The Skinny Scotland September 2015

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September 2015 Scotland Issue 120

Music Slayer Girl Band New Order Sacred Bones C Duncan WHITE Ought Clubs Dave Clarke Helena Hauff

Film Autumn Film Special Take One Action Me and Earl and the Dying Girl Robert Sheehan Art Laura Porteous Lust & the Apple Turner Prize Franco La Russa

Books Terry Pratchett Tribute Oscar Coop-Phane Bloody Scotland Theatre Lyceum at 50

“I don't know what I was thinking” MAC DEMARCO asks the planet round for coffee

MUSIC | FILM | CLUBS | THEATRE | TECH | ART | BOOKS | COMEDY | FASHION | TRAVEL | FOOD | DEVIANCE | LISTINGS

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An Evening with

Contents 06 Chat & Opinion: Welcome to the maga-

35

08 Heads Up: Step one: turn to page 8. Step

LIFESTYLE

zine; fine dining philosophy in What Are You Having For Lunch?; last minute news with Stop the Presses; plus Spot the Difference, Shot of the Month and more freakily accurate foresight from Crystal Baws. two: peruse comprehensive cultural calendar. Step three: go do loads of exciting stuff. See, we even give you instructions.

FEATURES

10

12

13

With new mini-LP Another One ready to roll, indie eccentric Mac DeMarco discusses selling his shoes and inviting his fans round for BBQs. We meet the cast of Me and Earl and the Dying Girl – “The Citizen Kane of teen cancer tearjerkers.”

As Terry Pratchett’s final book reaches shelves this month, The Skinny looks back at an author who managed to unite literature aficionados and fantasy fans alike

15

Ought’s hyperactive hive mind shows no signs of dimming on new album Sun Coming Down.

16

As White Noise approaches its 500th episode, techno baron Dave Clarke explains the similarities between EDM and Isis.

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21

The Take One Action film festival returns to Glasgow and Edinburgh this month – we take a look at what’s in store, while documentary-maker Harold Crooks lifts the lid on corporate tax avoidance in The Price We Pay. The woman behind Glasgow’s Turner Prize hosting, Sarah Munro examines the city art scene. We take a look at a London gallery with a DIY ethos similar to miraculous Glasgow.

22

Neither girl band nor rock band, Dublin noisemakers Girl Band seem determined to befuddle us all.

25

New Order's Stephen Morris gives us the lowdown on the sparkling electro-pop of Music Complete.

26

Glaswegian virtuoso C Duncan tells us about labours of love and his fondness for turning “gibberish” into art.

28

Rising Euro-lit star Oscar Coop-Phane advises us to “never trust a writer.” We couldn’t possibly comment.

29

Russel D. MacLean gets into gumshoe mode to investigate Bloody Scotland.

30 Robert Sheehan is no stranger to the

supernatural – we ask whether his silver tongue ever gets him into trouble.

33

The hotly-tipped WHITE formed from the ashes of The Low Miffs and Kassidy – they tell us how they’ve already conquered Google.

34

Exiting Lyceum artistic director Mark Thomson shares his thoughts on funding cuts as he prepares to cut 50th birthday cake.

September 2015

Former Summerhall curator Paul Robertson left under quite a cloud. He shows us around new gallery Lust and the Apple, all the while offering some remarkably Tory opinions.

36

Showcase: Our pick of the 2015 Grays’ School of Art degree show, Laura Porteous shows us her lovely paintings.

38

Deviance: On the troubles of acne, the power of concealer, and the rise of free bleeding – campaigns for menstrual rights.

39

Fashion: We take a look at some of the treats in store from the GSA Fashion promenade

40 Travel: The grim reality of home, after the once in a lifetime adventure – living with the travel hangover.

43

Food & Drink: It’s BACK! We launch our 2016 Food and Drink Survey – this marks the first of many months spent belligerently entreating you to send us your votes.

REVIEW

47

Music: We take in Sun Kil Moon and Sun Ra Arkestra live; new releases from Julia Holter, Battles, Kurt Vile and dozens more; plus a word with the minds behind Brooklyn’s Sacred Bones.

55

Clubs: This month’s top nights, and a guest selector from Helena Hauff.

Bangin’.

57

Art: September art highlights, alongside reviews of fugue states and Open for Business.

58

Film: A very Scottish Macbeth, plus Me and Earl and the Dying Girl and The Messenger feature in this round-up of the month’s cinematic treats.

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DVD: New releases for classic movies, as Pickup on South Street and My Darling Clementine hit the shelves. Comedy: BlundaBus conductor Bob Slayer aims his soothsaying gaze at the future of the Edinburgh Fringe.

60 Theatre: Confessions of a Justified Sinner

and Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour in review, plus an overview of Rapture’s plans for the Arthur Miller centenary.

61

Books: Our new poetry columnist introduces herself, plus reviews including Bukowski and Murakami.

63

Listings: Readjust to a post-Fringe world by immersing yourself in this list of cultural shindigs and happenings, lovingly compiled as our gift to you.

70

Competitions: Win tickets to the Pleasance Sessions, starring Blanck Mass, RM Hubbert, Withered Hand and more.

71

The Last Word: Slayer’s Tom Araya on the thrash titans’ uneasy relationship with fame and the rocky road to recording Repentless.

9 to 17 October 2015

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The Spree is taking place ahead of Paisley’s bid for UK City of Culture 2021

Contents

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Editorial W

hat a month. Thank fuck it’s finished.

August was a memorable, recordbreaking time here at The Skinny. We started with one of our biggest ever issues, before joining Edinburgh Art Festival with a graduate exhibition in Hill St Design House. Setting that up was an adventure coloured by van-related dramas in abundance. We then went on to produce not one, not two, but three Student Handbooks, covering Scotland, Northwest England and Leeds, which will be popping up in a student dive near you in the coming weeks. Our Comedy and Theatre teams have been diligently reviewing all the fun of the Edinburgh Festivals, with the comedy critics breaking their own record of most shows reviewed.

Our Short Film Competition winner was unveiled in a screening in the exhibition space (congratulations Bryan M Ferguson), before we all went along to the Book Festival for our special Unbound night. Featuring writer Sean Michaels and World’s Best Thereminist Lydia Kavina, it was a memorable occasion introducing a whole new audience to the intricacies of a weird and wonderful instrument. Then we all went back to the office, and made this lovely magazine you have before you now.

On our September cover you will see Mac DeMarco, a Canadian songwriter who is living to regret his decision to give away his home address, along with an open invitation to come round for tea, in the lyrics of new album Another One. Further into Music, we keep it Canadian, with words from Montreal’s Ought, gracing these shores ahead of the release of Sun Coming Down mid month. Dublin’s Girl Band (disclaimer: this band contains no girls) introduce Holding Hands With Jamie while refusing all attempts at categorisation; New Order’s Stephen Morris drops by to reminisce about his time guest starring in Baywatch; and Glasgow’s C Duncan

discusses his classical influences and Architect, his solo, bedroom-produced labour of love. Finally, in our ongoing series of trips into the murky consciousness of metal legends, Slayer’s Tom Araya offers us a candid insight into touring, discord and legacy.

If it’s autumn (which apparently it is, even though summer never quite got going) then it must be time for Scottish film festivals to sprout up left, right and centre. We open our coverage with a spread profiling a few of September’s choicest programmes, from Take One Action’s ongoing entreaty to effect change through individual actions, to Scottish Queer International Film Festival’s campaign to reflect and explore queer identity on the silver screen. In other cinematic news, we have some words with the painfully precocious stars of new Young Adult dramedy Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, and Misfits’ Robert Sheehan, on a shoeless promotional tour for The Messenger.

Books looks forward to the annual literary bloodbath, Bloody Scotland, and talks to the achingly bohemian author Oscar Coop-Phane about Berlin clubs and the Parisian left bank. In Art, we are mostly excited about the arrival of the Turner Prize, an event lent some clarity by Glasgow Life high heid yin Sarah Munro. We have a Showcase from one of our EAF artists, painter Laura Porteous from Aberdeen. And in an interview that is sure to incite rage and violence among Scotland’s art community, former Summerhall curator Paul Robertson tells us, not uncontroversially, why he thinks art should be driven by market forces, and don’t you think there are too many artists, anyway?

Not really, no. Still, it’s an interesting perspective. And on that note, I’m going on holiday.

[Rosamund West]

The Skinny are thrilled to reveal that the winner of our 2015 short film competition is Caustic Gulp by filmmaker Bryan M Ferguson. After a brilliant response to this year’s competition, with over 100 emerging filmmakers from across the UK submitting work, Ferguson's striking and stylish short was chosen from a shortlist of thirteen films by our judging panel, which included Glasgow Short Film Festival director Matt Lloyd, producer Rosie Crerar, filmmaker and critic Mark Cousins, and The Skinny’s film editor Jamie Dunn. Watch the winning entry at theskinny.co.uk/film/ short_film_competition.

Our annual Student Handbooks are hitting the street this month, offering the youth an insider’s guide to life in their new cities, plus essential yet impractical information on avoiding STDs. There’s one for Scotland, plus two northern English editions, covering Manchester + Liverpool and Leeds. Keep an eye out for our lovely illustrated cover or head to the website for a full rundown on what’s good across our key cities.

Online Only We’ve got lots of reportage from the Edinburgh International Book Festival! theskinny.co.uk/ books We’ve got loads of stuff on a million film festivals! theskinny.co.uk/film We’ve got one bazillion gajillion reviews from the Edinburgh Fringe, from comedy to theatre and everything in between. theskinny.co.uk/comedy theskinny.co.uk/theatre

SAVE THE DATE. It’s our 10th birthday next month, and to celebrate we’re throwing a massive party.

We’re not going to tell you any more about it right now, but keep Friday 16 October free.

jockmooney.co.uk

Spot the Difference

TWO HOT DOGS This month’s Spot the Difference was inspired by real events that took place during the harrowing days of the Edinburgh Fringe. Can you tell the difference between these two hot dogs? If you think you’ve got a hunch, head along to theskinny. co.uk/competitions and tell us your thoughts.

The funniest and most inventive answer will win a copy of The Well by Catherine Chanter, courtesy of those lovely folk at Canongate.

6

Chat

Competition closes midnight Thu 1 Oct. Winners will be notified via email within two working days of closing and will be required to respond within 48 hours or the prize will be offered to another entrant. The winner will receive the ticket by email. Our Ts&Cs can be found at theskinny.co.uk/ about/terms-and-conditions

Best in Show: DOG V TEDDY BEAR It's very hard to tell the difference but I am certain that the first picture has a wetter nose.. Maybe its a trick of the light as they are both cute, fluffy and adorable but I think the first picture is made different just by the nose. Hope I am right! Tricky!

SL

I'm going for the hat as the main difference. IB You made a mistake, they are identical. IS

One's obviously a freeloading immigrant, the other a hard-working bear. SG

The teddy on the left is utterly comfortable in his own body and revels in his nakedness, while the teddy on the right is haunted by his insecurities as evidenced by his forced, fixed smile and totally unsuitable clothing. DF

The one on the right drinks more coffee RS

The one on the left doesn't pee on the carpet. JM

THE SKINNY

Crystal Baws With Mystic Mark

ARIES After six months planning, number crunching and theorising, you’re finally ready to construct the prototype of your time travel machine. Staying late at work, it takes hours to carefully winch photocopier A upside down onto photocopier B so their scanning plates are in contact. Then, after putting on a helmet and goggles in case you break the universe, you take a deep breath and press ‘SCAN’ on both simultaneously.

TAURUS The only shoulder you have to cry on is the hard shoulder of the motorway.

GEMINI It’s ridiculous that in this day and age we still refer to female human beings as ‘Worm-Men.’ This despite the clear fact that ladies are hardly anything like worms. It’s about time you apologised to the Worm-Man in your life, for all the times you made a sexist compliment and told her how good you thought she was for the soil.

CANCER Stop searching. The meaning of life was figured out by a single-celled amoeba 3.5 billion years ago. Since then every evolutionary step forward has been a process of forgetting that singular, nightmarish truth.

LEO In September you astrally project out of your body and across the infinite vastness of space only to discover that there is no fucking Wi-Fi. VIRGO After swimming with dolphins you’re alarmed to find a plastic tag attached to your ankle with cryptic characters printed all over it.

LIBRA Getting bitten almost as soon as the zombie apocalypse starts is a massive disappointment, since this is real life and there’s no ability to respawn.

Thus you spend most of September as a ghost, hovering after your

embarrassing zombie body, awkwardly apologising to the still-living people it’s chasing around who can’t even hear your ghostly moans attempt to explain that you “wouldn’t normally do this� and that you “don’t even like brains.�

SCORPIO Last month you went to Lourdes to beg for a miracle to cure you of the flu. After God granted your wish, this month you return to rid yourself of the hepatitis C you picked up while bathing in the disease-ridden holy waters.

your decomposing corpse is revolving like a skeleton in a salad spinner.

CAPRICORN At work you don’t understand the meaning of the word failure, or oblong, or the meanings of any of the words for that matter.

AQUARIUS After a heavy night drinking you wake up in a fox den with your pants around your ankles holding a positive pregnancy test clutched in your vice-like grip.

SAGITTARIUS PISCES After dying in a boring accident, you People just seem to want something become the first recipient of a new from you all the time, whether it’s food, Smart Coffin™. Linked to social media water or access to sunlight. Sometimes feeds, the casket spins when prompted gets you questioning whether they by news updates about events that are your real friends at all, or merely would have annoyed you if still alive, prisoners you keep trapped in your from pet peeves to political leanings basement. and sports preferences. As updates like these appear on your feed your twitter.com/themysticmark friends find comfort knowing that in facebook.com/themysticmark the cold earth beneath their feet

Shot Of The Month

The Skinny's 100th Issue Party

The October Issue:

Out Tuesday 6 October

T

he next issue marks an exciting (and slightly concerning in a reminder-of-the-ceaselessmarch-of-time style way) moment in The Skinny’s history. It’s our 10th Birthday! You can expect all sorts of excitement, from detailed excavations of our archive, to a freakin massive party. And the usual excellent cultural journalism, natch.

September 2015

Opinion

7

Credit: Ross Fraser McLean

Sun Ra Arkestra, Summerhall, 20 Aug, by Kate Johnston

Covering the whole of September (and even a little of October), this month's calendar takes in the beery joys of Craft Beer Rising, the inaugural Discover Indonesia festival, the return of Take One Action, a dip into City Link Festival, and oodles more...

Resident i AM young guns Beta & Kappa ripen to the grand old age of five, celebrating with i AM 5.1 in their beloved Sub Club lair, kickstarting a month of partying with guest sets from a duo of acts from Bristol's Black Butter Records label – genre-traversing duo My Nu Leng and bass artist Woz (aka Ashley Westlake).

Celebrations continue with i AM: 5.2 on 8 Sep, with Daniel Avery on guest duties. Sub Club, Glasgow, 11pm, from £6

Creatively active since the early 90s, the CCA present a showcase of work by film artist Joey Huertas (aka Jane Public) – who divides his time between social work in psychiatric hospitals and prisons, and his practice as a filmmaker – including a screening of early work I Loving Me, plus a selection of work from the 00s. Huertas will also be on hand for a post-screen Q&A. CCA, Glasgow, 7pm, £3.40 (£2.40)

Beta & Kappa

Joey Huertas

Wed 9 Sep

Following the release of their second LP Etch and Etch Deep – an ethereal collection of ten wordless songs delicately sewn together with rich textures and melliferous melodies – the spellbinding Haiku Salut bring their unique 'lamp show' to Glasgow, taking to the stage surrounded by a light orchestra of vintage household lamps that flicker and fade when triggered by the music. Sloans, Glasgow, 8pm, £8

Having spent the past few years steadily redefining psychedelic rock for a millennial audience, Tame Impala, aka the one-man studio machine that is Aussie innovator Keven Parker, continue to tour third LP Currents – a funk rhythm-driven gem of a thing that got a rare fivestars in these very pages.

Support comes from fellow Aussie Nicholas Allbrook (aka the frontman of Pond).

Barrowlands, Glasgow, 7pm, £18.50

Celebrating 70 years since the Proclamation of Indonesian Independence, Discover Indonesia has its inaugural festival outing in Glasgow, with a highlight of the programme being a film showcase at CCA from indy filmmaker/soundtinkerer Vincent Moon – who's been making short films in Indonesia for the past six years, documenting everything from rare shamanic rituals to acapella village songs. CCA, Glasgow, 9-13 Sep, free

Haiku Salut

Tame Impala

Credit: Beth Chalmers

Tue 8 Sep

Credit: Cathy Dupuy

Mon 7 Sep

Mon 14 Sep

Tue 15 Sep

Wed 16 Sep

Following June's undergraduate degree show outing, September finds the 300odd doctoral and masters students getting their chance to shine at The Glasgow School of Art Graduate Degree Show 2015, taking in work by post grad students across a variety of disciplines, including architecture, design, fine art, and digital. Go marvel. Glasgow School of Art (Reid Building and McLellan Galleries), Glasgow, 12-18 Sep, free

Departed Edinburgh venue The Soundhouse continues its fundraising gig residency at the Trav – raising pennies for The Soundhouse Organisation, a charity dedicated to founding a new music venue in Edinburgh offering a fair deal to musicians – this edition hosting a oneoff collaborative set from jazz vocalist Tina May and composer/pianist Nikki Iles. Go support the cause. Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, 8pm, £10

As part of the CCA's 'Cooking Pot' project – a community-focused series of events bringing people together through food – Ricefield Arts host the delectable-sounding Dumpling Night, a workshop/live tasting event teaching attendees how to make traditional Chinese dumplings from differing regions in China, before culminating in a group eating session. The Glad Cafe, Glasgow, 7.30pm, £8

Take One Action returns for its eighth year with another thought-provoking programme asking big questions and inviting world change, opening with Harold Crooks' eye-opening documentary on the UK and global financial system, The Price We Pay, followed by an audience discussion. Also showing at Glasgow's GFT the following evening. Filmhouse, Edinburgh, 8.20pm, £9 (£7.20/£4.50)

Laura Thompson, Senseless

Tina May

Ricefield Arts

Credit: Bronwen Bender

Sun 13 Sep

The Price We Pay

Sun 20 Sep

Mon 21 Sep

Tue 22 Sep

Wed 23 Sep

Resident Irish funnyman Michael Redmond hosts his regular weekend-extender of laughs – Michael Redmond's Sunday Service – propping up The Stand's diminutive stage with a handpicked selection of guests, this edition in the form of talented young stand-up Rhys James, former nurse Penella Mellor, and local talent (and fellow comic Keir McAllister's wife) Jay Lafferty. The Stand, Glasgow, 8.30pm, £6 (£5/£1)

Showing as part of its 'Culture Shock' series – returning cult films to the big screen – Edinburgh's Cameo dig out Alien for a one-off airing, with Sigourney Weaver doing her feminist icon thing as gun totin' Ellen Ripley. But, let's face it, it's Jonesy the cat that steals the show.

Also showing An American Werewolf in London (7 Sep), The Evil Dead (14 Sep) and The Thing (28 Sep). Cameo Cinema, Edinburgh, 9pm, £7 (£6)

Taking another dip into this year's Take One Action programme – this time with a bit of audience involvement – Edinburgh's Botanic Gardens host a bike-powered screening of Fredrik Gertten's Bikes vs Cars, documenting the struggles for cyclists in a car-dominated society, from bike activists in Sao Paulo, to Copenhagen and its 40% by-bike commuters. Royal Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh, 7.30pm, £4.50 (£6)

Fortuna POP! signed indie-pop troupe Joanna Gruesome hit town to give their sophomore LP Peanut Butter the suitably noisy live treatment – chiming in at a short-butsweet 21 minutes of noisepop perfection – ripping through Summerhall as part of the venue's Nothing Ever Happens Here gig series. Also playing Glasgow's The Glad Cafe the following night.

Summerhall, Edinburgh, 8pm, £10

Michael Redmond

Alien

Bikes vs Cars

Mon 28 Sep

Tue 29 Sep

Wed 30 Sep

Thu 1 Oct

A selection of Scottish-based Whirlwind Recordings artists hole up in Stereo for a two-night takeover – Whirlwind Recordings Mini Fest – presenting music from their previous/upcoming releases, among them Glasgow saxophonist/composer Konrad Wiszniewsk, Ryan Quigley and his live band quartet, and Whirlwind’s own Michael Janisch presenting his new band Paradigm Shift.

Stereo, Glasgow, 28 & 29 Sep, 7pm, £25 weekend

Having appeared at last month's Edinburgh International Book Festival, and been interviewed in these very pages in our August issue, Scottish author Janice Galloway takes to Glasgow's Mitchell Theatre for a special Aye Write!

Presents... evening, talking about her first short story collection in five years, Jellyfish, exploring love, sex, and parenthood in her irresistably honest way. Mitchell Theatre, Glasgow, 7.30pm, £6

Aldous Huxley's groundbreaking novel, Brave New World, gets its first ever stage adaptation, world premiering at Edinburgh's Festival Theatre, with award-winning playwright Dawn King bringing the tale of a fictional future free of war, poverty and crime to life, backed by original music by London indie-popsters These New Puritans. Festival Theatre, Edinburgh, 29 Sep-3 Oct, from £14

Prestigious visual art award Turner Prize 2015 comes to Scotland for the first time, taking up residence at Glasgow's Tramway to showcase the work of the four shortlisted artists – Assemble, Bonnie Camplin, Janice Kerbel, and Nicole Wermers – alongside a programme of accompanying workshops, talks, tours, and activities. The winner will be announced on 7 December. Tramway, Glasgow, 1 Oct-17 Jan, free

8

Chat

Michael Janisch

Janice Galloway

Sophie Ward in Brave New World

Vincent Moon

Joanna Gruesome

Assemble

THE SKINNY

Credit: Rachel Hodgeson

Compiled by: Anna Docherty

Wed 2 Sep

Credit: © Assemble

Heads Up

Tue 1 Sep

After a couple of teasing months of 'work in progress' shows across Edinburgh and Glasgow, cantankerous bastard Frankie Boyle hits up the latter's King's Theatre for the only performances of his new show, Hurt Like You Mean It, an intentionally goading response to Compton hip-hopster Kendrick Lamar's last album, showing for three nights only. The King's Theatre, Glasgow, 3-5 Sep, 8pm, £21

A new event for Portobello celebrating the artistic activity of Edinburgh's seaside, Art Walk Porty leads a trail around various artists' studios, plus site specific art on the beach and prom, pop-ups in local shops, and mini maker's markets, with participating shops/venues including The Skylark, Velvet Easel Gallery, The Beach House, and Cove and Faver’s Candy Emporium.

Various venues, Portobello, 3-6 Sep, free

Providing a beery September weekend enclave for a second year running, Drygate host the the sophomore Scottish edition of craft beer slurpfest, Craft Beer Rising. An annual fixture in London since 2012, it'll serve up over 150 beers from 30 local and international craft breweries, bolstered by live music and a selection of street food. Drygate Brewing Co., Glasgow, 5 & 6 Sep, various timeslots, £12

From all things beer (see left), to all things food, restaurant festival and pop-up market Let's Eat Glasgow! takes to SWG3 for its inaugural outing – serving up food from a selection of Glasgow's best restaurants, including Ox and Finch, Crabshakk, Stravaigin, and The Ubiquitous Chip, alongside 60+ artisan food traders selling their wares for you to take home and, y'know, continue doing all the eating. SWG3, Glasgow, 5 & 6 Sep, free

Frankie Boyle

Art Walk Porty

Craft Beer Rising

Sat 12 Sep

Taking a second dip into the Discover Indonesia programme in as many days, experimental artist and theatre maker Jompet Kuswidananto tours his Grand Parade installation to Scotland (following a stint at the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam) – an arresting mix of light, sound, and movement depicting dozens of human figures with drums, guns, and helmets meeting in a big square. The Glue Factory, Glasgow, 10 Sep-4 Oct, free

After a few years of trying, longrunning Dundee house and techno night Headway finally manages to entice one of Northern Ireland's finest purveyors of forgotten disco, Chicago house and Detroit techno – DJ duo Matt McBriar and Andy Ferguson, aka Bicep – to host one of their notoriously good Feel My Bicep parties in the Reading Rooms, marking what will be their Dundee debut.

Reading Rooms, Dundee, 10.30pm, £12

With this year's LeithLate enjoying an expanded format, the arts fest continues with its four-month programme of pop-ups, with the first half of September seeing 'em host a LeithLate15 Open Studios weekender across Wasps Albion Road Studios, Edinburgh Contemporary Crafts, and St Margaret’s House, before drawing to a close with a showcase exhibition later in the month (see 24 Sep). Various venues, Edinburgh, 12 & 13 Sep, free

Jompet Kuswidananto, Staging Collectivism

Bicep

Sat 19 Sep

One of the more intriguing music events of the month, Transplanted sees eight Scottish composers – among them David Fennessy, Hanna Tuulikki, and Judith Weir – unveil new miniatures exploring the characteristic sounds of native wild plants, taking inspiration from Scottish Baroque composer James Oswald's 1755 Airs for the Seasons, backdropped by a selection of Laurie Campbell's plant portraits.

The Glad Cafe, Glasgow, 7.30pm, £12

Kicking off the Royal Lyceum Theatre Company's 50th anniversary year official, original company member Brian Cox and fellow well-kent Scottish actor Bill Paterson sink their teeth into a new adaptation of Samuel Beckett’s masterly black comedy – Waiting for Godot – some 60 years since its first UK performance, and arguably as relevant today as it was then. Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, 18 Sep-10 Oct, from £10

Platform's mini-fest Eastern Promises returns for a fifth surveying of some of the finest alternative musicmakers around, spreading its wares across Friday and Saturday evening – with Bill Wells and Aidan Moffat, and Golden Teacher, headlining each day respectively, plus the likes of Euros Child, Supermoon, Richard Dawson, and Bossy Love. Return bus from Monorail. Platform, Glasgow, 18 &19 Sep, 7pm, £15 weekend

Transplanted

Waiting for Godot

Credit: Laurence Winram

Fri 18 Sep

Credit: Andrew Wiggins

Thu 17 Sep

Credit: Nick Bojdo

Fri 11 Sep

Credit: Jompet Kuswidananto

Thu 10 Sep

Fri 25 Sep

Sat 26 Sep

Sun 27 Sep

Following its open studios weekender earlier in the month (see 12 Sep), LeithLate pop up again with a showcase exhibition at The Biscuit Factory, the results of an artist exchange between Copenhagen and Edinburgh as part of City Link Festival, with Kevin Harman, and Jamie Johnson among those representing Scotland.

Opening night, 24 Sep, 6-9pm. The Biscuit Factory, Edinburgh, 24-27 Sep, free

Part night-walk, part opportunity for some cultural snooping, Maggie's Culture Crawl Edinburgh sees author Alexander McCall Smith curate a 10-mile evening walk of Edinburgh, from Calton Hill to the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, offering late night access to the buildings, as well as scran and tipples along the way. Raising funds for Maggie's Edinburgh. Various venues, Edinburgh, £25 registration

Originally birthed in Australia, the Ocean Film Festival returns to the UK for its now annual autumn tour, making its only Scottish stop-off at Edinburgh's Festival Theatre – taking in a batch of ocean-themed films from independent filmmakers and ocean enthusiasts across the globe, including mini doc of, er, mini surfer, six-year-old Quincy Symonds, A Small Surfer.

Festival Theatre, Edinburgh, 7.30pm, £13.50

Fresh (or, y'know, pure knackered) from a monthlong stint at Edinburgh's Fringe in August, awardwinning Scottish comedian Daniel Sloss returns to the live stage with his latest show, Dark, titled in reference to the very term he's sick of people labeling his comedy as.

Also at Dundee's The Gardyne Theatre (26 Sep) and Edinburgh's The Stand (30 Sep).

The Stand, Glasgow, 8.30pm, £15 (£11)

Franco-Scottish collab Auld Alliance Contemporary Exhibitions (AACE) returns for 2015, pairing three successful 80s graduates from Paris (Hélèn Lhote, Margat, and Paella Chimicos) alongside a sixstrong collective of upand-coming Scottish artists, including a number of RSA New Contemporary exhibitors, showing across a duo of venues. E.D.S. Gallery and The Institut Français d’Ecosse, Edinburgh, 1-31 Oct, free

September 2015

Margat, Sans Titre

Ocean Film Festival

Sat 3 Oct

Sun 4 Oct

Mon 5 Oct

Glasgow media dudes Tenement TV host the third annual Tenement Trail allday mini fest – this time spider-webbing across six neighbouring venues (The Art School, King Tut’s, Flat 0/1, Nice 'n' Sleazy, Broadcast, and O2 ABC), taking in a headline set from fledgling Glasgow popsters White, plus Neon Waltz, Pinact, Man Of Moon, Atom Tree, and a too-manyto-name list more (see listings). Various venues, Glasgow, 2pm, from £11

E'er relied upon to give your Sunday evening, backto-work-blues a good seeing to, The Stand's resident comedy crew round-off the weekend with The Sunday Night LaughIn – a pick'n'mix showcase night featuring a lineup of five stand-up acts, this edition compered

by Glaswegian funnyman Scott Gibson. The Stand, Edinburgh, 8.30pm, £10 (£7/£5)

Fast becoming one of our go-to Glasgow gig havens, the newly-opened The Hug and Pint brings some brightness to your Monday with a set from Lost Map Records label lass Rozi Plain, still riding the wave of 2015 LP Friend – a gemlike batch of ramshackle folk tunes, built on handpicked guitar lines, grooveladen drums, and her spelllike vocals. The Hug and Pint, Glasgow, 7.30pm, £8

Pinact

Credit: John Graham

Fri 2 Oct

Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art

LeithLate15 Open Studios

Golden Teacher

Thu 24 Sep

Puppet Quartet, Jamie Johnson

Let's Eat Glasgow!

Credit: Jamie Simpson & Herald and Times Group

Sun 6 Sep

Credit: Eoin Carey

Sat 5 Sep

Credit: Rita Azevedo

Fri 4 Sep

Daniel Sloss

Susie McCabe

Rozi Plain

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Credit: Jassy Earl

Thu 3 Sep

S RE AT U Credit: Coley Brown

FE

Mac Yourself at Home About to embark upon his biggest UK dates yet in support of new mini-LP Another One, we speak to indie oddball Mac DeMarco about finding new ways to connect with fans and giving a little something back to the community

M

ac DeMarco wants to make you coffee. In a parting message at the end of his latest release, the Canadian songwriter plainly states his home address in Queens, NY and invites listeners to “stop on by” for a cup of joe. “I don’t know what I was thinking,” he admits. “I’ve had about 15 or 20 people come over so far because the album was leaked a couple of days ago, so yeah, I don’t know how to feel about that yet.”

A rash impulse maybe, but it’s an entirely characteristic move from a known prankster who carries himself with the sort of down-to-earth demeanour and unpretentious goofiness that confounds the traditional rockstar/fan hierarchy.

For starters, DeMarco is (to put it bluntly) uncommonly transparent about his personal life. Spend any amount of time searching him on YouTube and before long you’re going to see him naked, probably while using the toilet. His own channel is full of homespun comedy shorts that offer a

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fairly unfiltered view into his everyday life, most featuring close friends and family. Since his girlfriend Keira began joining him on stage for crowd favourite Still Together their relationship has been prime fan fiction material on Tumblr, and even his mum’s been interviewed by the press after he jokingly directed fans to her Facebook account.

The music has become increasingly more intimate, too. While a relatively odd debut found DeMarco pitching down his voice into a low warble and impersonating a late night radio host between songs, his follow-up, 2, was a much more straightforward insight into the man himself, a collection of charming and preternaturally infectious pop songs that gained overnight recognition. Salad Days continued in much the same vein, though delving into topics of isolation and the emotional toll of this bacchanalian lifestyle on Passing out Pieces. Throughout, DeMarco has stayed true to a raw and rugged recording style, which combi-

ned with an endearing, cracky falsetto that oozes honesty, it’s no surprise that many feel a true connection to the man behind the microphone.

“If they want to come hang, it’s totally fine with me” Mac DeMarco

More than a pathological oversharer though, DeMarco is hugely appreciative of his fans. For a man already known to spend hours after gigs shaking hands and posing for selfies, inviting fans round for a chit chat seems a natural next step.

“I love the people,” he says sincerely. “Everyone that’s

MUSIC

Interview: Andrew Gordon

come over has been really nice. You’ve got be a freak to want to come all the way over here and a lot the kids are really young, but it’s cool. If they want to come hang, it’s totally fine with me. I mean, I invited them so I’ve got to reap what I sow.”

For DeMarco, friendly and approachable was just the way he always knew musicians to be. “I lived in Edmonton, Alberta, which is in the middle of Canada, way up north. Bands don’t come there.

And if they did they’d play, like, a giant place.

For me growing up, the bands I really idolised were the local bands, so I got to meet them and after going to, like, two of their shows I was friends with all of them.”

But can he really expect audiences to buy the average Joe shtick now he’s selling out shows in New York and London months in advance? Certainly a venue like Glasgow’s ABC, where he’s headed this month, doesn’t lend itself to the intimate

THE SKINNY

Though far from constituting a complete sonic overhaul, keys play a bigger role on the recording. While he has used synthesisers in the past, DeMarco’s recently taken to playing them like pianos, a learning process that’s also shaken up his songwriting. “It’s kinda like just starting from scratch again. It’s easier to be creative too because you’re not like, ‘I like to go to this chord because it’s the 6th major chord in this key or whatever.’ I don’t know where that is. I have no fucking idea with chord shapes or variations or anything. But as you keep doing it that way you learn.”

His guitar solos are also more flamboyant, apparently the upshot of recently kindled affection for rock’s least glamorous guitar god. “I think I fell in love with the Grateful Dead the last couple years,” he explains. “My friend Chad plays in this band the Meatbodies; we went on tour with them and there was this one weekend where we were staying in our drummer’s cabin out in the mountains. We were all jamming and he got really drunk and he asked, ‘What scales do you use?’ I was like, ‘I don’t know... pentatonic, major scales?’” Chad suggested he try out mixolydian mode, a jazzy sounding scale favoured by the Dead’s scraggly lead guitarist. “It sounds like Jerry Garcia. So I tried that and got hooked immediately and now any opportunity I have to play in mixolydian mode I’m just like “Yeauuh!”

Whatever his muse, it’s working. Regardless of what you want to call it – “I’m calling it an EP because it’s getting so confusing,” says DeMarco, but his label prefers ‘mini-LP’ – Another One marks his third substantial release in as many years. As if that wasn’t enough, he’s just topped it off with a free download of instrumentals on his Bandcamp page. Appropriately named Some Other Ones, the

effort comprises nine new tracks written and recorded seemingly on a whim and is yet another testament to his obvious drive and work ethic, flying in the face of the ‘slacker’ characterisation with which he’s so often labelled. He’s predictably nonchalant about it all, though. “It’s only instrumentals. If I had written lyrics it would have taken me a lot longer.

“I thought it'd be funny to sell my shoes on the internet and I was like, ‘I can’t justify keeping the money from that, that’s too fucking stupid’” Mac DeMarco

With instruments it’s easier to get a vibe or whatever. You can just do what you want. It’s just easier.”“Everyone’s calling it the BBQ soundtrack but it’s just nine songs I recorded last week and felt like sharing with people. When it works, it works, I guess.”

The BBQ in question was a foodbank drive DeMarco hosted in Brooklyn where he cooked fans

hotdogs in exchange for donations. The Skinny wonders whether he might continue to leverage his growing cachet for charitable causes? “Maybe?

The only time I’ve ever done it is when I thought it’d be funny to sell my shoes on the internet and I was like, ‘I can’t justify keeping the money from that, that’s too fucking stupid.’” His annihilated Vans fetched a handsome $21,100, but the bidder didn’t follow through and DeMarco ended up footing half the bill himself. “The charity got a lot of publicity, so regardless of whether the kid fucked me over it doesn’t really matter.”

Both the shoes and the BBQ are just further examples of how DeMarco casually eludes clichés of rockstar self-rightousness, his humble sense of social responsibility a far cry from the saviour complexes of would-be Christ figures like Bono.

“It’s kinda like – what am I going to do, go out there and sell hotdogs? So I thought might as well do a food bank drive -– you gotta give back to the neighbourhood every once and a while, you know.”

This generosity comes across in Another One’s lyrics too. “Is it wrong to think my love could really help you out?” he asks on No Other Heart, promising to “put the sparkle right back in your eye.” Without Me, on the other hand, finds him reconciling with an old flame, wishing them the best and hoping they’ll “find love tomorrow.”

Still, there’s only so long even Mac DeMarco can play the gracious host to a living room full of strange teenagers, even if they also happen to be his biggest fans. “I do have to get a little bit better at being like, ‘OK guys, you’ve been here for three hours already, it’s time to go.’”

Another One is out now on Captured Tracks. Mac DeMarco plays Glasgow O2 ABC on 7 Sep twitter.com/msldemarco

Credit: Coley Brown

rapport with the crowd he enjoyed as recently as 2013, when he played Nice 'n’ Sleazy.

Audience participation was already levelling up at The Arches last year, where the security team (though just “trying to do their job”) left little to doubt about the distinction between the performer and the punters. “That place was a little sketchy with the security guards and stuff,” he remembers. “Right as we were beginning to play there were security guards standing at the barrier, shining their flashlights in kids' faces and shit and we’re like, ‘man, just relax.’ Usually they just come up for a sec, or someone just wants to crowd surf – no big deal. It’s just a show, that’s what happens at shows. But if kids are just trying to get over a barrier and some big burly guy with a ponytail puts him in a headlock it’s like, ‘Get a grip man, c’mon!

These kids are paying to be here, it’s supposed to be a good vibe, relax!’”

While the dynamic of his live show will inevitably be transformed again this time around, longterm fans can rest assured that Another One is business as usual. This is still DeMarco in his bedroom recording all the parts himself, wonky beatup guitars intact. Furthermore, he claims it’s the most candid he’s been on record. “The new songs are probably the most personal songs that I’ve ever written. I feel like they fit together the best.”

That being said, listeners shouldn’t get too hung up on their lyrical sentiment. “They’re all love songs, all different styles and ways to feel about love. They may mean something to me but the nature of love songs and the nature of pop music is that it doesn’t matter. With Salad Days it was kind of like, ‘Oh, this song’s about this and this song’s about that. Here’s my life, check it out!’ But this one’s kind of like, ‘Don’t worry about it, just do what you can with these songs if you want to.’”

September 2015

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Death by Arthouse A YA weepie centred on a terminally ill teen might have some reaching for the sick bucket, but Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, dubbed “the Citizen Kane of teen cancer tearjerkers” by one US critic, is a different breed. We meet its precocious young cast

Interview: Christine Cocotte

thing. He thinks the world is about him, but it’s not.

OC: I think people are really spoon-fed the content that comes out these days. No one’s given the opportunity to work things out for themselves.

So when you do get a main character who is not reliable, then people just get really confused and leave the cinema not really getting it.

“Movies put this pressure on kids to think that if they’re not in a romantic relationship, they’re inadequate” Thomas Mann

V

iewers with qualms that Me and Earl and the Dying Girl may turn out to be merely another best-selling YA novel-to-film tearjerker will be surprised by the film’s insightful focus on a decidedly nonsexual boy-girl relationship.“If this was a touching, romantic love story,” says teenage protagonist Greg (Project X star Thomas Mann) in droll voiceover, “suddenly we'd be furiously making out with the fire of a thousand suns, but this isn’t.” Busy escaping the social hell that is high school with his best friend and “co-worker,” Earl (impressive newcomer RJ Cyler), Greg is unexpectedly forced by his mother to spend time with Rachel (Manchester-raised Olivia Cooke), a classmate diagnosed with cancer.

Thanks to Alfonso Gomez-Rejon’s dynamic direction – demonstrating the influence of Martin Scorsese, for whom he previously worked as a personal assistant – and the irresistibly hip, sarcastic wit of its dialogue, Me and Earl... provides painfully honest laughs along with more fragile, dramatic moments. The film also serves as a delightful paean to filmmaking, with its abundance of savvy movie references, and even some films-within-film, as Greg and Earl churn out quirky, home-made parodies of Criterion classics, like 400 Bros, The Seven Seals and A Sockwork Orange.

On a warm afternoon in London, The Skinny heads to the swanky Soho Hotel to delve into death, teenage angst, and classic movies with Me and Earl and the Dying Girl’s young and talented cast.

What was it like working with Alfonso Gomez-Rejon?

Thomas Mann: It was one of the most colla-

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borative experiences I’ve ever had with a director.

I felt very safe with him.

Olivia Cooke: Sometimes Alfonso was so moved, he couldn’t bring himself to say cut.

RJ Cyler: If there’s a scene where you need to be emotional, and he sees that you’re in too deep, he knows how to bring you back out.

Olivia, how did you prepare to play a teenager who has stage-four leukaemia?

OC: I went and met a girl at the UCLA Children’s Hospital who had the same leukaemia as Rachel had. We talked about pop culture and her likes and dislikes. You don’t suddenly become this cancerous object, you’ve still got your personality and have still got yourself – which is what I took on with Rachel. I didn’t ever want her to be seen as a victim or a tragic character.

There’s a crucial moment when Greg emphasises that his relationship with Rachel is not romantic. If it had been a love story, how would it have changed the film’s dynamic?

OC: I think it would have become less profound and more self-serving.

RJC: Or just like any other teen movie.

TM: It would have been less believable. The movies put this pressure on kids to think that if they’re not in a romantic relationship, they’re inadequate.

OC: That shouldn’t be the focus when you’re growing up.

Some critics view Earl as the stereotypical “black friend” whose function is to help the white protagonist grow. RJ, do you feel that, in this sense, your role was at all limited?

RJC: No, not really. In real life, none of my

friends come from the same background. I don’t get why people say it’s a stereotypical role when it’s just true and honest. You never know who’s going to help you grow in life. Throughout the whole story, Greg and Earl learn from each other.

I don’t see my role as just a black kid helping his best friend to become a man, or none of that bullshit. The thing is, all three of them learn from each other.

TM: I was always so surprised when I saw that.

It’s about Greg’s life, and this was his best friend – why did it have to be weird? People are fishing.

How is Me and Earl... different from the recent slew of young adult films that deal with death, like The Fault in Our Stars and Restless?

TM: I never think about it in terms of other YA movies. There’s like three war or boxing movies a year...

OC: Or intergalactic adventure movies.

TM: I liked the script because it felt different from any other coming-of-age movie I’d read, in its tone and approach.

Are you surprised at how viewers have interpreted the film?

TM: Here’s one thing I think people take way too seriously: that they’re supposed to be on Greg’s side. I like that he’s a selfish teenager, and that the movie is about someone who isn’t so noble. But people put so much stock in him that they start to hate him, and hate the movie because they see it through his eyes. But it’s not necessarily that Rachel is just this burden to him. Earl isn’t just his co-worker. All these kids are just these groups he puts them in. That’s all Greg, and it’s up to you to realise that Greg is wrong about every-

FILM

Greg refers to everyone in his high school in terms of specific groups, like jocks, geeks, goths, etc. Was your own teenage experience similar to his?

TM: That’s the thing I didn’t identify with. I think it’s much more fluid than that. It says more about Greg than anyone else. His life is mediated through movies, and he has to make sense of this chaos to protect himself. I went to a huge high school where everyone was friends. There were cliques to some extent, but people were never just one thing.

OC: Oh God, no. Especially in England. You don’t really get to have a sense of identity here as much as in America. You’re in uniforms, and it’s quite strict. At the school I went to, I wasn’t allowed to wear make-up or dye my hair. I remember people saying, ‘Cherish this, these are going to be the best years of your life,’ and thinking, ‘God, my life is going to be so shit.’

RJC: I loved high school. It was like popularity was handed down to me from my dad, who was the best dancer when he was young.

Greg and Earl hilariously remake a lot of art-house classics. But aren’t most of the film references a bit too sophisticated and esoteric for a teenage audience?

TM: Yes! But it says a lot about Greg’s father, and the movies he´s passed down to Greg. It’s more interesting than them watching typical movies like Pulp Fiction or Fight Club. It gives the film a special flavour and a timeless quality – and also allowed us to use all these great scores.

Which particular film remake is your favourite?

RJC: 2:58 p.m. Cowboy!

OC: Burden of Screams. Just because Thomas’s impression is so hilarious. And Peeping Tom, with the plunger coming towards you...

TM: Burden of Screams was probably the most fun to make, just because it was out in the park with kids running around screaming in a German accent. It was a great time.

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is released 4 Sep

THE SKINNY

The Incomparable Mr Pratchett As Terry Pratchett’s final book reaches shelves this month, The Skinny looks back at an author who managed to unite literature aficionados and fantasy fans alike Words: Sean Hutchings Illustration: Camille Smithwick

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n 15 March 2015, Terry Pratchett died after a long and heroically public illness. This is still hard to take in. It seemed that his literary exultations – be it the Discworld series, his collaborations with other writers, his non-fiction or his sci-fi – were streaming from a near infinite source. There was never not a new Pratchett book, he was never not a presence for many of us readers of a certain age, and the knowledge that he had slipped away and would write no more was like being told Christmas had been cancelled. Some people struggle with such finality.

Readers of fantasy fiction certainly do.

Pratchett’s writing life was hugely industrious; he famously referred to the onset of Alzheimer’s as a mere inconvenient ‘embuggerance’ to his work. Even death itself has only stemmed the flow, with The Long Utopia arriving on shelves in June this year. But the laws of physics apply even to metaphors, and the momentum has finally come to rest; this month The Shepherd’s Crown will be published and there will be no more Discworld novels. This will be book 41 in the series, which by anyone’s standards is a decent run, and yet we can’t help but feel that it’s not enough.

Pratchett was notable for his diversity, even when based in the same fantasy world. He occupies that special branch of post-war British comedy that utilises the absurdist and satirical to address questions more existential than the immediate material may suggest. This is in no small part why Pratchett and Douglas Adams are so often compared – one using fantasy as a lens, the other using science fiction. Even the opening introductions to their worlds are rather similar in their establishing-shot prose: ‘Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy...’ (Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.)

‘In a distant and second hand set of dimensions, on an astral plane that was never meant to fly…’ (Pratchett, The Colour of Magic.)

It seems a disservice to both to pigeonhole them simply as two sides of the same coin, yet Pratchett is often compared to other writers who use parody and amplification in their landscapes to address contemporary concerns.

Vonnegut, Wodehouse, Adams. You can play this game all day. But why is Pratchett unique? Why does he stand out? In no uncertain terms, it is due to his scope. You would be hard pressed to find another writer who explored so many different and eclectic themes within the same fantastic landscape and lifetimes of recurring characters. Alright, Iain M Banks comes in a close second, but nothing on the size of Pratchett.

Not long after Pratchett took Death’s arm, his daughter Rhianna announced what readers had expected. She would not continue the Discworld series, nor would she authorise continuations by other creative types. The reaction was unusual for a fandom. Rather than foot stamping, the overwhelming response seemed to be of solemn and respectful agreement. A quiet sense of “yes, that’s for the best” prevailed. So why are readers OK with Discworld coming to an end with its creator, when other bodies of work, like Adams’ adventures of Arthur

September 2015

Dent and Ford Prefect, were picked up after years of agonising?

Part of it has to do with how Adams died; he was spirited away suddenly at a relatively young age, while Pratchett had been ill for quite some time and his own ending was anticipated – some of his books are dedicated to the idea of coming to terms with death and the inevitable passing away. But, arguably more pressingly, the Discworld, in its second-hand dimensions, had existed long before The Colour of Magic and will continue long after The Shepherd’s Crown.

With Discworld Pratchett created a timeless world that at the same time developed along with our own. What started out as a parody of clichés became a universal sounding board in which everything was up for debate and scrutiny, parody and exposure. The fantasy setting only allowed for a malleability of approach. The subjects addressed are titanic and innocuous, profound and mundane, as the inhabitants of the Disc try to find their place in a universe that doesn’t make all that much sense and where more often than not the one voice of reason is the leaden tones of Death himself (who is also rather confused by everybody else). The volumes are neat and accessible but never formulaic, clever but never obnoxious, true but never preachy, and eminently quotable.

“Pratchett holds up a series of funhouse mirrors to our world” If there isn’t one already, a volume of Pratchett truisms, quotes and utterances needs to be made; it would rival Confucius any day. The Discworld holds up a series of funhouse mirrors to our world and allows us a myriad of distorted, raucous reflections. And at the same time they are funny. Not Douglas Adams funny. Not PG Wodehouse funny. They’re Pratchett funny, with a unique dry wit that is always as hilarious as it is true.

Pratchett’s great victory as a writer, as a philosopher and as a person is that his works are a kaleidoscopic web of the most human thought, feeling and emotion expressed through magic, wizardry and absurdity. What he succeeded in doing was creating a point of view, like a latter-day and Socratic Aesop, presenting fables and parables for the things that concern our real world and are timeless in their application. They belong to the ages now. In that great pantheon of genre writers, Pratchett takes pride of place and will remain as relevant and as funny and as true, regardless of whether or not the stories are continued. The Discworld and its arena of thought hasn’t disappeared. Death is a pretty definitive end to anything, but what matter?

There is always time for another last minute. And the turtle is still flying.

The final book in the Discworld series, The Shepherd’s Crown, is out now, published by Penguin Random House, RRP £20

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THE SKINNY

On the Ricochet Ought’s Tim Darcy describes the strange hive mind and shared psyche of Montreal’s hotly tipped post-punk unit

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Blue Sky, Darcy chants, “What is that… sensation?

How’s the church? How’s the job? How’s the family?

Beautiful weather today, beautiful weather today…” before concluding, “I’m no longer afraid to die, because that is all that I have left.” Sardonic delivery and impeccably jaunty guitar work make light of these Nietzschean undertones, tapping into all-too-human anxieties without necessarily plunging the depths. The (almost) title track, Sun’s Coming Down proclaims, “I am talking outta my ass, because my heart is not open.” It’s unclear if the statement’s an admittance or an indirect accusation, but as the track slowly deconstructs, unravelling and fraying, Darcy’s vocals take on the tone of a left-field indie preacher, ordering his congregation into line.

Returning to his earlier analogy, he explains: “So… with four people holding this pen, there’s so much trust that has to happen there, allowing other people to use this creative outlet for what they need to get out. You know that someone really wants to push it in a certain direction, and it’s maybe not exactly where you’d have taken it, but there’s this collective high by witnessing this person get out something that they really need to get out.

Vicariousness? And it’s so exciting to play these songs live because there’s a very direct, personal connection… but also this external, communal relationship. I couldn’t play one of these songs alone on the acoustic guitar and get that feeling.”

Put this way, Ought sounds the creation of some kind of hive mind: the productive tension between individual fulfilment and collective reward results in a distinctive, atmospheric quality to their songcraft which certainly feels cathartic. The band’s new record, Sun Coming Down, feels a bolstered, more robust embodiment of this shared headspace: a quality more ephemeral than simple sophomore confidence, it’s symptomatic of Ought’s decision to let the music take the lead. “One thing we were talking about a lot [with this record] is that if a song wants to be loud and fast, just let it go there. If a song is quieter, more open, let it go there. To not have things hang in the middle.” It certainly sounds this way, too. Where tracks like

Passionate Turn bubble and simmer, taut and restrained, opener Men For Miles trips and rolls, culminating in an elbows-out riot of competitive, climbing riffs as Darcy demands, “Will you look me in the eye?”

“I generally defer to my mother on all aspects related to my music career” Tim Darcy

In the making, Sun Coming Down turned out to be the complete antithesis of their previous release. Where their debut was written with a “pretty slow creation pace”, as the band finished school and worked day jobs, this time around the band wrote and recorded the whole record in just two months. Darcy describes the process as “kind of magical in how it came together.” He explains: “There’s been this… interior/exterior thing happening. With the last record, we played so many shows, played the songs so many times before we even recorded them. By the time we were with Constellation, we were pretty sure that the songs were, like… okay. But with the new one, we made it in a vacuum. Straight from being holed up in this jam space, we played two local shows and went straight into the studio.”

This reclusive approach resulted in one or two slightly unstable live shows at the start of the band’s frankly ridiculous touring schedule. On the road since April, Ought will hit UK shores in October having played their new record almost every day, in what Darcy dubs “a kind of early finish line; it’s… mentally closer to home.” He reports that when the band performed at Sasquatch festival in Washington, early May, they opened with a new track they were “so excited about it. But a)

people were like, ‘What is this?’ And b) it was only our third time ever playing it live, so… we were like, ‘OK, that was a mistake!’ But now the singles are out and the record’s announced, there’s no real ‘what’s happening here?’ reactions. It’s been about kneading in a few new ones to each set.”

The band have a reputation for an outstanding live show, crackling with electricity. Thankfully, given their outrageously long summer on the road, Darcy’s confident that they’ll maintain that energy: “It’s more than enjoyment, I mean, the four of us could hang out anywhere. It’s about feeling fulfilled, in a certain sense, and maybe there’s an immediacy that happens more in the live shows than it does on record. I generally defer to my mother on all aspects related to my music career. She really likes the band, and I think it’s genuine because she wouldn’t lie. But she says, yeah, [the record] needs another listen. It’s a deeper listen. Not to compare it on a basis of superficiality, but I think that yeah, maybe you need to be tuned in.”

This acute awareness, or “tuning in” is a common theme when listening to Darcy describe his band. He returns again to the question of artistic influence, musing that “it’s a question which bridges the fan/artist boundary, which is just so blurred.

So many people are making music, and surrounded by music. But, let’s just say that I didn’t make any music at all,” he hypothesises. “I hear Sonic Youth, and just as pure fan, I feel really moved…

Whatever your art does for you, something has entered my consciousness because of it. And I’m going to think about things, or think about this music, and maybe I’ll write something, or maybe it’ll just… become a special thing for me. Maybe there’s a question of, ‘did this band have a similar experience to me?’ Or, ‘were they also in love with this thing that I’m in love with, and I’m just witnessing the ricochet?’” When you think about it, there’s a simple logic in Darcy’s blurring of internal influences and external catharsis – perhaps we’re all just witnessing the ricochet.

Sun Coming Down is released on 18 Sep via Constellation. cstrecords.com/ought

Credit: Hera Chan

ught know how to keep it tight. The Montrealbased four-piece sound at times as if they’re improvising, on the verge of imploding… only to unite in some kind of glorious, seamless “cosmic sense”, as vocalist and guitarist Tim Darcy describes. Are the band simply superhumanly adept at finding order in chaos, or is there more to it?

“Well, I can’t rule it out as a stunt,” Darcy admits, with a laugh. “I’ve said before that people will start clueing into the trick we have: taking two ideas and just smushing them together, and somehow they make… sense.” The way Darcy describes it, Ought find this “cosmic” order by virtue of the band’s extraordinary dynamic. “It’s sort of as if… there’s four people holding on to a pen, trying to draw something. It’s like your interpersonal relationship is the creative relationship, in a way.”

The four pairs of hands, alongside Darcy’s, belong to Matt May on keys, Ben Stidworthy on bass, and Tim Keen on drums and the odd bit of violin. The group, based in Canada, hold Australian and American passports between them, and their shared psyche is part and parcel of living and working in such close proximity to each other: the band’s debut record was written and rehearsed in their shared apartment.

That first full length, More Than Any Other Day, was released in 2014 on famed Montreal label Constellation (home to Godspeed You! Black Emperor) and established the group as the foremost waveriders of contemporary post-punk, laced with undeniable pop sensibilities. It drew them innumerable comparisons to the dynamics of Sonic Youth and the Fall, but Darcy’s keen to refute these potential “answers” in favour of a greater consideration of the question of influence. He muses, “I have trouble answering that question. So I’ve been thinking about it more in relation to… when I approach making something, I think about what is the thing that I need to get out. That’s often… that’s always what my writing is.”

Lyrically, Darcy’s writing on the band’s followup record Sun Coming Down is even more opaque: broad, everyman lyricism which attacks contemporary apathy with a savage tongue. On Beautiful

Interview: Katie Hawthorne

September 2015

MUSIC

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Protective Custody Never short of a controversial opinion, Dave Clarke has influenced everyone from Daft Punk to post-punk torchbearers The Soft Moon. We journey out to Dublin for the 500th episode celebration of White Noise, his legendary, agenda-setting radio show

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hen The Skinny arrives in Dublin, seemingly half of the population is descending upon Croke Park to see a certain stadium-filling ginger songwriter. Along with a more modestly sized, sensibly minded crowd, we make our way southwards towards the Academy, which is playing host to local legend Sunil Sharpe, long-time Berghain resident Marcel Fengler and the man we’re here to see, the ‘baron of techno’ himself, Dave Clarke. It’s a fearsome line-up and should make for a special night by anyone’s standards, but there are still niggling doubts; thanks to archaic licensing laws and its comparatively small size, clubbing in Dublin can sometimes be a frustrating affair.

“Are there 10,000 people out there yet?” Clarke jokingly asks the promoter. As Sharpe warms up a small and scattered crowd with some rugged, off-kilter floor pounders, the baron is aware that this event might not reach the same giddy heights as one of his sellout ADE parties. Yet the outspoken DJ has repeatedly chosen to grace the city over the years, and given that White Noise is broadcast over RTE’s 2FM, it seems appropriate for its 500th edition to be celebrated here. As we speak to Clarke, his choice of Dublin over say London or Glasgow begins to make sense – it’s as deliberately contrary as everything he does in music. He may reside in Amsterdam – favoured by many DJs for its liberal atmosphere and close proximity to the rest of the Continent – but Clarke is the antithesis of your faceless, big-room tech house merchant, equally happy to discuss the vagaries of the Labour leadership contest as his studio set up.

Still informed by his first musical passion, punk, Clarke is surely one of the few artists left who can truly get away with using the anarchy sign.

There’s a certain DIY ethos to everything he does, from his hip-hop-influenced mixing technique, to

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the serious legwork that goes into producing each weekly edition of White Noise. “There’s a 95% chance that each week has different music,” he tells us. It’s a more impressive figure when you consider that so few hype tracks make it past Clarke’s meticulous bullshit detector. “If it comes with a press attachment saying ‘this is killing it in Ibiza right now,’ I’ll listen out of politeness but…”

Much of the show’s content comes from young artists sending Clarke tracks via email or through a Dropbox on his website. He may not be the only DJ to promote complete newcomers, citing Laurent Garnier as another key example, but all this research is a serious commitment, with an average of two gigabytes of music arriving in his inbox every two weeks. “Divide that by MP3 quality and that’s a lot of music!”

Does this relentless pursuit of novelty come at a cost? A true veteran of the scene, Clarke is far better placed to comment on this issue than the current crop of DJs who grew up with broadband. White Noise began as a show called Technology in the late 90s, which Clarke eventually had to abandon due to his demanding production commitments and the sheer time involved in using vinyl. A subsequent explosion of creativity and sharing may have allowed him to start White Noise and keep it relevant, but the baron has reservations about dance music’s attention deficit. “The scene is moving so quickly that there isn’t that big tune anymore. That six-to-nine-month waiting period with vinyl – where everybody would be chasing it – doesn’t happen. Now it’s so vast and so quick that only my end-of-year shows feature tracks that I played earlier in the year.”

White Noise may be the source of new sounds for many, but it also stays defiantly outside current trends, championing electro as much as the bruising techno for which Clarke is most widely known.

After the post-millennial electroclash blip, the

Interview: Tom Short

former has remained very much off the radar for the average listener. Ever the technological determinist, Clarke is pragmatic about why this happened. “To hear electro in the club, you need to have an amazing soundsystem. A lot of people use sidechaining in this tech house shite, instead of proper programming and EQing, whereas electro requires large amounts of bass.” He’s pleased to note that the genre still has a firm foothold over the channel, where his name is held with special reverence. “A lot of good electro is coming out of France, weirdly. I saw the Hacker recently and

“The whole vibe in Ibiza is basically Margaret Thatcher” Dave Clarke

he said, ‘You’re one of the few DJs who still plays electro and gives us all hope.’” And in the UK? “You have Andy Bass Agenda doing an amazing job with his electro releases. There’s another guy called Mazzula. Listen to White Noise, that’s my get-out clause!”

Just as electro’s fortunes have been forced back underground, it has been difficult to miss the upsurge of interest in techno in recent years, with a new wave of young producers filling out clubs and reaching mainstream festival crowds.

For many this might be something to celebrate, but Clarke goes reassuringly off-message. “The crowd in the UK has become less powerful because of the way certain promoters are in certain cities.

They’ll put one techno person on, and then someone who has nothing to do with it. It has kind of destroyed techno in some ways.”

CLUBS

Inevitably, conversation turns to that favourite musical whipping boy of our times, EDM, whose pernicious influence undoubtedly contributes to the UK’s and US’s increasingly familiar festival line-ups. Rather than simply slamming our less informed American cousins, which is the knee-jerk response of most DJs, Clarke gets right to the heart of the issue. “What most upsets me about EDM is that they’ve completely forgotten the roots,” he suggests. “People like Hawtin, people like Guetta, in a way they are kind of like Isis in Palmyra, destroying everything that came before to suit their own needs. That’s probably an ironic statement coming from someone like me who’s a punk, which is always about destroying. But that’s about destroying the establishment, things that don’t make society fair and correct.”

Clarke’s way with a provocative soundbite is legendary (“the whole vibe in Ibiza is basically Margaret Thatcher” is another gem from this particular conversation), but sadly the headlines have often neglected the reasonable arguments behind his fiery invective. He is surprisingly moderate about Ten Walls, whose homophobic comments led to uproar and condemnation from all corners of the internet. “I think he’s his own person, he’s grown up in his own environment, he’s surrounded by people that are of a different time and culture to the rest of Europe, and his views which I haven’t read, are obviously wrong. But perhaps people should judge him a little bit less harshly. These people that are coming down really hard on him, they’re still going to Russia. I don’t go to Russia, because of Sochi, because they are anti-gay, because of human rights abuses.”

There’s undoubtedly something unsettling about the way in which blanket social media shaming can disguise the bigotry that goes on unnoticed all the time, especially in corporate dance culture, The Skinny suggests. Clarke nods. “It’s almost to show that they’re correct but if you scratch beneath the surface, they’re the same, just a little bit more au fait with Twitter etiquette.”

Besides his pleasingly unfiltered contributions to political debate, the baron is well known for his forays into other genres, recently producing a gleefully twisted version of The Soft Moon’s Wrong, along with stellar remixes for A Place To Bury Strangers and the now defunct Amazing Snakeheads, to name only his most recent beneficiaries. “I love all types of music, I follow it as much as I can. The Soft Moon I got recommended to me by a guy in a record shop. I saw them and enjoyed it, and went out for a whisky with them afterwards, and it turned out they’re fans.” Clarke constantly name checks a variety of artists: “I like Scout Niblett, obviously PJ Harvey, Tindersticks, the new Beck album I was blown away by,” and he recently recorded a show discussing his impressive classical influences (Janacek, Smetana, Vaughan Williams) on the Belgian radio station Klara. His time spent working in a classical music shop was instructive, though ironically it also introduced him to early house tracks. “We’d get all these 12 inches in and I’d take them as my wages, Evil Eddie, Jolly Roger…”

If there’s a common thread between all this paradoxically difficult but dynamic music it’s Clarke’s quest for perfectionism, which has prevented him from producing for six years. “It took me so long to get my studio to the point where I was happy with it. Personal circumstance dictated a change of my life. It took six or seven years to rebuild a new studio to the point where I was happy with it. And technology changed. I had to become a systems administrator, knocking my Mac into shape!” Now doling out high-quality remixes at an impressive rate, with a number of original tracks on the horizon from Unsubscribe, his project with Mr Jones, the baron once more seems unstoppable. As the finally packed-out venue laps up his set of machine-tooled bangers, it’s gratifying to see his tireless enthusiasm rewarded.

Dave Clarke Presents - A White Noise Retrospective is out now daveclarke.com

THE SKINNY

Cinemagoers unite!

Take One Action! is back with a programme set to stir social consciousness

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he UK’s leading social change film festival, Take One Action!, returns this month to assorted cultural institutions across Glasgow and Edinburgh to inspire, educate and advocate for a diverse range of pressing global humanitarian concerns, from environmentalism and economic issues, to those affected by conflict and bigotry.

Boasting two UK and ten Scottish premieres, the socially conscientious film line-up not only showcases those artists and documentarians pushing for social and environmental justice through cinema, but emphasises the importance of empowering audiences through innovative film events (cycle-powered screenings of Bike vs. Cars, 22 Sep in Edinburgh’s Royal Botanic Gardens anyone?), post-screening discussions, creative workshops and engagement with local and global charity organisations for those who want to get involved.

A highlight looks to be Democrats (24 Sep, GFT; 25 Sep, Filmhouse), a gripping political documentary-thriller offering a glimpse of nascent and fragile proto-democracy in Zimbabwe as two political opponents work hard to loosen Mugabe’s dictatorial grip on power. Director Camilla Nielsson will attend both screenings, with a masterclass hosted by the Scottish Documentary Institute before the Edinburgh screening for any budding documentarians.

Director Ryley Grunenwald will personally give a filmmaking masterclass before her UK premiere of The Shore Break (18 Sept, Filmhouse), which documents the life of two siblings and their disparate visions, one of ‘progress’ and one of ‘tradition,’ for their South African Wild Coast homeland. Post-screening discussions will include Grunenwald and land rights expert Andy Wightman.

For those concerned with global, intersectional feminism, Casablanca Calling (23 Sep, Filmhouse) charts the Moroccan movement to counter radical Islam, in particular the spate of suicide bombings of 2003, by training local women as ‘Morchidat’ or Muslim leaders – the postscreening discussions will include speakers from Christian Aid and the University of Edinburgh.

Scots playwright and poet Liz Lochhead will join the Scottish Palestinian Forum to discuss TOA’s Glasgow screening of playful animated documentary The Wanted 18 (21 Sep, Filmhouse; 22 Sep, CCA), about a group of unarmed civilians in the West Bank who sought economic autonomy through the purchase of 18 cows, which Israel declared a national security threat.

There’s another touching doc in the form of Life is Sacred (20 Sep, Filmhouse; 21 Sep, CCA).

Presented by UNISON, it tells the story of unorthodox political candidate Antanas Mockus and his brave supporters who made a stand against the vicious cycle of drug cartel violence in Colombia. Radical Independence campaigner Cat Boyd is guest speaker at the Glasgow screening.

There’s a whole lot more beyond these highlights. Head to takeoneaction.org.uk for full programme details to find the screenings that spark your passions – the revolution starts at your local cinema.

Take One Action! Film Festival takes place at various venues in Glasgow and Edinburgh from 16-27 Sep For full programme details, go to takeoneaction.org.uk And keep your eye on theskinny.co.uk/festivals/ukfestivals/film for further Take One Action! coverage

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These Are Taxing Times Harold Crooks’ probing documentary on corporate tax avoidance via offshore tax havens couldn’t be timelier. This eye-opening exposé kicks off the mighty Take One Action! Film Festival in blood-boiling style

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anadian filmmaker Harold Crooks (The Corporation, Surviving Progress) returns to open Take One Action!, the socially conscientious film festival which emphasises audience participation for social change. The documentarian’s latest sobering and provocative masterpiece, The Price We Pay, focuses on the unprecedented inequality in 21st century societies due to an undermining of democracy, the welfare state and the working and middle classes through the increasingly lucrative scourge of offshore tax avoidance.

A jaw-dropping exposé, The Price We Pay draws on expert testimony and a nuanced understanding of globalised, digitised economics, to vividly argue the case that offshoring’s threat to humanity’s future is on par with global warming. Redressing the balance, The Price We Pay posits a modest yet global Robin Hood tax on institutional financial transactions to redistribute some of the hoarded, stolen offshore wealth back to the tax-paying public, restoring a semblance of democracy and repairing the welfare state.

The Skinny caught up with Crooks to talk about his inspiring cinematic and social project.

The Skinny: The Price We Pay epitomises the Take One Action festival – both film and festival engage with the audience and offer a call to action, with charities, experts and grassroots groups in attendance. Is the festival of special significance to you?

HC: Surviving Progress [2011], which I codirected, had its second screening at the Take One Action Festival in Glasgow, two years ago, with a Q&A chaired by Christian Aid. I couldn’t know at the time what my next film would be, but The Price We Pay became about a subject that is very central to their work, which is about the question of tax justice as a basis for a just society. So there is a very strong connection to Take One Action; it’s very relevant to the festival, to the festival’s supporters like Oxfam and to an engaged audience. It’s concerned with the sustainability of democracy in the face of the so-called ‘offshoring’ of the world’s wealth. The film illuminates how this offshore world and tax havens are actually illegal and an accounting fiction. There is nothing there physically ‘offshore’ and the money is controlled from wher-

Interview: Rachel Bowles

ever – London, New York, Paris, Zurich. It is beyond democratic control and so in that sense, the secret jurisdictions of these tax havens are basically a fiction. They do not control anything [e.g. in the Cayman Isles] yet they play a legal role in allowing a vampire-like sucking of money from the social blood stream, draining public wealth, which is supposed to be the circulatory system of society.

economic advisor to Jersey, there’s a former CO of a French bank, there’s a former vice president of the Chicago Stock Exchange, there’s a former senior partner of PricewaterhouseCoopers, one of the biggest accounting firms in the world that is very, very involved in the offshore industry.

These people have seen this from the inside and they’re alarmed.

Speaking of gothic imagery, “talking head’ documentaries can potentially be visually repetitive, but The Price We Pay ducks that completely through arresting graphics and comedy.

For example, economist Thomas Piketty’s graph of Western income disparity depicted the spectral, grotesque smiles of Thatcher and Reagan looming. Can you talk about creating those visuals and montages?

Given the cliché about ‘death and taxes’, and that those are things that none of us would rather think about, we knew it had to be a cinematic experience and tried to imagine how to make a film that people would actually want to watch. Visually, and in terms of the soundscape, we made a huge effort to create that cinematic experience. We were lucky to find this young, Vietnamese-Québécois motion design artist, Patrick ‘Defasten’ Doan, who just did the most brilliant job with the graphics, making them visually arresting but also digestible in terms of the central ideas of the film. His Piketty graphic is emblematic of that.

“This offshore world is an accounting fiction. There is nothing there physically ‘offshore’ and the money is controlled from wherever”

The film takes some very complex financial fictions and economic realities and makes them fathomable.

That’s the goal, and it took over two and a half years to create that level of intelligibility. It’s not an uncommon response to the film: people imagine they could never grasp the vastness of the global, fiscal world and the extent of its mismanagement, but they can. I think something else that enhances the creditability of The Price We Pay for ordinary people who are not interested in ideological arguments is that a lot of the critique of the financial system is coming from former insiders. Besides the former vice president of Goldman Sachs, Wallace Turbeville, besides Adair Turner, there’s John Christensen, the former

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These people know intimately how our global finance system works and they’re saying it’s unsustainable!

Yes, and that means it is unsustainable.

Turbeville says he fears a crash bigger than 2008’s, which led to one of the most enormous redistributions of wealth in the history of the world. I can’t even imagine what that would be but it is a time for taking action, no question about it. We are being pushed into a post-democratic reality.

Tax justice, pursued across international borders, is a viable way to force multinational corporations to evolve and act in a manner sustainable for humanity as a whole.

The Price We Pay’s screenings (15 & 18 Sep, Filmhouse; 17 Sep, GFT) will be introduced by Harold Crooks and followed by panel discussions with representatives from Tax Justice Network – Africa, Christian Aid and Oxfam Scotland Take One Action! runs in various venues across Edinburgh and Glasgow 16-27 Sep. For full programme details, go totakeoneaction.org.uk

THE SKINNY

Fill the Land with Cinema We look ahead to the annual festival that brings together the UK’s film clubs and indie exhibitors for a month of cinema celebration Words: Jamie Dunn

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calarama simultaneously looks back and looks forward. It was initially conceived in honour of the Scala cinema, a London repertory theatre renowned in cinephile circles for its eclectic programming, where the classiest of European arthouse film would rub shoulders with the trashiest – zombie-movie all-nighters, biker films, Roger Corman knockoffs, and the odd porn movie (hardcore sex comedy Thundercrack! was a Scala stalwart). Despite selling its last ticket stub over two decades ago, London-based cinephiles kept the old fleapit close to their hearts.

“There wasn’t an anniversary or anything, but there were enough people bringing the Scala up in conversation – its programming and its atmosphere – that we knew we could do something interesting,” says Scalarama co-founder Michael Pierce. What was most innovative about the festival was its form: it harnessed the energies of existing film clubs, film societies, festivals, pop-up cinemas and other indie film exhibitors to create a wide-reaching season inspired by the rep cinema.

Since this nostalgic, London-centric inaugural edition in 2011, called Scala Forever, Scalarama has evolved into a month-long, UK-wide celebration of cinema. “The thing that stuck from those early events is that there’s so much going on – and not just in London, there are great film clubs across the whole of the UK,” explains Pierce.

The Scala cinema remains the festival’s touchstone, and its anything-goes attitude to programming informs Scalarama’s philosophy, but the festival is also imagining cinema’s future in the age of film-on-demand and illegal downloads. “It’s not so much the big screen and hi-tech cinemas that are important,” suggests Pierce. This has been anti-piracy campaigners’ chief tactics for encouraging people to swap their HD TVs for the big screen. “I think it’s the element of watching things together,” he continues, “how that shapes people’s appreciation, not just of the films but of the venue and being with other people enjoying something or debating something.” Pierce understands the temptation of watching movies alone on your laptop, and he’s been slowly weaning himself off doing just that. “I hope that the more people are able to watch films by themselves, the more they’ll start to miss that communal aspect.”

As Scalarama has grown, it’s gained more clout with distributors. The festival has become an attractive arena in which to launch some movies.

“Because we had lots of different film clubs involved, we’ve been able to bargain with the

September 2015

distributors to convince them if there is a DVD company interested in releasing something straight to DVD, they could – in September at least – do so at a lower risk by making it available to clubs and societies taking part in Scalarama.” The distributors’ enthusiastic response to working with indie film clubs has convinced Pierce that they’re pretty simpatico. “I’ve begun to realise that the attitude and make-up of the distributors are very similar to the independent film clubs: there’s a lot of passion behind them. For example, Second Run DVD exist because they really want the films to be seen rather than thinking of a massive commercial venture, which is a similar ethos.”

“I hope that the more people are able to watch films by themselves, the more they’ll start to miss that communal aspect” Michael Pierce

Pierce also highlights the importance of curation. Anyone who’s spent hours trawling Netflix for a decent film to watch will likely agree. “You still need people to open up cinema,” he reckons.

“To say, ‘You might never have heard of this, it’s not easily found online, but here’s a really good film.’” It’s not about lofty cultural gatekeepers: it’s about enthusiasts passing on their love for watching movies. “When you talk to people who really enjoy cinema they usually have an experience of going to a cinema and seeing something that just blew their mind, and there are some people who haven’t had that moment yet, but it’s those personal touches that help elicit that response.”

Pierce’s message is clear. Seek out your local Scalarama screenings and have your mind blown.

Scalarama run throughout Sep in various cities and venues across the UK For our picks of the Scalarama events, turn to our Film Event Highlights on p. 58

Queer Voices, Real Lives Finding good LGBT cinema on UK screens can be a challenge.

Praise be, then, for SQIFF (24-27 Sep), a new communityfocused film festival representing and reflecting queer identity Words: Jamie Dunn

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espite tireless work by kickarse film distributors like Peccadillo Pictures, access to films centred on the lives and concerns of LGBTQ characters is scarce. That’s why the launch of the inaugural Scottish Queer International Film Festival (SQIFF) should be rejoiced for its existence alone.

That its vibrant and inclusive programming matches its good intentions is just a bonus.

The festival kicks off with effervescent lesbian rock opus Dyke Hard (24 Sep) and closes with David Thorpe’s playful doc Do I Sound Gay? (27 Sep), and in between there’s clearly been an attempt to represent queer identity in all its myriad forms.

“We’re definitely aiming for something that’s more explicitly political,” explains SQIFF committee member Helen Wright. The programme avoids the many cliches of gay cinema: for example, the familiar coming out stories or tales of tortured gay repression. “I didn’t want to see any films that were about beautiful men with their tops off,” says Wright. “Instead we’re looking at films that are interested in issues, like Alive! (26 Sep), a documentary about five men with HIV, and it’s giving them a chance to talk about their experiences.

And then there’s closing film Do I Sound Gay?, which is about the gay men who worry about what their voices sound like. So, for me, those are examples of issues that get buried sometimes. We wanted to choose films that are exploring in more depth the problems LGBT people face.”

The SQIFF team’s programme should also be cherished for addressing the fact that even within the genre of queer cinema, there’s an inequality: when it comes to the moving image, the T part of LGBTQ is often ignored. “Trans people don’t really have great representation in the cinema,” she says, “and the attitude towards trans characters when they are depicted can be massively offensive.” The SQIFF team have addressed this imbalance with the help of The Scottish Transgender Alliance, who have sponsored part of the programme, including a series of shorts featuring films by and about people who are trans, non-binary, and/or intersex, and a trio of docs.

“The thing about documentaries is that they let trans people have their own voice,” notes Wright,

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“rather than narrative films which are maybe not made by trans people themselves, and so are putting words into people’s mouths, if you see what I mean.” There’s also the issue that plagues queer cinema: of straight, cisgender actors playing gay or transgender roles as a shortcut to acting acclaim. “We don’t have any of that in this programme,” says Wright. “I think it’s important for people to speak for themselves.”

If this all sounds a bit earnest, fear not: SQIFF isn’t above having a party. For evidence, look no further than the festival’s centrepiece, an evening of wild and lairy films from two giants of queer cinema: Pedro Almodóvar (whose 1985 comedy What Have I Done to Deserve This? opens the night’s double-bill) and John Waters (whose 1977 trash fairytale Desperate Living closes it).

“We were trying to find stuff with a sort of mother theme,” Wright explains, “so we’re calling the double-bill Lock Up Your Mothers (26 Sep), and after the screening there’s Lock Up Your Daughters, which was a long-running queer club night in Glasgow that’s been dormant for a few years and is coming back for a one off. I’m really excited about that one because I’ve been thinking about pairing [Almodóvar and Waters] for a while.”

Despite their kitsch surface, the marrying of these subversive and deceptivly smart movies is another example of SQIFF’s sharp, multi-layered curation. “It’s one case of how we’re letting audiences experience more,” says Wright, “because a lot of people will be familiar with Almodóvar’s later films, like All About My Mother and Bad Education, but his early films are less well-known – they’re wild and trashy, much closer to John Waters’ work. I’m not sure who influenced whom – probably they’ve influenced each other a little bit – but that’s just an example of what we’re trying to do: it’s going to be a very fun night but also an opportunity to think a little bit about the history of queer cinema... And there’ll be a fun party afterwards.”

SQIFF takes place 24-27 Sep at the CCA and other venues across Glasgow For full programme details, go to www.sqiff.org

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THE SKINNY

A Word from London Artist and curator Franco La Russa explains how CueB is a London gallery with much in common with Glasgow’s DIY art scene Interview: Franchesca Hashemi

Credit: © Herald St, London

A Nicole Wermers, Infrastruktur, 2015

Glasgow’s Turn(er) Sarah Munro led the successful bid for the Turner Prize to come to Glasgow – she discusses the continuing importance of the prize to the city Interview: Adam Benmakhlouf

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s of the first of next month, the Turner Prize comes to Glasgow. Every second year, it uproots itself from London and heads on the road.

This is only the Prize’s third outing, although it’s now an established condition of the exhibition that every two years it will be held outside London.

Last time it was in Derry in 2013, and before that in the BALTIC in Gateshead, where Glasgow Life's Head of Arts Sarah Munro will take her place as new Director in November. Munro was central to Glasgow’s successful bid for the Prize, and explains why it was deservedly selected and offers potential legacy for Scotland.

“Because of the power of the brand… it brings with it an opportunity for far greater visibility and public engagement.” Taking this beyond citywide limits, the Travelling Gallery project will mount a Turner-themed exhibition of past Turner winners and shortlisted artists. As a second moment of decentralisation from London to Glasgow, the Travel Project will take the work of artists like Ciara Phillips, David Shrigley and Ian Hamilton Finlay “to places and audiences across Scotland.”

Will taking Turner Prizers to remote villages actually be a valuable enterprise? For Munro, it’s an experiment, and an attempt to “challenge the presentation and reception of the Prize.”

While Munro is appreciative of the Turner Prize coming to Glasgow, she doesn’t seem to ascribe to the idea that the names and dates of Glasgow’s Turner Prize nominations and winners is the most accurate narrative of the city’s development. “The context is much more layered,” she says. She cites the mainstream press’s beginning to take notice of artists like Douglas Gordon, when a whole new generation of artists had emerged already – from Michael Fullerton, Sara Barker and Corin Sworn, to Nick Evans, Laura Aldridge and Mick Peter. Similarly, Transmission’s the usual example of the DIY Glasgow scene, but it’s a bit of overdetermination to isolate it from Munro’s suggestions of other important venues: “Washington Garcia, David Dale, SWG3, Old Hairdressers, Queen’s Park Railway, Glue Factory.”

With Glasgow venues and key figures being discussed, and its third place in the Turner Prize’s tour of cities outside of London, the question of a transposable Glasgow model arises. “It’s always simplistic to talk about models in a literal reductive A+B=C way. The conditions that enable talent to thrive are not something that relies on the unique waters of the Clyde. However, there is

September 2015

a rich community and fabric to the city.” Present key curatorial personalities are also important for Munro, who names Sarah McCrory (Glasgow International), Remco de Blaaj (CCA), Kitty Anderson (The Common Guild), Paul Pieroni (GoMA), Claire Jackson (Tramway) and Kyla McDonald (Glasgow Sculpture Studios) as examples of the dynamic characters constructing challenging programmes in the city’s galleries.

“The conditions that enable talent to thrive are not something that relies on the unique waters of the Clyde”

rtist as curator is a significant phenomenon.

It exists in radically different environments, yet has a spirit far removed from commerciality.

It has become synonymous with the DIY culture in Glasgow, often considered in opposition to spacepoor London. Franco La Russa, an Italian visual artist, runs a gallery in Brockley South London and discusses the phenomenon as it exists in London.

Much like the Project Cafe in Glasgow, for example, “CueB Gallery is a [dedicated exhibition] space within a cafe… It is less intimidating this way and removes the pretentiousness that some galleries have.”

Brockley, a 25 minute tube ride from Westminster, is becoming better known for its open studios and boho-affability. This has been emphasised – and in part aided – by its close proximity to the UK capital’s most prestigious schools, including Peckham Art College. In June 2015, the area hosted its first ever Brockley Street Art Festival (BSAF); a community-led graffiti galore resulting from a London-wide competition that invited established and local artists to literally paint the town red (amongst other colours). Nevertheless, despite these community art events, unlike Glasgow this kind of inclusive and less formal art space is uncommon. La Russa observes that “there is nothing quite like CueB in the area.”

Franco’s gallery turns around a different exhibition every four weeks – from international students and local creatives to illusionary installations, “pigs and grass men,” as Franco says.

The space has been home to a global and everchanging plethora of ideas. It consists of three walls and overlooks a trendy clientele. September’s exhibition, entitled Some Order That Seemed Logical and Random at the Same Time by printmaker Esther Ellard shows abstract diagrams that relate to revolution and incompleteness. Ellard draws inspiration from female graphic artists, including Kate Moross and Morag Myerscough. Her prints are almost mathematical and fade in and

out from CueB’s subtle background. Contrastingly, August’s exhibition The Wasteland held a bemusing assortment of crystal taxidermy, dragonflies, animal skulls, stitch art, and sculptures.

Both exhibitions felt true to the home they had been momentarily placed in.

Franco cites the emotional impact of curating and creating, as well as owning a gallery that is built on a business partnership with friends. Getting away from the cliché of the commerce-driven London art scene, La Russa makes clear, “this kind of set-up is not about money. Everything goes so fast that you don’t have time to think about anything other than the next exhibition.”

Similar to the young Glasgow gallery 1 Royal Terrace, CueB relies on generating increased accessibility via its website’s impressive documentation of previous shows. This kind of free catalogue is a cornerstone of its artist-curator composition.

It is rebel-like in nature, going against the capitalist restrictions of the City while enriching Brockley’s local community and the individual viewer’s sense of identity.

Franco explains this is “not so much a risk,” but reason for joy. Speaking of his experience as an artist in London, he mentions the specific “limitations and parameters imposed, such as time frames, money and so on. So being the owner and curator allows you to physically experience the reasons for these limitations. Experimentation has led to understanding.”

Creating structures within unorthodox settings is a tantalising prospect. And while the function of an artist-curator may be described as necessary or altruistic, artists as curators have an ability to rethink the natural exhibition environment. Bravery came to Glasgow, as the Miracle myth goes, in the moment of the city’s acute financial unviability in the mid 20th century. In the comparably booming present-day London, CueB shows as much grit to begin an alternative model for the city.

Sarah Munro

Glasgow may have cheap rentals, available studio space, exciting galleries and new curatorial characters “that ensure we never let complacency set in.” What it doesn’t have is a single Glasgowbased nominee in the 2015 shortlist. There aren’t even any old graduates of the GSA in there – which made up three of last year’s four. “People keep asking if I think it’s a ‘bad thing’ that there are no Glasgow artists taking part. I don’t. I think it would have been an impossible pressure on any artist from the city,” says Munro. Rumours abound of a deliberate exclusion by the selection committee. Nevertheless, nominees ASSEMBLE completed a project in Dalmarnock and Janice Kerbel’s nominated work was originally hosted by the Mitchell Library and commissioned by Glasgow’s Common Guild. While the Prize coming to Glasgow is for Munro “an amazing achievement,” a new dash in its Turner timeline, “in truth the Turner Prize and those artists associated with it don’t really tell the full story.”

The Turner Prize exhibition opens in Tramway on 1 Oct. The ceremony takes place 7 Dec

ART

Esther Ellard

Daniela Bellu, Caged Soul

Feature

21

The Girls Of Summer Dublin’s Girl Band are not a girl band. Nor are they a rock band, or even a neogrunge band. So what exactly fires the foursome’s fearless cacophony of clamour and bedlam? The Skinny meets guitarist Daniel Fox to ask the question

Interview: Colm McAuliffe

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irl Band are a band steeped in dichotomies.

Firstly, nominative determinism does not apply to these four Dublin males whom, after a series of justly lauded EPs (peaking with their magnificent, marauding ‘cover’ of Blawan’s Why They Hide Bodies Under My Garage), have reemerged with their debut album on Rough Trade, Holding Hands With Jamie (more of this enigmatic title later). Secondly, the band plumb decidedly old depths of hardcore degradation.

Guitarist – and album engineer Daniel Fox – is extremely keen to eschew any mindless journo types (ahem) attaching any ‘rock’ tropes to the band’s sound but as much as he insists that they are not channeling the decomposing, self-abasing spirits of Rembrandt Pussyhorse-era Butthole Surfers or the narcoleptic fuzz of early 90s grunge, the band appear to exist within some timeframe hither the two, mired in mania-inducing sonic frequencies and infantile squalls masquerading as vocals. Furthermore, it’s even more disconcerting to speak with Fox, when he reveals himself to be an incredibly genial and pleasant interviewee, a stark contrast to the feral unpredictability unleashed on record.

Holding Hands With Jamie is an album in a constant state of consternation and distress.

It’s a mire of discursive madness; albeit deliberate rather than entirely imprudent. “It’s still pretty naturalistic in terms of production,” reflects Fox, “but we’ve still put a lot of effort into making the album sound really good without it appearing to be ‘big’ and ‘huge’ – just focusing more on what we sound like in a live setting.”

“There were a lot of Nirvana comparisons. I can maybe see this in retrospect” Daniel Fox

Ah – the live setting. Girl Band are, frankly, incredible live, permanently on the cusp of total whiteout and euphoric degradation. “But it’s not completely like our live show,” insists Fox. “All the songs, bar maybe two, were played live a lot already but it’s not completely rigid. On the album, we’re more capturing the energy and exploring the depth of what we do. On stage, you’re at the mercy of the room you’re in.”

Yet behind all the loose talk of experimentation and sheer sonic devilment, Girl Band possess a quality arguably lacking in many of their, shall we say, more self-conscious peers: an absurdist, utterly Irish sense of humour. The nine tracks on Holding Hands With Jamie are replete with incomprehensible lyrics and screams and, most significantly, baffling song titles. The standout track is entitled Fucking Butter. Elsewhere, Pears For Lunch sounds like a vintage desktop PC struggling to boot up before collapsing in a heap of its own obsolescence. And album closer The Witch Doctor is in a constant race with itself, singer

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Dara Kiely not seemingly bothered to maintain pace with the cyclical guitar noises, instead preferring to chant in concussed fashion while an inelegant chaos rages around his increasingly enfeebled groans.

At its very best, Holding Hands With Jamie sounds like a hoard of acid-munchers on a rollercoaster. But no Brian Eno-style Oblique Strategies were used in its construction; the band are living and breathing autoschediastics. “A lot of stuff comes from offhand remarks,” Fox explains, ”or just from us joking around and things seeming to end up in the lyrics. Fucking Butter was a throwaway comment about biscuits, or something.

Dara can be kind of cryptic with his words – definitely, all the goofy food references are his.”

It’s tempting to interpret the cacophonous howls of Girl Band as a riposte to the disastrous political climate from which they emerged; the band are young enough to have been born as Ireland transformed from Europe’s most underdeveloped economy into the Celtic Tiger beast of the late 1990s, before collapsing amid a series of horrific fiscal infidelities. However, Fox is slow to ascribe any significant political undercurrents to the band’s activities. “Well, Ireland can have a small-town syndrome of people releasing things

there and then just playing Dublin, Cork, Galway, Belfast and then doing it all over again. That’s cool if you want to do it but it’s not what we want to do. Population-wise, it’s a pretty small place.

Even if you play the different smaller towns in the country, you get to know everyone really quickly.

And I don’t just wanna play for my mates every couple of weeks.”

Was there any specific local scene or bands whom Girl Band aligned themselves with? “We all came from pretty diverse groups ourselves but there was a band called Turning Down Sex whom we were really into: a noisy, math rock sort of band.”

There’s that dirty word again – ‘rock’. Fox is at pains to point out the fact that Girl Band are not a rock band, certainly not an ersatz 90s rock band. “When we put out the first EP,” he says, “there were a lot of Nirvana comparisons. I can maybe see this in retrospect but I don’t think it sounds like it’s from that era. We like bands from the 90s but I don’t think it’s as ‘rock’ as those bands were.”

So, Daniel, this is your chance to set the record straight! What would be a more accurate description of where you guys are coming from?

Surely Girl Band don’t exist in a hermetically-

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sealed vacuum? “Ah, I don’t know”, he laughs. “It’s kind of hard to define yourself. I actually don’t think we’re too concerned with setting the record straight about our sound because I don’t think we know exactly what we’re doing. It’s a pretty diverse range of influences. It’s not concrete. It’s very much the four of us in the room hashing it out. We jam it out a bit and start arranging and essentially write our own parts. But the record has been done a while and it’s nice listening back to it again after a few months – especially as I’m no longer listening to it from an engineering point of view. I just listen to it now as a bunch of songs.”

Finally, we leave the vital question until the very end. Who is Jamie and – more importantly – who is he holding hands with? Fox is quite candid in his answer. “Jamie worked on all our records and he was in school with me and Dara. Holding Hands With Jamie was a joke title for my would-be solo balladeer album because there’s been this long rumour that me and Jamie are in love with each other. And it’s kinda half true…”

Holding Hands With Jamie is released on 25 Sep via Rough Trade girlband.ie

THE SKINNY

September 2015

23

New Skin For The Old Ceremony A couple of years ago it seemed like New Order were no more. Yet here they are in 2015, with a recalibrated line-up and an entirely new album – Music Complete – about to be released. The Skinny discusses presences, absences and techniques with the band

“B

loody hell, I wasn’t expecting to be reminded of that!” To be fair, New Order’s Stephen Morris has a number of reasons to be exasperated. The band are on the cusp of releasing Music Complete, their first album of entirely new work in ten years, yet the presence of absence haunts everything New Order does. First it was the inextricable spectre of Ian Curtis, then it was the sudden death of manager Rob Gretton in 1999 and now it is the palpable figure of bassist Peter Hook, who left the band under some incredibly acrimonious circumstances in 2007.

But none of these are the reasons behind Morris’s sudden incredulity when The Skinny speaks to him at his Macclesfield home. In fact, the affable drummer is talking about Baywatch and the rather unlikely video the band shot with Hasselhoff and co. for the Regret single, on a Los Angeles beach, over 20 years ago. “That was a very, very strange time to be in New Order,” he remembers. “There was so much going on in and around the band at the time – the closing of the Haçienda, the closing of Factory Records, trying to get money to make Republic… and being on bloody Baywatch!”

As we reminisce over the Salford pioneers’ entire career, Morris is at pains to make it clear that Music Complete isn’t a celebratory lap of honour, or the work of a band simply coasting.

“Every record we make has been a case of us making the best out of it,” he says. “And with this record, we probably had to work that bit harder because we were working with Tom [Chapman, the current bassist] and also Gillian [Gilbert] decided to return to the band. And you know, it has worked out really well.”

It may or may not be a coincidence that Morris has to interrupt our conversation to sort out a brief family issue when conversation turns to Hooky’s absence. The apparently terminal breakdown in their relationship has been welldocumented elsewhere and often appeared to teeter on the edge of becoming a tabloid soap opera, full of vitriol, quickly-hashed-out autobiographies and a seemingly endless stream of he-said, he-said bickering. Nevertheless, Music

September 2015

Complete is the first New Order album minus Hooky’s unmistakable bass lines and the first single from the album, the relatively conventional sounding Restless, sounded like a band trying to recreate their best moments and not really succeeding in creating anything other than an efficient lesson in New Order-by-numbers. But this is a misnomer.

Elsewhere, Music Complete is an album almost entirely ruled by synthesisers. And despite Restless, it’s not an ersatz, nostalgia-fuelled perambulation through vintage synth-pop; the album actually sounds incredibly vibrant, sensuous and defiantly dancefloor-oriented. Even Bernard Sumner sounds like he’s enjoying himself on some of the tracks – listen to the Barry White-style vocal rumblings (reminiscent of Fine Time from 1989 classic Technique) on Tutti Frutti and the almost sleazy electro-funk of People on the High Line and Plastic.

For the most part, it’s an album of sparkling, hi-fi, urgent electronic pop. Of course, this is aided and abetted by the presence of Chemical Brother Tom Rowlands, who produced a number of tracks, and Stuart Price, who added his shimmering sheen to Superheated.

And these aren’t the only high profile collaborations. Brandon Flowers lends his vocals to Superheated and Elly Jackson of La Roux is present on backing vocals on a number of tracks. Most interestingly, is the appearance of a certain Stooge – a poem, written by Sumner, is recited by Iggy Pop on the brooding Stray Dogs. “Well, I’d love to say that Iggy Pop hammered down our door,” laughs Morris, “demanding to be on the next New Order album but in reality, Bernard was busy at a festival, being all the things that a singer in a band does, and he encountered Iggy Pop at some point and things developed from there.”

Considering New Order is now a five-piece with members swapping instruments at will, one wonders whether there was any competition for space on Music Complete. “Phil [Cunningham] actually hates playing keyboards,” reveals Morris, “so it was great to have Gillian back in the studio!

But the band is definitely more versatile now, which provides us with a lot more freedom.”

While the band’s lyrics have always been so cryptic as to entirely disappear down linguistic cul-de-sacs, the likes of Plastic and People on the High Line on the new album are begging to be interpreted, with their swipes at unnamed persons and their propensity for, shall we say, ‘unreasonable’ behaviour. “I honestly don’t think any of the lyrics on the album were written about any one person in particular,” counters Morris. “I mean, they could have been, but I don’t think so. But that’s all Bernard; we just wait for him while he writes his lyrics in the same way he has always done – staying up all night in a darkened room with a bottle of wine. The lyrics always appear the following morning!”

“I’d love to say that Iggy Pop hammered down our door, demanding to be on the next New Order album” Stephen Morris

Music Complete is a very accessible album.

While Morris dismisses the notion that the title suggests a New Order swansong (“it actually came from Bernard initially wanting to call it ‘Musique concrète,” he says), most of the songs on the album are stylistically similar, all emerging from the same raging discotheque. In terms of the band’s discography, Music Complete’s closest twin is undeniably Technique. “Everybody is saying that

MUSIC

Interview: Colm McAuliffe

to us!” he exclaims. “And I can kinda see where they were coming from but it was completely unintentional. We certainly weren’t in the frame of mind to record an Ibiza-style album but now that people are mentioning it so much maybe we should head back to the Balearics to record something new. It would be an interesting experiment! And we could make a comedown album afterwards…”

In fact, the album was recorded entirely over the winters of 2013 and 2014 (“Probably because the kids were at school,” opines Morris) yet is unequivocally upbeat and positive throughout. “We definitely took a different approach to the composition of the songs on Music Complete,” he admits. “I started messing around with synthesisers early on and creating various beats and all sorts of electronic sounds. Whereas before we used to begin with the guitar riffs and take things from there.”

Morris admits that the hybrid of flesh and electronics patented by the likes of Factory Floor and DFA were an influence on the album, and also highlights Heidelberg krautrock veterans Guru Guru. “I was definitely listening to a lot of them during the album. And Young Fathers – my daughter’s band [Hot Vestry] recently played with them. But perhaps their influence isn’t so obvious on Music Complete…”

This irreverence is typical of New Order; there are very few bands who have attained such an astounding mythological status – they have already been portrayed in film on two separate occasions – yet simultaneously appear to eschew performing similar acts of anointment on themselves. And it’s rather fitting that Music Complete is out on Mute, that totemic symbol of synth-pop futurism. Perhaps the title of the album really is fitting – New Order have changed and adapted yet still managed to come full circle to create one of the best dance albums of the band’s career.

Music Complete is released via Mute on 25 Sep. New Order play Glasgow Academy on 19 Nov neworder.com

Feature

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From Bedroom to Box Office We chat with Glaswegian virtuoso C Duncan about turning a one-man, one-year labour of love into an arresting, unmissable live act

Y

ou wouldn’t have thought 150 people – seated, balancing drinks, applauders seemingly of the staid fingers-to-palm variety – could make this much noise. But some in C Duncan’s audience in Glasgow’s Centre for Contemporary Arts have both feet in the air as they explode out of their seats to bring the beaming architect of Architect, Duncan’s arresting full-length debut, back for an encore. He returns with a little wave, a boyish smile, and steals all our windpipes for a few minutes of snowflake silence during I’ll Be Gone By Winter. Wherever he will be this winter, we hope we’re in earshot.

Seven hours earlier Duncan steps off sunny Sauchiehall Street into the CCA atrium, having parked the band van, just now back from a show in Leeds, wearing a green and white button-up, a smattering of road-stubble, and an air of just barely credulous happiness with his new life, changed so much in the weeks leading up to Architect’s release just a few days before. He’s gone from waiting tables four days a week to gigging every night: The Lexington in London, Somerset House with Belle & Sebastian, the Latitude festival, then Bristol, Salford, Leeds, and now back home to Glasgow – though not for long. The driving’s tiring, he says, but each audience still stands out. “It’s weird,” he suggests, sitting in the CCA café, one arm on the table and the other over his chairback, “watching people going to the box office, picking up tickets to see you.

“Why didn’t you give up working in cafés sooner?” he wonders now, with a laugh. The past few months he was promoting his album, building a band, and readying himself for the road, but he

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Inteview: Aidan Ryan

still wanted to keep his flat in Glasgow, to be able to pay for pints and shows. Now it’s pints and shows nonstop, and instead of collecting tips he’s collecting the road stories exclusive to touring musicians. And plenty of fans.

A multi-instrumentalist and the son of classical musicians, with a degree from Glasgow’s Conservatoire and ensemble and choir composition credits already under his belt, Duncan laboured on Architect for over a year, alone, in his bedroom, layering his voice into harmonies, approximating snare sounds with wire brushes on the back of his desk chair, layering synths, guitars, handclaps. “It was me just using whatever stuff I had in my bedroom,” he says. “All my spare time I just spent doing that; I had real highs and lows, because obviously I was kind of isolated for a year.”

He talks about tweaking, working the intricacies of his pieces; inspired, he says, by the sort of subtle alterations in repeated patterns that he loves in contemporary classical music and in Glasgow’s architecture. “It gives you so much freedom to play,” he says – demoing on his own, off a studio’s expensive clock; but bringing such a lonely year long labour to a live setting – and such intricate, precisely orchestrated, many-layered sounds to a four-piece band – seemed a massive challenge. But he constructed a band piece by piece, testing his sets onstage much the way he’d layered his original recordings. “I don’t know how it came together... it just has.”

The songs “were very very different to begin with. Just because we didn’t know what to do,” Duncan says. The quartet – Duncan, Finn McCardel on keys, Lluis Solervicens on bass, Glynn Forrest

on drums – have come closer to the sound of the album (and Duncan still seems a bit surprised), but the songs we hear live are more reinvention than reproduction. The album’s opener Say bursts out of an audible stillness, a soundspace like the resonant insides of a cathedral floating somewhere around Kepler 186-f. This doesn’t seem as powerful live, at the start of Duncan’s Friday night show, but quickly the bass and bass drum start a pulse that gives Say a second engine, throbbing behind Duncan’s melody. Suddenly it’s a foot-tapper. With live drums Silence and Air takes on a new, even unsettling urgency; and the extraordinary track Garden becomes, as his closer, a song you might dial up to blast on your car stereo.

“I don’t know how it came together... it just has” C Duncan

One might expect obsessive compulsive, even dictatorial behaviour from a musician who spent over a year sorting through files of individual drum hits to construct an album so breezily masterful that the word “perfect,” applied to it, doesn’t raise any cynical eyebrows. If that alone makes one a perfectionist, then Duncan qualifies. But he’s no control freak, conversational in-person and loose onstage, tuning his guitar during And I, trus-

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ting the band to carry it for a few bars when plenty of other performers would have stopped and started over. His work is as much the result of the composer’s solitary concentration as of happy accidents: in each song some seed of intent flowers in chance discovery. “Whenever I start I’ve always got a very clear idea of… themes for the song, but not necessarily the mood, and then I start recording and then I find something,” he says. “It’s very much an ongoing thing.” This even includes “gibberish” – he cites the Cocteau Twins as an influence. “I love the idea of having words that kind of almost sound like things, you make up meanings to go with it.” Though he doesn’t think much of himself as a lyricist, it’s clear that Duncan used a dash of jabberwocky-style melopoeia to great effect: it’s all part of the overall composition.

So are his striking paintings, aerial views of Glasgow framing car parks and overlapping motorways. He pairs each song with a different painting, projecting them behind the band, and the media interilluminate each other. The paintings, with all indications of messy human habitation abstracted into clean geometry, remind one of the unusual sense of perspective in Duncan’s songs, which can sometimes give ‘architect’ near-deific dimensions: these aren’t pieces rooted in the heat and dust of earthly troubles. It’s strange music to come from Glasgow, where the beautiful casts its gaze on the sordid, caryatids looking down on broken Buckfast bottles glittering greenly. Architect often seems to come at it all from about 85 degrees.

“I wrote my first song on piano when I was 10 because I wanted to see if I could write music and how my melody would sound if I harmonised it,” Duncan writes, a few days later. “Since then I have always had a need, I guess, to make music. I feel happiest when making music and a bit lost and useless when I’m not writing or don’t have a project on the go.” It helps make sense of Architect: it’s less about Duncan working through emotions and “situations” than exploring the music as music, less interested in what things are than in the way they are, the way the world’s patterns in colour, shape, sound, and percussion repeat and change – and move us.

Because it’s not emotionless: it is emotion, distilled to movement in sound. It’s clear on the lullaby Castle Walls, with harmonies to wet the driest tear ducts. There’s a similar moment in Novices as he plays it live to us at the CCA: when it’s over you can hear in the stillness that we don’t want to clap, for the first time that night. We don’t want to believe that it’s over. But the night does end, after I’ll Be Gone By Winter; a woman in the second row says “I feel privileged… I’m an emotional wreck.”

Duncan is moving fast into a growing career and a flowering reputation. He’s still keen to return to contemporary classical at some point, maybe even pursue a PhD (“I’m always going to be on the edge,” he says – though he might just be describing his pop) but now he has fans who’d mourn even a temporary absence – the way fans howl when he announces his “last song.” He’s already demoing for his second album and hopes to be done by the end of the year, getting into the studio (with session players, this time) at the start of 2016. He mentions a string quartet – at which the mind goes rabid to hear how Architect might sound with a full orchestra – but right now it’s just an idea, “not set in stone,” he says. The metaphor’s apt: masonry’s his thing, anyway.

Architect is out now on Fat Cat fat-cat.co.uk/site/artists/c-duncan

THE SKINNY

Feeling so Bohemian A hip young voice of European literature, Oscar Coop-Phane serves up substance alongside his style. Here he talks about new novel Tomorrow, Berlin and the dark experiences which birthed it – binge and bust hedonism on the Berlin club scene

W

ith tousled, foppish hair, pushed frequently from his face, a dagger tattoo peering out from his left sleeve and inked star rising from his collar, Oscar Coop-Phane looks every bit the Bohemian. Although, as he cocks his head towards his webcam, any affected cool is countered by a warm smile. He is the award-winning author of two novels to tickle the underbelly of his adopted cities, Paris and Berlin. Yet, when he – as one might expect – lights a cigarette, the smoke exhaled from his window disperses into the Brussels night. His current home. A city very different to those two European capitals of counter culture, and one wonders how this change of scene will influence his writing. “I have a daughter, I’m married, so I have a completely different life here,” he says, comparing Belgium to those old stomping grounds. “I don’t know if it’s the way I live now or because of the city, but I think Brussels is more quiet and calm. And I need that now.”

There is an inescapable cultural chasm between this new home and Paris’s Left Bank, key setting for debut novel Zenith Hotel. It’s a great little book, that adjective offered without condescension – it is after all a mere 83 pages. In many ways a collection of individual portraits; disparate lives crossing over the central point of ageing prostitute Nanou. Where many writers might use cafés or bars for this critical function, Oscar chooses person over place. “I was really fascinated by prostitution and also how those girls or boys live with it... I was interested more with customers than prostitution. And it was also kind of fun for me to write as if I was an old woman who is prostituting herself… this writing challenge.”

Characters are drawn, to a large extent, from his everyday world. They have taken afterhours confession at the bars he has worked behind – opening themselves up to spill the secrets of their lives, as drinkers do. “I use their stories unscrupulously,” he confided in interview some years back, warning to “Never confide in a guy who writes.” This pool of inspiration is one he must drink from. “Because I don’t have a lot of imagination,” he admits today, candidly. “… So I have to work like this, you know? I’m very impressed by writers who can invent everything, but for me it’s not working like this.” This binds his prose to reality, yet forms the amusing image of Oscar – if his star continues to rise, with international fame and all its trappings – still, through creative necessity, working shifts in the local boozer.

“Now it’s only one night per week, so yeah, I like it,” he says. “But, to be super honest, if I don’t need money I won’t work in bars.” Then, seemingly endorsing the Bukowski method. “You can go there to be a customer. It’s working the same [for his writing] and it’s easier. And you can drink.”

Either side of the bar, there remains a need to be connected to these truths. To the barflies and the lushes, “…what we usually call losers.”

Oscar suggests. “But the idea was not to say ‘this is a loser.’ I wanted to be tender with those people, because I am one of them.” While he may have rolled and swayed alongside them, raised his arms to the air during damaging sessions on Berlin’s club scene, this self-deprecation borders on outright deceit. He is an achiever. He started young.

“In fact I started writing when I was a kid. But I start to do only that when I’m 19,” Oscar confirms in his French tailored English. “A few jobs also to earn money of course.” This early commitment to the craft suggests the carefree pluck of youth, or perhaps simply the act of throwing life’s dice.

Of course, “First of all.” Oscar admits. “But it was so cool also, you know?” he then questions. “To

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be as free? I was working a little bit… but in fact reading and writing.” The pause, that Gallic shrug. “… and smoking cigarettes also, so yeah, it was complete freedom. I had a moped and it was great.

After one year I think, OK, I love this life.”

“Maybe I wanted to be hurt, so I was looking for that” Oscar Coop-Phane

…Of coffee and cigarettes and bikes and bars – classic motifs in both Zenith Hotel and the newly translated Tomorrow, Berlin. Elements loosely in line with the dead and largely forgotten French writers he reveres. Eugène Dabit, Louis Calaferte, Raymond Guérin, Georges Hyvernaud, Henri Calet and Charles-Louis Philippe. “I think the most famous one is Emmanuel Bove, maybe the greatest one… born 1898 and died in 1945. I don’t know if it’s translated into English. It’s completely amazing and very simple, very real also.

Always the story of a guy who’s asking for money from guys in bars. It’s not, like, huge stories, but it’s real life.”

But that was yesterday, and looking forward?

Tomorrow, Berlin. An intimate sketch of three lives: Armand, Tobias, Franz. Boys who are alternately struggling, striving, then barely surviving in a world of hard sex and hard drugs – of drinking, dropping, snorting, fucking. The murky edge of the Berlin club scene; extended weekends lubri-

cated with illicit chemicals and bodily fluids. And of course, true to Oscar’s process, “if you don’t live anything you won’t have anything to write.”

So, he bore witness, he indulged. “I used to live in Berlin when I was 20, 21. I think I moved there because…I still don’t really know…” he ponders.

“Maybe I wanted to be hurt, so I was looking for that.” Which – to borrow from Burroughs, another traveller across life’s darker limits – begs the question of his philosophy of drug use as it relates to artistic endeavour. Especially in light of the author biog on his publisher’s website, which suggests that Berlin was ‘where he spent a year writing, reading Proust and toasting his neurons on the techno scene.’ “So, yeah, I took it very strong,” he says. “I was like, OK I can party a little bit… I wanted the dark part, you know? I was looking for that and so that’s why I’m talking about it in the book.”

Tomorrow, Berlin is a diminutive epic – while an increase on Zenith, it's still only 172 pages long. Creatively though, it is a leap, as if Zenith Hotel was written in training for this display of supreme confidence in brevity. He aligns his word count with that supposed lack of imagination. Yet it achieves, when required, the cold detachment of early Easton Ellis, rather than the souring rancour of Houellebecq or Celine, with whom he is occasionally compared. This jaded separation is hard to associate with one so young. Still only 26, but “Yeah… because of my childhood I had to grow up very young. I moved from my mother’s place when I was 16 and so had to earn money and stuff.

I was thrown into real life kind of young.”

He opened this interview by suggesting of Tomorrow, Berlin that “It’s kind of weird to speak

BOOKS

Interview: Alan Bett

about it, because I feel like I’m so far from it now.”

Later adding that he “didn’t want to write about this scene, about techno, because I was really into 50s and 60s writers. More like Zenith Hotel, coffees and cigarettes and stuff. So I thought I can’t talk about techno in the book, but it was too present in my mind.” But hedonism is no modern movement, especially in Berlin. Switch up clothes and chemicals and much the same was witnessed during the sexual decadence of the Weimar period. “It [hedonism] can be universal and timeless…” Oscar realised. “I wanted to write about those three guys and people lost in the city. It’s in Berlin but it could be anywhere else, in the 50s or the 19th century.”

Yet his own era of hedonism ended early.

“After a year [in Berlin] you’re like, I can live there and dance for 10 more years and one day it will stop… it was easy for me… I didn’t build my life there.” So, he moved towards a more balanced scene, his wife and daughter and Brussels. Where he now sits; smiling, smoking. Obviously, as before, the reality will feed onto the page. “I’m trying to write now, not happy stuff, but to be more…”

A search for words, but this time none are found. “…Because a few times when I’m meeting people they’re like, you look so joyful compared to your books… It’s easier to write about melancholy and sadness and stuff like this… it’s easier to say, I’m so sad. Because there’s this romantic thing...”

To prove this point, that Gallic shrug once more. “... very French maybe.”

Tomorrow, Berlin is out on 17 Sep, published by Arcadia, RRP £9.99 arcadiabooks.co.uk

THE SKINNY

The Case of the Bloody Book Festival Professional crime writer Russel D. McLean gets into gumshoe character to investigate the annual gathering of our finest criminal authors in Stirling each September – there, it seems, for the dark, devious and devilishly fun Bloody Scotland

A

Glasgow summer: grey skies and rain soaked pavements glistening in the hints of sunlight that sneak through the clouds as though afraid to be noticed. The client – The Skinny Magazine – emails the office with a particularly tough case.

“There are rumours about a group of crime writers gathering in Stirling in September. We need to know what they’re up to.”

Sure, it’s the kind of case I can crack. I have my sources. I’m one of them, after all; a crime writer in search of a few good readers. I’m more than aware of Bloody Scotland; the yearly gathering of crime writers and readers. This year, they’re taking over the town from Friday 11 to Sunday 13 September. But The Skinny needs more information. So I slip on my hard-soled shoes and step out onto the mean streets of Stirling to see what evidence I can sniff out about this year’s festival.

No investigator worth his salt can do without informants. I reach out to one of mine and ask, what’s so special about this year’s Bloody Scotland?

“It’s Agatha Christie’s 125th Anniversary,” she says, handing me blackmail pictures of crime writers Alex Gray and Christopher Brookmyre dressed as Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot respectively.

“We’re paying homage to crime writers past, present and future.” The thought intrigues me. Crime fiction has a rich history, but they’re right to look to the future, too. There are so many writers coming through now, changing the face of the genre in the same way dames like Christie once did. Sure, now we know all of Dame Agatha’s tricks, but back in the day she took everyone by surprise with unexpected twists and jigsaw-puzzle plots.

Digging deeper, I see that there are more than a few surprises at this year’s festival. Events that mark out Bloody Scotland from other, more traditional gatherings of books lovers. There’s the Scotland v England football match on the Sunday afternoon, for example. So far, it’s proved to be one of the few times that a Scotland football team has won anything quite so decisively (last year’s result being 14-2) and is now a fixture of the festival, with the Scotland team led by

September 2015

none other than Ian Rankin! And then there are evening events, including a live improvised crime novel on the Friday and the inaugural Crime at the Coo on Saturday night, where Bloody Scotland will take over a pub in the middle of Stirling.

There’s even the chance to catch some new talent, thanks to the Crime in The Spotlight events that will precede some of the main sessions.

“No investigator worth his salt can do without informants. I reach out to mine and ask, what’s so special about this year’s Bloody Scotland?”

Determined to know more, I track down Craig Robertson, author of The Last Refuge and one of the masterminds behind the festival. “‘We try to do more than just have crime writers talking about their books,” he says, when I apply the thumb screws. “We’ve recreated a murder trial in Stirling’s Sheriff Court and we’ve had crime writers cooking for the audience. It’s a bit left field, but it keeps things lively.” In that vein, even their traditional events try to stay away from the usual suspects. There are panels on true crime and even on screenwriting. One might expect a festival called Bloody Scotland to include only Scottish authors, but the line-up is international, with a

big European presence, including the spectacular Gunnar Staalesen, whose books are so popular over in Norway that the town of Bergen has erected a bronze statue of his investigator, Varg Veum. Staalesen will be appearing with Swedish author Johan Theorin and Icelandic bestseller Ragnar Jonasson on Saturday afternoon.

I have to wonder if a bronze statue of their protagonist(s) might be an incentive for the authors shortlisted for the Deanston Scottish Crime Book of the Year. This year’s list, as always, is highly eclectic with both established authors and new names up for the award. Tracking down the elusive nominees, I corner Louise Welsh, author of Death is A Welcome Guest, who is hugely honoured to be in the final five. “I’d say that the competition was cut-throat,” she tells me, “but actually we’re a friendly crowd!” Fellow nominee Lin Anderson also agrees to spill the beans on what she’s been feeling since the announcement: “Astonishment mainly,” she says, “because I’m aware of all the excellent books… submitted for the award. Followed, of course, by excitement and delight.” She echoes the thoughts of fellow nominee, Christopher Brookmyre: “I’m honoured to be among such reprobates.” The overall winner of the prize will be announced on the Saturday night.

As my contact stated, 2015 is Christie’s 125th anniversary; something a crime festival cannot ignore. Christie’s obsession with poisons will form the centrepiece of a discussion on the Saturday, between Dr Kathryn Harkup, author of A Is For Arsenic, and Ragnar Jonasson, who has translatedChristie’sworkintoIcelandicsincehewasseventeen. If anyone offers you a mysterious cup of coffee before or during this event, these two will be ideally placed to recommend whether it’s safe to drink. And in a looser Christie Connection, Sophie Hannah, who wrote a new adventure for Poirot in 2014, will also be at the festival on the Sunday to talk about her new novel.

But poison is not the only way to commit murder. The means and methods of death are wide

BOOKS

Interview: Russel D. McLean Illustration: Kate Timney

and varied, something that Lin Anderson will be teaming up with Val McDermid to discuss on Saturday morning. McDermid recently had a mortuary named after her in Dundee after raising money for their incredible ‘Million for a Morgue’ Campaign (others who contributed included Stuart MacBride, who earned a dissecting room in his name and Caro Ramsay, who has an embalming tank named for her) and proved her forensic credentials with her latest non-fiction title Forensics: An Anatomy of Crime.

In addition to these femme fatales, my source gives me the names of some of the other incredible women on the schedule including the magnificent Martina Cole, whose visits to Scotland are always worthwhile. There’s also the horror author turned crime writer Sarah Pinborough, who will be talking about the thin line between the two genres with Steve Mosby. Meanwhile, Anya Lipska, Eva Dolan and Kati Hiekkapelto will be talking crime fiction and politics.

For those seeking out testosterone, Simon Kernick heads up a panel on muscle-flexing thrillers with Tom Wood and G.J. Brown, while the brilliant Linwood Barclay – whose twisty bestsellers will appeal to fans of Harlan Coben – closes out the festival on Sunday with a rare UK appearance.

I’m barely scratching the surface, however; my investigation throwing up a cavalcade of compelling evidence as to why Bloody Scotland may be one of the most intriguing crime festivals in the UK. As I reach my final conclusions, I turn my face to the window. The rain is gone. The sun is shining. Maybe it’s a sign. I call my client and tell him that, sure, there’s a gathering of criminal masterminds in Stirling. But based on the testimony of some compelling witnesses, it means that the city is in for an incredibly entertaining weekend.

Bloody Scotland runs from 11-13 Sep at locations throughout Stirling bloodyscotland.com

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29

The Sick Sense In The Messenger, motor-mouth Misfits actor Robert Sheehan plays an unwashed weirdo who can speak to the dead. For director David Blair, he was the obvious choice. When we meet Sheehan in Edinburgh, he’s shoeless and ready to bare his soul

“I

’ve taken to not wearing shoes as much as I possibly can. Which is difficult, because, you know, the sock absorbs the foot sweat. If you’re wearing no shoes, and you’re driving a car or whatever, and your foot starts to slide off the accelerator – that’s bad! That’s too much sweat.

Need to wear Maxi Pads on the soles of my feet.

Maybe we should talk about that? I have a new invention...”

Robert Sheehan is full of ideas, for better or worse. But we’re not here to plan out a new Dragon’s Den pitch; the tall Irishman, barefoot and sporting a fresh tan in an opulent hotel conference room, sits down with The Skinny to discuss his latest film, The Messenger, before its world premiere at the Edinburgh International Film Festival. If anyone’s seen the hit Channel 4 super-power series Misfits, his excitable, charming scamp Nathan isn’t a far cry from the real deal. We try and get the man back on track.

“The Messenger is about a young man who is being plagued by the recently dead,” he explains.

“People who have died violently are coming to him and plaguing him to pass on messages to their recently bereaved. He’s the only one that can see these people, or interact with them in any way, so the effect of this is him showing up to funerals – he’s a dirty-type character, a bit homeless-lookin’ – trying to tell the bereaved about their dead, about this message, and obviously you couldn’t think of anything more obnoxious if you’re on the other side of that. So he ends up just being beaten up and cast further and further out.”

There is a thriller plot in the film, too: a highprofile journalist dies under suspicious circumstances, and Sheehan’s grubby Jack becomes reluctantly embroiled in the case thanks to his otherworldly gift. But this narrative plays second fiddle to Sheehan, whose compelling, dynamic performance is the movie’s chief draw.

“The whole thing about the character is that he’s entirely within this reality,” he explains. “So he’s a normal guy and the way he accepts these

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dead people coming to him is in a very humdrum, normal way: ‘Ah for fuck’s sake. I’ve seen this all before. It’s just gonna end in tears. Why don’t you just fuck off to heaven and leave me alone?’ It’s a really normalised approach to this supernatural thing that’s happening to him. I think he’s very human in that way.”

This isn’t Sheehan’s first time working with Scottish director David Blair, whose prior work includes BAFTA-winning BBC series The Street.

“Lord Blair – Master Blair – Overlord Blair, as I call him – and all of you people should too because you live in Scotland... I had worked with him about four years ago on a TV thing for the BBC, a thing called Accused, and then he got his hands on [The Messenger] script. He became attached and he said, ‘You know who’d be good for this fella?

Weirdo, showin’ up at funerals, smells – get Sheehan.’”

What’s Blair like to work with? “Ah, he’s dynamite. He’s like a dynamo on set. There were long, long conversations, off set and then on set, about how not to make [Jack] mad to the audience.

As soon as the audience thinks he’s insane then it just becomes way less interesting. So the idea was to keep the audience liking him; I mean, it’s difficult, certainly on the page, to like the guy. He’s doing unlikeable stuff in a very unlikeable way, constantly. There were endless debates about how to pull those two things off, and David was funny, ‘cause he’d go, ‘You can’t look at him,’ about the guy who’s dead. ‘As soon as you look in his eyes, you’re mad.’ I’m like, ‘That’s not true!’ and then a huge, endless debate would happen.”

As well as keeping viewers on side, despite his intrusive, self-destructive behaviour, the actor also pulls off a convincing northern accent. Has he had dialect coaching?

“No. I’d worked in the accent, or the general northern English accent before, so I had a bit of a head start. And if any accent thing comes up I just sort of go into the accent as early as possible, and then stay in it until the film’s over. People go,

‘It’s so hard to do an accent.’ It’s not really, as long as you just accept that you can’t have your own voice for the whole time – which is a tough thing to accept.”

Casting Sheehan, an Irishman, despite the film’s location, is testament to his versatility.

“David’s lovely in the sense that he puts those sorts of choices in the hands of the actors. I suppose there’s an element of trust, so he said, ‘Where are you gonna be from?’ And I said, ‘I’m gonna be from northern England.’

“One thing that becomes important as an actor is relevance – that affects your choices”

Interview: George Sully

Conversation inevitably turns to Misfits, and its impact on his career. “One thing that becomes important as an actor is relevance – that affects your choices. Like, you know when someone says, ‘Ah yeah, I really love that actor, but what are they doing now? They’ve not done anything for years!’

And usually that’s not true. You’d think as an actor you’d go, ‘God, I’d hate people to think that about me.’ But I think that’s a really corrupting thought.

“That’s the thing about doing a show that had relevance; popularity equalling relevance, equals fame to some extent, and so really what you mean is you want to stay in the minds of people, in a fame way. And that’s toxic, to try and follow a career in that way. So I try to remove that entirely from the equation. But at the same time, Misfits, for me, was stumbling into a show that was really popular... it has done great things for my career.”

We highlight the supernatural similarities between Misfits’ Nathan (who is immortal) and The Messenger’s Jack. “No, that was coincidence. Both of them are just idiots in their own way. The whole supernatural thing I think is a smokescreen for the fact it’s just two fuckin’ arseholes doing their thing.”

They’re also both talkers, a trait common to many of his roles. Though we already have plenty of evidence, we ask if he’s as chatty in reality. “Yeah, I think so. I find it important to be able to get your point across.”

Has this ever gotten him in hot water?

There’s a sharp intake of breath: “Yeah, absolutely.

Oh God, I just remembered one thing... I can’t...

I just remembered a story that could have been quite befitting subscribers to The Skinny, but I can’t tell it, because it’s too bad!” Oh? “No, I just upset someone once, for saying the wrong thing. But no, I do think it’s important to be able to get your point across. I think [with] most of the conflicts in this world... the base cause is because the person isn’t getting their point across properly, and there’s miscommunication. All of a sudden someone’s been bottled, your wife is screaming, she’s just stabbed a fella with her stiletto, and you’ve been barred from that pub for life...”

Something we can all relate to. “That was the story, basically,” Sheehan adds, unnecessarily.

The Messenger is released 25 Sep by Metrodome

Robert Sheehan

“Actually, the year previous, we were gonna shoot the film, and it was gonna be in Edinburgh.”

Could he do a Scottish accent for us? “...Nuh.” But he is a fan of the Scottish capital. “I feel like Edinburgh is the Galway of Scotland. Because it’s the same thing: in Ireland they call Galway ‘the graveyard of ambition,’ but that just means that people go there and never leave, because they forgot all about what they wanted to do in the first place, because they were so seduced by the loveliness of Galway. It’s a good thing; it does sound pejorative, but it’s a nice graveyard full of ambitious people who can’t remember what they were ambitious about, drinking cans down by the docks.

“I used to live there for two years,” he adds.

FILM

THE SKINNY

A Story in WHITE WHITE are a far more colourful band than the moniker might suggest. With just a couple of singles under their belt and former members of Kassidy and The Low Miffs in their number, just how have the Glasgow five-piece gelled?

H

amburg’s Reeperbahn has long enjoyed an association with bands looking to establish their credentials as live performers. It was at dingy basement venues in and around this infamous street where The Beatles would play up to four sets a night, surviving on a diet of cheap booze and strong amphetamines. “I was born in Liverpool – but I grew up I Hamburg,” John Lennon would recall years later. WHITE were longer in the tooth than the Fab Four had been when they arrived in town for their debut show, but they could still thrive on the excitement of testing their music on a crowd far from home.

The electro post-punk group from Glasgow had been invited to Germany last September by a DJ who had heard the solitary song they had uploaded a few weeks before, the impressive Living Fiction. “He was playing it at his club night, Molotov, and it was getting a good response,” explains guitarist Hamish Fingland. “He decided to take the chance and email us out of the blue to invite us over.”

“We bundled ourselves in a car at 6am and drove to Germany,” continues vocalist Leo Condie.

“It was great. We were hanging around the same streets that the Beatles were pounding 50 years ago. We hung around Hamburg and saw a few other acts. It was perfect; you couldn’t get a better first gig, really.”

The Skinny is talking with two of WHITE’s number shortly after they come off stage at the Wickerman Festival in rural Kirkcudbrightshire, a location as far removed from the Reeperbahn as it’s possible to find. We’re here to establish how, in less than a year and with only three songs released, the group have secured a record deal with resurrected pop-rock colossus RCA and a reputation as one of the most talked-about new bands in the country. Their debut headlining show in Glasgow sold out well in advance and prompted several breathless reviewers to kickstart the hype (which has thus far been quite justified). WHITE’s latest single, Blush, picks up from where the

September 2015

previous Future Pleasures left off – another irresistible helping of dancefloor spirit, post-punk guitars and a chorus that recalls The Associates at their peak.

It’s a remarkable departure in style for those involved. Keen observers of the music scene north of the border will recognise most of WHITE from previous bands. Condie, who hails from Edinburgh but has long called Glasgow home, once fronted The Low Miffs. By the time they petered out, he was ready for a change of pace. “I got fed up of just seeing people staring at me at gigs,” he says with a wry grin. “As a frontman, you never get too fed up of people looking at you – but you kind of want people to be dancing and moving around.”

Fingland, along with Lewis Andrew and Chris Potter, played with Glaswegian alt-folk rockers Kassidy, a band who provoked some extraordinary venom from certain sections of the music press despite their relative inoffensiveness. When the group’s leader, Barrie-James O’Neil, moved to Los Angeles to be with then-girlfriend Lana Del Rey in March 2014, the group were as good as over. But the three remaining members, to their credit, were already planning to ditch the Crosby, Stills and Nash sound for something a bit more nightclubfriendly. “We all live together,” explains Fingland.

“All we do is write songs. We just kept writing when Kassidy ended – we thought it was an opportunity to do what we had wanted to do for a while – freshen things up, completely change basically.”

WHITE’s sudden emergence is even more remarkable when you consider that the trio from Kassidy only met Condie last year. Deciding that the embryonic group could use a frontman, Fingland asked around for likely candidates. “You think, when you live in Glasgow, because you’ve been in bands, you think you know the whole scene: but I asked someone who isn’t in amongst it all, and she sent me a contact for Leo. I met up with him and we had loved so many of the same bands, the same styles of music. Leo was also at a stage

where he felt he needed to find a new band.”

“I was doing stuff to keep myself going,” confirms Condie. “I was writing some electronic stuff in my bedroom, but to keep my live chops going I had been singing Jacques Brel and Bertolt Brecht songs – kind of different to what I’m doing now, but also kind of not. It’s cabaret and dramatic – it’s how I performed before I started covering that stuff, and it’s how I perform now. My old band, The Low Miffs, had kind of just petered out. It was to tide me over until I found some way of getting a real band going again, and out of the blue this thing turned up which was totally perfect.”

“We’ve conquered Google” Leo Condie

“It was perfect,” Fingland grins. “The music I was writing at the time was right up Leo’s street.

It was odd how well Leo fitted in, given that I didn’t even know he existed. And there are not many singers with that kind of style at the moment. The contact couldn’t have worked any better.” Condie ponders: “I think with Kassidy, their music wasn’t that danceable, and with my band, it was a bit too obtuse for people, with silly time signatures. You always think it would be great if a crowd moved to your music, but we set out to write songs in a way people couldn’t help but dance.”

The WHITE line-up was completed by the recruitment of drummer Kirstin Lynn, following a decision that live percussion would be infinitely preferable to a drum machine, or relying upon session players as Kassidy had done previously.

“A guy Thomas, who runs RubberGum Studios in Glasgow, recommended her,” Fingland enthuses.

“He said she was the hardest hitter he had ever

MUSIC

Interview: Chris McCall Photography: Rita Azevedo

had in the studio. She’s absolutely amazing – such a great part of the band.”

Watching them live, WHITE have the surefootedness of experienced pros but generate the excitement of a group of pals just starting out.

Visually, they are far removed from the typical bedroom producer or lo-fi rock get-up that has prevailed for the past decade. They look like they’re in a band you want to tell your friends about. Even their name is a statement of intent; in the age of Google, few artists would dare choose it. “We wanted it to be so simple and so stark you couldn’t fail to sit up and take notice when you saw it. If you type in ‘WHITE band’, we’re now the top result. We’ve conquered Google,” Condie deadpans. “We kind of liked how stark and sparse it is, it’s like a blank canvas. It’s a weird, simple name for a band but we wanted to see what we could do with it – how we could imbue it with a kind of interesting nature.”

Condie designs the WHITE artwork, while all members have a say in their videos. As they also produce their own music, it’s no wonder their handson approach so impressed a variety of labels. A deal with RCA was reached to release singles, and the group are eager to extend that to an album.

“You can probably put a fag paper between the people that work at RCA and the people that work at indie labels,” says Condie. “They’re all into their music, but they’re working from a different framework – they have big pop artists, they have us and Everything Everything – they’re the other ‘strange’ band – but we’re not that strange, we want to be quite poppy!” He summarises their modus operandi in ambitious terms: “We want to straddle being poppy with slight experimentalism – like David Bowie or Talking Heads used to do. You’re not going to hit those heights without a lot of work, but it’s something to strive for.”

New single Blush is released on 25 Sep via RCA. WHITE play Tenement Trail, Glasgow on 3 Oct calledwhite.com

Feature

33

The Lyceum at 50 Mark Thomson of The Royal Lyceum Theatre talks 50th Anniversaries, trying new foods, Waiting for Godot and the danger of funding cuts ahead of his final season with the theatre

Interview: Emma Ainley-Walker

“I

t’s kind of like the perfect ending to a marriage,” says Mark Thomson on his final season as artistic director of The Royal Lyceum Theatre, also its 50th anniversary year. “We love each other a great deal but now it’s time to find different partners. It’s very positive for both because arts institutions need change, they need to be rethought. What I tried to do here for 12 years was to reinvent it every year to a degree, so that you have a restless surprise that’s constantly keeping the audiences and the artists on their toes, experiencing new things, or experiencing old things in ways they hadn’t imagined.” It is clear talking to Thomson that creativity and a real passion for making theatre have driven him throughout his time at the Lyceum, and drive him still. It is also clear that his brain never stops moving as he lays out his purpose in making art: “Keep people thinking, keep people celebrating being in the theatre, not doing it because they think they ought to culturally or because it’s the thing to do, but to reward people with something that makes a mark on them. It’s life-affirming, it raises spirits.

That’s legitimate and it’s not easy.”

“Keep people thinking, keep people celebrating being in the theatre” Mark Thomson

It is certainly not easy, but looking to the season ahead, Thomson has curated some amazing events, from Waiting for Godot to an adaption of Sarah Walters’ novel Tipping the Velvet. There is a strong balance between the old classics, wellloved and well-worn, and new contemporary work that Thomson calls “vital.”

“Here’s the reason why I think it’s important, it’s two-fold. If you just keep giving people what they’ve always had, if you put the same food in front of them all the time, eventually the joy of eating will start to diminish. World premieres: when you walk in, no one knows what it is. The theatre has a surprise, they’ve put a new food on the table that no one’s tasted before.”

“The second thing is this: I think it’s very important that contemporary voices exist in a contemporary theatre and I think it’s important that they’re on the mid-scale. A great fear of mine is that new writing becomes associated with corners of theatre rooms in wonderful basements and small auditoriums. Think about the great writers, they wanted to speak to a lot of people. I wanted to create a place where contemporary writers with an appetite to talk to a large number of people could come and express themselves. It’s critical that theatre culture isn’t to become esoteric, only for the few. I needed writers with the generosity and desire to talk at midscale, to keep theatre a culture that is popular and is for anybody. I don’t mean commercial, although if commercial means lots of people come, jolly good.”

The idea of theatre as food, as sustenance, is something that Thomson returns to as he discusses its cultural importance, and the conversation comes around to funding and to cuts. “I have

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The New Scottish Actors Company pictured at the Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh

a slight concern that funding bodies are losing sight of how key and important producing theatres is,” he says in response to what he thinks the Lyceum may be doing in another 50 years. “We’ve got a terrific Minister for Culture in Fiona Hyslop who’s a great champion, but that has to find its way into the fact that for the past eight years we’ve been on standstill with funding, and the costs go up so we’ve fallen behind about 25%, and we’d be told, ‘At least you haven’t been cut,’ and now we are cut another 17%. We have to make sure that that goodwill and affirmation of culture at that political level doesn’t mean that in ten years time the Lyceum will be in so little money that the imagination of its programming will be restricted.”

“I’m not just talking about the Lyceum. I’m talking about the Citizens, the Traverse, Dundee.

They’re all companies that have been told for years to effectively do the same with less and that’s a little bit exhausting after a while. It certainly doesn’t make you feel special because the truth is this: it costs money to do and the people need money to do it.”

Thomson’s worry for theatre, and for the arts in general, is the attitude that funding can and should go to areas which create more obvious and immediate improvement to life. “It’s a very difficult thing to stake a claim against, say, the NHS. That’s

where people get it wrong. If you took that view you would have no arts, because of course you should be keeping people alive, but why are you keeping people alive? You’re keeping people alive to enjoy their lives, to have something that is special and beautiful and raises spirits. Makes you smile and makes you think. We’re a civilised and intelligent race of things and these things need to have things to do to keep them alive.” Again it is the idea that theatre and performance is more than simply entertainment, but it is cultural sustenance, something that people need to enrich their lives – to introduce them to new foods, as Thomson puts it.

“The one consistent thing that I’m most proud of is that I’ve never put work on just because I thought I need to earn a lot of money for this so I can do the rest. That doesn’t mean I don’t balance, I make sure there are plays that will gather an audience. The challenge then becomes trying to live up to your playwrights, to the thinkers, getting inside their wisdom and finding your own way of marking it without overwhelming it with your own cleverness. The moment you think you’re more clever than Shakespeare, that’s when you diminish both him and yourself, and the audience all start booing.”

The writer that Thomson must live up to in the programme’s opening is Beckett, with Brian Cox

THEATRE

and Bill Patterson taking on Waiting for Godot.

“I worked with Brian Cox in my first season on a Chekhov. Brian is patron of the theatre, but he was also on the stage the first time the Lyceum theatre company ever took to it.” Thomson explains where the desire to produce the piece came from: “I talked to Brian and I said, ‘The idea of you and Bill Patterson doing Godot just might raise the roof of the theatre.’ It’s something that people will really want to see, two great Scottish actors who are perfect for those roles coming up, 50 years after that company began.”

It’s a great way to open a 50th anniversary, and to begin the process of a farewell, but it is funding that Thomson leaves as his final word, and a worry over the future of Scottish theatre, if it is to continue with work to the scale Thomson believes it should, and with work to the scale of his Godot.

“Take care of the building companies. It might not be the sexiest ask, but it’s fundamental. Let them go and your whole infrastructure and the economy is as damaged as it is losing The Arches. Death by a thousand cuts; that’s not a nice death, that.”

Waiting for Godot, Lyceum Theatre, 18 Sep-10 Oct, 7.30pm (2pm Weds and Sat), prices vary lyceum.org.uk

THE SKINNY

Lust for Change Self-taught curator Paul Robertson speaks candidly about public funding and how loud printing presses have ruined openings for him Interview: Adam Benmakhlouf

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fter a spell as an expert on the ring dove, followed by a stint as Labour Party communications expert/entrepreneur, Paul Robertson’s latest incarnation has seen him set himself up 12 miles south of Summerhall, the venue he acrimoniously departed last year after spending some years curating a logic-defying 180 shows annually.

In an old school in the village Temple, he’s set up his new exhibition space, Lust and the Apple.

That Robertson stayed in Edinburgh was by no means a foregone conclusion. His exit from Summerhall provided some rare scandal and rumour on the Scottish art scene, and he’s outspoken about what he perceives to be the differences between the contemporary art audiences of Glasgow, compared to Edinburgh. “What you have in Edinburgh is people that only really understand representative art. ‘Ah that’s nice, it looks like a bit of a chocolate box,’” he says, not uncontroversially.

He regards Lust and the Apple as an important moment of intervention. “Edinburgh needs more contemporary art galleries. It’s a circular thing, there’s got to be a market for them. I come along and do this out of my own pocket.”

Taking a walk around the garden at the back of Lust and the Apple, Robertson points out the work of Danish artist duo Put Put. Inside a small greenhouse, pots are filled with soil and various green plastic tat. With some skill, Put Put have placed a set of anal beads so that they’re easily overlooked. “I had to buy this greenhouse for 300 quid,” Robertson explains. “And the work’s for sale. But if it doesn’t sell, it’ll sit here and people can see it for a while. Look… If you’ve got to find the money, you’ll find it somewhere. Even if I have to prostitute myself on Leith on a Friday night.”

He’s probably kidding, but leasing himself out for the night could be preferable to public funding for Robertson. “I’ve always been committed to doing it myself,” he begins, uncontroversially enough. He goes on: “It seems to me that if you create a generation of artists that are reliant on grants then you are actually doing no-one a service. I know what I’m about to say is going to make me sound like a Tory.” He continues – ironically enough, given his high volume curation

September 2015

record – “There are too many artists. We live in a world where we churn out so many people from art schools. They cannot all possibly be full-time artists.” While accepting “everyone’s got to have a job,” he doesn’t think it’s a bad thing for the market to decide. In short, he says, “I can’t see any other system that works. If you’re any good, you will probably survive. You might not be Damien Hirst, though.”

When it comes to the full-time artists working now, Robertson anonymises his complaints about professional “subsidy junkies.” By way of contrast, he cites Carolee Schneeman, an artist he collects and for whom he facilitated an exhibition in 2012. Even if the conditions weren’t right, “in the 1960s, if you were an artist you did it anyway.

People like Schneeman did all that amazing work, breaking down barriers against female artists, about sexuality and female art. Doing these performances that she didn’t make any money from.”

PUT PUT, Fruitless

“If you create a generation of artists that are reliant on grants then you are doing no-one a service” Paul Robertson

Yet, as much as Robertson is concerned with sounding right-wing, there’s not much separating his ideas from the usual tropes (specifically in relation to the Glasgow Miracle narrative) of the DIY ethic. Lust and the Apple is in the enviable position of having Robertson’s network that extends to artists like Gregor Schneider and Lawrence Weiner, but without the bureaucratic

Laurence Weinert, Untitled 2015

hems of a large public institution. Robertson addresses the publicly funded arts organisations and events when he makes clear that it should come with the proviso that invigilators are paid – something he insisted upon, during his time in Summerhall.

Robertson doesn’t ask to go “off the record”, except from respect for the privacy of others.

There’s no sense of professional or careerist anxiety. His curatorial practice is defined by a number of well-timed collecting decisions, rather than membership of the arts community. “I don’t need to make friends. It’s curious, I don’t really feel at home in other people’s openings. I don’t know half the people. I’m not part of the Edinburgh art scene.” His unlikely professional background has made it physically difficult for him to participate in the usual gatherings. While earning the seed money for his art collecting career as a pamphlet printer, the loud machinery has made it difficult for him to hear in crowded rooms.

“Openings are hell for me.”

As much as Robertson separates himself from a lot of the art communities, he’s aimed to align himself with the younger emerging artists.

So far this year, he’s exhibited a fair chunk of the GSA MFA 2015 cohort, as well as working with Edinburgh’s Kevin Harman and Rachel Maclean.

“Look, I’m 57. I spend my time with people who are half my age mostly. That might just be a sad old man’s reaction to getting old and nearly dying [Robertson suffered a triple bypass last year]

ART

but I find people who have ideas, energy and enthusiasm vastly more interesting than someone who wants to talk small talk over a good red wine.”

Robertson’s role as curator is complicated by the inclusion of his own work in Lust and the Apple. Mostly, the other artists are emerging, fairly inexperienced artists, but he’s not interested in indulging his curatorial seniority. “If you see the curation more than the artist, really there’s something wrong. Really that’s the curator wanting to be the artist, let’s not pretend.” While he makes clear that he thinks of himself artistically as “really nowhere near” those he exhibits, one of his works stands at the front entrance. It’s a large scale version of True Detective’s little twig sculpture Devil’s Nest. Currently, Roberston is also exhibiting his Periodic Table of Bowie as part of a V&A travelling exhibition. “I’m not an idiot,” he adds. “I know that people are mostly interested in it because it’s David Bowie. But I think it’s still a valid artwork.”

Now exhibiting his own work, buying the work of young Scottish artists and beginning to have one eye on a more consistent schedule of international exhibitions, Robertson’s set to continue in his odd role as outsider curator. “I’ve had a life when I’ve been pretty peripatetic. Maybe it’s just a desperate attempt to stay young.

Some people just give up. I might just keel over and die. I’ve already had a shot at that.”

Current exhibition ends 18 Oct

Feature

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Six, 2015

Laura Porteous L

aura Porteous graduated from Gray’s School of Art in Aberdeen in 2015. Her degree show work went on to be displayed in The Skinny Showcase exhibition, part of Edinburgh Art Festival.

She has been selected for RSA New Contemporaries, coming to Edinburgh in spring 2016.

“Spatial understanding and representation is the main concept behind my work, and it is the research of this subject that determines the outcome of my works. A system-based approach is used where rules and guidelines play a key role throughout the entire process of making.

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“Mondrian is a great influence within my work and my interest in the subject of spatialism.

His limited use of colour in its purest form is clean and bold, only using primary colours (blue, red and yellow) as well as black and white. This is something I have adopted this year as it allows me to focus on other aspects of my work such as the effects of different materials and the process used to apply and manipulate them. Origami techniques applied to the paintings are mainly what create the effects displayed.

“Comprehending space and the fourth dimension, if it in fact exists, are regulative principles in my practice, encouraging viewers to consider the physical mass materials consume. Deterioration has become a significant aspect as it could be considered a visual representation of the fourth dimension, which many theorists believe to be time. Producing a work that can demonstrate age, or perhaps become a time based piece that transforms with duration is something I am keen to create.” spatialrepresentation.blogspot.co.uk

SHOWCASE

THE SKINNY

Gradation, 2015

Disclosure, 2015

September 2015

SHOWCASE

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LE Y ST FE LI

Original Skin Deviance questions the gendered perspectives surrounding acne, making a feminist appeal for the choice to conceal Words: Kate Pasola

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arlier this summer, on the morning of my graduation, I misplaced my make-up bag. A creeping curiosity developed into waves of fear that I’d left it on the train the evening before. By 8am I was unsystematically launching objects around my bedroom in a state of anxiety, wearing only Spanx and an ineffective pore strip. As much as that sounds like an endearing montage in a Bridget Jones prequel, I assure you it was not.

I’ve got acne. If you were to locate the average hue of my face on a Dulux colour chart, I’m closest to Caribbean Coral. But I’ve acquired a handsome range of foundations and concealers, and have learned that eating avocados reduces the inflammation to around a Raspberry Bellini.

It’s far from the end of the world on days where my perspective is intact.

That said, no matter how much perspective I scraped together that morning in my ransacked room, the genesis of a panic attack was unavoidable. When I finally uncovered the shiny pouch in a suitcase pocket (always the last place, eh?), I slathered the cool foundation onto my skin and wondered why I felt quite so relieved.

It wasn’t until the ceremony – when I clocked all the acneic male grads who were merrily clinking champagne glasses in front of each other’s dappled complexions – that I wondered whether I was going about this whole acne thing wrong. If the boys don’t have to rely on skin-coloured paste for a sense of validity, why should I? But here’s the thing – humans are always going to be mildly repulsed by stuff like acne.

Spots are interpreted as sign that there’s something nonstandard about your health, even if it’s something as inconsequential as a little too much testosterone. At its most basic, makeup conceals the spots that the closed-minded might associate with immaturity or hygiene. It levels the playing ground for acne sufferers. At its cleverest, make-up lends a pointed jaw or widened eye that could seal the deal in an important social interaction.

There are a ton of patronising narratives that regard use of make-up as unfeminist, ‘false advertising’, or a symptom of gaping insecurity needing patched up by Harry Styles & Co. It’s useful to remember that they’re a crock of bollocks. 21st century Western men don’t cover imperfections as frequently and comprehensively as women, and therefore aren’t burdened with an expectation to do so. But that means they also don’t really have the option to cash in on it when they wake up with visage à la tomate, either. Make-up is associated with femininity, so of course it isn’t seen as the powerful, clever and artful use of resources that it is.

The answer? Paint your face if it truly, honestly makes you feel good. Sure, the busybodies might tell you it’s best to look ‘natural’, but, to quote Calvin Klein, it takes make-up to look natural, doesn’t it?

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Lifestyle

Sweat, Tears and Bloody Taboos In the aftermath of Kiran Ghandi’s controversial London Marathon, we take a look at why shame-free mentstruation is about much more than making strangers feel uncomfortable Words: Rianna Walcott Illustration: Amy Wiggin

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’m a firm believer in personal liberty. I say ‘you do you’ on average around 10 times per day, and so long as those actions of ‘doing you’ don’t harm anyone else I say go forth.

As such, the controversy surrounding menstruation and what people do during their period confuses me. There has been a real, vehement opposition against the emerging phenomenon of ‘free bleeding’, which is the choice to not wear a sanitary product like a pad or tampon during your cycle, and instead to just bleed on and prosper.

This emergent trend was spurred by the recent actions of Kiran Ghandi, who ran the last London Marathon sans tampon in order to raise awareness for women who don’t have access to sanitary products. It was also as an attempt to transform menstruation from a taboo topic to a subject of real life conversation. It worked. The response to Kiran’s actions, both positive and negative, has been tremendous, and certainly highlighted the existing stigma around menstruation.

What I found most surprising was my own response of immediate disgust. I wondered about her comfort, shied away from looking at pictures of her, thought about how inconsiderate it was to the other runners.

Thing is, it isn’t inconsiderate to anyone else, is it? She’s not bleeding on anyone, after all. And if you don’t like the look of it, you are of course under no obligation to stare at her crotch.

Kiran also made the decision to free bleed partly because the thought of running 26 miles with a tampon in didn’t particularly appeal. That seems fair enough to me. As someone who actively avoids most physical activity, I should probably take a seat instead of dictating how someone else should conduct themselves while running a marathon. On their period. While simultaneously

trying to dismantle institutionalised inequality.

Public response was largely divided into two camps: those who supported the gesture as her personal freedom to run the race in the way she felt comfortable, and those of both genders who condemned it as ‘gross’, ‘attention-seeking’ and ‘unhygienic’.

“You are of course under no obligation to stare at her crotch” Interestingly, there were also plenty of statements from women denying that they had ever felt ‘period-shamed’, and refuting the need for an awareness-promoting gesture. That one made me a little cross. Just as when successful, westernised women proclaim how we ‘don’t need feminism’, it seems to malign the negative experiences of so many women. Whether you agree with the way it was done or not, we cannot deny a need for awareness. If this is our response to those who are able to wear sanitary products and choose otherwise, then what is to become of the homeless woman who has no access to sanitary products? Or for women in rural parts of developing countries who can’t afford sanitary products?

Access to relatively cheap sanitary products is a privilege in the western world, and we really showed our hand through this visceral reaction to a person who didn’t wear one, for a brief moment in time.

DEVIANCE

The taboo around menstruation goes deeper than just finding it a bit gross when physically confronted with it. There is also a socially limiting aspect to menstruation, where it is used to periodshame individuals. The propensity to blame female actions on their bodily functions is still prevalent – and also really grim. Just take Donald Trump’s recent comments on Megyn Kelly following the GOP debate: “She looked like she had blood coming out of her wherever.”

Her ability to interrogate and be assertive – something that would have been impressive in a man – for Kelly is trivialised due to her femininity.

It’s a worry that no matter how successful you may be, as a woman you can always be reduced to this element. Feelings, behaviour, and way of thinking, all invalidated as ‘just premenstrual’.

We are socialised to be ashamed of our periods; taught to hide them, taught to slip pads from the hidden pocket in our bags then sidle to the bathroom, and for god’s sake don’t whine about it.

I can’t help but wonder why we are silent and punished about something that half of the world suffers through? In her piece If Men Could Menstruate, Gloria Steinem succinctly shows the irrational logic of period-shaming: “If women are supposed to be less rational and more emotional at the beginning of our menstrual cycle when the female hormone is at its lowest level, then why isn’t it logical to say that, in those few days, women behave the most like the way men behave all month long?”

And so we return to free bleeding. Honestly, as far as your period goes, do what makes you comfortable, not what makes the rest of the world comfortable. But do remember that the ability to choose not to wear a sanitary product is a privilege that many people still don’t have.

THE SKINNY

Walk of Art

Following the huge success of the undergraduate degree show, the Glasgow School of Art is gearing up for their graduate presentation

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pening on Saturday 12 September and running until Friday 18 September, the graduate degree show is unmissable for all you Glasgow creatives, and the opening event of this showcase week for the GSA graduate talent is the 2015 MDes Fashion Promenade.

Intended to extend, develop and hone the graduates’ individual ‘design signature’, the MDes in Fashion and Textiles at Glasgow School of Art is home to the most exciting and innovative fashion talent in Scotland at the moment and, taking place in The Vic on Friday 11 September, their opening spectacular will consist of three back-to-back presentations held at 6, 7 and 8pm. Showcasing collections from designers both homegrown and international, this event should be filed under ‘must see’ in the Scottish fashion diary.

The presentation will be designed by GSA Interior Design graduate Paulina Brozeck, and will subsequently be displayed in the Reid Building as part of the 2015 Graduate Degree Show, featuring the work of local talents the likes of Greg Learmonth whose collection focuses on a ‘rowing club mentality of uniform and dominance’, all in white and cream hues. His collection is a development of white-waxed cotton belted macs and drill bombers, with silk jersey off the shoulder blousons weighed with pleated wool pants. Adding texture, large sized cotton jumpers expose the collarbones and heavy wool blankets add a sports edge.

Linen pleated dresses are crushed and androgynous, finished with a collection of classic, graphic silk scarves and ribbed wool sweatbands.

Ellen Carrick’s sportswear-inspired knitwear will

September 2015

Emma McAndrew

also feature in the GSA 2015 Fashion Promenade.

Ellen cites the influence of Street Style and Subcultures in her collection; juxtaposing formal and casualwear, she mixes smart trousers with bomber jackets, marrying tailored and sportswear styles to create a rounded, summer menswear collection. Hayley McSporran, winner of the John Mather Rising Star Scholars presents her collection S K U L P T U R V ( ) I D, the creation of conceptual, sculptural but ultimately wearable pieces for womenswear, inspired by the abstract sculptural forms of Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore.

The offset forms and details in Hepworth's sculpture inspire the collection’s silhouettes, contrasting soft draped silk and jersey dresses against more structural wool outerwear pieces. Emma McAndrew’s men’s knitwear collection, which ranges from fine knit intarsia jumpers to chunky over pieces, was inspired by industrial machinery such as aircrafts, motorcycles and cars – things generally associated with men. Emma’s love of intarsia knitting helped her to achieve a bold, graphic, colour-blocked aesthetic, and her collection of jumpers – developed from a combination of flat layouts and Emma’s own fabrics – boast an uncompromising visual impact.

Callum Mckay showcases his unique contemporary twists on fashion trends throughout recent history. Stemming from his love of travel and popular culture, Callum incorporates silhouettes of large shapes, fused with an urban aesthetic. Identifying the 1950s as a decade imperative to fashion’s history, during which time the wearing of denim

Aleem ul Hassan

and jeans is synonymous with youthful rebellion, Callum’s menswear capsule collection pays homage to the ‘tropical ambience’ of Costa Rica, and the ‘urban notoriety’ of denim streetwear.

Bringing a little international flair into the mix is Aleem UI Hassan from Pakistan, whose collection heavily focuses on deconstruction. Entitled Primordial Deconstruction it explores the similar characteristics of decay in wood and metal, two very different materials. His collection fuses mixed media with classic tie-dye to create an eye-catching mix of elegant and contemporary styles. Hailing from Seoul in South Korea, Sujin Lee’s work is inspired by a lifetime immersed in nature.

“Glasgow School of Art is home to the most exciting and innovative fashion talent in Scotland at the moment” Celebrating beauty in nature, Lee aims to createadreamlikeatmospherewithhanddrawnbotanical illustrations printed onto the garments.

From Taiwan, Ho-Fan Wu took inspiration from

FASHION

Hayley McSporran

the floral patterning found on the traditional Japanese kimono, subverting convention by creating irregular arrangements and juxtaposing them against geometric patterns. Wu’s research informed the decision to use foil printing rather than digital printing as a nod to the ancient Japanese craft of Ise-katagami, and the shapes too are Japanese, the lampshade silhouette having been adopted from Victorian dresses by the Lolita subculture so popular in contemporary Far Eastern culture. Wu’s collection is comprised of skirts, with a selection of capes in varying lengths with a diverse selection of front lapels.

Yifei Liu from China cites ‘time’ as the influence for her collection and breaks it down into three conceptual ideas. For ‘decay’, she buried in soil garments and fabrics that would later be incorporated into her collection, so that they might ‘communicate with nature’. For ‘shelf life’, Liu was influenced by a narrative device from Wong Kar-wai’s critically acclaimed 1994 film Chungking Express, comparing the production and expiration dates of produce to birthdays and lifespans to inspire flock and embroidery text work in her collection.

Lastly, for ‘germiculture’ she conducted an experiment of cultures of bacteria, using felting in her collection to reproduce their textures, creating a diverse and conceptual collection.

The 2015 Fashion Promenades Presentations will take place at The Vic at 6, 7 & 8pm Fri 11 Sep The collections will be on show in the Reid Building as part of the 2015 Graduate Degree Show, Sat 12–Fri 18 Sep gsa.ac.uk

Lifestyle

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Credit: All pictures by McAteer Photo

Aleem ul Hassan

Words: Mona Lisa MacLean

The Travel Hangover After months on the road savouring the high of long term travel, how does one begin to treat the hangover that ensues post-adventure? It’s the ugly side of long term travel, the comedown…

I

see her. She’s laying under my bed. Dusty.

Dormant. Depressed. In my 6am haze I dress for work, desperately trying to look anywhere but directly at her. If she catches me looking, she’ll know. She’ll know I feel it too. Dusty. Dormant.

Depressed. I throw the bedcover strategically across the mattress, so it drapes down and hinders Backpack’s view of me from beneath the bed; out of sight, out of mind.

At least, for the next hour…

I wait for the bus, busily checking my emails to start the working day. I skim through on autopilot, answering client demands and quickly deleting enticing promotions from EasyJet; Fly London to Istanbul from just £49. If only I still lived in London at the centre of the backpacker world, where far off exotic destinations were just £49 away. And buses ran on time.

I’ve been back in Sydney, trudging through reality with a full time job and a rental agreement, for 15 months now; my world adventure sitting starkly in the past. I should have been satisfied with the 10 months I spent drinking and partying my way across the European continent with my significant other. I should have been grateful for the 16 months we spent enjoying tea and scones in my adopted English home, while we worked to squirrel away our pounds. The following 6 months we spent trekking through the Middle East and Asia certainly should have sated my appetite for travel. But alas, standing at the bus stop on a humid Friday morning, I couldn’t help but sympathise with starving Oliver asking, ‘Please Sir, I want some more’.

As my bus approaches, I reach into my pocket in search of money. I pull out an old Air Asia boarding pass and I sigh heavily. Wanderlust has gripped me again.

Being on the road is like a drug. It gives you a high that only others who have been there can relate to. The freedom of snubbing societal expectations of settling down, progressing financially and joining the rat race, is empowering.

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Feature

You find your senses sharpen and intensify and you are intoxicated by the full spectrum of the world you now experience.

The saris that surround you display colours no H&M store can rival. The Chinese silk scarf you drape gently around your shoulders is so soft you can’t stop rubbing it repetitively like a Glastonbury pill-popper. And the smell emanating from that pile of camel shit is so intense it’s distracting you from the Great Pyramid. Who needs acid when you can travel?

You have switched off the autopilot and are in full manual control of your life; every moment is a soul changing one. Your memories are sharp.

Hell, you can describe the taste of every meal you’ve eaten since you hit the road, in poetic detail.

As I ride the bus to work, I can’t remember what I had for breakfast.

I sigh heavily again.

If travel is a drug, I’m on a comedown desperately seeking my next hit to stave off the full effects of approaching reality. Or maybe it’s too late. Maybe I’ve already entered withdrawals.

I struggle through the final workday of the week, thankful for the weekend that approaches.

I sit at my desk between clients scrolling through Pinterest and adding to my ever growing Pinboard ‘Travel Wish List’. This isn’t a new pastime. It’s an obsession which developed on my last trip and highlights the depth of my addiction; I was already planning my next trip before the high of the last had begun to subside.

I scroll through the pictures of faraway lands, mentally taking note of how many of the destinations I have already visited, as if they were Pokemon and my task is to catch them all.

Mt Fitzroy, Argentina – pin.

Samarkand, Uzbekistan – pin.

Seljalandsfoss waterfall, Iceland – pin.

What’s missing in my life that makes me want to run from it? I have everything I could need here in Australia; family, friends, wealth, sun, a bed

without bugs. What drives me to leave it all behind to sleep on the floor of a Kashmiri family who speak no English, vomiting rice for three days straight because my stomach has higher expectations of hygiene than perhaps they are accustomed to?

Maybe I’m not running away from anything.

Maybe I’m running to something. Myself? Or someone I want to be. I’ve played lots of characters in my 28 years; ballerina, straight A student, head banging metal head, sporty spice. But I always felt I was pretending. None of those characters are really who I want to be. Of all of them, traveller is the first costume that feels like it might actually fit, and yet is baggy enough under the arms to allow for growth.

“If travel is a drug, I’m on a comedown desperately seeking my next hit” Or maybe it’s less romanticised than that.

Maybe I’m just running to authentic homemade curries and an endless holiday where Mondayitis doesn’t exist.

My screensaver begins to scroll and pulls me from my daydream. As I watch my beloved travel photos roll gently across the screen, I realise over an hour of the day has escaped me. Another hour of reality lost to dreams of being elsewhere.

On the road, time slows down. There is no work week to race through, or term time spent knuckling down. The hours are spent creating vivid memories of back alleyway falafel houses, full of the smell of mint tea, incense, and dust.

TRAVEL

Words: Kate Morling Illustration: Mouni Feddag

Looking back, every experience I have collected has taught me something. The Jordanian taxi driver who drove us free of charge to our hostel when our airport pick-up didn’t show, despite my skepticism and reluctance to accept his genuine offer for fear of being ripped off, taught me that I’m too cynical. I always assume the worst. Not only did he follow through without asking for a penny, but he did it with a ‘welcome to Jordan’ smile and an offer to buy us a traditional cardamom infused coffee on the way.

I want to be trusting.

Eating sandwiches at a Chinese bus stop, next to a girl eating chicken feet, taught me what it’s like to feel different; to be separated by language, appearance and choice of dietary staples.

I want to be accepting.

The Aussie filled pubs of Thailand taught me that at 2am after eight beers, four shots and a box of Cheezles, I’m really not as worldly and sophisticated as I sometimes think I am. I’m just another drunk Australian with cheese powder on my fingers. Also, I suck at Connect Four drinking games.

The Ladyboys working Thailand’s bars do not suck at Connect Four drinking games.

I want to be sober.

The work week ends and I feel inexplicably unfulfilled and unchallenged. My heart isn’t in this life I have created here, it’s far too busy being gripped by wanderlust and a dream that I could be someone better. I want to understand the world outside of my own. I want to keep exploring my flaws and building new strengths. I want to experience all the smells and tastes and sounds the world has to offer. I want to not have to go to work on Monday.

I scroll through Pinterest as I ride the bus home to my dusty old pal, Backpack, when I stumble across a poignant meme; ‘You don’t hate Mondays, you hate your life.’ Point taken Pinterest.

So I decide to change it.

Google search: Expedia.

THE SKINNY

September 2015

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THE SKINNY

No Meal Left Behind The exploits of James Bond told through food? Phgomania speaks to Henry Hargreaves to find out all about his new photo series, Dying To Eat Words: Lewis MacDonald

Goldfinger

D

Eat the Vote: The Skinny Food and Drink Survey 2016 For the fifth time we’re asking you to cast your votes for your foodie faves – our Food and Drink editor talks you through the details

T

here are certain points in the calendar that help to punctuate the year and keep your internal clock ticking over. You know the ones – New Year, Valentine’s, Easter, the start of summer, the end of summer, the re-emergence of winter before autumn’s happened. Well, we’re in one of those moments right now folks, so brace yourselves.

Yes, it’s sort-of-after-the-Fringe but before the weather turns into an endless shambles and everyone starts banging on about Christmas, and that can only mean one thing – for the fifth year, we need you to do your democratic yet delicious duty, and to name your favourite food and drink venues in The Skinny Food and Drink Survey.

Much like the changing of the seasons, we swear this point comes around earlier every year, and that’s really a mark of your appetite for naming your favourite places to eat and drink. Last year, we pounded the emails and braved the spreadsheets to tally up thousands of your choices to create a snapshot of Scottish food and drink in 2015. You can of course go through all last year’s results on the website, but here are the cliffnotes – there are lots of lovely places to eat and drink across Scotland, and a good pun never goes amiss.

The categories in this year’s survey are much the same as they were last year, but in case you’ve forgotten in the intervening nine months due to ‘having other things on’, or you just plain weren’t paying any attention last time out, we’ll recap.

First thing’s first, this is an open survey. We

September 2015

Words: Peter Simpson Illustration: Mica Warren

want you to tell us the places you like, not pick one of the places from a list of places we like.

There are literally thousands of you, and we want your opinions, no matter how bizarre or wrong they may be.

We want you to name your favourite pub – everyone’s got one, be it a spit-and-sawdust dive that’s all out of sawdust, a happy place where everybody knows your name, or a trendy boozer that reminds you of the living room you wished you were heading back to when you finish your pint.

Is your favourite pub dog-friendly? Is it friendlyfriendly? Is it disguised as something else, such as a Dickensian butcher’s or a giant mound of sand?

We’ll respect your choice, no matter what it is, so let us know.

We also want to know which of the umpteen in your fair city is your favourite cafe, and while we appreciate that modern Scottish cafe culture really does run the gamut in terms of food, drink and decor, we will need you to pick just the one.

We’d also like you to let us know which is your favourite food newcomer in your city from the last 12 months – the only criteria for this one is age, so whether you really liked a new cafe, brewery, or a freshly-popped pop-up, give it a shout-out.

You’re also relatively free when it comes to naming your favourite date place, constrained only by the usual boundaries of your own sheepishness. Whether you like to take your dates, spouses and significant others to a lovely restaurant, a dainty cafe, or a hole-in-the-wall takeaway is none

of our business – you’re the judges round here, and we want your input. We will, however, actually read the answers, so keep it clean.

We’re also looking for your tips for the best places to grab the best food on-the-go; your favourite Scottish beer and the name of the people who made it; the pick of the best food shops, emporiums and bottle merchants in your locale; and your pick of the international food on offer from Scotland’s incredible choice of eateries.

If one part of this Survey sums up our reasons for braving the spreadsheets year after year, it’s this last question. It’s a doozy – ‘name your favourite venue out of all the venues that make food from all over the world, and do it now!’ – and a bit of a tough choice to make, but when we combine hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of tough choices, we end up with an expertly curated list of five venues which reflect the true scope of Scottish food. Curated, that is, by you lot.

You’ve done us proud in the past, and we hope you’ll do so again. Voting’s open at theskinny.co.uk /food until the end of November, so if nothing else, you have the ideal excuse to hit up all your favourite cafes, bars and restaurants over the next few months. ‘Don’t worry guys,’ you’ll tell your confused friends as you dash from venue to venue with your notepad, ‘it’s for a thing… now pass me a slice of that pizza.’ Keep up the good work folks, you’ll make it to the real winter no bother.

ying To Eat is the latest project from food stylist Charlotte Omnès and photographer Henry Hargreaves, whose deep-fried gadgets and bacon alphabet have featured in these pages in the past. Each image aims to capture an iconic meal and setting from Ian Fleming’s original series of Bond novels. The photos are coupled with the matching extract from Fleming’s novels, ensuring that context is not lost once circulating in the vast online world.

Vodka martinis may have had a prominent role on screen but the facet that Hargreaves felt was really lost in translation was food. “The food was so much part of the experience of traveling and where Bond went,” explains Hargreaves.

“In the books it’s something that really brings it to life, for me, in the kind of customs that go with food. To me food is something we can all relate to because it is something we all have in common. So that was something we really wanted to try and nail.”

The series of highly-crafted photos are littered with details evocative of the 50s and 60s era in which the books were written. “It is all those little crumbs that we put in there that make it special,” Henry offers. “Charlotte did the majority of propping, over the best part of a year collecting pieces one thing at a time from antique stores,” he expands. “She is also an awesome cook.”

Out of season or outlandish (stone crab anyone?) ingredients proved a challenge, but ultimately Hargreaves and Omnès achieve a re-evaluation of one of the world’s most renowned characters – no outlandish gadgets or gunfights required. henryhargreaves.com/dying-to-eat

Live & Let Die

theskinny.co.uk/food

FOOD AND DRINK

Lifestyle

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Rise Again Making its second trip north of the border, we look ahead to the return of Craft Beer Rising to Glasgow’s Drygate

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equels can be a tricky proposition. There’s no use just repeating what you did first time out, because you did that already. Remember, it was like this but without all the references to things ‘returning’. On the other hand, as that great philosopher The Fresh Prince once said, if it ain’t broke then don’t try to fix it. When you hit upon a winning formula, it seems only right to see whether that formula can help you win again. Thankfully when it comes to Craft Beer Rising, the returning celebration of the new wave of craft breweries sweeping the globe, the situation appears to be well and truly in hand.

Having made its Scottish bow last September, the London-based beer festival returns to these parts this month for its second outing, with a refined and improved take on last year’s event.

Once again, CBR will take over the Drygate brewery in Glasgow for a weekend of beer and beerrelated activities, as well as a mix of music, street food, and other generally fun stuff. Beer, food, and fun stuff? Okay, you’ve twisted our arms, on you go.

As with any event of its ilk, Craft Beer Rising’s success will depend in no small part on its beer list, and things look to be in good shape on that front. There’ll be about 200 beers from around 40

breweries in attendance at CBR 2015, with a handy clutch of local breweries, big and small – Jaw Brew, Innis & Gunn, Eden Mill, WooHa and Williams Bros to name but a few – to show off what jolly old Scotland has to offer. As well as stuff from down the road, Craft Beer Rising have programmed a more-than-decent spread from further afield.

Expect contributions from breweries across the length and breadth of the UK, as well as beers from across Europe and beyond courtesy of the likes of Harpoon, Rodenbach and Stiegl. The beer list even features a handful of things that aren’t beer (ciders and gins to name but two) in an attempt to keep everyone on side. It’s fun for everyone, even those who don’t really like beer but still turned up to a brewery-hosted festival with the word ‘beer’ in the title.

So there’ll be plenty of beer, and a nice beerfriendly venue to boot – so far so good. To go with that beer you’re going to need some activities to involve yourselves in, and Craft Beer Rising have pulled together a host of discussions, masterclasses and Q&As to run over the course of the weekend. Melissa Cole, beer writer and certified cicerone (a beer equivalent of the sommeliers of the wine world) leads a pair of masterclasses

Credit: David P Scott

Words: Peter Simpson

over the two days that should help you with the two fundamentals of our fair section – eating and drinking.

Cole hosts classes on the finer points of cooking with beer (and we don’t mean spilling it on your dinner and claiming you’re ‘making a jus’) in her guide to moules à la bières and saison flatbreads. Cole will also help out on the drinking front with a beer tasting masterclass to help you spot the differences between the various styles on offer at your local bar, as well as leaving you confident in spotting when a beer has taken a turn for the worse.

Add to that a line-up of street food and live music and a whole host of other jolly beery japes over the course of the weekend, and Craft Beer Rising seems to have negotiated the food and drink equivalent of the difficult second album. They’re back, and we guess they’re in the mood for a party. Suppose there’s only one way to find out...

Fri 4 Sep, 6pm–1am; Sat 5 Sep, 11am–5.30pm, 6.30pm–1am; Drygate Brewery, £12; craftbeerrising.co.uk billetto.co.uk/en/events/craft-beer-rising-glasgow/tickets

Food News

Keeping It Real

In this month’s Food and Drink round-up, we’ve got drinks on ships, coffee under lovely stained-glass windows, and the chance to go behind-the-scenes at two Glasgow breweries

Glasgow restaurant collective Real Food, Real Folk present their first event this month; we caught up with ringleader Colin Clydesdale to find out what’s on the menu at Let's Eat Glasgow!

Words: Peter Simpson

Words: Peter Simpson

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e start September’s round-up with a whole load of lovely liquor on a big, old ship.

The Ooshka Festival takes place at the Tall Ship at Glasgow’s Riverside Museum, with oodles of beers and spirits from across Scotland to sample as well as a host of masterclasses and experiences on the go throughout the day. Plus, it’s on a big, old ship! 12 Sep, various 2hr sessions, £10, tickets at ooshkafestival.com Next up, a trip to Aberdeen for a spot of live art in the city’s Brewdog bar courtesy of Hell Yeah duo Katie Guthrie and Mike Hughes. Fresh from a food-themed exhibition at Peacock Visual Arts, the evening will see Hell Yeah produce prints all evening, so you should leave with a lasting memento, as long as you don’t spill beer on it. 3 Sep, Brewdog, 17 Gallowgate, Aberdeen, peacockvisualarts.com Also this month, it’s your annual chance to poke around various important bits of Glasgow, as Doors Open Day rolls around once again. Of particular interest to this column are the two breweries involved this year: Tennent’s and WEST. WEST will chum you round their Grade A-listed building at Glasgow Green and show you how they make their tasty, tasty beers, while Tennent’s will take you on a guided walkthrough of their Wellpark operation, and round off the visit with a free pint. 19 & 20 Sep, various times, booking essential via glasgowdoorsopenday.com

Staying in Glasgow, the Take One Action film festival returns this month, with documentary Food Chains charting the efforts of migrant workers in the US farm industry to take on the nation’s supermarkets for better pay and conditions.

Screenings in Glasgow and Edinburgh are followed by discussions from a panel including investigative journalist Joanna Blythman. 19 Sep, 3.15pm, Glasgow Film Theatre, 12 Rose St, £5; 22 Sep, 6pm, Filmhouse, 88 Lothian Rd, £9.20, takeoneaction. org.uk/festivals And we’ll round off this month with a pair of new events to look forward to. In Glasgow, there’s the launch of StrEAT, a monthly food and drink pop-up at the Briggait which this month features stands from the likes of Smoak and 2015 Food and Drink Survey winners Babu Street Kitchen, as well as craft beer and live music. 26 & 27 Sep, 141 Bridgegate, streatglasgow.co.uk. Over in Edinburgh, the Edinburgh Coffee Festival takes over the salubrious surroundings of the Mansfield Traquair with a host of artisan coffee roasters, speciality tea stalls and cafés, for a day of delicious coffee and gazing at ornate stained-glass windows. 3 Oct, 15 Mansfield Pl, edinburghcoffeefestival.co.uk theskinny.co.uk/food

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any hands make light work – it’s a truism that, frankly, often leads to arguments and slapdash attempts at diplomacy. But get a good team together, and pooled talents can achieve a lot more than would ever be possible working alone.

On that note, let us introduce the Real Food, Real Folk collective, the Glasgow culinary scene’s very own version of the Avengers. Featuring the minds behind some of the city’s best restaurants – the collective counts Ox and Finch, Crabshakk and Mother India among its members – RFRF aim to take its food beyond members’ kitchen walls and out into the city at large.

According to the collective’s chair, Ubiquitous Chip’s Colin Clydesdale, the inspiration for Real Food, Real Folk came in large part from the MAD movement of NOMA head chef René Redzepi, focussing on food’s role in culture and community, as well as issues much closer to home.

Clydesdale says: “In Glasgow, we live with a stark and, in many ways, growing dichotomy in terms of our relationship with food. We have a vibrant food scene to rival any city in the country or abroad yet, as a population, there remain so many people still eating poorly because of income or low nutritional awareness.

“Now felt the right time to approach likeminded chefs and restaurateurs and see if there was a collective will in Glasgow for our industry to stand up and help address the problem.

For Let’s Eat Glasgow!, Real Food, Real Folk’s member restaurants will whip up £5 dishes at SWG3 across the weekend, alongside a pop-up market with dozens of makers and suppliers from across the west of Scotland, as well as a host of demos and classes to help the layman make best use of the produce on offer.

Clydesdale says: “Above all, we want Let’s Eat Glasgow! to be a dynamic coming together of folk, a fiesta of food and drink which engages everyone across the city and beyond with the fantastic fresh local produce on their doorstep and inspires them to cook with confidence in their own kitchens.”

With huge interest in their inaugural event, Clydesdale hopes that RFRF, and its events, can continue to grow. He says: “We began Real Food, Real Folk with nine members. Glasgow has such a dynamic dining scene today that this is a relatively small number.

“We will capitalise on the momentum going forward, welcoming more like-minded folk onboard.

We can then really begin to develop and promote a city-wide understanding of how we might – collectively, as an industry – help end this dichotomy and encourage healthy eating right across the city.”

They may not actually have magical abilities, but Real Food, Real Folk seem to understand that their culinary power comes with a degree of responsibility, and they’re happy to help.

Let’s Eat Glasgow! is at SWG3, Eastvale Pl, Glasgow on 5 & 6 Sep letseatglasgow.co.uk

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FOOD AND DRINK

THE SKINNY

September 2015

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18 – 20 SE P TE MBE R 3 DAY S O F N E W A N D C L A S S I C F I L M S, P O P- U P C I N E M A , M U S I C AND SPECIAL GUESTS IN THE SEASIDE SPLENDOUR OF DUNOON!

dunoonfilmfestival.org

There’s more online Get up to date news bulletins, video premieres, extra online listings and online only content on theskinny.co.uk Visit our mobile site to have an easy to use listings service at your fingertips

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Illustration: Verbal Picks

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THE SKINNY

RE V IE

Credit: Mihaela Bodlovic

Credit: Derek Robertson

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Wolf Alice

Young Fathers

Gig Highlights In a month of indie rock heavyweights, Future Islands face off with Baltimore housemates Dope Body at the Barras, Tame Impala swing down on Glasgow from their cosmic plane and Mac DeMarco turns the ABC into a slacker den

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t’s a case of out with the old festival favourites and in with the new as a parade of mavericks show off recently released material this coming September. Kicking off our month at Edinburgh’s Electric Circus is LA native and classic pop revivalist Natalie Prass, whose self-titled debut thrilled earlier this year (2 Sep). Glasgow, meanwhile, sees in September with the colourful indie stylings of Here We Go Magic. It’s been three years since the Brooklyn trio’s last full-length release but with their latest single – the synthpop confection Falling – hopes are high for a preview of their forthcoming October release (titled Be Small) at this King Tut’s show (3 Sep).

Leading the local charge are they of soaring Scottish alt-rock, Halo Tora. The Glaswegian quintent have a debut album wrapped up and ready to go, which you can hear it in all its nascent glory at Glasgow’s Audio (4 Sep) and Edinburgh’s Electric Circus (5 Sep).

And now for the holy sonic trinity. First up, Canadian goofball Mac DeMarco will take a Monday evening at O2 ABC by the bollocks and transform a sedate school night into a slacker rock soiree. His new mini LP Another One builds on the success of the immensely likeable Salad Days, channeling more of his trademark languid, summery pop (7 Sep). Studio wunderkind Kevin Parker needs little introduction, especially in the wake of Tame Impala’s latest release, the insurmountable funk-and-synth-laden Currents. It will take a venue as formidable as the mighty Barrowlands to contain the collective shit-losing when this gig gets underway (8 Sep). And as for stellar September highlight number three? Skim down our Don’t Miss section and all will be revealed.

If that’s a trifecta that seems hard to come down from, a night at Edinburgh’s Liquid Room (10 Sep) will set you right – Tim DeLaughter’s kooky choral ensemble The Polyphonic Spree will be there, resplendent in robes and ready to soothe

Words: Claire Francis

your troubles away (also playing SWG3 the following night). Once you’re full of feelgood vibes thanks to the sanguine Texan collective, it’s time to dial the energy back up when Young Fathers treat hometown fans to their fierce live act, on the back of last year’s non-stop touring schedule.

Their sophomore LP White Men Are Black Men Too scored a rare full house in these pages earlier this year, so what are you waiting for? Run, don’t walk, to Edinburgh Uni’s Potterow venue (15 Sep).

Four days later and the capital is bringing the goods once again, this time with hazy shoegaze dream rock courtesy of cult favourites The Telescopes. Their just-released Hidden Fields is a rough gem that points to Stephen Lawrie’s undiminished genius – they’ll be lighting up Edinburgh’s Voodoo Rooms (as part of the resurrected Limbo, with Lawrie’s new bandmates St Deluxe and Delta Mainline) on 19 Sep. That same day, Londonbased fuzz-rockers Wolf Alice take on the O2 ABC

with a live outing for their recently released, ambitious and assured debut My Love Is Cool.

Cameron Stallones isn’t a household name, but as Sun Araw the Texan will be dishing up neopsychedelic vibes at Edinburgh’s Sneaky Pete’s (22 Sep) and Glasgow’s Flying Duck (23 Sep). Good luck trying to stick this guy in one of yr pigeonholes – with a sound that straddles reggae, Krautrock, electronica, funk and Afrobeat, you’re best heading along and tasting this glorious aural soup for yourself.

By now we’re approaching our meteorological autumn, but there’s tropic thunder afoot on 27 Sep. If your life is missing a sublime dose of psychedelic Cambodian pop rock, Dengue Fever are your band – formed in 2001, they’ve a hefty back catalogue behind them, plus new album The Deepest Lake to drink in. Make your way to Broadcast to witness their kitsch but oh so righteous oriental rock in the flesh.

Do Not Miss How do you make a gig featuring the world’s most talked about indie synthpop group even hotter?

Throw in two seriously scorching support acts and host the whole thing under the starry ceiling of one of the UK’s most excellent gig venues, that’s how. Singles has flung the door wide open for Future Islands, the humble Baltimore outfit who up until just last year had been quietly chipping away behind the scenes for the better part of a decade. Whichever side of the ‘Cookie Monster vocal’ debate you fall on, Seasons (Waiting On You) had that rare kind of zeitgiestdefining magic – so call this a victory lap for the grinding trio.

If this weren’t enough, the aforementioned apertif is intoxicating. First up there’s the swaggering rock of Du Blonde, who until recently was

September 2015

better known to audiences as the distinctly milder Beth Jeans Houghton. Having previously supported the likes of King Creosote and Bon Iver, Houghton/Du Blonde has turned her back on her folksy ways in favour of a compelling and abrasive new aesthetic. Welcome Back To Milk, her first album under the moniker, features none other than Future Islands’ Samuel T. Herring in cameo mode on Mind Is On My Mind. Proving further that it’s a bit of a family affair, fellow Baltimore natives Dope Body (Herring’s housemate is frontman Andrew Laumann) lend their caustic post-punk maelstrom as stellar support act number two.

Showing off rugged gems from last year’s Lifer and the forthcoming Kunk, the confrontational, effects-heavy noise rockers will be tough listening for the pop kids, but rest assured this will be a night of exhilarating contrasts. [Claire Francis]

Credit: Ross Gilmore

Future Islands / Dope Body / Du Blonde Barrowlands, Glasgow, 9 Sep

Future Islands

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Preview

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Sun Ra Arkestra

Summerhall, 20 Aug

sunraarkestra.com

Sun Kil Moon

Summerhall, Edinburgh, 10 Aug

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Sun Kil Moon’s mainstream embrace over the past 18 months or so has been something of a surprise.

It doesn’t usually happen to people like him, at this point in a career – that the trip has been coupled with Kozelek’s newfound pantomime villain status has been an odd, and at times ridiculous, aside to it all. His most recent antics, in which he slandered and then sang grotesque songs about a female journalist who had been trying to interview him, weren’t just the mild acts of buffoonery that were becoming his shtick, they were plain nasty. And yet here we all are anyway.

What’s been so difficult to understand is how someone who can be so endearing and affable in one moment can be so unapologetically unpleasant in the next. First and foremost, this is an astounding show; an overloaded sensory experience that feels more like a piece of performance art for all the numerous extremes it presents. It’s so rare to see a musician display such sorrowful beauty in one moment and then so strongly revel in being the bad guy in the next, that the effect here is genuinely dizzying.

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Review

Walking onstage just after 9pm, he doesn’t leave it again until a little before midnight, breaching the curfew by a good 40 minutes or so.

Heavy-loaded with tracks from 2014’s Benji LP, alongside a smattering from the new record and his cavernous back catalogue, Kozelek, the artist, is on scintillating form. Occasionally picking up the guitar, but mostly orchestrating his supporting players from seat and stand, he’s captivating in the quietest passages and ferociously alive in the cacophonous peaks.

From the majestic opener I Watched The Film The Song Remains The Same, the audience silently hangs on every word and drip-fed dash of instrumental colour. There are numerous highlights throughout: the heart-racing, slow-crawl version of He Always Felt Like Dancing is enchanting; the gentile cover of Nick Cave’s The Weeping Song, dedicated to Cave and his family, is perfectly poignant; then there’s the sprawling, bizarre poem about Edinburgh that Kozelek wrote earlier in the day, which he ad-libs for a good five minutes of the set while the band plays softly behind him. It’s in these moments tonight that we feel moved, astonished and, perhaps, justified in our adoration. [Tom Johnson]

Outblinker / Blood of the Bull The Hug and Pint, Glasgow, 8 Aug

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In various guises (Aggi Doom; Holy Motors), there’s always been an element of the clandestine to Hilary Van Scoy; solo, under her Blood of the Bull moniker and with just an old, battered keyboard for accompaniment, the impression of flickering between candlelit confessional and hall of mirrors deception is pronounced, material from last year’s Bend Over EP refashioned with refreshing, unpolished charm, hinting at a foul-mouthed Kate Bush backed by a Hammond.

Closing with a cover of Morphine’s The Saddest Song which illuminates each swathe of emotion with candour, it’s a set that’s over far too soon… and if we’re going by the number of tracks they’ve arrived armed with, a similar accusation could be levelled at Outblinker. Thankfully, the five figures folded around the banks of equipment believe in

quality over quantity, and a performance in which the parameters they operate under exist to be challenged.

Pink, the lead from their recent EP, begins in dissonance, and that cute trick in which warming/ tuning up and the start of the track are blurred.

It’s a dancier grind than on record; elongated and more expansive, each rhythmic frond teased and sculpted amidst drum/keys/guitar interaction.

Both Blue and Orange lean towards nuance, but when the latter flares, it’s into a blitzkrieg of guttural, mainlined psychedelia. Everything is played live, and everything is integral to the plot – even the strange piece of proto-dub improvisation that wraps up proceedings doesn’t feel overtly out of context. And with the three coloured tracks each threatening the 15 minute mark, there’s zero sense of being short-changed. [Duncan Harman] Outblinker play the Skinny Stage at Electric Fields on 29 Aug and The Pleasance Sessions, Edinburgh on 10 Oct outblinker.net

Photo: Derek Robertson

Photo: Kate Johnson

At “91 years young,” original Ra disciple Marshall Allen (on saxophone and EVI, like an elongated Wii controller) leads the band through a nearly two-hour trip through the Sun Ra songbook, shocking all into an interstellar state of sustained surprise.

For some this must sound like a lot of noise.

It is. The sounds are aggressively percussive, often atonal and anti-harmonic; the groove is a manic swing, just ahead of the beat; the players push their instruments past their usual limits, screeching and honking beautifully. Whether we can follow the solos or not, these cats still have incredible chops – and they remind us by touching down to Earth just often enough, in a big band number or a bit of bebop, calling on Ellingtonesque cool finesse, Basie’s sparing precision, Bid and Diz’s pyrotechnics.

This isn’t just an old cohort honking under a dead man’s name, playing dress-up in glittery robes: they really are disciples. That’s where their velocity comes from: it’s not about playing old Ra songs, not imitating Ra, but playing the Ra way: aiming always just past the next star.

But when three of the band leave the stage to march through the crowd and even dance with some of us, it’s clear that this isn’t so much about experimentation, prophecy, virtuosity or transmitting some lost visionary’s message as it is about having fun: we’re here to be healed. Space Is The Place for that healing, Sun Ra said. Tonight, that Space is Summerhall. And we may Never Be The Same. [Aidan Ryan]

Photo: Gordon Ballantyne

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Pega Monstro

Old Hairdresser’s, Glasgow, 20 Aug

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A delirious mess of riot grrrl and cuddlecore peppers Breakfast Muff’s set – a good enough start, but it’s their delivery that truly seals the deal. They pogo and scream with such giddy abandon that they may as well be pelting each other with water bombs as playing something as frightfully rockist as a gig. A+ for attitude but it’s excellent stuff all round.

They’re closely followed by fellow Glaswegians Seconds, whose new wave jitters and serrated hooks are magnified by soaring, Corin Tuckeresque vocals. It’s their dual rush to the head and heart that hints most explicitly at their burgeoning excellence; this is a band with a tacit-but-noticeable understanding of each other’s strengths, bordering on the telepathic. Ones to watch.

Still, when it comes to grooving, there’s noone on tonight’s (pretty stellar) line-up who can

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touch the mighty Sacred Paws, with their vitally urgent mash-ups of afrobeat rhythms and postpunk motifs. Relentlessly energetic, they turn a crowded room into a writhing mess of sweating, whooping flesh – how often do you get to say that of a band with one EP to their name?

The reason we’re all here, of course, is Portuguese duo Pega Monstro. On sterling new album Alfarroba, they coat their trashed-garage pop instincts in reverb and fuzz, but in front of an awe-struck audience they turn up the psych elements and let us bask in the brain-melting chaos.

Genius cuts like Branca duly drip with echo and feedback, forcing our ears to slice through the melee in order to access the deliciously addictive melodies hidden underneath, while drummer Maria Reis becomes a blur of muscular motion, whacking several shades of shit out of her poor drum kit.

A band of such awesome power and superb songwriting can only be kept a secret for so long – catch ‘em before they blow up. [Will Fitzpatrick] pegamonstro.bandcamp.com

THE SKINNY

Album of the Month

Julia Holter

Have You In My Wilderness [Domino, 25 Sep]

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It’s a pertinent circumstance that Julia Holter’s plush new album arrives just in time for the passing of summer and the slow-crawl in to the darker months, for it’s filled with such shaded natural wonder that it could only really find its true form in the more secluded days of autumn.

Her fourth full-length release, Have You In My Wilderness is the moment that Holter adds sparkling clarity to her work, which has often treaded more knowingly ambiguous paths. Lead single Feel You is testament to this; a beautifully understated meeting of voice and sentiment filled with the kind of subtle magic that simply can’t be faked.

Girl Band

Holding Hands With Jamie [Rough Trade, 25 Sep]

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Having checked that yes, this is an album – and not a cake made by hyper-active children with every conceivable ingredient thrown somewhere in the general direction of the oven – this Dublin quartet’s highly anticipated debut isn’t easily forgotten.

Or even straightforward to categorise; the adjectives it attracts (abrasive, counterintuitive) are insufficient when detailing the ferocious, freeform mess of antagonistic brutalism.

Recorded in just three days on the back of a stateside jaunt, this is sentiment pinging between shards of non-sequitur pain and Arab Strap-esque minutiae, lead single Paul a sly blitz of build and bruise, Fucking Butter obsessing over chocolate spread. And throughout, above scuzzy bass and obtuse percussion, Dara Kiely rants and wails with the cathartic honesty of Birthday Party-era Nick Cave, Alan Duggan wielding guitar as if a blowtorch. Such mess doesn’t always hang together, but when it does, Holding Hands With Jamie is either the greatest thing you’ll hear all year, or will give you a migraine; quite possibly both. [Duncan Harman]

While it’s the album’s faint elegance that makes the most abiding impression, Holter still fills Wilderness with wonderfully plush arrangements. Lucette Stranded on the Island casts an icy glow, as dramatic as it is expansive, while Vasquez blossoms with anomalous instrumental meanderings, a wholly cinematic diversion from the principle tone.

If all that came before was Julia steadily journeying somewhat under the radar, then Have You In My Wilderness is the moment she steps out of the shrouded realms and in to the bright light of the day. Uninhibited, focused and majestically crafted, she’s simply never sounded more vital. [Tom Johnson] Playing Glasgow Hug and Pint on 13 Nov juliashammasholter.com

Low

Kurt Vile

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Ones and Sixes [Sub Pop, 11 Sep] Feel that? It’s floating in between the aeons that pass between chords. It’s the haunting harmonies that shiver from the lips of Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker. It tingles, chills and soothes in equal measure. It’s the essence of Duluth veterans Low, and it remains a truly remarkable force.

Ones and Sixes weaves together the strongest elements of their 22-year career – from slowcore sparseness to wiry post-punk to glorious sadrock – and while the results feel as mournfully doomladen as ever, they still tingle the spine like no-one else. Lies is beautiful and bruising, while the softly menacing Gentle takes a solid pummelling from gargantuan drum hits.

Then there’s No Comprende, a skeletal murmur built on hissing mechanistic beats and muted guitar chugs – suddenly, everything drops to an aching crawl, while their ever-allusive (never explicit) lyrics draw on sentiments of poignancy, dischord and loss. Never rushed, never cheery; simply masters of their craft. [Will Fitzpatrick] Playing Glasgow Art School on 8 Oct chairkickers.com

b’lieve I’m goin down [Matador, 25 Sep] Perhaps the natural meeting point between the gloomy Smoke Ring For My Halo and 2013’s more robust Wakin On A Pretty Daze, b’lieve I’m goin down finds Kurt Vile on suitably languid form, slowly spitting out a series of confessions and self-realised truisms for more than hour. That this familiar template still manages to sound so completely compelling is testament to both the malleable nature of his craft and the skill with which it’s delivered.

Lead track Pretty Pimpin is something of a misdirect; that whimsical smirk is soon replaced with the more downbeat ruminations that we’ve come expect. Bad Omen is a surprisingly fanciful, sub-three minute ditty while That’s Life, Tho is Vile at his reflective best; a distinctly striking moment of dogged acceptance. It’s in the minor deviations where this record thrives, however, and on the captivating closer Wild Imagination, which drifts on for six meticulous minutes, Vile shows flashes of a new face that will keep you captivated for far longer.

[Tom Johnson] Playing Glasgow O2 ABC on 16 Nov | kurtvile.com

girlband.ie

Battles

La Di Da Di [Warp, 18 Sep]

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Deradoorian

Dope Body

The Expanding Flower Planter [Anticon, 28 Aug]

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Kunk [Drag City, 28 Aug]

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Shorn of Gloss Drop’s guest stars, Battles are on their tod this time, and fun as it is, album number three is left wanting for focus. You could never doubt the furious amount of energy and pace throughout La Di Da Di – there remain some serious ants in the collective pants of this band – but it’s lacking some of the texture and cohesion they made their name with.

Still, there are occasions (like opening track The Yabba, a bonkers rock opera in about eight movements) that hint at their old esoteric sparkle. What’s missing, bluntly put, is another band member. Singers were never the focus for a band this ruthlessly out there (the chorus to their debut single Atlas, barely audible through electronic tampering, went: “the singer is a crook”) but it was a key anchor, something to hang the glorious noisy mess around. Just one extra layer might lift tracks like Summer Simmer out of self-indulgence and into a brilliance we know they possess.

[John Nugent]

True to its title, the debut LP from ex-Dirty Projectors member Angel Deradoorian is the proverbial grower. Give it time and its slithering creations of entangled percussion and ping-pong vocals will unfurl before your ears, peeling a little further back with each listen to reveal secret pleasures within.

Ranging from krautrock to the paganistic indie of Fleet Foxes and Grizzly Bear, Deradoorian’s arrangements are both wild and precise, understated and yet prone to suddenly explode. Take Violet Minded, which sounds like a chirpy chamber pop number until its vocal erupts into a multi-tracked choir of one, like a time lapse of rhododendrons bursting open.

Or there’s Grow, which turns from a sultry acoustic guitar strummer into a psychedelic flute freakout. Exhilarating, hypnotic and sometimes even danceable, there’s no shaking this record off once it takes root. [Andrew Gordon]

“I think we’re getting more mature as songwriters.”

That was Dope Body drummer David Jacober late last year, talking to The Skinny shortly after the release of the acclaimed Lifer. Album number four from the Baltimore four piece offers little reason to argue. Pieced together from songs birthed during the Lifer sessions, Kunk is testament to both their work ethic and their quality control.

All of the developing Dope Body components are present: Jacober and bassist John Jones’ jackhammer backbeat; the twitch and rasp of Zachary Utz’s guitar; Andrew Laumann, in and out of the mix as ever but starting to emerge as a compelling and authoritative vocalist. From the trigger beats and scraping loops of Casual to the Bowie-aping Goon Line (think Fame re-tooled by Fugazi); from the psyche sway of Doom to the epic, closing Void, Kunk posits Dope Body’s unflinching world view into a set of agit observationals. [Gary Kaill]

Playing Glasgow O2 ABC on 25 Oct | bttls.com

facebook.com/deradoorian

Supporting Future Islands at Glasgow Barrowlands on 9 Sep | dopebody.tumblr.com

Le Butcherettes

Chvrches

Beirut

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A Raw Youth [Ipecac Recordings, 18 Sep]

Every Open Eye [Virgin, 25 Sep]

No No No [4AD, 11 Sep]

Shards of ‘80s synth (My Malley; Witchless C Spot).

Grungy, pre-millennial attitude (They Fuck You Over; The Hitchhiker). Scuzzy, sidewalk bass (pretty much every track).

All this, and there’s a discernible retro feel to the Tex-Mex garage punks’ third long player, Teri Gender Bender prowling the space between alluring frontwoman and politicised focal point with élan.

Yet there’s no over-reliance upon formula behind A Raw Youth, and whilst comparisons with Yeah Yeah Yeahs are as relevant as they are lazy, the musical landscape the trio cross features enough twists and feints to throw the complacent off the scent. Produced

by Omar Rodríguez-López, formerly of The Mars Volta, and featuring guest turns from John Frusciante and Iggy Pop (the latter – La Uva – a curious and caustic slab of atonality), this is a ballsy, confident proposition, and whilst Gender Bender’s lyrics frequently deal with difficult subjects and dispossessed narratives, there’s zero sense of audience being hectored. [Duncan Harman]

For all the careful egalitarianism of Chvrches’ 2013 debut, the Glasgow three-piece’s second fulllength shows their synthpop becoming braver and brighter, owing in no small part to the growing charisma of lead vocalist Lauren Mayberry. From the stumbling, sparkling opener Never Ending Circles to Keep You On My Side’s galloping Eurodance throb, Iain Cook and Martin Doherty’s electronics are more sweeping than before, while Mayberry remains a warm and dignified pop lyricist, whether cutting an ex down powerfully in the skyscraping Leave A Trace or leading the empowering call of Make Them Gold in its anthemic 80s pomp.

Split by the Doherty-led Italo disco-flecked outlier High Enough to Carry You Over, Every Open Eye’s second half sees the band continuing to build on the foundations laid on Bones. ‘I believe in telling myself to think forward,’ Mayberry aches in Down Side of Me’s RnBinflected thump. Rest assured Chvrches are keeping those expectant eyes in sight. [Chris Ogden]

Few make the little appear big (and the big sound intimate) as elegantly as Zach Condon. Now back within the 4AD fold and recorded over a two week period in a snowbound New York, the first Beirut LP since 2011’s The Rip Tide represents yet another example of how he artfully meshes contradictory forces into simple and intuitive patterns. It’s not just that the lazy summer musicality of No No No belies inclement weather; this is all home vs homesick. Together yet alone.

Strung out amidst languid peels of brass (At Once; Perth), graceful 70’s-style piano (August Holland), and Condon’s silky, lost and found tenor (every track except instrumental As Needed, which wouldn’t have been out of place had it concluded Pet Sounds), the beauty is soft, and fragile, but also fleet of foot, and highly engaging with it. “If we don’t go now, we won’t get very far. Don’t know the first thing about who you are,” as Zach sings on the title track. The contused sentiment, eloquently put. [Duncan Harman]

lebutcherettes.net

Playing Dundee Fat Sams on 24 Nov | chvrch.es

beirutband.com

September 2015

RECORDS

Review

49

The Cesarians

Pure White Speed [NYAT/Genepool, 11 Sep]

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Modern life desperately needs agit-pop. Something to shoot holes in perceived wisdom. Get it wrong, however, and you can end up with a mess like Pure White Speed. It’s not an experience lacking in energy and in frontman Charlie Finke there’s posture aplenty, the horn section bouncing off piano-driven rhythms, adding all sorts of crafty punctuation.

Yet from opener Meltdown onwards, gibberish is spouted as if profound polemic, reminding us that Earl Brutus did this type of thing with far more panache 20 years ago. Both Woman and She Said deal with gender politics with ham fists, Blunted and Creation Theory sound like several different songs bolted awkwardly together, whilst Manquake segues into a piss-take of Beck’s Loser. At its sharpest, agit-pop kicks against the pricks; Pure White Speed only manages to kick its own shins. [Duncan Harman]

Sealings

I’m A Bastard Faux [Discx / Italian Beach Babes, 18 Sep]

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Moody, minimalist, well yes, we may have travel-led this way before.

Yet however derivative such disenfranchised narratives can appear, there’s something about this Brighton trio’s uncompromisingly-titled debut LP. Whether deploying banshee guitar or brooding synth, drum machine or live percussion, each track works as a counterpoint to the disengaged drawl of each vocal.

Transient Curse is Vienna by Ultravox relocated to an industrial estate on the outskirts of town; The Ultras is all dry ice and discombobulation, whilst Psychic Gobshite sounds exactly like a track called Psychic Gobshite should. In other words, there’s little startlingly original to I’m A Bastard, and the production may at times be a little iffy, but oh my – it’s fun. [Duncan Harman] awesomeghost.tumblr.com

thecesarians.com

Ane Brun

Blacklisters

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Last heard belting out elated guest vocals on Dr. Kucho! and Gregor Salto’s house hit Can’t Stop Playing (Makes Me High), Norwegian songwriter Ane Brun returns to more familiar stylistic climes for her latest, plaintive long-player.

Like predecessor It All Starts with One (indeed, like much of her discography), When I’m Free is a brooding, introspective album that places Brun’s voice front and centre – and for good reason.

Her singing has always impressed, and this might be her finest 45 minutes to date; never showy, yet always arresting.

The songwriting isn’t always as lustrous, with a gloomy default setting in parts of the latter half that’s difficult to warm to. But when Brun hits her mark, it’s quite something; in particular, the emotional and melodic clarity of Hanging sets a high bar, later matched by the busy percussion of Directions and the elegantly heartfelt pleas of Miss You More. [Chris Buckle] Ane Brun plays Glasgow Òran Mór on 5 Dec | anebrun.com

Review

Seamus Fogarty

Ducks and Drakes [Lost Map, 4 Sep]

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There’s nothing hurried or harried about Seamus Fogarty’s music, as Ducks and Drakes favourably attests. The EP’s title track opens with its protagonist lying back and contemplating the summer sky, and the atmosphere only grows more pleasingly placid from there, with found sounds and field recordings evoking all manner of fleeting remembrances and fugitive feelings.

A Mile Beneath the Broken Heart of London Town warrants special mention for the way it draws together all of Fogarty’s best qualities: lyrics that spin stories from the smallest of details, song structures that freely meander without getting lost, and production that balances the rough with the smooth beautifully. [Chris Buckle] seamusfogarty.com

When I’m Free [Balloon Ranger Recordings, 4 Sep]

50

EP Reviews

Adult [Small Town America, 18 Sep]

Ubre Blanca

The Sadist [Giallo Disco, 25 Sep]

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Less a band, more of a bludgeon. Blacklisters’ songs crunch and lacerate like solid wooden clubs, mutilated with rusted nails. Opener Shirts swiftly accelerates from teeth-chattering, stabbing power chords to an almighty roar of post-pigfuck fury, applying muscle to slow-burning tension with consummate skill, and barely disguising the gloriously potent lunacy at its centre.

This is almost certainly their greatest strength – a hint of deranged chaos that’s somehow controlled, but barely. Vocalist Billy Mason Woods and guitarist Dan Beesley represent ground zero, as their voluminous squalls scorch everything within reach; meanwhile Big Ticker sees the rhythm section prowling menacingly around the perimeter, as though waiting to pounce and devour anything that should emerge from the mess. Cynics might suggest that Adult is little more than Jesus Lizard worship, but when naked aggression is allowed to seethe so magnificently, only a fool would dismiss it so callously. [Will Fitzpatrick]

Sinister, portentous, unsettling… From the artwork’s red skull to each isolated synth motif, the John Carpenter/Claudio Simonetti trappings of the Glasgow duo’s third EP are as inescapable as they are deliberate. Yet this is no mere facsimile of (or even homage to) the horror soundtracks of yore, but a starting point through which mood is teased and tilted.

The title track – all ten-plus minutes of it – is a study in how delicate shafts of icy misgiving can be revealed in stages, the mid-point introduction of live percussion adding to the number of corners behind which danger may be lurking. The Quarry and Invocation both unfurl in dancier territory whilst never losing sight of the overall narrative, while Fear of God and Saeta summon even more claustrophobic angles, like Wendy Carlos covering King Crimson. This closely aligned to genre tropes, and The Sadist doesn’t dazzle with upfront originality. But neither does it need to; fear and groove are their own reward. [Duncan Harman]

Playing Glasgow Ivory Blacks on 16 Oct | blacklisters.co.uk

ubreblanca.tumblr.com

RECORDS

THE SKINNY

Ought

Dâm-Funk

Foals

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Sun Coming Down [Constellation, 18 Sep] Slipping breezily from improv-infused chaos into tightly woven riffs, the Montreal-based four piece tease at sounding as if they’ve lost their way, only to press on the gas and reveal that they had a map the whole time.

Last year’s debut More Than Any Other Day received emphatic praise for vocalist Tim Darcy’s socially acute lyricism and the band’s seemingly psychic intuition, and Sun Coming Down sees these qualities amplified. Written and recorded in just two months, the band’s essence has distilled and it manifests in their newly relaxed grip on the wheel. Loose and taut in equal measure, Sun Coming Down roars and whispers but never does it hit too hard. Intelligent, concise and fully in control – even when they sound in exuberant, entangled disarray. [Katie Hawthorne] cstrecords.com/ought

Invite the Light [Stones Throw, 4 Sep] Funk’s been outlawed. No one’s quite sure how it went down – some blame Mark Ronson – but fear not; L.A.’s grooviest keytar shaman Dâm-Funk is here to save the day, one hand clap at a time. It’s not just a genre at stake; for Damon Riddick, funk is a state of being, a semi-spiritual lifeline of positive energy for navigating the daily grind. By the final chorus of radiant lead single We Continue, you’ll be convinced too.

There’s loose narrative to the album, which at its peak finds our hero in a blistering car chase scored by old-school Sega sound effects, but the overriding takeaway is good vibes and lots of them. Be it the sparkling synth lines and soulful harmonies of its rousing second side or the nimble fingered turn from bass maestro Flea on early standout Floating on Air, Invite the Light makes the sun that bit warmer and the day bit brighter. [Andrew Gordon]

What Went Down’s title track makes no bones about Foal’s intentions for album number four – seething with a thundering, caustic might that makes the distant Cassius feel like candy floss in comparison. The group’s trademark intricate guitar work remains a dominant feature – Birch Tree and Night Swimmers exhibit a characteristic plinking interplay of notes – but elsewhere this is a record fleshed out by a glowering intensity.

Snake Oil is where Foals flex their muscle and push into new territory, crafting a libidinous vehemence with bold, brassy bass runs and garage drumbeats, while curtain call A Knife In The Ocean is perhaps the album’s most ambitious moment; a yearning epic of distortion, feedback and echoed waves of guitar. Foals’ latest cleaves closely to the melodic narrative arc set by 2013’s pivotal Holy Fire, but sets itself subtly apart with its insidious, atmospheric chill. [Claire Francis]

stonesthrow.com/damfunk

Playing Aberdeen Music Hall on 10 Nov | foals.co.uk

Jerusalem In My Heart

Slayer

If He Dies, If If If If If If [Constellation, 7 Sep]

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What Went Down [Transgressive, 28 Aug]

Carbs

Repentless [Nuclear Blast, 11 Sep]

Joyous Material Failure [Save As Collective, 11 Sep]

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The key to this riveting, unsettling record is there in the sleeve notes: “Original rear cover photograph taken

by Trevor Horgan on 16 July 2014 during another Israeli offensive on Gaza, seconds before Ahed, Ismail, Mohammed and Zakaria Bakr were killed by Israeli Navy shelling while playing on an empty beach.” Young boys, running in the sand, blissfully unaware of their fate. Not that Radwan Ghazi Moumneh needs to provide such overt context for his second album in his Jerusalem In My Heart guise.

His adventures continue on this hook-up with visual artist and filmmaker Charles-André Coderre and, it is a sombre and haunting work. Moumneh’s voice (a beautiful, limitless instrument) and his buzuk (the lute-type instrument similar to the Greek bouzouki) playing underpin his flexing of Arab traditions. At its best – as on the closing Zasmar Sa7ar, where voice, buzuk, the sound of ocean waves and drone backing combine – it delivers a heady and oddly plaintive euphoria. [Gary Kaill]

Given how much upheaval there’s been for the band in the six years since their last full-length, World Painted Blood, it’s surprising how much – on the face of it at least – Repentless represents business as usual for Slayer. The death of Jeff Hannemann in 2013 should ostensibly have left a creative void within the band, whilst the acrimonious departure of drummer Dave Lombardo the same year forced Kerry King and Tom Araya to readjust to playing with Paul Bostaph, who’s apparently shaken off the injury problems that forced his original departure in 2001.

Repentless, initially, comes off as classic Slayer – furious riffery and breakneck pace characterising the likes of Take Control and Cast the First Stone – but dig a little bit deeper and it’s clear that the creative responsibilities have shifted primarily to King, who has subtly retooled the band in his own image more than ever before.

The result largely stifles the introduction of fresh ideas, but does at least ensure that long-time fans will be happy. [Joe Goggins]

cstrecords.com/jerusalem-in-my-heart

Playing Glasgow O2 Academy on 25 Nov | slayer.net

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Jonnie (Common) and James (Conquering Animal Sound) come together to celebrate the daily disappointments of modern life. Chronicling the highs and lows of pizza comfort binges, how Margaret Thatcher helped ruin ice cream, and the supposed ease of learning kung fu from action film slow-mo, all over a pallet of weird-ass collected sounds, Joyous Material Failure is rooted in pop culture and cemented with sticky, slouchy electronica.

Each track is founded upon the sound of faulty machine or accidental mechanical breakdown, and there’s a dizzying, off-kilter spin to what could be otherwise-familiar constructs. The duo’s deconstruction of Instagram-era insecurities results in some genuine belly laughs, but sometimes veers dangerously close to ‘chillaxing on my trike’ territory; Carbs tread an intentionally wobbly line between taking the piss, and piss-take. This energy makes for a slightly awkward home listen, but will no doubt translate brilliantly live. Carbs’ anxiety-sprinkled Mr Whippy is best enjoyed with pals. [Katie Hawthorne] facebook.com/carbsinjection

Helena Hauff

Iron Maiden

Mike Krol

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Discreet Desires [Werkdiscs, 4 Sep]

Book of Souls [Parlophone, 4 Sep]

Helena Hauff has a reputation for pummeling dancefloors with her jagged, hardware-oriented techno, so it’s little surprise that her first full length effort for the Actress-helmed Werkdiscs is an intense listen. Hauff’s jarring combination of bright chiptune leads, somber synth strings and the caustic drive of early industrial acts like DAF is among the most distinctive sounds you’re likely to hear in a club this year, and given the raw energy of tracks like L’Homme Mort, chances are you will.

Make no mistake, this is music best suited to sweaty underground lockers where its visceral qualities take precedence. Individually, a number of the tracks make strong impressions – like Tryst, a hyperactive flight through pinging laser that takes a sinister turn halfway in – but digested as a whole, their mechanical repetition and minimal melodic nuance becomes a little wearying. In the right mix though, something here could make your night.

[Andrew Gordon]

Never mind the quality, feel the width. For Iron Maiden – three lead guitarists strong, and time-served purveyors of XXL stage spectacle and ever-increasing average song length – size is everything. Book of Souls clocks in at 92 minutes. Only Maiden would play for that long and still find an excuse for added time. But this sixteenth studio album from the metal veterans sizzles with a youthful vitality.

Who’d have thought that their most ambitious, work would take three decades to arrive? But, as evidenced by 2006’s A Matter of Life and Death and its 2010 follow-up The Final Frontier, late period Maiden bears little relation to their NWOBHM beginnings. The much-vaunted 18 minute, piano-led Empire of the Clouds (one of two Bruce Dickinson solo compositions) is genuinely staggering but there are heavy thrills throughout. Anchored by both its intelligence and its musicality, Book of Souls delights in scoffing at genre expectations. It’s very metal and very, very good. [Gary Kaill]

werkdiscs.com/helena-hauff

ironmaiden.com

Golden Void

New Order

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Berkana [Thrill Jockey, 18 Sep]

Music Complete [Mute, 25 Sep]

How big are your riffs? In the case of Bay Area quartet Golden Void, the answer is delivered without apology; all seven tracks comprising Berkana hark back to a time when song wasn’t song unless hung from meaty hooks in a stoner rock butcher’s shop. The guitars are fleshy, the bass a buzz of gravel, Isiah Mitchell’s vocals full of earnest thrust.

Whereas little is scrimped when it comes to mood or musical detail, there’s a seam of flaccidity underpinning events, both Burbank’s Dream and Astral Plane (with its soporific lyrics) struggling under the weight of those hefty riffs. Events take a smoother ride elsewhere, the strung-out California-isms of I’ve Been Down and the sunset vibes of finale Storm and Feather both suggesting a nuanced record may dwell beneath the bluster, unafraid to explore measured, psychedelic fringes. Yet even here there’s a propensity to reach for hackneyed melodic statement from time to time; it’s rock that curiously feels out of shape. [Duncan Harman]

For those unconvinced by Music Complete’s safe lead single Restless; fear not. The spiralling dancepop musing on consumer culture sounds robust and expansive as a scene-setting album opener, but it’s swiftly overshadowed. New Order – ft. a returned Gillian Gilbert and definitely no Peter Hook – come out synths blazing on Singularity.

And, just when you think you’ve got this tenth record pegged, Tutti Frutti’s heated, sticky inflections provide a double-take.

With Elly Jackson of La Roux on chorus duties, and the Manchester Camerata on strings, prepare for a euphoric, Euro-inspired night on the tiles. Then there’s eerie mid-album gem Stray Dog: a brooding, existential lecture from Iggy Pop. But it’s on hard-hitting house-spiked numbers that they really show their royalty; Unlearn This Heartache stuffs you into the underbelly of electronica, a harsh, apocalyptical soundscape that only this band could make blindly danceable. [Katie Hawthorne]

goldenvoidtj.bandcamp.com

Playing Glasgow O2 Academy on 19 Nov | neworder.com

September 2015

RECORDS

Turkey [Merge, 4 Sep] Judge Mike Krol as much for what he isn’t as for what he is. After eight blasts of searing fuzzpop, this blink-and-you’ll-miss-it album switches gear to a sweetly reflective piano instrumental – which then abruptly ends with a mutter of “I didn’t sign up for this shit.” A chuckle follows, and the record promptly finishes. Neat.

As to what he is… well, he’s a snot-nosed kid who hit the wrong side of 30 and responded by kicking out some serious jams, motherfucker. This Is The News is a goofy, pedal-to-the-metal love song, all dumbass chords and irresistible velocity. He comes close to getting wistful on the yearning rush of Less Than Together, wherein a scarcely-specified figure from his past gets a belated goodbye, but ‘wistful’, frankly, is more of what Mike Krol isn’t. So what is Turkey? It’s 18 minutes of stoopid, frantic, thrilling garage rock fun in the Jay Reatard mould. And frankly, it rules. [Will Fitzpatrick] Playing Salford Eagle Inn on 28 Oct | mikekrol.bandcamp.com

The Top Five 1 2 3 4 5

Julia Holter

Have You In My Wilderness

Deradoorian

The Expanding Flower Planet

Ought

Sun Coming Down

Kurt Vile

b’lieve I’m goin down

Dope Body

Kunk

Review

51

Skeleton Dance It’s a prolific time for Brooklyn’s Sacred Bones label; with some of the finest records of the year under their belts, and ahead of Liverpool Psych Fest (where they’ve co-curated a stage with Chile’s BYM label), we chat with general manager Taylor Brode

“I

can’t imagine that I would ever be interested in doing something else as a career,” Taylor Brode tells us. It’s a familiar expression in the music industry, as common from the mouths of pouting indie rock hopefuls as from doe-eyed X Factor auditionees. Though intended to convey a mixture of romanticism, determination and focus, it almost always betrays the pie-in-the-sky hopelessness upon which dreams of fame and fortune are built – a lack of experience clouded, sometimes wilfully, by blind hope that the reality of ambition is neither intangible as clouds nor delicate as bubbles.

And yet when Brode utters those words, they sound perfectly straightforward; completely reasonable. Then again, her role as general manager of Brooklyn’s Sacred Bones Records is one where dreams and ideals have to be wedded to pragmatism – where romance has to be tempered by practicality without losing its sheen. “This is what I love to do,” she continues. “I love working with bands and finding out about new music, and just helping bands realise their goals.” That balance, it would appear, is in good health, which is presumably just one of the factors behind the renowned and increasingly respected indie label’s meteoric rise over the past eight years… but back up a minute. Let’s start earlier.

Sacred Bones was founded in 2007 by Caleb Braaten, an employee of Williamsburg’s Academy Records, who simply wanted to release an EP by his friends and reissue some curate’s eggs from the 80s heyday of British post-punk. Even as a youngster, he had always been surrounded by records. “His friends’ parents owned a store – they still do – called Twist And Shout in Denver,” explains Brode cheerfully, with the knowledgeable air of someone well-versed in their own history. “He got into music from working there when he was younger, and he’s been a lifelong record collector; his taste is really wide.”

This open approach served Braaten well when he moved to New York over a decade ago, and began to immerse himself in Brooklyn’s notoriously hip music scene. “The first record that he ever put out was a 7" by this band called The Hunt, who were just good friends of his. It was mostly

a New York-based label, and the bands were from here – people he’d met in the shop.”

Food for thought is offered to anyone who imagines that starting a label – even in such a cultural metropolis – might be a glamorous pursuit. ”He started the label in the basement of Academy, and he did two, three years there. I moved here in 2010 [having worked previously for Chicago’s legendary Touch & Go stable, the effortlessly professional Brode is no stranger to the industry] so we both worked in their basement for about two years. We moved into our office in 2012; we didn’t have internet and there were rats in the basement, no windows… it was truly a basement for a long time. But we have a proper office now with phones and stuff…!”

Since those humble beginnings, the label has relocated (along with Academy) to Green Point, slightly further to the north of Brooklyn than their Billyburg origins. It’s also become one of the most widely respected indie labels in North America – a tastemaker label in the mould of Sub Pop, Homestead or even Touch & Go, covering a wide base of genres from the glistening electronic pitter-patter of Blanck Mass to Jenny Hval’s deconstructivist, gender-freeing pop to Destruction Unit’s sandstorm-buffeted hardcore to… well, you get the picture. Did the label always have designs on such eclecticism, we wonder? Brode pauses to consider. “I think it was more just what was going on in Brooklyn; I don’t think he started the label with the intention of it just being one genre. We’ve done folk records and a lot of psych records, and experimental, and noise… we try to keep it open.”

And yet it feels like there has been a consistent strand of darkness in the label’s output. “We don’t like to box ourselves in as being goth or dark or anything. People sort of attach that to us. I think a lot of it is because of Zola Jesus; we did all of her early records, and a lot of her coverage at the time was comparing her to Siouxsie, so I think we kind of got lumped in with that genre. It’s not really what we consider ourselves... We veer more towards the avant-garde, or edgy, weirder stuff.”

For all this wilful diversity, however, Sacred Bones have always been drawn towards the concept of visual uniformity: the vast majority of

their sleeves bear a simple design concept created specifically to draw regular listeners to new projects. The significance of this straightforward notion is not lost on Brode. “It’s really important!” she exclaims. “Basically all of our full-length LPs carry a template, so they have the record label logo on the front, and then the album title, and all the tracks listed on the front of the record. Caleb designed that format with our graphic designer James Correll – he really wanted to have our records be instantly recognisable, so you could look at something and know it was a Sacred Bones record.

It was inspired by the Factory Records stuff, and Impulse Jazz. We really tried to make it coherent, so our listeners could trust our taste and take a chance on a band they don’t know.”

“We’re just gonna keep doing what we do. I don’t expect us to be very rich any time soon” Taylor Brode

It begs the question of whether anyone has been reluctant to go along with the theme – Brode laughs. “There’s been a couple of bands that don’t love it, but you know, it’s sort of part of our deal. We’re pretty upfront about it and if bands don’t want to do it, we don’t do their records.”

In terms of the US labels we mentioned earlier, are Sacred Bones conscious of being part of that lineage? “I think we are now. We’re in our eighth year and things are pretty different from when we started. We’re getting to work with a lot of artists and filmmakers who really influenced us, David

Blanck Mass

Lynch being the forerunner there [SB reissued the soundtrack to Lynch’s über-surreal debut Eraserhead]. We really count that as a blessing and not something we try to take that for granted.”

Are indie labels of that ilk important, then, in terms of defining eras or places? “Yeah, absolutely! It’s a document of what’s happening at the time – I mean, that’s literally what the word ‘record’ means. But I don’t think Caleb ever intended for it to just be that, you know? We have bands now from all over the globe, which is amazing.”

In recent years, Sacred Bones’ global community has extended to BYM Records, an independent label based in Santiago, Chile, with whom the Brooklynites now share elements of their roster – specifically trance-tinged krautrockers Föllakzoid and the motorik dreampop of The Holydrug Couple. “It’s their friends’ label,” Brode tells us enthusiastically. “Two of them are in this band called La Hell Gang, who are amazing – they were touring with Föllakzoid and Holydrug Couple in the United States a couple of years ago, so we hung out with them. They’re really sweet guys and we’re mutual fans of each other.”

This shared love has even extended to one of Northwest England's live highlights of late September, as the two labels jointly curate a stage at the hotly-anticipated Liverpool International Festival of Psychedelia – in the meantime, Sacred Bones have their own schedule to stick to, with Destruction Unit’s new LP (“A very aggressive punk record. It’s also very weird”) foremost on the horizon. We raise the subject of the label’s continued evolution, and Brode’s enthusiasm remains in place. “We’re just gonna keep doing what we do.

I don’t expect us to be very rich any time soon… but you know, that’s the state of the music industry; it’s really tough with the way things are rapidly changing.” With all those obstacles in the way, how does a label maintain its enthusiasm?

Hang on, this is where we came in: “Caleb and I both feel like this is our number one passion,” she states firmly. “I don’t see it changing any time soon. This is the one for me.”

Negative Feedback Resistor by Destruction Unit is released on 18 Sep. Blanck Mass plays The Skinny’s Pleasance Session in Edinburgh on 10 Oct. sacredbonesrecords.com

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MUSIC

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Credit: Daniel Harris

Holydrug Couple

Credit: Stuart Moulding

Destruction Unit

Interview: Will Fitzpatrick

September 2015

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FACTION VOLTAGE

SUCH A DRAG

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THE SKINNY

Clubbing Highlights We're getting excited about September, as Marcellus Pittman and Fatima Yamaha play Glasgow, while Hunee hits Edinburgh Words: Ronan Martin Illustration: Yvette Earl

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ur month begins in Edinburgh where Sneaky Pete’s play host to One Night Stand, a bimonthly residency first popping up in May and until now running as a showcase for residents. For this instalment they welcome their first guest Dauwd, who has been gaining momentum at a steady pace since he emerged in 2011 with the impressive What’s There. That debut release gave a brief taste of the producer’s knack for creating sensuous house with a bass music edge, often incorporating elements of garage into his slick style.

Since then he has brought a more hearty dancefloor focus to his music, while retaining the ethereal charm of his earliest efforts. Having also showcased a funkier side with this year’s Jupiter George on Kompakt, and with a cracking XLR8R mix dropping the same month, Dauwd appears to be on top of his game (4 Sep, £5).

The following evening, The Berkeley Suite in Glasgow is our destination of choice, as Bigfoot’s Tea Party bring Detroit’s Marcellus Pittman to town. Emerging as a production partner of the mighty Theo Parrish, with standout releases on Sound Signature and Track Mode, Pittman has shown tremendous pedigree across his career.

Whether he’s producing deep and hypnotic slowburners, funk-laced house jams or dark and pulsating techno tracks, the Unirhythm label head’s output is always raw and engaging. He has rightly earned his place among Detroit’s most esteemed producers and forms part of the supergroup 3 Chairs, alongside Parrish, Kenny Dixon Jr and Rick Wilhite. As you might expect, his skills as a DJ also have him in high demand so this is an ideal opportunity to catch a contemporary house legend in an intimate setting – you won’t regret it (5 Sep, £7).

Next up, globetrotting local collective Numbers set up shop in La Cheetah for one-off party, Rhythm & Booze. For the occasion they’re joined by German duo Erik & Fiedel aka MMM, who will perform a live set in the sweatpit that is Max’s basement. Producing remarkably idiosyncratic tracks, with a penchant for playful sounds and simplistic compositions, MMM are hard to pin down to a particular style. Emerging with a punchy form of electro in 1996, their subsequent releases have showcased sample-heavy disco house, screeching techno oddities, and cosmic synth workouts of varying degrees of charm and silliness. The defining trait of their work, whatever the genre, is the energy and sense of fun they bring to their tracks, so we suspect their live set will go down a treat with the Numbers crowd. In support is resident and astute selector Spencer, who should warm things up nicely (11 Sep, £10).

Across the M8 on the same night, FLY host their very own Freshers Party, leaving Cabaret Voltaire in the charge of regular spinner Theo Kottis for the night. Based in Edinburgh, but beginning to make waves far beyond, Kottis has found a home for his airy house productions on the increasingly hyped Moda Black label. Having also secured remix work for big names such as Groove Armada, and with appearances at the likes of Fabric in London under his belt, Kottis is one of the most talked about producers and DJs around at the moment. With a slick sound and preference for vocal-driven club tracks, he should be perfectly placed to soundtrack this freshers’ bash in the capital (11 Sep, £7).

To the dark underbelly of Glasgow’s Jamaica Street next, where Subculture have a cracker lined up, courtesy of Norwegian maestro Todd Terje. Something of a modern disco master, Terje

September 2015

has always had a particular knack for producing dancefloor killers of truly epic proportions. His 2004 debut release Eurodans was an early indication of this ability, all soaring synths and fullbodied basslines. Then of course, there’s Inspector Norse, his 2012 anthem which might as well have had ‘Instant Classic’ stamped all over the record sleeve. It still has the same impact on clubs as it had on its original release and regardless of how many times you hear it, it still hits the spot – a hallmark of a true classic. Terje performs live for this one and we suspect Norse will be one of the many highlights. Support comes from the everreliable resident pairing of Harri & Domenic (12 Sep, Sub Club, £12).

Next, Numbers pop up for the second time in as many weeks, this time bringing their party to the Art School. Teaming up with Amsterdam’s Dekmantel promoters for the night, the crew have lined up a rare appearance by an artist who has long inspired the Glaswegian collective, from their earliest parties through to the present day.

Bas Bron aka Seymour Bits is a man of many monikers, working across a number of genres over the years. Yet, it’s his Fatima Yamaha guise which has slowly developed into one of his most recognisable projects, largely due to the exquisite 2004 track What’s A Girl To Do – a bittersweet, electronic lullaby which has experienced something of a rebirth in recent years. Yet Bron is no one track wonder. You need only dip into his funk escapades as Seymour Bits or, indeed, the bold electro present on Yamaha’s A Girl Between Two Worlds EP to experience his talent. This live show promises to be pretty special, while Yamaha fans Spencer and Jackmaster should be in buoyant form on the ones and twos, alongside Dekmantel Soundsystem and a soon-to-be-revealed special guest. This one is tip of the month, we reckon (18 Sep, £12).

The Berkeley Suite makes our schedule again on 19 Sep, with Pistols at Dawn taking care of proceedings this time round. To help them bring the party, they’ve secured the services of a bona fide UK pioneer. Mark Moore was one of the first people pushing the emerging house sounds of Chicago on these shores and would later bring some of these influences to a wider audience with his work with pop electronic group S’Express – 1988’s Theme From S’Express was a chart success across the globe and will have served as an introduction to electronic music for many. As a selector, Moore has over three decades of experience under his belt, and he is as likely to dip into dark Italo and new wave as he is to play acid house and more Balearic sounds (£8-10).

We’re Edinburgh-bound again the following weekend as Notsosilent take over Sneaky Pete’s, this time joined by Amsterdam-based artist Hun Choi aka Hunee. Fresh from the June release of his debut album – the wonderfully versatile Hunch Music – Choi comes with a growing reputation as a producer able to break from a house scene which is all too often formulaic and dull. From his debut release, 2009’s Tour De Force, Hunee’s tracks have always felt like free-form explorations, full of meandering jazz leads and playful changes in direction. The album has kept much of this vibrancy, maintaining a fine balance between spaced-out psychedelic offerings and more forthright house jams. Unsurprisingly, Choi’s range as a DJ is equally impressive and this one is well worth your attendance (25 Sep, £8-10).

Finally, we’re headed in the direction of Stirling for our end of month blowout, as a sea-

soned local crew celebrate five years in the game.

Many deep house heads from Glasgow will be familiar with the Jelly Roll Soul team, who first emerged in 2010 with a remit centred on bringing raw, soulful music to La Cheetah. In their time there they handed Scottish debuts to the likes of Kyle Hall, Funkineven and Space Dimension Controller – prescient bookings given the subsequent hype around those names. Yet, sensing a saturation of club nights in Glasgow in 2012, the JRS crew decided to set up shop in their hometown of Stirling and have since hosted some truly unique parties – Chicago don Specter playing in the basement of a tapas bar and the aforementioned Marcellus Pittman rocking a working

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men’s drinking den being just two examples.

Basically, the Jelly Roll ethos is simply to book great guests and keep the music gritty and real.

For the birthday session, they welcome exceedingly talented Firecracker label head Todd Lindsay aka House of Traps along, so they certainly shouldn’t be in breach of their founding principles (26 Sep, Mediterranea, £tbc).

Other highlights this month include Glasgow events with Mother, who plays for The Kibosh at Nice ‘n’ Sleazy (18 Sep, £3) and Midland at I AM at Sub Club (15 Sep, £8-10), while Slam take over the Reading Rooms in Dundee (12 Sep, £10).

Review

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CCA Highlights Words: Kate Pasola

Credit: Katja Ruge

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DJ Chart: Helena Hauff Hailing from Hamburg, Hauff’s obsession lies mainly with riveting EBM, avant-garde electro and general psychosis. Here are eight of her favourite tracks

auff ’s formative years as a DJ were spent in the shadow of Hamburg Fischmarkt, inside the much-lauded Golden Pudel club under her own Birds & Other Instruments banner. Over the past five years the party has been graced by a veritable who’s who of mechanical experimentalism from all walks of life – Robert Turman, I-F and Luke Eargoggle to name a small handful.

On the production side, her first release came back in 2013 – a three-track EP on Werkdiscs – but she’s since made in-roads on a range of leftof-centre labels, such as Lux Rec, Solar One and Panzerkreuz. Now, the time has come for her debut LP which, at ten tracks long, is the fullest musical synopsis of Hauff’s mind on record. This machine music is more pulsing sinew than polished sheen.

Privacy – New Wake Trace [Lobster Theremin] This is a new favourite of mine off Privacy’s Hypertext EP. It’s exactly the kind of jacking stuff that I’m into. Privacy is one of my favourite producers and DJs at the moment.

Mr Fingers – Washing Machine [Trax] This old classic always surprises me 'cause it still sounds so fresh. I remember playing this for the first time on a loud club sound system and it sounded so fucking good.

Africans With Mainframes – Can U Hear Me Now? [Creme Organisation] I’m a huge Jamal Moss fan; everything he puts out is just amazing. Love the rawness and weirdness about this one in particular.

Unit Moebius – Beat That Perculator [Acid Planet] These guys from The Hague are probably my favourite electronic band of all time. This track, like a lot of their stuff, is simple and brutal!

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Elec Pt.1 – Waiting For Armageddon [Bunker] This came out on Bunker, which is actually run by one of the Unit Moebius guys. I’m very much into psychotic music and this one by Andreas Gehm really does it for me.

“I really can’t imagine anything more beautiful than Drexciya's music” Gosub – Red Desert [Abstract Forms] Electro is the music that always makes me wanna dance, and this track by Gosub makes me want to do just that.

Bringing things a little closer to home, there’s The Shock of Victory (19 Sep-1 Nov, preview 18 Sep). If those dates feel a little familiar, that’s because the event is taking place exactly one year after the Scottish Independence Referendum of 2014. The tonic to any sort of aftershock you might be experiencing post-referendum, The Shock of Victory is a curated programme which includes an exhibition, symposium and digital publication.

Using the Scottish story as a point of departure, the programme peels away the dust-jacket on political discourse in Northern Ireland, Greece and Palestine, too. It’s a valiant attempt to rejuvenate post-ref pessimists, begging the question of whether our uncertainty, obscurity, hesitancy and perceived failure should be put to good use as mechanisms in art-making and frameworks within political discussion. Always look on the bright side and all that.

On that very topic, we have Lonelady (aka Julie Campbell) visiting CCA on Tue 29 Sep, bringing her musical arsenal of tweaky, industrial electro and atmospheric funk underpinned by what Campbell herself refers to as “an inescapably North of England cement-coloured psyche.” A technicolor musical examination of “post-industrial ruinscapes,” Campbell’s tunes are simultaneously nostalgic and futuristic. Her LP Hinterland is leaps and beats beyond Radio 1 faux-80s and council-estate fetishisation; probably the organic result of having grown up in a Mancunian tower block before completing a fine art degree at Manchester Met. Catch her while she’s playing local, otherwise you’re going to have to head out to Birmingham, Berlin or beyond to try and get a scoop of Lonelady in all her gritty glory (7pm, £10 + £1 booking fee, 18+).

Wasn’t it just lovely that this year the Fringe was rammed with theatre companies, artists, poets and musicians performing works about mental health? Refreshing wasn’t it, to start shifting some taboos with the almighty shovel that is the arts? Shame, isn’t it, that without the risk-taking platform of the Fringe, that sort of stuff isn’t as likely to reach the art-consuming public any more?

Only kidding – turns out it wasn’t a phase, and this vital sort of art is here to stay. The Scottish Mental Health Arts and Film Festival will be swinging into Scotland on Sun 19 Oct. Lasting until Thu 22 Oct, this five day festival of music, film, visual art and theatre, dance and literature will continue to challenge preconceived ideas about mental health from a number of Scottish venues including CCA. The selected theme for the year is ‘Passion’, indicating the bravery and intimacy of the works brought to the table. You can also expect to see selections from the Festival’s International Film Competition and Special Presentations, which, to quote CCA themselves ‘vigorously demonstrate that cinema needs its inspirational female voices.’ Hear, hear, CCA.

Morphology – Manmade Woman [Abstract Forms] This got released on Abstract Forms – like the Gosub one – which is one of my favourite electro labels. The label head, Deixis, also runs a sub label called Abstract Acid as well, and it’s just as good. Love this track though...

Arpanet – Infinite Density [Record Makers] Drexciya and everything Drexciyan is just my thing. I really can’t imagine anything more beautiful than their music and this is a great example of that sound.

Allison Gibbs, Our Extra Sensory Selves, 2015

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THE SKINNY

Credit: Alan Dimmick

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eptember is upon us; the festival season has ended and lo, like a knackered runaway train which has managed to regain control at the very last moment before everything goes to shit, we screech into Back-to-Reality Station. It’s only three stops away from How The Hell Is It Already Christmas station, so you should probably make good use of your remaining time and money by getting yourself collarbone-deep in the arts while you can. And, in the same passive way that the festivals allowed you to step into a coffee shop and be immediately subjected to some sort of funky one-man band or sketch show, we’re going to make things easy for you too. We’ve taken CCA’s new programme of arts events and picked out our favourite bits over the coming months, laying them out neatly for your delectation.

First things first, have you had a wander round the fugue states exhibition yet? We basically implored you to take a look at it in our July round-up. If you haven’t, it’s time to stop being stubborn and check out this elegant examination of states, senses and connectedness (until 6 Sep).

You can read our reviewer’s thoughts on it on p57.

After that, you’ll probably be ready to put your refined understanding of the human sensory experience to the test. Luckily, Sonica Festival is coming back to Glasgow this autumn, and will be giving you an opportunity to get your teeth stuck into a brand new sensory experience altogether – sonic art. No, that’s not a fancy word for ‘music’. No longer satisfied with sound being regarded a mere accompaniment to film, a lowly channel for harmony and melody or an adjunct to the rest of art, sonic art is the art of sound. From Thu 29 Oct-Sun 8 Nov, Sonica will bring an eleven day festival of sound-based exhibitions, installations, performances and screenings. Get ready to be grabbed by the lugs and shaken into noisy euphoria.

If you’d rather be challenged by the content than the form, get yourself along to Take One Action, a film festival which brings mind-changing movies about global social change to Glasgow (and Edinburgh). You’ll be able to catch The NEST Art Collective’s challenging coverage of Kenyan LGBTQ experience in Stories of Our Lives. Another one to look out for is We Are The Giant, Greg Barker’s devastating and intimate portrayal of morally torn individuals on the front lines of the Arab Spring (19-23 Sep). Chew that lot over for a month, and when your filmic appetite returns, you can do it all over again at Africa in Motion film festival (24-25 Oct and 1 Nov). The festival is now in its tenth year of bringing African cinema to Scottish audiences, probably just one of many reasons why this year’s theme is ‘connections’. A self-referential theme indeed, the 2015 AiM will be tightening its focus on spiritual, physical, social, cultural and geographical bonds with Africa through film.

What’s Oak, Magnetic, and Sorry?

For September, there’s new work from Glasgow stalwart Hayley Tompkins, home visits by Sogol Mabadi and academics discussing anti-education at The Fruitmarket Lauren Gault, a few tolerances, 2015

Fugue States

CCA

rrrrr Fugue States, a two-person show by Lauren Gault and Alison Gibbs, starts with the latter’s 26minute Our Extra-Sensory Selves. Texts are included in this work via dialogues and subtitles that are dense but richly economical. Questions are asked of certain groups in this debate: for instance, do fortune tellers materially influence those to whom they tell their fortune? It doesn’t take long to recognise the hammy acting of workshop scripts on the topic of ESP, making more obvious the inference of the actor as the medium.

It’s a nice framing of the different voices that feature throughout the video, including the participants of the workshops and transcriptions of American medium Jane Roberts. As an interesting further complication, there are shots of sundried and dusty Marseillaise landscapes with bold and unearthly bright architecture.

Into the next room, it’s the work of Lauren Gault. There’s an expressed interest in changing

Words: Adam Benmakhlouf

states, with a scattering of half-formed cast sculptures and unrelated objects that are admittedly curious. Gault’s not giving much away, and there’s too much of a reliance on the ‘resonant quality of objects.’ It’s too vague a demand to commune somehow with the objects, and swings far past a critical attitude towards the ‘metaphysical and unverifiable’, and into an undefined spiritualism.

Throughout the works is a genuine engagement with the different kinds of extra-sensory perception. This subject matter brings the twin dangers of insensitive dismissal and equally unenlightening rehashing. Though Gault’s work circles the latter, there are nevertheless less obvious moments of nuance in Gibbs’ work. Specifically, the last room includes Gibbs’ video work.

Transferred from film to HD, the same film that was exposed to moonlight is encased in clay and displayed as discrete sculptures, setting up an odd relationship with video as object, reproduction and a dissolving of the medium as separate from what is mediated. [Adam Benmakhlouf] Theo Shields, Oak and Iron

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Jonas Bendiksen

Open for Business

Street Level Photoworks

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Now something of a curiosity thanks to a dominating service industry, modern UK manufacturing is the unlikely subject taken up by Open for Business. In the short while since the phrase ‘capitalism in crisis’ became fashionable and the stability of Western countries became uncertain once again, an exploration of the evolving British economy’s impact on UK industries has only become more relevant.

Entering the now nearly anachronist spaces of factories and yards, there are also images of the inner workings of car manufacturing and Aardman Animations (of Wallace and Gromit fame).

A strangeness is cast on the expected large heavy machinery and tools, as Peter Marlow’s photographs are almost alien with striking contrasts and billowing steam. There’s something a bit sci-fi about them.

In contrast, matters become more literal when Bruce Gilden attempts to put a human face

September 2015

on the subject with some portraiture. Known primarily for his unforgiving close-ups, he features several shots of manufacturing labourers. He refuses to glamourise his subjects, and the results are unnerving in their candour. There is an attraction to their untouched starkness and the works grant moments of access to these otherwise closed working communities.

Jonas Bendiksen also takes a person-based approach in his photographic work. However, his most interesting work comes in his short films, which shift the emphasis from the human aspect of manufacturing to a fascination with the symmetry and pattern of basic man-made machinery.

Outside this exhibition, most of the nine photographers commissioned to take part have primary interests that are quite separate from industry. Paradoxically, it’s this lack of conventionally relevant experience that qualifies them to make less predictable response to the subject. As a thoughtful experiment, it pays due respect to the sharply politicised context of industry. [Rachel Munford]

ntil 25 September, Glasgow-based artist Sogol Mabadi will be hosted in different homes as she comes to understand ‘veiling’. There will also be a series of performances accompanying these house visits. By these means, she considers veiling and its different forms – that’s to say the means by which proximity is achieved, through separation: ‘In order to obtain an intimate sense/taste of the Other, we resist verbal communication and eye-contact.’ To discuss a potential visit, contact details can be found on her website: sogolmabadi.com.

Recent graduate Theo Shields organises a new takeover event for Generator in Dundee until 8 September. For his slot, Shields puts on a solo show of his sculptural work across wood and metal. For Oak and Iron, Shields works with two traditional Scottish craftspersons in order to create work with cut wood and recycled metals.

Accompanying the works are two video documentaries contextualising one of Shields’ collaborators, plus the Scottish trades and relationship with raw materials.

On Friday 11 September from 6pm in the Modern Institute, two new exhibitions will be previewed. On Osborne Street until 24 October, there’s Michael Wilkinson’s Sorry Had to be Done. Living and working in Glasgow, Wilkinson works both on wall-based and with sculptures with variously manipulated found objects. Taking his cue from 70s and 80s punk music, there is also the influence of radical leftist legacies.

Hayley Tompkins, who works across carefully wrought paintings and assemblages, will be on Aird’s Lane with Electric Magnetic Installation, showing recent work until 7 November.

From 17 September 5.30-7.30pm in Dundee’s Cooper Gallery, there is the opening for the work made as part of the summer residence 2015. This year’s residence combined Glasgow-based artist Oliver Braid with Brussels-based artist Anouchka Oler and Edinburgh-based philosopher Joseph Fletcher. Work made for this new show, titled

ART

Thingness?, has come from discussion between the three, applying philosophical theory to art practice. They were also, in turn, informed by weekly discussion groups held as the Cooper Summer Salons. Thingness? continues until 10 October.

In the Common Guild, the second of this year’s programme of two shows opens on Friday 25 September. From 6-8pm the gallery previews new works by the German-born Los Angeles- and Berlin-based photographer. In his work, he often constructs paper models of places of particular historical sensitivity or significance. For those who witnessed touring exhibition Art from Elsewhere, Demand’s work may be familiar. Showcasing the works purchased on behalf of the city by The Common Guild for Glasgow’s art collection, there was a work by Demand, Photo Booth. Looking like an innocuous, if makeshift photo booth, it is revealed to be a photography of an accurate paper model of a point of deliberate exposure of East Berlin prisoners to radiation, many of whom later died of leukaemia. His work is subtle and affecting.

A new body of work from sculptor Nicolas Deshayes will be exhibited in the Glasgow Sculpture Studios from 26 September until 12 December. London-based French artist Nicolas Hayes employs the most recent industrial processes and materials. While they may be highsheen and with a finish of ‘slick industrial surfaces,’ they incorporate ‘a human presence in the form of glutinously rich bodily allusions, engaging with the materials in ways that distort the ordinary.’

At the very end of this month, the Fruitmarket Gallery host Extracurricular Activity: Undermining Histories of Art. ‘Humour, (anti-)education and contemporary art’ will be the topic of conversation for academics Catherine Spencer (University of St Andrews) and Moran Sheleg (UCL). Tickets should be booked (fast) from Eventbrite for the night on Monday 28 September 6-8pm.

Review

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Film Event Highlights Subterranean slugs, shorts and sports socks – here are Scotland's film picks for September Dope

Words: Jamie Dunn

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orn out of nostalgia for scurrilous London rep house the Scala, Scalarama has become one of the highlights of the UK’s cinema calendar.

Scotland doesn’t have the busiest programme in the nationwide Scalarama line-up, but it does have the best nickname: Scaladonia. The Glasgow film clubs’ screenings seem more in keeping with the kind of disreputable trash in which the Scala specialised, and includes a 35mm screening of video nasty Nightmare in Brain Damage (CCA, 6 Sep), batshit Japanese teen ghost story Hausu (The Old Hairdressers, 17 Sep) and the adventures of a papier-mâché wielding demigod in Hercules Returns (Grosvenor, 26 Sep).

Macbeth

Dope

Macbeth

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Director: Rick Famuyiwa Starring: Shameik Moore, Kiersey Clemons, Tony Revolori Released: 4 Sep Certificate: 15

Director: Justin Kurzel Starring: Michael Fassbender, Marion Cotillard, David Thewlis Released: 2 Oct Certificate: 15

In Rick Famuyiwa’s subversive coming-of-age misadventure comedy, three high school ‘90s hip hop geeks’ get mixed up in drug trafficking and learn some lessons along the way. Though exec-produced by Pharrell Williams, it’s not what you think – there’s real heart here. And caps must be doffed to the doeeyed lead Malcolm (Shameik Moore) and his friend Diggy (Kiersey Clemons), both effortlessly charming big-screen debuts.

With John Hughes cited as direct inspiration, the misfit narrative is tastefully painted, and though potted with familiar tropes, these slingshot the action with directorial nous. It’s an otherwise fresh romp, and the premise – geeks sell drugs at school – might anticipate something cringe-worthy, but when there’s talk of Tor networks and Bitcoin you realise Famuyiwa’s done his homework.

A smart bag of references, to both modern meme culture and bygone music and movies, Dope is neither pastiche nor misty-eyed nostalgia. In one telling exchange, A$AP Rocky’s character tells our protagonist, “The 90s also gave us Vanilla Ice, MC Hammer, and the Fresh Prince.” Word. It’s time for a new era.

[George Sully]

In spite of its Irish-German and French leads, Justin Kurzel’s adaptation is a very Scottish Macbeth. Filmed in large part on Skye, this martial take on Shakespeare’s trip north of the border grows out of the Hebridean island’s bleak and beautiful landscape. Though it occasionally threatens to upstage the cast – who seem under-egged at times – the mountainous backdrop largely acts as an able foil to magnificent performances.

Fassbender, as Macbeth, is bristling and demented in equal measure; Cotillard, as Lady Macbeth, is creepy and enthralling. Paddy Considine turns in a decent Banquo, with Sean Harris’s MacDuff lending grizzly support. There’s Scottish flags flying in the cast’s lower orders: witches Seylan Baxter and newcomer Lynn Kennedy linger well, spurring things along with the right amount of eerie enjoyment.

Kurzel mostly operates at the brooding, simmering end of the emotional spectrum, but sometimes you just want to see things at full tilt. That said, the film’s climax adds plenty ballast to the quieter writhing of its opening acts.

[Angus Sutherland]

Released by Sony Pictures

Released by StudioCanal

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

Closed Curtain

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Tremors

Another film that would fit nicely into the Scala line-up is Tremors, Ron Underwood’s perfectly executed B-movie in which a small Nevada township is terrorised by a group of subterranean slugs. The 1990 film is screening in Glasgow and Edinburgh to mark the film’s 25th anniversary and the publication of journalist Jonathan Melville’s book Seeking Perfection: The Unofficial Guide to Tremors (GFT, 13 Sep; Filmhouse, 20 Sep). Melville will be at both screenings to give an intro and for book signings; at the Edinburgh screening, director Underwood will join the audience via Skype for a post-film Q&A. Filmhouse’s Made in Prague season is currently in full swing, and there are two more films still to screen in this showcase of contemporary Czech cinema: Jan Hrebejk’s terse melodrama Honeymoon (6 Sep), set during a two-day wedding celebration, and Martin Dusek’s sensitive documentary Into the Clouds We Gaze (10 Sep), which centres on a mechanic looking for love. Meanwhile, the DCA continue to celebrate the great cinema of the Czech Republic’s neighbour, Poland, with touring programme Masterpieces of Polish Cinema (until 27 Sep), curated by legendary filmmaker Martin Scorsese. Four films are still to screen, including Krzysztof Kieslowski’s international breakthrough Blind Chance (27 Sep) and Jerzy Kawalerowicz’s exquisite thriller Night Train (6 Sep).

GFT have a couple of welcome short film programmes this month. First up, a screening of Indonesian shorts (10 Sep), ranging from fictions to documentaries to artists’ films, which explore divisions within the country’s society.

Emerging homegrown talent is celebrated, meanwhile, with Blueprint (15 Sep), a new quarterly short film night dedicated to independent Scottish shorts.

As part of the BFI’s Britain on Film season, three iconic Glasgow venues will be transformed into pop-ups this autumn, beginning with the much-loved Barras Market for the GFT’s City as a Movie Screen (27 Sep). On the night, they’ll be recreating the legendary atmosphere of the Barras with traders flogging their wares, a live swing band, and archive films highlighting Glasgow life across the ages. Get on down, you might also be able to pick up some sports socks – two for a pound.

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Director: Alfonso Gomez-Rejon Starring: Thomas Mann, Olivia Cooke, RJ Cyler, Jon Bernthal Released: 4 Sep Certificate: 12A

Director: Jafar Panahi, Kambuzia Partovi Starring: Kambuzia Partovi, Maryam Moqadam, Jafar Panahi Released: 4 Sep Certificate: TBC

While escaping the social hell that is high school with his best friend and ‘co-worker’ Earl (RJ Cyler), our lead protagonist Greg (Thomas Mann) unexpectedly finds himself forced by his mother (Connie Britton) to spend time with a classmate diagnosed with cancer (Olivia Cooke). But thanks to Alfonso Gomez-Rejon’s dynamic direction – marked by the influence of Martin Scorsese, for whom he previously worked as a personal assistant – and the irresistibly hip, sarcastic wit of its dialogue, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl provides plenty of painfully honest laughs along with more fragile, profound moments in its exploration of a refreshingly nonsexual male-female relationship.

This Sundance 2015 Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award winner is also a delightful homage to filmmaking itself, including plenty of savvy film references, and even films-within-a-film, as Greg and Earl churn out quirky, homemade parodies of Criterion classics like 400 Bros, A Sockwork Orange and Burden of Screams. Just never mind that the average teenager’s probably never heard of Herzog. [Christine Cocotte]

Jafar Panahi’s semi-documentary This Is Not a Film visualised and articulated his plight after a draconian sentence from the Iranian government (regarding political activism) saw him forced to live under house arrest, barred from leaving Iran, and officially banned from making films for two decades.

Nonetheless, Closed Curtain is the second feature he’s made since, through elaborate loopholes.

Rather than using his Tehran apartment as last time, Panahi’s vacation home provides the setting here for what initially seems like a very different film. We start with a middle-aged writer cooped up in the house, curtains closed, in hiding with his dog after the government bans the creatures from the streets. Their solitude is short-lived, though, as mysterious intruders soon enter. There’s a pleasingly surreal melancholy to where the film goes, and then it all turns quite meta indeed as Panahi enters as himself. While that initial moment provides a very visceral stir, where proceedings go from there make Closed Curtain feel like a meandering rehash of the prior (not a) film. [Josh Slater-Williams]

Released by 20th Century Fox

Released by New Wave Films

The Messenger

A Girl at My Door

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Director: David Blair Starring: Robert Sheehan, Lily Cole, Tamzin Merchant Released: 25 Sep Certificate: 15 Though pitched as a supernatural thriller, The Messenger dwells more on its protagonist’s own troubled life than the conspiracy he uncovers, but that’s more of a correction than a criticism. Don’t expect pacy thrills; the plot – prominent journalist’s mysterious death sparks media intrigue, yada yada – serves as an effective vehicle for Robert Sheehan’s smartly imagined Jack and his burdensome ability to speak with the deceased.

Unlike 2010’s Biutiful, where Javier Bardem’s similar gift takes a back seat, Sheehan’s grubby, snarky Jack is plagued nigh-on constantly by anxious ghosts eager to pass on a final message, thus providing the BAFTA-nominated Misfits star plenty of opportunities for well-aimed backchat and deadpan repartee.

Flashbacks substantiate some pathos, and intermittent snatches of conversation provide further insight into his condition. The story unravels predictably enough, and the supporting cast keep the wheels turning (David O’Hara as the sturdy, antagonising policeman; Lily Cole as the concerned but dispossessed older sis), but the message you’ll be most keen to spread after The Messenger’s credits role will be about its dynamic lead performance.

[George Sully]

Director: July Jung Starring: Bae Doona, Kim Sae-ron, Song Sae-byeok Released: 18 Sep Certificate: 18 This could so easily have been fluffed in less careful hands. Fortunately, writer-director July Jung has a delicate touch, melding a weighty, challenging story with wonderful performances. The resulting picture, thrumming with love, desire and violence, is excellent.

Young-nam (Bae Doona), the newly instated police chief in a small South Korean coastal town, has been transferred from Seoul on an obscure count of misconduct. She quickly finds herself allied with young Do-hee (Kim Sae-ron) against the girl’s drunk and violent stepfather, Yong-ha (Song Saebyeok). But Young-nam is a drinker too, downing rice wine she’s decanted into water bottles. And Do-hee shows increasing guile as she vies to escape her oppressive domestic circumstances. So though Yong-ha is certainly the villain, his stepdaughter and her protector show dark little flickers as they try to end his reign.

There’s a definite seam of melodrama running right through A Girl at My Door. But Jung works with such clarity, and Bae and Kim are so strong, that the end product feels so very sharp. [Angus Sutherland] Released by Peccadillo Pictures

Released by Metrodome

FILM

THE SKINNY

In Bob’s Image As the Fringe is packed away for another year, The Skinny speak to promoter Bob Slayer, following his most successful year, about the festival’s future Interview: Ben Venables was carrying one of our listing boards across town,” says Bob Slayer, “and someone asked if I had nicked it from The Pleasance – such is my reputation.”

The question should have perhaps come as little surprise for comedy’s own renaissance man.

For though Slayer is a comedian, promotor, tour manager, ‘fat jockey’ and registered keeper of a bus, he’s also shrewd when it comes to anticipating both Fringe and business trends. Anyone who saw his Heroes roster at the venues The Hive or on the BlundaBus at this year’s Fringe would naturally make the assumption these acts spend August in more edifying surroundings than a sticky nightclub and a retired double-decker. But this assumption would be wrong and there are good reasons why.

“If an idiot like me can attract the cream of Fringe shows within a few short years of starting promoting, then the established players probably need a bit of a rethink.

“All our shows are packed out, pre-sales have more than doubled on last year, there have been great reviews and, most crucially, the comedians are seeing the lion’s share of the door money.

There is also a really supportive feeling among all the acts.”

Slayer is no stranger to tackling the so-called ‘comedy industry’ head-on. Four years ago, ‘cock-

gate’ was in full swing with agents and production companies sending invoices to and even threatening to sue Slayer after musical comedy act Kunt and the Gang defaced/improved many Fringe posters with penis-shaped stickers promoting their own show, then playing at The Hive where Slayer was involved with a different Fringe organisation.

“Even ‘big industry’ know the game is up” However, it now seems former doubters are looking to Slayer’s Pay-What-You-Want model as one of the only viable ways for the Fringe to work.

With PWYW people have a choice of guaranteeing a seat in advance for £5 or turning up on the day and paying what they think the show was worth on exit. Furthermore, comedians do not take on the costs of performing at one of the big venues but still benefit from a business model which still has upfront sales for tickets.

“Yesterday, someone from the very company that once threatened to sue me told me our model was the very best way to do the Fringe. It seems

Credit: www.blundabus.com

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that even ‘big industry’ know that the game is up.

You can no longer expect to continue working with the most exciting new performers while persisting with a model that puts them in debt.

“It is promising to see that this year both the Pleasance and Just The Tonic are following our lead and trialling Pay What You Want. They are learning that it is a distinct and different model to Free and has more in common with paid shows.

The rise of the free shows was a successful protest vote against the Pay-to-Play Fringe that puts marketing above creativity, but the next step in the evolution of the Fringe is a model where acts can take the best features of both free and paid.”

Yet, surely with the greater resources afforded by other Fringe organisations, shouldn’t Slayer be concerned about others adopting his model?

It seems he is unconcerned: “I hope the big producers, agents and venues

Pickup on South Street

The Cruel Story of Youth

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Director: Samuel Fuller Starring: Richard Widmark, Jean Peters, Thelma Ritter, Richard Kiley, Murvyn Vye Released: Out now Certificate: PG

Sam Fuller’s punchy New York noir Pickup on South Street is lean and mean, yet contains a curiously jovial quality to its portrait of postwar scavengers getting mixed up with Commies and coppers. With the delicious chemistry of bickering leads Widmark and Peters, it almost feels like a spiky romantic comedy got stuck in one of the 1950s’ bleakest visions of humanity – a beating heart alongside a cold soul. And it somehow all works magnificently.

Peters is a Commie agent’s patsy, unwittingly transporting a microfilm of military secrets. Widmark is the crafty pickpocket who pinches her purse and sets off a chain of events that spells disaster for them, the government agents who were on her tail, the secret Red ex-boyfriend (Richard Kiley) who did her wrong, and Thelma Ritter’s weary, Shakespearian stool pigeon. Few films are as entertaining a rush as this propulsive 80-minute whirlwind. [Josh Slater-Williams]

Director: Nagisa Oshima Starring: Miyuki Kiwano, Yasuke Kawazu, Yoshiko Kuga Released: Out now Certificate: 15 ‘Cruel’ is the operative word in the title of Nagisa Oshima’s second feature – one of three he turned out in quick succession in 1960.

This rapid workflow didn’t curb the quality of the finished article: a cynical tale of wayward youth presented with a suitable degree of directorial maturity.

As you’d expect with Oshima, sex, violence and the interconnectedness of the two are key themes, though their onscreen exploration thankfully stops short of the controversial excesses of many of his later works. Still, what’s there is provocative enough, charting an abusive relationship between two disenfranchised students living in post-war Tokyo; an affair that begins with attempted sexual assault and deteriorates from there. It all adds up to a fairly pitiless portrait of apathy, alienation, generational discord and rife misogyny; not exactly an enjoyable watch, then, but a fascinating one both for fans of Oshima and the Japanese new wave more broadly. [Chris Buckle]

are successful at finding performer friendly models, because once they put acts first and offer them fair and proper deals, I won’t need to promote anymore and I can simply concentrate on having fun on my BlundaBus. “Anyone can start their own Fringe venue, all you need to do is always put performers and creativity above marketing, keep your costs down, have great staff and also know that Pay What You Want really works.”

Slayer is adamant the model means the Fringe is led by the artists, as it should be: “A cultural change is happening at the Fringe, a change that is being defined by independent thinking acts, with the industry following behind.” @BobSlayer | bobslayer.com | heroesof.com

Pressure

Director: Ron Scalpello Starring: Danny Huston, Matthew Goode, Released: Out now Certificate: 15

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It’s just as well for director Ron Scalpello that last year’s Black Sea flopped. Had Kevin MacDonald’s submarine thriller found an audience, Pressure would likely have sunk without a trace. Instead, it proved a minor hit with festival audiences inclined to regard it as a piece of bravura filmmaking rather than a pale imitation.

Pressure tells the story of four oil ship crew who find themselves stranded at the bottom of the ocean after carrying out repairs on a pipeline. Unable to radio for help and with oxygen supplies diminishing, the men must act fast to save themselves. The claustrophobic confines of the underwater vessel are suited to feelings of panic and suspense, but writers Alan McKenna and Paul Staheli over-egg things with a po-faced script. Elegiac dream sequences sit uneasily beside cornball dialogue, with character development treated as an irrelevant afterthought. [Lewis Porteous]

Eat Drink Man Woman

My Darling Clementine

La Grande Bouffe

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Director: Ang Lee Starring: Sihung Lung, Chien-lien Wu, Yang Kuei-mei, Gua Ah-leh Released: Out now Certificate: 15 The final chapter in Ang Lee’s ‘Father Knows Best’ trilogy completes the director’s tenderly ironic chronicle of the compromise between tradition and modernity in Taiwan. A richly textured comedy about the tensions across two generations of a Confucian family, Eat Drink Man Woman typifies the filial focus of Lee’s early work.

Sihung Lung, the recurring father figure of Lee’s trilogy, plays Master Chu, a widowed chef renowned for his traditional cooking.

Even though he has lost his sense of taste, Chu works tirelessly to prepare the elaborate banquets that bring his three unmarried daughters under the same roof. Each is struggling to find love in a world that moves at a different pace to that of their father, and communication across the family is chiefly performed at the dinner table, with Chu’s culinary skills giving this emotionally authentic portrait of shifting values a warm and sensual touch. [Patrick Gamble]

September 2015

Director: John Ford Starring: Henry Fonda, Linda Darnell, Victor Mature, Walter Brennan, Tim Holt Released: Out now Certificate: U John Ford’s take on the Gunfight at the OK Corral was one of the first of his string of Westerns in the sound era and has a legendary cast including Henry Fonda as Wyatt Earp, Victor Mature as Doc Holliday, Walter Brennan as the patriarch of the villainous Canton clan and Cathy Downs as Clementine, whose elegant presence Holliday has run away from in shame and which Earp is beguiled by.

Ford doesn’t emphasise the melodrama of showdown or unrequited romance so much as meditate on the lyrical spaces in between the plot points. My Darling Clementine is simple in its storytelling while transcendent as a poem of rhythms, bonds and values; it establishes heartfelt relationships, interrupts them through brutal violence and poignantly builds a grand statement of the Old West as a landscape yearning to be civilised. It’s a story of ties that bind, bullets that shatter and grace that heals. [Ian Mantgani]

DVD / COMEDY

Director: Marco Ferreri Starring: Andréa Ferréol, Marcello Mastroianni, Michel Piccoli Released: Out now Certificate: 18 Reviled upon its release in 1973, La Grande Bouffe now stands as one of sidelined auteur Marco Ferrari’s most palatable works. Of course, the tale of French high society figureheads literally eating themselves to death within the confines of a secluded mansion is conducive to a generous amount of gross-out gastrointestinal set pieces. What’s remarkable, though, is the restraint shown by the director and his star-studded cast. Like the best surrealist cinema, the film is directed with an assured hand and presents the bizarre in as formal a setting as possible, as if it were utterly prosaic. The suspension of disbelief required to accept the characters’ course of action mirrors the process through which society perpetuates inequality and class division. The corrosive, nihilistic ugliness of excessive wealth and consumer culture has never been quite so damningly exposed. [Lewis Porteous]

Review

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Miller’s Centenary Michael Emans talks about Arthur Miller’s centenary and how Rapture Theatre chose to honour it this autumn

Credit: Tommy Ga-ken Wan

Interview: Emma Ainley-Walker

Confessions of a Justified Sinner

Queen’s Hall, 21 Aug

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apture Theatre are fifteen years old this year, but the birthday they want to celebrate is that of playwright Arthur Miller in his centenary year.

“We’re very keen to give as much to his work as possible,” says artistic director Michael Emans, calling The Skinny from rehearsals. “We’ve produced some of his work before and we’ve premiered some of his work in Scotland. The centenary was a way to look at the scope of his work.”

The company are touring first All My Sons, written in the late 1940s, followed by The Last Yankee, penned in 1993. “It’s interesting to see the change and the developments between the two plays,” Emans says, seeing similarities and differences in the texts. “The Last Yankee is a much quieter piece, much more delicate as a piece of writing, whereas All My Sons is much more full-blooded.

It’s very theatrical, it’s very full on. To me the contrast in them showed a really good range to Miller’s writing.”

“There’s an awful lot of references in All My Sons to how people are stuck in the past and can’t move on and in The Last Yankee the whole crux of it is whether this woman can try and move on to a better life. There’s also very much a thing about society in Miller. In All My Sons it’s the idea of war profiteering and how you come back and juggle having to make decisions that are contrary to the general good and balancing that out. In The Last Yankee, Leroy has eschewed that competitive lifestyle and has instead chosen one that’s much more sedate, but that has an effect on his wife whereby she feels that he’s not successful enough. Leroy makes a decision that is quite an honourable one but the ramifications of it are quite detrimental. It’s how you balance out the desires of the individual against the desires of the greater good. It’s a very interesting piece of theatre. They’re both tremendously well-written pieces.”

It’s the strength of writing that draws Rapture to Miller’s work, and to any work they produce.

“We’ve always been drawn to writing that has a purpose with strong characters and strong narrative, that tells a strong story and has powerful themes, that still resonates today even if the play was written fifty years ago. It’s got to connect with an audience today and place characters in that situation that an audience can engage with.” Whe-

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ther it be work to the scale and acclaim of Miller’s, or new, contemporary work, as with their past production, Shang-a-Lang, a Bay City Rollers play by the writer of Mamma Mia. “With Shang-a-Lang in particular it was a different spin as well on what can be a predictable genre, the girls’ night out piece, because at the end of the play they all go their separate ways and I think that was quite an interesting twist on it. We do cover a broad range of work but it’s really down to quality writing, getting really exciting actors to work with and producing really good quality work and then getting it out to audiences around the country.”

“We’ve always been drawn to writing that has a purpose with strong characters and strong narrative, that tells a strong story and has powerful themes” Michael Emans

All My Sons is touring to five locations around the country, before The Last Yankee tours to over twenty. “Whether you’re in Selkirk or Inverness you should be able to access really good quality theatre on your doorstep; you shouldn’t have to travel to Glasgow or Edinburgh,” says Emans – and they’re set to offer exactly that this autumn.

All My Sons, touring, 1-26 Sep The Last Yankee, touring, 1 Oct-7 Nov rapturetheatre.co.uk

Paul Bright’s Confessions of a Justified Sinner, Queen’s Hall, run ended

Credit: Mihela Bodlovic

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Paul Bright’s Confessions of a Justified Sinner belongs at The Queen’s Hall – star George Anton seems to agree as he fills the huge space with not only his own presence, but that of Paul Bright himself, of James Hogg and of Robert Colwen.

Feeling almost like the greatest history lecture you could ever attend, Confessions is all at once a classical performance and a complete departure from what you might expect on stage, paying homage through its incredibly meta narrative to Paul Bright’s original episodes and the novel itself. The use of interviews on the big screen are reminiscent of BBC arts documentaries, but the play goes so much deeper than that into the psyche of the text and of the plays.

Anton fumbles his lines at one stage – ‘I did my vocal warm up’ – and it is a marvel that he does not trip over himself more often, thanks to the speed and passion with which he delivers information. He moves seamlessly between himself as narrator, as curator, as he is now, as he was then and into Bright’s own words and journals.

One particular scene in which he reads a speech or poem of Bright’s over impassioned but silent video of the man himself strikes almost perfect balance.

This performance is a play about plays and those who make them, about literature and falling in love with your art, and the dark places that can lead to. It understands theatre like maybe no other work. [Emma Ainley-Walker]

Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour Traverse Theatre, 19 Aug

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Who could resist National Theatre of Scotland’s latest gift to audiences? Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour embraces outrageous humour and dark parody to bring Alan Warner’s novel The Sopranos to the stage, skilfully adapted by Lee Hall. Part play, part gig, part comedy of errors, Our Ladies tells the story of six Catholic schoolgirls as they travel from their small town to compete in a choral singing competition in Edinburgh, and more importantly to embark on a journey of self-discovery, sex and getting ‘mashed’ in a 24-hour bender of epic proportions.

It’s hard to see how any portrayal of teenage girls caught up in the terror and exhilaration of growing up could feel more authentically human, despite their exaggerated escapades. Behind the raucous façade, there’s a real gritty darkness.

THEATRE

The schoolgirls’ struggles are universally recognisable but never clichéd, and each character is well-realised and respectfully portrayed as she deals with her own personal challenges and triumphs.

The musical format of the play is equally effective, and adds something unique to the production. A live band provides stirring accompaniment as the actors perform covers of the likes of ELO and Bob Marley, weaving beautiful choral harmonies into rock‘n’roll classics. Their energy is infectious, and the musical numbers are seamlessly integrated into the structure of the performance.

Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour has a universal appeal that’s sure to impress audiences regardless of age, gender or taste. This makes it a rare gem. [Cat Acheson] Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour, touring Scotland and Newcastle nationaltheatrescotland.com

THE SKINNY

Bard is a Four-Letter Word The 2015 StAnza Poet in Residence Clare Mulley joins us to report upon, discuss and simply ponder the poetry world. Take this first column as an introduction...

Interview: Clare Mulley

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h, the joys of moving. If you’re sensible, everything is already stored in its proper place at home and it’s just a question of putting it in the right box. As I’m not, my bedroom has a bad case of piles. Piles of dirty laundry, piles of clean laundry, piles of books, piles of rubbish, piles of things that haven’t had homes since I last moved... After five big moves, you’d think I’d have learned by now. Well, at least this time there’s a three-suitcase limit. When you have to be ruthless (no ‘maybe-I’ll-wear-this’ items or ‘fondmemory’ trinkets, and don’t even mention the ‘interesting-stones-I-collected-on-travels’), the job gets done far more quickly.

Once that’s over, the fun begins. Not only am I moving, I’m starting my first magazine column (incidentally, hi there) and a new job, a poetryresidency-cum-teaching-assistant role at a London school – the first paid role I’ve ever had with ‘poet’ in the title. That, as any poet will tell you, is a rare and jammy thing to wangle, especially if you’re newish. Do I feel guilty? Only slightly. It’s not going to be a breeze – proving I’m worth the extra salary will keep me on my toes – but, as a word-aholic, I honestly can’t think of much I’d rather do than help children unleash their creativity with words.

Speaking of creativity, it’ll soon be time to crack on with another job – namely, starting a poem.

As part of another residency, I’ve been attending re-enactment events with the Battlefields Trust and gathering material for a pamphlet. With Bosworth’s 750th Anniversary looming, I’ve just had an e-mail: are there any poems I could read at the event this weekend, preferably on Richard III? Well, erm… no. After emailing last month to check if there was anything I should prepare, and getting no reply, I assumed I’d just be watching and scribbling ideas for later. A year ago that email would have triggered panic, but experience has left me more chilled. You’d be surprised how often this happens. Event organisers really don’t intend to muck the writer around – they just get to them last in the rush of sorting out all the other, more concrete tasks. Sadly, some do go one level up in douchebaggery, and assume that pulling decent writing out of thin air shouldn’t be a big deal, because ‘it’s your job’. Luckily, knowing this, you can prepare the cheat’s way like on Blue Peter.

I may not have a poem for the weekend, but I have the ingredients.

When the residency started, even before I visited my first battlefield I started reading, watching

A Portable Shelter

On Writing

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By Kirsty Logan

A collection of skillfully written short stories where the beauty of imagination meets the inevitable harshness of life, A Portable Shelter is the latest literary offering from Kirsty Logan, author of The Gracekeepers and The Rental Heart and Other Fairy Tales.

In the peaceful coastal surroundings of their cottage in the North of Scotland, Liska and Ruth spend their time telling stories to their unborn baby and sharing both memories and life lessons.

Their passionate voices intertwine to introduce figures from their past. The narrative transitions are sometimes obscure yet meaningful and often emotional. Domestic werewolves, wicked witches, bears and dragons are just a few of the characters populating a world of the fantasic, yet one imbued with memory, pure reality and, occasionally, the sadness of life experience. Bittersweet, nostalgic and often sublime, these appear to be fragments of life more than happy-ending fairytales. ‘Truths wrapped up in stories’; that is the precious gift the parents-to-be are offering to their future child.

Logan blends themes of mythology, symbolism, family, loss and change in these tales; each one accompanied by an illustration from award-winning artist Liz Myhill.

Selected for its undeniable literary merit, A Portable Shelter was produced with the assistance of Creative Scotland’s Dr Gavin Wallace Fellowship, which aims to promote talented writers and literary organisations in Scotland.

[Vanessa Piras]

documentaries and writing down all related thoughts – sometimes I thought of questions to ask myself to help me get into the frame of writing about war. How long, for instance, does it take to load a musket between shots, and how would you try to stop yourself fumbling in that time gap? How were corpses and decay treated as a topic in the Middle Ages? This type of mind-mapping is always my way in. Even when I begin crafting the poem itself, I rarely start with the first line, unless one pops up and the rest grows afterwards. If, as Lodge said, the first line of a novel is a threshold into another world, then it’s the same with poems… but this threshold is more like the entrance to a party.

The way you walk in and greet people can make or ruin a first impression, and you don’t have long periods of time to grow into yourself. If you trip, or blurt out one inept word, that’s it. A poem that starts with a ‘clunk’ is dead in the water. The personal display aspect also creates problems; a novelist can be screened by their world, but poetry, being someone’s artistic reaction to an idea or theme, is by its very nature self-reflective. You can’t hide.

So how to enter a poem gracefully? Like the party, I suppose you have to balance enough

Wind/Pinball

By Charles Bukowski

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‘I am a dangerous man when turned loose with a typewriter,’ wrote Charles Bukowski in late 1960.

But he was only just getting going: the letters collected here show the dangerous intensity of the following four decades of writing. He’s a loner, holed up in tiny Los Angeles apartments, starting to write poetry at 35 having spent ten years of his life in the depths of unproductive and near-fatal alcoholism. Resolutely disconnected, he loathes almost all contemporary poetry and dislikes the Beats (‘they were too self-promotional and the drugs gave them all wooden dicks or turned them into cunts’).

Here we see him pouring forth all his wild energy: reveling in being a ‘Dirty Old Man’ of American letters. He’s quick, funny, and makes no effort to hide anything. The letters are every bit as spunky as his work elsewhere: a ballsy low-life set free and calling out the bullshit wherever he looks. His voice fills your head, sentences all loose with beer and life and a sense of getting to the heart of it all.

You can hear the battering of the typewriter as he goes – he has one setting, whether writing to close friends, enemies, editors, or big famous writers. The pace of the man is incredible: ‘I’ve gulped down damn near a full bottle in 15 minutes, chilled white. Have to, it gets warm so fast.’

[Galen O’Hanlon] Out now, published by Canongate, RRP £14.99

Two Novels by Haruki Murakami

subtlety to enter without disrupting the atmosphere with enough interest to grab attention. Many poems are ready-made, in that they are a preexisting pool of images, ideas and statements – it’s just how you tap them. Out of curiosity I googled ‘starting poems’, and found an article by the Academy of American Poets, which asked six poets that question. Interestingly, a lot of them do what I do; they mind-map ages before starting anything, and let the ‘entrance’ come after the tone of the whole is set.

Cate Marvin expresses it perfectly: “I like to think of poets as moving through the world with their minds poised like nets, intent on capturing scraps of language, resonant images.” The world is waiting to be written, so we’re always mapping it first – poems are what follow. After all, you can’t decide where you start a walk without knowing the lay of the land, and which rocks lie under the surface. Once you’ve studied the surroundings, you can start planning the route. Only then can you choose a departure point. @simply_spiffing

The Seed Beneath the Show

By Joanna Ramsey

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Referred to by Murakami as his kitchen-table novels, Hear the Wind Sing and its follow-up Pinball mark the humble beginnings of a literary giant. Back then he would come home after closing up the bar he owned and ran with his wife, to sit up late, writing at his kitchen table. In the decades that have followed, Murakami has produced a formidable number of works, ranging from slender novellas to hefty tomes, some of which loosely connect to the characters found in his début works and all of which have stayed true to and nurtured their hypnotic blend of modern-day reality and dream-like strangeness.

The protagonist of both novels is the typical, most likely semi-autobiographical young man of Murakami prose – easygoing, a little adrift, socially detached and able to remain unruffled by the inexplicable things that occasionally befall him.

Wind finds him in college, home for the summer to hang out with his old friend the Rat as the two of them haunt the local bar and wonder about life. Pinball catches up with him three years later, running his own translation company and living with the identical twin girls who appear in his bed one evening.

From the very beginning, it seems, Murakami has had the ability to make a story where nothing happens seem completely irresistible. And to make almost any degree of bizarreness seem completely natural. [Ross McIndoe]

There are a good few tomes and takes on the great Orcadian poet George Mackay Brown. Often painting the man in magisterial dourness, with his final decade downplayed next to the earlier years of first drinking, then obsessive writing. Yet it is this later period documented here, within the narrative of a friendship. It seems his sober image was in many ways a professional construct and, refreshingly, Ramsey reveals a kind and relaxed private man – although one plagued by the black dog of depression alongside physical ailments – who gifted his many friends with personal poems (some published here for the first time).

He is viewed purely through this author’s lens, with both the focus and limitation this prescribes. At times it feels a hybrid; Ramsey bursting to tell her own story in line with her subject, but often inhibiting herself in this regard, as if reluctant to stray from perceived biographical expectations. After the sad death of the great poet, her prose becomes more insightful, and yes, poetic (she is one) – as if freed from an earlier necessity to diarise the number and frequency of afternoons with George and instead reflect poignantly on what he meant to her. There is value, when touched upon, in the wider setting of Orkney and its community, with George as its modest idol. This may only chronicle his later years, but the smaller cracks still let in the light. [Alan Bett]

Out now, published by Harvill Secker, RRP £16.99

Out now, published by Sandstone Press, RRP £8.99

Out now, published by The Association for Scottish Literary Studies, RRP £9.95

September 2015

DVD / BOOKS

Review

61

62

THE SKINNY

Glasgow Music Tue 01 Sep

NESHIIMA (SITHU AYE + THE SUN EXPLODES + MILK)

THE GLAD CAFE, 19:30–22:00, £10

Glasgow metal nuts incorporating elements of tech and melodic into their mix, out launching their new EP.

ALEX CORNISH

The Edinburgh singer/songwriter and his effortlessly laid-back DIY folk-pop songs, sewn together with some live musical trickery.

SPINNING COIN (BREAKFAST MUFF + HOLY MOTORS)

BLOC+, 21:00–01:00, FREE

New Glasgow boyband featuring a cast of recognisable faces from various other bands.

Wed 02 Sep

BAD SIGN (FOES + HERSHEL’S HEAD + THE BLACK ART) NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 19:30–23:00, £6

Croydon hardcore heroes Bad Sign head north on their September tour with FOES. THE JANOSKIANS

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00, £22.50

Virally-popular Australian comedy band pulling pranks like Jackass never happened.

THE CHERRY WAVE (NLC SHOEGAZER + BOSPHOROUS) BLOC+, 21:00–01:00, FREE

Fuzzed out Scottish shoegaze unit incorporating melody and heavily reverberated vocals into their dense fog of sound.

JOYWAVE (EDWIN ORGAN)

KING TUT’S, 20:30–23:00, £8

New York-residing indie-rock unit, out on world tour with their debut LP How Do You Feel Now?

Thu 03 Sep

STRUGGLE (FLAKES + ANNA’S ANCHOR)

BLOC+, 21:00–01:00, FREE

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

JONNY CRAIG

CLASSIC GRAND, 19:00–22:00, £10

The former Ghost Runner on Third frontman embarks on a solo project with an r’n’b/pop vibe.

HERE WE GO MAGIC

KING TUT’S, 20:30–23:00, £9

New York indie-rock troupe formed by core members Luke Temple, Michael Bloch and Peter Hale in 2008.

Fri 04 Sep

SINDERINS (HAVE MERCY LAS VEGAS + GRAEME QUINN)

KING TUT’S, 20:30–23:00, £7.50

Harmonic East coast ensemble with duelling lead vocals, formed from the ashes of the impossibly titled Anderson, McGinty, Webster, Ward and Fisher.

PIANO WIRE

BROADCAST, 19:00–22:00, £5

Ex-members of the much-missed Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster get together for a new project of suitably raucous rock music.

PARTISAN (THE PURGATORY HAUS BAND + THIS MANKIND + YOUNG FAULT)

BUFF CLUB, 19:00–22:00, £6

Manc ensemble of the punchy anthemic rock variety.

THE INSOMNIAC PROJECT

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 20:00–23:00, £5

Glasgow indie-popsters combining live instruments with polished electronic production, out launching their new single.

Sat 05 Sep

THIS FEELING (TRAMPOLENE + THE PHANTOMS + THE MONA LISAS)

KING TUT’S, 20:30–23:00, £5

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

TIJUANA BIBLES

ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:00, £8

Glasgow rock’n’rollers built on a diet of gritty guitars, driving bass lines, baritone vocals and rocksteady drums.

NEVILLE STAPLE BAND

AUDIO, 19:00–22:00, £16

The Specials frontman and British ska figurehead takes to the road with his live band ensemble.

ROB FALSINI

13TH NOTE, 20:00–23:00, £TBC

London-based folk/pop singer/ songwriter who’s no stranger to busking.

September 2015

STEREO, 18:30–22:00, £8

NEMECYST (LIFELINES)

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 20:00–23:00, £5

The Scottish metalheads celebrate the release of their new single.

Sun 06 Sep JUAN WAUTERS

BROADCAST, 19:00–22:00, £8

The singer of The Beets does his solo folk-rock thing, out touring his second LP. ANNASTACIA BAKER

13TH NOTE, 20:00–23:00, £TBC

Gospel songstress who first came to attention on 2008’s The X Factor.

Mon 07 Sep

HAIKU SALUT (CHRISSY BARNACLE + CITIZEN BRAVO)

SLOANS, 20:00–23:00, £8

Following the release of second LP Etch and Etch Deep, the Derbyshire-based trio bring their unique ‘lamp show’ to Glasgow, taking to the stage surrounded by a light orchestra of vintage household lamps.

MAC DEMARCO (DINNER)

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £15

Slacker rock multi-instrumentalist and artist hailing from Canada, formerly known as Makeout Videotape.

OH SO QUIET

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:00, £6

Multi-national outfit led by Lucas and Malena Zavala, built on a bed of layered rhythms, soaring melodies and indie soundscapes.

WILL HOGE

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £13.50

Nahsville country crooner out touring his latest LP Small Town Dreams. Part of No Mean City Festival.

FLESH WORLD (SICK OF TALK + VITAL IDLES)

THE FLYING DUCK, 20:00–22:30, £6

The San Fran DIY punksters make their debut Scottish appearance.

ALVVAYS ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:00, £12

Canadian indie-pop darlings still riding high on the release of their self-titled debut LP. GIRLPOOL

BROADCAST, 19:00–22:00, £8

LA-based indie duo made up of high-school friends Harmony Tividad and Cleo Tucker.

MO KENNEY

THE HUG AND PINT, 20:00–22:00, £5

The Canadian singer/songwriter previews tracks from his new LP In My Dreams, due out in September.

F*CK YES (SUNSHINE SOCIAL + MADE AS MANNEQUINS + BEDFORD RASCALS)

KING TUT’S, 20:30–23:00, £5 (£4)

Monthly gig showcase from F*ck Yes Glasgow.

HOUNDSTOOTH (DAVE FRAZER AND THE SLAVE LABOURERS)

THE GLAD CAFE, 19:30–22:00, £6

Electric folk troupe led by singer Katie Bernstein.

CONTAINER (APOSTILLE + LORD REAL)

THE FLYING DUCK, 20:00–22:30, £6

Rhode Island minimal techno troupe with a stripped down, beatorientated approach.

Thu 10 Sep

BILLY LIAR (JOE MCMAHON + TRAGICAL HISTORY TOUR)

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 20:00–23:00, £TBC

The Scottish guitar slinger alights for an intimate set.

GOOD GRIEF’S GOOP SHOP (JUFFAGE + URVANOVIC) BLOC+, 21:00–23:00, FREE

The DIY label and zine collective present their monthly outing and fresh zine launch combined.

WILLARD GRANT CONSPIRACY (BIGG HOGG + NICOLA BLACK)

THE GLAD CAFE, 19:30–22:00, £10

Alternative country ensemble based near Palmdale, California – originally formed by Robert Fisher and Paul Austin back in’t 1995 and now operating as a collective.

KEVIN MORBY

BROADCAST, 19:00–22:00, £6.50

The Woods bassist and Babies frontman tours as a solo entity.

JERRY LEE LEWIS

LAURA CANNELL (CRYING LION)

THE SWORD (HEAVY SMOKE)

PETITE NOIR

CROWHURST (CAINA)

THE GLAD CAFE, 19:30–22:00, £5

KING TUT’S, 20:30–23:00, £14

KING TUT’S, 19:00–23:00, £12.50

13TH NOTE, 20:00–23:00, £TBC

Fiddle and recorder player drawing on medieval music for her improvisational compositions, incorporating fragments of 5th14th century music.

Sat 12 Sep

THE WRONG BOYFRIENDS (THE UNIVERSAL THEE + LT:BK)

13TH NOTE, 20:00–23:00, £4

Scottish outfit specialising in damaged gutter punk, lo-fi schizophrenia, head torches and gothic tendencies. That eclectic enough for you?

FAT GOTH (TEETH + MONDEGREEN)

THE HUG AND PINT, 20:00–22:00, £5

The fledgling power rock trio play a polished set of psychedelic grooves, built on their tight vocal harmonies and ingenious song structures.

BIG STRAUSS

STEREO, 19:00–22:00, FREE

The moody Glasgow indie stars play a special hometown set.

DAN OWEN

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 20:00–23:00, £6

Young Shrewsbury lad catapulted to fame after Mick Fleetwood took him under his wing.

BBC PROMS IN THE PARK 2015

GLASGOW GREEN, 19:15–22:00, £13.50 (£7.50)

Programme of open-air music from the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and special guest Alexandra Burke.

ODDISEE

KING TUT’S, 20:30–23:00, £13

American rapper and producer, know to his mammy as Amir Mohamed el Khalifa.

CARBS (PHOENE + SHAM GATE + MIAOUX MIAOUX DJ)

THE GLAD CAFE, 19:30–22:00, £5 ADV. (£6 DOOR)

Collaborative project from Glasgow-based sonic tinkerer Jonnie Common and Jamie Scott (aka one half of Conquering Animal Sound).

KANDE

CCA: CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART, 20:00–22:00, £12 (£8)

Southern Aceh musician known for his refreshing and exhilarating music expressing themes of peace, environment and spirituality. Part of Discover Indonesia.

Collaborative musical experiment of Mike Watt and Sam Dook.

STEREO, 19:00–22:00, £8

Tue 08 Sep

KING TUT’S, 20:30–23:00, £10

Sun 13 Sep

TAME IMPALA (NICHOLAS ALLBROOK)

BARROWLANDS, 19:00–23:00, £18.50

Alternative rock project of Aussie chap Kevin Parker and chums, known for their psychedelic and groove-laden melodic rock soundscapes.

BRAKES (CUDDLY SHARK)

KING TUT’S, 20:30–23:00, £12

Brighton four-piece featuring former British Sea Power keyboardist Eamon Hamilton.

DRINKS

CCA: CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART, 19:00–22:00, £10

Fledgling project of Cate Le Bon and Tim Presley, who insist it’s a solo project, not a collaboration (go figure).

SPARE SNARE (FOGGY CITY ORPHAN + POOR FRISCO) BLOC+, 19:30–01:00, FREE

The John Peel favourites return to celebrate the 20th anniversary of debut LP Live At Home.

Wed 09 Sep FUTURE ISLANDS

BARROWLANDS, 19:00–23:00, £17.50

The mighty Maryland outfit do their badass new-wave pop thing, with funk-inflected lead singer Sam Herring likely growling his way through the set.

GAMELAN NAGA MAS

ROYAL CONSERVATOIRE OF SCOTLAND, 19:30–22:00, £7 (£4)

Fusion of gamelan, western instruments, voice and visuals featuring original music composed by members of Naga Mas and avant garde jazz musician Sun Ra. Part of Discover Indonesia.

GABRIEL GARZON-MONTANO

New York singer, composer and multi-instrumentalist of the bittersweet ballads and thick grooves.

CHIN STROKE RECORDS UK TOUR (DJ DETWEILER + DJ DADMAGNET + POM DETER + QUEERHAWK + DDN)

13TH NOTE, 20:00–23:00, £TBC

Chin Stroke Records tour, with a selection of label acts in tow.

INTER- #3

STEREO, 19:30–22:00, £5

Fledgling event series for the performance of multichannel and surround sound work, and other work made specifically for loudspeakers.

Fri 11 Sep

SONIC HEARTS FOUNDATION

STEREO, 19:00–22:00, £TBC

The atmospheric Weegie indierockers play their deft mix of fuzzed-out shoegaze dynamics and slightly more conventional indie and pop.

HALF MAN HALF BISCUIT

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £20

Sardonic post punk veterans known for their relentless touring schedule and surrealist humour.

MARK MCGOWAN

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:45–22:00, £6

The Glasgow-based acoustic soul singer/songwriter launches his new single.

WAND

BROADCAST, 19:00–22:00, £10

Los Angeles-based psych-rock quartet our touring their second LP Golem.

NEON RUNNERS (THE RONAYNES + THE DIGNITIES)

BUFF CLUB, 19:15–22:00, £5

Intergalictic space rockers formerly playing under the guise The Heralds of Galactus.

Old-school rockin’ musical teamup of David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash.

ROSE KALLAL (PHOSPHENE + CRU SERVERS)

CCA: CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART, 20:00–22:00, £7 (£6)

New York visual and sound artist in Glasgow for one night only, performing a live modular synth set backed by multiple 16mm film loop projections. Go marvel.

HILL 52 RADIO SHOWCASE (CHUMP + ELARA CALUNA + VIRGIN LIPS + CHITRA SANGTANI) THE ART SCHOOL, 20:00–03:00, FREE

The Art School young broadcasting Society present a diverse showcase of spoken word, performance, theatre and music, with late night party vibes from Night of the Jaguar.

ASTPAI (FALSE HOPES)

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 19:30–23:00, £6 ADV. (£8 DOOR)

The Austrian punk-rock noisemakers descend on Glasgow.

Thu 17 Sep

THE BLUETONES (THE STANDARD LAMPS)

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £21

The English indie-rock Brit Pop troupe return to the live stage.

THE TOASTERS (ESPERANZA)

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:00, £12

Longstanding ska ensemble formed in NYC by British frontman Rob ‘Bucket’ Hingley back in 1981.

TRANSPLANTED (DAVID FENNESSY + MARTIN KERSHAW + STUART MACRAE + EDDIE MCGUIRE + CHRIS STOUT + HANNA TUULIKKI + DAVID WARD + JUDITH WEIR ) THE GLAD CAFE, 19:30–22:00, £12

The clue’s in the title: a Scottish Alternative Music Awards Showcase, o’course!

Eight Scottish composers unveil new miniatures exploring the characteristic sounds of native wild plants, taking inspiration from Scottish Baroque composer James Oswald’s 1755-published Airs for the Seasons.

Wed 16 Sep

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 20:00–23:00, £5

SCOTTISH ALTERNATIVE MUSIC AWARDS SHOWCASE

BLOC+, 21:00–01:00, FREE

TARIBOWEST (SPACE BLOC)

BLOC+, 21:00–01:00, FREE

A selection of super-heavy live band sounds curated by Vasa’s J Niblock and Detour’s Ally McCrae.

CRUSHED BEAKS

BROADCAST, 19:00–22:00, £6

Noisy pop trio signed to Matilda Records.

CHRIS YOUNG

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £15

The Nashville country star hits town as part of his world tour.

PETITE NOIR

STEREO, 19:00–22:00, £TBC

Young South African muso and former member of electro-popsters Popskarr.

HIGH FLIGHT FANZINE PRESENTS...

The fledgling fanzine takes to Sleazy’s for a night of new sights and sounds.

GREAT LAKE SWIMMERS

BROADCAST, 19:00–22:00, £10

Canadian outfit riding along on the melodic folk-rock songs of singer/ songwriter Tony Dekker.

UGLY KID JOE

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00, £15.00

80s-formed Californian rock troupe who whose name is a riff on Pretty Boy Floyd.

RAT BOY (ZIBRA + VITAMIN)

KING TUT’S, 20:30–23:00, £8

Young Essex musician making socially observant hip-hopmeets-rock.

Experimental black metal unit hailing from Los Angeles.

Fri 18 Sep HONEYBLOOD

THE ART SCHOOL, 19:30–23:00, £10

The Scottish garage rock duo do their thing.

W.A.S.P.

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00, £20

The LA hard rockers tour their first LP in six years, with Golgotha marking their 15th studio LP. THE BEARDS (VIKING GALAXY)

KING TUT’S, 20:30–23:00, £15

Fuzzy-faced folk from South Australia, responsible for such beard-loving anthems as ‘If Your Dad Doesn’t Have a Beard, You’ve Got Two Mums...’ and ‘You Should Consider Having Sex With a Bearded Man’, which is nice.

THE WYNNTOWN MARSHALS (TEN GALLON BRATZ)

STEREO, 19:00–22:00, £10

Americana-styled Edinburgh lot with a penchant for guitars, catchy choruses and using music as a storytelling medium.

PUBLIC IMAGE LTD

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £26.50

Post punk outfit led by Sex Pistols frontman John Lydon, re-formed in 2012 and now with a new album under their belts.

RED NINE (THE BLUE LENAS)

BUFF CLUB, 19:15–22:00, £6

Self-styled ‘grit pop’ from Manchester.

H. HAWKLINE (GWENNO)

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:00, £7

Welsh singer/songwriter blending a rich tapestry of folk, psych and indie into his mix.

EASTERN PROMISE (BILL WELLS AND AIDAN MOFFAT + EUROS CHILDS + SUPERMOON + DUNCAN MARQUISS + DEAN MCPHEE)

THE GLAD CAFE, 19:30–22:00, £TBC

The elusive sextet (made up of various bands, including Arab Strap, Admiral Fallow and Frightened Rabbit) return for their first hometown show in two years, with support from labelmate Jo Mango.

JESUS AND HIS JUDGEMENTAL FATHER (DANIEL VERSUS THE WORLD + NO DITCHING + JOYCE DELANEY)

13TH NOTE, 20:00–23:00, £TBC

Leeds-based queer punk troupe built on big hooks and catchy choruses.

E.W. HARRIS (DAVE FRAZER AND THE SLAVE LABOURERS)

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 19:30–23:00, £5

Brooklyn-based indie-folk singer/ songwriter.

Sat 19 Sep

BETWEEN THE BURIED AND ME

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00, £17.00

The hardcore North Carolina crew bring their rollercoaster of metallic-rock Glasgow-way.

SCOTTISH FIDDLE ORCHESTRA

GLASGOW ROYAL CONCERT HALL, 19:30–22:00, FROM £12

The SFO return with an evening of lively Scottish jigs and reels, slow airs, dance and song, with some stirring pipe thrown in for good measure.

SWEET BABOO

KING TUT’S, 20:30–23:00, £10

North Wales singer/songwriter all sparkling melodies and deft lyrical turns.

WOLF ALICE

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £14

London four-piece fronted by Ellie Rowsell, making un-pigeonholeable folky rock with a distinctly poppy vibe.

PLATFORM, 19:00–22:00, £10 (£15 WEEKEND)

Platform’s mini-fest returns for a fifth surveying of some of the finest alternative music-makers around, with Bill Wells and Aidan Moffat, and Golden Teacher, headling Fri & Sat respectively, plus a gaggle of supports.

SENYAWA

The American rock’n’roller plays Great Balls Of Fire (and maybe some other hits), touring as part of his farewell 80th birthday tour.

SECC, 18:30–22:00, FROM £45

CROSBY, STILLS AND NASH

GLASGOW ROYAL CONCERT HALL, 20:00–22:00, FROM £41

Young South African muso and former member of electro-popsters Popskarr.

THE ART SCHOOL, 21:30–23:30, £12 (£8)

Javanese musician exploring the framework of experimental music practice, pushing the boundaries of both traditions. Part of Discover Indonesia.

CUZ (SUMSHAPES + HOWIE REEVE + BREAKFAST MUFF)

Austin-hailing heavy metallers back in the UK for another tour.

THE MOTH & THE MIRROR (JO MANGO + QUARTERBACKS)

WILLIWAW

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

Expect ukulele mayhem as Williwaw brings his merry cavalcade of melodious din to a live setting once more.

LITTLE FIRE (TOM VEVERS + CALUM PEARCE)

13TH NOTE, 20:00–23:00, £4

Ayr-based folk-meets-pop singer/ songwriter.

SASHA MCVEIGH

ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:00, £10

British country singer/songwriter whose debut LP was Kickstarter funded.

BAJALY SUSO

THE GLAD CAFE, 19:30–22:00, £6

West African traditional kora musician and singer.

Mon 14 Sep

FLORENCE AND THE MACHINE

THE SSE HYDRO, 18:30–22:00, £35

Florence Welch and her merry band do their much-loved indie-pop thing in the not-so-intimate surrounds of the Hydro.

YOUNG KATO

KING TUT’S, 20:00–23:00, £8

Breakthrough indie-pop lot hailing from Cheltenham and Birmingham.

PINEY GIR

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:00, £7

American synth-pop singer/ songwriter born in Kansas, but based in London.

Tue 15 Sep ACTION BRONSON

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £18.50

The Queens rapper and former fire-flame gourmet chef (yes, really) raps about food’n’stuff.

Listings

63

EASTERN PROMISE (GOLDEN TEACHER + BLOOD SPORT + RICHARD DAWSON + ASIQ NARGILE + BOSSY LOVE) PLATFORM, 19:00–22:00, £10 (£15 WEEKEND)

Platform’s mini-fest returns for a fifth surveying of some of the finest alternative music-makers around, with Bill Wells and Aidan Moffat, and Golden Teacher, headling Fri & Sat respectively, plus a gaggle of supports.

B. DOLAN

STEREO, 19:00–22:00, £10

The American rapper and performance artist plays a solo set, sans regular partner in crime Scroobius Pip.

Sun 20 Sep

THE WILDHEARTS (BABY CHAOS + HEY! HELLO!)

JACCO GARDNER

JAMES BAY

K-X-P

KING TUT’S, 20:30–23:00, £7

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

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:00, £8

Baroque pop multi-instrumentalist from the Netherlands, creating a unique sound by combining the sounds of harpsichord, strings, flutes and other classical instruments with raw psychedelic effects.

JOHN LEMKE (MATTHEW COLLINGS + ELA ORLEANS DJ)

MONO, 20:00–22:00, £6

Glasgow-based composer John Lemke launches his new LP Nomad Frequencies – fusing percussive piano, abstracted guitar landscapes and disembodied vocal textures.

CARLTON MELTON (LUMERIANS + THE COSMIC DEAD)

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 19:30–23:00, £6 ADV. (£10 DOOR)

Long-haired British singer/songwriter currently having his merry way with the pop/rock template.

BEN OTTEWELL

ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:00, £12.50

The Gomez singer and lead guitarist plays it solo, that unmistakable voice and talent for blistering guitar solos all well and in place.

SHURA (CLEAN CUT KID)

KING TUT’S, 20:30–23:00, £11

Pop producer and singer/songwriter, aka Aleksandra Denton when she’s off stage.

BEETHOVEN WEEKEND: THE YEAR’S OF MATURITY

CITY HALLS, 19:30–22:00, £15 (£13/£5 UNDER 26S)

Five northern chaps who, when combined, create a finely-honed, psychedelic-tinged, amp-steeped din of a thing.

JAMES BAY

In the final instalment of the three-year Beethoven project, resident artists Llyr Williams and the Elias Quartet play special tribute to the great composer’s later works.

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

Sun 27 Sep

The folk rock five piece drop in as part of their first ever UK headline tour.

JOANNA GRUESOME (KING OF CATS + SPINNING COIN)

BROADCAST, 19:00–22:00, £15

The Fortuna POP! signed indie-pop troupe give sophomore LP Peanut Butter the live treatment.

Experimental musician working her magic over the folk-pop template, all hints of choirs and twinkly noises.

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £20

The British rock veterans head out on’t road, with Ginger reunited with his bandmates CJ and Ritch, alongside the return of Scott Sorry on bass, playing second LP P.H.U.Q. in its entirety.

KOSOTI

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £6

WALTER LURE

Punk guitarist, known for strumming for his own band the Waldos and also 70s legends the Heartbreakers.

DANKO JONES (THE AMORETTES)

KING TUT’S, 20:30–23:00, £12

Long-haired British singer/songwriter currently having his merry way with the pop/rock template.

THE GLAD CAFE, 19:30–22:00, £7.50

Fri 25 Sep

MARTIN STEPHENSON AND THE DAINTEES

ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:00, £16

Canadian rock trio led by singer/ guitarist Danko Jones, ably backed

by John Calabrese and Rich Knox.

British rockers fusing elements of rockabilly, show tunes and rootsypop into their mix.

Mon 21 Sep

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £22.50

STATE CHAMPS

KING TUT’S, 20:00–23:00, £12

The pop punk revivalists – a chilling phrase if ever there was – head out on their first major headline tour.

Tue 22 Sep REBEKA

BLOC+, 21:00–01:00, FREE

The Polish synth pop duo play in support of their debut LP Hellada.

Wed 23 Sep CUT LOOSE (LUO)

BLOC+, 21:00–01:00, FREE

The Glaswegian promo collective welcome Brighton-based dreamy glith-step quartet Luo for a guest set.

FLESH (FUTURE GLUE + THE APPARELLS)

KING TUT’S, 20:30–23:00, £6

Manc foursome who self-describe their thing as ‘snotpop’, which is nice.

THE ENGLISH BEAT (CAPONE AND THE BULLETS)

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £18

Dave Wakeling – the singer, songwriter and guitarist behind 80s 2-tone outfit, The Beat – tours his band line-up, performing the hits of The Beat and General Public.

TOM BROSSEAU (BEN REYNOLDS)

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:00, £8

North Dakota-born, LA-based singer/songwriter who learned acoustic guitar from his grandmother. D’aww.

SUN ARAW (FRAMS TORNERS + CRU SERVERS)

THE FLYING DUCK, 20:00–22:30, £6

Austinite Cameron Stallones (aka Sun Araw) plays a dubby ethereal live AV set.

EYES WIDE OPEN (MAGIC CASTLES + ELECTRIC GARDEN)

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 19:30–23:00, £7

HUE AND CRY

The Coatbridge duo play two special shows over the weekend; one stripped with strings performance (25 Sep) and one full live band show (26 Sep).

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:00, £5

Airdrie dweller Louise Connell brings her delicate acoustic indiefolk soundscapes to a live setting.

KING TUT’S, 20:30–23:00, £8

Young London-based chappie making bold, modern pop with an elusive edge.

BEETHOVEN WEEKEND: THE YOUNG BEETHOVEN

CITY HALLS, 19:30–22:00, £15 (£13/£5 UNDER 26S)

In the final instalment of the three-year Beethoven project, resident artists Llyr Williams and the Elias Quartet play special tribute to the great composer’s early works.

WOMPS

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:00, £5

Off-kilter indie-folk project of Glasgow’s Ewan Grant, formerly playing under the guise Algernon Doll.

SURFER BLOOD (ETERNAL SUMMERS)

BROADCAST, 19:00–22:00, £8.50

The American alternative rock unit give their new LP 1000 Palms the live treatment.

MIST (AYE-AYE + MAUK)

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 19:30–23:00, £6

Slovenian doom metal unit with occult leanings.

Sat 26 Sep

CHARLIE AND THE BHOYS

BARROWLANDS, 19:00–23:00, £19

Another Barrowland singalong with the Donegal Celtic rockers.

DUTCH UNCLES

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 19:30–23:00, £TBC

HUE AND CRY

The Coatbridge duo play two special shows over the weekend; one stripped with strings performance (25 Sep) and one full live band show (26 Sep).

THE GIROBABIES

STEREO, 19:00–03:00, £6

The hard-rockin’ Glaswegian outfit do their angsty thing, out launching their new LP Who Took Utopia?

SKILTRON

CLASSIC GRAND, 19:00–22:00, £12

Folk metal (with bagpipes!) from South America, returning to slay the UK once more.

64

Listings

BEETHOVEN WEEKEND: VARIATIONS AND FUGUES

CITY HALLS, 15:30–16:00, £15 (£13/£5 UNDER 26S)

Llyr Williams leads a special concert of Beethoven works, including Variations and Fugue in E-flat major, Op.35.

BEETHOVEN WEEKEND: GROSSE FUGE

CITY HALLS, 14:00–16:30, £15 (£13/£5 UNDER 26S)

BEN KHAN

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £26.50

REVERIEME (CARA MITCHELL)

SUB CLUB, 23:00–04:00, FROM £10

Hot Natured resident Richy Ahmed bring his evolutionary take on house to Glasgow.

CITY HALLS, 17:00–19:30, £15 (£13/£5 UNDER 26S)

London garage rock outfit fronted by brothers Patrick and Chris Smith.

Thu 24 Sep

Former New Order and Joy Division bloke reliving his glory years, performing Lowlife and Brotherhood live and in their entirety.

RICHY AHMED

BUFF CLUB, 19:15–22:00, £6

ODD RIVAL (DARKSKY + THE AUSTINS + ELASTIC LEG PARTY)

Manc indie-pop five-piece, known for their use of atypical time signatures within a distinctly poppy context.

THE ART SCHOOL, 18:45–22:30, £22.50

ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:00, £12.50

The Elias Quartet are joined by Richard Wigmore to explore Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge Op. 133 and play it in its entirety.

Minnesota ensemble supplementing their sparkling psych pop with pervasive drones and dreamy atmospheres.

PETER HOOK AND THE LIGHT

GABRIELLE APLIN

BEETHOVEN WEEKEND: THE LATE STRING QUARTETS

The Elias Quartet and Llyr Williams explore the last substantial work Beethoven completed, his Op 135 quartet finished in October 1826, among other works.

NEW MOTION (ALL SHE KNOWS + INDIGO SIXTEEN + ECHO PARK)

KING TUT’S, 20:00–23:00, £6.50

English alternative pop foursome in possession of their debut EP.

TRAQUAIR AND THE TRANQUILIZERS (THE CHINASKIS + THE CRAIG HUGHES 2) NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 19:30–23:00, £5

Singer/songwriter Stewart Traquair’s latest musical venture.

Mon 28 Sep MALLORY KNOX

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £14

Pop-meets-rock quintet named after Juliette Lewis’ psychopathic character in Natural Born Killers, in case you were wondering.

PRETTY VICIOUS

KING TUT’S, 20:00–23:00, £6

Fledgling Welsh rock foursome formed in 2014, paying a return visit to King Tut’s.

BLANK REALM

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:00, £7.50

Sibling-heavy Aussie punk blues bunch made up of Daniel, Luke and Sarah Spencer, plus non-sibling Luke Walsh.

WHIRLWIND RECORDINGS MINI FEST (KONRAD WISZNIEWSKI QUARTET + RACHAEL COHEN QUARTET + MICHAEL JANISCH’S PARADIGM SHIFT) STEREO, 19:00–22:00, £15 (£25 WEEKEND)

A selection of Scottish-based Whirlwind Recordings artists present musical selections from their previous or upcoming releases.

Tue 29 Sep JOANNE SHAW TAYLOR

ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:00, £20

British blues rock guitarist discovered as a 16 year-old by the Eurythmics Dave Stewart.

TOM MCRAE

KING TUT’S, 20:30–23:00, £16.50

Essex-born singer/songwriter adept at imbuing his songwriting with his innermost worries and woes.

Helsinki-based trio making experimental, other worldly sounds – known for their intense live shows.

NOVELLER

THE GLAD CAFE, 19:30–22:00, £8

Former Parts & Labour guitarist Sarah Lipstate goes it alone on her solo tour, now signed to Fire Records.

NICOLA BENEDETTI: ITALY AND THE FOUR SEASONS

GLASGOW ROYAL CONCERT HALL, 19:30–22:00, FROM £18.50

The classical violinist returns to the Usher Hall with a programme of music inspired by the spirit of Italy.

LIFEHOUSE

O2 ABC, 19:00–22:00, £18.50

The Los Angeles hard rock trio come back to the UK, celebrating a decade together.

Edinburgh Music Wed 02 Sep NATALIE PRASS

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 19:00–22:00, £12.50

The Nashville-based singer/ songwriter tours her self-titled new LP.

OPM (THE WAREHOUSE AGREEMENT + AC RID) BANNERMANS, 20:00–23:00, £11 ADV. (£13 DOOR)

The LA-based rockers celebrate a mighty 20 years of being.

THE ROCKALLS (SWEATY PALMS + POLARNECKS + FACIAL SLURS)

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00, £5

HIT THE ROAD PRESENTS... (GUS HARROWER + RHONA MACFARLANE + RUTH GILLIES + AARON SMITH) ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 19:00–22:00, £5

Music project run by the Scottish Music Centre and supported by the Youth Music Initiative, giving young performers aged 14-19 the opportunity to learn more about performing and touring across Scotland.

BEYOND RECALL

THE MASH HOUSE, 19:00–22:00, £5

The Bristol nu-metal experimenters stop by.

Mon 07 Sep

LONELADY

Glasgow-based noisemakers who describe their thing as ‘cactus punk’, as you do.

CCA: CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART, 19:00–22:00, £10

Thu 03 Sep

BANNERMANS, 22:00–23:00, £6 ADV. (£8 DOOR)

Mancunian post-punk songwriter (aka Julie Campbell) plugging back in after a few years off the grid in support of her upcoming funkinflected effort Hinterland.

WHIRLWIND RECORDINGS MINI FEST (TOM GIBBS BAND + RYAN QUIGLEY QUINTET + MICHAEL JANISCH’S PARADIGM SHIFT) STEREO, 19:00–22:00, £15 (£25 WEEKEND)

A selection of Scottish-based Whirlwind Recordings artists present musical selections from their previous or upcoming releases.

Wed 30 Sep POOR THINGS

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 20:00–23:00, £TBC

Three-piece sunny indie-pop mob in exile from their Perth homeland.

ASHTON LANE

THE GLAD CAFE, 19:30–22:00, £10

Scottish troupe imbued with catchy radio hits and uplifting soulful melodies, out launching their new LP.

THE PICTUREBOOKS (THE MAYANS + THE OUTLAWED)

KING TUT’S, 20:30–23:00, £7

German duo pushing the boundaries of the simple guitar and drums set-up.

SUZZY ROCHE + LUCY WAINWRIGHT ROCHE

ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:00, £17.50

Part of female vocal trio The Roches, Suzzy Roche takes to the road with her similarly talented sprog, Lucy Wainwright Roche.

Thu 01 Oct

STILLHOUND (FOREVER)

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:00, £6

All-new live band project from the unit that was Discopolis.

Fri 02 Oct CIRCUIT DES YEUX

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:00, £8

Live music project from Haley Fohr, using sounds as representations of the emotional spectrum that we all experience.

Sat 03 Oct TENEMENT TRAIL

THE ART SCHOOL, KING TUT'S, O2 ABC, BROADCAST, NICE 'N' SLEAZY & FLAT 0/1 14:00–23:00, £15.00

Glasgow media dudes Tenement TV host the third annual Tenement Trail – spider-webbing across six venues, taking in a headline set from fledgling Glasgow popsters White, plus Neon Waltz, Pinact, Man Of Moon, Pronto Mama and more.

MOUNTAIN HIGHT: A NIGHT OF TAMALA-MOTOWN

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:00, £6

The creators of Blitzed present a night of Tamla-Motown, featuring a full live band and with 60s/70s dressing up encouraged.

Mon 05 Oct ROZI PLAIN

THE HUG AND PINT, 19:30–22:00, £8

The Lost Map Records label lass continues to ride the wave of 2015 LP Friend – a gem-like batch of ramshackle folk tunes, built on hand-picked guitar lines, grooveladen drums and her spell-like vocals.

THE BURNING CROWS

BANNERMANS, 20:00–23:00, £6 ADV. (£8 DOOR)

The swaggering UK rockers make a return trip to Edinburgh.

BAD SIGN + FOES

THE MASH HOUSE, 19:00–22:00, £6

Croydon hardcore heroes Bad Sign head north on their September tour with FOES.

Fri 04 Sep

TRAPPED MICE (NOW WAKES THE SEA + HAMISH JAMES HAWK + NICE CHURCH)

HENRY’S CELLAR BAR, 19:00–22:00, £5

The Edinburgh quartet do their alternative folk-meets-indie racket of a thing to suitably fine effect.

FIZZY BLOOD (RORY INDIANA + MEGALOMATIC)

Leeds-based rock’n’rollers with a penchant for big riffs.

SOUNDHOUSE @ TRAVERSE THEATRE: OLD BLIND DOGS

TRAVERSE THEATRE, 20:00–22:00, £10

Continuing its weekly gig residency at Trav, departed Edinburgh music venue Soundhouse welcomes roots revivalists Old Blind Dogs, raising funds for The Soundhouse Organisation.

Tue 08 Sep

CUZ (THE WOODS + HOWIE REEVE)

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00, £10

Collaborative musical experiment of Mike Watt and Sam Dook.

CHASAR (RUSHAR)

Wed 09 Sep

BANNERMANS, 18:00–23:00, £7 ADV. (£9 DOOR)

BANNERMANS, 20:00–23:00, £5

Classic hard rock unit hailing from Alloa, playing a special Rush tribute and then a set of their own.

FISCHER-Z

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 19:30–23:00, £10

Solo set from John Watts of Fischer-Z, who during his 36-year career has amassed some 20 albums.

SUITE 69 CLUB (LES BOF!)

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 19:30–23:00, £TBC

The French 60s disco is revived for one-night-only, with a live set from from Edinburgh-based garage outfit Les Bof!

Sat 05 Sep RICHARD THOMPSON

THE QUEEN’S HALL, 19:00–22:00, £27.50

The unassuming elder-statesman brings his acoustic and electric guitar virtuosity our way.

DEF CON ONE

BANNERMANS, 20:00–23:00, £6

Newcastle metal quartet incorporating old school rock, modern metal and proper punk sounds into their mix.

THE VALKARYS (ALIAS KID)

THE MASH HOUSE, 19:00–22:00, £6

Edinburgh-formed psychedelic garage band, who relocated to London for some years, but are now firmly returned to their homeland.

HALO TORA

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 19:00–22:00, £5

Glasgow-based ensemble blending rock sounds into something fresh and interesting via soaring dual lead vocals and three part harmonies, guitars and piano.

EDINBURGH BLUES CLUB (GERRY JABLONSKI AND THE ELECTRIC BAND + SIMON BRETT BAND)

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 19:00–23:00, £10

Regular blues club taking in touring blues acts from the UK and beyond.

GOODBY BLUE MONDAY, + WOLF POETS + THE RESISTANCE + THE TREND

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00, £5

Indie-centric line-up from PMCJ.

Sun 06 Sep OH SO QUIET

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00, £6

Multi-national outfit led by Lucas and Malena Zavala, built on a bed of layered rhythms, soaring melodies and indie soundscapes.

HAYES CARLL AND BAND

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 19:30–23:00, £15

The bearded Texan singer/songwriter plays a set with his live band accompaniment.

DOBERMANN

The Turin rockers make their Edinburgh debut.

Edinburgh rock-meets-pop troupe of the distinctly jangly persuasion.

OUT OF THE BLUE DRILL HALL, 11:30–15:00, FREE

Fri 18 Sep

JOHN BAILEY + PAUL LAKIN

Geordie duo of vocalist John Turrell and DJ/producer Jonathan Watson, deftly putting their seductive spin on all genres of soul.

Brunch and live music event in the Drill Hall cafe, featuring a selection of local musical talent. And cake!

ST ANDREW’S AND ST GEORGE’S WEST, GEORGE ST, 12:30–14:30, £8 (£4)

Northwest UK guitarists John Bailey and Paul Lakin play a varied set of classical guitar music.

I.C.O.N. (A RITUAL SPIRIT + TERGAZZI + DAMAJ)

BANNERMANS, 20:00–23:00, £6

The heavy metal unit make a return trip to Bannermans.

TORMAIN (WHITEHILL GROVE)

THE MASH HOUSE, 19:00–22:00, £5

The indie/pop/rock locals play a hometown set.

OUR LUCID REALITY (EXIT THE THEATRE)

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00, £5

The Glasgow-based alternative synth rockers make the trip Edinburgh-way.

Sun 13 Sep

MARTIN METCALFE AND THE FORNICATORS

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 19:30–23:00, £10

The Edinburgh-based singer/ songwriter plays a set with his live band of scallys, The Fornicators.

WARNER E. HODGES (BOSS CAINE)

BANNERMANS, 20:00–23:00, £10 ADV. (£12 DOOR)

The Nashville rockers hit Bannermans for a full electric band show.

ETERNAL SUMMERS (PINACT )

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 19:00–03:00, £5

Thu 10 Sep

Mon 14 Sep

LAPTOP LOUNGE (INGEN + MILANOMETRIC + REVERSE ENGINEER + DARA AND THIRD MOUNTAIN)

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 20:00–23:00, FREE

The alternative live electronic night returns, ranging from experimental through ambient to electro and techno as it goes, with DJs and VJs to boot.

THE POLYPHONIC SPREE

THE LIQUID ROOM, 19:00–22:00, £17.50

Choral symphonic rock outfit hailing from Dallas, Texas, usually made up of a 10-person multi instrumentalist choir, celebrating their 15th anniversary.

MIKE TRAMP (LUCER)

BANNERMANS, 20:00–22:00, £10 ADV. (£12 DOOR)

The former White Lion frontman, and later Freak of Nature, plays full live electric show.

MO KENNEY (EXIT THE THEATRE)

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00, £5

The Canadian singer/songwriter previews tracks from his new LP In My Dreams, due out in September.

ANDREW COMBS (BARNA HOWARD)

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 21:00–01:00, £12

The Nashville-based singer/ songwriter tours his sophomore LP All These Dreams.

Fri 11 Sep

WILLARD GRANT CONSPIRACY

WEE RED BAR, 19:00–22:00, £10

Alternative country ensemble based near Palmdale, California – originally formed by Robert Fisher and Paul Austin back in’t 1995 and now operating as a collective.

ABEL GANZ (THE GIFT)

REBEL WESTERNS (ACADEMY STRANGERS)

THE MASH HOUSE, 19:00–22:00, £6

BRUNCHEON

Arish ‘King’ Khan and Mark ‘BBQ’ Sultan mark 20 years of making punk.

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00, £12

The Aussie rock unit take in the UK as part of their European tour.

Sat 12 Sep

Virginia rock trio made up of singer/guitarist Nicole Yun, drummer Daniel Cundiff and bassist Jonathan Woods, out celebrating the release of their fourth LP Gold and Stone.

KING KHAN + BBQ (THE NO THINGS + THE JACKHAMMERS)

THE VANS BANNERMANS, 20:00–23:00, £5

SOUNDHOUSE @ TRAVERSE THEATRE: TINA MAY + NIKKI ILES

TRAVERSE THEATRE, 20:00–22:00, £10

SMOOVE AND TURRELL

THE BONGO CLUB, 19:00–22:00, £12.50

NIEVES (SCOTIA + EMILIE)

THE MASH HOUSE, 19:00–22:00, £5

Fledgling Glasgow duo of the alternative indie-folk variety.

PIANO WIRE

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00, £6

Ex-members of the much-missed Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster get together for a new project of suitably raucous rock music.

SCOTTISH NATIONAL JAZZ ORCHESTRA + BENNY GOLSON

THE QUEEN’S HALL, 19:30–22:00, £20 (£18)

The SNJO celebrate the work of saxophonist, composer and songwriter Benny Golson, with the man himself in attendance.

KING CRIMSON

USHER HALL, 19:30–22:00, FROM £55

The London-formed rock troupe return to active duty in what is now their 8th incarnation, playing a duo of consecutive Edinburgh dates (17 & 18 Sep).

VARUKERS (DOGFLESH + HAPPY SPASTICS + EATEN BY CROWS)

BANNERMANS, 18:00–23:00, £6

UK hardcore punk lot formed by in 1979 by vocalist Anthony Martin.

B. DOLAN

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 19:00–22:00, £10

The American rapper and performance artist plays a solo set, sans regular partner in crime Scroobius Pip. JASON WEBLEY

HENRY’S CELLAR BAR, 19:00–22:00, £TBC

Prolific American musician known for his fusion of folk, experimental and alternative music.

Sat 19 Sep PINS

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00, £8

Continuing its weekly gig residency at Trav, departed Edinburgh music venue Soundhouse welcomes musician Tina May and pianist Nikki Iles for a one-off performance, raising funds for The Soundhouse Organisation.

All-girl Mancunian quartet currently living out their love of the C86 sound.

BANNERMANS, 22:00–23:00, £15 ADV. (£18 DOOR)

LIMBO (THE TELESCOPES + DELTA MAINLINE + ST DELUXE)

TRACII GUNS (STONE TRIGGER + SCARLETS)

The Hollywood rock’n’roll veteran comes to the UK.

Tue 15 Sep RACHEL YAMAGATA

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 19:00–22:00, £16

The US-of-A songstress returns to Scotland for a full band set.

Wed 16 Sep JAMMIN’ AT VOODOO

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 21:00–23:00, FREE

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

RICKY WARWICK + DAMON JOHNSON

BANNERMANS, 20:00–23:00, £12 ADV. (£14 DOOR)

The former Black Star Riders duo take to the road for a special unplugged tour.

CREATION SESSIONS

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 20:00–23:00, £6

Harry Mulligan curates his live music talent session.

TONGUES (REDOLENT + FIRE IN THE ALPS)

THE MASH HOUSE, 19:00–22:00, £6

NICOLA BENEDETTI: ITALY AND THE FOUR SEASONS

USHER HALL, 19:30–22:00, FROM £20

The classical violinist returns to the Usher Hall with a programme of music inspired by the spirit of Italy.

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 19:30–23:00, £5 EARLYBIRD (£8-£10 THEREAFTER)

Beloved gig-in-a-club night this time headered by psych-styled English space rockers The Telescopes and their dreamy pop soundscapes.

HDQ (CROSSFIRE + THE DIPSOMANIACS + PANIC ATTAK + FACEHANDLE)

BANNERMANS, 20:00–23:00, £9

Punk tribute night.

SQUINGY (MADHAT MCGORE + SKYY BOII + BRIGHT SPARKS + JIGZ)

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 19:00–22:00, £6.50 ADV. (£10 DOOR)

The UK hip-hopper takes to the stage.

Sun 20 Sep BALTHAZAR

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 19:00–22:00, £7

Belgian pop outfit infusing their sound with rock, electro and hiphop influences.

LAUREN HOUSLEY

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00, £5

The Manc chanteuse belts out the classics.

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 19:30–23:00, £10

The electronic pop/rock Weegies make the journey down the M8.

Mon 21 Sep

SONG, BY TOAD’S BAD FUN (JUFFAGE)

Thu 17 Sep

USHER HALL, 19:00–22:00, £27.50

The veteran Glasgow proggers return to the live stage.

HENRY’S CELLAR BAR, 19:30–22:00, £5

Music blogger Song, By Toad’s regular live music showcase night, taking in live talent and guest DJs of the reliably good variety.

SPAT (JOCKNEY REJECTS + THE FIEND + THE MATATUNES)

BANNERMANS, 20:00–23:00, £6

The Spat crew perform a special one-off birthday show in their old hometown.

EDINBURGH BLUES CLUB (LIL JIMMY REED + AL BROWN BAND)

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 19:15–23:00, £13

Regular blues club taking in touring blues acts from the UK and beyond.

KING CRIMSON

USHER HALL, 19:30–22:00, FROM £55

The London-formed rock troupe return to active duty in what is now their 8th incarnation, playing a duo of consecutive Edinburgh dates (17 & 18 Sep).

BRAND NEW

Laid-back, Long Island rock quartet formed in a New York basement back in 2000.

THE BAND OF HOLY JOY (THE CATHODE RAY + LOLA IN SLACKS)

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 19:30–23:00, £10

Ever-changing London lot who began life as gutter chansoniers using junk shop instruments to propagate a literate form of dispossessed urban folk music.

THE SKINNY

SOUNDHOUSE @ TRAVERSE THEATRE: ALISON AFFLECK + DAVID MACGREGOR TRAVERSE THEATRE, 20:00–22:00, £10

Continuing its weekly gig residency at Trav, departed Edinburgh music venue Soundhouse welcomes jazz aficionados Alison Affleck and David MacGregor to pay tribute to Ella Fitzgerald and Joe Pass, raising funds for The Soundhouse Organisation.

CONTROL THE STORM (METAPRISM)

BANNERMANS, 22:00–23:00, £6

Female-fronted metal unit taking their cue from the likes of Nightwaish and Lacuna Coil.

Tue 22 Sep SUN ARAW

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00, £9

NEU! REEKIE!: EDINBURGH AND COPENHAGEN PILRIG ST PAUL’S CHURCH, 19:00–23:00, £10 (£8)

The favourited night of avantgarde poetry, music and film hosts a special outing as part of City Link Festival, with guests being kept under wraps for now.

Sun 27 Sep JUDIE TZUKE

THE CAVES, 19:00–22:00, £21

The English singer/songwriter showcases songs from her new album, alongside classics spanning a three decade career.

BBC SCOTTISH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA: RUNNICLES CONDUCTS MAHLER 10

USHER HALL, 15:00–18:00, FROM £12

Austinite Cameron Stallones (aka Sun Araw) plays a dubby ethereal live AV set.

Conductor Donald Runnicles leads a live reworking of Mahler’s Symphony No 10. Pre-concert talk (2pm).

HENRY’S CELLAR BAR, 19:30–01:00, £3

BANNERMANS, 20:00–23:00, £TBC

CELLAR BAR FOLK CLUB (PONS AELIUS + GILLESPIE AND WOLFE + NOTE TO SELF)

REIGN OF FURY (RAMAGE INC + DOG TIRED + DISPOSABLE)

Monthly intimate folk session in Henry’s diminutive basement.

UK thrash metal unit with hints of punk.

Wed 23 Sep

Mon 28 Sep

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00, £6

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 19:00–22:00, £7

CARA MITCHELL

Aberdonian singer/songwriter in possession of a unique voice.

JOANNA GRUESOME

SUMMERHALL, 20:00–01:00, £10

The Fortuna POP! signed indie-pop troupe give sophomore LP Peanut Butter the live treatment, ripping through Summerhall as part of the venue’s Nothing Ever Happens Here gig series.

MIST

BANNERMANS, 20:00–23:00, £6

Slovenian doom metal unit with occult leanings.

Thu 24 Sep THE DAMNED

THE LIQUID ROOM, 19:00–22:00, £18

The seminal punk foursome take to the road again, now rather impressively nearing their 40th year of being.

MARTIN STEPHENSON AND THE DAINTEES

THE CAVES, 19:00–22:00, £16

British rockers fusing elements of rockabilly, show tunes and rootsypop into their mix.

SKILTRON (FARSEER)

BANNERMANS, 20:00–23:00, £8 ADV. (£10 DOOR)

Folk metal (with bagpipes!) from South America, returning to slay the UK once more.

ART GARFUNKEL

USHER HALL, 19:00–22:00, FROM £27.50

One half of the legendary Simon and Garfunkel and a seminal performer in his own right, Mr Garfunkel re-visits the highlights of his career as part of his six-date September UK tour.

THE KING LOT (FIREROAD + MASON HILL)

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 19:30–23:00, £10

Scottish melodic hard rock band of buddies formed in late 2013.

STILLHOUND (EYES OF OTHERS)

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:30–22:00, £6

All-new live band project from the unit that was Discopolis.

Fri 25 Sep SOULACOASTER

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 21:00–23:00, £TBC

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

MOON HOP (DAN LYTH + LOMOND CAMPELL + MOON HOP DJS)

HENRY’S CELLAR BAR, 20:00–01:00, £5

Musical club night featuring live performances from a selection of hot musical talent, bolstered by the regular DJs playing into the wee hours.

PETE BENTHAM AND THE DINNER LADIES

BANNERMANS, 18:00–23:00, £TBC

Liverpool-based ska/punk rockers.

Sat 26 Sep

ALY BAIN + PHIL CUNNINGHAM

THE QUEEN’S HALL, 19:30–22:00, FROM £17

Traditional Scots fiddle and accordion duo in their 30-somethingth year of touring together.

ARMY OF SKANKS

BANNERMANS, 20:00–23:00, £6

Ballsy alternative punk rock with tribal undertones.

September 2015

NOVELLER

Former Parts & Labour guitarist Sarah Lipstate goes it alone on her solo tour, now signed to Fire Records.

SOUNDHOUSE @ TRAVERSE THEATRE: THE CORN POTATO STRING BAND

TRAVERSE THEATRE, 20:00–22:00, £10

Continuing its weekly gig residency at Trav, departed Edinburgh music venue Soundhouse welcomes harmonious singing fiddlers The Corn Potato String Band, raising funds for The Soundhouse Organisation.

BERNIE MARSDEN (THE SMOKEHOUSE BLUES BAND)

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 19:00–23:00, £15

Blues guitarist active in the music world for over 30 years, playing an acoustic set with Jim Kirkpatrick.

SONS OF TONATIUH (GREY WIDOW + HEDLESS KROSS)

BANNERMANS, 20:00–23:00, £5

Atlanta ensemble built on a diet of dirgy sludge and punk rock.

Tue 29 Sep CLICK CLACK CLUB

HENRY’S CELLAR BAR, 19:00–22:00, £6 (£4)

Experimental monthly music club bringing the good times with their Beefheart-inspired funk and special guests.

Wed 30 Sep COURTING CONTROVERSY

BANNERMANS, 20:00–23:00, FREE

Chilled night of acoustic-led singer/songwriters.

Dundee Music Sat 05 Sep

SPARE SNARE (EMMA POLLOCK)

DCA: DUNDEE CONTEMPORARY ARTS , 19:30–22:00, £7

The John Peel favourites return to celebrate the 20th anniversary of debut LP Live At Home.

Fri 11 Sep

ALFRED HOLLINS: 150TH ANNIVERSARY CONCERT

CAIRD HALL, 19:30–22:00, £TBC

Special concert celebrating the birth of Alfred Hollins, the blind organist and composer who designed the Caird Hall organ, performed by organist David Aprahamian Liddle (who is also blind) and a selection of guests.

RODDY RADIATION AND THE SKABILLY REBELS

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

The Specials’ lead guitarist plays a set of ska rhythms mixed with rockabilly, backed by his live band ensemble The Skabilly Rebels.

Thu 17 Sep AARON WRIGHT

BUSKERS, 19:30–22:00, £4

The Glasgow troubadour plays a set of his indie, folk and countryreferencing tunes, with new LP Flying Machine featuring input from members of Teenage Fanclub and Belle and Sebastian.

Fri 18 Sep

DUNDEE CELT FEST (GRAHAM BROWN BAND + CLANN AN DRUMMA + THE LORELEI) BUSKERS, 19:30–22:30, £40 WEEKEND

Glasgow Clubs

Inaugural Celtic rock and folk fest, with headline acts including Donnie Munro and his eight-piece ensemble and Celtic rock troupe Coast. All funds raised go to charity.

The midweek residents serve up their usual rammy of pop-punk and hardcore, whilst the bar doles out alcoholic slushies. Slurp.

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

BUSKERS, 23:00–02:30, FREE

Thu 03 Sep

CATHOUSE, 17:00–21:00, £2/£1

WIRE & WOOL

Dundee’s anarchic bluegrass ensemble do their live thing with a special late night set.

Sat 19 Sep

DUNDEE CELT FEST (DONNIE MUNRO + DAVID LINDSAY + TIR NA NOG + IONA FYFE) BUSKERS, 13:30–22:30, £40 WEEKEND

BEAST WEDNESDAYS

THE ROCK SHOP

CATHOUSE, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£2)

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

HIP HOP THURSDAYS

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

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

JELLY BABY

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £4

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

GENERAL LUDD

Inaugural Celtic rock and folk fest, with headline acts including Donnie Munro and his eight-piece ensemble and Celtic rock troupe Coast. All funds raised go to charity.

General Ludd, part of Glasgow collective Golden Teacher, commence a new Glasgow residency showcasing their new productions and discoveries.

THE GARDYNE THEATRE, 19:30–22:00, £18

CATHOUSE, 23:00–03:00, £5

ALY BAIN + PHIL CUNNINGHAM

Traditional Scots fiddle and accordion duo in their 30-somethingth year of touring together.

Sun 20 Sep

DUNDEE CELT FEST (COAST + PAULINE ALEXANDER & EDWIN GALLACHER + TED CHRISTOPHER & BANNOCKBURN + BOBBY BRADY + ALLAN HUNT)

BUSKERS, 13:00–22:00, £40 WEEKEND

Inaugural Celtic rock and folk fest, with headline acts including Donnie Munro and his eight-piece ensemble and Celtic rock troupe Coast. All funds raised go to charity.

TOYAH

THE GARDYNE THEATRE, 19:30–22:30, £22.50

80s icon Toyah Wilcox performs a selection of ‘hits’.

Thu 24 Sep MARTIN TAYLOR

THE GARDYNE THEATRE, 19:30–22:00, £18

Solo jazz guitarist and composer, carving a path for himself as an innovative fingerstyle guitarist.

Sat 26 Sep

HORDES OF BELIAL (REIGN OF FURY + DIESELKING + DOG TIRED + RAMAGE INC + SCUMPULSE + ALL CONSUMED)

BEAT GENERATOR LIVE!, 16:30–23:00, £10

One-day noise fest welcoming a selection of bands of the underground metal and hard rock persuasion; you do the moshing.

Tue 29 Sep BIG COUNTRY

DUNDEE REP, 19:30–22:00, £20 (£9)

Dunfermline-born 80s rockers formed when Stuart Adamson left The Skids in 1981 and recruited guitar partner Bruce Watson.

Glasgow Clubs Tue 01 Sep KILLER KITSCH

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

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

I AM 5.1 (BLACK BUTTER RECORDINGS)

SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, FROM £6

Resident young guns Beta & Kappa ripen to the grand old age of five, celebrating with a duo of acts from the Bristol’s Black Butter Records label – genre-traversing duo My Nu Leng and bass artist Woz (aka Ashley Westlake).

Wed 02 Sep TAKE IT SLEAZY

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:00–03:00, FREE

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

SUB ROSA

SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5

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

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, FREE

UPRAWR

Weekly Thursday takeover with guest DJs, prize giveaways and themed drinks.

ROYALTY

THE FLYING DUCK, 23:00–03:00, £3 (STUDENTS FREE)

New weekly Thursday club getting you in the weekend mood with pop and r’n’b party tunes.

VOODOO

Under 18s rock night playing, er, anything and everything rock.

LOVE MUSIC

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £5

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

SINGLES NIGHT

THE FLYING DUCK, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

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

STRANGE PARADISE

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

CATHOUSE FRIDAYS

CATHOUSE, 22:30–03:00, £6 (£4)

Residents fun night of rock, metal, punk and emo spread over three rooms.

JAMMING FRIDAYS

Wed 09 Sep

The long-running house night sets sail on the high seas (well, down the Clyde) with guest Tim Sweeney joining them on the water, and then again on dry land at the Subbie after-bash. Boat leaves from Glasgow Science Centre.

SUBCULTURE BOAT PARTY: AFTERPARTY (TIM SWEENEY)

SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £12

Official after-bash for Subculture’s boat party down’t the Clyde, with the full deck crew joining them on land for s’more DJ action.

NIGHT OF THE JAGUAR (BREAKFAST MUFF)

THE ART SCHOOL, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£4)

SUB ROSA

SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5

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

BEAST WEDNESDAYS

CATHOUSE, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£2)

The midweek residents serve up their usual rammy of pop-punk and hardcore, whilst the bar doles out alcoholic slushies. Slurp.

HUNTLEYS AND PALMERS VS WRONG ISLAND

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:00–03:00, FREE

GUILTY PLEASURE

CLASSIC SATURDAYS

Alternative blowout of metal, industrial, pop-punk, rock, emo and more.

LET’S GO BACK... TO DISCO (AL KENT)

LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£5)

The Let’s Go Back... troops host a disco special, with specialist of the genre Al Kent manning the decks for the full four hours.

Fri 11 Sep OLD SKOOL

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£6)

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

PROPAGANDA

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £5

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

CATHOUSE FRIDAYS

CATHOUSE, 22:30–03:00, £6 (£4)

BLOC+, 21:00–01:00, FREE

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

SHED, 22:30–02:00, £7 (£5)

New weekly Thursday club getting you in the weekend mood with pop and r’n’b party tunes.

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

CATHOUSE, 23:00–03:00, £2 (£1)

CLIFFHANGER

ROYALTY

THE FLYING DUCK, 23:00–03:00, £3 (STUDENTS FREE)

Residents fun night of rock, metal, punk and emo spread over three rooms.

Thu 10 Sep

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

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

H+P’s Andrew and pals play tunes across the board, joined for a one-off live versus set by Wrong Island’s Teamy and Dirty Larry.

Sun 06 Sep

DEATHKILL 4000

CLASSIC GRAND, 22:30–03:00, £6

PROPAGANDA

GLASGOW SCIENCE CENTRE, 19:00–23:00, £28

BLOC+, 23:00–03:00, FREE

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£6)

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £5

SUBCULTURE BOAT PARTY (TIM SWEENEY)

Resident young guns Beta & Kappa celebrate with their second birthday bash of the month, this time joined by Daniel Avery and his acidflecked tunneling soundscapes.

Party night from floral-shirted Wild Combination man David Barbarossa, specializing in leftfield disco, post-punk and far-out pop.

Fri 04 Sep Connoisseur’s mix of old-school jazz, funk and soul for your jivin’ pleasure.

GONZO BLOC+, 23:00–03:00, FREE

The NOTJ collective play a set of all things musically unusual, as is their merry way – joined for a live set by local punk-popsters Breakfast Muff.

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, £3

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

OLD SKOOL

I AM 5.2 (DANIEL AVERY) SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £10

MUSIC TALKS (KILL THE WAVES)

New monthly live indie-rock clubber’s delight.

HIP HOP THURSDAYS

COMMON PEOPLE

THE FLYING DUCK, 21:00–03:00, £5

JAMMING FRIDAYS

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

DJ Kelmosh plays a mix of rock, dance and indie.

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

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

Mon 07 Sep

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £4

BLOC+, 23:00–03:00, FREE

BURN

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

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

JELLY BABY

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

GOOD GRIEF’S GOOP SHOP (JUFFAGE + URVANOVIC) BLOC+, 21:00–23:00, FREE

Tue 08 Sep

The DIY label and zine collective present their monthly outing and fresh zine launch combined.

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, FREE

KILLER KITSCH

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

IN THE BASEMENT

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

UPRAWR

CATHOUSE, 23:00–03:00, £5

Weekly Thursday takeover with guest DJs, prize giveaways and themed drinks.

ENJOYABLE MOMENT

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

CLASSIC FRIDAYS

CLASSIC GRAND, 23:00–03:00, £6

Two floors of punk, industrial, metal, rock, indie and more.

WTF FRIDAYS

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

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

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

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

HARSH TUG

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, £3

Hip-hop and gangsta rap brought to you by the Notorious B.A.G and pals.

CLASSIC FRIDAYS

CLASSIC GRAND, 23:00–03:00, £6

Two floors of punk, industrial, metal, rock, indie and more.

PARTY FEARS

BLOC+, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Three-way girl-team playing edgy electro and indie selections.

WTF FRIDAYS

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

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

KUNST (THE NUCLEAR FAMILY + SHAWLANDS ARCADE)

LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–03:00, FREE (£5 AFTER 12)

Kunst this month make merry with local duo The Nuclear Family, joined by live modular wizard Shawlands Arcade.

L8 D8

THE FLYING DUCK, 23:00–03:00, £5

Classic beats and electronic sounds. We’ll even forgive them the text speak title.

ANIMAL FARM (OSCAR MULERO + VRIL)

SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £6 EARLYBIRD (£12 THEREAFTER)

Animal Farm return to their Subbie lair with a duo of talented DJs in tow: Pole Group’s Oscar Mulero and the e’er mysterious Vril.

BRUT: 1ST BIRTHDAY

THE ART SCHOOL, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£4)

The Brut crew celebrate one year of party-throwing.

Sat 05 Sep NU SKOOL

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£6)

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

CATHOUSE SATURDAYS

CATHOUSE, 22:30–03:00, £6 (£4)

Punk, rock and metallic selection of beats spread across three rooms.

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NUMBERS: RHYTHM & BOOZE (MMM + SPENCER) LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–04:00, £10

The Numbers crew host a special party night, with a live show from MMM (aka Erik and Fiedel from Berlin) and resident DJ Spencer.

RETURN TO MONO (SURGEON + LADY STARLIGHT + SLAM)

SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £13 EARLYBIRD (£14 THEREAFTER)

Monthly night from Soma Records, with guests Surgeon and Lady Starlight dropping by ahead of their DJ show at Berghain.

Sat 12 Sep NU SKOOL

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£6)

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

CATHOUSE SATURDAYS

Wed 16 Sep NOT MOVING

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, FREE

South African house, grime, jungle, r’n’b and hauntology – a tropical mix, ayes – from yer wumman Laurie Pitt.

SUB ROSA

SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5

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

BEAST WEDNESDAYS

CATHOUSE, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£2)

The midweek residents serve up their usual rammy of pop-punk and hardcore, whilst the bar doles out alcoholic slushies. Slurp.

FRESH2DEATH (RUMOURS + DEEP BRANDY ALBUM CUTS + RAINBOW DOME + 199X)

THE ART SCHOOL, 23:00–03:00, £3

THE ROCK SHOP

The Subcity Radio station stalwarts play a mix of UKG, grime, bass, r’n’b and hip-hop, with the Philanthrobeats squad downstairs.

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

Thu 17 Sep

CATHOUSE, 22:30–03:00, £6 (£4)

Punk, rock and metallic selection of beats spread across three rooms.

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

VOODOO

CATHOUSE, 17:00–21:00, £2/£1

Under 18s rock night playing, er, anything and everything rock.

LOVE MUSIC

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £5

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

FANTASTIC MAN

BLOC+, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Messy Saturday night uberdisco armed with Erasure and Papa Roach discographies.

SUBCULTURE (TODD TERJE)

SUB CLUB, 23:00–04:00, £12 EARLYBIRD (£15-£18 THEREAFTER)

Subculture residents Harri & Domenic host a special outing from Norwegian DJ pioneer – and one of modern disco’s brightest stars – Todd Terje.

MISSING PERSONS CLUB

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

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

GLITTERBANG

THE FLYING DUCK, 23:00–03:00, £3

Sweatcore disco hits played out by James T and Ramo, with a Gina G tune or two on a promise.

GUILTY PLEASURE

SHED, 22:30–02:00, £7 (£5)

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

CLASSIC SATURDAYS

CLASSIC GRAND, 22:30–03:00, £6

Alternative blowout of metal, industrial, pop-punk, rock, emo and more.

DANSE MACABRE: 5TH BIRTHDAY

THE ART SCHOOL, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£4)

HIP HOP THURSDAYS

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

BURN

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

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

MASS PARTY

THE ART SCHOOL, 23:00–03:00, FREE

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

REPEATER

BLOC+, 21:00–01:00, FREE

Post-hardcore DIY gig/club effort, with a selection of live acts dropping by.

UPRAWR

CATHOUSE, 23:00–03:00, £5

Weekly Thursday takeover with guest DJs, prize giveaways and themed drinks.

STEREOTONE VS PARTIAL (WHEELMAN + EWAN)

LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £3 (£5 AFTER 12)

Stereotone and Partial join forces for twice the mischief.

ROYALTY

THE FLYING DUCK, 23:00–03:00, £3 (STUDENTS FREE)

New weekly Thursday club getting you in the weekend mood with pop and r’n’b party tunes.

SHOW GLASGOW (ILLYUS + THEO KOTTIS)

SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £TBC

The Show crew welcome a double dose of guest talent in the form of Illyus and Theo Kottis.

PVC

THE ART SCHOOL, 23:00–03:00, FREE

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

HIGH FLIGHT CLUB

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, FREE

Freshers-welcoming club special.

Fri 18 Sep OLD SKOOL

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£6)

PROPAGANDA

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £5

CATHOUSE FRIDAYS

CATHOUSE, 22:30–03:00, £6 (£4)

Residents fun night of rock, metal, punk and emo spread over three rooms.

JAMMING FRIDAYS

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

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

SUGO

BLOC+, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Tue 15 Sep

Two floors of punk, industrial, metal, rock, indie and more.

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

I AM 5.3 (MIDLAND)

SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £6 EARLYBIRD (£8 THEREAFTER)

Resident young guns Beta & Kappa celebrate with their third birthday bash of the month, this time relinquishing control to UK bass talent Midland for the full four hours.

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Listings

The Astral Black and Donkey Pitch DJs double date for a live showcase special.

NUMBERS VS DEKMANTEL (FATIMA YAMAHA + DEKMANTEL SOUNDSYSTEM + JACKMASTER + SPENCER) THE ART SCHOOL, 23:00–03:00, £12

Glasgow clubbing crew Numbers stage a joint event with Amsterdam-based music festival Dekmantel.

THE KIBOSH

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, £TBC

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

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

Tue 22 Sep KILLER KITSCH

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

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

I AM 5.4

SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £TBC

Resident young guns Beta & Kappa play the usual fine mix of electronica and bass, continuing their 5th birthday celebrations with a residents’ special.

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

The Italian trashy disco returns for another night of supremely danceable carnage.

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

THE ART SCHOOL, 23:00–03:00, FREE

BURN

Sat 19 Sep

JELLY BABY

MASS (aka Mackintosh Architecture Student Society) return, kicking off Freshers’ Week at the Art School’s Vic Bar. KILLER KITSCH

ASTRAL BLACK VS DONKEY PITCH (JON PHONICS + LOCKAH + MOUNT BANK + DRESSIN’ RED)

Mon 21 Sep

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £4

Sun 13 Sep

Mon 14 Sep

The Rinse FM troops play host to a special set from Skream – one of the key pioneers behind the rapidly developing dubstep movement.

CATHOUSE, 23:00–03:00, £2/£1

DJ Kelmosh plays a mix of rock, dance and indie.

Wed 23 Sep

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

Full-on mix of nu-metal and hard rockin’ tunes over two floors.

RINSE (SKREAM)

SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £TBC

CLIFFHANGER

All-new night with Mother, former assistant to John Peel, playing reliably random selections.

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

SLIDE IT IN

The EzUp lot take to their now regular La Cheetah lair playing house & techno.

Sun 20 Sep

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

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

CATHOUSE, 23:00–03:00, £2/£1

EZUP LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5 RESIDENTS PLUS SPECIAL GUEST

CLASSIC FRIDAYS

CLASSIC GRAND, 23:00–03:00, £6

NITRIC ACID

THE FLYING DUCK, 23:00–03:00, £3

Primitive rave noise, via selections of old school acid, new beat and ket gabber.

WTF FRIDAYS

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

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

NU SKOOL

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£6)

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

SUBCULTURE

SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £TBC

Long-running house night with residents Harri & Domenic manning the decks.

CATHOUSE SATURDAYS

CATHOUSE, 22:30–03:00, £6 (£4)

Punk, rock and metallic selection of beats spread across three rooms.

THE ROCK SHOP

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

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

VOODOO

CATHOUSE, 17:00–21:00, £2/£1

Under 18s rock night playing, er, anything and everything rock.

LOVE MUSIC

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £5

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

CODE (TOMMY FOUR SEVEN)

LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–04:00, £6 ADV. (£10 DOOR)

Code welcome back returning guest Tommy Four Seven (aka T47) for another night of Berghainstyle deep and driving techno.

GIMME SHELTER

THE FLYING DUCK, 23:00–03:00, £5

Varied night moving from the 50s to present day, via selections of rock’n’roll, soul, garage, psych and r’n’b.

HAUS DIMENSION

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:00–03:00, £3

Occasional night taking in a bit of disco, house, techno and acid, plus all manner of other wavy beats.

GUILTY PLEASURE

SHED, 22:30–02:00, £7 (£5)

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

MONSTER HOSPITAL

BLOC+, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Energetic club outing from DJ duo Beyvnce Nailz and C4lvin Malice.

CLASSIC SATURDAYS

CLASSIC GRAND, 22:30–03:00, £6

Alternative blowout of metal, industrial, pop-punk, rock, emo and more.

NO MORE FUCKING ABBA

THE ADMIRAL, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£5 AFTER 12)

SUB ROSA

SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5

SO WEIT SO GUT

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, FREE

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

BEAST WEDNESDAYS

CATHOUSE, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£2)

The midweek residents serve up their usual rammy of pop-punk and hardcore, whilst the bar doles out alcoholic slushies. Slurp.

Thu 24 Sep HIP HOP THURSDAYS

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

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

JELLY BABY

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £4

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

STRETCHED

BLOC+, 21:00–01:00, FREE

Jazz-influenced sound sauna, moving through mathcore to postrock, with a few live acts thrown in for good measure.

EROL ALKAN

SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £8 EARLYBIRD (£10 THEREAFTER)

The Trash founder, Bugged Out resident and all-round DJ extraordinaire takes control for the evening, well-kent for his tight productions and damn good remixes.

UPRAWR

CATHOUSE, 23:00–03:00, £5

Weekly Thursday takeover with guest DJs, prize giveaways and themed drinks.

LANCE VANCE DANCE

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Red-hued adventure travelling through 70s funk, motown and 80s r’n’b, highlighted with glorious rays of disco sunshine. Or summat.

ROYALTY

THE FLYING DUCK, 23:00–03:00, £3 (STUDENTS FREE)

New weekly Thursday club getting you in the weekend mood with pop and r’n’b party tunes.

PVC

THE ART SCHOOL, 23:00–03:00, FREE

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

Fri 25 Sep OLD SKOOL

SHAKE APPEAL

SUBCULTURE (MIKE DUNN)

HI-SOCIETY

NU FIRE

BLOC+, 23:00–03:00, FREE

SUB CLUB, 23:00–04:00, £10

THE HIVE, 22:00–03:00, FREE

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Monthly evening of hip shakers and neck breakers, combining everything from Buddy Holly to Motorhead.

Residents Harri & Domenic are joined by legendary Chicago house veteran Mike Dunn.

LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £6 EARLYBIRD (£10-£12 THEREAFTER)

SLIDE IT IN

BOOGALOO (ADAM PORT)

SUB CLUB, 23:00–04:00, FROM £10

THE ART SCHOOL, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£4)

Fri 04 Sep

Bi-monthly club gathering pumpin’ out high energy disco tunes.

Hot Natured resident Richy Ahmed bring his evolutionary take on house to Glasgow.

CLASSIC GRAND, 23:00–03:00, £6

Mon 28 Sep

SHOOT YOUR SHOT

CLASSIC FRIDAYS

Two floors of punk, industrial, metal, rock, indie and more.

POLYESTER

THE FLYING DUCK, 23:00–03:00, £3

Mixed up fun night of queer performance, music and DJ vibes.

WTF FRIDAYS

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

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

SENSU (BAILKAL + MANO LE TOUGH)

SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £TBC

Barry Price and Junior bring the cutting edge electronics from across the globe, joined by a double dose of guest talent in the form of Bailkal and Mano Le Tough.

SHEIKH

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, £TBC

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

Sat 26 Sep NU SKOOL

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£6)

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

CATHOUSE SATURDAYS

CATHOUSE, 22:30–03:00, £6 (£4)

THE POETRY CLUB, 22:00–02:00, £3

All-vinyl funk, disco, boogie and house fun night.

FREAKY FREAKY VS TOO NICE

THE ART SCHOOL, 23:00–03:00, £TBC

The Freaky Freaky and Too Nice camps join forces for twice the fun.

CATHOUSE FRIDAYS

CATHOUSE, 22:30–03:00, £6 (£4)

Residents fun night of rock, metal, punk and emo spread over three rooms.

JAMMING FRIDAYS

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

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

BURN

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

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

Tue 29 Sep KILLER KITSCH

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£3)

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

I AM 5.5 (BRACKLES)

SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £TBC

Resident young guns Beta & Kappa play the usual fine mix of electronica and bass, continuing their 5th birthday celebrations with a guest set from Brackles.

Wed 30 Sep SUB ROSA

SUB CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5

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

BEAST WEDNESDAYS

CATHOUSE, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£2)

The midweek residents serve up their usual rammy of pop-punk and hardcore, whilst the bar doles out alcoholic slushies. Slurp.

Weekly selection of hip-hop classics and brand-new classics to be.

TRASH

THE HIVE, 22:00–03:00, FREE

THE HIVE, 21:00–03:00, FREE (£4 AFTER 10)

Alternative anthems cherrypicked from genres of rock, indie, punk, retro and more.

PROPAGANDA

CABARET VOLTAIRE, 23:00–03:00, £4

FUCK YEAH

Chart, indie and rock anthems spread over two rooms.

THE LIQUID ROOM, 22:30–03:00, £5 (£3 GUESTLIST)

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

COSMIC

STUDIO 24, 21:00–03:00, £4 (£7 AFTER 10)

Monthly club bringing the spirit of the psychedelic trance dance ritual to the floor, with live acts, VJs and colourful fluoro decor.

MISSING PERSONS CLUB

THE MASH HOUSE, 23:00–03:00, £5

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

FLY CLUB

CABARET VOLTAIRE, 23:00–03:00, £7

Edinburgh and Glasgow-straddling night, with a powerhouse of local residents joined by a selection of guest talent.

IN DEEP: ONE NIGHT STAND (DAUWD)

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, £5 (MEMBERS FREE)

Cheap Picasso and pals now in a bimonthly slot, playing everything good in house and beyond – this edition joined by Dauwd.

JIVE & DUTY

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 23:00–03:00, FREE (£3 AFTER 12)

Danceable – nae, jiveable – tunes with DJ Cheers and Coconut Smoke.

KINKY INDIE

CITRUS CLUB, 22:30–03:00, £5 (£6 AFTER 1)

HECTOR’S HOUSE

The HH crew serve up their usual fine mix of electronic basslines cooked up with house beats.

Wed 09 Sep COOKIE

THE HIVE, 22:00–03:00, FREE

Resident midweek student rammy of chart, club and electro hits.

TRIBE

THE LIQUID ROOM, 22:30–03:00, £5 (£4 GUESLTIST)

Weekly selection of dance bangers played by residents Khalid Count Clockwork and Craig Wilson.

THE GETTUP

CABARET VOLTAIRE, 21:00–03:00, FREE

Midweek party with DJs Thom and Pagowsky playing disco and deep house into the wee hours. In the cafe space.

WITNESS (DANIEL AVERY)

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, £10

Sneaky’s resident bass spectacular of house, garage and bass adventures with Blackwax and Faultlines – joined for a guest set by Daniel Avery and his acid-flecked tunneling soundscapes.

FACTION

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Eclectic mix of underground tunes with the Faction residents.

LOCO KAMANCHI

THE BONGO CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£4 GUESTLIST)

Weekly dabblings in indie and alternative tuneage.

All-new midweek club night for the wreckless/students.

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

Sat 05 Sep

Thu 10 Sep

CITRUS CLUB, 22:30–03:00, FREE (£5 AFTER 11)

CABARET VOLTAIRE, 23:00–03:00, £TBC

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

VOODOO

CATHOUSE, 17:00–21:00, £2/£1

Under 18s rock night playing, er, anything and everything rock.

LOVE MUSIC

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £5

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

TROPICAL

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, 23:30–03:00, £3

Eclectic, diverse and dancefloororientated beats.

OLUM (OUR FUTURE GLORY)

BLOC+, 23:00–03:00, FREE

The legendary Glaswegian club institution lives again, back and in its indie stride.

GUILTY PLEASURE

SHED, 22:30–02:00, £7 (£5)

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

CLASSIC SATURDAYS

CLASSIC GRAND, 22:30–03:00, £6

Alternative blowout of metal, industrial, pop-punk, rock, emo and more.

THE FLYING DUCK: 8TH BIRTHDAY

THE FLYING DUCK, 12:00–04:00, £5

The Flying Duck hosts its usual fun birthday bash, with live music all-day, plus an afternoon Vegan Fete, DJs playing into the dusk, and cake on a promise.

FRANK GOSSNER

SARAMAGO CCA CAFE, 22:00–03:00, £8

THE ADMIRAL, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£5)

BEAT THE BUSH

RICHY AHMED

I LOVE HIP HOP

THE BONGO CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £3

THE ROCK SHOP

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £5

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

CATHOUSE, 23:00–03:00, £2/£1

Punk, rock and metallic selection of beats spread across three rooms.

THE BERKELEY SUITE, 23:00–03:00, £8 ADV. (£10 DOOR)

Certified UK DJ legend Mr S’Express himself drops in to shake things up at Pistols at Dawn.

Tue 08 Sep

VOLTAGE

Full-on mix of nu-metal and hard rockin’ tunes over two floors.

The intercontinental groove excavator makes his Scottish debut, known for his digging escapades uncovering rare vinyl.

PROPAGANDA

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Berlin-based house and techno chappie Adam Port joins the Boogallo residents for a guest slot.

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

PISTOLS AT DAWN (MR S’EXPRESS)

DJ Fusion and Beef servin’ up the hip-hop and bass classics since 2008.

Fledgling night focused on classic and contemporary house, techno and electronica, with Alex Davidson at the reins.

New alternative indie dance party for the queer at heart, with Abba tunes firmly banned.

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£6)

Sun 27 Sep

Student-friendly chart anthems, bolstered by hip-hop, r’n’b and urban in the back room.

DIVINE

Stellar mix of classic and rare 60s and 70s psych, soul, freakbeat, ska and funk dug deep from Andrew Divine’s vinyl archives.

NOTSOSILENT (THE MOLE VS EDDIE C)

LA CHEETAH CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £8 EARLYBIRD (£10 THEREAFTER)

The NSS crew celebrate their birthday with an all-night collaborative set from a duo of stellat music selectors: The Mole and Eddie C.

Edinburgh Clubs Tue 01 Sep TRASH

THE HIVE, 22:00–03:00, FREE

Alternative anthems cherrypicked from genres of rock, indie, punk, retro and more.

HECTOR’S HOUSE

CABARET VOLTAIRE, 23:00–05:00, £4

The HH crew serve up their usual fine mix of electronic basslines cooked up with house beats.

Wed 02 Sep COOKIE

TEASE AGE

Long-running indie, rock and soul night, traversing the spectrum of classic and modern.

BUBBLEGUM

SPEAKER BITE ME

THE BONGO CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £3 (£2)

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£6 AFTER 12)

The Evol DJs worship at the alter of all kinds of indie-pop, with their only rule being that it’s gotta have bite.

MESSENGER

THE BONGO CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £6

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, FREE

THE MASH HOUSE, 23:00–03:00, £5

House, garage and Bass adventures with Blackwax and Faultlines.

TRIBE

THE LIQUID ROOM, 22:30–03:00, £5 (£4 GUESTLIST)

Weekly selection of dance bangers played by residents Khalid Count Clockwork and Craig Wilson.

THE GETTUP

CABARET VOLTAIRE, 21:00–05:00, FREE

Midweek party with DJs Thom and Pagowsky playing disco and deep house into the wee hours. In the cafe space.

FACTION

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Eclectic mix of underground tunes with the Faction residents.

REDEFINITION

HENRY’S CELLAR BAR, 23:00–03:00, £5

JUICE

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Pumped Thursday nighter with DJs Dan and Kami making weird waves through house and techno.

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

Conscious roots and dub reggae rockin’ from the usual beefty soundsystem.

WITNESS

Fledgling club night playing and anything and everything good, with special guests to boot.

THE HIVE, 21:00–03:00, FREE (£4 AFTER 10)

Resident midweek student rammy of chart, club and electro hits.

THE HIVE, 22:00–03:00, FREE

TRUANT

SAMEDIA SHEBEEN

Eclectic fun night transporting late-night party people to an imaginary jungle voodoo den, featuring a hand-built set modeled on an imagined African township shebeen.

THE BORDELLO

STUDIO 24, 18:30–03:00, £2 (£5/£4 STUDENT AFTER 12)

Classic sleazy rock action, all the night long.

MAIN INGREDIENT (GAVIN FORT + LEE MARVIN + JIMMY JAMMIN)

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, £5 (MEMBERS FREE)

HULLABALOO

Mash-up of beats, breaks and hip-hop from Trendy Wendy and Steve Austin.

HI-SOCIETY

THE HIVE, 22:00–03:00, FREE

Student-friendly chart anthems, bolstered by hip-hop, r’n’b and urban in the back room.

VOLTAGE

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Fledgling night focused on classic and contemporary house, techno and electronica, with Alex Davidson at the reins.

Fri 11 Sep FUCK YEAH

THE HIVE, 21:00–03:00, FREE (£4 AFTER 10)

Chart, indie and rock anthems spread over two rooms.

PROPAGANDA

THE LIQUID ROOM, 22:30–03:00, £5 (£3 GUESTLIST)

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

FLY CLUB

CABARET VOLTAIRE, 23:00–03:00, £7

Edinburgh based collective Hector make merry with interactive visuals and DJ sets.

Edinburgh and Glasgow-straddling night, with a powerhouse of local residents joined by a selection of guest talent.

Sun 06 Sep

THE MASH HOUSE, 23:00–03:00, £5

COALITION

DISORDER

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Pumped night of house and minimal soundscapes with the Disorder residents.

TRUANT

Mon 07 Sep

HENRY’S CELLAR BAR, 23:00–03:00, £3 (£5 AFTER 12)

CABARET VOLTAIRE, 23:00–03:00, £TBC

THE HIVE, 22:00–03:00, FREE

Glengyle Terrors play a selection of pop, techno, Italo, house, electro, acid and more.

Thu 03 Sep Fledgling club night playing and anything and everything good, with special guests to boot.

JUICE

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Pumped Thursday nighter with DJs Dan and Kami making weird waves through house and techno.

Weekly bass institution hosted by DJ Believe and pals.

MIXED UP

Monday-brightening mix of hiphop, r’n’b and chart classics, with requests in the back room.

CREATURES OF HABIT

House, tech-house and techno from resident DJs Peter Annand and Jack Swift.

HEADSET

THE BONGO CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £1 (£5 AFTER 12)

Mash-up of beats, breaks and hip-hop from Trendy Wendy and Steve Austin.

THE SKINNY

Edinburgh Clubs SURE SHOT ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 23:00–03:00, FREE (£3 AFTER 12)

Fledgling night spanning 80s-00s hip-hop and r’n’b, manned by The Skinny’s own Peter Simpson and one half of Edinburgh’s Kitchen Disco, Malcolm Storey.

IN DEEP (MEDLAR)

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, £5 (MEMBERS FREE)

The In Deep champs welcome UK-based DJ and producer Medlar, taking control of the decks for the full four hours.

KINKY INDIE

CITRUS CLUB, 22:30–03:00, £5 (£6 AFTER 1)

Weekly dabblings in indie and alternative tuneage.

ANYTHING GOES TRIBAL

STUDIO 24, 23:00–03:00, £5

Eclectic night of ragga and hard tek offerings, this edition with a ‘tribal’ theme and a free prize for the first 100 down.

Sat 12 Sep TEASE AGE

CITRUS CLUB, 22:30–03:00, FREE (£5 AFTER 11)

Long-running indie, rock and soul night, traversing the spectrum of classic and modern.

MUMBO JUMBO

THE BONGO CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£7 AFTER 12)

Funk, soul, beats and mash-ups from the Mumbo Jumbo regulars and pals.

BUBBLEGUM

THE HIVE, 21:00–03:00, FREE (£4 AFTER 10)

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

DR NO’S

HENRY’S CELLAR BAR, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£5 AFTER 12)

Danceable mix of the best in 60s ska, rocksteady, bluebeat and early reggae.

REWIND

THE LIQUID ROOM, 22:30–03:00, £5 (£3)

Journey back through the ages, with the residents digging out anthemic gems from the last 40 years.

HECTOR’S HOUSE

THE SOLAR BOOGALOO

CABARET VOLTAIRE, 23:00–03:00, £4

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 23:00–03:00, FREE (£3 AFTER 12)

The HH crew serve up their usual fine mix of electronic basslines cooked up with house beats.

Wed 16 Sep COOKIE

THE HIVE, 22:00–03:00, FREE

Resident midweek student rammy of chart, club and electro hits.

WITNESS

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, FREE

House, garage and Bass adventures with Blackwax and Faultlines.

TRIBE

THE LIQUID ROOM, 22:30–03:00, £5 (£4 GUESTLIST)

Weekly selection of dance bangers played by residents Khalid Count Clockwork and Craig Wilson.

THE GETTUP

CABARET VOLTAIRE, 21:00–03:00, FREE

Midweek party with DJs Thom and Pagowsky playing disco and deep house into the wee hours. In the cafe space.

SOUL CITY

THE MASH HOUSE, 23:00–03:00, £5

Soul and funk playlists dominated

by Aretha Franklin. Obv. FACTION

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Eclectic mix of underground tunes with the Faction residents.

LOCO KAMANCHI

THE BONGO CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£4 GUESTLIST)

All-new midweek club night for the wreckless/students.

Thu 17 Sep TRUANT

CABARET VOLTAIRE, 23:00–03:00, £TBC

Fledgling club night playing and anything and everything good, with special guests to boot.

DJ Yves leads a disco-fuelled freestyle funk boogie freakout, of course!

KINKY INDIE

CITRUS CLUB, 22:30–03:00, £5 (£6 AFTER 1)

Weekly dabblings in indie and alternative tuneage.

ROBIGAN’S REGGAE (SISTA LEXXY + RAMON JUDAH)

WEE RED BAR, 22:30–03:00, £4-6 (£8 AFTER 12)

Dub, reggae and dancehall clubbing spectacular, celebrating 20 years with live sets from Sista Lexxy and Ramon Judah.

WUB HUT

Another club outing from popular house promoters Lezure, a special guest likely in tow.

IN DEEP (PROSUMER + DAVID BARBAROSSA)

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, £8 EARLYBIRD (£10 THEREAFTER)

The In Deep champs welcome Berlin house specialist Prosumer for a guest slot, playing alongside Glasgow’s own David Barbarossa.

Sat 19 Sep TEASE AGE

CITRUS CLUB, 22:30–03:00, FREE (£5 AFTER 11)

Long-running indie, rock and soul night, traversing the spectrum of classic and modern.

BUBBLEGUM

THE HIVE, 22:00–03:00, FREE

STUDIO 24, 22:30–03:00, £2 (£5/£4 STUDENT AFTER 12)

Carnival-styled Edinburgh music night showcasing a selection of musicians from across the UK. DILF

STUDIO 24, 23:00–03:00, £6

New gay night playing a heady mix of house and techno.

Sun 13 Sep COALITION

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, FREE

SLVR

THE MASH HOUSE, 23:00–03:00, £5

Techno enthusiasts SLVR return to a club setting for their monthly slot.

VOLTAGE

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Fledgling night focused on classic and contemporary house, techno and electronica, with Alex Davidson at the reins.

Weekly bass institution hosted by DJ Believe and pals.

Fri 18 Sep

THE LIQUID ROOM, 22:30–03:00, £TBC

Chart, indie and rock anthems spread over two rooms.

FRESHERS’ CLOSING PARTY

Napier uni’s annual freshers’ closing party (aka guaranteed carnage).

Mon 14 Sep MIXED UP

THE HIVE, 22:00–03:00, FREE

Monday-brightening mix of hiphop, r’n’b and chart classics, with requests in the back room.

NU FIRE

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, FREE

FUCK YEAH

THE HIVE, 21:00–03:00, FREE (£4 AFTER 10)

FOUR CORNERS

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

STACKS

THE MASH HOUSE, 23:00–03:00, £5

Edinburgh and Glasgow-straddling night, with a powerhouse of local residents joined by a selection of guest talent.

I LOVE HIP HOP

THE BONGO CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £3

Weekly selection of hip-hop classics and brand-new classics to be.

TRASH

THE HIVE, 22:00–03:00, FREE

Alternative anthems cherrypicked from genres of rock, indie, punk, retro and more.

THE BONGO CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £4

Mighty mix of reggae, grime, dubstep and jungle played by inimitable residents Brother Most Righteous, Skillis, Era and Deburgh.

POP ROCKS

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£6 AFTER 12)

FLY CLUB

CABARET VOLTAIRE, 23:00–03:00, £7

THE BURLESQUE BALL

THE VOODOO ROOMS, 21:00–23:00, £24

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

BODY

HENRY’S CELLAR BAR, 23:00–03:00, £5

Fledgling house and techno night manned by residents Jack Stanley and Adam Searle.

I LOVE HIP HOP

THE BONGO CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £3

Weekly selection of hip-hop classics and brand-new classics to be.

TRASH

THE HIVE, 22:00–03:00, FREE

Alternative anthems cherrypicked from genres of rock, indie, punk, retro and more.

HECTOR’S HOUSE

CABARET VOLTAIRE, 23:00–03:00, £4

The HH crew serve up their usual fine mix of electronic basslines cooked up with house beats.

Wed 23 Sep COOKIE

THE HIVE, 22:00–03:00, FREE

WITNESS

TUSK

THE MASH HOUSE, 23:00–03:00, £5

House, African, disco and Latin selections, awash with soundscapes and samples.

TWEAK_

THE MASH HOUSE, 23:00–03:00, £10

Another instalment of The Mash House’s new ‘Minimal Monthlies’ residency.

JUKE

HENRY’S CELLAR BAR, 23:00–03:00, £5

Jiveable mix of funk forty fives, Latin rhythm and juke box sevens.

Weekly selection of dance bangers played by residents Khalid Count Clockwork and Craig Wilson.

THE GETTUP

CABARET VOLTAIRE, 21:00–03:00, FREE

Midweek party with DJs Thom and Pagowsky playing disco and deep house into the wee hours. In the cafe space.

ELECTRIKAL

THE BONGO CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £4 (£6 AFTER 12)

Soundsystem party-starters, part of a music and art collective specialising in all things bass.

KINKY INDIE

CITRUS CLUB, 22:30–03:00, £5 (£6 AFTER 1)

Weekly dabblings in indie and alternative tuneage.

RUMBLE

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 19:00–22:00, FREE (£3 AFTER 12)

50s rock’n’roll, disco, dirty blues and more, plus live midnight sets from local acts.

WEE DUB CLUB (BIG TOES HI-FI)

STUDIO 24, 22:00–03:00, £TBC

The Wee Dub crew keep the party going with one of their occasional club outings, capably manned by bass roots collective Big Toes Hi-Fi. NOTSOSILENT (HUNEE)

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, £8 EARLYBIRD (£10 THEREAFTER)

Belch and crew bring the best in underground house, this edition with guest Hunee in tow.

Sat 26 Sep TEASE AGE

CITRUS CLUB, 22:30–03:00, FREE (£5 AFTER 11)

Long-running indie, rock and soul night, traversing the spectrum of classic and modern.

BUBBLEGUM

THE HIVE, 21:00–03:00, FREE (£4 AFTER 10)

COALITION

Weekly bass institution hosted by DJ Believe and pals.

SOULSVILLE

THE BONGO CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5

Mon 28 Sep

Thu 10 Sep

THE HIVE, 22:00–03:00, FREE

READING ROOMS, 22:30–02:30, £4 (£5 AFTER 11.30)

MIXED UP

Monday-brightening mix of hiphop, r’n’b and chart classics, with requests in the back room.

NO MORE FUCKING ABBA

WEE RED BAR, 22:30–03:00, £TBC

New alternative indie dance party for the queer at heart, with Abba tunes firmly banned.

Tue 29 Sep I LOVE HIP HOP

THE BONGO CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £3

Weekly selection of hip-hop classics and brand-new classics to be.

TRASH

THE HIVE, 22:00–03:00, FREE

Alternative anthems cherrypicked from genres of rock, indie, punk, retro and more.

HECTOR’S HOUSE

CABARET VOLTAIRE, 23:00–03:00, £4

The HH crew serve up their usual fine mix of electronic basslines cooked up with house beats.

WITNESS (LOGAN SAMA)

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, £5 (MEMBERS FREE)

House, garage and Bass adventures with Blackwax and Faultlines, this edition joined by grime specialist Logan Sama.

Wed 30 Sep COOKIE

THE HIVE, 22:00–03:00, FREE

Resident midweek student rammy of chart, club and electro hits.

THE BUNKER

STUDIO 24, 20:00–03:00, £2

Monthly skate night in Studio 24’s own indoor park, complete with DJs, live music, a ping pong table and projectors.

TRIBE

THE LIQUID ROOM, 22:30–03:00, £5 (£4 GUESTLIST)

Weekly selection of dance bangers played by residents Khalid Count Clockwork and Craig Wilson.

THE GETTUP

CABARET VOLTAIRE, 21:00–03:00, FREE

THE LIQUID ROOM, 22:30–03:00, £6 (£5)

THE BONGO CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£4 GUESTLIST)

LOCO KAMANCHI

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 23:00–03:00, FREE

LOCO KAMANCHI

STUDIO 24, 23:00–03:00, £2 (£5/£4 STUDENT AFTER 12)

KINKY INDIE

THE BONGO CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£4 GUESTLIST)

All-new midweek club night for the wreckless/students.

Thu 24 Sep TRUANT

CABARET VOLTAIRE, 23:00–03:00, £TBC

JUICE

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, FREE

HULLABALOO

THE BONGO CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £3 (£2)

Fri 02 Oct CITRUS CLUB, 22:30–03:00, £5 (£6 AFTER 1)

Monthly offering of new wave, disco, post-punk and a bit o’ synthtastic 80s with your hosts Chris and Big Gus.

Weekly dabblings in indie and alternative tuneage.

STUDIO 24, 23:00–03:00, £2 (£5/£4 STUDENT AFTER 12)

CITRUS CLUB, 22:30–03:00, FREE (£5 AFTER 11)

BETAMAX

Sat 03 Oct TEASE AGE

Monthly offering of new wave, disco, post-punk and a bit o’ synthtastic 80s with your hosts Chris and Big Gus.

Long-running indie, rock and soul night, traversing the spectrum of classic and modern.

THE MASH HOUSE, 23:00–03:00, £5

Dundee Clubs

BIGFOOT’S TEA PARTY

Nomadic techno and tech-house crew Bigfoot’s Tea Party makes the trip Edinburgh-way.

KEEP IT STEEL

STUDIO 24, 23:00–03:00, £5

Mash-up of beats, breaks and hip-hop from Trendy Wendy and Steve Austin.

The Keep It Steel DJs play the best in heavy metal and hard rock.

Thu 03 Sep

THE HIVE, 22:00–03:00, FREE

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 23:00–03:00, £7 (£8 AFTER 12)

READING ROOMS, 22:30–02:30, £4 (£5 AFTER 11.30)

HI-SOCIETY

Student-friendly chart anthems, bolstered by hip-hop, r’n’b and urban in the back room.

VOLTAGE

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 23:00–03:00, £3.0

Fledgling night focused on classic and contemporary house, techno and electronica, with Alex Davidson at the reins.

Fri 25 Sep FUCK YEAH

THE HIVE, 21:00–03:00, FREE (£4 AFTER 10)

Chart, indie and rock anthems spread over two rooms.

PROPAGANDA

THE LIQUID ROOM, 22:30–03:00, £5 (£3 GUESTLIST

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

EVOL

THE MASH HOUSE, 23:00–03:00, £5

THE POP BINGO DISCO

ROOMS THURSDAYS

RIDE

Thursday nighter (as the name would suggest), with Dunc4an, Typewriter and guests playing anything and everything ‘good’.

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, £5 (MEMBERS FREE)

Fri 04 Sep

Clubbing-meets-bingo (finally, right?), with danceable beats and live bingo.

The Ride girls play hip-hop and dance, all night long – now in their new party-ready Saturday night slot.

Sun 27 Sep NU FIRE

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, FREE

DJ Fusion and Beef servin’ up the hip-hop and bass classics since 2008.

SUCH A DRAG

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 23:00–03:00, FREE

New monthly drag club night with emphasis on all things risqué, with live burlesque and the like.

HEADWAY (BICEP)

READING ROOMS, 22:30–03:00, £12

After a few years of trying, Headway finally manage to entice DJ duo Matt McBriar and Andy Ferguson – aka Bicep – to host one of their notoriously good Feel My Bicep parties in Dundee.

WARPED

KAGE, 23:00–03:00, £4

Ska, screamo and pop-punk offerings now in a weekly Friday slot, moving from Alkaline Trio to Zebrahead as it goes.

Sat 12 Sep DREDD OR ALIVE

BUSKERS, 20:00–02:30, £5

Irie Lion Sounds play a selection of classic reggae into the wee hours.

SLAM

READING ROOMS, 22:30–03:00, £11

Soma’s Slam (aka Stuart McMillan and Orde Meikle) journey to Dundee for a four-hour set of hard-hitting techno.

ASYLUM

KAGE, 23:00–03:00, £4

Best of selection of rock, metal and alternative tunes to get your Saturday night movin’.

Thu 17 Sep ROOMS THURSDAYS

READING ROOMS, 22:30–02:30, £4 (£5 AFTER 11.30)

Thursday nighter (as the name would suggest), with Dunc4an, Typewriter and guests playing anything and everything ‘good’.

Fri 18 Sep MUNGO’S HI FI

READING ROOMS, 22:30–03:00, £7

KAGE, 23:00–03:00, £4

FACTION

Eclectic mix of underground tunes with the Faction residents.

BETAMAX

Fri 11 Sep

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 23:00–03:00, FREE

All-new midweek club night for the wreckless/students.

Eclectic mix of underground tunes with the Faction residents.

Thursday nighter (as the name would suggest), with Dunc4an, Typewriter and guests playing anything and everything ‘good’.

More heavyweight selections from Mungo’s Soundsystem, playing a full soundsystem set for your Saturday night pleasure.

Swinging soul spanning a whole century, with DJs Tsatsu and Fryer at the helm.

MADCHESTER

ROOMS THURSDAYS

Midweek party with DJs Thom and Pagowsky playing disco and deep house into the wee hours. In the cafe space.

Clubber’s favourite of indie classics and baggy greats, from Primal Scream and the like.

FACTION

Anything-goes indie and alternative anthems.

September 2015

Edinburgh and Glasgow-straddling night, with a powerhouse of local residents joined by a selection of guest talent.

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, FREE

TRIBE

STUDIO 24, 22:30–03:00, £2 (£5/£4 STUDENT AFTER 12)

Yer man Kris ‘Wasabi’ Walker plays selections of wonky disco and sleazy throbbers.

FLY CLUB

CABARET VOLTAIRE, 23:00–03:00, £7

THE LIQUID ROOM, 22:30–03:00, £5 (£4 GUESTLIST)

Pumped Thursday nighter with DJs Dan and Kami making weird waves through house and techno.

WASABI DISCO

Regular fun night playing the finest in Swedish indie pop, plus 60s, 70s and independent tunes from near and far.

House, garage and Bass adventures with Blackwax and Faultlines.

Fledgling club night playing and anything and everything good, with special guests to boot.

DECADE

MJÖLK WEE RED BAR, 23:00–03:00, £3 (£5 AFTER 11.30)

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

Pop and rock gems, taking in motown, 80s classics and plenty danceable fare (well, the Beep Beep, Yeah! crew are on decks after all).

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, £5 (MEMBERS FREE)

THE MASH HOUSE, 23:00–03:00, £TBC

Tue 15 Sep

BIG ‘N’ BASHY

THE LIQUID ROOM, 22:30–03:00, £5 (£3 GUESTLIST)

PROPAGANDA

Rare funk, soul and r’n’b night, with free mix CDs on the door.

Selections of house and disco artists from across the UK.

Surf, blues and rockabilly from the 50s and early 60s, plus free cake.

Job done.

Soulful dancing fodder, moving from deep funk to reggae.

DJ Fusion and Beef servin’ up the hip-hop and bass classics since 2008.

ALTITUDE

THE GREEN DOOR

Fresh playlists spanning metal, pop-punk and alternative soundscapes.

THE BONGO CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £3

NU FIRE

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, FREE

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, FREE

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 23:00–03:00, £5 (£6 AFTER 12)

A TWISTED CIRCUS

THE HIVE, 22:00–03:00, FREE

Monday-brightening mix of hiphop, r’n’b and chart classics, with requests in the back room.

WEE RED BAR, 23:00–03:00, £3 (£5 AFTER 12)

BEEP BEEP, YEAH!

THE MASH HOUSE, 23:00–03:00, £5

MIXED UP

Resident midweek student rammy of chart, club and electro hits.

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

Student-friendly chart anthems, bolstered by hip-hop, r’n’b and urban in the back room.

Mon 21 Sep

THE EGG

Mash-up of beats, breaks and hip-hop from Trendy Wendy and Steve Austin.

Retro pop stylings from the 50s to the 70s, via a disco tune or ten.

COALITION

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Weekly bass institution hosted by DJ Believe and pals.

Tue 22 Sep

THE HIVE, 21:00–03:00, FREE (£4 AFTER 10)

HI-SOCIETY

Sun 20 Sep

THE MASH HOUSE, 23:00–03:00, £7

LEZURE

THE BONGO CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £3 (£2)

HULLABALOO

Edinburgh club series Nightvision returns with Series 3, kicking off with a double whammy set from Joris Voorn and Route 94, bolstered by a ‘very special’ guest they’re keeping under wraps for now. Teases.

DJ Fusion and Beef servin’ up the hip-hop and bass classics since 2008.

STUDIO 24, 23:00–03:00, £5

Pumped Thursday nighter with DJs Dan and Kami making weird waves through house and techno.

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–03:00, FREE

THE LIQUID ROOM, 21:00–03:00, £12.50

Bass and womps selections played out by the Ghost Sound System.

Art School institution with DJs Chris and Jake playing the finest in indie, garage, soul and punk – now taking up a monthly Saturday slot, in what is their 20-somethingth year.

JUICE

NIGHTVISION PRESENTS... JORIS VOORN + ROUTE 94

WARPED

KAGE, 23:00–03:00, £4

Ska, screamo and pop-punk offerings now in a weekly Friday slot, moving from Alkaline Trio to Zebrahead as it goes.

Sat 05 Sep ASYLUM

KAGE, 23:00–03:00, £4

Best of selection of rock, metal and alternative tunes to get your Saturday night movin’.

WARPED

Ska, screamo and pop-punk offerings now in a weekly Friday slot, moving from Alkaline Trio to Zebrahead as it goes.

Sat 19 Sep ASYLUM

KAGE, 23:00–03:00, £4

Best of selection of rock, metal and alternative tunes to get your Saturday night movin’.

Thu 24 Sep ROOMS THURSDAYS

READING ROOMS, 22:30–02:30, £4 (£5 AFTER 11.30)

Thursday nighter (as the name would suggest), with Dunc4an, Typewriter and guests playing anything and everything ‘good’.

Fri 25 Sep

TRANSITION (DANIEL SKYVER + PAUL COOK + NOON & MORGAN)

BUSKERS, 20:30–02:30, £5 (£8 AFTER 11.30)

The second instalment of Transition makes merry with a trio of guest talent: Daniel Skyver, Paul Cook and duo Noon & Morgan.

SUBCULTURE (HARRI & DOMENIC)

READING ROOMS, 22:30–03:00, £9

Long-running house night with regulars Harri & Domenic manning the decks, this time relocated from their regular home of Glasgow’s Sub Club for a special Dundee outing.

WARPED

KAGE, 23:00–03:00, £4

Ska, screamo and pop-punk offerings now in a weekly Friday slot, moving from Alkaline Trio to Zebrahead as it goes.

Sat 26 Sep ASYLUM

KAGE, 23:00–03:00, £4

Best of selection of rock, metal and alternative tunes to get your Saturday night movin’.

Glasgow Comedy Tue 01 Sep RED RAW

THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:30, £2

Open-mic style beginners showcase, plus some old hands dropping by to roadtest new material.

Wed 02 Sep

MIDWEEK COMEDY CABARET

THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:30, £4 (£2)

Madcap comedy cabaret session (yes, it’s also midweek) with a selection of five live acts taking to the stage.

NEW MATERIAL NIGHT

YESBAR, 20:00–22:00, £3

Resident host Julia Sutherland introduces a variety of stand-up comedians from the Scottish circuit delivering, yes, all new material.

THE JANOSKIANS

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, 19:00–22:00, £22.50

Virally-popular Australian comedy band pulling pranks like Jackass never happened.

Thu 03 Sep

THE THURSDAY SHOW (JOHN GORDILLO + LOST VOICE GUY + JAY LAFFERTY + STEPHEN HALKETT + MC STU MURPHY)

THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:30, £10 (£7 STUDENTS/£5 MEMBERS)

Weekend-welcoming selection of handpicked headline acts and newcomers over a two-hour showcase.

YESPBAR VIRGINS

YESBAR, 21:00–22:30, £3

Graham Barrie introduces a selection of fledgling comedy talent handpicked fae Scotland.

Fri 04 Sep

THE FRIDAY SHOW (JOHN GORDILLO + LOST VOICE GUY + JAY LAFFERTY + STEPHEN HALKETT + MC STU MURPHY) THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:30, £12 (£10 STUDENTS/£6 MEMBERS)

Prime stand-up from the Scottish and international circuit, hosted by a rotating selection of Stand stalwarts.

LAUGHTER EIGHT

YESBAR, 20:00–21:30, £8

Regular comedy slot kicking off at, aye, 8pm – manned by a selection of hot talent from the local circuit.

Sat 05 Sep

THE SATURDAY SHOW (JOHN GORDILLO + LOST VOICE GUY + JAY LAFFERTY + STEPHEN HALKETT + MC STU MURPHY)

THE STAND GLASGOW, 21:00–23:00, £15

Packed Saturday evening bill of stand-up headliners and resident comperes to jolly along your weekend.

LAUGHTER EIGHT

YESBAR, 20:00–21:30, £8

Regular comedy slot kicking off at, aye, 8pm – manned by a selection of hot talent from the local circuit.

Sun 06 Sep

MICHAEL REDMOND’S SUNDAY SERVICE (NORM BAKER + ROB KANE + JOHN GORDILLO + MC MICHAEL REDMOND) THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:30, £6 (£5 STUDENTS/£1 MEMBERS)

Chilled Sunday comedy showcase manned by resident Irish funnyman Michael Redmond and his guests.

GLASGOW KIDS COMEDY CLUB SPECIAL: STAND UP FOR KIDS

THE STAND GLASGOW, 14:30–15:30, £4

Comedy session suitable for little ears (i.e. no sweary words), for children aged 8-12 years-old – this edition with Gary Dunn hosting a fundraiser special.

Mon 07 Sep IMPROV WARS

THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:30, £6

More improvised comedy games and sketches, with an unpredictable anything-goes attitude – as it should be.

Tue 08 Sep RED RAW

THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:30, £2

Open-mic style beginners showcase, plus some old hands dropping by to roadtest new material.

Listings

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Comedy Wed 09 Sep NEW MATERIAL NIGHT

YESBAR, 20:00–22:00, £3

Resident host Julia Sutherland introduces a variety of stand-up comedians from the Scottish circuit delivering, yes, all new material.

COMEDIAN RAP BATTLES

THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:30, £6 (£4)

Ro Cambell and The Wee Man’s comedian rap battle-off, where a select batch of comics compete to see who’s got the most swagger when it comes to hippity-hop wit.

Thu 10 Sep

THE THURSDAY SHOW (GAVIN WEBSTER + RAY BRADSHAW + MORGAN BERRY + RICHARD HUNTER + MC JOJO SUTHERLAND) THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:30, £10 (£7 STUDENTS/£5 MEMBERS)

Weekend-welcoming selection of handpicked headline acts and newcomers over a two-hour showcase.

YESPBAR VIRGINS

YESBAR, 21:00–22:30, £3

Graham Barrie introduces a selection of fledgling comedy talent handpicked fae Scotland.

Fri 11 Sep

THE FRIDAY SHOW (GAVIN WEBSTER + RAY BRADSHAW + MORGAN BERRY + RICHARD HUNTER + MC JOJO SUTHERLAND) THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:30, £12 (£10 STUDENTS/£6 MEMBERS)

Prime stand-up from the Scottish and international circuit, hosted by a rotating selection of Stand stalwarts.

LAUGHTER EIGHT

YESBAR, 20:00–21:30, £8

Regular comedy slot kicking off at, aye, 8pm – manned by a selection of hot talent from the local circuit.

Sat 12 Sep

THE SATURDAY SHOW (GAVIN WEBSTER + RAY BRADSHAW + MORGAN BERRY + RICHARD HUNTER + MC JOJO SUTHERLAND) THE STAND GLASGOW, 21:00–23:00, £15

Packed Saturday evening bill of stand-up headliners and resident comperes to jolly along your weekend.

LAUGHTER EIGHT

YESBAR, 20:00–21:30, £8

Regular comedy slot kicking off at, aye, 8pm – manned by a selection of hot talent from the local circuit.

Sun 13 Sep

MICHAEL REDMOND’S SUNDAY SERVICE (MORGAN BERRY + WAYNE MAZADZA + TOM FOSTER + MC MICHAEL REDMOND)

THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:30, £6 (£5 STUDENTS/£1 MEMBERS)

Chilled Sunday comedy showcase manned by resident Irish funnyman Michael Redmond and his guests.

Tue 15 Sep RED RAW

THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:30, £2

Open-mic style beginners showcase, plus some old hands dropping by to roadtest new material.

Wed 16 Sep NEW MATERIAL NIGHT

YESBAR, 20:00–22:00, £3

Resident host Julia Sutherland introduces a variety of stand-up comedians from the Scottish circuit delivering, yes, all new material.

BBC COMEDY PRESENTS...

THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:30, £4

BBC-selected sketch comedy showcase where handpicked new acts get their chance to shine – with each performer getting a quickfire 5-10 minutes on stage.

Thu 17 Sep

THE THURSDAY SHOW (BRUCE MORTON + KAI HUMPHRIES + PENELLA MELLOR + RHYS JAMES + SCOTT AGNEW)

THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:30, £10 (£7 STUDENTS/£5 MEMBERS)

Weekend-welcoming selection of handpicked headline acts and newcomers over a two-hour showcase.

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Listings

YESPBAR VIRGINS YESBAR, 21:00–22:30, £3

Graham Barrie introduces a selection of fledgling comedy talent handpicked fae Scotland.

Fri 18 Sep

THE FRIDAY SHOW (BRUCE MORTON + KAI HUMPHRIES + RHYS JAMES + SCOTT AGNEW) THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:30, £12 (£10 STUDENTS/£6 MEMBERS)

Prime stand-up from the Scottish and international circuit, hosted by a rotating selection of Stand stalwarts.

LAUGHTER EIGHT

YESBAR, 20:00–21:30, £8

Regular comedy slot kicking off at, aye, 8pm – manned by a selection of hot talent from the local circuit.

Sat 19 Sep

THE SATURDAY SHOW (BRUCE MORTON + KAI HUMPHRIES + PENELLA MELLOR + RHYS JAMES + SCOTT AGNEW)

THE STAND GLASGOW, 21:00–23:00, £15

Packed Saturday evening bill of stand-up headliners and resident comperes to jolly along your weekend.

LAUGHTER EIGHT

YESBAR, 20:00–21:30, £8

Regular comedy slot kicking off at, aye, 8pm – manned by a selection of hot talent from the local circuit.

Sun 20 Sep

MICHAEL REDMOND’S SUNDAY SERVICE (RHYS JAMES + PENELLA MELLOR + JAY LAFFERTY + MC MICHAEL REDMOND)

THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:30, £6 (£5 STUDENTS/£1 MEMBERS)

Chilled Sunday comedy showcase manned by resident Irish funnyman Michael Redmond and his guests.

Mon 21 Sep

KEVIN BRIDGES: A WHOLE DIFFERENT STORY

THE SSE HYDRO, 20:00–22:00, £30

The Glaswegian funnyman returns to the road with his new show, following the release of his first autobiography.

SCOTT GIBSON: LIFE AFTER DEATH

THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:30, £8 (£6 STUDENS/£5 MEMBERS)

The Scottish comic presents his debut show telling the story of his life-changing path into comedy, mixing dark humour with his conversational storyteller style.

Tue 22 Sep RED RAW

THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:30, £2

Open-mic style beginners showcase, plus some old hands dropping by to roadtest new material.

KEVIN BRIDGES: A WHOLE DIFFERENT STORY

THE SSE HYDRO, 20:00–22:00, £30

The Glaswegian funnyman returns to the road with his new show, following the release of his first autobiography.

NEWSREVIEW!

THE GLAD CAFE, 19:30–21:30, £4

The Write It! collective return to The Glad Cafe, this time taking in a series of timely new sketches and music looking at the political issues one year on from the referendum.

Wed 23 Sep NEW MATERIAL NIGHT

YESBAR, 20:00–22:00, £3

Resident host Julia Sutherland introduces a variety of stand-up comedians from the Scottish circuit delivering, yes, all new material.

KEVIN BRIDGES: A WHOLE DIFFERENT STORY

THE SSE HYDRO, 20:00–22:00, £30

The Glaswegian funnyman returns to the road with his new show, following the release of his first autobiography.

UNITED GLASGOW FC COMEDY BENEFIT

THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:30, £TBC

Comedy fundraiser in aid of United Glasgow FC.

NEWSREVIEW! THE GLAD CAFE, 19:30–21:30, £4

The Write It! collective return to The Glad Cafe, this time taking in a series of timely new sketches and music looking at the political issues one year on from the referendum.

Thu 24 Sep

THE THURSDAY SHOW (STEPHEN BUCHANAN + ASHLEY STORRIE + DOUGIE DUNLOP + ROB ROUSE + MC RAYMOND MEARNS)

THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:30, £10 (£7 STUDENTS/£5 MEMBERS)

Weekend-welcoming selection of handpicked headline acts and newcomers over a two-hour showcase.

DOC BROWN: THE WEIRD WAY ROUND

ORAN MOR, 19:00–22:00, £14

Multi-talented comedy entertainer who has also turned his hand to rapping and acting, out touring his new show.

YESPBAR VIRGINS

YESBAR, 21:00–22:30, £3

Graham Barrie introduces a selection of fledgling comedy talent handpicked fae Scotland.

KEVIN BRIDGES: A WHOLE DIFFERENT STORY

THE SSE HYDRO, 20:00–22:00, £30

Wed 30 Sep NEW MATERIAL NIGHT

YESBAR, 20:00–22:00, £3

Resident host Julia Sutherland introduces a variety of stand-up comedians from the Scottish circuit delivering, yes, all new material.

Thu 01 Oct

KEVIN BRIDGES: A WHOLE DIFFERENT STORY

THE SSE HYDRO, 20:00–22:00, £30

The Glaswegian funnyman returns to the road with his new show, following the release of his first autobiography.

KEVIN BRIDGES: A WHOLE DIFFERENT STORY

THE SSE HYDRO, 20:00–22:00, £30

The Glaswegian funnyman returns to the road with his new show, following the release of his first autobiography.

Sat 03 Oct

KEVIN BRIDGES: A WHOLE DIFFERENT STORY

THE SSE HYDRO, 20:00–22:00, £30

The Glaswegian funnyman returns to the road with his new show, following the release of his first autobiography.

The Glaswegian funnyman returns to the road with his new show, following the release of his first autobiography.

Sun 04 Oct

Fri 25 Sep

The Glaswegian funnyman returns to the road with his new show, following the release of his first autobiography.

THE FRIDAY SHOW (STEPHEN BUCHANAN + ASHLEY STORRIE + DOUGIE DUNLOP + ROB ROUSE + MC RAYMOND MEARNS)

THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:30, £12 (£10 STUDENTS/£6 MEMBERS)

Prime stand-up from the Scottish and international circuit, hosted by a rotating selection of Stand stalwarts.

LAUGHTER EIGHT

YESBAR, 20:00–21:30, £8

Regular comedy slot kicking off at, aye, 8pm – manned by a selection of hot talent from the local circuit.

GILDED BALLOON COMEDY @ DRYGATE (FELICITY WARD + ANGELA BARNES + GARY MEIKLE + MC SCOTT GIBSON)

DRYGATE BREWING CO., 20:00–22:00, £12.50 (£11.50)

Long-running comedy club the Gilded Balloon hits up Drygate for a new residency, combing the joys of a craft brewery setting with a rotating schedule of live comedy talent.

KEVIN BRIDGES: A WHOLE DIFFERENT STORY

THE SSE HYDRO, 20:00–22:00, £30

KEVIN BRIDGES: A WHOLE DIFFERENT STORY

THE SSE HYDRO, 20:00–22:00, £30

Mon 05 Oct

KEVIN BRIDGES: A WHOLE DIFFERENT STORY

THE SSE HYDRO, 20:00–22:00, £30

The Glaswegian funnyman returns to the road with his new show, following the release of his first autobiography.

Edinburgh Comedy Wed 02 Sep

SCOTT GIBSON: LIFE AFTER DEATH

SCOTTISH STORYTELLING CENTRE, 20:00–22:00, £10 (£8)

The Scottish comic presents his debut show telling the story of his life-changing path into comedy, mixing dark humour with his conversational storyteller style.

The Glaswegian funnyman returns to the road with his new show, following the release of his first autobiography.

Thu 03 Sep

STEREO, 19:30–22:00, £17.50

THE STAND EDINBURGH, 21:00–23:00, £10 (£7 STUDENTS/£5 MEMBERS)

EPIC RAP BATTLES OF HISTORY

The creators of the cult video series bring their mix of music and comedy to the live stage, featuring the most popular rap battles performed live with a DJ and full band, plus improvised comedy shenanigans and interactive songs.

Sat 26 Sep

THE SATURDAY SHOW (STEPHEN BUCHANAN + ASHLEY STORRIE + DOUGIE DUNLOP + ROB ROUSE + MC RAYMOND MEARNS)

THE STAND GLASGOW, 21:00–23:00, £15

Packed Saturday evening bill of stand-up headliners and resident comperes to jolly along your weekend.

LAUGHTER EIGHT

YESBAR, 20:00–21:30, £8

Regular comedy slot kicking off at, aye, 8pm – manned by a selection of hot talent from the local circuit.

KEVIN BRIDGES: A WHOLE DIFFERENT STORY

THE SSE HYDRO, 20:00–22:00, £30

The Glaswegian funnyman returns to the road with his new show, following the release of his first autobiography.

Sun 27 Sep RED RAW

THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:30, £2

Open-mic style beginners showcase, plus some old hands dropping by to roadtest new material.

THE THURSDAY SHOW (STEVE GRIBBIN + PAUL CURRIE + DAISY EARL + MARC JENNINGS + MC RAYMOND MEARNS)

Weekend-welcoming selection of handpicked headline acts and newcomers over a two-hour showcase.

FRANKIE BOYLE: HURT LIKE YOU’VE NEVER BEEN LOVED

THE KING’S THEATRE, 20:00–22:00, £21

After a couple of teasing months of Work in Progress shows, Frankie Boyle hits up the King’s for the only performances of his new show, Hurt Like You Mean It, a goading response to Compton hip-hopster Kendrick Lamar’s last album.

Fri 04 Sep

THE FRIDAY SHOW (STEVE GRIBBIN + PAUL CURRIE + DAISY EARL + MARC JENNINGS + MC RAYMOND MEARNS) THE STAND EDINBURGH, 21:00–23:00, £12 (£10 STUDENT/£6 MEMBERS)

Prime stand-up from the Scottish and international circuit, hosted by a rotating selection of Stand stalwarts.

THE BEEHIVE COMEDY CLUB

BEEHIVE INN, 20:30–22:30, £10

Regular weekend comedy showcase featuring a selection of up-and-coming acts from Scotland and beyond, topped with a guest headliner. See Facebook on the day for line-ups.

FRANKIE BOYLE: HURT LIKE YOU’VE NEVER BEEN LOVED THE KING’S THEATRE, 20:00–22:00, £21

After a couple of teasing months of Work in Progress shows, Frankie Boyle hits up the King’s for the only performances of his new show, Hurt Like You Mean It, a goading response to Compton hip-hopster Kendrick Lamar’s last album.

Sat 05 Sep

THE SATURDAY SHOW (STEVE GRIBBIN + PAUL CURRIE + DAISY EARL + MARC JENNINGS + MC RAYMOND MEARNS)

THE STAND EDINBURGH, 21:00–23:00, £15

Packed Saturday evening bill of stand-up headliners and resident comperes to jolly along your weekend.

THE BEEHIVE COMEDY CLUB

BEEHIVE INN, 20:30–22:30, £10

Regular weekend comedy showcase featuring a selection of up-and-coming acts from Scotland and beyond, topped with a guest headliner. See Facebook on the day for line-ups.

FRANKIE BOYLE: HURT LIKE YOU’VE NEVER BEEN LOVED

THE KING’S THEATRE, 20:00–22:00, £21

After a couple of teasing months of Work in Progress shows, Frankie Boyle hits up the King’s for the only performances of his new show, Hurt Like You Mean It, a goading response to Compton hip-hopster Kendrick Lamar’s last album.

Sun 06 Sep

THE SUNDAY NIGHT LAUGH-IN (PAUL CURRIE + MARC JENNINGS + TOM FOSTER + DANIEL DOWNIE + MC JAY LAFFERTY)

THE STAND EDINBURGH, 20:30–22:30, £6 (£5 STUDENTS/£1 MEMBERS)

Chilled comedy showcase to cure your Sunday evening back-towork blues.

STU & GARRY’S FREE IMPROV SHOW

THE STAND EDINBURGH, 13:30–15:30, FREE

Long-running improvised comedy show with resident duo Stu & Garry weaving comedy magic from offthe-cuff audience suggestions.

Mon 07 Sep RED RAW

THE STAND EDINBURGH, 20:30–22:30, £2

Open-mic style beginners showcase, plus some old hands dropping by to roadtest new material.

Tue 08 Sep

RICHARD MELVIN PRESENTS... MORE RADIO RECORDINGS!

THE STAND EDINBURGH, 20:00–21:00, FREE (BUT TICKETED)

Funnyman Richard Melvin introduces an all-star cast of comedy stalwarts currently recording radio shows. And all for gratis!

Thu 10 Sep

THE THURSDAY SHOW (MARK NELSON + JOHN GILLICK + LLOYD GRIFFITHS + KATE DILLON + MC SUSAN MORRISON)

THE STAND EDINBURGH, 21:00–23:00, £10 (£7 STUDENTS/£5 MEMBERS)

Weekend-welcoming selection of handpicked headline acts and newcomers over a two-hour showcase.

Fri 11 Sep

THE FRIDAY SHOW (MARK NELSON + JOHN GILLICK + LLOYD GRIFFITHS + KATE DILLON + MC SUSAN MORRISON) THE STAND EDINBURGH, 21:00–23:00, £12 (£10 STUDENT/£6 MEMBERS)

Prime stand-up from the Scottish and international circuit, hosted by a rotating selection of Stand stalwarts.

THE BEEHIVE COMEDY CLUB

BEEHIVE INN, 20:30–22:30, £10

Regular weekend comedy showcase featuring a selection of up-and-coming acts from Scotland and beyond, topped with a guest headliner. See Facebook on the day for line-ups.

Sat 12 Sep

THE SATURDAY SHOW (MARK NELSON + JOHN GILLICK + LLOYD GRIFFITHS + KATE DILLON + MC BRUCE DEVLIN)

THE STAND EDINBURGH, 21:00–23:00, £15

Packed Saturday evening bill of stand-up headliners and resident comperes to jolly along your weekend.

THE BEEHIVE COMEDY CLUB BEEHIVE INN, 20:30–22:30, £10

Regular weekend comedy showcase featuring a selection of up-and-coming acts from Scotland and beyond, topped with a guest headliner. See Facebook on the day for line-ups.

GILDED BALLOON COMEDY @ FESTIVAL THEATRE

FESTIVAL THEATRE, 20:00–22:00, £12.50 (£10.50)

Long-running comedy club the Gilded Balloon hits up the Festival Theatre for a new residency, combing the joys of a craft brewery setting with a rotating schedule of live comedy talent.

Sun 13 Sep

THE SUNDAY NIGHT LAUGH-IN (JOE MCKEOWN + GRACE WINSTON + MC JULIA SUTHERLAND)

THE STAND EDINBURGH, 20:30–22:30, £6 (£5 STUDENTS/£1 MEMBERS)

Mon 21 Sep RED RAW

THE STAND EDINBURGH, 20:30–22:30, £2

Open-mic style beginners showcase, plus some old hands dropping by to roadtest new material.

Tue 22 Sep

GORGIE CITY FARM BENEFIT

THE STAND EDINBURGH, 20:30–22:30, £5

Comedy fundraiser in aid of Gorgie City Farm.

Wed 23 Sep

SO... THAT WAS SEPTEMBER?

THE STAND EDINBURGH, 20:30–22:30, £7 (£5)

Messrs McTavish, Nelson and McAllister return with another show in their pre/post-election series – offering leftfield stand-up, chat and comment on the political state of the world following the election outcome.

Chilled comedy showcase to cure your Sunday evening back-towork blues.

Fri 25 Sep

THE STAND EDINBURGH, 13:30–15:30, FREE

THE STAND EDINBURGH, 21:00–23:00, £12 (£10 STUDENT/£6 MEMBERS)

STU & GARRY’S FREE IMPROV SHOW

Long-running improvised comedy show with resident duo Stu & Garry weaving comedy magic from offthe-cuff audience suggestions.

Mon 14 Sep RED RAW

THE STAND EDINBURGH, 20:30–22:30, £2

Open-mic style beginners showcase, plus some old hands dropping by to roadtest new material.

Tue 15 Sep ELECTRIC TALES

THE STAND EDINBURGH, 20:30–22:30, £5 (£4)

More in the way of stand-up comedy crossed with live storytelling, with the tease of a promise of robot badges for all (as in, we’re there).

Thu 17 Sep

THE THURSDAY SHOW (VLADIMIR MCTAVISH + JARLATH REGAN + SOPHIE HAGEN + MC STU MURPHY)

THE STAND EDINBURGH, 21:00–23:00, £10 (£7 STUDENTS/£5 MEMBERS)

Weekend-welcoming selection of handpicked headline acts and newcomers over a two-hour showcase.

Fri 18 Sep

THE FRIDAY SHOW (VLADIMIR MCTAVISH + JARLATH REGAN + SOPHIE HAGEN + MC STU MURPHY)

THE STAND EDINBURGH, 21:00–23:00, £12 (£10 STUDENT/£6 MEMBERS)

Prime stand-up from the Scottish and international circuit, hosted by a rotating selection of Stand stalwarts.

THE BEEHIVE COMEDY CLUB

BEEHIVE INN, 20:30–22:30, £10

Regular weekend comedy showcase featuring a selection of up-and-coming acts from Scotland and beyond, topped with a guest headliner. See Facebook on the day for line-ups.

Sat 19 Sep

THE SATURDAY SHOW (VLADIMIR MCTAVISH + JARLATH REGAN + SOPHIE HAGEN + MC STU MURPHY)

THE STAND EDINBURGH, 21:00–23:00, £15

Packed Saturday evening bill of stand-up headliners and resident comperes to jolly along your weekend.

THE BEEHIVE COMEDY CLUB

BEEHIVE INN, 20:30–22:30, £10

Regular weekend comedy showcase featuring a selection of up-and-coming acts from Scotland and beyond, topped with a guest headliner. See Facebook on the day for line-ups.

THE FRIDAY SHOW (PHIL O’SHEA + LARAH BROSS + TONY BURGESS + MC BILLY KIRKWOOD)

Prime stand-up from the Scottish and international circuit, hosted by a rotating selection of Stand stalwarts.

THE BEEHIVE COMEDY CLUB

Long-running improvised comedy show with resident duo Stu & Garry weaving comedy magic from offthe-cuff audience suggestions.

Wed 02 Sep

KEVIN BRIDGES: A WHOLE DIFFERENT STORY

CAIRD HALL, 20:00–22:00, £25

The Glaswegian funnyman returns to the road with his new show, following the release of his first autobiography.

Thu 03 Sep

KEVIN BRIDGES: A WHOLE DIFFERENT STORY

CAIRD HALL, 20:00–22:00, £25

The Glaswegian funnyman returns to the road with his new show, following the release of his first autobiography.

Fri 18 Sep JUST LAUGH

DUNDEE REP, 20:00–22:00, £12

Glasgow Theatre

THE QUEEN’S HALL, 20:00–22:00, £15

Multi-talented comedy entertainer who has also turned his hand to rapping and acting, out touring his new show.

Sat 26 Sep

THE SATURDAY SHOW (PHIL O’SHEA + LARAH BROSS + TONY BURGESS + MC BILLY KIRKWOOD)

Citizens Theatre LANARK

3–19 SEP, NOT 6, 7, 13, 14, 7:00PM – 10:30PM, FROM £12.50

Packed Saturday evening bill of stand-up headliners and resident comperes to jolly along your weekend.

David Greig’s new adaptation of Alasdair Gray’s seminal novel, celebrating Gray’s 80th year, fresh from a run at Edinburgh’s Fringe.

Matinee performances also available.

BEEHIVE INN, 20:30–22:30, £10

24 SEP, 7:30PM – 10:00PM, £10

EPIC RAP BATTLES OF HISTORY

The King’s Theatre

THE STAND EDINBURGH, 21:00–23:00, £15

THE BEEHIVE COMEDY CLUB

Regular weekend comedy showcase featuring a selection of up-and-coming acts from Scotland and beyond, topped with a guest headliner. See Facebook on the day for line-ups.

ELECTRIC CIRCUS, 19:00–22:00, £17.50

The creators of the cult video series bring their mix of music and comedy to the live stage, featuring the most popular rap battles performed live with a DJ and full band, plus improvised comedy shenanigans and interactive songs.

Sun 27 Sep

THE SUNDAY NIGHT LAUGH-IN (SILKY + NICK DAVIES + MC ASHLEY STORRIE) THE STAND EDINBURGH, 20:30–22:30, £6 (£5 STUDENTS/£1 MEMBERS)

Chilled comedy showcase to cure your Sunday evening back-towork blues.

STU & GARRY’S FREE IMPROV SHOW

THE STAND EDINBURGH, 13:30–15:30, FREE

Long-running improvised comedy show with resident duo Stu & Garry weaving comedy magic from offthe-cuff audience suggestions.

Mon 28 Sep RED RAW

THE STAND EDINBURGH, 20:30–22:30, £2

THE STAND EDINBURGH, 20:30–22:30, £8 (£6)

THE STAND EDINBURGH, 13:30–15:30, FREE

CAIRD HALL, 20:00–22:00, £25

The Glaswegian funnyman returns to the road with his new show, following the release of his first autobiography.

DOC BROWN: THE WEIRD WAY ROUND

THE STAND EDINBURGH, 20:30–22:30, £6 (£5 STUDENTS/£1 MEMBERS)

STU & GARRY’S FREE IMPROV SHOW

KEVIN BRIDGES: A WHOLE DIFFERENT STORY

Monthly comedy showcase bringing a selection of UK stand-ups to Dundee.

Sun 20 Sep

Chilled comedy showcase to cure your Sunday evening back-towork blues.

Tue 01 Sep

BEEHIVE INN, 20:30–22:30, £10

Regular weekend comedy showcase featuring a selection of up-and-coming acts from Scotland and beyond, topped with a guest headliner. See Facebook on the day for line-ups.

Open-mic style beginners showcase, plus some old hands dropping by to roadtest new material.

THE SUNDAY NIGHT LAUGH-IN (DAISY EARL + KEIRON NICHOLSON + MC CHRIS CONROY)

Dundee Comedy

Tue 29 Sep THE TONY LAW SHOW

The multi award-winning Canadian nonsense-maker pitches up with his particularly addictive brand of silliness.

ANO NEDOSLOV: DOUBLE BILL

ANO Nedoslov present two new works from Russia: No Rights To Have An Angel and Unlocked Freedom. Part of Progression 2015.

THE SIMON AND GARFUNKEL STORY

12 SEP, 7:30PM – 10:00PM, FROM £19

Musical retelling of the songwriting partnership’s stellar career, told using both original photos and film footage.

THE GLENN MILLER STORY

15–19 SEP, 7:30PM – 10:00PM, FROM £17.50

Tommy Steele leads a 16-piece orchestral cast to tell the story of Glenn Miller, who vanished over the English Channel as he flew to Paris to entertain the troops during the Second World War. Matinee performances also available.

Theatre Royal ALL MY SONS

1–5 SEP, 7:30PM – 10:00PM, FROM £10

Arthur Miller’s first commercial and critical success, based on a true story about a successful selfmade businessman whose factory supplied the US military during the war. Matinee performances also available.

SCOTTISH BALLET: DOUBLE BILL

24–26 SEP, 7:30PM – 10:00PM, FROM £13

Special Scottish Ballet double bill, featuring the world premiere of young American choreographer Bryan Arias’s Motion of Displacement, paired with Javier de Frutos’s evocation of the music of Cole Porter, Elsa Canasta.

Tron Theatre WHAT GOES AROUND

17–19 SEP, TIMES VARY, PRICES VARY

Liz Lochhead’s contemporary sex comedy in which an actor and an actress, strangers until that morning, sit down together for a drink to break the ice.

THE SKINNY

Theatre

Art

OUR LADIES OF PERPETUAL SUCCOUR

Glasgow School of Art

8–12 SEP, 7:45PM – 10:00PM, FROM £10

Funny, sad and frequently rude story of a choir trip to Edinburgh that goes badly wrong, adapted from Alan Warner’s novel The Sopranos.

Websters ENSEMBLE

24–25 SEP, 7:30PM – 10:00PM, FREE

Rehearsed reading of a new play by award-winning Scottish dramatist Peter Arnott, set between the fall of the Berlin Wall and reunification.

THE NOTEBOOK 17–19 SEP, 7:30PM – 10:00PM, £16 (£13 STUDENT/£8 UNEMPLOYED)

The story of twin brothers evacuated to their impoverished grandmother’s farm in the Hungarian countryside during World War II, based on Ágota Kristóf’s award-winning novel.

FALLING IN LOVE WITH FRIDA

18–19 SEP, 8:00PM – 10:00PM, £16 (£13 STUDENT/£8 UNEMPLOYED)

Caroline Bowditch’s exploration of the life, loves and legacy of painter Frida Kahlo, exposing little-known facts about the infamous woman.

GLASGOW SCHOOL OF ART: GRADUATE DEGREE SHOW 2015

12–18 SEP, TIMES VARY, FREE

Public showcase for the full range of graduate work undertaken at Glasgow School of Art in 2015, featuring work by students across a variety of disciplines including architecture, design, fine art and digital. In the Reid Building and McLellan Galleries.

Glasgow Sculpture Studios MARYSIA GACEK

Edinburgh

Dundee

Festival Theatre

Dundee Rep

SCOTTISH BALLET: DOUBLE BILL

29–30 SEP, 7:30PM – 10:00PM, FROM £13.50

Special Scottish Ballet double bill, featuring the world premiere of young American choreographer Bryan Arias’s Motion of Displacement, paired with Javier de Frutos’s evocation of the music of Cole Porter, Elsa Canasta.

King’s Theatre Edinburgh ALL MY SONS

1-5 SEP, 7:30PM – 10:00PM, FROM £14

Arthur Miller’s first commercial and critical success, based on a true story about a successful selfmade businessman whose factory supplied the US military during the war. Matinee performances also available.

BRAVE NEW WORLD

29 SEP – 3 OCT, 7:30PM – 10:00PM, FROM £14

The Aldous Huxley novel gets its first stage adaptation, with playwright Dawn King bringing the tale of a fictional future to life, backed by original music by These New Puritans. Matinee performances also available.

Royal Lyceum Theatre WAITING FOR GODOT

VARIOUS DATES BETWEEN 18 SEP AND 10 OCT, 7:30PM – 10:00PM, PRICES VARY

Well-kent Scottish actors Brian Cox and Bill Paterson star as Vladimir and Estragon in Samuel Beckett’s two act tragicomedy, still relevant some 60 years after it was first staged. Matinee performances also available.

The Edinburgh Playhouse DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS

15 SEP, 7:30PM – 10:00PM, FROM £25

Two common swindlers attempt to con a millionaire heiress on the French Riviera; based on the classic comedy starring Sir Michael Caine and Steve Martin. Matinee performances also available.

THE BODYGUARD

29 SEP AND 10 OCT, 7:30PM – 10:00PM, FROM £18.50

Musical based on the blockbuster film of the same name, with XFactor winner Alexandra Burke taking on warbling Whitney duties. Matinee performances also available.

Traverse Theatre WHAT GOES AROUND

25 & 26 SEP, TIMES VARY, PRICES VARY

Liz Lochhead’s contemporary sex comedy in which an actor and an actress, strangers until that morning, sit down together for a drink to break the ice.

ENSEMBLE

24–25 SEP, 7:30PM – 10:00PM, FREE

Rehearsed reading of a new play by award-winning Scottish dramatist Peter Arnott, set between the fall of the Berlin Wall and reunification.

September 2015

THE CHEVIOT, THE STAG AND THE BLACK, BLACK OIL

9–26 SEP, NOT 13, 14, 20, 21, 7:30PM – 10:00PM, FROM £10 (£9)

Retelling of John McGrath’s story of the history and the tragedy of Scotland, performed as a Highland ceilidh, with song, humour and drama intermixed. Matinee performances also available.

WHAT GOES AROUND

30 SEP, TIMES VARY, PRICES VARY

Liz Lochhead’s contemporary sex comedy in which an actor and an actress, strangers until that morning, sit down together for a drink to break the ice.

The Gardyne Theatre I WILL SURVIVE

12 SEP, 7:30PM – 10:00PM, £15

New musical comedy about how to survive a break up with the help of your girlfriends and the singing of songs from the 70s, 80s and 90s.

Deep stuff.

Whitehall Theatre GREASE

2-5 SEP, 7:30PM – 10:00PM, £12 (£9)

New rendition of the frothy musical favourite, delivered in full-on singalong glory as per.

BONNIE AND CLYDE

17–19 SEP, 7:30PM – 10:00PM, £14 (£12)

Retelling of the tale of America’s most notorious lovers and bank robbers.

Glasgow

VARIOUS DATES BETWEEN 11 JUL AND 5 SEP, 11:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

Showcase exhibition from Marysia Gacek, the recipient of Glasgow Sculpture Studio’s 2014 MFA Graduate Fellowship, who creates structures and narratives using personal symbolism and different modes of representation.

GoMA

THE BALLET OF THE PALETTE

20 FEB – 24 JAN, TIMES VARY, FREE

Showcase exhibition of 20th century paintings selected from Glasgow Museums’ collection, chosen by a selection of contemporary artists who exhibited work in the 2013 exhibition, A Picture Show.

RIPPLES ON THE POND

27 MAR – 28 FEB, TIMES VARY, FREE

Glasgow Museums’ collection exhibition designed as a conversation between works by women on paper and moving image, taking as its starting point recent acquisitions from the Glasgow Women’s Library 21 Revolutions series.

DOUGLAS MORLAND: THE DEATH OF LADY MONDEGREEN

19 JUN – 20 SEP, TIMES VARY, FREE

Solo show of sculptural and image-based works by Glasgowbased artist and musician Douglas Morland, taking its title from a 1954 essay in Harper’s magazine in which the term ‘mondegreen’ was coined by the author’s mishearing of a line in a Scots ballad.

Hunterian Art Gallery

THE ONLY WAY TO DO IT IS TO DO IT

VARIOUS DATES BETWEEN 27 MAR AND 4 OCT, TIMES VARY, FREE

Exhibition revisiting the experimental practices and legacy of progressive liberal art college Black Mountain College (1933-57), taking in Post-War American prints from The Hunterian’s permanent collection alongside new work by contemporary practitioners.

TRAVELLERS’ TAILS

CCA: Centre for Contemporary Art LAUREN GAULT + ALLISON GIBBS: FUGUE STATES

VARIOUS DATES BETWEEN 24 JUL AND 6 SEP, TIMES VARY, FREE

Double-header exhibition investigating the margins of sight, sense and connectedness, with the artists varying approaches in film and sculpture creating a layered response to themes of time and ‘the extra sensory’.

MICHAEL BARR

12–18 SEP, NOT 14, TIMES VARY, FREE

Four students graduating from the inaugural year of GSA’s MLitt Curatorial Practice (Contemporary Art) collaborate on a new commission

by Glasgow-based performance artist Michael Barr.

THE SHOCK OF VICTORY

VARIOUS DATES BETWEEN 19 SEP AND 1 NOV, TIMES VARY, FREE

Curated programme consisting of an exhibition, symposium and digital publication for a post-referendum reality, including works by In the Shadow of the Hand, an artist duo based in Glasgow consisting of Virginia Hutchison and Sarah Forrest.

VARIOUS DATES BETWEEN 1 OCT AND 25 FEB, TIMES VARY, FREE

Themed exhibition on exploration, art and science, inspired by the National Maritime Museum’s acquisition of the Kangaroo and Dingo

by English painter George Stubbs, with the on-loan Kangaroo forming the exhibition’s centrepiece.

Lillie Art Gallery FUTUREPROOF 2015

VARIOUS DATES BETWEEN 22 AUG AND 3 OCT, TIMES VARY, FREE

Annual showcase of new photographic talent selected from across Scotland’s Photography and Fine Art degree courses, this year taking place across two venues: Lillie Art Gallery, Glasgow (22 Aug-16 Sep) and Peacock Visual Arts, Aberdeen (22 Aug-3 Oct).

Mary Mary

MATTHEW BRANNON + MILANO CHOW + ALAN REID: I HOPE TO GOD YOU’RE NOT AS DUMB AS YOU MAKE OUT

VARIOUS DATES BETWEEN 26 SEP AND 7 NOV, 12:00PM – 6:00PM, FREE

Triple-header exhibition from artists Matthew Brannon, Milano Chow and Alan Reid. Also one of the best exhibition titles we’ve seen in a long while.

Project Ability YOUNG TALENT!

VARIOUS DATES BETWEEN 4 SEP AND 24 OCT, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

Annual showcase celebrating the artwork created by children and young people from the Create Programme, now in its 15th year.

RGI Kelly Gallery

Tramway

TURNER PRIZE 2015

VARIOUS DATES BETWEEN 1 OCT AND 17 JAN, TIMES VARY, FREE

The prestigious visual art award comes Scotland for the first time, with a programme of workshops, talks, tours and activities accompanying the exhibition showcase.

EDGE TEXTILE ARTISTS: BETWEEN MYTH AND LEDGEND

VARIOUS DATES BETWEEN 15 AUG AND 5 SEP, TIMES VARY, FREE

Showcase exhibition of contemporary textiles created by artists from the EDGE Textile Group.

Street Level Photoworks SURFACE TENSION

VARIOUS DATES BETWEEN 3 SEP AND 8 NOV, TIMES VARY, FREE

Showcase of four contemporary artists who variously use intuitive processes to produce tactile, lyrical and multi-layered artworks: Lorna Macintyre, Susanne Ramsenthaler, Karen L Vaughan and Catherine Cameron.

The Glue Factory

JOMPET KUSWIDANANTO: GRAND PARADE

VARIOUS DATES BETWEEN 10 SEP AND 4 OCT, TIMES VARY, FREE

Artist and theatre maker Jompet Kuswidananto tours the Grand Parade to Scotland – a installation depicting dozens of human figures with drums and weapons, motorbikes and horses meeting in a big square. Part of Discover Indonesia.

JIM ALLEN ABEL UNIFORM_CODE

VARIOUS DATES BETWEEN 10 SEP AND 4 OCT, TIMES VARY, FREE

Artist and photographer Jim Allen Abel explores how the idea of uniform is often used to obscure the existence of individuals and heir specific roles in constituting a bigger entity. Part of Discover Indonesia.

The Lighthouse ISLAND

24 JUL – 4 OCT, TIMES VARY, FREE

Selection of new designs by architects Angela Deuber, Pascal Flammer, Christ & Gantenbein, Neil Gillespie, Johannes Norlander, Raumbureau and Raphael Zuber, imagining a house for real clients living or moving to the Isle of Harris.

ARTCHITECTURE

7–27 SEP, TIMES VARY, FREE

Showcase exhibition celebrating Glasgow’s building heritage, for which artist Marion Gardyne has created a series of bespoke collages interpreting The Lighthouse.

The Modern Institute

MICHAEL WILKINSON: SORRY HAD TO DONE

12 SEP – 24 OCT, NOT SUNDAYS, TIMES VARY, FREE

Edinburgh City Art Centre SCOTTISH ART: PEOPLE, PLACES, IDEAS

23 MAY – 27 SEP, TIMES VARY, FREE

Special exhibition based on a thematic framework exploring four key areas – people, landscape, still life and abstraction – drawing from art in Scotland over the last 250 years, returning following its inaugural 2011 showcase.

Collective Gallery BEATRICE GIBSON

30 JUL – 4 OCT, NOT 7 SEP, 14 SEP, 21 SEP, 28 SEP, TIMES VARY, FREE

Looped screening of artist Beatrice Gibson’s new film, Crippled Symmetries, taking American author William Gaddis’ modernist masterpiece, JR, as the departure point for a biting social satire that turns the American dream on its head.

Dovecot Studios BERNAT KLEIN: A LIFE IN COLOUR

31 JUL – 26 SEP, NOT 6 SEP, 13 SEP, 20 SEP, TIMES VARY, FREE

Retrospective exhibition featuring tapestries by Bernat Klein woven

by Dovecot Studios, showing alongside other works by the designer whose signature vibrant mohair and tweed textiles were produced in the Scottish Borders for fashion houses in Europe.

KWANG YOUNG CHUN: AGGREGATIONS

31 JUL – 26 SEP, NOT 6 SEP, 13 SEP, 20 SEP, TIMES VARY, FREE

First solo exhibition in Scotland of internationally renowned Korean artist Kwang Young Chun, uniting the traditions of making and Eastern philosophy with the artist’s painterly interest in American Abstract Expressionism.

Edinburgh Printmakers

DEREK MICHAEL BESANT: IN OTHER WORDS

VARIOUS DATES BETWEEN 30 JUL AND 5 SEP, 10:00AM – 6:00PM, FREE

Solo show by multi-media Canadian artist Derek Michael Besant, featuring new work created specifically for Edinburgh Printmakers, for which he photographed and surveyed members of the Edinburgh Printmakers community to create a series of intimate images.

Solo showcase of Californianborn artist Michael Wilkinson, known for his captivating acrylic sculptures blending the human form with the abstract.

Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop

The Modern Institute @ Airds Lane

11 MAR – 1 SEP, 9:30AM – 5:00PM, FREE

HAYLEY TOMKINS

VARIOUS DATES BETWEEN 12 SEP AND 7 NOV, 12:00PM – 5:00PM, FREE

Solo showcase from Glasgowliving artist Hayley Tompkins, known for her colourful abstract works, with her installations sometimes including ready-made elements from house plants to items of clothing.

The Telfer Gallery

CHARLIE GODET THOMAS: TO BE IS TO DO, TO DO IS TO BE, DO BE DO BE DO

19 SEP – 4 OCT, NOT 21 SEP, 22 SEP, 28 SEP, 29 SEP, 11:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

Solo showcase of work from the experimental London-based artist, whose practice bridges sculpture, photography and painting.

CONCRETE ANTENNA

Sound installation in the new ESW tower created by Tommy Perman, Simon Kirby and Rob St. John, sonically exploring the past, present and (potential) future of the workshop’s site via sound gathered from audio archives and specially made field recordings.

Ingleby Gallery

CHARLES AVERY: THE PEOPLE AND THINGS OF ONOMATOPOEIA

30 JUL – 26 SEP, NOT 6 SEP, 13 SEP, 20 SEP, TIMES VARY, FREE

Scottish artist Charles Avery continues his lifelong project ‘The Islanders’, begun in 2004, a painstakingly detailed description of a fictional world that functions in parallel to our own universe, realised in drawing, painting, sculpture and text.

Inverleith House JOHN CHAMBERLAIN

VARIOUS DATES BETWEEN 25 JUL AND 4 OCT, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

First solo exhibition in a UK public gallery by late American artist, known for his vibrantly coloured, dynamic metal sculptures made from salvaged materials and car parts, taking in early and midcareer works, as well as an outdoor display.

Jupiter Artland TARA DONOVAN

VARIOUS DATES BETWEEN 1 AUG AND 27 SEP, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, £8.50 (£4.50)

The Brooklyn-based artist showcases a series of large scale works resembling elements from nature under a microscope, featuring thousands of identical items stacked, glued, cut and assembled into installations and sculptures.

SAMARA SCOTT: STILL LIFE

VARIOUS DATES BETWEEN 1 AUG AND 27 SEP, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, £8.50 (£4.50)

First ever Scottish exhibition for London-based artist Samara Scott, a material alchemist known for using edible substances such as avocado skins and toothpaste to create her floor and wall based installations and sculptures.

THE OLYMPIAN GODS: EUROPEAN PRINTS OF THE RENAISSANCE 20 JUN – 18 OCT, TIMES VARY, FREE

Selection of Renaissance engravings, etchings and woodcuts depicting the pagan Gods, at a time when graphic print media was the vehicle for the diffusion of images representing secular subject matter.

JEAN-ETIENNE LIOTARD

4 JUL – 13 SEP, TIMES VARY, £9 (£7)

Rare exhibition of celebrated hyper-realist eighteenth century artist Jean-Etienne Liotard (170289), marking the first time his work will have been comprehensively shown in Britain.

BAILEY’S STARDUST

18 JUL – 18 OCT, TIMES VARY, £11 (£9)

The Stardust exhibition by the renowned photographer makes it was up to Scotland, following a run at the National Portrait Gallery in London, featuring over 300 portraits spanning half a century.

Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art ROY LICHTENSTEIN

14 MAR – 10 JAN, TIMES VARY, FREE

Artist Lauren Gault unveils an ambitious new outdoor sculptural installation, incorporating sound as well as live elements.

A special three-room ‘Artist Rooms’ display dedicated to works by celebrated American pop artist Roy Lichtenstein, bringing together a newly assembled group of works care of the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation and the Estate of Roy Lichtenstein.

VARIOUS DATES BETWEEN 1 AUG AND 27 SEP, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, £8.50 (£4.50)

27 JUN – 27 SEP, TIMES VARY, £9 (£7)

LAUREN GAULT: LIPSTICK – NASA

VARIOUS DATES BETWEEN 1 AUG AND 27 SEP, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, £8.50 (£4.50)

SARA BARKER

Having showcased her first temporary commission at Jupiter Artland as part of the Edinburgh Art Festival in 2013, artist Sara Barker returns to unveil a permanent large scale sculpture comprised of layered wood and steel.

National Museum of Scotland THE SILVERSMITH’S ART

18 SEP – 4 JAN, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

Celebration of the artistry and skill of British modern silversmiths, presenting work from the Contemporary Silver Collection of the Goldsmiths’ Company, London, dating from the millennium to present day.

PHOTOGRAPHY: A VICTORIAN SENSATION

19 JUN – 22 NOV, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, £10 (£8 STUDENT/£6.50 CHILD)

Illuminating showcase of over 1,500 photographs charting the changing techniques used by photographers and studios during the 19th century, exploring the stories of the people both in front of and behind the camera.

Out of the Blue Drill Hall CLASSIC COPENHAGEN

25–27 SEP, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

Danish designer and photographer Sandra Høj gives her insight in to Copenhagen’s street art scene with a collection of photographs. Part of City Link Festival.

Royal Scottish Academy RSA

THE WATER HEN: KANTOR, DEMARCO AND THE EDINBURGH FESTIVAL

25 JUL – 5 SEP, TIMES VARY, FREE

Marking the centenary of his birth, the RSA show a newly digitised version of Polish theatre director Tadeusz Kantor’s The Water Hen – a production which was a sensation at the 1972 Edinburgh Festival – alongside a selection of performance photographs.

Scottish National Gallery ROCKS AND RIVERS: THE LUNDE COLLECTION

3–30 APR, TIMES VARY, FREE

Long-term loan from one of the finest private collections of 19thCentury Norwegian and Swiss landscape paintings, American collector Asbjörn Lunde, taking in 13 works by artists including Johan Christian Dahl, Alexandre Calame and Thomas Fearnley.

THE AMAZING WORLD OF M.C. ESCHER

Retrospective exhibition of Dutch graphic artist M.C. Escher, including nearly 100 prints and drawings stretching across his whole career, drawn entirely from the collection of the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague.

REFLECTIONS

14 MAR – 10 JAN, TIMES VARY, FREE

Changing series of displays showcasing the work of a diverse range of internationally-renowned contemporary artists, including newly commissioned work by contemporary artists Michael Fullerton and Julie Favreau.

St Margaret’s House

GABRIELA SANCHEZ: TO INHABIT SPACES – NATURE

14–25 SEP, 10:00AM – 6:00PM, FREE

Multi-disciplinary solo showcase combining installations, sculpture, dance, video, photography and sound in site-specific performances.

Stills

HERE COMES EVERYBODY

31 JUL – 25 OCT, 11:00AM – 6:00PM, FREE

New showcase of work by kennardphillipps, the collaborative practice of London-based artists Peter Kennard and Cat Phillipps, formed in 2003 in response to the invasion of Iraq.

Talbot Rice Gallery

HANNE DARBOVEN: ACCEPTING ANYTHING AMONG EVERYTHING

31 JUL – 3 OCT, NOT 6 SEP, 13 SEP, 20 SEP, 27 SEP, TIMES VARY, FREE

First exhibition in Scotland from late artist Hanne Darboven, centred upon the work Life/ Living (1997-1998), a monumental installation of hundreds of framed works that form a systematic representation of the years 1900-1999.

The Biscuit Factory

ARTISTS EXCHANGE EXHIBITION

24–27 SEP, 12:00PM – 6:00PM, FREE

Five Danish and Scottish artists exhibit their work as part of an artist exchange between Copenhagen and Edinburgh, as part of City Link Festival, with Jessica Harrison, Kevin Harman, and Jamie Johnson among those representing Scotland.

The Fruitmarket Gallery PHYLLIDA BARLOW

27 JUN – 18 OCT, TIMES VARY, FREE

Major solo showcase of work by Newcastle artist Phyllida Barlow, known for her monumental and immersive sculptures made from simple materials such as plywood, cardboard, fabric, plaster, paint and plastic.

Scottish National Portrait The Queen’s Gallery Gallery COLLECTING NOW

9 MAY – 20 SEP, TIMES VARY, FREE

Showcase exhibition of a number of the recent acquisitions that have entered the Portrait Gallery collection since 2010, including a double portrait by Cecile Walton from around 1911 and a group of silver gelatin prints by David Peat from the late 60s.

LEE MILLER AND PICASSO

23 MAY – 6 SEP, TIMES VARY, £9 (£7)

Revealing exhibition featuring approximately 100 photographs focusing on the relationship between Lee Miller, Roland Penrose and Pablo Picasso, featuring photographs by Miller and a painting and drawing by Picasso.

HEAD TO HEAD: PORTRAIT SCULPTURE – ANCIENT TO MODERN

6 JUN – 31 JAN, TIMES VARY, FREE

Exhibition of portrait sculpture from across the National Galleries of Scotland’s collection, moving from ancient to modern and executed in a range of media, illustrating how sculptors continue to reference the illustrious tradition of the portrait bust.

DOCUMENT SCOTLAND: THE TIES THAT BIND

26 SEP – 24 APR, TIMES VARY, FREE

Photographic collective comprising of Colin McPherson, Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert, Sophie Gerrard and Stephen McLaren – four Scotsborn photographers, each exponents of documentary photography – featuring 50-75 photographs of, and about, Scotland.

Space Artworks

VICTORIA GAZELEY: AFRICAN QUEST – NATURE’S COLLECTIVE

SCOTTISH ARTISTS 1750-1900: FROM CALEDONIA TO THE CONTINENT

6 AUG – 7 FEB, 9:30AM – 6:00PM, £6.60 (£6 STUDENT/£3 UNDER 17S)

First ever exhibition devoted to Scottish art in the Royal Collection, bringing together paintings, drawings and miniatures collected by monarchs from George III to Queen Victoria.

The Scottish Gallery

JAMES MORRISON: THE NORTH WIND

6 AUG – 5 SEP, NOT SUNDAYS, TIMES VARY, FREE

Showcase exhibition of the Glasgow-born and GSA-graduating artist, the culmination of three years work, bringing new subjects and some adaption of his studio practice, including work made directly in front of the landscape.

FINE LINES

6 AUG – 5 SEP, NOT SUNDAYS, TIMES VARY, FREE

Collective exhibition taking in Miriam Hanid’s silver work, Jim Partridge and Liz Walmsley’s collaborative furniture and woodwork, and Kirsten Coelho’s fired porcelain pieces.

JOAN EARDLEY: IN CONTEXT

6 AUG – 5 SEP, NOT SUNDAYS, TIMES VARY, FREE

Having first begun their association back in 1955, The Scottish Gallery showcase a selection of works by Joan Eardley 60 years on, including several previously unpublished photographs taken by Audrey Walker, the artist’s lover and muse.

VARIOUS DATES BETWEEN 5 SEP AND 30 SEP, TIMES VARY, FREE

Solo showcase from Dundee-born, Edinburgh-living and working artist Victoria Gazeley, with the work on show inspired by her travels to South Africa in 2009 and 2011.

Listings

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THOMAS CAMERON

VARIOUS DATES BETWEEN 5 SEP AND 26 SEP, TIMES VARY, FREE

Solo showcase of new work from the Glasgow-based, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design-graduating artist.

The Institute Français d'Ecosse

AULD ALLIANCE CONTEMPORARY EXHIBITIONS 2015

VARIOUS DATES BETWEEN 4 OCT AND 31 OCT, TIMES VARY, FREE

Franco-Scottish collab pairing established French artists alongside up-and-coming Scottish artists, this year with six young Scottish artists, including RSA New Contemporary exhibitors, showing work alongside three successful 80s graduates from Paris.

E.D.S Gallery

AULD ALLIANCE CONTEMPORARY EXHIBITIONS 2015

VARIOUS DATES BETWEEN 4 OCT AND 31 OCT, TIMES VARY, FREE

Franco-Scottish collab pairing established French artists alongside up-and-coming Scottish artists, this year with six young Scottish artists, including RSA New Contemporary exhibitors, showing work alongside three successful 80s graduates from Paris.

Dundee Cooper Gallery

COOPER SUMMER RESIDENCY 2015: THINGNESS?

18 SEP – 10 OCT, NOT SUNDAYS, 11:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

Showcase exhibition marking the culmination of Cooper Summer Residency 2015: Thingness?, with Glasgow-based artist Oliver Braid, Brussels-based artist Anouchka Oler and Newcastle-based philosopher Joseph Fletcher.

DCA: Dundee Contemporary Arts

ROMAN SIGNER: INSTALLATIONS

4 JUL – 20 SEP, 11:00AM – 6:00PM, FREE

Internationally renowned for his sculptural installations and video works, Swiss artist Roman Signer presents new work made specially for DCA – including a radical re-purposing of kayaks, a longstanding symbol and form in his work.

The McManus

CLASSICAL ART: THE LEGACY OF THE ANCIENTS

24 JAN – 21 SEP, TIMES VARY, FREE

Showcase of works with a taste of the antique, illustrating the enduring influence of ancient Greek and Roman culture through paintings, sculpture and ceramics from Dundee’s nationally significant collection of fine art.

Win Tickets to The Pleasance Sessions!

University of Dundee

TRANSMISSIONS: EXPLORING THE MICROBIAL WORLD

VARIOUS DATES BETWEEN 13 JUN AND 5 SEP, 11:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

Showcase of work by artists exploring the microbial world and the implications of human coexistence with microbial life, made during residency at the Centre for Immunity, Infection and Evolution at the University of Edinburgh. In the Lifespace Gallery.

T

JIM PETRIE: MINNIE THE MINX AND MORE

3 JUN – 19 SEP, NOT SUNDAYS, TIMES VARY, FREE

Exhibition celebrating the art of DC Thomson cartoonist (and DJCAD graduate) Jim Petrie (who died last year), best known as the artist who drew the Beano’s Minnie the Minx for 40 years. In the Lamb Gallery.

A PASSION FOR PRINT

27 JUN – 26 SEP, NOT SUNDAYS, TIMES VARY, FREE

Selection of prints from the University of Dundee’s own collection of works by renowned artist and printmaker Jim Pattison. In the Tower Foyer Gallery.

Credit: Elliott Hatherley

The Sutton Gallery

Man of Moon

he Pleasance Sessions are back for a third year – proudly bringing together musicians, promoters and publications from around the country.

Building on last year's success with a refined lineup, spanning three nights from 9-11 October, the whole thing takes place in the comfortable surrounds of The Pleasance Theatre in Edinburgh.

Man of Moon, Jonnie Common and PAWS bring the noise on Friday 9 Oct, programmed by the everlovin' Vic Galloway, while Blanck Mass, RM Hubbert, OUTBLINKER and BDY_PRTS work their magic at your dear ol' pal The Skinny's own event on Saturday 10 Oct. Meanwhile, principal organisers Edinburgh University Student Association look after proceedings on Sunday 11 Oct, with a bill featuring Withered Hand and Yusuf Azak.

We have a pair of three-day tickets to give away – to be in with a chance of winning, all you need to do is answer the following question: What was the year of the first Pleasance Sessions? a) 2012 b) 2013 c) 2014

Competition closes midnight Wednesday 30 September. All under 16s must be accompanied by an adult. The winner will be notified via email within two working days of closing and will be required to respond within 48 hours or the prize will be offered to another entrant. Our Ts&Cs can be found at theskinny.co.uk/about/terms-and-conditions

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Listings

THE SKINNY

The Last Word As Slayer defy the odds and return with Repentless, frontman Tom Araya candidly discusses the loss of Jeff Hanneman and Dave Lombardo, the breakdown of their relationship with Rick Rubin, and his uneasy relationship with the thrash titans’ legacy Interview: Joe Goggins

“I

never used to think about it, but these days, people are always throwing it in your face. I think it’s 34 years in the band, 32 since Hell Awaits, next year will be 30 since Reign in Blood; fuck, man.

It’s crazy.”

The last six or so years of Slayer’s career have been amongst their most turbulent; given their ever-present penchant for controversy, that’s saying something. In 2008, frontman Tom Araya shrouded the future of the band in doubt, apparently loath to continue roaring his way through the likes of Angel of Death and Raining Blood the older he got. Three years later, and just months before some of the biggest shows of their career alongside fellow thrash legends Metallica, Megadeth and Anthrax as part of the Big Four tour, founding guitarist Jeff Hanneman contracted the gruesome skin disease necrotising fasciitis; he was forced to sit out both touring and studio commitments, and in 2013, he succumbed to alcoholism at the age of 49.

That same year, drummer Dave Lombardo – another original member – departed in acrimonious and apparently financially-driven circumstances. With Araya and guitarist Kerry King – not known for always seeing eye-to-eye – the last men standing, the very future of one of metal’s great institutions was very much up in the air. They continued to tour, although hardly with abundant enthusiasm. “After 30 years, it’s stopped being fun in some ways,” Araya admits when we call him at his home in Texas. “It’s become this corporation; we have to tour, because people rely on us. There’s a lot of other people involved, and they all want their money.” Repentless, though – their first new full-length since World Painted Blood in 2009 – at least seems to signify the turning of a page for the band; the result is their most vital record in over a decade.

ON THE CHANGE IN BAND DYNAMICS SINCE THE LOSS OF JEFF HANNEMAN...

When Jeff passed, I was apprehensive. To me, the issue was, do we continue? The relationship between me and Jeff was very much a working one, where we could communicate, collaborate and make things sound cool in our eyes, whereas the one between me and Kerry was really different. I just knew we had to sit down and figure out if we could still do this – if this was going to be a good relationship or a rocky one. 30 years together is a long time, and you end up learning how to cope with each other – or at least deal with each other! After that length of time, you learn how people are and when you should just say, ‘Oh, whatever. That’s just him being him.’

That was easier when Jeff was around.

ON HANNEMAN’S ENDURING INFLUENCE...

As much as I think Kerry took control of the record, he tried to make it a rounded Slayer album by musically pinning together songs that, in some ways, were influenced by Jeff. I don’t want to use the word emulate, but at some points, he tried to come up with songs that would represent how Jeff wrote and the preference that he had for the heavy, slow stuff – especially on When the Stillness Comes and Pride in Prejudice.

ON HANNEMAN’S UNEASY RELATIONSHIP WITH FAME AND DESIRE TO TELEPORT EVERYWHERE...

At some point, he was over it. He didn’t want to be bothered, he didn’t want to deal with that.

He was still a nice guy to people that he knew and

September 2015

ran into, but quietly, behind the scenes, he spent a lot of time on the bus – we both did, period. Jeff was always talking about teleporters: ‘Wouldn’t it be great if we could just teleport onto the stage, play, and then teleport back home!’ I kept saying to him, ‘Well, do it, man! Find someone to develop it.’

ON DAVE LOMBARDO’S DEPARTURE...

I’m just going to set the record straight on that. Dave agreed to sit in for a tour or two when Paul Bostaph left, so we drew up a contract for Dave, because that’s what you’ve got to do – make sure everybody’s taken care of, everybody’s happy.

We came up with a simple agreement that lasted a while, and then we were in the process of trying to make it better for Dave, because after so many years of playing with us you figure, well, shit – we should redo this, we should figure out how we can make it better for Dave. We came up with a deal and he basically was getting everything he wanted, but it was a three-year term, and three years into that, we still hadn’t been able to get him to sign it. We had some obligations that came up and when you’re given an ultimatum or put on the spot, you have to do something, so we moved forward, and Dave got really upset. We went back to him again and told him that if he signed the deal, we could move forward with him, but he had other plans, so we made a phone call to him and ended it, because he was beginning to put us into a bad spot.

“Jeff was always talking about teleporters” Tom Araya

ON PAUL BOSTAPH’S RETURN...

It’s funny; I remember Kerry talking about getting off the plane on tour, and we had all these people who’d been trying to text us, saying “have you seen what Dave has said? This is all over the internet!” And one of those messages was from Paul, saying, you know, ‘Hey!’ And I took that as a sign.

Paul’s the only other drummer for this band, he’d replaced Dave before, and become kind of a fixture in his own right. We did several albums with him, and in fact, if he hadn’t left, he’d still be in the band. That was the level he was at with us.

ON DASHED PLANS TO WORK WITH RICK RUBIN...

When we got together to throw around some ideas a few years back, it was on the premise that we’d be working with Rubin, once he came up with the kind of agreement that we were hoping for. In the end, that never materialised. I wouldn’t say we were upset, but it was frustrating – ‘What’s the problem? Why isn’t he responding to us?’

By the time he finally did, we had other offers, because people had gotten wind of the fact that we were working towards another record. I was hoping that Rubin would want to really be a part of the album like he did with the first few – to sit in and really work closely with us – but he didn’t offer us that level of participation.

ON SLAYER’S RELATIONSHIP WITH METALLICA...

They’re a bunch of fucking assholes! Nah, they’re great people; the band and everybody who works for them too. Those Big Four shows we did a few years ago were fucking amazing, and it helped that they were such nice guys, and that the opportunity was always there to sit down and talk with them. Everybody got along so well; the bands, the crews, it all gelled together. It’d be great if we could do that again as a world tour, because it would do well everywhere we went. That whole tour is basically a Metallica thing, even if it was billed as the four bands, so it’s their call, and I’m sure they have their reasons for why it stopped. I can tell you it’s not because of us! I’ll just leave it at that. They’ve got their reasons for why it hasn’t been brought up again, and I don’t blame them. I couldn’t thank them enough for giving us that opportunity, to do those fucking massive shows. They allowed us to be part of that, and it was really fucking cool.

ON THREE DECADES ON THE ROAD CATCHING UP WITH HIS VOICE...

It’s getting to the point where I need an extra day or two of rest sometimes. There’s been a few times where I didn’t want to go out and play because I’d rather sacrifice one show than an entire

tour. When I do that – and there have been a few shows cancelled because of my voice – I feel really bad. That’s not Slayer, that’s not cool. It’s not fair to all the people who bought tickets. Jeff kept his health problems to himself for the same reason – he didn’t like to let anybody down.

ON SLAYER’S LEGACY AND HIS OWN STANDING IN METAL HISTORY...

I’m humbled and embarrassed when people ask for my autograph, or when they ask for a picture of me, because I don’t see myself in that fashion – and I’m being sincere when I say that. I play bass and I sing for this band. That, to me, is gratifying enough, and that’s one of the reasons I don’t make myself as accessible any more. I don’t wear the Slayer hat very well these days. I used to be much better at that, and it was fun, but it isn’t any more. I didn’t start a band so that people would know who I was. I remember on one of the early road trips, our tour manager had us constantly doing interviews, and Jeff and I were like, ‘Fuck, we’re getting tired of doing all this press.’

His response was, ‘Well, you wanted to be a rock star!’ We stopped him in his tracks right there.

We just wanted to play in a fucking band!

Repentless is released on 11 Sep via Nuclear Blast. Playing Glasgow O2 Academy on 25 Nov slayer.net

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