Intersections – 36 Poster by Angela Kirkwood – 51 Music – 57 Film & TV – 60 Design

Fika as Fuel

There’s power in taking time for ourselves and for each other. After spending time in Sweden, one writer reflects on how the country’s culture harnesses this power – and how we should too

Words: Rosie Priest Illustration: Ione Rail

For those unfamiliar with the Swedish art of fika, it can be described as coffee and usually a pastry (fikabröd) with a friend or two. But fika is far more than coffee and cake like we have in the UK; ‘to fika’ is to take part in an intrinsic Swedish culture; it is a space for meaningful connection, slowed conversation, reflection, and care. In the last two years we’ve heard increasing calls to slow down, to connect, to reflect. It’s a political issue, as well as a personal one, with stress, anxiety and depression as a result from work only increasing. To understand fika better, and what makes it a somewhat radical phenomenon, it’s useful to explore its history. Coffee arrived in Sweden in the late 17th century, and by the mid-18th century coffee houses were increasingly run by women. Stockholm even protected women-run coffee houses, with one quarter of all licences being earmarked for women living in poverty. When Sweden began to ban coffee due to royal decree, many women took to illegal trade routes to maintain their businesses. Beans were sold from homes or hidden in bags of shopping. Women were vital to keeping Sweden’s coffee coming, even when it was illegal. Many of those arrested for selling coffee were poor women; those arrested for drinking coffee were also mainly women, many of whom worked in factories. The sharing of coffee amongst women friends during coffee prohibition would have strengthened bonds and helped develop community feeling. The depth of connections formed during these early secret fikas contributed to continued coffee bans. Having a well-connected, considered and reflective society does not make for overly loyal workers. The Swedish Labour Movement was formed shortly after the final Swedish coffee bans in the early 19th century and demanded eight hours of work, eight hours of freedom and eight hours of rest. At the same time in the UK, children younger than 13 years were limited to working 48 hours a week, and everyone else limited to 69 hours a week. Decades before other European countries, Sweden had demanded better working hours. This feeds into the importance of fika more widely. It recognises a need for connection, care and reflection that has been largely neglected in UK workplaces until recently. Nowadays, fika at work is just one way Sweden creates and supports connectivity amongst its workers. Many workplaces, including my own, work 9am-4pm. Across Sweden, working hours must not exceed 40 hours a week; in the UK it’s 48 hours. Sweden ensures workers receive at least 36 hours of rest whilst the UK offers 24 hours. Flexible working is embroiled within Swedish law, meaning employees must be able to work flexible hours or from home if needed. Fika reflects these working principles. Folded into the working day, fika is not considered a break from the work but an integral part of it. It dismantles organisational and social hierarchies, something we definitely need more of in the UK as we face increasing socio-economic erosion from those in power. I naively thought fika was just coffee and cake, until I started having fika with friends, colleagues and peers. The time is protected, and in many Swedish organisations fika is compulsory. There are no bonus points if you work through

“Folded into the working day, fika is not considered a break from the work but an integral part of it”

your organisation’s fika. In fact, it’s considered rude. For me, fika at work has been a revelation. Fika offers us all time to connect and reflect on what’s happening. For deepened and careful conversations. The work still happens – I think it just happens at a more considered pace. I achieve as much but with less frustration, stress or fear. There are fewer mistakes; my brain has space to breathe. I’m not exhausted or overwhelmed even though I’m facing the same tasks. Those pangs of imposter syndrome that used to linger have disappeared, simply through being surrounded by people I feel a deep sense of community and connection with. Fika with friends is a little different. Not only are we not at work, but we rarely talk about it. Our conversations are gentle and winding and rarely feature the intense emotional off-loading of coffee meetups I have in the UK. The protected nature of the time, the connectivity and deepened conversation, and the space to be open, honest and a critical friend is something very different to having coffee and cake in the UK. It took me by surprise, the immediacy of connections with new people in a new place when given the time and space. Nurturing our friendships can be a radical act – and it’s one that I’m grateful to fika for facilitating. Just as the Swedish women who illegally sold coffee and gathered around it to talk, share and build community, contemporary fika offers us similar possibilities. Fika offers us all a slower approach to work and life. It’s a chance to build community together at a time when communities are being decimated and millions are facing crisis. At this time in the UK, we need to grab the opportunity to reflect and share with both hands, to shake off the burden of working until burnt out and re-energise so that we can fight for a better future. Fika gives us these opportunities. Fika could help fuel that fight.

Public Speaking

It’s not easy being talked about – especially when you’re trying to say something important yourself. We reflect on the emotional toll of both in-person and online critique and speak to activists about hope under scrutiny

Interview: Ross Hunter Illlustration: Connie Noble

“Don’t let Ross near your kids,” reads one of the comments. For around two days my Twitter mentions are nothing but a steady stream of insults. I get called a paedophile, a groomer, and a misogynist. All for just…doing my job. For reporting on an issue – LGBTQ+ people, drag queens, feminism – that has become contentious, particularly on the internet. I was all of a sudden the subject of public debate, something I had never imagined myself ever becoming. It was kind of funny, to begin with. I’ve always viewed rhetoric on social media as almost universally meaningless: I grew up in the age of Xbox Live and Habbo Hotel, after all. I figured that people had always said terrible things online and that taking any of it to heart was overly precious. I

“Reckoning with the reality of people believing you are evil makes you question yourself, no matter how detached from the truth the claims might be”

was less Be Kind and more Be Realistic. Because, just like in real life, not everybody is kind. In fact, some people are fucking horrible. To be publicly denounced is unsettling. Regardless of how illegitimate or nonsensical the abuse may be, it’s safe to say that someone might believe it. And reckoning with the reality of people believing you are evil makes you question yourself, no matter how detached from the truth the claims might be. This mire of self-examination isn’t something most people expect of stepping into the fray of public debate. Yet, unfortunately, it is something activists are also exposed to, with their own motivations all too often scrutinised. “We have a running joke,” says Alice Jackson, co-founder of Strut Safe. “We pass a coin between us whenever a reporter asks Rho [Chung, the other co-founder of Strut Safe] or I whether we’ve been sexually assaulted and that’s the reason why we do this work.” Alice and Rho co-founded Strut Safe, a helpline service that provides company and support for people walking home alone at night, following Sarah Everard’s murder. “We just wanted to put something in place that was tangible,” says Alice. “We’re very aware that Strut Safe isn’t a solution to this problem. It’s a sticking plaster on an institutional, structural problem.” And yet, within certain portions of the media, the thirst for a particular narrative is overwhelming. So much so that it’s as if no good deed could emerge purely as itself. It has to have a history; and preferably a dark one. “Journalists really, really want you to talk about being sexually assaulted on camera. Because people need to feel like they are in a position of generosity to take you seriously. It’s like they’re not prepared to listen to a woman talk about this issue unless they can feel sorry for her.” Jobs like Alice’s are hard enough even without people rabidly demanding she unspool her trauma in public. I consider myself lucky to do the work I do but a large part of it entails near constant exposure to ‘bad’ news, which can take its toll. Imagine, then, if your career centred around trying to prevent acts of horrific violence or the destruction of the planet. That, in part, is an activist’s life. “When you get to conferences like COP26,” says Dylan Hamilton, an 18-year-old climate activist, “you know that on the other side of the barriers are the bad people doing the bad things.” Indeed, Dylan’s experience highlights how confronting – and exhausting – debate can be in real life (and not just on the internet). “It feels quite a lot like being in a fight. But I try not to think of it too much like that because it becomes very draining. “You start to see it as win-lose and that can be very, very dangerous. Because even if we lose, we can’t stop. Every tiny little bit of climate change we can prevent matters.” Fighting for a living takes its toll. Once bright-eyed, idealistic young people end up feeling like ageing boxers pummelled by a hostile world. “The nature of the calls that we take,” Alice says, “and the nature of the issue that we’re dealing with on a wider scale are so upsetting, so violent, and yet at the same time so desperately human that I had a mental breakdown over it.” That’s the cost of the work, she says. It hurts. How could it not? “I stru le with hope,” says Dylan. “Sometimes I’ll see a huge protest and think this is amazing, this is the hope. “But most of the time it just feels very depressing. So, I try not to think about hope because even if it looks like we’re losing we still can’t stop. Because it still matters, even when it feels hopeless.” Hope, it seems, can only take you so far. Hope certainly doesn’t entirely sustain you through the brutalising experience of publicly standing up for what you believe in. I didn’t understand how exposing, painful, and exhausting it is for activists to maintain momentum in a world that seems to gain pleasure from trying to hurt them, especially online where there’s a crowd eager to witness your downfall. There’s a real need for us all to protect good people, doing good things, in troublesome times.

Angela Kirkwood Exhibiting at Glasgow Print Fair, The Lighthouse, 5 Nov, 10.30am-5pm Glasgowprintfair.co.uk

Our Stories Between the Myths and Memories

Stories connect us – to ourselves as individuals and, crucially, to each other as communities. Through open conversations, a welcoming space, and joyful interactions, the weekender at David Livingstone Birthplace Museum showed exactly that

Words by: Eilidh Akilade Photos: Najma Abukar

The weekend opened with a panel discussion with the day’s practitioners and facilitated by writer, editor, and cultural producer Tomiwa Folorunso, exploring the power of stories for Black communities.

While Etienne Kubwabo’s comic workshop brought wonder (and colouring pencils), readings from layla-roxanne hill, Inga Dale, and Tomiwa Folorunso grounded us, exploring both collective and individual identity within the African Scottish diaspora.

At once capitavting and moving, Three60 presented SONDER, a visual arts piece re ecting on community in modern-day society. Rounding o Saturday, Jambo! Radio presented DJ Baron, giving us the time – and music – to let loose.

Shifting focus slightly, Sunday opened with researcher and artist Adebusola Ramsay in conversation with Folorunso, questioning whether a decolonial museum can ever exist.

A performance from Congolese musicians The Gig Group brought further unity, the audience swaying and clicking and owing with each beat.

Sharing their commissioned works in response to the museum, Natasha Thembiso Ruwona and Clementine Burnley o ered new and divergent ways of approaching the space itself, prior to David Livingstone Birthplace Museum’s team leading a tour of its collections, challenging myths surrounding Livingstone’s legacy.

Finally, Ashanti Harris and co-dancers performed a new iteration of An Exercise in Exorcism, exploring the museum’s colonial history. The end of the performance held the room as much as the actual performance did: there was this feeling of not quite knowing where its story ended and where ours began – truly showcasing all that storytelling can do.

This weekend of crucial re ection and joyful connection has truly brought us together. A huge thank you to Natasha Thembiso Ruwona for programming, the David Livingstone Birthplace Museum for hosting, and to Museums Galleries Scotland for kindly funding.

Figures at a Table with Plants, Norman Gilbert

A Mosaic of Memories

We reflect on Norman Gilbert’s intimate paintings of his family and the characters of his native Pollokshields

Walking into Tramway is like coming home. A colourful stew of nostalgia and sentimentality, it is hard to not feel warmed and nourished by the current retrospective of Glasgowbased artist Norman Gilbert (19262019). Breaking the white cube wall, everyday objects from the Gilbert family home (a stone’s throw away from Tramway) have been incorporated into the wallpapered exhibpition space which screams a 1970s aesthetic. For Bruno Gilbert, the son of the late artist, the exhibition space presents a mosaic of memories. He tells me he was born in a caravan next to a pi ery his father was working on and points to a painting which depicts that very caravan. By way of his well-loved moccasins, Bruno can identify himself amongst the portraits of his brothers, Paul, Daniel and Mark. Vibrant textiles, including a tablecloth gifted by a former girlfriend of Bruno’s, lie on a table, demonstrating how his father translated patterns into paintings – often on repeat. “[My father] is my definition of an artist because he couldn’t not do what he did,” Bruno reflects, radiating with pride. Norman was constantly experimenting, always learning. Deemed “unteachable” at the Glasgow School of Art, Norman carved out his own artistic trajectory. In interviews, when asked which painting is his favourite, it was always “the next one.” Keen to show me how his father’s practice and idiosyncratic style unfolded, Bruno opens a digital archive on his laptop. I’m surprised to see muted naturalistic colours (olive, ochre, dusty pink) dominate the beginning of his oeuvre, incorrectly assuming that he always used a psychedelic palette. The digital archive also demonstrates his transition from shading to flat panels of paint, assembled in sections, like a mosaic. Quite rightly, Bruno is ambitious about preserving and presenting his father’s legacy. Should an acquisition be made, there are several paintings ringfenced for public collections. Each family member has claimed a painting from Norman’s 70-year career. Bruno tells me how he swapped his original choice (picked for its unique colour palette and use of frozen action) for Totem Pole (1971) which captures an endearingly playful moment with his siblings: one brother sits on Bruno’s shoulders while he holds the youngest in his arms. It’s doubly special because in the background of Totem Pole hangs another portrait of Bruno at a younger age playing the guitar, referencing a painting Norman made in 1963. As anticipated, posing for his father’s portraits as a young boy was not always Bruno’s, nor his

Image: courtesy of Tramway brothers’, favourite thing to do. “Especially because he made us wear dresses and pose as girls,” he laughs. His father painted “whoever he could get his hands on” – including the Turner Prize-winning artist Susan Philipsz. Norman’s portraits were not always made from life. Pocketing snippets of inspiration from his everyday movements, he sometimes relocated passers-by (aka, potential portraiture subjects) into the domestic scenes of his canvas. Bruno shows me how this trick is perhaps most obvious in Plants, Patterns and People (1965), which depicts three women sitting in a row in a living room and staring absent-mindedly into the distance. That they are fully clothed in entrancing 60s attire – coats, gloves, headscarves, and all – is probably the bi est clue; Norman spotted them riding the Glasgow subway. Towards the end of Norman’s life, the number of potential models frequenting his home and studio depleted, and the number of still lives he produced therefore increased. I’m guided to the last painting he made, Plants, Patchwork and Two Green Chairs (2019). The absence of people in these later still lives only emphasises how sociable their home was, but it also communicates the deep grief carved out by the passing of Pat, Bruno’s mother, and the love of Norman’s life. I am moved by all the anecdotes that Bruno shares with me, but especially by this one: “my father painted three portraits of my Reclining Boy and Girl, Norman Gilbert mother in the three years before her death and three corresponding empty ‘chair’ subjects […] after her death; each ‘chair’ subject references the corresponding portrait of Pat in its composition.” There’s a worn wooden box in my parents’ house, filled to the brim with photo albums of mine and my sibling’s coming-of-age stories. Standing in Tramway, I get the same tu ing feeling in the pit of my stomach when that wooden box is opened, and the photo albums come out to play. I should really visit home soon. Norman Gilbert, Tramway, until 5 Feb 2023

Challenging Ornamentalism

The Skinny unravels Hannah Lim’s incisive and multi-faceted exhibition at Edinburgh Printmakers

Interview: Sofia Cotrona

We associate the word ‘ornamental’ with objects whose sole purpose is to be aesthetically pleasing: taken at face value they have no other scope or meaning than to embellish a space. For centuries, this has been the attitude reserved for Asian, (particularly Chinese) art by Western onlookers. Obsessed with the intricacy of Chinese design, Western artists and collectors built a taste for ‘Chinoiserie’ during the 18th century. Western art subsequently became populated with artworks and furniture designs which included Chinese-inspired patterns and motifs. Hollowed out of any understanding and appreciation for Chinese culture, the motifs were imitated in relation to European aesthetic taste; thus primarily, if not exclusively, valued for their ornamental function. Hannah Lim challenges this dynamic with her first solo show in Scotland, titled Ornamental Mythologies, currently on display at Edinburgh Printmakers. Through her works, the artist explores her cultural identity as a woman of mixed Singaporean and British heritage reclaiming a culturally appropriate way to imagine the practice of Western appreciation for Chinese designs and patterns. Lim reinterprets traditional Chinese subjects and designs – such as dragons and lions – across a variety of media including sculptures, installations, drawings and prints. Other references to Chinese visual tradition include the recurrent use of bilateral symmetries: the symbol of balance in Chinese culture and a key aesthetic parameter in its visual and architectural tradition. Lim’s prints and drawings, such as Droplets, Bowing Swans, and The Watchful Lion, demonstrate this principle. The layout of the room respects a symmetrical approach too. Standing in front of the large central installation Hanging Spider, its lower point sits perfectly in the middle of the seemingly multiplying swans of the sculpture Bowing Swan, dividing the room into two mirrored sides. Lim engages with the challenges posed by the large exhibiting space of Edinburgh Printmakers by placing her small Snuff Bottle series on wooden carved shelves. Positioned at eye level, the shelves draw visitors in to appreciate the minute details of these works, with their complex elements and soft-toned matching palette. Painted brackets on the walls frame the works within the two long sides of the gallery – a smart artifice to further focus audiences’ attention on Lim’s prints and sculptures. Layered with symbols from different cultures, Lim’s work is informed by her research about animism, traditional Chinese storytelling

Image courtesy of Edinburgh Printmakers. Photography by Alan Dimmick and Medieval bestiaries, which infuses her sculptural works with anthropomorphic shapes. While artworks like Shards of Fire appear more abstract, the Snuff Bottle series works more literally, with the artist equipping each of the boxes with small animal paws that animate the mythical creatures sculpted on their surfaces in a playful way. Lim’s research touches on an exploration of her Chinese-Singaporean family’s relationship with Christianity, leading the audience into a world of hybrid symbols and creatures that emerge from the encounter of multiple cultures. The use of space in the exhibition cleverly conveys Lim’s intention to challenge the ornamental attitude reserved for Chinoiserie, while simultaneously addressing the challenges of exhibiting minute works in an expansive space such as the lower gallery of Edinburgh Printmakers. For example, by placing the Snuff Bottles on intricately carved shelves, Lim hints at their ornamental Ornamental Mythologies, Hannah Lim nature as they evoke aesthetic, yet purposeless dust-catchers often left forgotten on shelves and mantelpieces. The exhibition layout also enhances Lim’s desire to subvert attitudes about non-Western art.

Hannah Lim: Ornamental Mythologies, Edinburgh Printmakers until 20 Nov

Trail Blazing

We chat with some of the poets featured in More Fiya, the Black-British poetry collection that is being centred at this year’s Push the Boat Out poetry festival

Interview: The Skinny

Edinburgh’s International Poetry Festival, Push the Boat Out (PTBO), returns to the nation’s capital this November. For three days, Summerhall will be host to an array of talks showcasing some of the best that contemporary poetry has to offer. On Sunday 6 November, four writers included in Canongate’s breathtaking anthology More Fiya will take to the stage to perform and discuss the collection – Dean Atta, Janette Ayachi, Rachel Long and Degna Stone. I’m honoured to have been asked to chair the event – More Fiya is a powerful exploration of Black British identity and samples some of the most talented poets writing in the UK today. The four poets featured in this PTBO event all have strong, individual voices and are mesmerising performers. Edited by poet and DJ Kayo Chingonyi, More Fiya brings together work by 34 Black British poets. It’s a long-awaited sequel to The Fire People, the 1998 anthology edited by Lemn Sissay and a work that was influential in Chingonyi’s own journey. As he notes in the introduction to More Fiya, for a long time in Britain “the anthology was [Black writers’] principal space of possibility as published poets” and collections like The Fire People served to disrupt a “poetry ecosystem” that neglected, diminished, and ignored the voices of minority groups. The significance of the project is not lost on Ayachi: “It is a dream to be published in such a meaningful, original poetry anthology that signifies

Photo: Matthew Thompson stories that have so often been silenced from voices that have sometimes been unheard.” Half of the More Fiya poets appearing at PTBO have very close ties to Scotland; Ayachi lives in Edinburgh and accomplished YA novelist and poet Atta has spent recent years living in Glasgow. “I’m thrilled about the other performers arriving from distant places to the homeland!” says Ayachi. “Edinburgh has so much to offer in the arts and literary scene, I feel proud to live here and share what we as a city can represent in terms of talent, colour and inspiration.” Ayachi’s first collection, Hand Over Mouth Music, is an energetic and lyrical representation of Scotland’s streets which are charmingly brought to life in her work. She explores love, destruction, grief and fire in the three poems she has included in More Fiya. “Quickfire, Slow Burning is the title poem from my new collection. It was taken from what a lover described me to be once, it stuck. Fire is an element that can so easily destroy land and cultural history. It’s the epitome and centrefold of feeling desire.” She says she’s “honoured” to be included in More Fiya. “I can’t sing praises for this collection enough; it’s touching, magnetic, celebratory and channels magic from centuries of our deep burials.” Degna Stone is also full of praise for Chingonyi and the project: “He has curated an incredible anthology that builds on the legacy of The Fire People and creates a space for a multiplicity of Black voices to be heard. I’m overawed to be in the company of so many amazing poets and excited that my poems will reach new readers.” “Where do I come from if not here? This country. My country,” writes Stone in How to Unpick the Lies? To me, those lines reach to the core of the flame that is More Fiya. While there are poems about relationships, family, home, politics, language and travel within the collection, the book operates in one plane as a response and a rebuttal to the hurtful and harmful belief that Black British writers do not belong. “They’re poems that (I hope) speak to the times that we’re in,” Stone says. “I think there’s something interesting in the way they all seem to explore losing a sense of self.” The poet and editor is making the journey from north east England to PTBO. “I’m so excited to be back in Edinburgh to read at Push the Boat Out! I love sharing my poetry in Scotland, there’s an energy to the various poetry scenes here that is

Janette Ayachi

“The work included in More Fiya has the flavour of always moving, whether it is back and forward in time or across various soils of our bloodlines”

Janette Ayachi

so vibrant. I’ve always, always had a brilliant time each time I’ve headed north of the border.” Along with Ayachi, Stone, Rachel Long – whose debut collection My Darling from the Lions was shortlisted for a host of awards including the Forward Prize and Jhalak Prize – and Polarinominated and Stonewall Book Award-winning Dean Atta, More Fiya features a range of established writers such as Malika Booker and Roger Robinson alongside newer voices like Warda Yassin. “The work included in More Fiya has the flavour of always moving, whether it is back and forward in time or across various soils of our bloodlines,” reflectes Ayachi. “Nothing about this collection stands stagnant. What a book like this brings is a difference to the foreground that is inherently needed.” It’s a difference that is gripping, moving, musical and beautiful in equal measure.

Push the Boat Out takes place in Summerhall, Edinburgh, 4-6 Nov

Redstone Press on Turning Five

We discuss Redstone Press’s future, and notable memories, ahead of their 5th birthday party at Civic House, which boasts a huge line-up including Iona, Abena, Angel D’lite and Ira

Interview: Heléna Stanton

DJs Lewis Lowe and Ethan Harfield (Pseudopolis) founded Redstone Press five years ago, after forging a life-long friendship while growing up together in the Northeast of Scotland. Lewis and Ethan lost contact after primary school but reconnected during their late teens attending local free parties in the Highlands. Lewis tells how he was really into dance music in 2016 and was DJing as a hobby. Ethan was massively into early and postdubstep while producing tunes. Post-dubstep pioneering labels like Hessle Audio hugely inspired the pair. However, Ethan’s productions weren’t making as much progress as he’d have liked. So, the idea of Redstone Press was born. The pair got ten dubplates cut by Precise Mastering, who’s worked with labels Warp and Hemlock Recording – huge names in dance music. The dubplates were distributed to the likes of Joy Orbison, Ryan Martin, Optimo and Hessle Audio. One fateful night Lewis was in the Glasgow nightclub La Cheetah, where he bumped into Rubadub’s Richard Chater. “I was talking to Richard and told him I was cutting dubplates and starting a record label, Richard stated he’d distribute the records.” Lewis says, “I didn’t expect him to email the next day after the conversation, but he did the next morning, so I sent him the tunes and two weeks later he said, yep we’ll distribute them.” This was a huge moment for Lewis and Ethan. Rubadub’s extensive reputation reaches far beyond its Glasgow warehouse. Celebrating their 30th year of imparting wisdom to so many emerging small labels and artists, it’s hard to find something so deeply rooted in the underground electronic music scene. Eventually in 2017, Lewis and Ethan left the Highlands for a flat in Glasgow, officially forming Redstone Press. The logo resembles something of a house – this is a common misconception, Lewis explains: “The name Redstone Press is after a little hamlet Photo: Coco Blue Kay where we grew up, the logo isn’t a house, it’s a bus stop where we used to wait to get to primary school, and later where we used to graffiti.” The community values surrounding DIY labels are highlighted in the label’s special relationship with Eris Drew, who alongside Octa-Octa, runs T4T LUV NRG (a label prioritising trans bodies in dance music). “I was driving home for Christmas in 2017, and I had her RA mix on in the car, as everyone was talking about it. I heard Pseudopolis - At Last and I couldn’t believe it. She was someone so huge who was playing our track. I reached out to her after it, and we met at a couple of festivals and became friends, she’s been such a big supporter of the label from the beginning, so it made perfect Redstone Press sense for her to do the first remix. It’s a coming full circle moment.” Recently the label published remix, described as a ‘4X4 rave weapon’. With crushed breakbeat and femme vocals throughout, Eris Drew’s alias Bassbin 23’s remix of Pseudopolis - High for Life contributes to Redstone Press’s already tightened grip on producing euphoric club music. Looking back on other moments for the label, Lewis recalls how the 2020 release with Cloud’s Liam Robertson came to be: “We became good friends when I first moved to Glasgow, and he was nice enough to give me a USB with a load of WIPs and track ideas. I was listening to them, and instantly went ‘wow this is insanely good’ to this one track, so I instantly asked if it was signed and luckily it wasn’t. Liam’s EP was a turning point from just putting out club music to more accessible [music]. I really love it a lot. .” It’s evident through talking with Lewis that friendship has played a massive role in the success of the label. From DIY to club bangers, with four unannounced releases for 2023 Redstone Press is not slowing down. Lewis discusses the future for the label: “We’re at a point where it’s no longer a DIY label, which is scary but also great. I guess we are taking the next step of being a bit more professional, we had external PR for the first time this year, I never thought we’d ever be at this stage. It’s crazy.” The past five years comes together for the label at Civic House for their 5th birthday party. Lewis describes the curation of the line-up as a “simple party with friends, and a couple of bits of lighting décor, and a smoke machine with big bass from Ira’s amazing Bass Warrior Sound System. We’re going to give some goody bags away as well for the first folk in, make it into a proper party.”

Redstone Press 5th Birthday Party, 12 Nov, Civic House, Glasgow, tickets via Resident Advisor

redstonepress.bandcamp.com

Nuance and Pubes

Jessica Fostekew chats nuance, tackling complex issues in comedy and changing people’s opinions

Interview: Emma Sullivan

Photo: Matt Stronge

Jessica Fostekew

In a time where the pressure to articulate clear positions on hot button topics is particularly intense, Jessica Fostekew’s willingness to address ambivalence is refreshing. Committed to broaching the hard stuff in her new show – sensitive, complex topics like gender, sexuality, ageing – she’s also honest about not always knowing what she thinks or not liking what she finds herself believing. She acknowledges it can be tricky communicating this kind of nuance comically, given the pressure comedians feel to “come at subjects as someone who knows everything,” while ensuring content “makes sense and hits hard and gets clicks.” Fostekew, however, is adamant that all the different “shades and angles” are attended to. Don’t imagine that this equates to earnestness, though, because if there’s one thing there can be no doubt about, “it must be funny.” Starting as a “very tight and fast” piece at this year’s Fringe, Fostekew’s latest hour Wench evolved over the course of the festival into something looser. She reaches for the image of a ball of wool to illustrate what she’s after; it’s still got a clear shape but it’s “malleable”. Now on tour, the comic’s enjoying how different the show is each time, with each new audience and venue bringing a distinctive energy. It’s not so much that the words change, but the emphasis shifts: “where you lean into, lean back from, bits you throw away, bits you speed up, bits you slow down.” Fostekew is relishing the conversations emerging in response to her material; as keen to engage with those who don’t agree with her, as those that do. And she freely admits to being on a journey with some of the issues raised: plastic surgery for instance, a big theme of the show, remains something she’s confused about. Pubic hair – that’s another issue: “What kind of pubes are we doing?” she asks the audience, and her perplexity about where we’re at with waxing trends leads to some deliriously funny riffs. At moments, she’s clearly angry about the way expectations are shifting – with the normalising of Botox for instance – to the degree that “poison in your face” becomes “an inevitable part” of any young girl’s future. But she’s also keenly aware that her perspective is bound up in cis-gendered, middle-class ethics and assumptions (artificiality is bad; spending lots of money on your appearance: also bad). For those on a “gender journey” or for those with different aesthetic tastes, then surgery represents something much more positive. It’s important, too, she says, not to pathologise this particular historical moment, given that we’ve been doing “mad shit for centuries.” It’s just another step in the constant “stretching of the bonds of what we do for beauty.” Our capacity for change, particularly the potential for small-scale shifts, is something she believes we don’t emphasise enough. She mentions a recent conversation with a boomer relative, who talked with baffled contempt about the number of non-binary kids at a local secondary school – dismissing it as just a fad or a phase. Fostekew gently took issue with this, su esting the situation could be approached “with curiosity and not judgement.” Her reframing worked, allowing for a shift in the relative’s viewpoint. While Fostekew is in no doubt that the attitude revealed was essentially “toxic”, she’s again aware of the limits of her own perspective, and her own particular bubble, recognising that the bafflement is an attitude shared by many. It’s another instance where she experiences herself as part of what she calls a “bridge generation”; a liminal position that she uses to great effect in the new show. That recalibration from judgement to curiosity says a lot about the kind of intellectual and emotional precision Fostekew brings to her comedy. She clearly thinks hard about how emotion fuels our opinions, and recognises that precision about those emotions can be crucial in affecting change. She understands, equally, that emotion is an essential motor for her storytelling, and one she uses very strategically in her examination of tricky topics. It’s a deeply considered approach certainly, impassioned and punchy too, but above all, unfailingly funny.

Jessica Fostekew: Wench, The Stand Glasgow, 7 Nov, and The Stand Edinburgh, 9 Nov, 8.30pm, £12-14

Follow Jessica Fostekew on Twitter and Instagram @jessicafostekew

Also listen to her Hoovering Podcast, available wherever you get your podcasts

Miss Power

Ahead of her appearance at The Great Western festival this month, Connie Constance talks us through her latest album, Miss Power, track by track

Words: Connie Constance

Miss Power is out on 4 Nov via Play It Again Sam

itsconniesworld.com

In the Beginning

From as early as I can remember there have been fairies around my childhood home and living in the bottom of my garden. When I first began making this album, I said I wanted to create it from the perspective of an ancient fairy that has been frozen in time for tens of thousands of years and awakened now in our present world – how would they feel, what would they see? I wanted to take people on a journey of the trials and tribulations of being a young person in today’s society.

Till the World’s Awake

For the most part, this song was the indie dance single of my dreams. It’s a letter to the universe... It’s a song that says thank you for looking out for me, thank you for the chance of making my dreams a reality, and thank you for the beautiful people you have kept around me.

Miss Power

It’s a fairy boss bitch anthem that I actually needed myself at the time. During the pandemic I was cleaning offices and toilets once a week to have enough money to come to the studio and to keep up my training in dance; it can be quite hard to keep a dream in your mind while squirting bleach down a toilet. This is my empowerment anthem.

Never Get To Love You

If fairies had a Skins-themed party this would be the backing track. I think this song is where all the field recordings that we did in the New Forest really shine. Me, Sam [Knowles, producer] and his friend Nic [Ferguson-Lee] went out to the country and frolicked with wild horses, recording all the mystical sounds that we could muster. Lyrically, it’s about an ex-lover, how we grew apart and [how] all the dreams we made together will be lived out separately as we aren’t in love anymore.

Mood Hoover

The writing of this song came from one of my mum’s classic phrases – “mood hoover”. She would call my adolescent brother [that] when he would finally make it down to dinner to be around his out-of-touch parents and uncool siblings. [Sam Knowles] said to me that it would be fun if I wrote a song about me and my

Photo: Joel Palmer man but from a love/hate perspective. I had “mood hoover” written down in my notes...From there I dived into my little bit sarky, little bit cheeky and a little bit moody perspective.

Heavyweight Champion

I had just started having quite a civil relationship with my father for the first time ever and I wanted to write about the fact that we may never get to reconcile on the past. Writing this song helped me understand that’s okay.

Hurt You

My revenge song, this is a song for all the villains that are a product of their environment. This is for the Joker and Harley Quinn. In this realm the villain is the people’s champion and anarchy reins.

Kamikaze

Where do I start? I was on stage with Hak Baker playing an unreleased punk song we had written earlier that year; I jumped off stage after the show and was raring to go. [I] went to the studio in Old Street [after] to capture the energy of [the] performance for the album. [We] barely had a bassline going and I was shouting ‘TICK, NO, TICK, YES, there’s no in-between / They want me to look PRETTY and they want me to look CLEAN’. And my feminist anthem was born.

Home

This song is my anxiety made beautiful, it’s for when you’re right in the thick of it, when you can’t silence the intrusive thoughts and you don’t really know what to do. This is another song where the field recordings shine! [It also features] my good friend Hak with the most beautiful spoken word poem. I wanted Hak to imagine I was a ha ard fairy and he was a jolly troll trying to cheer me up with his riddles, which is quite a characterful depiction of our relationship really.

YUCK!

We wanted to make a song for the album that was a stream of consciousness, and the only way to do it was as a freestyle. I wrote down a couple of subjects that had been floating around my head and got up to the mic and delivered it from start to finish in one take.

Blank Canvas

This song is really a cry for peace, for a fresh start. I’m not ready to uncover the story behind my writing for this song, but I’ve been more than ready to write this and have a song that I can relate to when I think back to a traumatic time.

Red Flag

I actually wrote this song after one of my dearest friends went through something that I’ve experienced myself, but less complex. It’s about that friend, lover or family member that is meant to have your back, but instead of protecting you from others, they are the chaos in your life. [It] also has that feeling of being on the other side of trauma and that’s why it is our grand finale. The album really started when I made Prim and Propa. This song, for me, carries that same energy, so it’s only right that it closes this era.

The Culture of Empathy

The day after Black Friday, a global gathering of creatives will demonstrate how art and community can do some good in the world with Fair Saturday

Interview: Becca Inglis Illustration: Tintin Lindkvist Nielsen

In venues across the world on the last Saturday of November, artists are gathering to take part in the global charity initiative, Fair Saturday. Booked as a sorely needed counterbalance to Black Friday’s unfettered consumerism, Fair Saturday has a simple but bold manifesto – to promote the value of empathy and culture for building a better society. It sounds ambitious, but the premise is quite straightforward. Creatives put on any kind of event and pledge a portion of its income to a charity or cause of their choice. If financial support is too much to commit to (as it has been for many artists of late), then participants can still use their platform to spotlight a charitable organisation. It’s a concrete way to demonstrate how the arts can make a positive impact in the world, and how much poorer we would all be without it – an especially vital message these days, when the fallout from COVID-19 and ongoing economic crisis are threatening the future of venues, festivals and individual artists.

“Culture is really important in and of itself,” says Suzy Ensom, the regional manager for Fair Saturday Scotland. “There are a lot of things that you can do through art, music or theatre that help people to look at the world a bit differently. I think that the arts and culture have a part to play in bringing people together and to help think about the more vulnerable members of the community.” Fair Saturday started out as a pilot event in 2014 in the city of Bilbao in northern Spain, before rapidly growing to 45 participating countries and 3,924 artists the next year. So far in 2022, more than 42,000 artists worldwide have signed up, and more will keep joining in the weeks leading up to the event. Usually it is cities or regions that join as Fair Saturday hubs, but Scotland is the only nation

“Having those kinds of community activities is really important for opening a new window to the world for people”

Suzy Ensom

that hosts its own Fair Saturday programme. Cultural organisations both big and small are taking part all around the country. The Queen’s Hall in Edinburgh will host a concert featuring the ‘all-welcome’ Soundhouse choir, multiinstrumentalist and singer Inge Thomson, and Edinburgh makar/poet Hannah Lavery, with proceeds going to Soundhouse’s work promoting local gigs and musicians. “We wanted very much to provide artists with the opportunity to support themselves,” says Ensom. Meanwhile in Bo’ness, the Hippodrome Cinema will screen the Me Too drama She Said, which coincides with the UN’s 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence. Up in the Highlands, the rural arts promoter SEALL are putting on the Festival of Small Halls, which brings together musicians in remote community halls across the Isle of Skye and Raasay for a performance and ceilidh. “The thing that makes Fair Saturday a bit different is that anyone can take part,” Ensom says. “Anyone can take part in the Edinburgh Fringe, but actually there’s often a cost involved. At Fair Saturday, it doesn’t have to be very costly, so it could be a local Scouts group putting on a display of what they’ve been doing or an amateur dance group.” These collectives can then take advantage of the global reach that Fair Saturday offers – last year, 37 countries tuned in to a livestream of the Festival of Small Halls’ ceilidh. It’s an opportunity, says Ensom, to feel part of something bi er, knowing that similar events are happening in other small halls – or large concert venues – in places like Lisbon, Bilbao, or La Rioja. As for what audiences take from the day, Ensom hopes that by pairing the promotional power of the festival and its larger participants, people will be nudged to discover new activities in their area. “There’s a lot of good work being done, but I think the arts still sometimes don’t feel accessible to particular groups or communities,” she says. “What I really want is for all people in Scotland to feel like there’s something there for them.” Take Orkney’s Northlight Gallery which, in a series of short films titled Orcadian Stories, is shining a light on locals who have made a difference in their community. Or the Oban Winter Festival, a ten-day event that showcases local performers, food vendors, and light shows. “Having those kinds of community activities is really important for opening a new window to the world for people.” For Ensom, it’s these smaller events outside the cities’ more traditional cultural centres that hold the bi est potential for Fair Saturday’s goals. “We’re empowering communities to create their own content and share that content with the world,” she says. “It’s about building bridges and understanding others and sharing the culture that makes us us and makes communities communities. Every community in Scotland, they’ve got something really precious to share. I think that this is the platform where they can do that.”

Fair Saturday, events across Scotland, 26 Nov

standrews.fairsaturday.org

Racism and Royalty

Director Laurie Sansom discusses racism and royalty in James IV: Queen of the Fight on the eve of its Scottish tour

Interview: Rho Chung

As the fourth play in Rona Munro’s James plays, James IV: Queen of the Fight focuses on the inaugural performance of William Dunbar’s sta eringly racist poem, Of Ane Black Moir (About a Black Moor) at the court of Scottish king James IV in the early 1500s. The poem, called “shockingly racist” by medievalist Karl Steel, details in deeply unsettling terms how the object of the poem – a Black woman, newly brought to Scotland – differs physically from her white counterparts. The translated title of the poem is sometimes referenced as ‘My lady with the large lips’, and it paints a clear picture of some of the earliest iterations of anti-Blackness in Scotland. The poem utilises many of the racist tropes we still see in play today. In it, Dunbar points out (‘praises’ is definitely not the right word) the subject’s ‘exa erated’ features – it is disturbing enough to read it, let alone to hear it spoken aloud. However, Munro’s most recent James play requires the audience to do just that. Director Laurie Sansom, who has been with the project since its inception, says that he hopes the story will “move people, make them talk about it.” Sansom is hoping that the raw depiction of racism in the play will contribute to the national discussion about racism in Scotland. “I think it’s calling out a kind of Scottish exceptionalism that likes to think it’s open and fair and equitable,” he says. “We know that, of course, there are other currents running underneath that.” Sansom is hoping that non-Black theatregoers are willing to interrogate their own biases, and confront in greater detail Scotland’s long history with racist violence. Performing this poem is a tall order for the show’s company, as well. Sansom says: “It was probably the hardest thing to get right. At the heart of the story, you have this horrible poem full of racist slurs, and it’s one of the key beats that we’re leading up to. It’s actually a very difficult thing to bring into the room, even in rehearsal – to have to hear those words and ask people to engage and respond to it.” Sansom talks about striking a balance between giving the poem context and power, while also allowing the play to showcase joy and complexity. He doesn’t want the poem to be “reduced to one utterance”, because it isn’t just a one-off incident. The sentiments in Dunbar’s poem are still echoed today. They can be found in beauty ads, social media trends, and reality television – they are very much a part of our modern spectacle. However, Sansom hopes that the play can cut through all this context to deliver a meaningful, character-led drama. According to Sansom, James IV is not like other history plays. It is, at its heart, a deeply personal drama about performances of power. Especially in the wake of the death of Queen Elizabeth II (James IV’s great-great-greatgreat-great-great-great-great-great-great-greatgreat-great granddaughter), Sansom hopes that the play can provide a timely examination of public and private power – how it is signified, held, and enforced. In James IV, we see the threads of white supremacy in royal rule enacted on a Black woman. But with a predominantly non-Black creative team, how deeply must a play dive to tell a faithful and constructive story about anti-Blackness? The question is, as always, who gets to be the subject? To be a subject is not just to have the play be ‘about’ you – it is to have agency and authority, to be liberated in the context of the story. In Dunbar’s poem, the Black woman is, quintessentially, an object. She is offered up for scrutiny, even ridicule. There is something in the project of James IV that hopes to go beyond pointing out that ‘racism = bad’. In its ideal interpretation, the play should interrogate the conditions that enable (and even celebrate) such abject oppression. “It looks like the play is responding to a very particular moment in time,” Sansom says. “But I think what happens is that, if you write honestly about people, you always end up talking about what’s going on in the world right now.”

Photo: Mihaela Bodlovic

Danielle Jam as Ellen, Laura Lovemore as Anne

Sometimes, theatre-makers make the mistake of thinking that because their work is ‘about people’, it doesn’t necessarily have to confront context head-on. Sansom and his team took steps in the rehearsal room to mitigate the eliding effect of adaptation, but it’s hard not to wonder about who really ‘owns’ the project. Especially because James IV sits in the midst of an ongoing trilogy about Scottish royalty, Dunbar’s egregious racism runs the risk of feeling like a feature of a broader history, rather than a current – and urgent – threat. Something feels out of touch about the wish to balance education with entertainment. After all, Sansom says, he also wants to give audiences “a really good night out” on top of everything else. It feels like Sansom’s wishes are targeted at primarily white audiences, at theatre-goers who need to be asked politely to confront racism, rather than those who are confronted with it on a daily basis. I’m not here to make a value judgement on plays about racism by predominantly white creative teams, but I think that the success of the James plays, including James IV’s upcoming Scottish tour, speaks to who is welcome to tell these stories in Scotland and who remains an object.

James IV: Queen of the Fight, touring Inverness, and Stirling until 12 Nov

Album of the Month Andrew Wasylyk — Hearing the Water Before Seeing the Falls

Released 25 November by Clay Pipe Music rrrrr

Listen to: Dreamt in the Current of Leafless Winter, Years Beneath a Yarrow Moon To know that someone from Tayside can produce such rich, explorative music is reason enough to celebrate the work of Andrew Wasylyk. Nods of recognition are duly coming his way as more people become aware of his talents. But with his latest record, you can’t help but feel he’s onto something truly magnificent.

Hearing the Water Before Seeing the Falls was initially conceived as a musical response to an exhibition by American contemporary landscape photographer, Thomas Joshua Cooper. Many of the artist’s works cover extreme locations surrounding the Atlantic Ocean, several of which are likely to be under water within 35 years as a result of climate change. These works and their ephemeral nature clearly had a strong effect on Wasylyk, who now swaps the greenery of Balgay Hill: Morning in Magnolia for a nautical voyage of longing and self-discovery on his new record. What’s most striking throughout is Wasylyk’s ability to create lush musical layers and textures in such an understated manner. New nu ets of sound present themselves with every listen, beginning with the 16-minute marvel, Dreamt in the Current of Leafless Winter, which sonically embodies the poetic nature of its title. A bedrock of jingle bells forms a slightly jarring drone before patient introductions of drums, keys and engrossing sax tones from Angus Fairbairn, aka Alabaster DePlume, paint a vivid picture that’s in full colour. Fairbairn’s playing throughout this track in particular is sensational; his staccato stabs contrast with elegant legato sequences beautifully, evoking variety and real emotional depth across what could have easily felt like too long a track. The album ebbs and flows between dreamlike states and palpable reality. Years Beneath a Yarrow Moon is laden with ominous arpe ios and evocative strings. Jazz elements come to the fore on the more structurally refined The Confluence, based around an inviting ostinato on keys that leaves space for intricate drums to shine and other instrumental layers to showcase their voices. The Life of Time features existential words written and performed by Cooper himself, bringing a nice personal touch to the album, while closing track Truant in Gossamer concludes on a slightly melancholic tone, but the subtle sounds of birds and bright vibraphone tones leave lasting shades of wonder, optimism and possibility. A deeply profound album that’s dense in multitudes, allow yourself the time and patience to bask in Andrew Wasylyk’s latest compelling body of work. [Jamie Wilde]

Find reviews for the below albums online at: theskinny.co.uk/music

Turnover Myself in the Way RRRrr

Ezra Collective Where I’m Meant To Be RRRRr Ami Dang The Living World’s Demands RRRRr Gold Panda The Work RRRRr Shake Chain Snake Chain RRrrr

Big Joanie Back Home Daydream Library Series, 4 Nov rrrrr

Listen to: In My Arms, Taut, What Are You Waiting For

Connie Constance Miss Power Play It Again Sam, 4 Nov rrrrr

Listen to: Home, Kamikaze, Miss Power Big Joanie have become slowburning breakout stars since 2018’s Sistahs, and their second album is sure to cement their reputations as iconoclasts in both the traditional punk sense, as well as in their approach/rejection of genre boundaries. There’s still plenty of scuzzy guitar, but Stephanie Phillips’ vocals shine through with a newly acquired sheen that makes the insightful lyrics impossible to ignore. But they haven’t forgotten the synths either, especially on the straight-up industrial Sainted which closes the album, bringing things full circle thematically from opener Cactus Tree’s ‘goths who are into doo-wop’ vibes. In My Arms is possibly the catchiest song they’ve ever made, while Count to 10 is the only true concession to electronica with sci-fi keys and a drum machine. The stylistic leaps from song to song would be unwieldy in lesser hands, but Big Joanie have such a clear, cohesive vision that going from trance to grunge seems to make sense. In fact, the only weak portion of the album (relatively) is two consecutive rockers towards the end. But this is a minor quibble in what’s otherwise one of the most exciting albums to come out this year, regardless of genre. [Lewis Wade] Carla dal Forno Come Around Kallista Records, 4 Nov rrrrr

Listen to: Side by Side, Come Around, Mind You’re On

Miss Power is a whirlwind. Winding through myriad emotions, utilising the complexity of sound to mimic the intended emotion, her mesmerising storytelling bodes well with certain fairytale elements, yet her passion and anger resonate in other thrashing tracks. Opener In the Beginning is a soundscape reminiscent of an enchanted forest. Constance's begins the album with a haunting chant that later expands into a fairytale world of layered vocals and distorted woodland sounds. It creates a juxtaposition between calmness and chaos, introducing the overall turbulence of the album. A shift in sound highlights Constance’s indie prowess. Till the World’s Awake and title track Miss Power reinforce themes of selfassurance. Kamikaze is addictive from the start, distorted guitars only heightening the raw emotion and passion erupting through Constance’s dauntless screams. As Miss Power comes to a close, tracks YUCK! and Home give comfort. Constance’s empathy is radiant as her lyrics are brought to the fore by way of a minimal guitarled backing. Her emotional intellect is demonstrated through her articulation of mental health and personal stru les. [Abbie Aitken] Kapil Seshasayee Laal self-released, 18 Nov rrrrr

Listen to: Rupture of the Wheel, The Pink Mirror Carla dal Forno has spent her first two solo records honing a very specific atmosphere, using the sound of 80s DIY synth-pop and post-punk to make soundscapes recalling brain fog haze and the equal parts calm and danger of a sleepwalker’s plod. On Come Around she hones in even further on this sound until it’s at its most essential form. The trademark dreamy haze is certainly there in spades. Opener Side by Side melds its seasick lurch of a bassline with wafting synths into something warm yet gently eerie, while the hypnotic, cyclical melodies of Stay Awake feel like a slow sink into your own subconscious.That is not to say there aren’t new sounds for dal Forno on the record. The title track, with languorous rhythms and stabs of guitar manages to feel like one of the half-forgotten dub singles that informed post-punk the first time around without ever feeling blindly derivative. Barring the exception of the brilliant, more up-tempo Mind You’re On, Come Around doesn’t have the tonal or the sonic variety of her previous record. Instead the record polishes to perfection dal Forno’s specific sound-world, feeling more like a jigsaw, the songs forming a kind of composite dreamscape. [Joe Creely]

Electronica and R’n’B converge on Laal, the conceptually daring second instalment of Kapil Seshasayee’s Desifuturist trilogy. Critically interrogating ‘hidden’ aspects of Bollywood’s legacy and present, the ScottishIndian artist’s work is underpinned by an uncompromising hunger for justice, with tracks shining a light on various oppressions. Legacies of casteism are explored on track I Whitewash the Old West, while on The Pink Mirror, the censorship and dehumanisation of queer and trans Indians in mainstream Indian cinema is highlighted. Standout track Rupture of the Wheel, featuring a guest verse from Pakistan rap outfit Daranti Group provides a searing critique of hypernationalism. Despite the heaviness of topic explored, the hyperpop influence keeps the track defiant and hopeful: anger is catharised towards hope for a better future. Sonically synth-laden, Seshasayee’s vocals float and converge into the instrumentation to mesmerising effect. The lo-fi production adds a raw edge, but in areas the album’s scope of ambition feels restrained – it would be interesting to see how this could be upscaled in future. Nevertheless, with Laal, Seshasayee has shown himself to be an innovative talent with a compelling future-forward vision, both sonically and thematically. [Anita Bhadani]

Tyondai Braxton Telekinesis New Amsterdam & Nonesuch Records rrrrr

Listen to: TK1_Overshare, TK3_ FloatingLake, TK4_Overgrowth Tyondai Braxton is perhaps best known for his time fronting US math-rock consortium BATTLES. Since leaving the band, Braxton has been busy further exploring the reaches of his musical imagination as an accomplished experimental composer. It’s in this vein that he brings us Telekinesis, an 87-piece work for electric guitars, orchestra, choir and electronics. Loosely inspired by the 80s Manga classic Akira, the work takes us on an epic journey through the discovery of telekinetic power, the destruction of wielding it without control and the ultimate path to self-destruction. Originally commissioned for live performance in 2018, this full studio recording featuring The Metropolis Ensemble, the Brooklyn Youth Chorus and chamber choir The Crossing is not only an expertly-crafted fusion of familiar electronic and organic textures, but is complete dream fodder for vintage horror/sci-fi soundtrack fanatics. Its exceptional use of Radio Serial-like synth wobbles and pulses paint a vivid vision of mind-bending power and the destruction left in its wake; amplified by gorgeously dramatic bursts of symphony and chorus. A real gem. [Ryan Drever] Weyes Blood And in the Darkness, Hearts Aglow Sub Pop, 18 Nov rrrrr

Listen to: It’s Not Just Me, It’s Everybody, Hearts Aglow, The Worst Is Done

Daniel Avery Ultra Truth Phantasy Sound, 4 Nov rrrrr

Listen to: Higher, Wall of Sleep, Only Daniel Avery’s Ultra Truth began as a sonic mood board in 2018, when he published a Spotify playlist of the same name. With more than 2000 songs, it’s an ever expanding insight into the sounds that have made their way into Avery’s latest album, ranging from Mogwai’s thunderous reverb to Portishead’s forlorn vocals and the early rave ecstasy of Andrew Weatherall. The record is a bit slow to get going, and at times meanders into excessive atmosphere – next to The Slow Bullet’s ambient fuzz, the urgent jungle rhythms on Higher and Devotion in particular pop. But Avery is engaging with the art of the album as a sum of its parts, and from start to finish conjures a fantastical, dreamlike world. HAAI’s airy vocals drift beneath clattering drums on Wall of Sleep, as if heard through the haze of a waking dream; squelchy percussion resembles dripping water in a cave on Collapsing Sky; the twinkling glockenspiel on Higher sounds positively starlit, as if we’re surging upwards into the night sky, propelled by unabating bass. The impression we’re left with is of forward motion. One by one, each track pushes on into a more hopeful place. [Becca Inglis] Phoenix Alpha Zulu Loyauté/Glassnote, 4 Nov rrrrr

Listen to: The Only One, Winter Solstice, All Eyes On Me Right from the first line of the first song, you remember how Natalie Mering is one of the best around for perfectly poising a line to make you stand up and take notice. On And in the Darkness, Hearts Aglow, she lets you back into her world with her warm, lugubrious tones riding high in the mix, setting up a confessional, intimate feel to the entire album. The second part of a trilogy, fundamentally it’s an album about anxiety and loneliness, not a million miles away, thematically or sonically, from the previous effort Titanic Rising. The lackadaisical soft rock backing with her vocals centre-stage remains, and veers into new territory on the downbeat disco of Twin Flame. Each song is a six minute paean to introspection and regret, always emotionally direct before giving way to meandering wordless crooning, as if she retreats back having exposed too much. The pandemic is the ghost at the feast, lyrics dotted throughout about the deep personal upheaval we have all endured both publicly and privately these past two years. Penultimate track The Worst Is Done lifts up the mood with wistful optimism, setting up the stage for the third and final album of this heartrending saga. [James Hampson]

Gleaming and resplendent, contoured and finessed, another Gallic artwork that has graced the halls of the Louvre is on display. No, it’s not some Renaissance portraiture, but another album from French sons Phoenix, with a Botticelli gracing its cover and actually birthed from the pandemicinduced emptiness of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs.

Alpha Zulu is everything a Phoenix album has been already: slick, silly, maximalist. Their music can still conjure exhilaration, and there’s definitely a song they can top and tail a show with. They mine nostalgia for call-backs; find comedy in impending doom. But the boys are ageing and, separated initially by lockdown, an emotional core burned a hole in the centre of this new record instead of a six-minute space-bound instrumental. Winter Solstice finds Thomas Mars vulnerably unadorned – ‘Turn the lights on, find me a narrative, something positive / This Requiem played a few times before / I heard it once, so I’m not sure’ – a distant, muffled bass pulse calling to him for connection. Phoenix are now an artefact. Movements come and go but the old masters who once made classics still bang, even with their lesser works. [Tony Inglis]

Film of the Month — Aftersun

Director: Charlotte Wells Starring: Paul Mescal, Frankie Corio, Celia Rowlson-Hall, Brooklyn Toulson, Sally Messham RRRRR

Released 15 November by MUBI Certificate 12A

theskinny.co.uk/film The classic British summer holiday is an uncanny excursion in which the laws of nature seem to not apply. Time feels like it stretches on forever, strangers bond together over nothing more than a shared nationality, real life slips away. One such father-daughter trip to Turkey is the setting for Aftersun, the muted debut feature from Scottish director Charlotte Wells. The film is the most realistic on-screen portrayal of a British family holiday since the TUI adverts. Many will recognise the hotel resort pools with high traffic, every dad’s stubborn loyalty to pints from the Irish pub, and the excruciating nighttime entertainment (Here, it’s the staff begrudgingly dancing to the Macarena). But beyond the momentary thrill of seeing vacations past rendered so clearly, the film is a careful unravelling of the fraying relationship between 31-year-old Callum (Paul Mescal) and his pre-teen daughter, Sophie (Frankie Corio). “When you were 11, what did you think you would be doing?” Sophie asks her father through a camcorder. It’s an innocent question that nonetheless seems to bother him, judging by his lack of an answer. The role of a parent doesn’t come naturally to him, and he doesn’t seem to want it either. Joining some teenagers for snooker, Callum is asked if Sophie is his sister, and the slight embarrassment in his intonation as he admits that he’s her father is only just perceptible. There’s a bubbling resentment from Callum that stems from becoming a father so young. On Sophie’s end, she learns that her father is less freewheeling than she expected. Callum can be the fun-loving dad who encourages her to goofily dance and talk about crushes, but then there are moments where he’s closed off, like in a particularly excruciating scene when he refuses to sing R.E.M.’s Losing My Religion with her at karaoke. To that end, Aftersun is also a story about that epiphany that arrives as a child once we discover our parents are just as fallible as any other person. Comparisons with last year’s The Lost Daughter are expected, in the way that they both depict parenthood as complicated at the least, and nightmarish at most. Nevertheless, Aftersun leaves something to be desired when considered next to Ma ie Gyllenhaal’s film, if only because it’s so toned down that an emotional release never arrives. But there’s also something to be said about Wells’ intimate approach, which feels just right for a relationship that’s slowly wearing away. In a film that’s navigating repressed emotion, its small cast is uniformly excellent in communicating subtly. Mescal slips in and out of a faint Scottish accent, but the Irish actor taps into that same level of deeply buried sorrow that garnered him acclaim in Normal People. “There’s this feeling when you leave where you’re from that you don’t really belong there anymore,” Callum admits to Sophie, speaking of his move to London and revealing an aimlessness that’s so confounding for a child also trying to figure out who they are and where they belong. It’s apt in this liminal space of a Turkish hotel that the feelings of disorientation that permeate their lives become that much clearer. [Iana Murray]

See a preview of Aftersun for free with The Skinny and MUBI: Glasgow Film Theatre, 8:35pm; 16 Nov, Cameo, Edinburgh, 7pm

Scotland on Screen: Krysty Wilson-Cairns

With films like 1917, Last Night in Soho and now The Good Nurse under her belt, Krysty Wilson-Cairns is now an established screenwriting force in Hollywood, but she explains that it all started at the old Global Video in Glasgow’s Southside

Interview: Rory Doherty

Filmography: The Good Nurse (2022), Last Night in Soho (2021), 1917 (2019), Penny Dreadful (TV, 2016), Fink (short, 2013), Dollface (short, 2013), The End of an Era (short, 2012), All Men’s Dead (short, 2012)

Instagram: @krystycairns Twitter: @WeWriteAtDawn Krysty Wilson-Cairns, the Oscar-nominated screenwriter of 1917, is eager to share her fond memories of growing up in Glasgow’s Southside. “We would go to Global Video three times a week, you know, three for £5 video rental,” she says. “We watched everything, we’d watch with subtitles, it didn’t matter. My grandparents would call it the Kinema, like really Glaswegian. I think if my grandparents and my mum had been given the start in life I had, they would have all been much better writers than me.” After studying at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Wilson-Cairns did her Masters at London’s National Film and Television School. Her dark and violent sci-fi script Aether made it on to The Black List, the prestigious annual collection of the year’s best unproduced screenplays, that led to her signing with an agent. The Good Nurse, the true-crime thriller about America’s most prolific serial killer, was actually the first project she was attached to after signing, but despite all the stars aligning – Danish director Tobias Lindholm, Jessica Chastain and Eddie Redmayne were all attached – it took a long time to take off. “We were all ready to go, and then it all fell apart overnight,” she recalls. “It was like, this isn’t going to work, the time’s not working, something to do with the rights like – all this stuff that happens. And I thought, ‘Well, that’s a shame,’ because at this point I’d spent maybe five years on it.” Such a drawn-out pre-production process had given her an unselfish love for the material. “I remember thinking that I wouldn’t mind if someone else started adapting this book just because I think the story is so important.” It wasn’t until 1917 and Night in Soho (Wilson-Cairns’s collaboration with Edgar Wright) were in production that the ball start rolling again on The Good Nurse. With such a packed schedule, Wilson-Cairns was probably relieved to have spent those five years on the script, as research isn’t just crucial to her

“I think reading your old work is like having a conversation with your old self”

Krysty Wilson-Cairns

process – it’s her favourite part. “I’m not an authority on medicine,” she says. “I wasn’t an authority in the First World War. I’m not an authority on 1960s Soho. So you have to totally immerse yourself in the world. So I’ll listen to the music. I’ll read diaries, first-hand accounts – for 1917, I spent the better part of six months constantly reading or going to the Imperial War Museum and listening to recordings of the veterans – so you understand how people speak as well. It’s also the best way to procrastinate.” She hasn’t had much time to procrastinate recently, and she’s not likely to have much downtime in the near future. Like any working screenwriter, she has an extensive back-catalogue of unproduced screenplays, and she’s now assessing them with fresh eyes. “It’s really weird as a writer going back to read Aether, because I hadn’t read it in maybe nine-ish years. When I wrote it, both my grandparents had Alzheimer’s. My grandfather had recently died and my gran had Alzheimer’s but was really fit and healthy, and became a violent woman. It was just my mum and I looking after her, and I was really depressed. I suppose when I read Aether I think, ‘Oh, my God, you were really stru ling. You really thought the world was terrible. You really thought this was a bad place.’ I think reading your old work is like having a conversation with your old self.” Wilson-Cairns doesn’t believe this old self would be able to tackle The Good Nurse, in no small part due to the difficulty of adapting true crime as an inexperienced writer. “It’s very difficult to get the rights to these kinds of things,” she explains. “To really accurately portray true crime, I call it both a burden and a privilege because you are writing about other people’s lives. I think you really have to take that responsibility seriously and get it right, and I think in film school, even I knew that I wasn’t ready for that responsibility. Nor did I have the infrastructure around me to make sure that you could tell the stories respectfully.” It’s a fine line, especially as all her produced work is filled with violence and darkness. “I find with each script, with each story, you have to work out what the touchstone is,” she explains. “I wouldn’t really call myself an optimist, but I’m not that much of a pessimist. I think what each of these stories has in common is actually this real pinhole of pure light.” But it’s those childhood days of renting videos that most influence her writing now. “I always believed that movies should be entertainment,” she says. “No matter what the story is that you’re trying to tell, no matter how serious it is. If you’re going to speak to people in the dark, you should make sure that they’re having a fun time.”

No Bears Director: Jafar Panahi Starring: Jafar Panahi rrrrr

Recent Jafar Panahi films have been concerned with boundaries, from testing the restrictions imposed on his artistry by the Iranian authorities, to exploring the slippery line between fact and fiction. In No Bears, he tells parallel stories about a couple trying to escape Iran, brilliantly linking these tales through an ingenious opening shot. One story occurs in a film Panahi is directing remotely from a small village near the Turkish border. The other drama unfolds around the director, as he unwittingly gets drawn into a scandal that animates the whole village, with a young woman attempting to escape her prearranged marriage and elope with her true love. The film-within-a-film – where the central couple’s quest for a passport seems to mirror the actors’ real lives – is less compelling than the main narrative in which Panahi himself is embroiled. The village elders demand that Panahi hand over an incriminating photograph that he claims he never took, and through this situation No Bears explores the nature of truth and how dangerous misplaced beliefs can be, while also giving Panahi space to critically examine his own role as a filmmaker in the current climate.

No Bears is full of Panahi’s trademark humour, invention and empathy, but a note of exhaustion and disillusionment creeps in as the film moves towards its tragic climax. Panahi’s recent arrest gives this bleak ending an additional layer of resonance, and we can only hope this isn’t the last we’ve heard from one of the vital voices in 21st-century cinema. [Philip Concannon]

Released 11 Nov by Picturehouse Entertainment; certificate PG

Bones and All Director: Luca Guadagnino Starring: Taylor Russell, Timothée Chalamet, Mark Rylance, Michael Stuhlbarg rrrrr

Bones and All is a film that wears its heart (and its lungs, and its liver, and its kidneys) on its sleeve. Everything that ought to be inside is suddenly out: organs and blood vessels, of course, but shame and desire and alienation too, made legible like a blush across skin. Luca Guadagnino’s film about two cannibalistic teenagers (Maren, played by Taylor Russell, and Lee, played by Timothée Chalamet) translates the hungry, grisly wants of coming-of-age into a raw and grief-stricken fairytale of life lived on the fringes. Its premise may be relatively welltrodden, yet while Bones and All doesn’t quite escape the tropey frills of its YA source material, Guadagnino’s fingerprints are all over his adaptation: in the bruised, longing fragmentation of memory that ruptures, in the slant queerness of desire enacted in the shadows. The setting – a sun-bleached Americana sometime in the 1980s – imbues the film with an overwhelming, analogue tactility that carries over to its two leads, with Chalamet’s trademark tremulous physicality playing against Russell’s portrait of rigid loss. It succeeds where star-crossed teen films before it have failed because the sheer violence at stake is given its due weight – unravelling the smeared blood and bone-crunching sickness of adolescence, where the tenderest, most impetuous of feelings sit hard alongside a shattering appetite for things we mustn’t want. All of us, Guadagnino’s film knows, are trying to run from our bloodied pasts. We are all seeking a way to belong. [Anahit Behrooz]

Released 25 Nov by Warner Bros.; certificate 18

No Bears Living Bones and All She Said

Living Director: Oliver Hermanus Starring: Bill Nighy, Aimee Lou Wood rrrrr

Remakes of Akira Kurosawa films should always be regarded with scepticism, but they do frequently manage to transpose his observations on contemporary or historical Japanese society onto the culture into which they’re being adapted. Thankfully, Living continues the trend with a mostly rewarding exercise in investigating the codes of class and labour that existed in 1950s England (as opposed to the same era of Japan in the original Ikiru), refracted through the end-oflife lifestyle shifts of a respected but unexcitable civil servant, Williams (Bill Nighy), after an unexpected terminal cancer diagnosis. It’s maybe the high standard set before it that propelled Living’s team to strive for something more prestigious than the usual sentimental British period fare. Director Oliver Hermanus (Moffie) and cinematographer Jamie Ramsay shoot with crisp, delicate style, offering a gorgeous colour palette in response to Kurosawa’s black-and-white original. All Living’s constituent parts, from the performances (a quietly powerful Nighy) to the stunning score (Emilie LevienaiseFarrouch) feel finely crafted. It’s a shame that the script, penned by none other than Kazuo Ishiguro, ends up flattening Living’s home stretch. Ishiguro has a great ear for the reserved, clipped dialect of the period, but the last third neglects to offer Ikiru’s furious closing social criticism, opting for interpersonal drama that, when it has to land the film’s entire emotional payoff, feels underdeveloped. It may appear only a slight fault, especially considering the strength of so many other elements, but the result is a film that deserves a more lasting impact. [Rory Doherty] She Said Director: Maria Schrader Starring: Carey Mulligan, Zoe Kazan, Patricia Clarkson rrrrr

Maria Schrader’s She Said is an excellently acted and competently constructed film that nonetheless stumbles under the weight of its capital ‘I’ importance. It follows New York Times reporter Megan Twohey (Carey Mulligan) and Jodi Kantor (Zoe Kazan) as they join forces on a new investigation into workplace sexual harassment with their eyes on the bi est man in Hollywood: Harvey Weinstein. Mulligan and Kazan’s double act of grit and heart work marvellously in scenes dramatising investigations. These are delivered with a straightforward, process-focused lens that avoids salaciousness and centre on journalistic rigour, though undercut by Nicholas Britell’s overlyheroic score. A major issue, though, is that She Said seems to trade in film industry insider knowledge to the detriment of the trauma at its centre. For example, Weinstein’s insistence on keeping ‘Gwyneth’ out of the NYT’s report is played almost with a knowing wink. The results feel less impactful than previous awards season procedurals such as Spotlight – and less compelling than the original reporting. A note on this ‘Gwyneth’: when Paltrow came forward, she noted her partner at the time of the abuse, Brad Pitt, stood up to Weinstein. More recently, Pitt has been on a rehabilitative PR tour after details of his own abusive behaviour toward his ex-wife, Angelina Jolie, and their children came to light. His name among the film’s executive producers feels uncomfortably like damage control. In the end, is She Said a story of courage straightforwardly told, or a self-congratulatory tome as the cycle of violence continues? [Carmen Paddock]

Inside the Factory

Albion Expo: a weekend of open studios, exhibitions and events shines a light on a hidden creative hub in Leith

Interview: Stacey Hunter

Natalie J Wood

Edinburgh-based designers Isabelle Moore and Eve Hynd are the producers of the first ever yard-wide Albion Expo. Their open studio event and pop-up exhibition at Albion Business Centre celebrates the eclectic array of multidisciplinary artists, designers and makers working in Leith. Over 30 independent creative professionals, across multiple spaces will all be publicly accessible together for the first time. This independently organised showcase is a chance to see first hand the craft and design industry within your local community and to support the continued production of locally made products. Speaking to Local Heroes during the preparatory stages of the show Isabelle Moore says, “Eve and I are both designer makers and have a passion for connecting people. It was evident that many folk had little knowledge about the hidden gem that is Albion and the unparalleled array of skilled artists and artisans based here. Albion Business Centre is a vibrant part of Edinburgh’s creative life, however, much of the breadth of skill here lies behind closed doors ordinarily. We’ve developed this annual showcase to allow public and professionals alike unprecedented access to the artists and the spaces within where an extraordinary quality and diversity of work is created on a daily basis.” The event is located in a cobbled yard which historically once housed James Dunbar’s soda bottling plant and is now more well known for its proximity to Hibs stadium. The multidisciplinary showcase takes place throughout the weekend of 12 and 13 November with a special opening night taking place on Friday 11 November, 6-8pm. A wide variety of scales of work, from jewellery through to architecture will be exhibited – featured disciplines include furniture design, screen printing, decorative surface design, glass art and textile design. Units 1, 3, 5, and 8 are participating alongside WASPs. A pop-up gallery will feature pieces from visual and fine artists alongside contemporary design, handmade furniture and accessories fabricated within the workshop’s exemplary woodworking facility. The collection showcases work produced across five studios, including pieces by Finbarr Lucas, who created objects during the first of a regular series of furniture residencies which began in May 2021. Open studio tours will allow unprecedented access throughout the yard enabling visitors to engage with skilled craft practitioners. Short handson demonstrations and informal presentations of craft techniques and materials will be on offer from selected makers. Learn more about making ceramics from Studio Frostwood, a partnership between ceramicists Natalie J Wood and Hazel Frost; try printmaking with Jessica Crisp and Chris Sleath of Dynamo Works and explore furniture making with Oli Debenham and Sedric Craigen. Visitors will be able to see behind the scenes at Fiona McIntosh’s Tessutti workshop where the designer hand-dyes and silk screen prints a range of distinctive fashion accessories. Furniture aficionados can head over to cabinet maker David Buchanan-Dunlop’s Lyne Studio where refined furniture and accessories for the home are created and where materials and jointing techniques take centre stage. Participating designer Hazel Frost said: “Albion Business Centre is home to so many incredible artists, designers and makers, with such a wide range of skills. It is a privilege to be part of this community and we are looking forward to showing everyone what we do here. We are excited to open our doors and welcome people into our space to share a little of what we do as ceramic artists, as well as represent a small part of Edinburgh’s Art and Craft community” For design lovers the Expo is a rare opportunity to meet with makers; see a variety of creative studios; engage directly in craft demonstrations; purchase objects for your home; discuss a commission or even book your spot on a craft course. For more information visit the Albion Expo instagram page.

Albion Expo is open Sat 12 Nov, 10.30am-4.30pm, Sun 13 Nov, 12-4.30pm

Unit 5 Albion Business Centre, 78 Albion Road Edinburgh EH7 5QZ

PATINA BAKERY, EDINBURGH

A trip to Edinburgh Park brings questions of place and context to the fore – but the excellent pastries at Patina prove an effective distraction Interview: Peter Simpson

3 Airborne Place, Edinburgh, EH12 9GR

Wed-Sat, 8am-4pm

i: patinaedinburgh If Edinburgh Park is a place at all, it’s an almost entirely liminal one. It has next to no history (the business park was founded in 1995) and very little life outside of office hours, but is almost comically well-connected to the rest of the city. You’re most likely to see it hurtling away from town on the train, or rumbling towards the airport on the tram, off somewhere new. It’s a transitional zone. It’s ‘on the way’ to other places. It isn’t really anywhere. Onto this blankish slate arrives Patina, and it’s a truly impressive undertaking – it’s a cafe and a bakery with a pastry focus, and somewhere in here there’s a bar and restaurant which also does gigs. Patina comes to town courtesy of the team behind Kiln, an excellent bar and restaurant in Newcastle which itself doubles as a working pottery. Truly, these folk love to multitask. Inside, Patina is equal parts flashy and homely. That means enormous Romanesque columns out front, and massive windows for catching the golden hour light and seeing through into the working bakery. It also means dangling pendant lamps for brightening the place up the rest of the time, some classy Scandinavian-inflected design, and a pleasingly Image: courtesy Patina cosy feel. There’s plenty of gold detailing, and the tableware is excellent – all wellhewn ceramics and hefty coffee cups. An accidental recent research trip to Kiln su ests that these are from the restaurant/ pottery on Tyneside (then the ‘Newcastle’ inscription on the bottom gives it away). The staff are all incredibly helpful, whether it’s the counter staff talking everyone through the extensive bakery counter or the staff member literally walking from table to table handing out free buns. Back at that counter, it’s an impressive array of sweet, savoury, sticky and sandwichy. The almond croissants are supremely gooey and absolutely loaded with almond paste, while the pain au chocolat has the classic combo of a thin, shellac-like outer layer with a soft, buttery inner. Many layers, all delicious, hard to fault. The bread is also delicious – the seeded sourdough bounces and crunches in all the right places with a pleasing tang – and the doughnuts have a truly impressive amount of jam squirrelled away inside them. The coffee’s great, and we don’t get a chance to try the pasta but it does look pretty impressive on its way to the next table over. An awning outside boasts that this new bit of Edinburgh Park will have a million square feet of office space and “1,800 diverse and affordable homes”, which is an interesting choice of wording we can get into later. The point is there is clearly a lot of money flying around this part of western Edinburgh, and now all that gold and those columns make a bit more sense. At the moment, it’s some half-empty office space, a hastily-assembled padel tennis court, a Premier Inn in the middle distance, slightly too much public art and some very nice pastries. It’s a bit like playing a new video game on a very old computer, waiting for the rest of the environment to load in. Patina is an excellent bakery staffed by lovely people, and it’s a warming refuge from the drizzly ghost town vibe outside, but it is the kind of spot that raises more questions than it answers. Back in the real world, patina is the sheen that comes with age – the wear on a well-used handle, or the scuffs on a dinner table that come together to form a new top layer. It’s a sign of life, of a worn-in object that has its own history and story to tell. Whether it can be applied directly to something brand new remains to be seen.

Image courtesy of Patina