigative aspect of David Grann’s book, Scorsese and co-writer Eric Roth give us an unblinking portrait of greed, evil and complicity, as the oil-rich Osage community is destroyed from within. It’s a monumental film, growing in power through every one of its 216 minutes. The audacious coda – wherein Scorsese reflects on his own role as teller of this tale – is as ingenious as it is profoundly moving. [Philip Concannon]

THE SKINNY

3. Past Lives

7. Rye Lane

Past Lives

Oppenheimer

4. Oppenheimer

Dir. Raine Allen-Miller Rye Lane is a gorgeous testament to the wonder of unexpected connections. Fresh off their respective breakups, a chance encounter sees Dom (David Jonsson) and Yas (Vivian Oparah) spend a day righting relationship wrongs with joy and mischief. The result is a love letter in and of itself. With pops of colour and a wide lens, it celebrates South London in all its glory. Brilliantly observed and seamlessly delivered, its comedic rhythm carries heartbreak with ease and warmth. With Rye Lane, romantic comedies are well and truly back, and this one is tender (and a little sweetly sour) in all the right places. [Eilidh Akilade]

8. Passages

Dir. Christopher Nolan Fragmented, reactive psychology is not something Christopher Nolan films are known for – and that includes the one that takes place largely in people’s minds. But in scaling down his finely designed spectacle to the perspective of a man who originated the destruction and anxiety that the world would thereafter be defined by, it’s clear that Nolan’s films can still feel titanic even if they’re action-free historical dramas. Stunning to behold and upsetting to process, Oppenheimer’s cast of literally everyone you’ve seen in movies before is led by a perfectly anomalous and isolated Cillian Murphy. Cinema to make your seat shake. [Rory Doherty]

Tár

How to Blow Up a Pipeline

5. Tár

Dir. Ira Sachs The film that gave us the “now we know what Paddington topping sounds like” tweet, Passages is Ira Sachs’ hilariously Parisian ménage-à-trois. Tomas (Franz Rogowski), who we meet directing a film crew with all the people skills of Malcolm Tucker, knows exactly what he wants from fiction. Life is a more destructive affair. Real narcissists might not wear such glorious knitwear (who does?) but sadly, they do exist; charged with such unpredictable intensity that we stay in their orbit even when it’s an asteroid belt. A horrifying 90 minutes of praying that long-suffering boyfriend Martin (Ben Whishaw) and newest infatuation Agathe (Adèle Exarchopoulos) will send him on his bike. [Louis Cammell]

Films of the Year

Dir. Celine Song Heartwarming and heartbreaking in equal measure, Celine Song’s stunning debut is a love story about missed connections, sliding doors and paths not taken. Nora (Greta Lee) is living the dream out in New York, working as a writer and sharing a home with her loving husband, Arthur (John Magaro). One day, her childhood sweetheart Hae Sung (Teo Yoo) steps off a plane from South Korea and back into her life. Standing in front of each other for the first time in two decades, Nora and Hae Sung can only wonder what might have been. Soft-spoken yet thunderously powerful, Past Lives is truly special. [Ross McIndoe]

9. May December

Rye Lane

Passages

6. How to Blow Up a Pipeline

Dir. Todd Haynes Todd Haynes zooms in on a contentious affair with witty dialogue and camp to spare as an actress shadows the controversial woman she’s set to play in a biopic. Elizabeth Berry (Natalie Portman) meets Gracie Atherton-Yoo (Julianne Moore), whose grooming relationship with her now-husband Joe (Charles Melton) started when she was 36 and he 13. A brilliantly disquieting watch, May December holds off judgment to let the audience sit in their own discomfort. Echoing All About Eve, the film offers a fascinating, eerie caricature of method acting, with Elizabeth and Gracie clashing over their questionable motives. Portman and Moore are flawless, but Melton quietly holds his own in a reflection on consent more compelling than some overtly preaching tales. [Stefania Sarrubba]

10. Saint Omer

Dir. Daniel Goldhaber “This is an act of self-defence,” goes the tagline for Daniel Goldhaber’s story of a misfit group of hardcore environmental activists looking to hit the pockets of a major polluter. The film itself is a high-wire balancing act: a bold adaptation of a book of political theory, a diverse and youthful ensemble cast, multiple intersecting storylines, a flashback plot device making every freeze frame and cliffhanger even more gasp-inducing. It succeeds in coalescing into a taut and moving thriller powerful enough to make you feel complicit in climate destruction, and ask yourself: would I do the same? [Tony Inglis]

May December

Saint Omer

The Next Ten 11. Return to Seoul Dir. Davy Chou; 12. Asteroid City Dir. Wes Anderson; 13. Blue Jean Dir. Georgia Oakley; 14. Barbie Dir. Greta Gerwig; 15. The Fabelmans Dir. Steven Spielberg; 16. The Eight Mountains Dirs. Felix Van Groeningen, Charlotte Vandermeersch; 17. How to Have Sex Dir. Molly Manning Walker; 18. Anatomy of a Fall Dir. Justine Triet; 19. Godland Dir. Hlynur Pálmason; 20. BlackBerry Dir. Matthew Johnson — 31 —

Dir. Alice Diop Alice Diop’s sublime drama delivers an innovative new approach to the courtroom drama that’s troubling, moving and deeply mysterious. At its centre is the enigmatic Laurence, a French Senegalese woman on trial after confessing to drowning her infant daughter. Observing the trial for research purposes is Medea scholar and soon-to-be-mother Rama. Motherhood isn’t the only bond these women share, and Rama becomes increasingly unsettled as she hears more about the life of her cracked mirror image in the docks. Films rarely present us with fresh ways of seeing, but Diop gives us one of the year’s most original and intelligent films. [Jamie Dunn]

December 2023 – Feature

Dir. Todd Field Todd Field’s controversy-courting portrait of a monstrous maestro is at once a tawdry satire of the classical music industry; an impartial examination of cancel culture within a heightened yet recognisable world; and a tortured ghostly fantasy where fact and fiction, condemnation and celebration are presented with equal weight (did Lydia Tár even know Leonard Bernstein?). Cate Blanchett’s performance flashes between cool, cultured control seeped in heterodox power structures and a baser fear as past indiscretions bring down her meticulously constructed world. With Mahler, Elgar and Bach counterbalanced by Hildur Guðnadóttir’s chilling score, Tár is an ambiguous, deliberately alienating, and fascinating portrait of corruption. [Carmen Paddock]

THE SKINNY

Film

The Unloved and Overlooked Films of 2023 We’ll admit it. Critics (and audiences) often get it wrong. Plenty of great films this year have come and gone without fanfare. But don’t write them off. The Skinny’s Film Team choose 20 underrated titles that deserve your attention Alice, Darling

Dir. Mary Nighy As the title character in this effectively claustrophobic drama, Anna Kendrick is caught in an emotionally abusive relationship, and her friends attempt to rescue her. Alice’s anxiety is expressed through muted tones – she’s a shadow of her former self – panic and hair-pulling. She seems to sink while she swims, but in unravelling her relationship Alice finds herself. [Eleanor Capaldi]

Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret

Dir. Kelly Fremon Craig This is 2023’s sweetest film. We see an 11-year-old girl’s fears and frustrations not condescended or rushed through; the overwhelm of adolescence is dealt with so sensitively. I give the film the highest seal of approval possible for a Bildungsroman: I wish I had this when I was that age. [Lucy Fitzgerald]

Babylon

Dir. Damien Chazelle La La Land earned Damien Chazelle a reputation for romanticising Hollywood, but Babylon shows the director is all too aware of the darker side of Tinseltown. Margot Robbie and Brad Pitt give career-best performances, and Chazelle captures how the cruelty and chaos of Hollywood’s Golden Age created magic onscreen. [Nathaniel Ashley] Cassandro

Bottoms

Dir. Emma Seligman Girls! Lesbians! Fights! Bottoms is as chaotic as the teenage hormones that rage through its characters, and gives full recognition to the fact that in a straight world epitomised by this film’s football bros, a gay girl’s gotta do what a gay girl’s gotta do. A raucously unhinged followup to Seligman’s Shiva Baby. [EC]

Cassandro

Dir. Roger Ross Williams Roger Ross Williams’ assuredly flamboyant biopic successfully grapples with both the heightened excesses of Mexican wrestling, and the nuance required to tell the story of real-life ‘exótico’ (luchador fighting in drag) Saúl Armendáriz honestly. In a movie that’s – in so many ways – about performance, Gael García Bernal puts in a perfect one. [Bart Owl]

December 2023 – Feature

Enys Men

Dir. Mark Jenkin Mark Jenkin may object to the folk horror label, but his Bait followup creates a wild, unsettling world with its own ungovernable, inexplicable rules through its uncanny soundscape and a nonlinear narrative. Mary Woodvine’s almost-wordless performance as the solitary volunteer cataloguing flowers on a long-abandoned mining island heightens the unease. [Carmen Paddock]

Evil Dead Rise Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret

Fremont

Dir. Lee Cronin The demonic franchise gets a new lease on death with a groovy, gory story on the horrors of motherhood. Executive produced by Sam Raimi, Lee Cronin’s film swaps the cabin in the woods for an LA art deco apartment block, reviving the saga’s formula with chilling corridors, cracked bones and charismatic protagonists – sisters Beth (Lily Sullivan) and Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland). [Stefania Sarrubba]

Fremont

Enys Men

Evil Dead Rise

— 32 —

Dir. Babak Jalali The immigration processes of the West are inherently absurd. No wonder, then, that British-Iranian filmmaker Babak Jalali found in them such fertile grounds for his Jim Jarmusch-esque comedy Fremont. Following an Afghan translator working in a fortune cookie factory, Fremont is a wry and all too astute look at what it means to build new futures. [Anahit Behrooz]

THE SKINNY

Film

December 2023 – Feature

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THE SKINNY

God’s Creatures

Film

Dir. Anna Rose Holmer, Saela Davis Emily Watson and Paul Mescal’s performances are electrifying and uneasily sympathetic in this understated family tale turned psychological thriller that explores generations of men behaving badly. Shane Crowley’s script leaves space for the unspoken, and Chayse Irvin’s moody cinematography externalises the fraught secrets underpinning bonds in this close-knit fishing community. [CP]

Hypnotic

Dir. Robert Rodriguez Ben Affleck looks permanently confused in Hypnotic. Can you blame him? The film grows more confounding with every bizarre twist, but the ludicrous plotting and Robert Rodriguez’s refusal to pause for a moment’s thought make it weirdly compelling. You can see why it flopped (the end credits’ tease of a sequel is delusional) but it’s a very enjoyable 90-minute romp. [Philip Concannon]

The Innocent

Dir. Louis Garrel Louis Garrel confidently takes a seat in the director’s chair with this disarming caper, which takes a few surprising turns and contains some skilfully executed setpieces. Garrel also delivers a fine lead performance as a young man suspicious of his mother’s ex-con husband, but as his too-eager companion, Noémie Merlant’s effervescent comic turn steals the movie. [PC]

Knock at the Cabin

Dir. M. Night Shyamalan A gripping home invasion thriller and a meditation on the nature of religious faith, Knock at the Cabin is the perfect project for a technically gifted genre filmmaker / spiritually-minded indie weirdo like M. Night Shyamalan. The moment in which Dave Bautista adjusts his little glasses halfway through a brawl may also be the most charming thing put on the screen in 2023. [Ross McIndoe]

Leonor Will Never Die

Dir. Martika Ramirez Escobar An ode to Filipino B-movies from the 1970s, Leonor Will Never Die sees an ageing screenwriter find herself trapped inside one of her own scripts. Director Martika Ramirez Escobar’s palpable love for these incredibly niche, lowbudget action thrillers makes it easy to forgive some of her films’ more meandering meta moments. [NA]

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On

Dir. Dean Fleischer Camp A small shell with a smart pair of shoes tries to locate his accidentally dispersed family in this shatteringly adorable part-stop motion part-mockumentary from Dean Fleischer Camp. Marcel may have a hard exoskeleton, but in his tender openness to vulnerability, he is the star of the softest, sweetest film of the year. [AB]

Please Baby Please

Dir. Amanda Kramer Queer theory as meta-textual musical fantasy, Please Baby Please sees Amanda Kramer throw David Lynch, Kenneth Anger and West Side Story into a blender and pour out a thoughtful, cine-literate and joyous ride, while wearing its influences (and its big gay heart) on its sleeve. You’ll be having so much fun you’ll almost forget it’s a musical. [BO]

Polite Society

Dir. Nida Manzoor Aspiring stuntwoman Ria (Priya Kansara) has a few tricks up her sleeve to save older sister Lena (Ritu Arya) from her impending, picture-perfect marriage. Writer-director Nida Manzoor debuts with an electrifying, beautifully weird sisterhood story that packs an emotional sucker punch and leaves you massaging your jaw, begging for more. [SS]

Skinamarink

Dir. Kyle Edward Ball Halfway between Paranormal Activity and avantgarde immersive installation, Skinamarink commands your whole attention for the smallest amount of story. Applying experiential visual language to one nightmarish night where two children are trapped and isolated in their home, Kyle Edward Ball probes deep into our psyches to summon subdued, violent chills. [Rory Doherty]

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem

December 2023 – Feature

Dir. Jeff Rowe Seth Rogen genre projects have a track record of being bombastic and irritating, but this sketchy, hand-drawn-esque animation style, which the Spider-Verse films brought into the mainstream, is a perfect fit for these reptilian 90s icons. If you can wince through the uber-modern teen speak, it’s a dazzling and giddy romp. [RD]

Theater Camp

God’s Creatures

Polie Society

Dir. Molly Gordon, Nick Lieberman From Bugsy Malone to Outnumbered, utilising precocious children on screen is an evergreen entertainment device and Theater Camp amusingly imbues its young characters with sass, self-seriousness and verbosity. With both humorous and moving sentiments, satire and sincerity coexist charmingly in this mockumentary about a muchderided community: musical theatre kids. [LF]

You Hurt My Feelings

Dir. Nicole Holofcener Soft-spoken but sharply observed, You Hurt My Feelings is another thoughtful romantic dramedy from Nicole Holofcener. Beth and Don’s marriage seems near perfect until one day she overhears him admitting that he actually doesn’t care for her writing. From there, Holofcener unfolds an effortlessly funny, gently insightful tale about just how much honesty we really want from the people we love. [RM] Knock at the Cabin

You Hurt My Feelings

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THE SKINNY

Joke Books 2023 has been an absolute doozy when it comes to comedy books. We list the ones you need to unwrap this December Words: Ben Venables

(Octopus Publishing Group)

Comedy

Lou Sanders What’s That Lady Doing? False Starts and Happy Endings

Fern Brady Strong Female Character

(Bonnier Books) Twenty years after first reading about autism in her school library, Fern Brady was diagnosed with the condition. In Strong Female Character, she writes with a propulsive honesty about symptoms often overlooked in women. At first glance, Brady may seem a bit of a riddle: a brainy student who felt more at home in strip clubs than at uni; a language-lover struggling to translate hidden meanings in ‘polite’ conversations; a comedian whose happiest moods can rapidly spiral into episodes of Hulk-smash rage. With precision, Brady’s memoir fosters a deeper understanding of her own unique experiences of autism – and her insights may help many others.

Jesse David Fox Comedy Book: How Comedy Conquered Culture – and the Magic That Makes It Work (Farrar, Strauss and Giroux)

Jo Caulfield The Funny Thing About Death (Birlinn)

Annie Caulfield was a versatile writer and dramatist, authoring travel books on Benin and Cambodia, creating the children’s fiction series Katie Milk Solves Crimes and writing scripts about the most intriguing subjects, such as one on Dusty Springfield’s stand against Apartheid. She enjoyed a long collaboration with Lenny Henry – first as his joke-writer, then later he’d star in her plays. After her death from lung cancer in 2016, her funeral was conducted by Radio 4 colleague Sandi Toksvig. Annie was also stand-up comedian Jo Caulfield’s big sister. The Funny Thing About Death is like moving through a gallery of vivid portraits: shared memories of growing up on RAF bases, hitchhiking in Europe, working in 1970s London kitchens. Jo captures a lifetime as though with fine, detailed brushstrokes – illustrating “the complicated, funny, clever ball of things that my sister was.”

Maria Bamford Sure, I’ll Join Your Cult: A Memoir of Mental Illness and the Quest to Belong Anywhere (Simon & Schuster) My family consider Maria Bamford such a comedy legend we once named a kitten Lady Dynamite after her Netflix series. Bamford’s memoir is structured around the groups she’s joined over the years, mainly 12-step recovery programmes, where belief systems – for better or worse – are meant to answer such complex problems as debt or addictions. It makes for a panoramic view of mental health care. The book offers context to Bamford’s story and acts as a nuanced companion to many of her best stand-up routines. It’s all told in her original comic style – offbeat, wry and wise at the same time. Bamford’s vocal range shines in the audiobook edition.

We’d also like to give special mentions to: Josie Long’s Because I Don’t Know What You Mean and What You Don’t (Canongate Books), Adam Bloom’s Finding Your Comic Genius (independently published) and Glutton by Ed Gamble (Bantam).

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December 2023 – Feature

Jesse David Fox is the leading chronicler of American comedy. A senior editor at Vulture and host of Good One: A Podcast About Jokes, Fox’s first book shows how comedy is both neglected as an artform yet central to all our lives. In each chapter, comedy acts as a surprising and playful lens, offering us a new perspective on how to understand the contemporary world: why did satirists struggle to hold Trump to account? How did Bo Burnham capture the ‘truth’ of the pandemic? Is Adam Sandler a modern-day Shakespeare?! Covering an era from Seinfeld to TikTok, Comedy Book is an indispensable guide to today’s comedic landscape.

Lou Sanders was already standing out when growing up in a small seaside town – crawling along the street with a duvet on her back, pretending to be a snail, before a neighbour returned her home. But an up-and-down relationship with her stepfather, an early dependence on alcohol, and sexual assaults eroded her self-worth and encased her with unwarranted feelings of shame. By the time Sanders moved to London, alcohol had become her own life’s protagonist. Yet somehow this book manages to be an uplifting read and a celebration of an artistic mind gradually finding themselves in comedy. Sanders is a natural, chatty, warm, friendly, personable narrator. She treats people as individuals rather than as heroes or villains – it enhances the memoir and the pages resonate with her generosity.

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Free Range Is Chicken Run 2: Dawn of the Nugget a potent analogy for colonialism? Are the escaped chickens crypto-Zionists? Our Theatre editor muses on the new Aardman animation

December 2023 – Feature

Film

Words: Rho Chung Illustration: Connie Noble

n a recent interview, Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget director Tom Nicholson told Empire that Chicken Island, the idyllic new home of the emancipated chickens of the beloved Aardman animation from 2000, is “Wakanda for chickens”. For the uninformed, Wakanda is the name of the fictional African kingdom from Black Panther, a fantasy nation unaffected by European imperialism. What Nicholson seems to be pointing toward here is the parallel between Wakanda as a superadvanced oasis free from (white) hegemony and Chicken Island as an oasis free from …chicken farmers? This does paint the original film in a new light. In Chicken Run, the chickens must band together to escape the farm before they are turned into pies. In the sequel, Ginger and her community must reckon with what they owe to other chickens still in captivity. Throughout the first film, Ginger has to work hard to gain the support of the other chickens, even as their lives are under threat. “What part of ‘They kill us’ do you not understand?” she asks. Revolutionary philosopher Frantz Fanon writes that the “emergence of a nation” hinges on truth – the truth of what is in the barn (pie-related death) is part of what gets the rest of the chickens on board with Ginger’s escape plan. Conversely, the success of the settler-colonialist state depends on control of ‘truth’. The settler-colonialist government depends on the manufactured consent of its members, who must learn to prize their sovereignty over the sovereignty of those outside of their group, the boundaries of which are, in turn, defined and policed by the state.

“If anything, the Chicken Run franchise remains studiously ignorant of settler-colonial dynamics” “But Rho,” you may be wondering, “Isn’t this about chickens?” It is. And it is also specifically about the right of the chickens to self-determination – what they have to do to gain it, and how they defend it. In the final scene of the first film, we see the shoddily re-painted sign on the newly christened

Chicken Island. The neglected sign, which used to read, ‘Bird Sanctuary’, has been haphazardly edited to say, ‘Chikin Sanctuary’. The semantic narrowing of the island’s population from birds to chickens echoes the shrinking boundary necessitated by settlercolonialist interpretations of self-determination. We never learn what, if anything, happened to the sanctuary birds. The arrival of the chickens in the outside world becomes a sanitised aesthetic of self-determination that feels central to settler-colonial interests. In settling Chicken Island, the chickens appear to displace no one, laying claim to a peaceful, green oasis that just so happens to have enough room for all. It’s as if they come home to a pristine land that they have earned through their struggle – a land that, until their arrival, has been waiting for them. Ecologically speaking, it’s an interesting question – how much do the chickens, which are (pivotally) incapable of flight, pose a threat to the sky-borne bird populations already on the island? Or, because the sign is old, are we to assume that the bird sanctuary has already failed, and the birds have moved on (or been displaced)? If the addition of the chickens to the island’s ecosystem means that a new population will be foraging for bugs, building structures, and shaping the land to fit their community, does that have any measurable impact? The resounding answer in Chicken Run 2: Dawn of the Nugget is “no”. The impact of the chickens on the island itself goes entirely unexamined. When the chickens erect a massive barrier around the island to block humans on the shore from seeing in, do they also effectively quarantine the bugs, hedgehogs, squirrels and other critters sharing the island with them? Are those animals, like the rats, Nick and Fletcher, sentient? Do they have a right to self-determination? And does this version of self-determination always come at a human (or animal) cost? In the 2006 essay collection titled The Persistence of the Palestinian Question, Joseph Massad says: “It was the founder of the movement, Theodor Herzl, who, in his Zionist musings, — 36 —

understood that European Jews would have to establish their ethno-racial supremacy through demographic supremacy.” Whiteness, Massad writes, is central to Zionist conceptions of Jewish self-determination. According to Herzl, the security of Jewish futurity depends on the strict policing of boundaries of Jewishness according to methods laid out by European imperialism. It is through these colonial methods that the settler population of Israel is figured as the only legitimate population of the region – the only one with the right to self-determination. As a viewer, the only way to swallow Chicken Island is to imagine that the island represents some kind of divine providence – that it happened to be waiting, covered in greenery and all good things, for a population of escaped chickens to claim it as their home. On the island, the chickens build houses, transport and irrigation canals; they renovate the land, subjugating its wildness in a whimsical replication of good old English imperialism. This is not to say that Chicken Island is chicken Israel, nor that the chickens are a stand-in for Zionists or for the Jewish people. If anything, the Chicken Run franchise remains studiously ignorant of settler-colonial dynamics, opting instead for a universally palatable narrative of righteous resistance. Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget isn’t really about Chicken Island at all, because for the chickens, the origin of the land they inhabit is of no concern. For the chickens, the land is nothing but empty space – and the other creatures on it are invisible. Chicken Run 2: Dawn of the Nugget is released in cinemas 8 Dec before streaming on Netflix from 15 Dec

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December 2023

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THE SKINNY

Theatre

Play and Participation Tortoise in a Nutshell’s interactive children’s show celebrates community Words: Kirsty Strang-Roy

December 2023 – Feature

Photo: Mihaela Bodlovic

interested in seeing and the barriers that blocked people from accessing them. Issues of cost, place, and fear of judgement were huge factors in the responses we received.” Amidst an enduring cost-of-living crisis, the accessibility of Ginger feels vitally important. Tickets for the one-hour performance and interactive workshop are £6 for an adult and £4 for a child. “One of the core ideas behind Ginger was to try and make a piece that felt open and accessible to a whole range of different people. We wanted to create a place for members of different generations to meet and find something joyful.” The notion of coming together and sharing experiences has shaped the research and design of the piece. “We started the process of making Ginger by doing a lot of home baking, and it felt really fun to create biscuity people of all sorts of different shapes, sizes, and kinds. We also spent a lot of time playing in kitchens; finding the hidden nooks and corners and seeing what magic they might hold.” This sense of joy and togetherness will be emulated through the performance as the Tramway audience is invited to decorate their own gingerbread figures. This communal joy is a celebration of Ginger’s core message. — 38 —

Photo: Mihaela Bodlovic

lex Bird, co-director of the award-winning theatre company Tortoise in a Nutshell, jokes that the company’s love for biscuits and confectionery necessitated an entire show dedicated to them. This creation is Ginger, a captivating, multi-sensory experience that focuses on the unattainability of perfection as well as themes of community and connection. This heartfelt production offers a tonic to the increasingly capitalistic Christmas treadmill, and I wanted to hear more about its conception and message as we near its launch at Tramway this festive season. The eponymous Ginger is a misshapen gingerbread character whose story of limb difference makes us think about our own views on perfection. “It’s a bit of a specific look at a notion of diversity,” Bird tells me. “A piece for young people that tries to find the joy in not being ‘perfect’ but in just being yourself.” Much like Charles Dickens’ Tiny Tim, the character of Ginger asks us to look inwards and celebrate the humanity that has always been at the heart of the festive season. Ginger arose from the hardships of the COVID-19 pandemic and the company’s desire to undertake collaborative community research and engagement. “We wanted to try and understand more about the real needs and interests of communities across Scotland,” explains Bird. “We wanted to know about the stories people were

This very act of play itself is front and centre in Ginger. “We really love making experiences that give people the chance to escape and follow the playfulness of their own imaginations.” The act of play is central to the Scottish Early Years Curriculum, emphasising the importance of child-led activity with educators and caregivers as engaged participants. Ginger’s inviting and participatory environment champions this guiding principle, inviting children and adults alike to connect in a space of playful collaboration. In the maelstrom of a devastating news cycle and a festive season dominated by a persistent cost of living crisis, these moments of collective play and sensory connection feel vitally important. As we approach the conveyor belt of Christmas films, Santa visits, and work nights out, it’s easy to forget the importance of slowing down. Stopping to genuinely be together and play together feels like a quietly radical act. In giving us a space to do so, Ginger might just remind us of what is truly important this festive season. Ginger, Tortoise in a Nutshell, Tramway, Glasgow, 6-10 & 12-16 December, £4-6, 1.30 & 4.30pm

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The (Un)Holy Land In its recent deplatforming at Frankfurt Book Festival, Adania Shibli’s Minor Detail has come to represent many of the contradictions of Western attitudes to the Middle East. We revisit the book in the wake of the bombardment of Gaza Words: Anahit Behrooz the Israeli map appear to be swallowed by a yellow sea.” She snaps it shut in horror. Reminiscent of the dispassionate lucidity of Albert Camus’ The Stranger, Shibli’s Minor Detail is a masterful examination of legacies of violence and the cyclical nature of dispossession. Airless in tone, clipped in emotion, unnerving in the banality of what it shows, it is also deeply, profoundly unequivocal in naming the conditions under which

Image: British Library Add. MS 28681 © Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

its characters exist. Bereft, in many ways, of language – road signs in Arab country written over in Hebrew, greetings made in English to disguise ethnicity – Shibli affords her characters the unflinching clarity of what they are enduring. Occupation. Bombs. Checkpoints. Guns. It is, in short, a book entirely predicated on the facts of the Israeli occupation. And in this light I find myself bewildered, for if acknowledging the occupation is inherently taboo, what version of the book did the festival judges read when they initially determined to award it a prize? But perhaps I should have remembered the old maps, the ones from long before the Nakba; Jerusalem in pride of place while wars raged within. Deplatforming Shibli was an act of moral cowardice, but it also sits proudly within this centuries-long Western tradition. The Middle East to be celebrated, until there are stakes. Palestinian writers to be revered, until they are not. The complexities of decolonisation to be canonised, until serious fractures within the colonial project demand actual dissent. The unnamed narrator in Minor Detail cannot escape this minor detail of history because for her, and for Palestinians everywhere, the violence of the Nakba never ended; it is an ongoing process of dispossession – seen with undeniable vehemence in the events of the past two months, in which an entire Palestinian territory is once more being erased. But for the West, who can dabble in programmes and prizes without ever taking a position, these minor details become the only imagination of the Middle East that it has. We exist in a state of perpetual aftermath – something to be mourned and fretted over only after the fact. “They’re only interested in us when we’re dead,” my friend tells me, Psalter World Map three weeks into the bombardment. “They want us to die, so they can write their papers.” A body, a statistic, a synecdoche of what Edward Saïd termed this forever state of geographical violence: land stolen, bombed to shards and dust, living in exile while they dig amongst the rubble for their decolonisation seminars and diversity prizes. Alive, we hold very little interest, and no value. And so the year turns, and the holiest week approaches, and we sit within this space of slow death, waiting to become anything. A minor detail, an anecdote, residue smeared across the history books, when it is too late to say anything at all.

Books

“Deplatforming Shibli was an act of moral cowardice, but it also sits proudly within this centuries-long Western tradition” — 39 —

December 2023 – Feature

n Western medieval cartography, Jerusalem sits at the centre of the world, a locus around which everything else clusters. The leading ideology of the time was Christianity, and so the heart of Christianity – the land of the New Testament, where the Son of God upended the temples and held his last supper – lies at the heart of the map. And at the edges of the map, and in manuscript illuminations, and in accounts written within these manuscripts, and in the bloodshed of the Crusades, the people that live there are monstrous – dark and otherworldly, leering with violence and malcontent. The Middle East has always held this particular tension in the Western imagination – a cradle of civilisation and barbarism, the holy and profane land. The contradiction ran bright like a fever through the first academic interventions into the region, when the Orientalists translated The Thousand and One Nights with barely concealed contempt for the desires, customs, and mythologies of the land, and barely concealed hunger for the women who wove through the stories. It scaffolds the West’s museums, that spill over with plundered objects that speak to such a rich history, but if only we see it over here, where it is safe and looked after. An imaginary place, this collection of diverse countries; where the West hunts for oil and sets family trees alight, where the hymns are sung and the cities are razed. Once in Royal David’s City. O Little Town of Bethlehem. I’ve been to Bethlehem. It’s strung in barbed wire. In Adania Shibli’s novel Minor Detail – a book recently deplatformed from an award at Frankfurt Book Fair in the wake of the bombardment of Gaza, seemingly for the crime of being Palestinian – this question of maps re-emerges. A woman from Ramallah becomes obsessed with a narrative told in the first half of the novel, a true account in which a young Arab woman was captured by Israeli soldiers in the year following the Nakba, raped, and buried in a shallow grave. Unable to shake off this historic footnote, the unnamed narrator sets across occupied Palestine on a falsified identity card to discover the truth of the tale. She takes with her a stack of maps: a contemporary one showing Israeli infrastructure, and an older one showing Palestine before the 1948 Nakba. She picks the latter up, only to discover clusters of Arab villages that “on

December 2021 – Feature

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Advertising Feature

December 2021 – Feature

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Illustration: Twinkel Achterberg

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Bearing Witness Amid ongoing atrocities, digital engagement is far from futile – rather, it is key in demanding change. One writer reflects on building online solidarity and holding truth in urgent times

December 2023 – Feature

Intersections

Words: Paula Lacey Illustration: Amy Lauren

efore I sat down to write this, I saw a video of a man holding the body of his infant daughter, wracked with sobs amongst the rubble of Gaza. Wincing, I positioned my thumb so I could read the caption without looking at it, as if the words were less stomach-churning. In the last year, I’ve watched from afar as Russian troops continue to wreak destruction in Ukraine, railway collisions in India kill hundreds and injure thousands, and earthquakes in Turkey and Syria leave millions homeless. Unlocking my phone first thing in the morning has become an exercise in nerve, bracing myself for what I might find on my feed. In Regarding the Pain of Others, Susan Sontag described being a spectator of suffering as a “quintessential modern experience”, noting how developments in media had reduced the atrocities of war to “living room sights and sounds.” Sontag was writing at the turn of the millennium, and technological developments in the decades since have infinitely multiplied opportunities to encounter suffering; not just victims of war or disaster, but of all facets of human cruelty, local or distant. Those sights and sounds now sit in your pocket to be viewed at any time.

“Whilst that tug at the chest and the drop of the gut can be despairing when felt alone, when turned into a collective experience it can be galvanising” This inescapability creates a heaviness, a profound helplessness such that a common response is to tune it out; we begin to assume that looking at, sharing or posting about the growing list of horrors achieves nothing. As I said, I’ve felt myself try to look away. Indeed, Sontag writes of a “dubious privilege” of those who can decline to be spectators of other people’s pain. Whilst I agree that the choice to look away is a privileged one, I also advocate for a small semantic shift when considering your position in relation to a distant victim of injustice, from that of a spectator to a witness.

Writing my master’s thesis, I became preoccupied by the unique ways that witnessing plays out online. Camera phones and social media platforms mean that people are now able to position themselves as witnesses preemptively – think of protestors with their phones raised in defiance, primed to capture any potential incidents of police brutality. When shared online for a potential global audience of millions, those viewers, now witnesses themselves, can share those recordings throughout their networks for others to witness. Visual media platforms like Instagram and TikTok have become powerful venues for activism, where users can digitally bear witness to injustice through the sharing and reproduction of testimony. A spectator is a passive onlooker, even a voyeur, but witnessing carries a moral responsibility to act upon and relay what is seen. Grappling with the desensitization that comes with a media oversaturated with horror, Sontag argued that passivity is what dulls feeling, noting. “Compassion is an unstable emotion. It needs to be translated into action, or it withers.” Whilst that tug at the chest and the drop of the gut can be despairing when felt alone, when turned into a collective experience it can be galvanising. For me, this means not only turning to face suffering, but sharing what is seen so that others can undergo that same shift. In the case of the ongoing genocide in occupied Gaza – which is, of course, why these questions are arising right now – amplifying online testimonies of those on the ground, be it journalists, doctors, or civilians, should not be dismissed as ineffective. Bearing witness connotes an assertion of truth, a corroboration of experience as in traditional court testimony. Reaffirming experience shapes how an event endures in collective memory, and is an act of solidarity. For example, content which honoured Brianna Ghey after her death bore witness to both her trans identity and the hateful conditions of her senseless murder amidst a conservative media which denied these truths. And, in the face of staggering state-sanctioned Israeli misinformation, deliberate obfuscation of — 42 —

truth in mainstream media framing and the reported censorship of Palestinian social media accounts, amplifying reports from the ground is vital. Sontag also urged for a “reflection on how our privileges are located on the same map as their suffering and may – in ways we might prefer not to imagine – be linked” when encountering the pain of another. The way I see it, witnessing must go beyond acknowledging injustice to fostering an understanding that each atrocity does not occur in isolation. When the shock of a news item allows you to recognise a material relationship between you and what you see – for example, how your consumer choices may abet Israel’s system of occupation and apartheid, or how your government has licensed hundreds of millions of pounds worth of arms to a genocidal regime – this creates a course of action. When positioning oneself as a digital witness, developing this consciousness is a strong antidote to that feeling of helplessness.

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Connections in the Cold It’s getting pretty cold and ‘cuffing season’ is here – but monogamy isn’t the only relationship structure that can bring us warmth. We speak to some folk about their experiences of polyamory and the intimacy it can offer, in winter and beyond

nter the season of six-hour days: layers fail to warm the bones, electric blankets buzz and darkness bookends a nine-to-five a little tighter each day. Naturally, we turn inwards, looking for comfort and companionship rather than yet another failing first date. This is the origin story of ‘cuffing season’ – the single-person dash to secure romantic partnership in weathering the colder months. Meanwhile, something less carceral-sounding is afoot. The world of ethical non-monogamy (ENM) and polyamory endures its own winter season, where radical relationship structures offer different ways of moving through isolation and gloom – sometimes even toward different political horizons. Josie, 26, an arts worker living in Edinburgh, says her polyamory practice is grounded in “expanding the multiplicity of love wherever [she] can.” Josie has been practicing polyamory for eight years, currently with two life partners and a collection of deep friendships. She stresses that she approaches polyamory with a lot of love and honesty that makes room for people’s freedoms. And such creation of space is key. There is an emerging trope that envisions polyamorous people around a kitchen table in constant communication, negotiating schedules and boundaries with partners and their partners’ partners. But such effort allows for relationships of vulnerability and

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want for myself and others.” Within monogamous hierarchies, the nuclear family is primary. It is afforded the systemic support and resources denied to relationships that fall outside these normative bounds. Through de-hierarchisation – which Tash describes as valuing friends, lovers, and even spaces and lands as much as you might value a romantic partner within monogamy – ENM opens up possibilities of a world that is interconnected and self-sustaining beyond the silos of nuclear families. For Tash, this dreaming begins at home, “in [their] intimate relational spaces.” Despite such loving, caring practices, nonmonogamous communities can face their own struggles and come up against their own harmful patterns. Fears of jealousy and FOMO for time or intimacy with certain partners are common rebuttals against polyamorous relationships, and not completely without merit. These frictions are a predictable struggle in building strong bonds under the isolating systems of capitalism, heteropatriarchy and white supremacy. Moving through these frictions with openness and honesty can be transformative work. In resisting these things, however, polyamorous communities might fall into the habit of equating ‘free love’ with political action. Josie notes that loving non-monogamously doesn’t inherently make us activists. It does, however, widen our aperture for what a world liberated from intersecting oppressive systems might look like. “With more people,” says Josie, “you can make a bigger banner.” When asked about what they see for their polyamory practice this winter, Tash says it’s about seeding values, connection and dreams for the future. “I see lots of physical intimacy – not necessarily sexual – but body warmth and connection. Also, times of rest and hibernation bring out reflection and imagination in me,” they say. “In my relationship structure this winter, I see this framework giving me access to other imaginations of the future. I can imagine a world next year where all this intimacy and love can only grow.” ‘Cuffing season’ might be having its moment once again – but polyamorous people are moving away from a scarcity mindset in searching for a partner to ‘lock down’. Instead, many are building and leaning into a quiet, multiplied web of love and support – not without challenge, not without conversation, but certainly with care. *Name has been changed to protect identity

December 2023 – Feature

understanding – something Kima says has been crucial, especially during isolating winter months. Kima, 35, an intimacy coordinator living between Edinburgh and Glasgow, speaks of a unique security within non-monogamy. The feeling that she’s “always looked out for” means she can feel rested in the community she has built over ten years of practice. Kima says that last year, when a family member of hers fell ill, this community banded together to raise over £1000 so that she could visit home. In winter, a time of year when families of origin can feel thorny – especially for queer people – polyamorous communities can create new webs of care. In Kima’s community, support and solidarity are central. “If there was a zombie apocalypse, I would have to call everyone I’ve ever been close with like, ‘Where are you? I’m coming to get you,’’’ she says. These are not not apocalyptic times – and winter is often the time of year when the things we struggle with bite harder. Energy bills skyrocket, seasonal depression takes hold, and reminders of family estrangement seem to crop up with every last piece of holiday marketing. Polyamory is unfortunately no cure for winter, for sadness, for isolation or for crisis – but when thoughtfully considered, it might point us toward expansions of love and solidarity that make it all a bit easier. Radical relationship structures like ENM, polyamory and relationship anarchy (the umbrella under which revolutionary politics meets relationships) can embolden us against these shadowy times through communitybuilding. With people to lean on, we can share and strengthen bonds in a hot flirty summer, or in the cold dark. For Edinburghbased cultural worker Tash*, 28, non-monogamy is “rooted in de-hierarchisation of relationships, which allows for the kind of world I

Intersections

Words: Maria Morava Illustration: Magda Michalak

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Music

Back From the Moon As The Spook School gear up for their return from the moon, they take us on a trip down memory lane exploring the evolution of the band as they celebrate ten years of their debut album

December 2023 – Feature

Our first ever show was at Henry’s Cellar Bar in 2011. Those early shows were always wonderfully ramshackle and silly, but those audience reactions caught us out. People actually seemed to enjoy what we were doing. In 2012 we got a late invite to play Indietracks where heroes like Los Campesinos!, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, and The Wedding Present had been before. This is where we first met the mysterious Sean Price of Fortuna POP! His email address referred to him as ‘El Presidente’ and that weekend he never was without a pair of sunglasses. We obviously thought he was a very cool dude. In 2013 we were asked by the Fortuna POP! label to record a debut album. There was a lot of excitement at being invited to record at Soup Studios in London, where Allo Darlin recorded! Tigercats! Let’s Wrestle! Veronica Falls! The Wave Pictures! We had a great deal of excitement and awe – lots of, “and what does that button do?” (“Niall, please don’t touch that!!!”) When Dress Up came out it suddenly all felt very real. We had physical vinyl records in our hands (with a photo of Adam wearing a wolf mask applying lipstick in AC’s parents’ bedroom)! Our ramshackle and not-sure-what-we’redoing nature continued into our live shows. The anarchic tours claiming we were sponsored by Linda McCartney Vegetarian Sausages without asking them first (they were very nice about it and sent us a lot of sausages to say thank you), Adam Todd Business Man trying to do his best Alan Sugar impression to shift merch, and eventually, with customised boiler suits and cardboard helmets, we fled to the Moon. — 44 —

Image: courtesy of The Spook School

he Spook School formed in Edinburgh somewhere around 2011. It started with practising in the basement of the Forest Café, Edinburgh, and getting told off by poetry nights trying to perform upstairs. We were a bit loud. In 2019 we played our final show – at The Art School in Glasgow – and blasted off to the Moon to be its first musical residents. We were never very good at saying goodbye, or talking about our feelings, that’s what the songs were for. In 2023 we make a brief return from the Moon to do a ‘Big Shop’ – we’ve run out of supplies. This trip back also marks ten years since the release of our debut album Dress Up. We thought it might be nice to throw it a party. When we started in 2011 we weren’t the openly queer and trans band that we evolved into. We figured it out and gained more courage in our identities through our time being a band. The versions of us that wrote the song I’ll Be Honest (“A song about the fear of coming out to the people most important to me, written at a time when I hadn’t gained the courage to do that yet” – Nye Todd) wouldn’t have believed that in just a few years we would be playing Binary to crowds singing the words back at us in an amazing affirmation of transgender and non-binary identity, experience and strength. Being an openly trans and queer band was such a positive experience in so many ways. Sadly, in the ten years since that first album, even in the four years since our last shows, transphobia has taken root in the UK in a truly horrifying way. Transgender people, specifically transgender women, are spoken about in the media (and by many UK politicians) as dangerous, a threat to others, or potentially worse – as though a transgender identity was only some kind of disguise to allow access to gendered spaces. Currently, to be a transgender person online is to open yourself up to a constant barrage of abuse from people furious that you dare to exist. If UK society had been as transphobic as it is now in 2011/2012, I think we would still have decided to be as open about being trans and queer. But the decision would have been much harder. In another ten years, I hope that we will be looking back at the kinds of media coverage today in the same way as media stories you see about gay people from the 80s that cast them as the boogeymen – messages from an ignorant and fearful past.

It’s been nerve-wracking and nostalgic getting back into practice rooms. It’s also been a really amazing reminder of the journey that we’ve been on – both the ups and downs – and how I’m not sure it would have been possible without my three best pals. We all still live so close to each other in Glasgow the Moon and, even if this is just a one-off, we will be in each other’s lives for a very long time to come. Thank you to everyone who has ever come to a show. We didn’t deserve half the adventures we got to experience but we are forever grateful that we got to spend nearly a decade living our dreams.

The Spook School play SWG3, Glasgow, 8 Dec instagram.com/thespookschool

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December 2023

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Greg

At the end of an exciting 2023, we talk personality, process and playfulness with Edinburgh-based animator Will Anderson Words: Peter Simpson

December 2023

n Will Anderson’s films, as in life generally, time is a main character – and it has a fun sense of humour. As we sit down with Anderson at The Skinny’s Edinburgh office over a Bittersweet Symphony – a Glayva Glocktail with Glayva, Whyte & Mackay Whisky, Campari and Angostura Bitters – we realise that we’re directly across the street from the Edinburgh College of Art, where Anderson’s filmmaking journey began. A childhood lover of The Simpsons and South Park, Anderson was drawn in by the challenge of animation – “I just thought it was the hardest thing that I could possibly try and do… but it’s such a nice challenge” – and ECA offered a chance to explore the form in an interesting way. “You didn’t really need to worry about the technical side of it too much,” Anderson tells us, “you just did your thing. Because that’s kind of what you learn at art school – you’re already an artist and you’re just learning how to express whatever you want to express.” “I just loved the freedom of that,” he says, “and I’ve somehow managed to keep doing it since then, which is almost remarkable.” Anderson’s work is often freeform and freewheeling, playing with time, the boundaries of the

A Cat Called Dom

screen, and the expectations of the audience. His graduation film The Making of Longbird combines Super-8 film, live action and animation to bring to life a Soviet-era character in a battle with his animator. Have Heart tells the story of a character from a viral animation, struggling with his work-life balance as his streaming numbers rack up. Betty toggles back and forth through the collapse of a relationship, with the animator’s voiceover chipping in and shuffling the timeline. His next project centres on Greg, a cuddly/terrifying 3D animated cat with an existential streak. A self-described “process filmmaker”, Anderson’s approach to animation is to set off on the road and see where we all end up. He explains: “The problem with animation is that you edit first, and you make all this stuff and you have to know exactly what you want, and then you just spend ages, and then it’s done. That doesn’t sound exciting to me at all. I like making films where I actually don’t know what’s really going to happen. “I love narratives that are playful, and that play with the form, because animation… everyone knows that it’s a trick. When characters kind of let on that they’re animated and they’re in this world, like it’s a simulation or something, it’s so funny.” All of these elements – the time-shifting, the personal process, the pathos – come together in A Cat Called Dom. Anderson’s debut feature (co-directed with frequent collaborator Ainslie Henderson) combines animation, documentary and meta-narrative to tell the story of Anderson’s relationship with his mother after her cancer diagnosis. Created over an eight-year period – “I actually thought it would never end at one point”, he tells us – it’s a messy, funny, confounding film which sees Anderson visited on his laptop by the titular cat over the course of the concurrent filmmaking and cancer journeys. “The film’s about failure, the film’s about struggling with my mother maybe dying of cancer. That was what started it. But then it became a film about communicating through cancer and how difficult it is. So therefore, that actually linked to — 46 —

the form a little, actually the scatteredness of scrubbing back and replaying a moment and replaying a moment… that’s how it feels. It’s messy. So this messy mixture of documentary and animation all kind of started to make sense. It’s not really knowing how to deal with a hard moment, so you’re scrubbing through things and it’s like you’re sticking things together and you’re trying to make sense of them.” Ahead of an iPlayer release, Will and Ainslie took Dom on a tour of Scottish cinemas for a series of screenings and audience questions. Naturally, when you’re putting out a part-animated documentary with your own narration regularly chipping in, Anderson had some questions to field. “I originally joked with my friends about that,” he says, “that it meant I wouldn’t need to go and do Q&As because I’m basically just telling people what the film’s about as it’s playing, which was… deeply flawed. What I found myself doing is having to go and talk about it way more. “I think with Dom it’s been a good growth thing. It sounds a little forced, but it isn’t really – that film was so hard to make, so when I actually managed to finish it, it was almost like an out of body experience because I couldn’t see a way out. You know when you watch a really good series and you’re like, ‘How the hell is this going to resolve?’ It was a bit like that.” A Cat Called Dom will screen on BBC iPlayer in 2024; watch some of Will’s short films, including The Making of Longbird, Betty and Have Heart, at vimeo.com/willand Follow Will on Instagram at @willandersonjr Listen to an extended audio version of this interview on the Not Your Usual podcast from 1 Dec Discover more Glayva Glocktails at glayva.com

THE SKINNY Photo: Camille Lemoine

Music

We sit down with award-winning smallpipes player Brìghde Chaimbeul to hear how she’s pushing the sound out of the glens of Scotland and onto a global stage Words: Cheri Amour

“I

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Piping Hot

t was really cold, windy and wet. I remember being up on a platform just trying to get through the tune,” begins Brìghde Chaimbeul. The Scottish songwriter who sits across from me hugging a cup of hot tea is casting her mind back to performing as the Lone Piper. At just 16 years old, she performed as part of the Inverness Highland Military Tattoo. Almost a decade on from that spotlight moment, the Isle of Skye native has come a long way from clutching the traditional bagpipes in a large Scottish fortress, both physically and musically. When we meet, the now 24-year-old is fresh from the opening night of Le Guess Who?, a boundary-breaking festival weekender that takes over the canals and creative spaces of Utrecht in the Netherlands each November. Bathed in rays of vivid light, Chaimbeul took centre stage at Janskerk, a towering Gothic church with original stained glass windows. No longer clutching the traditional bagpipes you might associate with Scotland, the songwriter has made a name for herself on the bellows-powered smallpipes. But with a few modern flourishes, as she explains. “I have a granular looper unit going through the chanter (the part of the pipes with fingerholes where the melody is played). It takes a part of what I’m playing, loops it or adds parts.” The overall effect lands somewhere more akin to drone-based music with an emphasis on sustained sounds, tone clusters, and relatively slight harmonic variations. It’s a style of music that has long been championed by Le Guess Who? who presented a 12-hour drone in a former factory in 2017, only to return last year with a full 24 hours in collaboration with upstate New York cultural behemoth Basilica Hudson. But to understand

Music

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Chaimbeul’s present, it’s important to recount her past growing up on the northwest coast of Scotland on the Isle of Skye. “I started playing pipes when I was probably seven,” she admits coyly. “Before that, I was learning piano for a couple of years. But when I started playing the pipes I was so invested in it. It felt like a chore to go and practice the other instruments but it never felt like that with the pipes.” This commitment was also encouraged by the family’s Greek neighbour who had taught himself the instrument, as Chaimbeul remembers. “I used to go to his house after school [where] he had a chanter laying out. I dedicated my first album to him because he passed just before it was released.” The album in question, The Reeling, followed a few years after Chaimbeul picked up the BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Award in 2016, an acknowledgement that she believes was pivotal to her output as a solo artist. “From that moment I wanted to record something, but it was when River Lea [the folk imprint of Rough Trade] signed me that I knew.” This platform also allowed the musician to reflect on another influential figure from her childhood. “That was also the moment I was like, ‘I’d love to have Rona on it as a tribute.’”

“People sometimes ask me if I’m gonna wear tartan but I always say no” Brìghde Chaimbeul

December 2023 – Feature

Photo: Camille Lemoine

South Uist piper, singer, and storyteller Rona Lightfoot was Chaimbeul’s first encounter with the instrument, as she shares fondly. “My mum and dad would say that I was taken by it and after that moment I was asking about wanting to learn pipes.” The pioneering octogenarian performed canntaireachd (a phonetic singing tradition used to teach pipe tunes) on several on the 2019 release. Like so much of Chaimbeul’s work, melding these traditional methods into a more modern approach felt important for the evolution of pipe playing, not just of genre but of gender. “She’s a very special woman; the songs, the stories, and what she’s achieved herself in the world of piping. I have a lot of respect for her.” Lightfoot wasn’t the only notable contributor on the record though. Mercury Prize-nominated Lankum vocalist and musician Radie Peat also contributed concertina, after the pair met on visionary accordion player Martin Green’s 2020 record, The Portal. Now living between Scotland and Ireland (where Peat and co are also based), Chaimbeul’s very aware of the countries’ interwoven relationship with pipe playing. “Even if you go back to traditional music, it’s still connected. For me, the biggest influences are hearing and playing with uilleann pipers. There’s a real energy to the players in Belfast. Just top-class musicians.” The Scottish songwriter has also made a few appearances of her own including contributions to celestial chanteuse Caroline Polachek’s Desire, I Want To Turn Into You (something Chaimbeul reprised at Polachek’s sold-out Hammersmith Apollo show earlier this year to rapturous applause). So how do you meld the traditional pipe playing of Scotland with an opera-trained pop star? “I recorded smallpipes and border pipes. Border pipes are an octave higher and have a slightly brighter side so that’s the majority of the part in Blood and Butter.” Unlike Chaimbeul’s signature drone, the higher octave slices through the song for that stand-out pipes solo. It’s these experimental moments that showcase Chaimbeul’s desire to continually evolve her sound, positioning the pipes out of the glens of Scotland and onto a global stage. Because, as she insists, the two aren’t mutually exclusive. “There seems to be a very strong pairing with the pipes and tartan and kilts. People sometimes ask me if I’m gonna wear tartan but I always say no. I like tartan....” She begins laughing bashfully as she acknowledges the red tartan scarf I’m wearing across from her before picking up her sentence again. “But when I started competing you had to wear a kilt to play the pipes. The two things don’t have to go together.” Despite the awards and the celebrated performances (including Chaimbeul’s moment serenading world leaders at the opening of COP26 in Glasgow in 2021), transitioning from the competitive space of piping to the pop realm hasn’t been — 48 —

without its challenges. “There was a comment from a member of The Piping Society, something like ‘I hope Brìdghe doesn’t give up on her serious piping. She’s too good for that.’ [But] piping is piping.” With her childhood introduction to Lightfoot’s trailblazing work in the Outer Hebrides to embracing the folk leanings of the Irish pipes today, Chaimbeul is forging a steady path forward, miles away from her early days mounted on a wind-battered pedestal. “I’ve moved away from the competition world. From the moment I started gigging and recording, I was clear about it being my sound. People accept that.”

“It felt like a chore to go and practice other instruments but it never felt like that with the pipes” Brìghde Chaimbeul Given that Chaimbeul’s most recent release, Carry Them With Us, was nominated for this year’s SAY Award, they most certainly do. The record sees her collaborating with avant-garde composer Colin Stetson. Not just famed for his scores (Hereditary; Texas Chainsaw Massacre), but also his work with fellow Canadians Arcade Fire, Chaimbeul believes that Stetson’s multi-reedist abilities built a quick affinity with her work. “He has a connection with the pipes. [Just like] the way he plays with his circular breathing, the pipes are also a constant flow of air,” she explains excitedly. Also behind a series of extended drone works, Stetson and engineer Julie McLarnon were the perfect pairing to push forward Chaimbeul’s vision suggesting an authentic to-tape recording approach. “In tape recording, there are fewer high frequencies. I love boosting the lower frequencies of the pipes because you’re getting a more mellow tone and that’s the direction I wanted the album to go in.” After her spellbinding set in Utrecht at the start of November and Christmas back on the Isle of Skye, Chaimbeul is limbering up for a new commission by Chamber Music Scotland at Celtic Connections in early 2024. Rather than a solo pipes performance, the ensemble finds Chaimbeul delivering a piece alongside a string quartet and an Irish electronic composer. Surely a fresh voyage for Chaimbeul? But as with so much of Brìghde Chaimbeul’s works to date, things have a funny way of coming full circle, honouring the past and pushing forward into a bright new future. “When I was at school, I played with a string quartet. We performed Martyn Bennett’s Piece for String Quartet, that’s why I ended up getting smallpipes in C which is the particular set I play now. It feels good to return to that.” Carry Them With Us is out now via River Lea Recordings; Brìghde Chaimbeul performs with The Maxwell Quartet and Linda Buckley at Celtic Connections, The Mackintosh Church, Glasgow, 3 Feb brichaimbeul.com

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Music

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Michael Powell: Film Director and Optimist We speak to legendary film editor Thelma Schoonmaker about her efforts to bring the films of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger back to the big screen, her marriage to Powell and his influence on the films of Martin Scorsese Words: Phil Concannon

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Thelma Schoonmaker and Michael Powell

hen the Edinburgh Film Festival asked Martin Scorsese who he would like to present him with an award in 1975, he had no hesitation in naming Michael Powell. The English director’s extraordinary collaborations with Emeric Pressburger had captured Scorsese’s imagination as a young man with films like The Red Shoes and The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, and he seized this opportunity to meet his hero. There was just one problem: few people knew who Powell was, nobody knew where he was, and some even suggested that he had already

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Image: ITV Studios Global Entertainment, Park

The retrospective Cinema Unbound: The Creative Worlds of Powell and Pressburger continues to run throughout Scotland, with screenings and events at Glasgow Film Theatre, Dundee Contemporary Arts, The Hippodrome in Bo’Ness and Eden Court in Inverness. Full listings at powellandpressburger.co.uk/tickets

The Red Shoes

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Thelma Schoonmaker — 51 —

Film

“Marty and I share Michael and his movies. We share that legacy, and both of us want to do everything we can to sustain it”

“His mother was a great influence on him,” Schoonmaker continues. “She loved art of any form, and she made an artist out of Michael. She had never been to Stonehenge and she was on a bike with Michael behind her, I think he was around ten. They were pedalling towards Stonehenge and there was a terrible storm, and she looked back at her son and she decided that she would never get to Stonehenge and she turned around. Michael and I would just burst into tears! He’s such a good writer. He could have been a writer instead of a film director except his mother took him to a silent film, and that was it!” Schoonmaker is hopeful that this retrospective will introduce Powell and Pressburger’s work to a whole new audience, who will in turn be inspired as she and Scorsese have been. Even now, the spirit of Powell and Pressburger infuses the editing room, firing their imaginations and influencing their choices. “We often think about them just for the influence of mood when making our films,” she says. “The one important thing that Michael Powell said to us was, ‘Never explain,’ and that’s what has happened in Killers of the Flower Moon. Marty said, ‘I am not making a documentary about the Osage nation, it’s got to be something different with them completely involved.’ Michael also said that you must try and stay ahead of your audience because they are ahead of you, so what we love is that there is no explanation, there are surprises all the time. Marty is pulling you ahead as an audience. He respects you and therefore he is willing to give you challenges that might make a studio say, ‘Oh no, that’s too much.’ I mean, we fight that battle on every movie! But I’ll never forget that from Michael... never explain. To be working as an editor on Killers of the Flower Moon and often talking about Michael Powell, to see if we can do this or get that done, it’s pretty wonderful.”

Image: ITV Global Entertainment, Park Circus, photo by Baron

died. In fact, Powell was living anonymously and near poverty in a small cottage in Gloucestershire, his achievements long forgotten. Thankfully, Michael Powell’s story had a happy ending. Invited to America by Scorsese, Powell saw his work be rediscovered and he met Scorsese’s editor Thelma Schoonmaker, with whom he fell in love. They were married from 1984 until his death in 1990, and since his passing, Schoonmaker and Scorsese have made it their mission to restore and celebrate the work of Powell and Pressburger, to ensure that it will never again be allowed to slip out of our collective cultural memory. “Marty and I share Michael and his movies,” Schoonmaker told me. “We share that legacy, and both of us want to do everything we can to sustain it.” We are meeting at BFI Southbank, where the fruits of her three-decade restoration effort with Scorsese can be seen in a huge nationwide retrospective. She has spent the afternoon in back-to-back interviews to talk about her late husband’s work, but there’s no hint of fatigue; in fact, she lights up whenever she is asked about her time with Powell, marvelling at the fortitude he showed in the dark period before Scorsese sought him out. “Michael never became bitter and he kept on dreaming,” she says. “He dreamed and wrote scripts for a hundred different ideas in the last 30 years of his life, which is astounding. He never gave up, but it was a terrible blow and he was so financially strapped towards the end, when Marty came and found him. He was an optimist and he had me put ‘Michael Powell: Film Director and Optimist’ on his grave, and that’s how he managed to survive these terrible years.” Meeting Scorsese gave Powell a new lease of life. In Powell’s autobiography, he recalled his first encounter with the fast-talking American as “like meeting a twister in Kansas” and wrote: “I felt life returning to me. I felt the blood coursing through my veins.” Schoonmaker fondly remembers the mutual admiration Scorsese and Powell had for each other’s work. “You know, Michael thought Mean Streets was a masterpiece and he would say to me as we were walking down the streets of New York, ‘Why isn’t Mean Streets playing somewhere every day of the year here? This is an outrage!’” she recalls with a laugh. Powell also proved to be a valuable resource for Scorsese, offering his notes on scripts and rough cuts and making vital interventions. “He gave us the ending for After Hours,” Schoonmaker says, “and I’m sure you’ve read

that he said to Marty that there was something wrong with the red gloves when he was watching the video of Raging Bull, and Marty said it had to be blackand-white.” She also credits Powell with giving Scorsese the push he needed to finally get Goodfellas into production shortly before his death. “One A Matter Of Life And Death Sunday, when we had been working on the book, I had been telling Michael how Marty couldn’t sell Goodfellas because the studio said you have to take the drugs out,” Schoomaker recalls. “Marty said, ‘That’s the whole story. I can’t take the drugs out!’ and he was very depressed because he had tried over and over again. Michael asked me to read him the script, and then he said, ‘Get Marty on the phone.’ I did and he said, ‘Marty, you have to make this movie. It’s the best script I have read in 20 years. You have to do it.’ Marty went in one more time and sold it, and then Michael didn’t live to see it, which was very sad.” Throughout the 1980s, Powell was writing his two-volume autobiography A Life in Movies and Million Dollar Movie, the second of which was edited and published by Schoonmaker after his death. These books are among the greatest filmmaking memoirs you will ever read. They are packed with fascinating insights and memorable anecdotes, and the director’s infectious, forceful personality leaps off the page. Powell’s sight was failing during this period due to macular degeneration, and Schoonmaker played a key role in helping him get his thoughts down on the page, with this collaboration being one of her most treasured memories of their time together. “Oh, it was so rich,” she sighs. “I gave him a little recorder, and while I was editing, he would spend all day recording. No notes, he had to keep this all in his brain. I don’t know how he did the structure of the book that way. I would transcribe what he dictated, and then on Sundays – our favourite day – we would never get out of our bathrobes and I would read back what he had written that week. We would construct it, edit it a bit, and it was such a thrill to be sharing that with him. There were times when both of us would break down.

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Film

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Plastic Unfantastic The National Museum of Scotland’s latest exhibition explores the impact of the climate crisis on the islands of the Pacific – and highlights important environmental issues here in Scotland Words: Anthea Batsakis

Art

Photo: Stewart Attwood George Nuku with his installation Bottled Ocean 2123

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illions of years before dinosaurs roamed the earth, marine plants and algae died, sank to the seafloor and were buried until heat and pressure eventually transformed them into thick oil – fossil fuels. Today, we resurrect these ancient, entombed plants and chemically process them into plastic bottles, straws, medical equipment, fishing nets and more. We all know what happens next – we use these products once and throw them away. Often, it’ll find its way back into the sea where its journey began some 400 million years ago. It’ll drift along currents to the shores of Hawaii, Kiribati, Tuvalu, or other Pacific Island Nations, threatening these communities and their ways of life. We see plastic as dirty, wasteful, a thing to be discarded and abhorred. Yet, we can’t seem to stop ourselves using it. George Nuku, an artist of Maori, Scottish and German descent, wants to change this perception. “It comes down to a question of value. Somehow we need to value this material more and, if we do, we’re going to be less inclined to throw it away,” he says. Nuku has created Bottled Ocean 2123, an immersive installation of a seascape crafted from plastic bottles, as part of the National Museum of Scotland’s exhibition Rising Tide: Art and Environment in Oceania. The exhibition highlights the scourge of plastic littering Pacific Island Nations, and the innovative and artistic ways Indigenous communities re-purpose it. Nuku believes if we see plastic as treasure, the product of deeply ancient materials and dynamic processes beneath the Earth’s surface, then perhaps we’ll be less likely to discard it so thoughtlessly. “I speak plastic fluently. I know how to make plastic sing, to dance,” he says. “Plastic has qualities of transparency, of translucency. It reflects as well, we get to see each other through this light. I also speak polystyrene fluently. If transparent plastic is the equivalent of light and water, then polystyrene is like working with clouds.” Nuku created the installation with help from around 400 people across Edinburgh, including museum visitors, staff and volunteers from community groups. They helped cut and craft shapes of marine life from bottles to hang in the installation. He largely sourced the plastic himself, picking up litter from the side of the road: “For someone like me, you feel like you’ve won the lotto. It’s treasure, man. But when I see it, I’m assailed by the odour. It’s the smell of neglect.”

An investigation by The Ferret last year revealed scientists found microplastics in 80% of tested coastal water in Scotland over 2021 and 2022. Marine Scotland estimates over 90% of plastic in Scottish seas come from Scottish littering on land. So as plastic becomes ubiquitous in oceans, what role do artists play? Artists closer to home are already responding to this pressing issue. Julie Barnes, an artist from Aberlady, has taken a similar approach for the exhibition. Using 13,000 pieces of plastic waste found on East Lothian beaches, she unveiled the United Kingdom’s largest marine plastic mural in North Berwick earlier this year. Like the Rising Tide exhibition, the mural encourages us to rethink how we use and dispose of plastic. Rising Tide curator Dr Ali Clark says art can express ideas, thoughts or feelings in a more accessible way than writing. It can provoke conversations on plastic pollution which, in turn, can influence the behaviour of individuals: “Artworks featured in Rising Tide such as Bottled Ocean 2123 or the ghost net (the name for discarded fishing nets) sculptures made by artists at Erub Arts (an arts collective based on the Torres Strait island of the same name) present visitors with familiar materials – single use plastic bottles or fishing nets – in unfamiliar forms,” she says. “Through mutation – turtles made from the very fishing nets that are killing them, or sharks and jellyfish made from the single use plastic bottles which can be found floating in the ocean alongside them – viewers are compelled to stop and think about the effect of their own individual actions on the environment and the possible consequences should they take no action.” Of course, familiar images of whales trapped in discarded nets or seabird stomachs filled with plastic can be haunting and overwhelming to the point of making us indifferent: of feeling like the problem is too big and scary for us to do anything about it. Art has the power to pull us from what Nuku calls “a poverty of spirit... We don’t have the right to say there’s no hope while young people are present. I dispute adults who adopt that stance. I say get out of here. And I’m prepared to combat that in the most artful way I can,” he says. “If anything, we’re suffering from a crisis of imagination. The best thing to do is to foster imagination with young people.” Rising Tide: Art and Environment in Oceania, The National Museum of Scotland, until 14 Apr

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Dreaming New Landscapes After a busy 2023, curator, writer and artist Shalmali Shetty reflects on her experiences of living and working between Scotland and India, her international curatorial projects and how the Glasgow arts community has welcomed her Art

Words: Harvey Dimond Photo: Alan Dimmick

You are a memory, I am your shadow, install view, 2023

without. I was thinking and rethinking ideas around achievement, success and progress and I realised that these are the consequences of a post-colonial upbringing.” However, Shetty has found comfort and kinship in Glasgow’s (and Scotland’s) arts community: “The city has been a place for a lot of open, important conversations for me. It doesn’t seem that easy to find this level of support in London or elsewhere.” With her aims to continue working between the UK and India, Shetty is currently preparing an exhibition for Serendipity Arts Festival, an annual multidisciplinary festival held in Goa. This is a culmination of a curatorial research fellowship offered by the London-based Art South Asia Project and the New Delhi-based Serendipity Arts Foundation, which supports a diasporic South Asian curator based in the UK. For this year’s festival, Shetty is curating a group exhibition titled The nights will follow the days. Shetty says the fellowship has given her “a platform to present works during the festival, of artists from the — 55 —

diaspora based in the UK including Alia Syed, a filmmaker from Glasgow.” Shetty feels such opportunities to support independent curators and projects across different global regions need to be encouraged more within organisations in the UK and elsewhere. “Working with artists from across South Asia and the diaspora and presenting their practice in India gives me the opportunity to connect not just culturally, but also emotionally, given the historical and contemporary political tensions between South Asian nations. Being supported by a UK-based organisation is particularly important given the history of the UK and South Asia and how South Asia is divided today both as a historical consequence of colonialism and the internal politics that we continue to navigate.” The nights will follow the days, Serendipity Arts Festival, Panjim, Goa, 15-23 Dec. shalmalishetty.wordpress.com

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halmali Shetty is speaking to me from her home in Mangalore, India, in the midst of putting together a new exhibition which opens this month. Shetty graduated from The Glasgow School of Art in 2020 with an MLitt in Curatorial Practice and since then has been moving between Scotland and India, working in an array of roles. On top of being an independent artist, writer and curator, she is currently supporting producer for My Body Remedy, a community resource which centres physical practice for self-recovery through workshops, residencies and opportunities for creative development founded by Mele Broomes. She is also a producer for Glasgow-based artist and performer Christian Noelle Charles as well as a trustee at Outpost Gallery in Norwich. You are a memory, I am your shadow was Shetty’s curatorial debut and took place in September this year at The Glasgow School of Art’s Reid Gallery. The exhibition worked from Shetty’s manifestation of dreaming as a way of moving through liminal and transitional spaces. This expanded to feature the works of six UKbased creative practitioners who were in dialogue with the idea of dreaming as liberation within the self and wider political contexts. Alongside works by Ashanti Harris, Asuf Ishaq, Michail Mersinis, Nadia Zhaya and Arthur Start, the preview night of the exhibition featured a performance by Mele Broomes titled Siblings with sleep paralysis: a vocal and choreographic talk, which centred around a conversation between Broomes and her sibling about their ongoing experiences of sleep paralysis. Shetty tells me: “Dreaming is the only space where you’re actually able to do so many things that are not otherwise possible. It’s that liminal sort of living, that in-between understanding of the past, present and future; life and death; sleep and wakefulness.” Shetty’s experience of living between two countries, the uncertainty of a future in the UK dictated by limited visa timelines and living in this transitional state, all influenced the making of the exhibition. “I think this space of dreaming allows other possibilities, but they can also transform into nightmares.” Living in Scotland has come with its own set of realisations for Shetty about what living in the ‘West’ really entails: “In India, there’s always this notion of achieving something by going to the West – getting a good job, settling down, making a name, all of that. So you come with these really high expectations of the West. While some experiences are new and exciting, you also have other experiences you probably would have been happy

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A rundown of some special offers and events this festive season

Good Spirits Co. The Good Spirits Co. are an independent Glasgow specialist dedicated to finding the best possible booze for you to drink. If you're looking for a tasty malt whisky, or wondering where to source obscure cocktail ingredients, or wanting a great wine to match a big festive dinner, then they are your go-to this Christmas.

The Stand When The Stand first opened, their manifesto included creating a list of genuine comedy fans to make sure they charged them the fairest possible price. The membership scheme evolved from this idea and is still strong today with over 1000+ members. It entitles the holder to advanced show announcements, discounted tickets and member exclusives for just £15 a year.

Edinburgh International Book Festival Book Lovers, treat yourself for only £60. You won’t feel underwhelmed if you put a membership to the Edinburgh International Book Festival under your Christmas tree. Friends of the Book Festival get advance booking privileges for all 2024 events, a programme brochure by post, invitations to special events and much more. Look forward to a summer full of unmissable events. Call 0131 718 5653 or visit:

thestand.co.uk

edbookfest.co.uk/support-us/memberships @edbookfest

@thegoodspiritsco

@standcomedyclub

Image: ShannonTofts

Image: The Greenshed Flower Studio

Carol Sinclair

Culture Perth & Kinross

Playlist for Life The perfect gift for a music lover in your life – and all for a good cause. Playlist for Life is a Glasgow-based music and dementia charity sharing the power of personalised playlists for people living with dementia. All profits support their vital work. T-shirts, mugs and books available from their online store.

Explore Contemporary Craft this Christmas Discover the perfect gift with Craft Scotland! Their online Craft Directory features 100+ talented Scotland-based makers creating beautiful handmade jewellery, ceramics, homewares and more. Explore local craft markets and boutiques through their What’s On section and support small businesses whilst finding thoughtful presents for your loved ones.A registered charity, Craft Scotland is the national development agency for contemporary craft.

December 2023

Image: Sean Murray Playlist for Life

Advertising Feature

Book Festival

thegoodspiritsco.com

Image: Courtesy of Edinburgh International Book Festival

Photo: Jay Dawson The Stand

Image: Courtesy of Goog Spirits

Image: Courtesy of Good Spirits Co Good Spirits Co

playlistforlife.org.uk/shop

@playlistforlifeuk

craftscotland.org

@craftscotland

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Wreath Workshop Perth Art Gallery have partnered up with The Greenshed Flower Studio this winter. Join them on 10 December and create your own wreath full of winter foliage to take home and hang proudly on your door over the festive period. All materials are provided. culturepk.org.uk/wreaths

@perthartgallery

THE SKINNY

Clubs

Beautiful Imperfections We sit down with Cam Winters, aka KAVARI, ahead of the release of her debut album Against The Wood, Opposed To Flesh Words: Cammy Gallagher

December 2023 – Feature

AVARI, aka Cam Winters, is fast becoming a renowned figure across the Scottish clubbing underground, as well as focal feature to a diverse array of DJs’ arsenals worldwide. Having garnered support from Aphex Twin, Mura Masa, and Joy Orbison, it’s no wonder she’s begun to play consistent shows throughout the UK and Europe alongside the likes of Ethel Cain, Malibu, and Hudson Mohawke. Unrestricted in her stylistic approach, she’s penetrating a wide plethora of sub-scenes with the uniform aesthetic and musical identity that we’ve grown to know as KAVARI. At what point was KAVARI initially conceptualised? It originally started when I was 13. I wanted to DJ and needed a name. But it didn’t start becoming an official thing until around lockdown. That’s when I started to release music properly, as well as getting booked for shows and stuff. It’s just an extension of myself. It’s not like I’m not putting anything on or that it’s necessarily thought out, it’s more just kind of what I like amalgamated into a person. There’ve been times when I’ve wanted to do side projects, but I haven’t committed to any yet.

Though your music is club-driven, it holds its own outside of a dancing context. Is striking this balance between functionality and home-listenability a considered intention? Yeah, I think so. I like making both. I get really bored if I just make one genre for a long time. So after I made Suture – this really heavy club project – I was like “the next is going to be completely drumless, ambient, noise stuff”. I also like adding samples from video games and movies. It adds a bit of a deeper dynamic rather than just using samples I’ve dragged in. Despite your diverse discography, your sonic palette sounds cohesive and distinct. What are your technical processes in achieving this? A lot of the time it’s just distorting the living hell out of things. I’ll go into Ableton, find a sound that’s got a good bass with clean frequencies, and just distort it to hell. I’ll normally EQ it and reduce

it from there. Trash is my number one; out of all the distortion plugins I’ve used, it has the most crunch. But I don’t really have a set method of making anything, it’s more like throwing paint at a canvas, and then just reducing what I want off it. If you can’t hear it, just cut it out.

“I really like broken sounds and the imperfections that you get from broken machinery or when things fuck up” KAVARI Where do you think your appreciation for texture and crunch came from? I actually didn’t notice I liked textural stuff until others pointed it out. Afterwards, I looked back at music I liked, relistening to old stuff with this new frame of mind, like, oh that’s why I liked it. Like a lot of SOPHIE’s work, I always liked her sound design stuff. Same with ARCA and LORN as well. It just hits a sweet spot in my head, listening to it feels nice, and that’s what I go with. I really like broken sounds and the imperfections that you get from broken machinery or when things fuck up. So when I make music, I try to add imperfections into it. I also really like snippets of nature or rain. So I think that’s impacted how I make music because I like to add the feeling or textures from those sounds into what I’m making. A lot of my ambient stuff has field recordings in it, and Attachment Style has that kind of wildlife forest ringing at the start of it. In making music, do you have a go-to ritualistic process? In the past, it used to be, smoke a joint and have a coffee, that was my peak performance. I’ve also realised I work well under pressure. So if I want to do a project, I’ll set a deadline, and make that — 58 —

immovable. I’ve even tweeted I’m going to release a project on this date to pressure myself to get it done by then. In that rush state, I normally make good stuff. But nowadays, I need to have lots of inspiration. I’ll think about the kind of image in my head of what I want it to sound like, pick how many songs, and work through them one by one until it fleshes out into a project. Some songs I’ll spend morning till night working on, going in to tweak stuff and making different versions. For others I’ll bounce between songs and splice bits around, put them in another one and see if that works. I’ve made a whole mixtape, bounced it to one long audio file, and then put it into a Granulator, scanning through to use those sounds in the Suture EP. How did the Aphex Twin support come about? I went on Twitter and I saw someone tagged me in it. I literally just jumped out of bed and started screaming. It was crazy. Like three shows in a row, he was playing three or four of my songs per set. I was just sat there like 'oh my god' I heard through mutual people who are friends with him, that apparently, he’s a fan of the SoundCloud scene I’m in, which is really cool. So I reached out to him on SoundCloud and he messaged back like ‘Yeah, I love your music!’ Your songs have received vast support at large festivals over the last summer. Having expressed dismay towards the capitalistic nature of these shows, would you be opposed to playing them in the future? I’d do it to fulfil my inner child a little bit, because I grew up listening to EDM, so it would be a cool bucket list thing. But I wouldn’t like that to be the main thing I do. I like smaller shows. I like seeing and being in contact with people. On a stage like that, you’re so far removed from the crowd. I think the biggest show I’ve played so far was either Ethel Cain in London at HEAVEN, or Gr1n at Colour Factory. I feel like I always have this view of life, where I really just want enough money to live comfortably. I think DJs charging insane fees is just part of that whole music industry machine, where the top are getting paid astronomical amounts, while people at the bottom are getting nothing.

THE SKINNY

Photo: Spit Turner (@spit.ting)

Clubs

With context being a significant part of your workflow, how do you approach recontextualising something where this has already been predefined, like a remix? I’ll either try and reimagine it as if I’d produced it. I’ll take the skeleton of the stems, and make it into my own song almost. Or I’ll have a specific idea, like make it slower, faster, or heavier to see what works best. For the daine remix, the original was already really good. daine had sent it to me before it was released to play in sets. I sped it up and was just messing about to make it heavier for my sets. I sent it back to daine and they were like ‘I want this as a remix’. With the REZZ one, I asked for the stems because I liked the original so much. I wanted to see if I could make it heavier and REZZ was like ‘sure no problem’ and let me release it.

Can you share insight into your debut album Against The Wood, Opposed To Flesh? I took promo inspiration from the SCP Foundation – it’s like a bunch of scary stories online. It’s meant to be in this fictional world where the foundation’s gathering objects and beings and writing reports on them. So I thought it’d be cool to add that little element of lore to the album. I’ve also got some promo posters with a QR code link to the album that I need to put up around Glasgow. I don’t like doing the same thing twice. If I do one style or idea for too long, my brain just burns out, and I don’t enjoy it anymore. So with this project, I feel as though it’s like a bit of a 180-switch to my last, which will keep things a bit more refreshed I think. But just as with not looking to do the same thing producer-wise, I also don’t

KAVARI

want to do the same thing artistically. In the future, I want to go more into film, or doing sound for games, and scoring stuff. I’d love to do fashion, and more physical things with my music. I’ve been meaning to release hoodies for the longest time, but I’m really picky, I want them well-made and hand-painted. Nowadays most people just go to some cheap website offshore, buy a bunch of T-shirts, slap a logo on it and sell it. Whereas, I’d like my merch to be like sculptures that I’m selling in different forms. Are there any artists or projects you find inspiring at the moment? I think the number one thing that inspires me at the moment is my love of horror. It’s something I’ve had my whole life, but never really connected to my music until the last two years. It’s been a massive source of inspiration for lots of my visuals as well. I have a bunch of artists I’m really inspired by like Blood of Aza; c4u4.me; E_DEATH; Nova Caine; and Punishment. — 59 —

What games are you currently playing? I haven’t played video games in quite a while, but I watch a lot of playthroughs. I’m so focused on music nowadays, that in sitting down and committing to a game, especially if I haven’t played it before, my brain’s too focused on music to get into it. But I’ve been rewatching a lot of Fable, Silent Hill, and Outlast. Also, there are some cool indie games, like Witching Hour. Favourite method of being scared? Getting way too high. I think a movie that’s scared me the most throughout my life is either The Visit, or Lake Mungo. But the number one of all time are the mermaids from Harry Potter. Favourite colour? Dark purple or dark red. Against The Wood, Opposed To Flesh is out now on Bandcamp kavarimusic.bandcamp.com

December 2023 – Feature

How did the co-production on yeule’s softscars come about? We became friends after they’d heard Healing Spring, and showed it to Mura Masa. So yeule got in contact and sent me some stems to mess with. Then we just sent it back and forward until we found the version that yeule liked the best. I think what ended up on that project was a bit of drum work and some backing vocals I did.

November 2023

THE SKINNY

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THE SKINNY

Spotlight On... LAMAYA Following the release of her debut single, and ahead of her headline performance at AMPLIFI, we shine a spotlight on genre-agnostic East Kilbride artist LAMAYA Words: Tallah Brash

Can you start by telling us a bit about yourself – how long have you been performing and making music for, and who would you say inspires you as an artist? I’m 19, soon to be 20, and throughout my life I’ve been inspired by so many. I’ve been doing music my whole entire life, for as long as I can remember. One of my earliest influences was Amy Winehouse. I remember being in nursery and everyone was asked to draw their biggest inspiration; lots drew policemen, their parents and very normal everyday jobs, however I chose to draw Amy Winehouse. I knew where I wanted to be from young age. We’re absolutely loving your debut single – can you tell us what it’s about? So I decided that I had to write a song about how love can make you feel. Especially being in a love triangle, which I have experienced before in my life. Through the song it’s a journey of realisation and freedom. It’s an anthem to take back what’s yours; love can make you feel crazy at times, which is okay.

In your biography, you state that you are “transcending the constraints of a genre”, which I feel is something so many artists are now embracing with their music-making. What are some of the other genres we can expect to hear from LAMAYA in the future? Yes! I love to dabble in lots of genres and add my psychedelic spin to it. I sing from the soul and love to add an ambience to any track I’m on. Lots of genre-bending to come in the future.

Music

e've said it before, but we'll say it again: it’s rare that a musician rocks up with their debut single already sounding like a fully-formed artist. But that’s where we find ourselves with East Kilbride-raised LAMAYA on COMING FOR UR <3. Released at the end of October, COMING FOR UR <3 oozes maturity as LAMAYA explores the trials and tribulations of love, her rich, sticky and assured vocals commanding the thick, rubbery production courtesy of Edinburgh producer Quested. Despite this being her debut single, LAMAYA is no stranger to the Scottish music scene having already shared stages with the likes of Bemz, Pip Millet and Brooke Combe, as well as performing at Scottish hip-hop showcase event PITCH. As the year approaches its conclusion, LAMAYA is set to headline AMPLIFI's final event of 2023 at The Queen's Hall in Edinburgh on 13 December. To get to know her a little better, we catch up with LAMAYA to find out more about the single, what inspires her and what her hopes are for 2024.

What does the rest of the year look like for you, and what are your plans for 2024? I’ve got a show lined up for the end of the year, which will be a great way to crash into 2024. Starting my year off on top, the only way is up, and I’ll continue to climb the ladder all 2024. I'm ready for any hurdles that come my way as I’ll be jumping straight over them. COMING FOR UR <3 is out now; LAMAYA plays AMPLIFI at The Queen's Hall, Edinburgh, 13 Dec Photo: Kim Simpson

December 2023 – Feature

Scan the QR code to follow and like our Music Now: New Scottish Music playlist on Spotify. Updated every Friday, it regularly features great new tracks like COMING FOR UR <3 by LAMAYA. — 61 —

Film of the Month

THE SKINNY

December 2023 — Review

Film of the Month — Fallen Leaves Director: Aki Kaurismäki Starring: Alma Pöysti, Jussi Vatanen RRRRR Released 1 December by Mubi Certificate 12A theskinny.co.uk/film

A stuttering romance and the daily travails of the downtrodden working class provide the material for Fallen Leaves, the brief and beguiling new film from Finnish master Aki Kaurismäki. In the late 1980s, the director made what is generally referred to as his Proletariat Trilogy, comprising Shadows in Paradise (1986), Ariel (1988) and The Match Factory Girl (1990). A triptych about hardscrabble lives, it featured factory workers, coal miners, meter maids and refuse collectors in a series of tragicomedies suffused with dour beauty and wry humour. This new film is effectively a fourth entry into the series, as two lonesome souls seek connection in Kaurismäki’s idiosyncratic realisation of Helsinki. Ansa (Alma Pöysti) and Holappa (Jussi Vatanen) first encounter one another when their eyes meet across their local bar during karaoke night. They are both with friends and while Holappa’s buddy Huotari (Janne Hyytiäinen) tries his luck with Ansa’s pal Liisa (Nuusa Koivu), our protagonists only share a glance before going their separate ways. The path to true love – or indeed, any kind of companionship – ne’er did run smooth and while the delivery might be resolutely deadpan, the narrative is more reminiscent of farce. When chance does throw them together for a date, they don’t exchange names, so when Holappa subsequently loses Ansa’s phone number, he has no reasonable way of tracking her down. Both protagonists also lose their jobs more than once across the course of the film – the precarity of the low-paid casual worker. Ansa is first fired by the supermarket she works — 62 —

at after she’s caught taking an out-of-date sandwich home; her subsequent gig at a local bar comes to an end when the manager is arrested for dealing drugs. For Holappa, alcohol is the problem: the bottle stashed in his locker, the other one stashed around the work yard, the flask in his breast pocket. Even when he and Ansa do find one another again, his passion for the drink will become a sticking point. Fallen Leaves takes place in the now recognisable locale of Kaurismäki’s inimitable world. It has a shabby rockabilly aesthetic that might serve as period detail were it not for the overt contemporary particulars that inhabit it. The chunky kitchen radio that Ansa listens to may suggest the mid-20th century, but its constant updates from the Russian invasion of Ukraine root the drama firmly in the present. Instead, Kaurismäki’s milieu is one of anachronism – in the form of fashion and décor, but also in the longueurs of its protagonists which seem to reflect the classic movie posters that often litter the walls behind them. This lends a poignancy to the laconic dialogue, where even the most barbed exchanges and mute anxiety leave gaps to be filled with unspoken emotion. Perhaps what is most gratifying about Kaurismäki’s work is the way that he is able to balance his po-faced ironic tone with a genuine, and acutely tender, melancholy. It is an equilibrium he has honed over years and while few would argue that Fallen Leaves strikes new ground, it is a thoroughly rewarding return to his distinctive universe. [Ben Nicholson]

THE SKINNY

December 2023

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THE SKINNY

Scotland on Screen

Scotland on Screen: Scottish Films of the Year

Notable feature film debuts and sparkling documentaries were the story of Scottish film in 2023

Words: Jamie Dunn

Girl and Tish are in cinemas now Loch Ness: They Created A Monster screens 1 Dec on BBC Scotland

December 2023 — Review

Out of Darkness is released 9 Feb

his time last year, The Skinny, along with pretty much every other right-minded arts publication, was declaring Charlotte Wells’ Aftersun as the film of the year. You’d be hard-pressed to say that any Scottish filmmaker achieved the same level of artistry in 2023, but the last 12 months have not been without success stories. The Scottish fiction film to make the biggest splash was surely Adura Onashile’s Glasgow-set drama Girl, which had its world premiere at Sundance in January before receiving a hero’s welcome as the opening film at Glasgow Film Festival in March. It’s an imperfect but hugely promising work. Onashile’s background is in theatre but there’s nothing stagey about her instincts as a filmmaker. The script is often opaque – the spare dialogue would barely fill a couple of pages of A4 – with Onashile instead deploying expressive colour, evocative music and dreamy camerawork (all overhead shots and tight closeups) to tell her story of the deeply intimate bond between a 24-year-old immigrant woman, Grace, and her ten-year-old daughter, Ama – a bond that’s soon to be tested by Grace’s past traumas that have left her closed off to the world, and Ama’s growing sense of self that’s pushing her beyond the confines of her mother’s loving but suffocating gaze. Johnny Barrington’s Silent Roar was another Scottish film with an underdeveloped script elevated by the filmmaker’s startling visual sensibility. Where Onashile is concerned with the tactile intimacy between characters, Barrington’s eye is for the drama and wild lyricism of landscape – specifically the coastline of the Isle of Lewis. The film is pleasingly off-kilter, resisting easy characterisation, but if I were to have a go I’d describe it as a teen surfer comedy with a cosmic flavour. It’s definitely its own thing, and just about manages to be both a horny coming-of-age film and a philosophical musing on religion and spirituality all in one – but its scrappiness can be frustrating at times. Still, it’s probably the most beautiful film from Scotland – or anywhere else in the UK for that matter – in 2023, with the magical Hebridean light and stunning 16mm photography by Ruben Woodin Dechamps making the film sing, even in its most disjointed moments. Another film that made great use of the wildness of Scotland’s landscape is Andrew Cumming’s gnarly Out of Darkness (previously titled The Origin when it played at Glasgow Film Festival). Set in the paleolithic age, it follows a band of early humans who have made a perilous journey across the sea, only to find themselves washed up on the shores of a cold, desolate, near-primordial Scotland with no shelter or food. And to make matters worse, there’s a mysterious threat on the mist-covered moors that’s picking off their group one by one.

Girl

Loch Ness: They Created A Monster

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What makes Out of Darkness so refreshing is that it’s a fat-free horror that doesn’t have highfalutin ideas above its genre station; it’s a pure thrill ride concerned with squeezing as much tension from its smart but simple setup as possible. Early reviews comparing Out of Darkness to superficially similar films like Robert Eggers’ The Witch and The Northman are off base – the existential dread of Alien or Walter Hill’s Southern Comfort are better touchstones. As is often the case, the documentary scene in Scotland proved fruitful too. The prolific Mark Cousins was back with his sly essay film My Name Is Alfred Hitchcock. Its playful central conceit is that it’s being narrated by Hitchcock, despite the fact he died in 1980. Speaking over clips from his films, Hitchcock talks us through some of the themes and techniques that have obsessed him throughout his career. Impressionist Alistair McGowan is brilliant as the legendary director: from his laboured breathing to his snorty giggle to his rumbling belly laughs at his own mischief, McGowan has Hitch’s voice down pat. And the long-dead director of Vertigo and Psycho is in turn doing an uncanny Mark Cousins impression, delivering the sort of poetic and astute reading of his own work as Cousins does in films like The Story of Film and Women Make Film. Even if you think you know Hitchcock inside out, My Name Is Alfred Hitchcock will prove enlightening. There’s a similar sleight of hand afoot in Loch Ness: They Created A Monster, fresh from being the perfect opening film at Inverness Film Festival, although to say more might ruin one of its chief surprises. Directed by John MacLaverty and produced by Cousins’ regular collaborator John Archer, it pays loving tribute to the scientists, adventurers and, let’s face it, grifters who have made it their life’s work to discover that fabled prehistoric beastie that purportedly resides in Loch Ness. If you stumble across this cheeky doc when it screens on BBC Scotland, you’ll be thoroughly entertained. Another documentary deserving a call out is Tish from the Edinburgh-based filmmaker Paul Sng. It’s a tender portrait of Tyneside photographer Tish Murtha that puts Murtha’s extraordinary black-and-white photography of working-class lives in 70s and 80s Britain front and centre. One of the film’s wisest moves is having Maxine Peake read out Murtha’s letters, diary entries and funding applications in voiceover, showing that Murtha was as fine a writer as she was a photographer. Murtha’s photographs were funny and vibrant, and despite depicting the joy and energy of communities in and around the northeast of England, they also fizz with righteous anger at the disdainful treatment of working-class people by the government of the day. It’s a testament to Sng’s filmmaking that, with Tish, he captures a similar sense of play and outrage.

Silent Roar

Out of Darkness

THE SKINNY

Femme Director: Sam H. Freeman, Ng Choon Ping Starring: Nathan Stewart-Jarrett

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Femme

The Boy and the Heron

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There exists such a vast variety of personal audience relationships with Japanese animation powerhouse Studio Ghibli – and as Englishspeaking Westerners, we know less of how they’re received by their domestic Asian audience. This means The Boy and the Heron, the first film in ten years from Studio co-founder Hayao Miyazaki, the man responsible for a lot of people’s favourite films, will have to face a cavalcade of pre-set expectations. What do those who grew up with Ghibli want from a near-retirementfor-real-this-time Miyazaki? To Miyazaki’s credit, he seems only concerned with looking inward, building a fantasia that riffs on the Ghibli staples of intimidating wizards, wartime grief, and uber-cute

Director: Takashi Yamazaki Starring: Ryunosuke Kamiki, Minami Hamabe, Yuki Yamada, Munetaka Aoki

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attacks. Godzilla Minus One takes these same ideas but places them in an even bleaker context. Starting in World War II’s final days and taking place across the following two years (as Japan rebuilds from the ruins), this thrilling film charts the green giant’s journey from being slightly bigger than a T-Rex – terrorising people on a beach – to city-conquering behemoth, thanks to evolutionary enhancement via 1946’s Operation Crossroads. Writing, directing, and leading the film’s visual effects team, Takashi Yamazaki delivers impressive, legitimately scary set pieces. And crucially, the time spent with the genuinely appealing human ensemble in between attacks is truly compelling; exploring post-war trauma, community-led resistance to government disinformation, and trying to salvage peaceful prospects within the most disastrous circumstances. [Josh Slater-Williams]

Released 1 Dec by Signature Films; certificate 18

With the franchise’s 70th anniversary imminent, Japanese studio Toho goes back to the beginning with their latest Godzilla film. Or rather, before the beginning. Sort of. You can view Godzilla Minus One as an alternate genesis for the iconic monster, as interpreting it as a definite prequel to the original – something barely alluded to in the text – can negate this new film’s tension. That said, the strength of the craft ensures it’s still an enthralling visual and dramatic ride, regardless of any nagging thoughts about how the film can possibly have a satisfying conclusion in its own right. The very first Godzilla film was set around the same time as its 1954 release, with the sea creature symbolising Japan’s overriding fears concerning the aftermath of the war and nuclear

The Boy and the Heron

Godzilla Minus One

Chicken Run 2: Dawn of the Nugget

critters to tell a lopsided but potent story of legacy and escapism. After the death of his mother, young Mahito (Soma Santoki) enters a world where life and death circle each other in colourful fluidity, where he must follow a transmorphic, shrieking heron (Masaki Suda) to learn the truth about his heritage and future. Miyazaki is clearly concerned with how what’s come before and what’s to follow are never truly separate entities, and explores this concept with grace and passion. This fantasy world does feel a bit crowded, however, although to be fair, you will find similar issues with structure and pacing in even the most iconic of Ghibli’s output. But when the deft and delicate denouement hits, it doesn’t just remind us of classic Ghibli – it helps us understand why these strange and beguiling films are so magical. [Rory Doherty]

Chicken Run 2: Dawn of the Nugget

upbringing has garnered in her just one desire: to leave. When she goes AWOL and ends up in a highly-guarded facility run by a character whose return is genuinely chilling, the film begins to feel more like the classic Chicken Run we know and love, doused in an air of peril missing from the beginning. So begins the rescue mission. Where Chicken Run was a straight homage to The Great Escape, ...Nugget is less focused on sending up one text, referencing everything from Bond to Spinal Tap. The humour is classic Aardman, its strongest new asset being Nick Mohammed’s Dr. Fry. It’s imperfect, but ...Nugget has arguably more to say than its predecessor; about parenthood, where our food comes from, and grass-is-greener thinking. It never quite soars, but at least it clears the fence. [Louis Cammell]

Released 26 Dec by Elysian Film Group; certificate 12A

Director: Sam Fell Starring: Thandiwe Newton, Bella Ramsey, Lynn Ferguson, Jane Horrocks, Daniel Mays, Peter Serafinowicz, Zachary Levi

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Chicken Run is the best-selling stop-motion feature film of all time, so it’s only natural that news of its sequel was met with much egg-citement (sorry). A lot has changed in the runup to Dawn of the Nugget’s release. All of Aardman’s original maquettes burned in a tragic fire in 2005, a year before Mel Gibson showed that he, like Rocky, is a prize cock. Less has changed for the chickens. We pick up where the first left off, on ‘Wakanda for chickens’, as the director Sam Fell has described it. Rocky (now voiced by Zachary Levi) and Ginger (now Thandiwe Newton – Google the controversy around Julia Sawalha’s recasting) are parents to precocious daughter Molly (Bella Ramsey), whose perfect

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Released 15 Dec by Anime Limited; certificate TBC

Released 8 Dec by Netflix (streaming 15 Dec); certificate PG

December 2023 — Review

Director: Hayao Miyazaki Starring: Soma Santoki, Masaki Suda, Ko Shibasaki, Aimyon, Yoshino Kimura, Takuya Kimura

Godzilla Minus One

Film

In the opening minutes of Femme, a joyous queer cabaret night turns to an ugly homophobic attack as drag performer Jules (Nathan StewartJarrett) is assaulted on his way home by a group of thugs – one of whom was loitering by the venue. The realisation of Jules’ worst fears is writ large on his face and being as he moves from the immediate aftermath to the everyday traumas of the outside world, but the film shifts from recovery narrative to thriller when he begins a secretive relationship with the loiterer Preston (George Mackay) – who seems not to recognise him from the attack. Thus begins Jules’ quest for answers – or is he after revenge? Legacies of overt and internalised homophobia loom throughout Femme. Expanded and adapted from

their short of the same name, writerdirectors Sam H. Freeman and Ng Choon Ping neglect neither physical nor existential stakes in their uncompromising script. Jules faces clear life and limb threats, whereas it is never explained whether (white, closeted) Preston’s fears of humiliation or worse from his peers are real or imagined. Stewart-Jarrett rebuilds Jules’ heartbreaking loss of confidence into a chameleonic armour, as curiosity, attraction and disgust play out in his path to his own form of justice. In Mackay’s face and form, Preston’s nervous twitches and easy falsehoods both become masks for the same tortured vulnerability. Femme is unafraid of public and private acts of violence, and while its conclusion is forced, complicated character portraits mark the film as an astonishing feature debut. [Carmen Paddock]

THE SKINNY

December 2023 – Feature

Design

Photo: Murray Orr

Craft Identity Bard’s The Grit and the Glamour exhibition presents a confident survey of ambitious new work from 21 Scottish contemporary designers, makers and artists — 66 —

Words: Stacey Hunter

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Glass Wall Pieces by Andrea Walsh

Elsewhere in the exhibition are encaustic tile trivets by the endlessly inventive Frances Priest, a collection of reimagined Scottish vernacular furniture by Laurence Veitch, as well as Jack Sheahan, Tom Addy and the Orkney Furniture Maker. Golden slabs of glass by Jack Brindley that seem to hold within them the warmth of summer sunlight are juxtaposed with Joshua Williams’ characterful ceramic flagons. Responding to the rise in people buying craft as Christmas presents, Bard are adding some new items to their shop. Watch out for specially commissioned kilt-pins by Wobbly Digital which blend almost Pictish-looking butterflies and fish with the material possibilities of bio-plastics. Small kitchen knives by Clement Knives are made using recycled laughing gas canisters with handles formed from sea-plastic collected around Dumfries and Galloway. Wild clay tea sets are being debuted by wife and husband ceramicists Viv Lee and Jonathan Wade of Ingot Objects while midwinter candlesticks from Cara Guthrie provide light in the darkness. As Bard celebrate their first year in Edinburgh, it’s clear that the founders have been willing to engage with both the grit and glamour themselves. Their approach is considered, highly crafted and just like this group of makers – an asset to Scotland’s design culture. The Grit and the Glamour, Bard Scotland, 1 Customs Wharf Leith, 12-6pm Wed-Sun until 22 Dec, reopens 5-28 Jan, FriSun 12-6pm All works are for sale at Bard and online at bard-scotland.com @bard.scotland @localheroesdesign

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Design

Photo: Murray Orr Haptic Light by Jack Brindley

mind the critical, humorous eye that Droog Design brought to Milan in the early 1990s and stands in sharp contrast to the earnestness that often characterises more traditional craft spaces. It’s clear that Macdonald and Stevens want to pay tribute to the power of crafted objects and their narrative qualities. “Our debut exhibition at Bard is a celebration of the rough and the smooth. Today we are told that a friction-free existence is aspirational. We don’t agree. In our smooth world we need to feel things with our fingers and souls. Craft is a powerful, enlivening force. It is embodied knowledge, culture and skill, and has an anthropological intrigue that is too often overlooked. As with life, it can be gritty and glamorous simultaneously,” Stevens says. “There is a generosity in leaving room for people to bring their own feelings, to say what they like and what they don’t, what they respond to and what leaves them cold.” Accessing the power of craft to create special moments in the home that carry a message of responsible material sourcing and sustainability, is key. “We want to bring audiences items that are precious and will therefore be treasured,” says Macdonald. “Craft has the power to tell stories – bigger stories about ethical making and good practice. The exhibition has allowed us to tell those stories in more detail.” Some of these stories connect craft to popular culture in entirely unexpected ways. Twenty years ago Catherine Davies and Pascal Carr of All About Willow planted a willow farm on the island of Eigg and built a successful business making historic basket designs. For the exhibition the duo have made what is known as a hen basket for broody hens. This historic design has been in production for centuries and is depicted in Medieval paintings. The context of these baskets was transformed in the 60s by Audrey Hepburn, who turned it into a fashion accessory by carrying one as a handbag. This enduring icon of craft is yet again being made accessible to new audiences, this time with the focus on the methods of its materials and manufacture. The exhibition is a comprehensive demonstration of the breadth and depth of contemporary Scottish craft. And the ingenuity and resourcefulness of knowledge and material manipulation that is embedded in Scottish cultural identity, past and present; qualities that are evident in Marc Sweeney’s Pepper Pepper Mill. Made from a bio-resin and peppercorn compound; the material itself is interesting enough – pair this with the fact that it is cast and not milled, so that there is barely any waste material and it becomes a must-have piece of design that carries the DNA of Scottish engineering with it. Explaining how he makes the mill, Sweeney says “I make a wax plug, which melts to create the cavity that holds the grinding mechanism. My mills look elegant but I think people connect with them when they hear the punchline that they are made from pepper. They smell like pepper too. Luxury is not only about how things look today; we respond to how things make us feel. I feel there’s a duty as a designer to waste as little as possible.”

Photo: Murray Orr

he Grit and The Glamour is the wonderfully apposite title of a new exhibition that demonstrates how craft can be understood as a practice concerned with bigger ideas than trends or style. Curated and designed by Bard’s founders Hugo Macdonald and James Stevens, the exhibition presents an eclectic mix of ambitious and witty new work from 21 contemporary designers, makers and artists from across Scotland. Unfolding over two floors of Leith’s Custom House, the exhibits are presented rather fittingly on reclaimed tea crates, a little nod to the area’s trading history and a clever way to avoid the need for context-neutralising plinths. The exhibition curators succeed in providing a moment of pause in a fast-paced world and to create a sense of wonder. There is an elemental quality to the objects displayed that makes each mise-en-scenè both distinctive and complementary. Clay is transformed into bronze in James Rigler’s Hermit Furniture. This sits alongside jewel-like glass wall pieces by Andrea Walsh and Fair Isle blankets by Marie Bruhat; all communicate their tactility in contrasting ways that engender curiosity and covetous feelings in equal parts. Nearby, precision and fragility come together in painted wool silk by Louise Bennetts, artfully etched glass by Juli Bolaños-Durman and 3D printed norigae wall sculptures by Soorin Shin. Radiating poise and balance are Oliver Spendley’s altars in oak, Lewisian gneiss rock, and brass. The titles of works like Morven Mulgrew’s Town Councillor – a pot-bellied vessel wearing civic livery – and Chalk Plaster’s Cat Throne express a droll irreverence. This is emblematic of the approach of many designers in the Scottish scene – and it’s refreshing to see it celebrated. It brings to

December 2023

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LEVEL 11 COFFEE HUB, GLASGOW We step into the concrete dojo that is the West End’s newest speciality coffee spot

Words: Peter Simpson

Food

Mon-Thu, 8.30am-4pm, Sat-Sun 9.30am-5pm, closed Friday @level11hub

Image: courtesy of Level 11 Image: courtesy of Level 11

Inside, the space seems to be designed not so much for conversation as for passing information. It’s a tight but well-proportioned space, so there are no secluded booths, no tables obscured by big plants. What you will find is bar seating facing the wall at the back, and at the front, a low, concrete bench opposite the coffee machine. That bench is topped with cushions and divided by small pine tables that, confusingly, look a bit like stadium seats at first glance. Once you’ve solved the seating riddle, you’re left in the perfect position for a natter with the lovely staff behind the counter, finding out about each other’s days, getting tips for the weekend. Pop in, have a coffee, a bit of a chat, leave to be replaced by the next person who does the same. If everyone uses the space as intended, these baristas are going to be able to piece together a full social map of the West End this side of Christmas. Having added our two cents to the info bucket, it’s time to talk about the coffee – it’s very good. Our flat white (£3.30), made with Level 11’s house roaster Ozone, is fruity but mellow, with some nice caramel hints in there. We’ve certainly had stranger or more experimental coffees, but it is excellently made and comes in an absolutely beautiful marbled cup. Holding this cup is a bit like grasping a precious, rare egg – there is the slight worry we might smash it to bits, — 69 —

but the cargo within gives us plenty of cause to be careful. Our chocolatetopped granola bar (£2.70) is a smooshy, earthy hit that’s best approached by hand, leaving us to fiddle with a basically superfluous but incredibly satisfying wooden spoon. Level 11 serves a good coffee, the staff are great, but the place itself is a sight to behold. That wall of grey drew us in, and we suspect it’ll do the same for plenty more folk meandering through the West End. We eat and drink with our eyes as much as our mouths – that’s why this visual language around your standard ‘fancy coffee place’ exists. It’s bizarre, exciting, and a genuine treat to see someone screaming that language at the top of their voice.

December 2023 – Review

locky fonts. Clean lines. Lots of plain wood, and lots and lots of grey. For better or worse, there’s an iconography and visual language to the world of speciality coffee. On the one hand, it can be seen as an extension of the ritualistic nature of espresso-making; the slight gestures, the deliberate shuffling, the extreme application of techniques and norms. What could give you more confidence in a barista’s handiwork than some very, very subtle signwriting? On the other, the hit motion picture Parasite was a social satire, not an interior design manual for your coffee shop. But how far could you push this language? What if everything was blocky, and grey? Everything. We’re stomping up Byres Road, past leafy West End sidestreets, by the University Cafe with its gold fringe in the windows and its lovely leather seats, when we hit Level 11. It’s an imposing concrete dojo, a very big and very grey ice cube, that one Minecraft default texture blown up to 4K and plastered all over the walls. Of course, it isn’t ‘one texture’ – this place has every kind of concrete you could ask for. A perfectly smooth countertop, a shiny and lightly worn floor, scratchy and mottled walls – in terms of visual metaphors for the inscrutability of coffee, it’s a good one.

Image: courtesy of Level 11

99 Byres Rd, Glasgow G11 5HW

Books

THE SKINNY

Mrs S

Wifedom

Grimmish

Porn: An Oral History

By K Patrick

By Anna Funder

By Michael Winkler

By Polly Barton

K Patrick’s debut novel Mrs S is everything you want it to be, and more. Our unnamed, ungendered protagonist (they notably never gender themselves, and are only uncomfortably gendered by others from the outside) is an outsider in an all-girls boarding school: Australian, visibly queer, too old to be one of The Girls, too young to be a teacher. Their role is somewhere between the categories of The Girls and the teaching staff, leaving them to navigate the social landscape of the two. The Girls are a conglomerate protagonist all of their own, sometimes splitting off into individuals (a girl that punches a boy) or small groups but never named; simultaneously denied their characterisation and given the power of the mass. School operates and trades on this social landscape, which the adults pretend not to participate in while beholden to the very same rumour mill. Patrick renders them with delicious accuracy in their small social details and their tender moments of not quite concealed vulnerability. The sexual and romantic tension the narrator finds with the eponymous Mrs S is perfect and runs deep into considerations of nuanced queerness and gendered dynamics – the moment a character makes air quotes around the word heterosexuality is a heartwrenching loss of commonality. This novel explores what can be ignored and hidden from and what safety can be found in secrecy. [Marguerite Carson]

Doublethink, the term coined by George Orwell in his celebrated dystopian novel 1984, means the phenomenon of holding two contradictory beliefs in mind simultaneously and accepting them both. For Anna Funder, writer of Stasiland and now Wifedom, the doublethink is that Orwell is both her idol since her teens – chronicler of the proletariat experience, fighter of fascists, radically self-deprecating – and the man who has completely written his wife, Eileen O’Shaughnessy, out of the story. Held together by a dual narrative – part Funder piecing together Eileen’s life story (calling her by last name feels too formal, for someone who comes to feel like family), part the resulting biographical fiction that Funder writes so vividly – Wifedom contains a single throughline, an investigation into time lost to unpaid labour, a patriarchal certitude. Funder’s failure to work, to love, to do anything but keep on top of the expectations of her wifedom, is what drives her escape into Orwell. But from this grows the organic discovery of previously undiscovered letters, incomplete biographies and photographs haunted by Eileen; never the subject, always the inconvenient addition that survived the camera’s cutoff. “A blue eye, the corner of a shoulder blade,” asking to be reconfigured. The revelations here are many. Eileen is but one of the women who upheld Orwell’s literary life. He owes them not just his success, but his survival. Funder’s book finally begins to set the record straight. [Louis Cammell]

Just when you think you’ve read it all, a book comes along to disabuse of such notions. Michael Winkler’s Grimmish is an extraordinary novel, unlike anything you’ll have read this year or in many years. It focuses on the life and legend of Italian-American boxer Joe Grimm who toured Australia in 1908-1909, a fighter whose main talent was the ability to take punch after punch, and apparently relish it and the effects. Thought by many to be a medical miracle, what didn’t kill him appeared to make him stronger. Like the fighters Joe faces, Grimmish is not a novel to pull its punches. It’s a paean to pain in all its forms, reminding readers that not only is it unavoidable but at times necessary. Yet in his experimentation of form, Grimmish also becomes about the telling of stories, and how we shouldn’t let the truth get in the way of the best ones. There is a ‘review’ of the book, meanderings on philosophy, a merging of fiction and non-fiction (causing the reader to question everything), and a number of quotations from other texts, some of which may even be genuine, and substantial footnotes that are integral to the whole. In terms of both subject and style, Winkler’s writing is as robust as Joe Grimm himself. If you like your fiction vital and visceral, then Grimmish fits the bill. [Alistair Braidwood]

Polly Barton’s new book Porn: An Oral History, while sure to raise a few eyebrows if read in public, is a slight misnomer. Dipping in and out of historical references, the tongue-incheek pun of the title falls short of delivering a chronological account of pornography through the ages. Instead, the book traces conversations between Barton and nineteen friends and acquaintances on individual porn consumption, habits and the degree to which these interact with their everyday lives. Inception came mid-pandemic in the form of a text from a would-be suitor attempting to bridge the technological, emotional and physical gap between them by mentioning he was watching porn mid-conversation. Failing to engage Barton romantically, the message succeeded in sparking curiosity as to why society struggles to discuss desire and the vacuum in dialogue surrounding pornography. The spectrum of people selected for interview – varying in age, experience, gender, geography and sexuality – are crafted from Barton’s own address book and are limited by dint of their curator; Barton recognises her own limitations as conduit in the first twenty pages. The subjects are honest in their anonymity, measured and pensive. They act as small slices of time and conversation extracted by Barton through curiosity and carried forward onto the page with an unobtrusive delicacy. It invites reflection and will hopefully start the ball rolling at home on more than a few conversations about porn. [Josephine Jay]

4th Estate, 8 Jun

Viking, 17 Aug

Peninsula Press, 24 May

Fitzcarraldo Editions, 16 Mar

December 2023 — Review

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Dream Gig Glasgow’s Susan Riddell brings us a perfectly festive dream gig to round off 2023 Illustration: Edith Ault Comedy

but they still pay you. Immediately you WhatsApp your comedian group chat to tell everyone the great news and they’re green with envy but congratulate you nonetheless. If you knew the gig was going to be a shit-show but the fee is high then it’s manna from heaven. Live at the Apollo would be a close second though. So if I could pick the optimum conditions for this situation – the perfectly pulled gig – it would be in my favourite place in the world – Lapland. In this imaginary scenario me and a bunch of soundies have been booked to do a corporate for some big soulless evil company with deep pockets, but on the eve of the gig – after a day of reindeer rides and petting huskies – the employees are all struck down with food poisoning, the gig is cancelled and the comedians now have to stay in their five star log cabin and get drunk in their pyjamas. As far as the lineup is concerned I could literally pick any lassies from the Scottish comedy scene and have a great time. Pal, comedian and podcast co-host Amanda Dwyer and I run a monthly all-female gig called Material Girl in Glasgow and there’s something so special about getting to do a gig with your lassie pals; sadly it’s still the case that most line-ups remain male-heavy. I could pick any of the comedians who have played this gig with us but let’s be practical about this. Along with me and Amanda I’d have Rachel Jackson as she never fails to make me laugh, Marjolein Robertson as she’d be able to hunt reindeer if we got snowed in and Amy Matthews as she is really sensible and could make sure we all invoice the big evil soulless corporation for our fee. One can dream. Susan Riddell: Self on the Shelf, Glasgow Stand 17 Dec / Edinburgh Stand 20 Dec, 8.30pm, £8-10 Material, Girl, 18 December, McChuill’s Glasgow, 8pm, £10. Lineup includes Susan Riddell, Josie Long, Amelia Bayler and more, hosted by Amanda Dwyer.

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December 2023 — Review

n 2017 I was picked to do the Edinburgh Fringe CKP Lunchtime Special – an afternoon compilation show made up of new talent. I’d only done about ten gigs so I was pretty terrified but I knew I couldn’t turn this down as CKP (now known as Blue Book Management) were one of the biggest comedy agencies out there with the likes of Micky Flanagan on their books. It was a total bootcamp experience and I learned so much and met some great people. Sindhu Vee was part of the CKP line up – she was the most experienced so she’d give me advice all the time. After finding out I’d never drunk alcohol before a gig, she encouraged me to experience it at least once. Spurred on by Sindhu’s words, after we did the Lunchtime show I had another ten minute spot in a pub just off the Royal Mile. I decided to get drunk with my friend (comedian and impressionist) Steff Todd before it. When I got on stage I couldn’t remember any of my set and when I tried to speak I just couldn’t stop laughing. I admitted to the audience I was drunk and, luckily for me, they found it pretty hilarious. I kept trying to compose myself and do my set but would be overwhelmed by the giggles and it was contagious. Everyone was in fits of laughter as I tried and failed to speak. It was like the ‘I love to laugh’ song in Mary Poppins; you could have scraped us all off the ceiling. It was a spiritual experience, I’m not joking. Offstage after the gig, people were shaking my hand on the way out and hugging me saying it was the most they’d ever laughed at a show in their life. I have since been drunk on stage a few times – it did not go like this again. Probably for the best. As for the best gig I can imagine, the truth is – the greatest scenario, the absolute dream for most comedians, which only ever happens once in a blue moon, when the stars align – the gig gets cancelled but you still get paid your fee! It is truly magical. Sometimes you turn up to a venue and there is no audience or there is a problem with the plumbing and the gig can’t go ahead

November 2023

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Listings Looking for something to do? Well you’re in the right place! Find listings below for the month ahead across Music, Clubs, Theatre, Comedy and Art in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dundee. To find out how to submit listings, head to theskinny.co.uk/listings

Glasgow Music Tue 28 Nov EXTREME

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, 19:00–22:30

Rock from Boston. THE MEFFS

KING TUT’S, 20:00– 22:30

Punk from the UK.

AS DECEMBER FALLS THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 19:00–22:30

Alt indie from Nottingham. ADAM THOM (THE BLACK DENIMS) THE GLAD CAFE, 19:30–22:30

Singer-songwriter from Aberdeen.

Wed 29 Nov

DUKE SPECIAL (DAVID FORD) KING TUT’S, 20:30– 22:00

TOM MCGUIRE AND THE BRASSHOLES

COROOK

Funk soul from Glasgow.

Singer-songwriter from Nashville.

SWG3, 19:00–22:00

VUKOVI (UNINVITED + LO RAYS)

CATHOUSE, 19:00–22:30

Rock from Scotland. THE TWANG

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00

Indie rock from the UK. ANLY

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00

Pop from Japan. JOHN

BROADCAST, 19:00–22:00

Indie from London. THE CORAL

BARROWLANDS, 19:00– 22:00

Rock from the UK.

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00

LORNA SHORE

BARROWLANDS, 18:00– 22:00

Deathcore from New Jersey.

GARETH WILLIAMS + BEWARE OF TRAINS

THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS, 19:00–22:00

Chamber pop.

DONNY OSMOND THE OVO HYDRO, 18:30–22:00

Singer-songwriter from the US.

Mon 04 Dec FLYTE

HARRY BIRD

THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS, 19:30–22:00

Alt folk.

OLIVE GROVE RECORDS AT THE GLAD (HANK TREE + ADAM ROSS + HENRY & FLEETWOOD) THE GLAD CAFE, 19:30–22:30

Local showcase.

Thu 07 Dec

BORIS GREBENSHCHIKOV

RIANNE DOWNEY

SWG3, 19:00–22:00

Singer-songwriter from Scotland. THE BIG MOON

STEREO, 19:00–22:30

Metalcore from Philadelphia. HOZIER

THE OVO HYDRO, 18:30–22:00

Indie folk from Ireland.

SWG3, 19:00–22:00

Tue 12 Dec

PAWS

ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:00

Indie rock.

CALUM BOWIE

THE PALE WHITE (LIZZIE ESSAU)

Indie from Scotland.

Rock from Newcastle.

BROADCAST, 19:00–22:00

SWG3, 19:00–22:00

Indie rock from the UK.

PIP BLOM

SWG3, 19:00–22:00

Indie from the Netherlands.

MATT DEIGHTON

WARGASM

KING TUT’S, 20:30– 22:00

Singer-songwriter from the UK.

Electro-punk from London.

BARROWLANDS, 19:00– 22:00

ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:00

Rock from Russia.

SPEAR OF DESTINY (DEREK FORBES & THE DARK)

GUN

Post-rock from the US.

Indie folk from London.

THE KATUNS

Indie rock from Canada.

KING TUT’S, 20:00– 22:00

Indie from Scotland.

JANICE BURNS & JON DORAN

Glam rock from London.

JESUS PIECE

KING TUT’S, 20:00– 22:00

ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:00

LAURA MISCH

QUEEN MARGARET UNION, 19:00–22:00

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00

THE RURAL ALBERTA ADVANTAGE STEREO, 19:00–22:30

SWEET

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00

Hard rock from Glasgow. HOLY WAVE

THE LATHUMS

SWG3, 19:00–22:00

Indie from Scotland.

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:00

ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:00

Wed 13 Dec

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00

ST LUKE’S, 19:00–22:00

FALSE HEADS

KING TUT’S, 20:30– 22:00

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00

ARCTIC LAKE

STRANGE DIMENSIONS

Indie from Scotland.

SWG3, 19:00–22:00

Alt pop from London. MIST

SWG3, 19:00–22:00

Grime from London.

Pop from Iceland.

KING TUT’S, 20:30– 22:00

Indie rock from Scotland. BILLY MITCHELL

VUKOVI (UNINVITED + LO RAYS)

SWG3, 19:00–22:00

Rock from Scotland.

SWG3, 19:00–22:00

CATHOUSE, 19:00–22:30

BROADCAST, 19:00–22:00

Indie pop from New York. CRAIG EDDIE

STEREO, 19:00–22:00

Singer-songwriter from Falkirk.

HIP HOP SCOTLAND X HIGH RISE (MASCIA + J82 + AKSENT + KIAN + P CASO) THE GLAD CAFE, 19:30–22:30

Hip-hop from Scotland.

JARROD DICKENSON (CHRIS KASPER) THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:00

MICKEY 9S

Electronica from Glasgow.

Hip-hop from London.

GOGOL BORDELLO SWG3, 19:00–22:00

Punk from New York. AGAINST THE CURRENT

Fri 08 Dec

Pop rock from the US.

ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:00

SWG3, 19:00–22:00

BLOOD COMMAND

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00

Punk from Norway.

CRYWANK (THEO VANDENHOFF)

BROADCAST, 19:00–22:00

Anti-folk from Manchester.

Tue 05 Dec

TEN TONNES (ELLIE BLEACH)

SKIPINNISH

KING TUT’S, 20:00– 22:00

Trad from Scotland.

GEMMA ROGERS (FRANCES GEIN)

BARROWLANDS, 19:30– 22:00

Indie from the UK.

THE IMAGINEERS

BROADCAST, 19:00–22:00

STEREO, 19:00–22:30

Indie punk from London.

VENOMWOLF (PISS BATH)

THE GLAD CAFE, 19:30–22:30

Indie from Glasgow.

DIGNITY ROW

THE FLYING DUCK, 19:00–23:00

Pop.

BMX BANDITS

THE OVO HYDRO, 18:30–22:00

Metalpunk from Glasgow.

ICE CUBE (CYPRESS HILL + THE GAME)

THE HUG AND PINT, 18:00–22:00

Rap from the US.

Pop from Scotland. UNDERSCORES

Psych pop from Ireland.

Wed 06 Dec ERIC PASLAY

MARTIN STEPHENSON & THE DAINTEES

Singer-songwriter from the UK. NATHAN DAWE

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00

Electronica from the UK. STRAID

KING TUT’S, 20:30– 22:00

THE SPOOK SCHOOL SWG3, 19:00–22:00

Indie pop from Edinburgh. PREGOBLIN

SWG3, 19:00–22:00

Alt rock from London. THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00

Indie soul from Yorkshire. SOAPBOX

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00

Rock from Glasgow. HAIG

BROADCAST, 19:00–22:00

Rock from New York. SHOOTING STANSFIELD

Hyperpop from the US.

ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:00

RYAN MCMULLAN

ASHNIKKO

GLEN MATLOCK

Fri 01 Dec

Sun 03 Dec

Country from Texas.

Indie from Edinburgh. THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:00

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00

Indie from the UK.

CVC

Punk from the UK.

LIL YACHTY

Alt pop from the US.

Folk punk from the UK. ADMIRAL FALLOW

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00

KING TUT’S, 20:30– 22:00

ROOM 2, 19:00–22:00

Indie from Scotland.

KATIE GREGSONMACLEOD

KING TUT’S, 20:30– 22:00

JAMIE LAWSON

SWG3, 19:00–22:00

Singer-songwriter from Plymouth.

KING TUT’S, 20:30– 22:00

Singer-songwriter from Scotland. ISAIAH DREADS

SWG3, 18:30–22:00

Grime from the UK.

URNE

Electro-Celtic from Edinburgh.

CATHOUSE, 19:00–22:00

Heavy metal from London.

Sat 09 Dec

CRYWANK (THEO VANDENHOFF)

BROADCAST, 19:00–22:00

Anti-folk from Manchester.

MILITARIE GUN

MONO, 20:00–22:00

Indie from LA.

Singer-songwriter from the UK.

THE INSOMNIACS + THE TRIPLE A’S + THE MOCKING BYRDS + LILY GRACE N THE STRING MERCHANTS

Pop from the UK.

JAZZ AT THE GLAD (MAHUKI)

Punk rock from London. DANKO JONES (LOS PEPES) KING TUT’S, 20:00– 22:00

Hard rock from Toronto. STRFKR

MONO, 20:00–22:00

Indie rock from Portland. M24

SWG3, 19:00–22:00

Rap from Brixton.

Eclectic lineup.

PORTRAYAL OF GUILT

Sun 10 Dec

Hardcore from Austin.

THERAPY?

KING TUT’S, 20:00– 22:00

STEREO, 19:00–22:30

Thu 14 Dec RUTS DC

Indie from Scotland.

CHINA CRISIS

Synth pop from the UK.

ELEPHANT SESSIONS

VLURE

SWG3, 19:00–22:00

Post-punk from Scotland. GREAT LAKE SWIMMERS

BROADCAST, 19:00–22:00

Folk rock from Canada. THE MARY WALLOPERS

BARROWLANDS, 19:00– 22:00

THE SAW DOCTORS

BARROWLANDS, 19:30– 22:00

Rock from Ireland.

Eclectic lineup.

BAR STOOL PREACHERS

Mon 11 Dec

Punk from Brighton.

Rock from New Jersey.

MONCRIEFF (QUIET MAN)

STEREO, 19:00–22:30

MIDDLE CLASS GUILT (AUTOCAMPER + NORMAL SERVICE)

THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS, 19:30–22:00

Rock from the Shetlands.

ST LUKE’S, 19:00–22:00

Indie from Northern Ireland. TOM JONES

THE OVO HYDRO, 18:30–22:00

BBC INTRODUCING LIVE IN SCOTLAND (HER PICTURE + NEVERFINE + LACUNA + POSTER CLUB) KING TUT’S, 20:30– 22:00

Eclectic lineup.

BARROWLANDS, 19:00– 22:00

FUN LOVIN' CRIMINALS

ST LUKE’S, 19:00–22:00

Rap rock from New York.

NOEL GALLAGHER'S HIGH FLYING BIRDS THE OVO HYDRO, 18:30–22:00

Britpop from the UK.

Thu 21 Dec PARLIAMO

Folk from Ireland.

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00

THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS, 20:00–22:00

CALLUM BEATTIE

ST LUKE’S, 19:00–22:00

CORE. LOCAL SHOWCASE (MONI JITCHELL + KUTE + WREAKING JOY)

FOY VANCE (BONNIE BISHOP)

Rock from Scotland.

Indie rock from Glasgow.

KING TUT’S, 20:00– 22:00

Indie rock from Glasgow.

Rock from Scotland.

KING TUT’S, 20:30– 22:00

Sun 17 Dec

Ceilidh from Ireland.

BARROWLANDS, 19:00– 22:00

CALLUM BEATTIE

TIJUANA BIBLES

Indie from Australia. VOODOOS

CALLUM BEATTIE

Trad from Scotland.

JACK HOUSTON & BAND THE GLAD CAFE, 19:30–22:30

Jazz pop from Scotland.

Wed 20 Dec

DMA’S

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00

SWG3, 19:00–22:00

Death metal from the UK.

ROOM 2, 19:00–22:00

SWG3, 19:00–22:00

Indie folk from Scotland.

KOHLA

Singer-songwriter from Wales.

ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:00

Punk from the UK.

Indie rock from Birmingham.

HECATE ENTHRONED (NYCTOPIA + TYMVOS)

Rock from Northern Ireland.

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00

YOKO PWNO (OSTAR SOUND)

Indie from Wales.

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:00

THE FRONT BOTTOMS

ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:00

Rap from Atlanta.

DANNY MELLIN

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:00

THE MEN THEY COULDN’T HANG

ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:00

Trad lineup.

LEWIS MCLAUGHLIN

SKINNY LIVING

Singer-songwriter from Texas.

THE OVO HYDRO, 18:30–22:00

ROOM 2, 19:00–22:00

Indie from Glasgow.

THE FLYING DUCK, 19:00–22:00

ROOM 2, 19:00–22:00

HOOLIE IN THE HYDRO

ST LUKE’S, 19:00–22:00

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00

NAPPY NINA

Hip-hop from Brooklyn. ROACHFORD

Underground pop from Perth.

BARROWLANDS, 19:00– 22:00

Rock from Scotland. PETER QUINN

Soul from the UK.

STEREO, 19:00–22:30

THE GLAD CAFE, 14:00–15:30

Fri 22 Dec

ICHI

Multi-instrumentalist from Japan. DEAN OWENS & THE SINNERS THE GLAD CAFE, 19:30–22:30

Alt country from Scotland. TEENAGE WRIST

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:00

Rock from LA.

Indie from Scotland.

HUMAN RENEGADE (IN CHARGE + AROUND 7) THE FLYING DUCK, 19:00–22:00

Alt rock from Glasgow.

SILENT NIGHT (REBEL FRUITION + THE FROOBZ + KEV HOWELL)

THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS, 19:00–22:00

Eclectic lineup.

KING TUT’S, 20:30– 22:00

LIV DAWN

Mon 18 Dec

PLAID

HELMET

Singer-songwriter from Scotland.

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00

Electronica from the UK.

Pop from Waterford.

CATHOUSE, 19:00–22:00

Alt metal from New York. THE DARKNESS

BARROWLANDS, 19:00– 22:00

Rock from the UK.

— 73 —

THE GLAD CAFE, 19:30–22:30

OCEAN COLOUR SCENE

Indie rock from Birmingham.

HOUSE GOSPEL CHOIR SWG3, 19:00–22:00

House from London.

CCA: CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART, 20:00–22:00

MAN OF MOON (CATS CRADLE) THE GLAD CAFE, 19:30–22:30

Alt rock from Edinburgh.

December 2023 — Listings

BABA ALI (NUHA RUBY RA + VANITY FAIRY)

Indie from Dundee.

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:00

Sat 16 Dec

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:00

DADI FREYR

Singer-songwriter from Scotland.

Jazz from Edinburgh.

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:00

Sat 02 Dec

KIRSTEEN HARVEY

ARAB STRAP

THE GLAD CAFE, 19:30–22:30

ADMIRAL FALLOW

Post-metal from Glasgow.

THE ALTERED HOURS

Rock from the UK.

Thu 30 Nov

THE FLYING DUCK, 19:00–22:00

Indie from the UK.

Indie rock from Wisconsin.

VOID OF LIGHT (IRON ALTAR + GREY STAG + PRIMITIVE VICES)

THE GLAD CAFE, 19:30–22:30

Eclectic lineup.

Jazz from Glasgow.

Rock from Ireland.

SHYGIRL

Synthpop from the US.

SLOW PULP

BARROWLANDS, 19:30– 22:00

MONO, 20:00–22:00

QUEEN MARGARET UNION, 19:00–22:00

AMARA

THE SAW DOCTORS

DAWNWALKER (HEALTHYLIVING + CWFEN)

THE GLAD CAFE, 19:30–22:30

THE OVO HYDRO, 18:30–22:00

OCEAN COLOUR SCENE

Tue 19 Dec

Rock from Colchester.

LOS PACAMINOS

MADNESS

THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS, 19:00–22:00

Indie rock from Thurso.

SWG3, 19:00–22:00

STEREO, 19:00–22:30

LINDA SMITH & NANCY ANDREWS

Folk from the UK.

Folk and chamber pop.

PET NEEDS

Musical comedy from the US.

STANLEY WELCH BAND

FORGETTING THE FUTURE

THE GLAD CAFE, 19:30–22:30

Jazz pop from London.

Psych from Texas.

Indie from Northern Ireland.

Art rock from Manchester.

ALMOST NOTHING

Post-rock from Belgium.

ST LUKE’S, 19:00–22:00

MODERN NATURE

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00

BRUTUS

FOY VANCE (BONNIE BISHOP)

KING TUT’S, 20:00– 22:00

THE GLAD CAFE, 19:30–22:30

BROADCAST, 19:00–22:00

THE GLAD CAFE, 19:30–22:30

DUTCH UNCLES (HEALTH & BEAUTY + PINC WAFER)

Indie rock from Ireland.

FRED ARMISEN

Singer-songwriter from Belfast.

Fri 15 Dec

THE SKINNY

Sat 23 Dec SAINT PHNX

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00

Alt pop from Scotland. THE NOTIONS

KING TUT’S, 20:30– 22:00

Alt rock from Scotland.

THE LINES (FRASER MCLEAN + ALLAN PURVIS) THE FLYING DUCK, 19:00–22:00

Alt rock from Glasgow.

HIPPY (HAZY SUNDAYS + CHLOE MCNEILL) ROOM 2, 19:00–22:00

Rock from Glasgow.

Wed 27 Dec

WEE RED BAR, 19:00– 22:00

Garage rock.

Sat 02 Dec

YOKO PWNO (OSTAR SOUND) THE BONGO CLUB, 19:30–22:00

Electro-Celtic from Edinburgh. JOHN

PAWS

ROACHFORD

Regular Glasgow club nights

Indie rock.

Soul from the UK.

The Rum Shack

WEE RED BAR, 17:00– 22:00

Sat 09 Dec THE AMAZONS

THE QUEEN’S HALL, 19:00–22:00

Rock from England. AULD SPELLS

WEE RED BAR, 19:00– 22:00

Dream pop.

ARAB STRAP

Indie from Scotland.

PETE MACLEOD

SUMMERHALL, 19:00– 22:00

Singer-songwriter from Scotland.

WOZNIAK (CANAAN BALSAM)

LOS PACAMINOS

Thu 28 Dec

WEE RED BAR, 19:00– 22:00

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, 20:00–22:00

Funk and soul.

CHRIS ANDREUCCI (GARY QUINN + JORDAN HARVEY) KING TUT’S, 20:30– 22:00

Country from Nashville.

Fri 29 Dec

CONNOR MCGLAVE KING TUT’S, 20:30– 22:00

Indie from Scotland.

Sun 31 Dec

JAIVA X THE GLAD CAFE NYE PARTY (BUTHOTHEWARRIOR + HU-SANE) THE GLAD CAFE, 20:00–01:00

Jazz, disco, house, amapiano, Afrohouse.

Edinburgh Music Tue 28 Nov SPECTOR

THE CAVES, 19:00–22:30

Indie rock from London.

THE REVERSE ENGINEER (DANIEL MCGURTY + THE CRAY TWINZ) SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00

Electronica from Edinburgh.

Wed 29 Nov

BABA ALI & NUHA RUBY RA (VANITY FAIRY) SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00

Electronic pop from New York.

WOLFSBANE (THE SPANGLES + DANGERFIELDS)

BANNERMANS, 19:30– 22:00

Heavy metal from the UK. ANTYTILA

Post-rock and ambient.

Sun 03 Dec FLYTE

THE CAVES, 19:00–22:00

Indie folk from London. SUBHUMANS

LA BELLE ANGELE, 19:00–22:00

Punk from the UK. EVE SIMPSON

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00

Singer-songwriter from Edinburgh.

NORTH ORBITAL (ABOLISH GOLF + KING SILVER) WEE RED BAR, 19:00– 22:00

Alt indie.

Mon 04 Dec BILLIE MARTEN

SUMMERHALL, 19:00– 22:00

Folk from the UK.

THE FAT STACKS SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00

Rock from Edinburgh.

MONDAY JAZZ (JAZZ SOCIETY) WEE RED BAR, 19:00– 22:00

Jazz.

Tue 05 Dec

CRYWANK (THEO VANDENHOFF)

THE CAVES, 19:00–22:00

Anti-folk from Manchester. THE DARKNESS

O2 ACADEMY EDINBURGH, 19:30–22:00

Rock from the UK.

HARRY BIRD (RAIN OF ANIMALS + GAVIN MCGINTY) WEE RED BAR, 19:00– 22:00

Alt folk.

Wed 06 Dec THE BITES

BANNERMANS, 19:30– 22:00

Rock from the US.

GEMMA ROGERS

THE LIQUID ROOM, 19:00–22:00

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00

Thu 30 Nov

Thu 07 Dec

Pop from Ukraine. ELECTRIC SIX

THE LIQUID ROOM, 19:00–22:00

Rock from Detroit.

KATIE GREGSONMACLEOD

SUMMERHALL, 19:00– 22:00

Singer-songwriter from Scotland.

Fri 01 Dec

TAE SUP AT THE QUEEN’S (PHILIP SELWAY + JAMES YORKSTON & NINA PERSSON + MARJOLEIN ROBERTSON)

Indie punk from London. EMMA MILLER + ANNA PANCALDI LEITH DEPOT, 19:30– 22:00

Folk from Scotland.

MIDNIGHT RODEO SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00

Art pop from Nottingham. THE JIG SHOW

WEE RED BAR, 19:00– 22:00

Heavy metal ceilidh.

Fri 08 Dec STOP STOP

BANNERMANS, 19:30– 22:00

Rock from the UK.

Indie from Scotland.

LA BELLE ANGELE, 19:00–22:00

Pop from the UK. MAHUKI

THE MASH HOUSE, 18:00–22:00

Jazz fusion.

THE ILLFORDS

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00

Rock from Edinburgh.

ALEXANDRA WHITTINGHAM

LA BELLE ANGELE, 19:00–22:00

Classical from the UK. AMPLIFI (LAMAYA + ZIGGY + CH UNSPOKEN) THE QUEEN’S HALL, 20:00–22:00

R’n’B from Scotland.

Afro, disco and funtimes with three of the best record collections in Glasgow and beyond.

Sub Club SATURDAYS SUBCULTURE

Sun 17 Dec

BLACKHALL RECORDS SHOWCASE (DICTATOR + MIDNIGHT AMBULANCE)

THE CAVES, 19:00–22:00

Eclectic lineup.

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

FRIDAYS (SECOND OF THE MONTH) RETURN TO MONO

THE MARY WALLOPERS

SLAM’s monthly Subbie residency sees them joined by some of the biggest names in international techno.

Folk from Ireland.

Cathouse

THE QUEEN’S HALL, 18:30–22:00

Synth pop from the UK.

PINLIGHT (DARA DUBH + AINO ELINA) WEE RED BAR, 19:00– 22:00

Sat 09 Dec

BLUE CHRISTMAS WITH JED POTTS LA BELLE ANGELE, 19:00–22:00

Blues.

LA BELLE ANGELE, 19:00–22:00

TALISK

Neo-trad from Scotland.

Sun 17 Dec

Hip-hop from the US.

Fri 22 Dec

JORDAN PHILLIPS (URSULA JANE)

THE STUMBLE

Punk from the UK. EH52’S

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00

Indie rock from West Lothian.

GRINCHMAS DANCE PARTY (LOVE WORLD ORDER + THE BLUES MOTHERS) WEE RED BAR, 19:00– 22:00

Indie from Edinburgh.

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00

USHER HALL, 19:00– 22:00

Disco, funk and blues. THE UNTHANKS

Folk from the UK.

SPARE SNARE

BEAT GENERATOR LIVE!, 20:00–22:00

Glasgow THE CAVES, 19:00–22:00 Clubs Blues from Scotland. Sat 23 Dec

Wed 29 Nov

Fri 29 Dec SKERRYVORE

O2 ACADEMY EDINBURGH, 19:00–22:00

Trad from Scotland.

CIRCA PRESENTS: WALLACE

THE BERKELEY SUITE, 23:00–03:00

House and disco.

Sat 30 Dec BIG COUNTRY

Rock from Fife.

Techno.

Dundee Music

House and techno.

HEADSET’S 9TH BIRTHDAY EXTRAVAGANZA (CREEP WOLAND + DJ GREENMAN + FEENA + KAIROGEN + SKILLIS + VAJ.POWER) STEREO, 23:00–04:00

Bass, dubstep and breaks. EZUP IS 10

LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–03:00

House and techno.

Sun 03 Dec

KEEP ON (MARK O’RONI)

Thu 07 Dec

SUB CLUB, 23:00–04:00

Ska from the UK.

MISSING PERSONS CLUB // 11TH BIRTHDAY

LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–03:00

SUB CLUB PRESENTS: EWAN MCVICAR

LA BELLE ANGELE, 19:00–22:00

Techno and afrobeats.

LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–03:00

Bass and garage.

BAD MANNERS

SUB CLUB, 23:00–04:00

Thu 30 Nov STFU

THE LIQUID ROOM, 19:00–22:00

Techno and bass.

Sat 02 Dec

Indie rock from Dundee.

LA BELLE ANGELE, 19:00–22:00

Club and dance.

Rock from Scotland.

DUCK SLATTERY’S, 19:00–22:00

Punk rock from Scotland.

THE MASH HOUSE, 19:00–22:00

SUBCITY RADIO

THE BERKELEY SUITE, 23:00–03:00

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00

RUTS DC

CHEERS FOR THIRD SUNDAY

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

Classic rock through the ages from DJ Nicola Walker.

The Garage Glasgow MONDAYS

BARE MONDAYS

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

#TAG 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

THURSDAYS ELEMENT

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

FRESH BEAT

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

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

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

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

CALLUM BEATTIE

Sat 23 Dec

Punk from Scotland.

Pop party anthems and classic cheese from DJ Nicola Walker.

Folk from Ireland.

THE EXPLOITED (FACE UP! + CRITIKILL)

LA BELLE ANGELE, 19:00–22:00

FLASHBACK

JAIVA ( JAMZ SUPERNOVA + JOSHUA DUBE + BUTHOTHEWARRIOR)

DUCK SLATTERY’S, 19:00–22:00

Alt punk.

SCARS (TAM DEAN BURN)

SUNDAYS (SECOND OF THE MONTH)

LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–03:00

FUN LOVIN’ CRIMINALS

Hip-hop from Brooklyn.

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

THE MARY WALLOPERS

WEE RED BAR, 19:00– 22:00

SUMMERHALL, 19:00– 22:00

HELLBENT

Thu 14 Dec

Rock from the UK.

NAPPY NINA

SUNDAYS (FIRST OF THE MONTH)

Wed 20 Dec

RADIO RATZ

Fri 15 Dec

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.

Rock from Canada.

Indie rock from Glasgow.

Indie folk.

CATHOUSE SATURDAYS

LEZURE 070: LUKAS WIGFLEX + SLOAN + DENNIS ROSWELL

BEAT GENERATOR LIVE!, 19:30–22:00

WEE RED BAR, 19:00– 22:00

SATURDAYS

Singer-songwriter from Scotland.

STEVE MASON

BANNERMANS, 19:30– 22:00

Indie rock from Thurso.

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

CHURCH, 19:00–22:00

BANNERMANS, 19:30– 22:00

GINGER WILDHEART

FORGETTING THE FUTURE

CATHOUSE FRIDAYS

THE FLYING DUCK, 23:00–03:00

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00

Classical soul from the UK.

FRIDAYS

SUNDAYS (THIRD OF THE MONTH)

Mon 18 Dec

Fri 15 Dec

THE QUEEN’S HALL, 19:00–22:00

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

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

Thu 21 Dec

ALEXIS FFRENCH

UNHOLY

CATHOUSE WEDNESDAYS

VOODOOS

Thu 14 Dec

THURSDAYS

WEDNESDAYS

BURNING BRIDGES (FUKTIVANO + CHRIS NORRIS)

Indie rock from Scotland.

Sat 16 Dec

Rock from Colchester.

Alternative.

O2 ACADEMY EDINBURGH, 19:30–22:00

Punk rock from London. PET NEEDS

WEE RED BAR, 19:00– 22:00

Alt pop.

THE VIEW

DINOSAUR 94

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00

BARON NONESUTCH

Wed 13 Dec

COCKNEY REJECTS

Folk from Scotland.

LOOSEN UP

THE QUEEN’S HALL, 19:00–22:00

CHINA CRISIS

BANNERMANS, 19:30– 22:00

SATURDAYS (SECOND OF THE MONTH)

Singer-songwriter from Edinburgh.

Mon 11 Dec

THE QUEEN’S HALL, 20:00–22:00

LA BELLE ANGELE, 19:00–22:00

THE MASH HOUSE, 19:00–22:00

Rock from Newcastle. JELEPHANT (EINSTEINS WARDROBE + NIAMH MACLEMAN)

Soul party feat. 60s R&B, motown, northern soul and more!

JOSHUA GRANT

THE LIQUID ROOM, 19:00–22:00

SATURDAYS (THIRD OF THE MONTH) MOJO WORKIN’

Eclectic lineup.

Rock from Scotland.

THE ROOKS

Alternative from Glasgow.

SUMMERHALL, 13:30– 22:00

THE CAVES, 19:00–22:00

NATI

ST LUKE’S, 19:00–22:00

LOST MAP PRESENTS HUMBUG!

Sun 10 Dec

THE MASH HOUSE, 19:00–22:00

Indie from London.

THE LIQUID ROOM, 19:00–22:00

CALLUM BEATTIE

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00

CRAIG CHARLES FUNK & SOUL HOUSE PARTY

December 2023 — Listings

CLAREFEST (THE THANES + SALLY SKULL + THE RAVEDIGGERS)

THUDLINE: NALA, ROY DON AND SLOAN THE BERKELEY SUITE, 23:00–03:00

Italo Disco.

CLUB SEROTONE & HOLD ON TIGHT! PRESENTS: EVA + FEMME DM

THE BERKELEY SUITE, 23:00–03:00

Techno and tech house.

Fri 08 Dec

Breakbeat and bass.

SOLARDO

UME (BLEAKS + KNIVES CHAU FAN CLUB)

Fri 01 Dec

House.

SWG3, 23:00–03:00

HAWKCHILD DIY: EVIAN CHRIST

Punk rock from Texas.

DKEN

Trance.

Sat 02 Dec

SWIFTOGEDDON

CHURCH, 19:00–22:00

SWG3, 23:00–03:00

Thu 07 Dec

RUVELLAS + KNACKERED + THE TRIPLE A'S + TRANSLATION + THE NAEBODY'S CHURCH, 19:00–22:00

Eclectic lineup.

Pop.

Hard dance.

PHASE GROUP X A CUT ABOVE (LOSTSOUNDBYTES + CLYDE ARCALIS + TC LK + SOFAY) STEREO, 23:00–03:00

Electro and techno.

— 74 —

SWG3, 23:00–03:00

STEREO, 23:00–03:00

ILEX: LENA WILLIKENS + SOFAY + RIBEKA LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–03:00

House and techno.

Sat 09 Dec

HITS DIFFERENT: THE NEW WAVE OF POP SWG3, 23:00–03:00

Pop.

MISFITS INDOOR FESTIVAL

SWG3, 21:00–03:00

House and techno.

DJ $YCLOPS X STEREO: VOLVOX

Sat 16 Dec

VLURE AFTERPARTY SWG3, 23:00–03:00

House and dance.

LA CHEETAH PRESENTS: ILIAN TAPE + SKEE MASK + ZENKER BROTHERS LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–03:00

Techno and house.

Techno and bass.

SHOOT YOUR SHOT: ANGEL D’LITE

THE FLYING DUCK, 23:00–03:00

Techno and disco.

STEREO, 23:00–04:00

CHISPA (HEDO HYDR8)

Bass from Copenhagen.

COOKING WITH PALMS TRAX

THE BERKELEY SUITE, 23:00–03:00

DECEMBER DANSE MACABRE (DJ CATNIP) BONJOUR, 23:00–03:00

LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–03:00

Italo disco.

LOOSE JOINTS: SPRAY + EOIN DJ + NURSE

KEEP ON WITH DOMENIC CAPPELLO

House and techno.

House and disco.

House and techno.

Sun 17 Dec

THE BERKELEY SUITE, 23:00–03:00

LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–03:00

Sun 10 Dec

Fri 22 Dec

KEEP ON WITH OOFT! & DAVID BARBAROSSA LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–03:00

6EJOU

SWG3, 23:00–03:00

Underground and techno. ARIELLE FREE

Disco and balearic.

SWG3, 22:00–03:00

Tue 12 Dec

D.O.D

RARE CLUB WITH TIBASKO: THE LADY GODIVA TOUR LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–03:00

House and techno.

Wed 13 Dec

FLOS COLLECTIVE

STEREO, 23:00–03:00

House and disco.

Club and dance.

SWG3, 23:00–03:00

House and dance.

OUTER ZONE: SURGEON + WARDY + DOM D’SYLVA LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–03:00

House.

Sat 23 Dec

TMP 2023: THE FINALE

Thu 14 Dec

SWG3, 20:00–03:00

LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–03:00

Tue 26 Dec

Fri 15 Dec

SWG3, 20:00–03:00

SWG3, 23:00–03:00

Wed 27 Dec

FLIPSIDE

Bass and garage. SIKOTI

Hard techno.

MISSINGS PERSON CLUB: ASCENDANT VIERGE

STEREO, 23:00–03:00

Gabber and pop.

SENSU (TRAUMER + JUNIOR)

SUB CLUB, 23:00–04:00

House and techno.

Techno.

COLOURSFEST WINTER PARTY

House and dance.

A.D.S.R PRESENTS LESSER OF LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–03:00

Breakbeat and techno.

MISSING PERSONS CLUB // XMAS PARTY THE BERKELEY SUITE, 23:00–03:00

House and techno.

THE SKINNY

Fri 29 Dec

ANIMAL FARM 19TH BIRTHDAY (BLAWAN + QUAIL + AISHA + DNZ + LAZLO) SUB CLUB, 23:00–04:00

Techno.

THE HAMMER HITS

THE BERKELEY SUITE, 23:00–03:00

House and disco.

Sun 31 Dec

NEW YEAR’S EVE

SWG3, 21:00–05:00

House and techno.

PONYBOY X STEREO HOGMANAY (TAAHLIAH) STEREO, 23:00–03:00

Techno, hyperpop and hardcore.

FLYING DUCK HOGMANAY PARTY THE FLYING DUCK, 22:00–04:00

Big fucking party.

NYE 2023 (DJRUM + DETROIT IN EFFECT + NIGHTWAVE) LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–05:00

House and techno.

Edinburgh Clubs Wed 29 Nov

ONA:V INVITES NANO SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00

Techno.

Thu 30 Nov

FULL FRONTAL: JORDY DEELIGHT SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00

Disco.

VIVID EVENTS PRESENTS - SAINT LUDO CABARET VOLTAIRE, 23:00–03:00

Techno and garage.

Fri 01 Dec

SO FETCH: 2000S XMAS PARTY LA BELLE ANGELE, 23:00–03:00

Pop.

Sat 02 Dec

SAMEDIA SHEBEEN THE MASH HOUSE, 23:00–03:00

Tropical beats. EHFM

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00

House and techno. COMPRESSION

WEE RED BAR, 23:00– 03:00

Trance and hard house.

Wed 06 Dec HAPTIC

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00

UK Garage.

Fri 08 Dec K-POP PARTY

LA BELLE ANGELE, 23:00–03:00

K-pop.

PARABELLVM XVI W / DUELLIST, DV60, SHAUN RESIST AND RESIDENTS THE MASH HOUSE, 23:00–03:00

Techno and experimental.

Wed 13 Dec

EPIKA

THE MASH HOUSE, 23:00–03:00

TIBASKO: LADY GODIVA TOUR

Electronica.

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00

THE MIRROR DANCE: JOE DELON & SOFIE K

House from London.

FRIDAYS FLY CLUB

Edinburgh and Glasgowstraddling night, with a powerhouse of local residents joined by a selection of guest talent. SATURDAYS PLEASURE

Regular Saturday night at Cab Vol, with residents and occasional special guests.

LA BELLE ANGELE, 23:00–03:00

Mon 18 Dec

WEE RED BAR, 23:00– 03:00

CIRCLE 14 WITH KAIROGEN

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–05:00

UK techno.

KOLEKTIV & FLOOR ABOVE PRESENT: TOMMY HOLOHAN

Techno.

Wed 20 Dec

Trance and techno.

MIGHTY OAK

Reggae and dub.

Sat 09 Dec

NSA DAY CULTURE THE BONGO CLUB, 16:00–03:00

Techno.

REGGAETON PARTY LA BELLE ANGELE, 23:00–03:00

Reggaeton.

CLUB NACHT

THE MASH HOUSE, 23:00–03:00

Electronica.

HAND-MADE BY DEKMANTEL SOUNDSYSTEM SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00

House from Amsterdam. ASCENSION

House from Lisbon.

SWIFTOGEDDON

MILE HIGH CLUB

Pop.

THE MASH HOUSE, 23:00–03:00

RED ROOM SOUND: SIMO CELL SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00

Bass from Paris.

SAVED BY THE 90’S CHRISTMAS EDITION LA BELLE ANGELE, 23:00–03:00

90s pop.

EDINBURGH DISCO LOVERS SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00

Disco.

249’S QUEER PARTY FOR ALL SUMMERHALL, 22:00– 03:00

Mon 11 Dec

Sat 16 Dec

Goth and industrial.

STAND B-SIDE DIXON AVENUE BASEMENT JAMS SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00

The Bongo Club TUESDAYS

MIDNIGHT BASS, 23:00

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

Club and pop.

ELECTRIKAL, 23.00

Sound system and crew, part of a music and art collective specialising in BASS music.

FRIDAYS (MONTHLY, WEEK CHANGES) SOUND SYSTEM LEGACIES, 23.00

Exploring the legacy of dub, reggae and roots music and sound system culture in the contemporary club landscape.

FRIDAYS (EVERY OTHER MONTH)

DISCO MAKOSSA, 23.00

Disco Makossa takes the dancefloor on a funk-filled trip through the sounds of African disco, boogie and house – strictly for the dancers.

FRIDAYS (EVERY OTHER MONTH)

OVERGROUND, 23.00

A safe space to appreciate all things rave, jungle, breakbeat and techno.

Everything from disco, funk and soul to electro and house: Saturday night party music all night long. SATURDAYS (MONTHLY)

SOULSVILLE INTERNATIONAL, 23.00

International soulful sounds.

SATURDAYS (EVERY OTHER MONTH) PULSE, 23.00

Techno night started in 2009 hosting regular special guests from the international scene.

Sneaky Pete’s MONDAYS

MORRISON STREET/STAND B-SIDE/CHAOS IN THE COSMOS/TAIS-TOI

House and techno dunts from some of Edinburgh's best young teams. TUESDAYS RARE

Weekly house and techno with rising local DJs and hot special guests. THURSDAYS (FIRST OF THE MONTH) VOLENS CHORUS

Resident DJs with an eclectic, global outlook

FRIDAYS (SECOND OF THE MONTH) HOT MESS

A night for queer people and their friends.

Thu 21 Dec

Disco and electronica.

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–05:00

Fri 22 Dec

Techno and industrial.

MEANWHILE

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–05:00

Sat 23 Dec

House, acid and garage.

TONTO TECHNO | XX13 | PARFAIT

SUNDAYS POSTAL

Weekly Sunday session showcasing the very best of heavy-hitting local talent with some extra special guests.

The Liquid Room

SATURDAYS (FIRST OF THE MONTH) REWIND

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

The Hive MONDAYS

MIXED UP MONDAY

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

TRASH TUESDAY

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

COOKIE WEDNESDAY

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

HI-SOCIETY THURSDAY

Student anthems and bangerz. FRIDAYS

FLIP FRIDAY

Yer all-new Friday at Hive. Cheap entry, inevitably danceable, and noveltystuffed. Perrrfect. SATURDAYS BUBBLEGUM

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

Subway Cowgate MONDAYS

Blow the cobwebs off the week with a weekly Monday night party with some of Scotland’s biggest and best drag queens. TUESDAYS TAMAGOTCHI

Throwback Tuesdays with non-stop 80s, 90s, 00s tunes.

ATHENS OF THE NORTH DISCO CLUB

Glasgow Comedy

AMPLIFY PRESENTS ARMAN JOHN

DILF EDINBURGH : FESTIVE BASH! LA BELLE ANGELE, 22:00–05:00

Pop.

TELFORT’S GOOD PLACE WITH MOVE D SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–05:00

House from Germany.

Techno.

4TH DIMENSION TRANCE AND HARD HOUSE PRESENTS SOUND PULSATION

The drinks are easy and the pop is heavy. SUNDAYS

SUNDAY SERVICE

Atone for the week before and the week ahead with non-stop dancing.

The Mash House RESIST

A weekly techno extravaganza.

SATURDAYS (FIRST OF THE MONTH) SAMEDIA SHEBEEN

Joyous global club sounds: think Afrobeat, Latin and Arabic dancehall on repeat. SATURDAYS (LAST OF THE MONTH) PULSE

THE MASH HOUSE, 23:00–05:00

Trance and house.

Sun 31 Dec

NIGHT TUBE HOGMANAY: BIG MIZ

The best techno DJs sit alongside The Mash House resident Darrell Pulse.

17 DEC, 8:30PM – 9:30PM

SUSAN RIDDELL: SELF ON THE SHELF

National treasure Akaash Singh hits the road once more.

Budge up Elf, Susan's been on this shelf a lot longer than you and it doesn't look like she's going anywhere any time soon.

The Stand Glasgow

THE STAND CHRISTMAS SPECIAL 14-15 DEC, 8:30PM – 9:30PM

It's time to get in the Christmas spirit. With host Jay Lafferty, Sam Lake, Marjolein Robertson and headliner Marc Jennings. WILLIAM THOMPSON: THE HAND YOU’RE DEALT 11 DEC, 8:30PM – 9:30PM

William is trying his best to make the most out of the hand he was dealt. BBC New Comedy Awards finalist 2021.

BENEFIT IN AID OF SCOTTISH SPORT FUTURES

6 DEC, 8:00PM – 9:00PM

An Christmas night out raising money for a good cause.

ROSCO MCCLELLAND: SLUG NUDGER 10 DEC, 2:30PM – 3:30PM

Join us for an unforgettable night of hilarity as the uproarious Rosco takes the stage to record their brandnew stand-up comedy special. PAM ANN RETURNS GLASGOW 13 DEC, 8:00PM – 9:00PM

International air hostess Pam Ann makes her triumphant return to her favorite audience in the world.

Christmas Comedy Specials at The Glee Club offer you the best comedians and a delicious festive menu.

FIRST AND THIRD TUESDAY OF THE MONTH DRYGATE COMEDY LAB, 19:00

A new material comedy night hosted by Chris Thorburn.

The Stand Glasgow

FIRST MONDAY OF THE MONTH

The Stand Edinburgh MONDAYS

TUESDAYS (FIRST OF THE MONTH)

SAMEDIA HOGMANAY TROPICAL SOUNDCLASH - NYE PARTY! WITH TOM SPIRALS | SAMEDIA SHEBEEN | RAZ & ALFA LA BELLE ANGELE, 22:00–05:00

House and afrobeat. HEADSET NYE: 4 ROOMS THE MASH HOUSE, 21:00–05:00

House.

POSTAL NEW YEAR SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–05:00

Bass.

— 75 —

Legendary new material night with up to eight acts. FRIDAYS

THE FRIDAY SHOW, 20:30

The big weekend show with four comedians. SATURDAYS

THE SATURDAY SHOW, 20:30

The big weekend show with four comedians.

The Glee Club FRIDAYS

FRIDAY NIGHT COMEDY, 19:00

The perfect way to end the working week, with four superb stand-up comedians. SATURDAYS

SATURDAY NIGHT COMEDY, 19:00

An evening of awardwinning comedy, with four superb stand-up comedians that will keep you laughing until Monday.

Regular Edinburgh comedy nights

OFF THE STREET NEW YEAR PARTY THE BONGO CLUB, 21:00–03:00

RED RAW, 20:30

Host Billy Kirkwood and guests act entirely on your suggestions.

RED RAW, 20:30

Garage and tech house.

TUESDAYS

MONDAY NIGHT IMPROV, 20:30

CABARET VOLTAIRE, 23:00–03:00

Soul and funk.

FRIDAYS

17 DEC, 6:00PM – 7:00PM

AKAASH SINGH: GASLIT

Drygate Brewing Co.

THURSDAYS

SLICE SATURDAY

The Weegie boys are at The Stand this Christmas with an all new show. Definitely not your average seasonal panto.

2-23 DEC, TIMES VARY

Electro.

THE MASH HOUSE, 23:00–05:00

SATURDAYS

1-23 DEC, 7:30PM – 8:30PM

The P1 Live Show returns! After a hugely successful first show back in April, P1 are taking to the road once again.

5 DEC, 7:00PM – 8:00PM

Regular Glasgow comedy nights

PULSE: BLAWAN

Chart-topping tunes perfect for an irresistible sing and dance-along.

CHRISTMAS COMEDY SPECIAL

WEEGIE HINK AE PANTO?

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–05:00

Banger after banger all night long.

FIT FRIDAYS

The Glee Club

P1 WITH MATT & TOMMY

CRAIGIE KNOWES

TWISTA

FRIDAYS

Indie and motown.

An entirely new Potter adventure is magically improvised on the spot.

Trance and techno.

Sat 30 Dec

Pop, cheese and chart.

KINGS, 23:00–03:00

10 DEC, 8:30PM – 9:30PM

LA BELLE ANGELE, 22:00–05:00

WEDNESDAYS

FLIRTY

Fri 15 Dec FELT

Fri 29 Dec

TRACKS

KINGS, 23:00–03:00

LA BELLE ANGELE, 23:00–03:00

Thu 28 Dec

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

Sat 09 Dec

BEN GOMORI + DEE BOOGS

Rave.

SOUL JAM

KINGS, 23:00–03:00

House.

OVERGROUND

SECRET SUNDAY

Fri 08 Dec

TECHNODROME ‘REVERSE BASS’

Wed 27 Dec

SUNDAYS

KINGS, 23:00–03:00

UK techno.

Disco.

Pop and punk.

Sat 02 Dec

UK techno.

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–05:00

LA BELLE ANGELE, 23:00–03:00

KINGS, 23:00–03:00

DICKY TRISCO + MR DORIS

Techno and dance.

DECADE

Fri 01 Dec

31 DEC, 6:45PM – 7:45PM

SPONTANEOUS POTTER: THE UNOFFICAL IMPROVISED PARODY

Legendary new material night with up to 8 acts.

STU & GARRY’S IMPROV SHOW, 20:30

The Stand’s very own Stu & Garry’s make comedy cold from suggestions. THURSDAYS

THE BEST OF SCOTTISH COMEDY, 20:30

Simply the best comics on the contemporary Scottish circuit. FRIDAYS

THE FRIDAY SHOW, 21

The big weekend show :00with four comedians. SATURDAYS

THE SATURDAY SHOW (THE EARLY SHOW), 17:00

A slightly earlier performance of the big weekend show with four comedians.

SATURDAYS

THE SATURDAY SHOW, 20:30

The big weekend show with four comedians.

Monkey Barrel SECOND AND THIRD TUESDAY OF EVERY MONTH

THE EDINBURGH REVUE, 19:00

The University of Edinburgh's Comedy Society, who put on sketch and stand-up comedy shows every two weeks. WEDNESDAYS

TOP BANANA, 19:00

Catch the stars of tomorrow today in Monkey Barrel's new act night every Wednesday. THURSDAYS

SNEAK PEAK, 19:00 + 21:00

Four acts every Thursday take to the stage to try out new material.

FRIDAYS

MONKEY BARREL COMEDY'S BIG FRIDAY SHOW, 19:00/21:00

Monkey Barrel's flagship night of premier stand-up comedy. FRIDAYS

DATING CRAPP, 22:00

Tinder, Bumble, Grindr, Farmers Only...Come and laugh as some of Scotland's best improvisers join forces to perform based off two audience members dating profiles. SATURDAYS

MONKEY BARREL COMEDY'S BIG SATURDAY SHOW, 17:00/19:00/21:00

Monkey Barrel's flagship night of premier stand-up comedy. SUNDAYS

MONKEY BARREL COMEDY'S BIG SUNDAY SHOW, 19:00/21:00

Monkey Barrel's flagship night of premier stand-up comedy.

December 2023 — Listings

FRIDAYS (THIRD OF THE MONTH)

MUMBO JUMBO, 23.00

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–05:00

Monthly no-holds-barred, down-and-dirty disco.

SATURDAYS (MONTHLY)

MEMBRANE

AGORA

Fri 15 Dec

WEE RED BAR, 23:00– 03:00

Skillis and guests playing garage, techno, house and bass downstairs, with old school hip hop upstairs.

Roots reggae rocking since 1987 – foundation tune, fresh dubs, vibes alive, rockers, steppers, rub-a-dub.

Dundee Clubs

Bass.

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00

SATURDAYS (LAST OF THE MONTH)

MESSENGER, 23.00

Hogmanay Comedy Show! See in 2024 with the best comedians, excellent food, and an after party to remember.

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00

FRIDAYS (FIRST OR LAST OF THE MONTH)

SATURDAYS (FIRST OR SECOND OF THE MONTH)

Soul and disco.

SUMMERHALL, 21:00– 03:00

Thu 14 Dec

Regular Edinburgh club nights HEADSET, 23.00

HOGMANAY COMEDY SHOW

MISS WORLD

House and techno.

Cabaret Voltaire

HOGMANAY “OFF THE STREET” PARTY

THE SKINNY

HOGMANAY SPECIALS 27-31 DEC, 8:00PM – 9:00PM

Let’s get ready to wave goodbye to 2023! With host Marc Jennings, Susan Riddell, Gary Little and headliner Ray Bradshaw.

Edinburgh Comedy Monkey Barrel Comedy Club THE BIG SHOW

15-30 DEC, TIMES VARY

The Monkey Barrel’s comedian-packed show.

THE BIG SHOW XMAS AND NY SPECIALS!

12-28 DEC, TIMES VARY

A top stand-up comedy lineup to ring out the end of the year. THE BIG SHOW HOGMANAY SPECIAL! 31 DEC, TIMES VARY

A top stand-up comedy lineup to ring out the end of the year.

The Stand Edinburgh

THE STAND CHRISTMAS SPECIAL 14-16 DEC, 8:30PM – 9:30PM

It's time to get in the Christmas spirit. With host Jay Lafferty, Sam Lake, Marjolein Robertson and headliner Marc Jennings. WILLIAM THOMPSON: THE HAND YOU’RE DEALT 10 DEC, 8:30PM – 9:30PM

William is trying his best to make the most out of the hand he was dealt. BBC New Comedy Awards finalist 2021.

SUSAN MORRISON IS HISTORICALLY FUNNY 17 DEC, 5:00PM – 6:00PM

Host of BBC Radio Scotland’s Time Travels takes you through some of Scotland’s seediest, skankiest and scandalous history. And the funniest. WEEGIE HINK AE PANTO?

7-10 DEC, TIMES VARY

The Weegie boys are at The Stand this Christmas with an all new show. Definitely not your average seasonal panto. SUSAN RIDDELL: SELF ON THE SHELF

December 2023 — Listings

20 DEC, 8:30PM – 9:30PM

Budge up Elf, Susan's been on this shelf a lot longer than you and it doesn't look like she's going anywhere any time soon. THE BEST OF SCOTTISH COMEDY: HOGMANAY SPECIAL

27-31 DEC, TIMES VARY

Talk about doing what it says on the tin! Simply the best comics on the contemporary Scottish circuit.

Glasgow Theatre Oran Mor

SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN MAWS 1-30 DEC, TIMES VARY

Another subversive take on panto by Johnny McKnight.

Royal Conservatoire of Scotland INTO THE WOODS 5-8 DEC, 7:00PM – 9:00PM

An epic fairytale adventure given the Sondheim treatment.

The King’s Theatre

Glasgow SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS Art 2 DEC-7 JAN 24, TIMES VARY

Classic panto magic starring Elaine C Smith and Johnny Mac.

Theatre Royal

SCOTTISH BALLET: CINDERS!

9-31 DEC, TIMES VARY

An intermittently genderswapped take on the Prokofiev classic.

Tron Theatre

AGANEZA SCROOGE

1 DEC-7 JAN 24, TIMES VARY

Another Johnny McKnight panto turns the story of A Christmas Carol on its head.

Edinburgh Theatre Festival Theatre

THE PANTOMIME ADVENTURES OF PETER PAN

1-31 DEC, TIMES VARY

The Festival Theatre’s Christmas pantomine heads to Neverland.

Royal Lyceum Theatre THE SNOW QUEEN

1-31 DEC, TIMES VARY

A festive magical adventure taking place in a frozen world.

Summerhall A VERY CRYPTO CHRISTMAS

2 DEC, 7:30PM – 9:30PM

Part seminar, part karaoke, this piece of anarchic absurdist theatre is an excellent festive antidote.

The Edinburgh Playhouse WICKED

7 DEC-14 JAN 24, TIMES VARY

Learn the real story behind the Wicked Witch of the West in this Tony and Olivier Award-winning musical.

Traverse Theatre

MARK THOMAS: ENGLAND & SON

5-9 DEC, 8:00PM – 9:30PM

A blistering examination of class and empire told through a one-man play written especially for political comedian Mark Thomas.

SAME TEAM: A STREET SOCCER STORY 8-23 DEC, TIMES VARY

Five women come together to win the Homeless World Cup in this uplifting tale of community and teamwork.

Dundee Theatre

Dundee Rep

A CHRISTMAS CAROL 1-30 DEC, TIMES VARY

Dundee Rep return with their critically acclaimed staging of the Dickens classic.

16 Nicholson Street

SHAE MYLES: HUSH LIL BABY

1-16 DEC, TIMES VARY

Inspired by Polly Pocket compacts, this interactive sculptural exhibition explores ideas of coming-ofage, memory and nostalgia.

CCA: Centre for Contemporary Art RHONA MÜHLEBACH: DITCH ME 1-2 DEC, TIMES VARY

A moving image work drawing on the history of the Antonine Wall in Scotland, transposing historical events into a new fictional world. TULANI HLALO: TROPHY ROOM

1-9 DEC, TIMES VARY

A playful series of installations using creative competitive dog grooming to explore how identities are defined and performed.

Compass Gallery

THE WINTER SHOW 2023

1 DEC-31 JAN 24, TIMES VARY

A selection of paintings, drawings, sculpture and ceramics added to throughout the winter months.

GoMA

BEAGLES & RAMSAY: NHOTB & RAD 1 DEC-28 APR 24, 11:00AM – 4:00PM

Artist duo use life-size sculptures and video to create a flagship store interrogating ideas of consumerism and labour.

Patricia Fleming

JANE TOPPING: DREW BARRYMORE’S ISLAND HOTEL FROM HELL 1-15 DEC, 11:00AM – 4:00PM

A solo exhibition by Glasgow artist examining the material aesthetics of gender.

Six Foot Gallery

WINTER OPEN CALL 2023 – WARM VOICES 7 DEC-9 JAN 24, 10:00AM – 5:00PM

An open-call exhibition of a diverse range of art.

Street Level Photoworks SIMON MURPHY: GOVANHILL

1 DEC-27 JAN 24, TIMES VARY

Street portraiture of Govanhill residents encompassing several years of work.

The Briggait MARTIN IRISH: ABSTRACTED PERSPECTIVE

1-21 DEC, TIMES VARY

Inverness-based artist exploring the subtleties of form and texture.

The Modern Institute

JACK MCCONVILLE: HELIUM QUALITY

1-30 DEC, TIMES VARY

Bright, figurative paintings by Glasgow-based artist.

Tramway

BILLIE ZANGEWA: A QUIET FIRE

1 DEC-28 JAN 24, TIMES VARY

Figurative collages handstitched from fragments of raw silk challenging the social perceptions of Black women.

RAMESH MARIO NITHIYENDRAN: IDOLS OF MUD AND WATER 1 DEC-21 APR 24, TIMES VARY

Elaborate ceramic sculptures examine the iconographies of social, political and cultural narratives.

iota @ Unlimited Studios

NORMAN SUTTONHIBBERT: VIEWS FROM MY STUDIO 2-16 DEC, 12:00PM – 5:00PM

Constantly changing colours, forms, light and weather transcribed into a series of paintings.

Edinburgh Art &Gallery

JOAN DOERR: INTO THE LIGHT

28-29 NOV, TIMES VARY

Abstract paintings in which layers of paint are applied and peeled off to explore palimpsestic ideas of representation. ANNUAL WINTER EXHIBITION

2-23 DEC, TIMES VARY

A collection of paintings, print, collage, sculptures and ceramics featuring one artwork from each artist represented by the gallery.

Arusha Gallery ANNA ROCKE: THE DOOR THAT CREAKS

1-23 DEC, TIMES VARY

Domestic scenes given a haunted, ethereal tone through 3D style painting.

City Art Centre SHIFTING VISTAS: 250 YEARS OF SCOTTISH LANDSCAPE 1 DEC-2 JUN 24, TIMES VARY

Sweeping landscapes both classical and modern are drawn from the City Art Centre’s permanent collection. WINDRUSH LEGACY CREATIVE REFLECTIONS

1 DEC-28 JAN 24, TIMES VARY

An exhibition of poetry, prose and artwork made by people of Caribbean descent, co-curated by Scottish-Caribbean writers Jeda Pearl and Courtney Stoddart. THE SCOTTISH LANDSCAPE AWARD

1 DEC-3 MAR 24, TIMES VARY

The inaugural exhibition of Scotland’s newest art open call, exploring both natural and man-made environments through traditional and boundary-pushing media.

THOMAS ABERCROMBY: JOHN 1-23 DEC, 10:00AM – 5:00PM

A collaboration with an all-working-class cast and crew to explore the intricate ties between family, grief and the multifaceted layers of social class.

Dovecot Studios

SCOTTISH WOMEN ARTISTS: 250 YEARS OF CHALLENGING PERCEPTION 1 DEC-6 JAN 24, 10:00AM – 5:00PM

Celebrating centuries of important artistic contribution from Scottish women artists. MONARCHS OF THE GLEN 1 DEC-2 MAR 24, 10:00AM – 5:00PM

An exhibition exploring the ongoing cultural legacy of Monarch of the Glen, from shortbread to Schitt’s Creek and beyond.

Edinburgh Printmakers

THE FUTURE FLOW: FROM WHERE I STAND 1-3 DEC, 11:00AM – 4:00PM

Seven contemporary artists from India and Scotland exploring ideas of traditional and non-traditional storytelling. JOURNEY

16 DEC-17 MAR 24, 11:00AM – 4:00PM

Printmakers’ third annual members show exhibiting 78 artists.

Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop

AIMÉE FINLAY: A THURIFER LEFT

1 DEC-31 JAN 24, 11:00AM – 5:00PM

An exhibition using the gallery’s foundry to explore the casting process as a means to simultaneously reproduce and transform sculpted replica’s of Thuribles.

Fruitmarket ZARINA BHIMJI: FLAGGING IT UP

1 DEC-28 JAN 24, 10:00AM – 6:00PM

Photographic installations examine the possibilities of voice, politics and beauty as forms of resistance. SARAH WOOD: PROJECT PARADISE 9 DEC-21 JAN 24, 10:00AM – 6:00PM

Found documentary footage interrogating the relationship between the narrating of history and individual memory.

Ingleby Gallery NICK GOSS: SMICKEL INN, BALCONY OF EUROPE 1-16 DEC, 11:00AM – 5:00PM

Figurative paintings exploring dreamlike, figurative spaces.

National Gallery

DEEP ROOTED

YOUR ART WORLD

A group exhibition interrogating the both symbiotic and extractive relationship between people and trees.

Community exhibition created by young people, examining the power of creative process.

1 DEC-25 FEB 24, TIMES VARY

Collective Gallery

1 DEC-14 APR 24, TIMES VARY

THE PRINTMAKER’S ART | REMBRANDT TO REGO

2 DEC-25 FEB 24, TIMES VARY

LIZA SYLVESTRE: ASWEETSEA

1-23 DEC, 10:00AM – 5:00PM

Moving image and drawings exploring the complex boundaries of disability.

Tracing the history of printmaking, from fifteenthcentury pioneers to artists like Tracey Emin.

— 76 —

National Library of Scotland

BLOOD SWEAT AND TEARS: SCOTLAND’S HIV STORY 1-2 DEC, TIMES VARY

Showcasing archival materials and oral histories, exploring the devastation and stigma of the HIV crisis in 1980s Scotland, as well as its emerging treatments.

National Museum of Scotland

RISING TIDE: ART AND ENVIRONMENT IN OCEANIA 1 DEC-14 APR 24, 10:00AM – 5:00PM

An examination of our relationship to the natural environment told through responses to climate change by Indigenous Australian and Pacific Islander artists.

Open Eye Gallery

JAMES MCNAUGHT RSW RGI: SHOWCASE 1-23 DEC, TIMES VARY

Glasgow-based artist whose eerie landscapes and urban scenes are populated with strange, haunted figures.

ALEX MALCOLMSON: VEERING NORTH 1-23 DEC, TIMES VARY

Objects and illustrationinfluenced paintings exploring the wildlife and folk art of the North of England. SALLY CUTHBERT: NEW WORK

1-23 DEC, TIMES VARY

Scottish National Portrait Gallery

MAKING SPACE: PHOTOGRAPHS OF ARCHITECTURE 1 DEC-3 MAR 24, 10:00AM – 5:00PM

Exploring the social footprint of architecture, and the ways people have documented it through the decades.

Sierra Metro

KATY SMAIL: HOW THE FLOWERS RISE, AND OPEN 1-22 DEC, 10:00AM – 2:00PM

Soft, pastel-hued paintings by Scotland-based artist that explore the wisdom, mysticism and healing in the wildflower meadows of Scotland.

Stills

CAFÉ ROYAL BOOKS 1 DEC-10 FEB 24, 12:00PM – 5:00PM

Spotlighting the work of Café Royal Books, an independent publisher dedicated to post-war photography from Britain and Ireland.

Summerhall

ROWAN WALKER: FOREIGN OBJECTS 1 DEC-25 FEB 24, 12:00PM – 5:30PM

Sculptural installation using clinical aesthetics to explore our relationship to pain. YUMIKO ONO: COMPOSITION IV 1 DEC-1 NOV 24, 12:00PM – 5:30PM

Royal Botanic Garden

Developed out of a residency program in Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, this large-scale work explores intersections between art and architecture.

1 DEC-13 APR 24, 10:00AM – 6:00PM

1 DEC-25 FEB 24, 12:00PM – 5:30PM

A collection of jewellery centred on creative forms and lines.

CONNECTING HISTORIES

EMMA HISLOP: WHAT IS LEFT BEHIND

An extraordinary survey of Indian botanical drawing.

The inaugural exhibition at Summerhall’s previously closed Post Mortem Room is an appropriately forensic exploration of collisions between myth and science.

Royal Scottish Academy RSA THE CHRISTMAS SHOW

1-21 DEC, TIMES VARY

Featuring work by Scottish academicians with work available to buy. WILLIAM GILLIES: MODERNISM AND NATION

9 DEC-28 JAN 24, TIMES VARY

An anniversary exhibition of Scottish Modernist showcasing his portraiture, still life and landscape alongside drawings and associated photographs, archives and objects.

Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art

ALBERTA WHITTLE: CREATE DANGEROUSLY 1 DEC-7 JAN 24, 10:00AM – 5:00PM

An immersive exhibition exploring compassion and collective care as a mode of anti-racist resistance. DECADES: THE ART OF CHANGE 1900–1980 1 DEC-7 JAN 24, 10:00AM – 5:00PM

A dramatic journey through 80 years of art and moments of significant artistic change.

MELLA SHAW: SOUNDING LINE

1 DEC-25 FEB 24, 12:00PM – 5:30PM

Sculptures fashioned from whalebone ash fashioned into large-scale sculptures inspired by whales’ innerear bones exploring ideas of ecological crisis and fragility.

CAMILA OSPINA GAITÁN: AN UNCANNY FEELING THAT SHE WAS BEING WATCHED 1 DEC-25 FEB 24, 12:00PM – 5:30PM

Sculptural artwork exploring gender through redefining and reorienting the male gaze.

Talbot Rice Gallery

The Scottish Gallery SUSAN HORTH: ANIMAL MAGIC

1-23 DEC, TIMES VARY

Delicate, intricate sculptures made from wires and beads, bringing to life elements of the natural world. VICTORIA CROWE: LOW WINTER SUN

1-23 DEC, TIMES VARY

A series of local seasonal landscapes by the acclaimed 20th-century Scottish painter. DOUGLAS FITCH + HANNAH MCANDREW: COHESION 1-23 DEC, TIMES VARY

Beautiful pottery and ceramics with a focus on natural, folk techniques. THE MINIATURIST GALLERY

1-23 DEC, TIMES VARY

Delicately crafted sculptures reinvigorating the form of the miniature.

Dundee Art

Cooper Gallery SIT-IN 3: ...BUT THERE ARE NEW SUNS 1-16 DEC, TIMES VARY

The third in Cooper Gallery’s ground-breaking five-chapter exhibition, and the first major exhibition in Scotland by the Turner Prize nominated artist collective The Otolith Group.

DCA: Dundee Contemporary Arts MICHELLE WILLIAMS GAMAKER: OUR MOUNTAINS ARE PAINTED ON GLASS

9 DEC-24 MAR 24, TIMES VARY

A moving image work depicting a decolonised retelling of The Thief of Bagdad, exploring the ability of cinema to navigate structural violence.

Generator Projects

NKEM OKWECHIME: OKOLO 1-17 DEC, 12:00PM – 5:00PM

A gorgeous exhibition of printmaking, including 220m of handprinted wallpaper.

The McManus

HIDDEN HISTORIES: EXPLORING EQUALITY, DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION IN DUNDEE’S ART COLLECTION 1-30 DEC, 10:00AM – 5:00PM

Exploring the McManus 20th-century collection through different positionalities, to examine the responsibility of the museum as institution in responding to history.

V&A Dundee

THE RECENT

TARTAN

Group exhibition centring ideas of deep and geological time, examining how art can place us in a futureoriented timeframe.

A major new exhibition looking at the social, political, and aesthetic history of tartan.

1 DEC-17 FEB 24, TIMES VARY

KATIE PATERSON: TO BURN, FOREST, FIRE

1 DEC-17 FEB 24, TIMES VARY

An immersive installation using scent and incense burning to explore the firstever forest on Earth, and the last forest in the age of the climate crisis.

1 DEC-14 JAN 24, 10:00AM – 5:00PM

THE SKINNY

Dundee Venues There are plenty of new spots in Dundee this winter, from the return of much beloved music and drinks venue Groucho’s to fluffy churros on the riverside

Words: Rebecca Baird

Venues

Image: courtesy of The Wee Churros Corner The Wee Churros Corner

Temple Lane 1 Temple Ln, DD1 4HA Opened by MasterChef: The Professionals star Dean Banks, Temple Lane has replaced Tom’s as West Port’s resident cocktail spot. The drinks menu has been built around Banks’ own spirit brands – his ‘no nonsense’ Lunan Gin and Mond Vodka, and the bar has started a weekly quiz on Sundays. And with a moody, all-black interior, the bar certainly brings a late-night feel to the city centre’s pub offering that begets its 1am Saturday night closing time. Sleek, stylish and serious, this looks like the place to be for cocktail aficionados seeking something new to sip this winter.

Blend Dock Street 9 Dock St, DD1 4BT The shock summer closure of city centre coffee shop Blend left a hole in the heart of Dundee’s café culture – so big that just 21 days later, the venue reopened on the waterfront-adjacent Dock Street. Making the most of the more industrial premises (the former Dock Street Studios space) the new and improved Blend boasts more seating and more space than ever, but retains its cosy feeling. Renowned for its friendly staff and welcoming atmosphere, Blend patrons will be happy to know that the café has migrated many of its original staff to its new premises, as well as its Friday night Blend Live evening gigs and open mics. And at the time of writing, a new morning student discount between 9-11am means stressed students can get caffeinated for less!

The Wee Churros Corner Discovery Point, Riverside Drive, DD1 4XA This plucky business has been popping up across indie markets and day fares across the city for a while now, but finally The Wee Churros Corner has a city centre home. The new churro trailer is situated down on Dundee’s waterfront between the Discovery museum and the V&A building, adding to the offering of Heather Street Food on the other side of the design museum. Brought to Dundee from Segovia by teachers Pablo and Clara Casada, the churros are a traditional Spanish delicacy. And their thick Spanish-style hot chocolate is the perfect partner to the light, fluffy churros. “We wanted to bring part of our Spanish culture to Dundee with real daily made churros, our own hot thick dipping chocolate and barista coffees,” the couple say. — 77 —

December 2023 — Listings

Groucho’s 132 Nethergate, DD1 4ED Perhaps the most-anticipated opening of 2023, Groucho’s is back! The beloved record shop, which closed its doors in 2020, will be filled with music-lovers once again as the unit reopens as a pub and live music venue on 1 December. Starting off strong with a solid month of sets, local acts like Cover Daddy, Johnny Scullion, the Cherry Bombz and more will take to the stage throughout December. Giving it that authentic feel, the bar is decorated with items from the original Groucho’s shop, which were purchased at the official Groucho’s auction. For those who want to carry on the legacy of Groucho’s, and its late owner Alastair ‘Breeks’ Brodie, this new pub will be a must-hit spot.

THE SKINNY

The Skinny On... Johnny McKnight The Skinny On...

As he limbers up for a run as Widow McTwank in Macrobert’s Aladdin, Scotland’s foremost pantomime writer, director and dame takes on the Q&A What’s your favourite place to visit and why? Oh that’s a tough one. Anywhere there’s sunshine in the sky, no work to be heading to and a strong cocktail at the ready. I thought Venice was magical when I first arrived there. In terms of Scotland… I don’t know if you can beat a dawner round the TK Maxx in Sauchiehall Street. What’s your favourite food? Steak, chips and peppercorn sauce. Cos I like any food that’s been drowned in a sauce (see also top food chips, cheese and gravy or for extreme hangovers mashed potato and gravy). Can I also have a shout out too for crisps. Any flavour. Any make. I love them all, and would happily replace a dinner with them. What’s your favourite colour? I’m going to show how basic a gay I am here. GREY. It goes with literally anything. Can be warm or cold for a room decor. Always looks classy – pretty much like me.

December 2023 – Feature

What’s the worst film you’ve ever seen? Hmmm… It’s always the law of diminished returns for me… some sequels should be left alone. Did any one of us need Home Alone 4, Cruel Intentions 3, Mean Girls 2? And did I watch them all? Well, yes, course I did. What book would you take to a desert island? Can I take an audiobook? I like falling asleep to the sound of people talking. Currently I’m doing the Britney Spears autobiography read by Michelle Williams… but that’s juicy so there’s no sleeping to it… I’d take something like the History of The World, something like that. Who’s the worst? Oh that’s a long list. And I keep that list close to my chest.

When did you last cry? Hnmmmmm……… there was a home makeover show the other day, they did their home lovely, everyone was overjoyed… I cried. What are you most scared of? Dying’s not exactly a welcome thought. But I’m also terrified of coleslaw. I know it’s completely irrational but vegetables and mayonnaise is the work of the devil. When did you last vomit and why? I’ll have been drunk. It’ll have been my own fault. I’ll have been mixing my drinks. Tell us a secret? I’ve never seen any of the Star Wars films. And I have absolutely no interest in doing so. Which celebrity could you take in a fight? If its a war of words then I reckon I could take on quite a few people, if it’s actually put-em-up then I’m in trouble… I’m a lover not a fighter. Photo: Tommy Ga-Ken Wan

Who was your hero growing up? I’ve always really had the same two people – Madonna and Kylie. Both from similar worlds but Kylie’s the light, Madonna’s the dark. One’s for fun and frivolity and joy, the other was always about sexual expression, liberation and pushing boundaries. I still love both of them. From Like a Prayer to Your Disco Needs You, all their music is so utterly wrapped up in the last 35-plus years of my life and memories.

What’s your all time favourite album? Like A Prayer by Madonna. That album was seminal to me when it came out. It had a leaflet talking about Aids and HIV. The album cover was scented. The songs are all bangers. All of them.

Whose work inspires you now? There’s soooo many. As a writer, Julia Davis is wickedly funny and pushes the envelope in everything she does, but there’s so many people I’m inspired by... Victoria Wood, Janette Krankie, Damon Lindelof, Sally Wainwright, Kylie, Miss Piggy… shows like The Other Two, Schitt's Creek, The Boys… I like work that is both accessible and challenging, that connects an audience, that takes its own viewpoint, that takes something we’ve known and seen and twists it in a completely different direction.

If you could be reincarnated as an animal, which animal would it be? It would have to be a dog. They have a nice life. They get to sleep a lot, get fed, and for the majority of the day their tail is wagging. As the reigning dame of Scottish panto, you’ve got a busy December ahead. How do you prepare yourself? I spend all year basically say I’m going to get gym fit. Lose the weight. Take up a new skill (this year I was going to be able to rollerskate). Then I get to now and realise I’ve done none of that and spend a few weeks panicking I’m never going to manage it. I live quietly for the month of the run. I don’t really go out, barely drink, sleep a lot, take my vitamins, book in a wee weekly physio or massage. It’s the only way to do it if you want to not only survive the Panto run, but enjoy it. What are you hoping Santa will bring you? Dear Santa, all I want for Christmas is a stress free year for me and all my loved ones. That’s not too much to ask, is it?

What three people (living or dead) would you invite to your Christmas dinner and what are you cooking? Dolly Parton. Joan Rivers. Kelly Clarkson. Imagine the laughs and the songs we’d be getting that night. I’d do the full Xmas dinner – roast tatties, honey roasted parsnips, carrots in orange, mashed tatties, roast beef and gravy.

Aladdin, by Johnny McKnight, Macrobert Arts Centre, Stirling, 1-31 Dec Oran Mor presents Snow White and the Seven Maws by Johnny McKnight, produced by A Play, A Pie and A Pint, 28 Nov-6 Jan Aganeza Scrooge, by Johnny McKnight, Tron Theatre, 29 Nov-7 Jan — 78 —

THE SKINNY

Young Fathers Takeover

February 2023 – Feature

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December 2023 – Feature

The Skinny On...

THE SKINNY

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