The Skinny August 2017 by The Skinny

.CO.UK

INDEPENDENT FREE

CULT U R A L

J O U R N A L I S M

August 2017 Scotland Issue 143

COMEDY Berk's Nest Sarah Kendall Joseph Morpurgo Ivo Graham & Suzi Ruffell Terry Alderton & Catriona Knox Louise Reay Bilal Zafar Jonny Pelham Trygve Wakenshaw Simon Morley Jessica Fostekew Caroline Mabey Jay Lafferty & Gareth Waugh How Comedy Captured the Edinburgh Fringe Part 4 THEATRE Zinnie Harris Roddy Bottum Adam Boy Blue Entertainment Foreign Radical Betty Grumble Aisha Josiah Focus on Circus BOOKS Laura Hird Chris McQueer: IS IT ART? Michael Pedersen & Scott Hutchison

ART Platform ZoÃ« Walker & Neil Bromwich Pester & Rossi Charlotte Barker Patrick Staff Manaf Halbouni Emer Tumilty MUSIC Julie Byrne Benjamin Clementine Modern Studies MANE Neon Waltz Liars Everything Everything Big Thief Konx-Om-Pax Magic Nostalgic Pinact Kobi Onyame CLUBS Awesome Tapes From Africa Bicep Sub Club Soundsystem FILM Stanley Tucci David Lowery Gareth Tunley

CHOOSE YOUR OWN

ADVENTURE at the Edinburgh Festivals

P.42 Platform 2017

P.56 Julie Byre

August 2017 I N DEPEN DENT

CULTU R AL

JOU R NALI S M

Issue 143, August 2017 ÂŠ Radge Media Ltd. Get in touch: E: hello@theskinny.co.uk T: 0131 467 4630 P: The Skinny, 1.9 1st Floor Tower, Techcube, Summerhall, 1 Summerhall Pl, Edinburgh, EH9 1PL The Skinny is Scotland's largest independent entertainment & listings magazine, and offers a wide range of advertising packages and affordable ways to promote your business. Get in touch to find out more.

E: sales@theskinny.co.uk All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part without the explicit permission of the publisher. The views and opinions expressed within this publication do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of the printer or the publisher.

Printed by Mortons Print Limited, Horncastle ABC verified Jan â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Dec 2016: 27,332

printed on 100% recycled paper

Contents

Editorial Editor-in-Chief Art Editor Books Editor Clubs Editor Comedy Editor Deviance Editor Events Editor Film & DVD Editor Food Editor Music Editor Theatre Editor Travel Editor

Rosamund West Adam Benmakhlouf Alan Bett Claire Francis Ben Venables Kate Pasola Kate Pasola Jamie Dunn Peter Simpson Tallah Brash Amy Taylor Paul Mitchell

Production Production Manager Designer Intern

Sarah Donley Kyle McPartlin Amy Taylor

Sales Sales Manager Sales Executives

Sandy Park George Sully Keith Allan

Online Digital Editor Web Developer

Peter Simpson Stuart Spencer

Bookkeeping & Accounts Publisher

Rebecca Sweeney Sophie Kyle

Cover Image

Emer Tumilty

THE SKINNY

Photo: Liz Ham

P.31 Betty Grumble

Photo: Tonje Thilesen

P.10 Berk's Nest

Contents

06 Chat & Opinion: Welcome to the

Clubs: Brian Shimkovitz chats about his Awesome Tapes from Africa, and Belfast duo Bicep tell us why we’ve had to wait so long for their debut album.

ridiculously huge August issue.

08 Heads Up: Do all this stuff.

We talk to Caithness’ finest, Neon Waltz.

Comedy: We speak to the team behind award-winning company Berk's Nest, chat to Australian comic Sarah Kendall and hear from Joseph Morpurgo Standup pals Ivo Graham and Suzi Ruffell debate class; Terry Alderton and Catriona Knox tell us about the stresses of the Fringe; Louise Reay muses on surveillance while Bilal Zafar chats social media; the riskaverse Jonny Pelham tells us how he’s learning to live in the moment; Trygve Wakenshaw discusses why his infant son, Phineas, is in his Fringe show; and Simon Morley explains why his willy gets different reactions around the world. Plus Jessica Fostekew on her utopian-horror show, Caroline Mabey chats memory, local heroes Jay Lafferty and Gareth Waugh have a confab, and our series on How Comedy Captured the Edinburgh Fringe comes to a close.

Liars' Angus Andrew talks break-ups.

Everything Everything’s Jonathan Higgs fourth album A Fever Dream.

Big Thief's James Krivchenia muses his band’s latest album.

Tom Scholefield, aka Konx-Om-Pax, on his new EP, Refresher.

Stanley Tucci discusses Alberto Giacometti biopic Final Portrait.

David Lowery tells us about his new film A Ghost Story.

We look inside Lynchian psychodrama The Ghoul.

Theatre: We chat to rock provocateur Roddy Bottum about opera; dive into NTS's Adam; East London hip-hop company Boy Blue Entertainment discuss their latest work; Canadian theatremaker Tim Carlson chats to us about cyber surveillance; we get the lowdown on Betty Grumble and Aisha Josiah’s one woman shows; and Zinnie Harris lets us in on her trio of Fringe happenings. We also ask Why is circus so popular? and What the Fuck is Theatre?

LIFESTYLE

EDINBURGH FESTIVALS

FEATURES

Books: Laura Hird tells us about her Radical War story; Neu! Reekie!’s Michael Pedersen and Frightened Rabbit’s Scott Hutchison chat about their new collaboration Oyster; and our Books editor picks highlights from EIBF. Plus read Chris McQueer’s hilarious short story IS IT ART? Art: Platform returns with a new crop of emerging artists. We also speak to two artist duos – Pester & Rossi and Zoë Walker & Neil Bromwich – who bring major interactive shows to the Arts Festival; take a closer look at Summerhall’s politicised art programme; meet Charlotte Barker to discuss her elegant sculptures; Manaf Halbouni reimagines the world map with; and Patrick Staff tells us how combines history and shagging with his Collective Observer's Walk.

Deviance: How to keep it together this Fringe

Showcase: We cast our eye on Irish illustrator and artist Emer Tumilty.

Music: Julie Byrne talks spirituality, touring and latest album Not Even Happiness; Modern Studies tell us about their special SOUNDING show for Made in Scotland 2017; Mercury Prize winner Benjamin Clementine tells us why his new material is his most ambitious work yet, and we speak to MANE ahead of her first trip to the UK as part of this year's Made in Adelaide.

August 2017

Deviance: What could #FreeTheNipple and International Go Topless Day do to be more inclusive and representative?

Travel: One Adelaide resident makes a convincing case for the city.

Food & Drink: Where to eat while you’re Fringing, a look at all the food-inspired Fringe shows. Plus all your food news.

REVIEW

Music: As Magic Nostalgic hits the Fringe, we take a spin around its musical big wheel; Kobi Onyame explains why he’s embracing his musical heritage; Glasgow three-piece Pinact chat about their latest album; plus new records from Liars, The War on Drugs and Ghostpoet.

Clubs: As Sub Club turns 30, three of the club’s residents take part in Guest Selector.

Art: Review of GoMA show centred around Hito Steyerl's video work Abstract, and a look at Finas Townsend III’s abstract painting at CCA.

90 Books & Tech: Novels by Anneliese

Mackintosh, Andrés Barba and Alex Christofi in review, plus we step into a virtual world with Futureplay.

Film & DVD: A Ghost Story, Your Name and Dr Seuss oddity The 5000 Fingers of Dr T in review.

Competitions: Win tickets to Dram & Smoke’s Campfire Feasts Pop-Up and Doune the Rabbit Hole...

Listings: If you haven’t spent all your money on Fringe tickets, there’s all this sweet stuff going on in August too.

Contents

feels like a particularly pertinent work the day after the US’s despot-in-chief announced a ban on trans people in the military. We also meet Boy Blue’s Michael ‘Mikey J’ Asante here to present new dance work Blak Whyte Gray; Betty Grumble and Aisha Josiah talk identity and the power of storytelling wit; and Foreign Radical playwright Tim Carlson discusses cyber surveillance and personal freedom. So that’s some of Comedy and Theatre. What other festivals are there this month? Well there’s the Book Festival, and the Art Festival (since you asked). We’ve taken two runs at the Book Fest programme, one general and one focussed on poetry, to try and distil down their massive pile of fascinating events into a somewhat manageable selection of recommendations. We’ve also spoken to author Laura Hird about her Radical War story in the new anthology Protest; caught up with perennial presence Michael Pedersen to find out about his new collection Oyster, accompanied by illustrations by Frightened Rabbit’s Scott Hutchison; and we reproduce Chris McQueer’s short story IS IT ART? in its entirety. Might be a pertinent read in the context of this cultural extravaganza. In Art we once again meet the early career artists being presented as part of the Platform group exhibition, this year as selected by Graham Fagen and Jacqueline Donachie. We meet art duos Pester & Rossi and Zoë Walker & Neil Bromwich, each presenting ambitious public events as part of this year’s EAF programme. Sculptor Charlotte Barker discusses her work in ceramic ahead of Flotilla, her ESW exhibition which also features a durational collaborative artwork, Clay Mountain, inviting the public to work with the artist and four tonnes of clay to make… something over the course of August. Patrick Staff has created a new audio walk for Collective, while Manaf Halbouni has created a one off event – What If? – with Deveron Arts imagining an alternative timeline where Europe was divided in 1916 by the Ottoman Empire and United Arab States. Finally, cover star Emer Tumilty is showing in Edinburgh Printmakers and shares her latest suite of work in the Showcase on the centre spread. In life beyond the Edinburgh Festivals, in Music we meet Julie Byrne, Benjamin Clementine, Modern Studies, MANE, Neon Waltz, Liars, Everything Everything, Big Thief, Konx-Om-Pax, Pinact and Kobi Onyame. Clubs talks to the people behind Awesome Tapes From Africa and Bicep, and Film meets Stanley Tucci, David Lowery and Gareth Tunley. Much more happens besides, including Deviance discussing feminism and breasts, a trip to Adelaide in Travel, and Crystal Baws pointing out that Superman should really be called Normalalien. It’s a real adventure, this issue – read on. [Rosamund West]

Win tickets to Dram & Smoke: The Campfire Feasts Pop-Up! L

ocal food pop-up bandits Dram & Smoke are setting up shop in Leith warehouse The Biscuit Factory throughout August, drawing on the flavours and nostalgia of a Scottish summertime campfire adventure and providing a unique tasting experience – and cocktails. Tickets include a welcome cocktail followed by a seasonal four-course tasting menu. After the two hour dinner, the bar offers countryside cocktails, great beer and well-sourced wine, alongside live music each night. Check out their website for more information. We've teamed up with Dram & Smoke to give one lucky winner four tickets to the Campfire Feasts Pop-Up on Wednesday 9 August (7pm

start). To be in with a chance of winning, simply answer the following question: What's for dessert at the Campfire Feasts Pop-Up? a) Sautéed banana b) Barbecued pineapple c) Broiled mango Competition closes midnight Sun 6 Aug. Entrants must be aged 18 or over. Winners will be notified via email within one working day of closing and will be required to respond within 24 hours or the prize will be offered to another entrant. Our Ts&Cs can be found at theskinny. co.uk/about/terms dramandsmoke.com/edinburgh-festival-2017

Win tickets to Doune the Rabbit Hole festival! D

oune the Rabbit Hole is a small but perfectly formed family-friendly festival set in the stunning Stirlingshire countryside, just an hour’s drive from Glasgow and Edinburgh. This August, the likes of Songhoy Blues, Liars (whose new album TFCF is out this month), Jenny Hval, Big Thief and Holy Fuck will be playing their only Scottish summer festival slots at the Cardross Estate. What's more, the festival offers a much-needed escape from the real world, including wild swimming, river tubing, axe throwing workshops, yoga classes and craft food and beer, all in a picturesque location by Scotland’s only lake. We have a pair of weekend tickets (18–20 Aug

2017) to give away to one lucky winner. To be in with a chance of winning, simply answer the following question: What's the name of Aussie-American rockers Liars' new album? A) TFCF B) TTFN C) OMFG Competition closes midnight Sun 13 Aug. The festival is all ages but children under 18 must be accompanied by an adult. Winners will be notified via email within one working day of closing and will be required to respond within 24 hours or the prize will be offered to another entrant. Our Ts&Cs can be found at theskinny.co.uk/about/terms

Photo: @lornski64

t’s that time of year when I seriously consider reprinting my editorial from last August because I will probably be making the same point but in (hopefully) slightly different words. Isn’t it exciting that this world-best celebration of culture is arriving on our doorsteps? Isn’t it overwhelming to think that the next month of your life might quickly descend into an extravaganza of overstimulation and overconsumption? Are you feeling very, very afraid? This August we are once again printing our biggest issue everrrrrrrrrrrr. So big, in fact, we’ve had to get special dispensation from the printers and move the deadline forwards so they can do a different type of binding. That’s right – this magazine you hold in your hands is too big for staples. The reality of 104 pages of top-quality content has been a bit of a mind melt, and just listing the names of artists and creatives we’ve spoken to for features takes up more than a page. Will they all fit on the cover? No-one knows at this stage. Comedy editor Ben has once again knocked it out the park with a stellar array of interviewees. Some of the pieces take a thematic approach, exploring underlying concerns, ethics, the craft of comedy. Our lead article is a conversation with producers Berk’s Nest, who take a ground-up approach to running a Fringe show and are bringing some of 2017’s most imaginative shows to Edinburgh this year. Top pals Ivo Graham and Suzi Ruffell interview each other and examine their polarised experiences of class; Terry Alderton and Catriona Knox – subjects of a 2010 stress study by an anthropologist while at the Fringe – discuss the pressures facing performers; and Simon Morley discusses his penis. We also have interviews with Sarah Kendall, Joseph Morpurgo, Louise Reay, Bilal Zafar, Jonny Pelham, Trygve Wakenshaw, Jess Fostekew, Caroline Mabey, Jay Lafferty and Gareth Waugh. Quite the line-up. Finally, we conclude Benables’ walk through the history of comedy at the Edinburgh in How Comedy Captured the Edinburgh Fringe Part 4, taking a look at the flashpoint of 2008 and the years since. Theatre also takes something of a thematic approach. Our writers ask, ‘what is theatre actually?’ and take a look at the contemporary circus scene and how it differs from a traditional understanding of the form. In-demand playwright Zinnie Harris is bringing three shows to the stage this August, and takes the opportunity to discuss the treatment and experience of grief. In an unexpected twist, one of this year’s most hotly anticipated shows is a sasquatch-themed opera by Faith No More’s Roddy Bottum. That’s right – opera; Bigfoot; Faith No More. Isn’t that what makes August in Edinburgh such a wonderful, eye-opening place? Our writer takes a trip to National Theatre Scotland’s new HQ at Rockvilla along the Forth & Clyde canal to find out more about Adam, the story of a transgender refugee scripted by Cora Bissett and coming to Traverse this month. This

Illustration: Sarah Kirk

Editorial

Spot The Difference Shock and Paw It’s time to raise the woof and get ready for some tall tails, as Fringe fever infests Spot the Difference in the form of a pair of five-star pups. They’ve each unleashed their pooch-ential in their own way; one by running their own comedy awards, the other by refusing to be distracted

By Jock Mooney 6

Chat

by some very bright candles. These two are barking up the right tree, and we salute them. Now paws what you’re doing, and tell us the difference between these two top dogs; best answer wins a copy of Getting it in the Head by Mike McCormack, courtesy of the good boys over at Canongate.

Competition closes midnight Sun 3 Sep. 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

THE SKINNY

Crystal Balls With Mystic Mark

ARIES In August your garden-makeover TV show commences filming. You set to work on the first garden by installing a giant immovable granite skull in the centre of the lawn – tastefully lit from behind by a burning tyre pyramid – and spare no expense on the centrepiece: a beautiful water feature cleverly making use of the underground sewer, rerouted up to a tasteful, chunky waterfall in the rockery. TAURUS If only your memory foam mattress could forget. GEMINI Every day is a gift. You unwrap it each morning, disappointed, trying to force a smile, before asking reality if it has the receipt. CANCER You smell so much I can see it. LEO It seems clear to you there’s a curse on the food bank. Everyone who goes appears to be having terrible luck. Everything stacked against them. Must be some sort of Romanian gypsy curse. Maybe if we drive out the gypsies the curse will end, and everyone will live happily ever after under the Tory government.

SCORPIO Not content with hitting rock bottom you seem to have developed special life-drilling tools that take you even deeper through the mantle and down into the molten core. SAGITTARIUS Superman wasn’t even a man, he was an alien. And his powers were normal for his species so he should have been called Normalalien. CAPRICORN After having your 40 wanks you often feel like a nice sleep. AQUARIUS The crab you pay for legal advice is on holiday this month. PISCES After weeks of preparing the documents you need to commit benefit fraud, you accidentally post the practice sheets of forged signatures along with the forms.

theskinny.co.uk/festivals Dunno if you’ve noticed, but there’s quite a lot going on in the world of festivals this month. Head web-ward for literally hundreds of reviews from the Edinburgh Fringe and Edinburgh International Festivals, plus a gaggle of Comedy Spotlights and Fringe rundowns that are literally too numerous to mention. theskinny.co.uk/music As well as reviews direct from those aforementioned festivals, we’ll have our takes on the new records from Ólafur Arnalds, Oneohtrix Point Never and a whole host of others, plus track

theskinny.co.uk/books August is not just about festivals, y’know – it’s also Women in Translation Month. We look at the work of female literary translators; head over to the website for more. theskinny.co.uk/travel Sick of the constant, almost comical mentioning of festivals? Hit the road with our Living Abroad series, returning this month with a guide to life in the Chinese capital, Beijing. Intense karaoke, fiendishly strong rice-based liquor and a bicycle await.

Terrier Award Categories The most cultivated critic in Edinburgh unveils the 10 Terrier Award categories for Edinburgh Fringe 2017

t that time again ,ladies and men !! another exiting edimbrugh fringe is almost upon us ,and i am proud and humbled to be presentin the 2nd official Terrier Awards !! these are a series of briliant 5star acolades which are bestowed on shows that have a extra special smell of something tasty goin on !! this year ,the ten catagries are as follows : - best narative journey - best poster to see with only 2 color cones in your eyes - most edimbrughest show (could not work any where else ) - scotish terrier award for best briliant scotish act - most expresive eyebrows - most tasty biscit - most joyful tail wagging show

Words: Fringe Dog

- best show that throws off the collar of opression - show most likely to winalot - best o boy o boy !!! this year ,i hope to be goin to see many shows from diferent breeds of performers ,not just briliant 5star comedy shows. because some theatre shows are very funny ,even when they dont realise it !! i will be brushin up my best tartan jacket to wear on the royal mile !! some might say that it is cultural apropriation ,but if it ok for tourists ,it ok for norfolk terriers !! o boy !! The 2017 Terrier Award winners will be revealed on Fri 25 Aug 2017 Follow @Fringedog on Twitter theskinny.co.uk/comedy

Illustration: Sarah Kirk

VIRGO It’s you versus you out there, so you know your own weak points and should be able to take yourself out with one punch.

LIBRA After giving in to your child’s demands for a pet, you find the process spirals out of your control as each pet takes on a pet of its own. Now you find your dog’s cat’s fish’s hamster’s lizard’s snake has decided it wants a puppy after slithering past the pet shop and seeing the cutest little thing barking and playing in the window. OK, you say, but if the puppy wants a pet, it has to pay for it out of its own pocket money.

Online Only

premieres from artists from all over the musical map. That, and our weekly live music guide to the best shows across the country. Oh, and previews of ArcTanGent, Belladrum Tartan Heart and Doune the Rabbit Hole festivals, because YOU CAN NEVER HAVE TOO MANY FESTIVALS.

August 2017

Opinion

Though the Fringe doesn't officially kick off until 4 Aug, get things off to a glitteringly witty start with Comedian Sofie Hagen's new show Dead Baby Frog at Bedlam. She's staunchly feminist and hilarious with it, and though this new piece discusses the likes of anger, funerals and her grandfather’s psychopathy, it'll have you in bittersweet stitches. Promise. Bedlam, Edinburgh, 2-28 Aug, 2pm, £8-10

Over in Glasgow, Kinning Park Complex host a three-course, multi-continent Street Food Fusion using only food rescued from the fate of the supermarket bin (5.30pm, free). At Found Footage Festival, Joe Pickett of The Onion and Nick Prueher of Late Show with David Letterman trawl through their absolutely ludicrous VHS collection on a voyage of nostalgia and downright batshittery. (Cowgate, Edinburgh, 3-27 Aug, not 14, 10.40pm, £7.30-11.80

Tue 8 Aug Tonight, why not head over to the opening of artist Jamie Johnson's new work Primitive Plane? We're perhaps a little biased in this recommendation – we did, after all, showcase his work back in 2011. Regardless, this show is his debut solo exhibition, and comprises painting, collage, printmaking and video to examine cultural symbolism throughout time. There's also promise of a ‘nod to Scottish geology and folklore’, and the prints look de-light-ful. Exhibition continues until 10 Aug. SWG3, Glasgow, 6.30pm, free

Found Footage Festival

Wed 9 Aug

Fri 11 Aug

During August it's easy for Edinburgh residents to lose perspective of the world beyond Arthur's Seat. But Made in Adelaide changes that, bringing a curated sample of Adelaide Fringe's bounty to Scotland. Today, catch their Live Music Panel and Showcase, an opportunity to catch tunes from South Australian artists like Carla Lippis, and MANE, PLUS an industry discussion between festival directors from both the Edinburgh and Adelaide scenes, chaired by Born to be Wide's Olaf Furniss. Summerhall, Edinburgh, 6.30pm, free (ticketed)

Vegan Connections, the noble celebration of all things good'n'planty returns to a selection of Glasgow's most herbivore-friendly venues (The Flying Duck, Stereo, MONO, The Briggait, The Old Hairdressers and Bloc+) for what is quite frankly a marvellous line-up of live music. With tonnes of foodie traders, along with Pinact, Spinning Coin, Breakfast Muff, American Clay, Life Model and many more besides on hand, the whole affair is a well due reward for living a life less cheesy. Venues across Glasgow, 11-12 Aug, times vary, £15

MANE

The Slave's Lament

Wed 10 Aug

Photo: Cantwell

Primitive Plane

Sofie Hagen

If you're game for something a little heavier today, head to the Scottish National Portrait Gallery and catch two powerful exhibitions: Graham Fagen's The Slave's Lament – a video installation curated by Hospitalfield, Arbroath and exhibited at Scotland + Venice 2015; and Douglas Gordon’s Black Burns, a special commission which also problematises Scotland's literary icon. Scottish National Portait Gallery, until 29 Oct, times vary, free

Breakfast Muff

Fri 18 Aug

Slacker-rock quartet Hinds are hitting Edinburgh as part of Nothing Ever Happen's Here's bloody stellar Fringe programme. And, in all honestly, we can't quite contain ourselves. If you're unacquainted, have a listen to their 2016 record Leave Me Alone. You'll be hooked for the summer and sprinting to Summerhall to get your tickets. Summerhall, Edinburgh, 8pm, £18.50

EAF's Art Late weekly evening tours make a welcome return to the capital during August. Pick out your fave or take our word for it that tonight's going to be fricking spectacular; an al fresco performance from artist Clara Ursitti and the East of Scotland Car Club at Collective, via Rhubaba / Edinburgh Printmakers, through to Custom Lane where you'll be greeted with an artist performance from Pauline and the Matches and music from Happy Meals. Jeezo. Meet at Collective, Edinburgh, 6.30pm, £8-9

The depressingly gargantuan number of Trump-inspired 'comedy' at the Fringe feels a little cloying, doesn't it? It's also demonstrative of the fact we need dissent. GOOD NEWS: frighteningly articulate writer and activist Laurie Penny wrote a book of essays for dissenting adults called Bitch Doctrine, and she's coming to EIBF to talk about it in an event called Taking Bigotry to Task. Let's go, one and all, and work out how to stamp back on our oppressors. Studio Theatre, Edinburgh, 8.45pm, £10-12

Happy Meals

Wed 23 Aug Last year's Fringe saw an influx of game show pieces, so Real Magic, a play taking the format of "part mind-reading feat, part cabaret act, part chaotic game show", complete with chicken costumes and canned laughter might set your eyes a-rolling slightly. But halt those eyeballs. Tim Etchells' play – performed by iconic Sheffield-based collective Forced Entertainment – is no gimmick. It's a provocative insight into hope, struggle and desire for change. The Studio, Edinburgh, 22-27 Aug, 7pm, £12.50-25

Eve

Photo: Jassy Earl

Tue 22 Aug After reprising formerly banned play War in America just a few months ago, esteemed playwright Jo Clifford brings what looks to be another triumphant trailblazer to EIF. Eve is a play about a trans woman, brought up as a boy in 1950s England, and draws from the personal experience of Clifford's own past. It is the counterpart to Adam, Frances Poet's tale of a young trans man seeking refuge in Scotland after exile from Egypt. 4-27 Aug (not 7, 14, 21), Traverse Theatre, times and prices vary

Real Magic

Laurie Penny

Paul Muldoon

Thu 24 Aug

Photo: Hugo Glendinning

Hinds

Photo: Claire Maxwell

Thu 17 Aug

Photo: John Graham

Wed 16 Aug

Edinburgh International Book Festival's edgier little cousin Unbound also returns this year, bringing with it a series of free late night parties featuring storytelling, music, comedy, games, word-play and more in the Spiegeltent. Tonight Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Paul Muldoon headlines with the help of his house band Rogue Oliphant and other guests from the literary and musical creative communities, including Maddy Prior, Lisa Hannigan, Bernard MacLaverty and Don Paterson. The Spiegeltent, Charlotte Square, Edinburgh, 9pm, free

Wed 30 Aug

Thu 31 Aug

Fri 1 Sep

Get stuck into the sludgy goodness of duo Deap Vally, who tonight play The Wah Wah Hut. Fun trivia, the band came together at a crochet class, though you wouldn't guess it from the shuddering bass, Karen O growls and truly gnarly psych spirals. Oh, and their latest album was called Femejism, in case that sways you. King Tut's, Glasgow, 8.30pm, £11

This month a new venue blossoms from the former grave of Sportsters and City nightclub. Brewhemia is Moulin Rouge-esque haunt branding itself as a "beer palace, kitchen, caffè and prosecco bar". In a metropolitan landscape where we're losing venues quicker than we can recover from hangovers, we're pleased to extend a welcome. Tonight, head to Howl at The Moon, where piano maestros and a house band await a night of song requests from the audience. Romantic end to the month, no? Brewhemia, Edinburgh, 7pm, free

If bidding goodbye to the Fringe has left you with a case of post-festival blues, get another hit over at Glasgow Film Theatre with an NTS screening of Federico García Lorca's heart-rending Yerma. The production, updated cleverly by Simon Stone has won critical acclaim, along with Billie Piper's performance as the heroine of the piece. We're pretty excited about this chance to see it broadcast to Glasgow Film Theatre in all its tragic glory. GFT, Glasgow, 6.45pm, £20

Fringe season left you absolutely exasperated with Edinburgh? US TOO. That's why we're running away, straight into the lush embrace of Dumfries & Galloway for boutique music festival Electric Fields. Big Dizzee Rascal's headlining with Frightened Rabbit, but the whole line-up is bejewelled with up-and-coming stunners (Sacred Paws, The Vegan Leather, Future Get Down, Kate Tempest, Anna Meredith, Aldous Harding – we could go on). Plus gorgeous poetry, blazing DJs and proper good chow. 1-2 Sep, Drumlanrig Castle, weekend tickets £22-110

Chat

Photo: Beth Chambers

Tue 29 Aug

Deep Valley

Howl at The Moon

Yerma

Photo: Paul Burt

Perhaps it's best to amble calmly into the month of August and make the most of whatever pockets of peace we can find. That in mind, head to the first of All The Young Nudes' weekly festival life drawing clubs at Cab Vol and sketch your way to serenity. Or, at the very least, a tiny tingle of smugness. Whitespace, Edinburgh, 6:30pm, £10

Illustration: Eleanor Meredith

FUCK – it's festival time! Luckily, Heads Up is here to help. Thank us in September – you'll find us in any city but Edinburgh, sobbing into a Lemsip.

Thu 3 Aug

Electric Fields

THE SKINNY

Photo: Michael Potiker

Compiled by: Kate Pasola

Wed 2 Aug

Photo: Ruth Clark

Heads Up

Tue 1 Aug

Sun 6 Aug

Mon 7 Aug

Guys, there's a festival happening in Aberdeen. An actual, legit, craft beer and music sitch called Sessions Festival. We thought it was worth a shout-out (Hazelhead Park, Aberdeen, 4-5 Aug, times vary, £20.30). In the central belt, you've got Berghain's own Marcel Dettmann hitting Sub Club for four whole hours of Animal Farm madness, with Quail and Turtle on the warm-ups. Sub Club, Glasgow, 11pm, £25

If you missed the techno tantrums at Subbie last night (or if you're keen for a double-bill of dancing), head to Edinburgh tonight to catch a set from hyped Belfast-based duo Bicep, who'll be taking advantage of a 5am license along with the likes of Hammer, Space Dimension Controller and Lord of the Isles in tow. The Liquid Room, Edinburgh, 11pm, £20

Glasgow's steeped in musical chat today. Optimo (Espacio) salute two decades of bangers with Optimo 20, bringing an eclectic and staggering lineup featuring the likes of The Black Madonna, Ben UFO, K-X-P, Carla dal Forno, Sofay and more to SWG3 (2pm, £40). Ecclesiastical entertainment hub St Luke's also throw their own AllDayer after last year's success, drafting in Sinderins, Rascalton, Lucia, Miracle Glass Company, Nieves and more (3pm, £10).

Edinburgh's been nailing the street-gastro game of late, and the arrival of festival season heralds a LITERAL cornucopia of sriracha-drenched delights. We're buzzing for Paolozzi at the Arches (the Waverley ones), which complements EBF's own brews with Smith & Gertrude wine, bevs from the Cocktail Kitchen and food from The Pitt (7-28 Aug, midday to midnight). Also, get down to Ian Wilson and Ben Reade's pop-up diner Eating House at the Meeting House, 7 Victoria St. for foraged, fermented and organic indulgences (7-26 Aug not Sun, 12-8pm).

Bicep

Carla del Forno

Edinburgh Beer Fractory

Sun 13 Aug

Mon 14 Aug

Tue 15 Aug

Not one to be excluded from a national sense of summer festivity, Dundee also ushers in the inaugural Carnival 56, two-days of music featuring bigger hit-makers like Mark Ronson, Rudimental and Basement Jaxx, along with a banging selection of upand-comers ft. Elle Exxe, Be Charlotte, WHITE, Sasha and James Zabiela. Good work, Dundee. Camperdown Park, Dundee, 12-13 Aug, 12pm, £55-148

If you like to make your Fringe activities slightly geeky, get on down to FuturePlay Festival, taking place at a trio of Assembly venues during the Fringe. There'll be everything from VR mischief to digital art, along with immersive galleries, mad interactive installations and participatory theatre that allows audiences to engage with shows in real time using mobile devices. THE FUTURE IS HERE. Get stuck in. Assembly Roxy, Assembly George Square Studios and George Street, Edinburgh, 3-26 Aug, times and prices vary

If you're over on the West side of the central belt but hankering for a slice of Fringey goodness, head to The Stand, Glasgow tonight for their pick of the Fringe special. It's headed up by Barry Crimmins, who'll be bringing an hour of lucid-yet-lolsome political satire for a quick preview before heading over to the Fringe for a run between 15-27 Aug at The Stand's Edinburghian haunt. The Stand, Glasgow, 8.30pm, £8-10

Athena Kugblenu's debut stand-up show isn't called KMT (an acronym for the Caribbean Patois expression 'kiss mi teeth') for nothing. She's done with bullshit from both the left and right of the political spectrum and wants to talk about it. Expect quips about class, race and identity from this serious up-and-comer. Broflakes, beware. 2-27 Aug (not 14), Underbelly Med Quad, 6.50pm, £5.50-11

WHITE

Photo: Rita Azevedo

Sat 12 Aug

FuturePlay Festival

Athena Kugblenu

Barry Crimmins

Mon 21 Aug

First up, shout-out to Glasgow Pride. The official parade / festival takes place between 19-20 Aug at Glasgow Green (tickets £5-25), while The Art School at 2pm for a day of free activities, marches and party-times. Over in Edinburgh, Olivier Award-winning East London hip-hop company Boy Blue Entertainment continue their run of Blak Whyte Gray at Lyceum Theatre. We're expecting fierce choreo and a ground-shaking score. The Lyceum, Edinburgh, 16-19 Aug, 7.30m (also 2.30pm on 19 Aug), £5-26

2016 Funny Women award winner Harriet Braine is, as the accolades would suggest, hilarious. But her songs, all of which form her Fringe show Total Eclipse of the Art are more than just pun-rammed comedy ditties. They're dry observations about the history of art, they're satirical gems and they're also damn good tunes. You'll come away with tickled ribs, a brain full of art trivia a severe case of earworm. Laughing Horse @ The Golf Tavern, Edinburgh, 4-27 Aug (not 14), 1.15pm, free

Wait, if you haven't seen the Phoebe Waller-Bridge's triumphant TV show Fleabag yet, drop everything and get to bingeing right away. Of course, this is not a prerequisite for seeing her original play of the same name this Fringe – but it'll certainly get you in the mood. It's a searingly clever and dry representation of what it is to exist as a living, breathing, dating, mistake-making British woman, and it's not to be missed. Underbelly, George Square, Edinburgh, 21-27 Aug, 5.15pm, £11-14

Blak Whyte Gray

Harriet Braine

Photo: Claudia Marinaro

Sun 20 Aug

Photo: Carl Fox

Sat 19 Aug

Fleabag

Fri 25 Aug

Sat 26 Aug

Mon 28 Aug

If you haven't seen the dick tricks that cabaret act Puppetry of the Penis have to offer, where have you been? The show launched back in 2000 at the Fringe after Simon Morley realised his unique skillset. Now, it's something of a phallic phenomenon. Morley tell us all about his new show, Naked Ambition, in this very may (p19). Take a read and realise – this is not merely an invitation to watch his penis acrobatics; it's a call to action. Heroes @ Monkey Barrel, Edinburgh, 4-27 Aug, 3.40pm, £8

South London grime MC Fekky touches down in Glasgow tonight in yet another formidable booking from underground collective J-Bone. On the supports you'll have Ransom FA, PAQUE, Valli and GRT WSTRN (SWG3, Glasgow, 7pm £12). Meanwhile, Sub Club celebrates 30 years of troublemaking with its annual two-dayer. Today's all about Subculture, tomorrow's Sensu. Go party. BAad, Glasgow, 26-27 Aug, 2pm, £39.50-60

Naomi Alderman sent shockwaves into the world, literally and figuratively in 2016 when she released The Power, a dystopian novel in which young girls across the globe suddenly develop the ability to give men electric shocks with their bare hands, helping them to become the dominant sex. Now, she's heading to EIBF to talk about it. Intrigued? Thought so. She'll be joined on the night by Philip Miller, who'll also be discussing his Scotland-based speculative novel All the Galaxies. Baillie Gifford Corner Theatre, Charlotte Square, Edinburgh, 2pm, £6-8

Puppetry of the Penis

Sun 27 Aug

Fekky

The Liquid Room's really leaning into that 5am Fringe licence tonight with a blazer of a night courtesy of Jackhammer, who'll be bringing an army of techno-appreciating party starters into the booth. Duo Paranoid London will be leading affairs, along with Gary Beck, Steve Bicknell, Harbingers Drum Crew, Keyte and WolfJazz. The Liquid Room, Edinburgh, 10.30pm, £8

Naomi Alderman

Sun 3 Sep

Mon 4 Sep

Scotland's mightiest architectural gems throw open their doors this September as annual-sneaking-intofancy-buildings season (or Doors Open Days if you want to get all official about it) rolls round once more. Kicking off on the first of the month, this is your chance to get your gnashers into Scotland's tastiest architecture and heritage without digging into your pockets. See doorsopendays.org.uk for the full lowdown. 1 Sep-1 Oct, times and locations vary

So, if we were to recommend another NEHH gig at Summerhall, would you judge us? We hope not, because Illinois emo veterans American Football hit the Dissection Room this September. After reuniting in 2014 they went on to release a self-titled LP in 2016 to great acclaim (seriously, we gave it four stars and referred to it as "a record you’ll want to spend endless nights with"). Yep. Summerhall, Edinburgh, 7.30pm, £23.50

Sorry for ending on a bit of a bummer, but we don't think you should pass up on the chance to see Zinnie Harris' This Restless House, a haunting adaptation of the Greek tragedy The Oresteia which has already earned tremendous acclaim. After running at EIF between 2227 Aug it travels down the M8 to Glasgow's Citizens Theatre for a run of 11 dates. Citizens Theatre, Glasgow, 15 Aug-9 Sep, £10-30

August 2017

Doors Open Days

American Football

Photo: Derek Robertson

Sat 2 Sep

This Restless House

Chat

Photo: Tim Morozzo

Marcel Dettmann

Photo: Samuel J Davidson

Sat 5 Aug

Photo: Nick Bojdo

Fri 4 Aug

S RE AT U FE

The Producers An interview with Katie Churchill, Owen Donovan and Phoebe Bourke, the producers and directors behind some of the Fringe’s most imaginative shows Interview: Ben Venables

erk’s Nest return to Edinburgh after an exceptional year. At the 2016 Fringe, a quarter of its 12 show roster attracted nods from the Comedy Award panel. Jayde Adams' debut was nominated for Best Newcomer, Kieran Hodgson for the main award, and Richard Gadd walked away with the prize. The venture has come a long way since Phoebe Bourke and Katie Churchill founded it four years ago. “It is so weird, and it freaks me out,” says Bourke, “that it is now a thing. I saw somebody on the street with a Berk’s Nest tote bag – a stranger – and I was just, ‘Oh my god’ – I lost my mind!” Churchill adds: “It was always quite lo-fi. And when various people would ask, ‘Can we meet at your offices?’ we’d say, ‘Let’s meet at the coffee shop.’” It all started when Kieran Hodgson was looking for someone to produce his debut solo show Flood in 2013. Bourke and Churchill knew each other, but heard about this separately. However, given their near identical experience in Edinburgh – Bourke had produced the Leeds Tealights, Churchill the Cambridge Footlight's – it became obvious to everyone they should work together. Word of mouth soon spread and they took four shows in that first year. They decided to employ the ethos they’d picked up at uni, not realising this was quite rare when producing non-revue shows. Bourke explains: “We thought, let’s apply that university producing style, where we’re involved from the beginning, we rehearse and get the show out of them. It turns out no-one really does that, and it is very valuable to the acts.” Berk’s Nest work with comedians from the initial spark of an idea to managing the queue at the subsequent hit show in Edinburgh. It includes support with editing, previews, tech, props and publicity. And, they direct too. Such is their rapport, Bourke and Churchill found themselves

able to share roles fairly equally. Well, apart from some occasions giving feedback, when they would diverge into a classic good cop / bad cop routine. “I’ll say, ‘You’re fine, it’s going to be great,” says Churchill, “and then Phoebe can come in and be... ‘Fuck!’” Bourke shouts out to finish the sentence: “You’ve got to work harder!” As the operation expands, they are endeavouring to keep its homegrown character, alongside the obvious and natural need to specialise. Churchill says: “We’re trying to maintain the weird collective vibe that we had, while logistically finding what is best for each show. It suddenly became much bigger, and we have to separate things a little. When Owen joined last year, we realised, ‘We can now do three different things at the same time!’” Joining the founders, Owen Donovan quickly became an integral part of the team and directed Richard Gadd’s Monkey See Monkey Do. “There’s a lot of spooky voodoo about what a producer does... a lot of the job is problem solving and making sure everything is going to be fine. When it is on such a large scale – with 12 shows last year, and 14 this year – we can’t be at every show. We need the skill of people like Maria, our technical manager, and Frankie, who is in charge of our flyering.” The experience of knowing each role so well has been invaluable in several ways. “You might get some problem,” says Bourke, “and think, ‘Well, we just need a technician.’ But, having been technicians we know how important it is to be there everyday, to be calm...” Churchill continues the thought: “And, to have comic timing and know that a light change can affect a laugh. Having done all the different jobs it helps. Like, I know how shit it is when you’re flyering in the rain. We make sure we’re not dicks to the flyerers. I think if we had just become producers from the top

Super Producers

down, without all that ground work, we wouldn’t know how to do things in the right way. It has given us quite a deep understanding.” And understanding the significance and detail of each role, means they can stay focussed on the big picture: “It always comes back to the idea,” says Donovan, “to the concept of the show. Is it funny enough, interesting enough and compelling enough to be performed every day for a month? That is more important... Because we’re

so editorially involved, and we are working with an act for eight to nine months, it is not worth us letting other stuff in Edinburgh creep in that is outside of our vision.” Berk’s Nest help artists to harness their potential, and to create an hour that’s true to that artist. As Churchill puts it: “It’s about knowing what you want to say, and finding the best way to say it, that’s the only way to do Edinburgh.” berksnest.com

Berk’s Nest 2017 Edinburgh Fringe shows Daniel Cook: For Money Directed by Phoebe Bourke and Katie Churchill A stand-up show about dreaming big while being flat broke. Just the Tonic at The Caves (Out of the Box), 3-27 Aug (not 14), 1.20pm, £5/PWYW Christopher Bliss: Writing Wrongs (Rob Carter) Directed by Katie Churchill and Owen Donovan Shropshire’s finest author returns to Edinburgh to school us on the literary classics. PBH Free Fringe at Voodoo Rooms (Speakeasy), 5-27 Aug (not 14), 2.55pm, free Tessa Coates: Primates Directed by Owen Donovan Flying solo from sketch trio Massive Dad, Tessa Coates’ debut promises nothing less than an entire history of mankind. Pleasance Courtyard (This), 2-26 Aug, 3.30pm, £6-9

Feature

Tom Neenan: Attenborough Co-directed by David Reed (Penny Dreadfuls), Phoebe Bourke and Owen Donovan A young David Attenborough is sent on an impossible mission – expect exquisite storytelling from Tom Neenan as he salutes one of his heroes. Underbelly Med Quad (Buttercup), 2-27 Aug, 3.55pm, £6.50-11 Ingrid Oliver: Speech! Directed by Owen Donovan and Phoebe Bourke People with the urge to talk the most are the ones who should talk the least. Pleasance Courtyard (That), 2-27 Aug (not 14), 4.30pm, £6-9 Colin Hoult / Anna Mann in How we Stop the Fascists Directed by Phoebe Bourke Seasoned actress Anna Mann unaccountably tries to fix the world. Pleasance Courtyard (Upstairs), 2-27 Aug (not 14), 4.45pm, £6-11

Nick Coyle: Queen of Wolves Directed by Katie Churchill and Owen Donovan Ingenious Nick Coyle turns the screws on the gothic horror genre. Underbelly, Cowgate (Iron Belly), 3-27 Aug (not 15), 5.30pm, £6.50-10

Tom Walker: Bee Boo Presented by Berk’s Nest Nominated for Best Show in Melbourne, Walker excels in clowning that is both playful and powerful. Underbelly, George Square (Wee Coo), 2-27 Aug (not 15), 8pm, £6.50-11

Evelyn Mok: Hymen Manoeuvre Directed by Phoebe Bourke Expect assured stand-up from debutant Evelyn Mok, a show about identity from someone with a kaleidoscopic heritage. Pleasance Courtyard (Bunker One), 2-27 Aug (not 14), 6pm, £6-9

Graham Dickson is The Narcissist Co-directed by Hamish MacDougall, Phoebe Bourke and Katie Churchill Russian literature and surrealism fuse into a colossal comedy breakdown. Underbelly, Cowgate (Iron Belly), 3-27 Aug (not 15), 8.10pm, £6.50-11

Jack Barry: High Treason Directed by Phoebe Bourke A stand-up war on drug legislation. Just the Tonic at The Mash House (The Attic), 3-27 Aug (not 14), 7.40pm, £5/ PWYW

Goodbear Co-directed by George Chilcot and Phoebe Bourke, with an original score by Max Perryment Joe Barnes and Henry Perryment check-in to a place as weird and wonderful as Wes Anderson’s Grand Budapest Hotel. Pleasance Dome (10 Dome), 2-27 Aug, 9.40pm, £6-11

COMEDY

Rose Matafeo: Sassy Best Friend Directed by Phoebe Bourke Matafeo’s sophomore show sees her break out of rom-com stereotypes to find her own voice. Pleasance Courtyard (Beside), 2-27 Aug (not 15), 9.45pm, £6-9 Phil Dunning: The House of Pigs Directed by Katie Churchill and Owen Donovan When the diabolical pub chain The Slug and Arsehole attempt to take over a uinque cabaret bar, who can save the The House of Pigs? Pleasance Courtyard (Below), 2-27 Aug (not 14), 11.00pm, £6-9 Berk’s Nest also present a Mid-Fest Comedy Special (Pleasance Dome, 14 Aug, 11pm), a late-night party with current acts and old friends alike; and Amy Annette: What Women Want (Underbelly Med Quad, 16-20 Aug, 12.15pm) – a chat show described as ‘a panel of comedians discuss everyone’s favourite topic – women’, but doubtless with all the insight missing from the Mel Gibson movie of the same name.

THE SKINNY

Making a Long Story Short Australian comic and wordsmith Sarah Kendall on why we tell stories s the Fringe programme has ballooned over recent years, so too has the number of discrete categories that shows fall into. “Look at the breadth of shows that have been successful at the Edinburgh Festival,” points out Sarah Kendall. “Fifteen years ago, the people on the shortlist would be a bunch of stand-ups. The last couple of years, there’s been lots of character stuff, theatre stuff: it’s a real hybrid, which is really exciting.” After over a decade in the comedy scene, Kendall has opted to move towards a kind of comedy-slash-storytelling hybrid that you won’t see much of elsewhere. More than anything, this change came from a desire to challenge herself. “I needed to keep doing what I was doing, but in a way that interests me again. And this interests me. It’s always a bit of a puzzle at the beginning.” For the last few years, Kendall’s shows have been based around a chosen moment in her life that she then fleshes out and presents as something between a diary entry and a John Hughes movie. This kind of storytelling relies on drawing an audience in and getting them invested in the narrative. “It’s a collaborative experience: for me, everything is about working with an audience, sensing what they’re feeling, and playing off that. It’s part of the writing process. It shows everything that’s wrong with the story, just by doing it live. “I think if the first few previews are great you should hang your head in shame.” Kendall laughs, “The only way you’re going to do and learn something new is by making a mess and trying to make that into something cohesive. If it goes great you’re probably replicating whatever you’ve done in the past.”

And replication is not what the Fringe is about. “It’s so exhausting and expensive, you might as well frighten the shit out of yourself and do something difficult.” We talk for a while about the delicate balance between tragedy and comedy: getting her audience involved in the writing process helps Kendall strike that balance in her stories, as does being in the right place during the writing process. “I think my shows would be really depressing if I didn’t do them in stand-up clubs. As soon as it’s been quiet for too long, your mind goes into panic, and you just say funny things and the show takes on a different tone.”

“ It’s so exhausting and expensive, you might as well frighten the shit out of yourself and do something difficult”

Sarah Kendall

“There is no definitive version of any event; anyone can walk away from the same event and retell it completely differently. The gist is always true.” Added to this, she’s aware of her position as an entertainer. “I’ve got to bring some craft to it. I can’t just tell a bunch of pointless things that happened and go ‘Oh well, you guys figure that out’.” This year, One-Seventeen takes moments from throughout Kendall’s life and weaves them together into a collection of short stories. Writing disparate narratives that are thematically linked is another challenge that Kendall has set herself, and one she likens to a therapy exercise. “You can write totally different stories, and then you stand back and go ‘Thematically, they’re

Sarah Kendall

Like many comics who tell stories from their own lives, Kendall has been followed by the everlingering question ‘But how much of it is true?’ The answer is one she describes as frustrating.

really similar. My brain is obviously trying to figure something out.’” By organising the events of a day, or of a life, into a story, we can try to make sense of it. “Our brain seeks out patterns and order, and the reality of life is that it’s chaos: good things don’t happen for a reason and bad things don’t happen for a reason. We have all these templates of stories in our head because we’re so bombarded, everything happens so quickly, and all at once. Stories try to put some pattern and some order in it, because it is such complete and utter chaos.” Sarah Kendall: One-Seventeen, Assembly George Square (Studio 2), 2-27 Aug, 7.00pm, £9.50-12.50 tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/sarah-kendall-one-seventeen

Creating a Monster After his 2015 award nominated show Soothing Sounds for Baby, Joseph Morpurgo is back at Pleasance Courtyard and he is reworking a classic of literature

oseph Morpurgo answers our call in a hushed voice. “I’m in the library, can I ring back in two minutes?” A library is where we might expect to find him. After all, he’s a founding member of Austentatious, the group which improvises the ‘lost work’ of Jane Austen. Now, Morpurgo is exhuming his fourth solo hour, Hammerhead, from the gothic horror genre. “I am a keen reader,” he says, “literature is something that is always kicking around in the back of my head. This show is a retelling of a very old horror story. It is a reinvention of something

that lots of people will be familiar with.” The literary links between the gothic horror of his new show and the Georgian fiction of Austentatious was not something that had immediately occured to him. “With Austentatious we have been doing it for so long the Austen aspect seems more a component. The main event of the show, I guess, is us messing about.” There’s a little too much modesty there. While the Austentatious players make it look easy, what seems as natural as ‘messing about’ has evolved from professional improvisation and careful study.

“Yes, that’s true, we did a lot of research into the books in the early days. And, we each had areas to study like, ‘Contemporary celebrity in the early 19th century’. And we would make presentations to each other! But, it would be impossible to do something as carefully calibrated as Jane Austen does in her books on-stage. It is rooted in the social milieu of Austen, but it is more of a loose flavour.”

“ Literature is something that is always kicking around in the back of my head”

Joseph Morpurgo

August 2017

Photo: Paul Blakemore

Joseph Morpurgo

Breaking up the parts of something familiar and giving them new life is perhaps what unifies Morpurgo’s shows. For instance, in his 2015 hour Soothing Sounds for Baby, with a few edits of real recordings, Kirsty Young transformed into a less sober host of Desert Island Discs. Hammerhead promises some technical tricks too, but there is a change in tone. “It is quite technical, and if you enjoyed the comedy of the previous show then it

COMEDY

Interview: Ben Venables

is something you can grab onto. There is continuity there. But, it definitely feels like a break and a new challenge. There is quite a stark division. The previous show had lots of techno-colours and dealt with themes of nostalgia, while this one is more in reds and blacks – it is spookier and stranger.” He credits Edinburgh with helping him to galvanise his creative process. “I love the Fringe, from a personal perspective of making stuff, it is a platform that really makes sense to me. Having something to work towards over the course of a year and producing something that exists for that month, and maybe afterwards, it is a bit like making an album.” This autumn, Morpurgo has a series airing on BBC Radio 4. Again, he has remixed something familiar, or in this case taking the familiar in a new direction is given a fairly literal meaning. “The show is called Walking Tour. You know when you go to Tate Modern or Windsor Castle, and you get those audio headsets that guide you round? Essentially, each episode is a head-set guiding the listener round a place in real time. They are all set in real places, but the way each one unfolds is quite different and becomes a strange adventure.” Joseph Morpurgo: Hammerhead, Pleasance Courtyard (Two), 2-28 Aug (not 14), 8.00pm, £8-12 Austentatious, Underbelly George Square (Udderbelly), 3-28 Aug (not 15) 1.30pm, £11.50-14.50 tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/joseph-morpurgohammerhead

Feature

Photo: Rosalind Furlong

Interview: Jenni Ajderian

Class Consciousness Eton-educated Ivo Graham is from the upper echelons of society, while Suzi Ruffell is a proud proletarian from Portsmouth; the pair are best pals and spoke to each other about class, comedy and friendship

Suzi Ruffell

uzi Ruffell: “I didn’t realise I was working class until I left Portsmouth. Growing up for me was holidays in caravan parks, dodgy firework displays and occasionally bunking off school to have a fried breakfast in the big Tesco. School was awful; horrible bottle green uniforms, teachers who would grimace through their classes, all just years away from retirement with very little determination to inspire. “I don’t mind admitting I’m no academic, I’m horribly dyslexic and, unsurprisingly, I was the class clown; I only got four GCSEs but always got big laughs. I distinctly remember Mr Crossland shouting, 'Well Miss Ruffell, you better hope behaving like an idiot can pay your rent when you’re older' – well it does, Mr Crossland, and it’s London rent which is astronomical! It wasn’t all bad, we had a swimming pool but it was so frequently dyed green by one of the older pupils, swimming was usually off the cards. “I was on the cricket team (quelle surprise!) which was probably the highlight of school for me:

Ivo Graham

I was so good as a batsman, school would often ignore my mucking about and let me play even when I was meant to be in detention. I remember hearing about Eton and it sounded like Hogwarts: wearing special uniforms, in a castle, boarding at school – it seemed magical. So imagine how unimpressed I was when I first met my now best bud Ivo and found him to be disappointingly normal.” Ivo Graham: “Tempting as it is to nick’n’twist Suzi’s opening line ('I didn’t realise I was upper class until I left Eton'), it would be a bit disingenuous: as much of a bubble as Eton was, even the most self-absorbed proto-toff would have struggled to block out the outside world completely. There it was, looming over the Windsor Bridge, the boundary beyond which our tails and pinstriped trousers were not just ill-advised but forbidden, lest boys brought shame upon the school on their weekly jaunt to McDonald’s and HMV. “But the isolation suited me: not for this champ the thrill of bunking off, or clowning around

in class, or even, despite all the stereotypes, playing cricket (woeful batsman; woeful bowler; woeful fielder; extremely competent scorer). As it turned out, in fact, mostly just sat in my room reading Harry Potter, failing to make any connection between Hogwarts and my own lavish teenage prison. “Sure, we had the old buildings and the secret language, but they had wands, broomsticks, and, crucially, girls. I certainly didn’t think there was anything hugely exotic about my youth. What good fortune, then, to leave Eton, slip off the private school conveyor belt and into the arts, and become best buds with a Pompey bird who never makes me feel anything less than the plummy-voiced museum piece I clearly am.” Ruffell: “Comedy can feel a bit middle class, especially at the Fringe, I sometimes feel a bit of an outsider. There’s also an extra element of danger for me, I have no back up plan, no degree, no wealthy parents; if comedy doesn’t work out I’m heading back to Portsmouth to work in the

family burger van chain Live and Let Fry (100% true). Although, I don’t think that’s gonna happen any time soon, I love being a stand-up. “While Ivo and I come from very different worlds we have struck up a wonderful friendship on long journeys, midnight stops at motorway services, comedy clubs, student union gigs and obscure art centres across the country over the last seven years. I’ve also had the pleasure of watching him grow into a fantastic comedian. I think we would both agree in the end it doesn’t matter what class you were born into: if you have a lot to say for yourself, some misplaced confidence, a few gags and the willingness to drive literally anywhere for a gig, there’s probably a place in comedy for you.” Graham: “My anxious relatives are very generous with their concerns that being posh in comedy must be ‘a bit of a challenge, eh, darling?’, underestimating (a) how many gigs I do in the Home Counties and (b) how many other poshos still walk the light-ent corridors of power. “Most importantly, though, it’s a great job in that it forces one to see one’s own bubble from the outside, and learning to sell it to strangers in nightclubs (mostly through jokes about Latin and buggery). Meanwhile, you get to sample other people’s backgrounds and worldviews through your friends’ sets. Suzi, with whom I’ve shared more miles of motorway than any other comic, is absolutely brilliant at bringing her life to the stage, and I’m looking forward hugely to seeing her latest slice of it, even if she’s taking the piss a bit by wearing my school uniform in her poster.” Ivo Graham: Educated Guess, Pleasance Courtyard (Beneath), 2-27 Aug (not 14), 8.15pm, £7.50-11 Suzi Ruffell: Keeping It Classy, Pleasance Courtyard (Below), 2-27 Aug (not 14), 9.45pm, £6.50-10 pleasance.co.uk

Sane in Insane Places Terry Alderton and Catriona Knox on enduring the intense pressure comedians face in Edinburgh

n the comedy world we’re increasingly seeing performers introduce us to their inner demons. Yet there is a cruel irony in choosing to bare your lonely soul to a crowd of strangers at the world’s biggest performing arts festival – digging through your own mind for material (and revisiting that material night after night) is a recipe for extreme stress. So much so in fact that, in 2010, anthropologist Mark de Rond formally studied stress at the Fringe in general, and as experienced by two comics in particular: Terry Alderton and Catriona Knox. Seven years on, both Alderton and Knox have had breaks from the Fringe, racking up TV and radio appearances, with each writing brand new shows. “It does feel weird not being there,” Knox tells us – it’s her first Edinburgh show since 2014. “But I’ve done some exciting things in the interim, and it’s nice to not have Edinburgh be the sole focus.” Of course, it’s impossible for a comedy show to be your sole focus: real life still demands attention, and both Knox and Alderton speak about the dangers of ‘The Edinburgh Bubble’. Alderton explains: “I was up one year when they had the riots [the London riots of August 2011]... it was like it never happened in Edinburgh.” For this year, he and musical partner Johnny Spurling have a careful plan involving morning runs, trips to the seaside and steam rooms to keep away cabin fever. For Knox, the bubble can still provide an escape from stresses elsewhere in life, and those

Feature

stresses can themselves help with writing a show. “You think, what I want to do now is do the most fun show I can, because you’re feeling like dogshit. You’re stressed out about what’s happening in your personal life, and that’s the most important thing. Edinburgh then pales into insignificance, so you’re freed up to have whatever ideas you like.” Alderton’s show All Crazy Now is his first since 2013, and draws from his recent Radio 4 series. As well as not having the chance to re-record a live show, Alderton points out that stress can start before walking on stage, and isn’t dispelled by the performance. “Even before you’ve walked on you’re telling yourself you’re going to die. I think everybody goes through that angst. Then there’s no closure with stand-up, because the next night you have to go out and do it again.” The time between performances is essential for celebrating or commiserating, and the community of comedians at the Festival can provide a good support network, says Alderton: “There’s an honour among thieves there. Most people are helpful to each other, I don’t think people really gossip.” Knox started out as part of sketch troupe The Boom Jennies, and has found writing and performing solo a strange dichotomy in terms of stress. “You’ve only got yourself to rely on if you stand or fall, so in some ways that’s more stressful. When there’s a team, you can just laugh about it, whereas if it’s just you, you can internalise it. But there is

Interview: Jenni Ajderian

something that makes you feel more empowered, and the more you do Edinburgh the more you know what’s going to work.” Mark de Rond’s study concluded that a network of friends is essential to surviving the Fringe as a comedian, whether you’re doing a show together or not. A certain amount of self-belief is also key to many a successful Edinburgh show. Though it might seem counter-intuitive, it sounds like the best way to have an enjoyable show is not to get hung up on the audience enjoying themselves. “The timings, knowing how to mess with people’s minds, I know how to do all that,” Alderton explains, as he enters his 28th year of performing

COMEDY

Catriona Knox

comedy. “Whether you like what I’m saying is a different thing.” As long as it is technically good, the reaction of a particular audience – who may be steeped in either rain or whisky – shouldn’t matter too much, and stops being the main source of stress. “I know the tricks. I know what I’m doing. I create the chaos.,” he says Terry Alderton: All Crazy Now, Pleasance Courtyard (Cabaret Bar), 2-27 Aug (not 14), 10.40pm, £7.50-£11 Catriona Knox: Adorable Deplorable, Pleasance Dome (Jack Dome), 2-28 Aug (not 15), 6.50pm, £7-£11 pleasance.co.uk

Terry Alderton

THE SKINNY

August 2017

THE SKINNY

Taking the Biscuit Bringing the biscuits to the Mash House for his second Fringe hour, Bilal Zafar chats about social media and sophomore syndrome Interview: Edy Hurst

Louise Reay

Don’t Watch Me Now! Comedian Louise Reay writes a powerful and compelling ethics column on why we should all care about surveillance

sn’t the best thing about democracy the opportunity to vote for leaders who take away our human rights? On 6 June, Theresa May said in response to the London Bridge terror attacks she’d remove the human rights legislation blocking her crackdown on terrorists. Her exact words were: “If our human rights laws stop us from doing it, we’ll change the laws so we can do it.” The need for tough talk and immediate action following three terror attacks on UK soil in three months notwithstanding, in any other context those words would feel deeply alarming and authoritarian. Indeed, a UN high commissioner for human rights blasted May’s remarks as “a gift for despots… a gift from a major western leader to every authoritarian figure around the world who shamelessly violates human rights under the pretext of fighting terrorism.” We have become so used to our fear of terror being hijacked to remove our civil liberties; a trend started under Tony Blair, we now barely notice this alarming erosion of our freedom. Are some fundamental human rights more equal than others? Battlefield number one for creeping surveillance has been cyberspace. Theresa May mentioned it specifically in the wake of the recent terrorist attacks to justify further widespread monitoring of our internet usage. Yet, the UK has already recently passed what is known as the ‘Snoopers’ Charter’: unanimously considered the most extensive and authoritarian piece of surveillance legislation ever to be passed by a democracy. Home Secretary Amber Rudd herself proudly claims it is “world-leading legislation.” However, its very legality is currently being examined by the European Court of Justice. Phone and web companies are now forced by law to keep your browsing history for 12 months and

August 2017

give it to the police or government should they request it. Furthermore, UK streets have become the most surveilled in the world, with security experts estimating there are six million CCTV cameras across the country. That is one CCTV camera per 11 people. On an average day in an urban area, you will be captured by over 300 CCTV cameras. Do you feel safer now that you have no secrets? We have known since scientific experiments in the 1920s that the simple fact of being surveilled fundamentally alters the way humans behave. In fact, we’re so sensitive to being watched that even a drawing or photograph of a pair of eyes influences our decisions. Humans care so much about being watched that we change our behaviour and choices without even realising. While studies have shown it can make people more generous and less likely to commit crime, they’ve also shown surveillance actually makes people feel more threatened, increasingly stressed and less creative. Surveillance is intertwined with censorship – how can we speak and act freely when it’s all caught on tape? The self-censorship that follows is fundamentally changing our society under our noses. Would you think twice about googling 'why am I lonely?' or 'hottest [insert strange fetish] porn' if you knew someone could read it? We’re in urgent need of a rigorous public debate about the assumption that we cannot be safe if we are free. And, free as we are to vote in a lunatic, if the day comes, the damage already done to our civil liberties is such that parliament would be a funfair. As Goethe said: “None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.”

Photo: Alexis Dubus

ilal Zafar had a meteoric 2016 Fringe with his critically acclaimed show Cakes. After a Twitter prank by his brother, Zafar played along with the joke that he owned a Muslim-only bakery. Soon, the situation escalated and had summoned the wrath of xenophobes, racists and Islamophobes. The tale turned into his debut hour, scooped him an illustrious Best Newcomer award nomination and catapulted him into the comedy limelight. Receiving verbal abuse and death threats meant that the weight of his first show came from how aggressive people could be behind their keyboards. The extremism bred with anonymity is a point that Zafar doesn’t take lightly. “My main concern with social media is the lack of moderation and outright lies that seem to spread so easily,” he says. “If it was looked after a bit better I think it could be amazing.”

“My main concern with social media is the lack of moderation and outright lies that seem to spread so easily” Bilal Zafar

Zafar’s new show, Biscuit, is also sailing across the murky waters of social media. Though this time he’s concerned more about online love than hate: “The initial idea came from an audition for a

‘satirical’ sketch show where I would have to be part of a forced Asian/Muslim marriage. It was horrible and made me realised how little we know about any other cultures’ love or marriage. Biscuit is about me trying to get married with all the resources available… such as Muslim Tinder – Minder.” Using his virtual adventures to further explore life in Britain with Asian heritage, Zafar is aware of the different challenges he faces in his sophomore expedition. “It has been very different because Cakes felt like a such a gift. I do sometimes forget that I did have to work very hard to make it into a decent show. Making Biscuit has been completely different because with Cakes, I already pretty much had the story and had to try to make it into a nice hour long narrative with good payoffs. This time, it feels like I’m basically trying to make it all from scratch. Luckily, I feel like I’m a better comedian than I was a year ago so I think I’m doing OK with it. “I can’t help feeling quite a bit of pressure because people seemed to love my first show so much... but I did just have a very good preview [with Biscuit] and I am feeling a lot more confident. The main thing I try to focus on is just doing a good, funny show that I’m proud of.” Which leaves us with just one last big question: does he prefer cakes or biscuits? “Impossible to answer – too many factors to consider.” Though he adds: “I think I was addicted to chocolate bourbons from about 2009-2014.” Bilal Zafar: Biscuit, Just the Tonic at The Mash House (The Attic), 3-27 Aug (not 14), 3.40pm, £4-£5/PWYW The Skinny wishes to thank Edy Hurst for his contributions to The Skinny North since its first issue. We wish Edy the best as he now moves from writing to performing with his two shows at the Fringe this year: Edy Hurst: Theme Show, Just the Tonic at the Tron, 20-27 Aug, 11am, £5/PWYW; and: Joby Mageean and Edy Hurst: Dead Nice Boys, Laughing Horse at Southside Social, 21-25 Aug, 12pm, Free. tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/bilal-zafar-biscuit

Louise Reay: Hard Mode, The Stand Comedy Club 4 (28 York Pl), 3-27 Aug (not 14), 5:55pm, £7-£8 Bilal Zafar

tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/louise-reay-hard-mode

COMEDY

Feature

Bringing Up Baby If he is eligible for the Best Newcomer award, our money is on young Phineas Wakenshaw. We speak to his father Trygve about sharing the limelight with his son

“W

hat I’m making is a duo show,” says Trygve Wakenshaw. “I’ve been doing solo shows and now I’m onto working with other people.” So far, so normal. But, what Wakenshaw has left a little understated here is just who he is sharing a stage with. His boy, Phineas, is to make his Fringe debut alongside his dad, at just 13 months old. Wakenshaw senior’s shows are responsible for putting mime back on the comedy map, the most recent of which – Kraken and Nautilus – receiving award nominations in Melbourne and Edinburgh respectively. Kraken perhaps owed something to his Gaulier clown training, and was quite freewheelin’, while Nautilus was a more structured story. It is due to his range that people have joked that he could make any kind of show work, even one with a baby in it. And so it was natural for Wakenshaw to think: “Why not? Let’s start him in the family business. “Nautilus became this really solid piece of theatre. I know it inside and out. This show is really taking it back to the early days of when I was doing Kraken, and I was trying to respond between what was happening with the audience and onstage. It is the most terrified I’ve been about a show for a while.” Of course, they are by no-means the first father and son comedy team, although Phineas has a huge head start even on Buster Keaton, the legendary US comedian who starred alongside his dad from the age of three. The Keatons regularly worried audiences with the realism of their knockabout routines, leaving many fearing young

Buster was injured. Wakenshaw isn’t planning that kind of show, but is he concerned the very presence of a baby might make an audience too tense for comedy? “In my naïvity I still can’t see how it might make some people cross, and I’m trying to protect myself from that. Someone I don’t know wrote something on Facebook thinking it was using a child for cheap laughs, adding a sad or angry faced emoji. This is someone who hasn’t seen the show and doesn’t know my work. But, I am nervous about that because it is not my style to mess with the audience in an aggressive or bad way – I want the audience to be having as nice a time as I am.” This is especially true as the show promises a charm deriving from play. “A lot of the show is me enjoying playing with him. It’s me asking, ‘Can we have as much fun on the stage as we do crawling around in the living room at home?’” And Wakenshaw has been encouraged from the response of people who have seen the pair working on their routines, remarking it is “beautiful to watch a parent and child.” And it is part of that innocence that he wishes to capture. His father may excel in silent comedy, but Phineas has been anything but a silent partner when it comes to writing the show. “While we’ve been rehearsing, he’s been walking a lot more and talking. He really loves playing the xylophone, so I think, ‘This is great, they’ll be a musical section of the show.’” Trygve vs a Baby, Assembly Roxy (Central), 3-27 Aug (not 14 & 21), 3pm, £10-£12.50

Jonny Pelham

Raising Your Voice Risk-averse Jonny Pelham is learning to live in the moment, and brings his third hour of intelligent and thoughtful stand-up to the Gilded Balloon Interview: Ben Venables

tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/trygve-vs-a-baby

Trygve and Phineas Wakenshaw

Feature

wo years ago, during a performance of his debut hour Before and After, Jonny Pelham had to deal with a bunch of pissheads in the front row. While such brewed droops are an occupational hazard for any comedian, the episode lingers in the memory for the way Pelham calmed them by seeming to do nothing at all. It was a little like watching a teacher who never raises his voice – the one who the kids try to kid, but end up learning something despite themselves. “I started in Newcastle and a lot of my early gigs were at The Stand Comedy Club,” Pelham explains. “The Stand have a great policy for not heckling, and I think that helped me ‘find my voice’, in the sense that my delivery can be quite slow. But, there, I could speak at the same pace and tempo. It meant that when I went to perform at really pissed-up comedy clubs, I found that keeping the same pace of delivery was the way to do it.” Before and After’s premise derived from a letter he received from the NHS offering him cosmetic facial surgery. It was as if the health authorities thought Pelham was too unsightly for the rest of us to look at. Though he mined great humour from this missive, it was the identity crisis it triggered on which the show centred. Pelham had grown up embracing that, born with a cleft palate, he looked a little different. His second hour, Fool’s Paradise, focussed on therapy and the help it offered him with anxiety. Now, in Just Shout Louder, he is trying to get out of himself, to live a normal life and grow out of his shelter, however comfortable it may be. “One of the things I’m talking about in the show is having such helpful parents,” he says. “And I’m aware what a first world problem that is, but it meant that I never had to do much. They would bring the world to me – in a wonderful loving way.”

COMEDY

He adds: “I am very avoidant of life. I’ve never had a proper job, because I went to university and then did comedy. And had I not gone into comedy I think I’d have become an academic or a therapist. I think maybe I would have gone on to a PhD. And these jobs and comedy are all taking a step back from the world. Therapy is observing people, academia is talking about the world.” And comedy? “Comedy is a combination of them both.” Stand-up isn’t exactly for the faint of heart though: “Doing comedy has definitely given me the confidence to do more things and an identity. It was helpful to be able to say, ‘I’m a comedian’. I’m in my first proper relationship, which is peculiar I guess, for a 25-year-old guy. A lot of the new show is about that, how it came about, why it took me so long and how it is going well.” Pelham must often finds himself caught between his analytical intelligence and the kind of anxiety which can crease in on itself, which threatens to make someone a prisoner of their own brain. “I’m taking more risks. It’s great for my life – but also makes it more terrifying.” This includes becoming more politically active. “What has stopped me before was fear of the complexity of the world. You think, ‘let’s raise taxes on the rich,’ but that might end up with unintended consequences. The world becomes very grey, complicated and confusing.” But Pelham is learning to trust his gut: “I knocked on doors for Corbyn. I just love the fact he brought jam onto The One Show. Or when people say he’s got to be a strong leader and he’s more into his allotment. It’s a jargon-y word but I do think he is very authentic.” Jonny Pelham: Just Shout Louder, Gilded Balloon, Teviot (Balcony), 2-27 Aug, 7.45pm, £6-£11

THE SKINNY

Photo: Steve Ullathorne

Interview: Ben Venables

August 2017

Feature

THE SKINNY

On Choppy Waters

Jessica Fostekew

Photo: Karla Gowlett

As Jessica Fostekew cruises into The Caves with a story about a maritime misadventure, she writes how heavenly idealism can turn into a horror story...

y show this year is a true, utopian-horror story. What the nuts is that? Well, let’s talk about it. I’m fascinated by the fight for an ideal world. ‘In an ideal world...’ is the sort of thing women often say to preface a request for the bare minimum that they need. ‘In an ideal world my money would show up in my account today, please?’ ‘There’s five of us, so IDEALLY, we’d have more than one bedroom?’ ‘Yes please sir, if it’s okay with you, and thanks for your time with this, but what would be PERFECT actually is nine KitKat Chunkys’ You get my point, women have to dance a dance when they’re being assertive or asking for stuff, otherwise they’re ‘aggressive’ or ‘whiny’. When I hear ‘in an ideal world’, it’s that dance that comes to mind. Odd, because in a truly ideal world, it wouldn’t exist. I think it’s right that we’re constantly swimming as hard as we can towards an ideal world, a utopia. Young, British people have just come out and voted for a more kind and less austere world. It is a hopeful thing. They’re idealists. I wonder whether the people who voted for Trump or Brexit can argue that they’re voting for a chance at a utopia? Or were they voting as a belligerent plea just to feel heard; to create change, whatever that change might be? I want us to be striving for a best-possiblestate. But I am hyper-wary, because wherever there are constructed, apparent utopias, they are often, in reality, terrifying microcosms. Take for example a cruise, or maybe a month-long comedy festival. People save up their whole lives to go on cruises; decadence and hedonism abound, out far away from the day-to-day. Endless food and fun. Some of them now have zip-wires, climbing walls and flumes on board. FLUMES.

Heaven? No; more like a luxury Alcatraz. Look into the eye of someone who has worked on a cruise and you won’t see your reflection; the shine will have gone. You will see a window into the saddest, most introspective, greediest edges of humanity. Performers save up years to bring a show to the Edinburgh Fringe. Four weeks of partying. A bubble of total comedy immersion where careers are made. Nirvana? No. More a competition of fashionability. Look into the eye of a performer who is in their third week of their first Fringe and the shine will have gone – they will have left it in a bar called The Abattoir, where they talk to comedians about comedy for the whole time they’re not performing comedy, between breathers to Google themselves. You will see a window into the most fragile, introspective, desperate-for-visiblity and misguided-about-how-important-theirjob-is edge of humanity. If we are told we are going to a paradise then our expectations will be rocket-high, and the crash when we get under the bellies of these places is hard. Now, I will never see a cruise as anything other than a floating-torture-planet. But I do understand this festival. It’s not a promised land, it’s a training ground. In a decade, the hugest thing I’ve learned is to only go when I have something I am desperate to share, not to become. I have educated my expectations; unlike last summer when I went away to what I thought would be the most beautiful case of having my cake and eating it, and it all became a living hell. To hear more about that, in an ideal world, you’d come and see my show, The Silence of the Nans. Jessica Fostekew: The Silence of the Nans, Just the Tonic at The Caves (The Wee One), 3-26 Aug (not 14), 4pm, £5-6/ PWYW tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/jessica-fostekew-thesilence-of-the-nans

Members Only Club 20 years ago, Simon Morley contorted his cock into such skillful shapes it led to the famous hit show Puppetry of the Penis. On tour, he found different countries respond to dicks in different ways...

icking off your pants to entertain your friends is not such a strange concept in Australia. Our sporting culture coupled with a love of beer, and a suitably warm climate, means most young men have attempted a few ‘installations’ in the showers after a game, or on a late night bender. While simply whopping your junk out at someone is frowned upon and probably illegal, with a few twists and turns you can create a Hamburger – which is guaranteed to earn you a round of applause and a huge belly laugh. I decided to package up this foolish behavior into the theatrical juggernaut that is Puppetry of the Penis, a collection of ‘dick tricks’ presented by two near naked men (they wear shoes) in an old school vaudeville act. When we launched the show in 2000 at the Edinburgh Fringe, I think we were seen to be tackling the last bastion. I mean, where does one go after this? Laughing at a man’s genitalia was taboo, and us projecting our meat and two veg three stories high onto a video screen for all to laugh at was both shocking and liberating. We were quickly snapped up for a West End run and became media darlings, appearing on prime time TV shows – although our audiences were predominantly female, the UK had officially embraced the Penis. We set our sights on the big prize – North America – knowing it was going to be no easy task. A theatre on New York’s 42nd Street was secured,

August 2017

and our marketing machine went into overdrive with huge billboards all over Manhattan saying ‘THE PENISES ARE COMING!’ We had great success in New York and the show ran for nearly two years, but the rest of America wasn’t going to be that liberal. From Australia’s relaxed attitude to the male member, to the UK’s nudge-nudge-wink-wink acceptance, on leaving New York we hit up against a very American prudishness. Invited to do a spot on Californian breakfast TV, the planned segment went awry when my partner’s demonstration of the ‘Eiffel Tower’ was accidently broadcast across countless breakfast tables at 8.15am. The station went to black, and was pulled off the air. A huge media storm ensued, threatening a planned appearance on The Tonight Show as NBC executives pressurised Jay Leno to drop us. To his credit, he did the opposite, instead trailing us heavily with countless jokes. But a month later, a second televised mishap made America lose its mind: ‘Nipplegate’, in which Justin Timberlake revealed Janet Jackson’s breast during a Super Bowl performance. While you could tune in and watch then-Governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger shoot hundreds of people in a movie, the thing that feeds our children tipped them over the edge. With two cases in such proximity, fines for indecency in broadcasting went from $30,000 to over $500,000. Instantly, all of the TV networks saw us as too risky, radio

Simon Morley

stations decided to play it safe, and major dailies refused to take our advertising. We were shut out upon reaching our peak. So we focused on Europe. We found our humour crossed language barriers, and playing to a much more liberal and relaxed crowd was a pleasure. As society becomes more open and liberal, male nudity somehow remains taboo. We still tour

COMEDY

a lot of the world successfully, but there are no more TV appearances – in fact I can’t even find a regional radio station or a local newspaper in the UK who are prepared to say the word “PENIS”. Say it loud and say it proud. PENIS! PENIS! PENIS! Simon Morley: Naked Ambition, Heroes at Monkey Barrel (Headroom), 4-27 Aug, 3:40pm, £8/PWYW tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/simon-morley-naked-ambition

Feature

Sleep in September

areth: Do you want to go first? Jay: OK… What is your best survival tip for the Fringe? Gareth: Oh, that’s tough, I don’t feel like I’ve

Jay Lafferty

survived one properly. I always do the stuff that people tell you not to do, like drink until 5am. My survival tip is don’t party every night – no wait, that’s rubbish, because thats exactly what I do.

Photo: Trudy Stade

Gareth Waugh

Photo: Trudy Stade

As they’re good friends and not short of opinions, we asked local heroes Jay Lafferty and Gareth Waugh to speak to each other before their respective Gilded Balloon debut hours

My survival tip is it’s only a month, man up! Jay: So just get on with it? Suck it up! Sleep in September. Gareth: Speaking of drinking, where is your favourite place to drink during the Fringe? Jay: I really enjoy drinking in the pop-up outdoor spaces during the Fringe. You spend so much time as a comedian in tiny dark rooms it’s nice to get a bit of sunshine. Gareth: Whenever I’ve seen other comics answer this question they usually chose little bars somewhere away from it all, but I think because we live in Edinburgh it is better to do festival stuff. I like sitting in gardens. Jay: Somewhere to take in the Fringe feeling – anywhere with grass and alcohol. Oh what’s your drunk karaoke song? Gareth: Will Smith: Boom! Shake the Room. It’s my jam, I know all the words, it’s the only rap song that white people can get away with on karaoke. Everyone sings the chorus along with you. Jay: Ah the Robbie Williams approach – have you ever heard Robbie Williams sing a whole song live? He will sing the first verse and then gets the crowd to do the rest. You can’t get away with that as a comic, just do the set up and get the crowd to shout out the punchline. Gareth: Tell me then, who would play you in a movie? Jay: There is who I would want to play me which is Emma Stone – because she is younger than me and she has that really sexy voice thing, which being from Greenock I don’t have. I don’t sound sexy I sound aggressive. However, it would probably end up being someone bizarre like… Gareth: Michael Cera? Jay: Ha, what about you? Gareth: I’d like Ryan Gosling to play me. Jay: You do have a bit of the ginger Gosling about you.

Gareth: People say this, but it’s really like Gosling and Jay from The Inbetweeners had an awful child. Jay: What is your walk on music for your first solo Fringe show? Gareth: I haven’t decided yet, but I’m going to end on Fleetwood Mac. Jay: You’re kidding? My show finishes with Fleetwood Mac too – that’s really strange we both chose the Mac. Stevie is a genius. Gareth: Emmmm yes he is. So what is your best Fringe memory? Jay: My best one was watching Phil Nichol, at a late night gig, destroy a heckler who had been shouting out all night. Phil made a song up about what an asshole the heckler was and the whole audience sang along. The best thing was that the next day I passed a group of people still singing the song and I was able to join in. Fun Fringe moment. It’s your debut this year. Gareth: Yeah and it’s your ‘debut.’ Jay: Ha, what’s with the inverted commas? Gareth: You have done hour long shows before... Jay: Yeah, but only one off performances. You’ve done solo shows too... Gareth: Not an hour. It has been nice, everyone has been asking how the show is coming along? Well… I’ve been writing it for five years! Jay: So we are both technically doing our first full run debuts despite having being on the circuit for 20 years between us? Gareth: Yeah, they better be good, given how long we’ve had to write them. Jay Lafferty: Besom, Gilded Balloon at Rose Theatre (Attic), 2-28 Aug (not 14), 8.30pm, £9-10 Gareth Waugh: Honestly?, Gilded Balloon, Teviot (Turret), 2-28 Aug (not 15), 1.30pm, £7-9 gildedballoon.co.uk

Getting Lost in my Memory Palace The unforgettable Caroline Mabey makes a note about trying to remember her show on memory and Scrabble t the time of writing I’m still trying to match my show to my programme blurb. Edfringe. com declares that I’m losing my memory and invites you to join me as I try to memorise the 103 allowable two-letter Scrabble words. It also mentions holistic dance, but I’m hoping that’s metaphorical. Anyhoots, it’s all very well having highfalutin fancy-dan aspirations in March. And I was an idiot in March when I wrote my blurb, for a show which has no intention of allowing itself to be written until mid-June. Show blurb is the equivalent of a child’s scrawled ‘I want to be a fireman’. It’s irrelevant. Children are idiots. They don’t know what’s good for them. And now I’m stuck with the themes of memory and Scrabble. I thought my failing memory would make a great subject, because it would give me an excuse to research memory techniques and help me improve mine. Surely the only thing that’s been standing between me and world domination for god-knows-how-long is my brain-like sieve? So I set about reading everything I could on aidesmemoire and found out a lot of important stuff. Of course, it all instantly got forgot. The upside is I get to be amazed all over again every time I read a thing. The downside is... sorry, where was I? At least when I was naming my show I remembered it was supposed to be about Scrabble. I found QUETZALS on a listicle of high-scoring Scrabble words. If you play your cards/tiles right, it is possible to win a whopping 374 points – about three times the average score for an entire game.

Feature

GHERKINS was also listed. But, ‘A small pickle, made from an immature cucumber’ doesn’t sound as showbiz as ‘The national bird of Guatemala’. OXAZEPAM – ‘An anti-anxiety drug’ – got 392 points and would have been an excellent choice if I could have got sponsorship.

“I read that the umbilical chord is basically just a fancy straw through which babies suck out two thirds of a woman’s brain cells like a pre-natal milkshake” How forgetful am I? It’s difficult to say, because I’ve lost track of all the evidence, the hints and allegations, the incidents and accidents. I live in a state of Alzheimers-lite, bumbling through, never

Caroline Mabey

finishing a sentence or a thought, never completing a task when a digression is there to be taken. Some of this can be attributed to general mental and physical wear and tear. And especially to motherhood. I read that the umbilical chord is basically just a fancy straw through which babies suck out two thirds of a woman’s brain cells like a pre-natal milkshake. It makes sense. Look at your mum. She’s an idiot. Parenthood has definitely made a dent in any claims I might have had to being coherent. Sleep deprivation and constantly chasing round after an indomitable Godzuki don’t help the executive functions. But if I’m honest, having a baby made sense of my pre-existing persona. I no longer had

COMEDY

to pretend to be drunk on stage – I could just say I’d given birth and suddenly I rang true. Now my child is a five-year-old adult I can’t use that excuse any more, so I’ve decided to stop blaming her. I don’t want to instil mental problems that she’ll later be able to blame me for. So I’m owning my… whatever it is, my forgettiness, my inability to vocabularise. And (desperately) trying to remember some memory techniques… So that I might be able to memorise those 103 tiny meaningless words before August. The Fringe is in August isn’t it? I’ll check my diary. Caroline Mabey: Quetzals, Just the Tonic at The Caves (The Spare Room), 3-27 Aug (not 14), 7.40pm, £5/PWYW tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/caroline-mabey-quetzals

THE SKINNY

Photo: Idil Sukan

How Comedy Captured the Edinburgh Fringe: Part 4

ll was chaos at the 2008 Fringe. A new ticketing system collapsed a day after going live. And the company hired to introduce it were in administration by mid-August. The long-standing free showcase, Fringe Sunday, didn’t attract a sponsor and was scrapped. There were calls for the new Fringe director to resign. Which he soon did. The next Fringe AGM reported losses near £900,000. Many said a sales slump was down to the Olympics and the rain. As if the world’s foremost sporting competition, and the bitter vicissitudes of Scottish weather, were unpredictable events. In the same year, the Big 4 venues – Assembly, Gilded Balloon, Pleasance and Underbelly – remarketed as the Edinburgh Comedy Festival. A dissociate move that still helps mud stick when these venues get caricatured as a cartel. And the Comedy Award judges didn’t award the Panel Prize. Instead, they said it was for ‘all performers’ and stuck the £4,000 prize money behind their bar at the end of August bash. And so it was that the award meant to convey ‘the spirit of the Fringe’ turned into a colossal bar tab. It was also the year Comedy became the Fringe programme’s superior genre, with 660 entries compared to Theatre’s 599. For Traverse Theatre founder Richard Demarco – who told the Guardian, “The Fringe has been dominated by comedy for too long, which in my view is very unfortunate” – 2008 must have seemed both tragedy and farce. This trend had started when stand-up comedians arrived in Edinburgh in 1980. By the middle of the decade, they were taking over ‘super venues’ and establishing comedy rooms of their own. In 1987, a stand-up won the Perrier Award for the first time. Although Arnold Brown is unlikely to be the winner sponsors Perrier had in mind. As one of their 1980s adverts for the prize makes clear: “A sparkling opportunity for young people to turn their talents into a bubbling success.” Brown’s style of humour is rather drier than a bottled water company would want. And, as an accountant who had first tried stand-up at 40, a few years earlier, he wasn’t the age they had in mind. Brown came to the Fringe from Glasgow via London’s Comedy Store. He shared a two hour show with the jazz duo Jungr and Parker at the Gilded Balloon on Cowgate. It was a long wait until the prize next went to a Scottish comedian.

August 2017

So long, in fact, that this comedian hadn’t yet been born. It was 29 years later, about 100 yards away, on the other side of the South Bridge vaults, at Banshee Labryrinth, that Richard Gadd triumphed with Monkey See Monkey Do. It was part of the Free Fringe and Gadd wondered if it would’ve been better in the theatre section. The move to bars and free shows, and the questioning of what makes a stand-up hour, speak of changes that took place in the Brown to Gadd years. In the early 1990s, it seemed like comedy was the new rock‘n’roll. Sean Hughes won the Perrier – at 24 – at the start of the decade. His programme entry for A One Night Stand ends on a pull-quote – ‘a rising star of comedy’ – from NME. This was a couple of years before Rob Newman and David Baddiel graced the music mag cover. Hughes did something audacious in Edinburgh, merging stand-up with a stream-of-consciousness style delivery. And he laced the humour with moments of poignancy. All in all, it was an hour you needed to shut up and concentrate on. An ‘Edinburgh show’ can be a cynical term now. It implies a deliberate structure over authenticity: a theme and narrative arc, a dim-the-lights moment before wrapping it all up with a moral at the end. But, British and Irish stand-up never had the same lineage as, say, its American counterpart. The 1980s alternative comedians were never known for doing straightforward sets. And the Edinburgh hour, for all its latter day critics, has given a time frame for comedians to use in novel ways. Throughout the 1990s, agencies such as Avalon and Off the Kerb brought a professionalism into comedy and helped establish many acts. But Edinburgh did now seem more like a market. Jenny Eclair had performed in Edinburgh since the early 1980s. She had signed with Avalon, was about to break through, yet she seemed forlorn speaking to The Independent on the eve of the 1995 Fringe: “I’m just hoping to get away without crying in public. My usual trick is crying behind the locked door of the disabled toilet at Pleasance.” Whatever she did in her makeshift green room it worked. Eclair’s in-yer-face Prozac and Tantrums scooped the Perrier three weeks later. The awards became ever more coveted. Initially set up to recognise emerging artists, a Best Newcomer category was introduced in 1992

In the final part of our series celebrating the Fringe’s 70 year history, comedy finally rules the Fringe programme

– there were so many new comedians to keep up with. Yet this didn’t mean the main award was now meant for big names. In 1999, there was a curious debate over Al Murray’s Pub Landlord show. Journalist Nicholas Barber was on the award panel that year, and wrote in The Independent: “Murray... was shortlisted for the last three years’ Perriers, and when the administration deemed him too famous to be eligible this year, his promoters, Avalon, complained of bias. A weird storm in a pint glass resulted, with the Perrier people arguing that Murray was a star and Avalon arguing that he wasn’t.” Avalon’s argument – that their own man wasn’t of any preeminence – won the day, and Murray won the Perrier. Less than one month later a sitcom deal for The Pub Landlord with Sky went ahead. It was worth a reported £3m. It is important to note that the idea the Fringe turned into a ‘trade fair’ did not start with comedians. During the 1970s, Punch magazine ran satirical cartoons on the Fringe’s growth and its media hungry theatre companies. But comedy’s rise exaggerated all this, and the Fringe seemed the antithesis of the open access counter-festival it had started as. In 1996, a single show, Peter Buckley Hill and Some Comedians, began the Free Fringe. Buckley Hill established a ‘moneyless’ model. The venue charged no rent, the organisation charged no fees, and the audience didn’t pay to get in. The pubs went for it as it brought in customers, there was no financial outlay for the audience, and the acts could keep the donations made after the show. Comedians who had been media darlings also started to resist commercial trends, sometimes becoming like Diogenes – the cynic philosopher who lived in a barrel. Daniel Kitson started shunning the industry, only communicating to his audience through his work and own mailing list. Rob Newman, the NME cover boy, started The Tap Water Awards (to embarrass Perrier over parent company Nestle’s policies in Africa). And, ‘90s comedian’ Stewart Lee – who had returned to stand-up at the new hub known as Underbelly in 2004 – was, by 2012, in a public spat with its founders. Money seemed to be at the root of much evil, but attempting to explain Fringe economics wasn’t a plain sailing task. A 2012 article by The

COMEDY

Words: Ben Venables Illustration: Tom Saffill

Scotsman’s Claire Smith reads like the start of a dazzling novel. “As soon as I say I’m planning to write about the economics of the Fringe some very, very strange things start to happen. I’m warned there are some dangerous people out there, and that there are some things I can never say. I’m told I will never ever be able to write the truth... I’m being charmed, flattered, persuaded. I’m being told extraordinary gossip. I’m lied to. People are pulling me into pubs and showing me their accounts. And then, in the space of 24 hours, I’m threatened with legal action, not once, but twice – by two people I previously viewed with respect.” In addition, wrangles between venues seem to have become a Fringe tradition and the free model a competitive area. In 2015, there was an epic dispute over the venue Cowgatehead. Two operators, the Free Fringe and Freestival, both claimed to be running the space. The Free Fringe’s Peter Buckley Hill emerged with the rights to do so, but his communications with the now venueless Freestival acts struck all the wrong notes. Especially in a missive posted on a Chortle forum. It was headlined: ‘COWGATEHEAD 2015: READ THIS IF YOU THINK YOU HAVE A SHOW.’ But despite the Fringe’s spirit seeming to go sour, that spirit is what happens inside the venues. In 2016, in an 18th century vault, Richard Gadd fused audio and video with live performance, while running on a treadmill for nearly an hour. And though he worried it was in the wrong part of the programme, it was still recognisably a standup hour. A telling detail is that, unlike a one-person play, it would be hard to imagine anyone else performing Gadd’s show – there is a certain unique connection between performer and audience. Owen Donovan is a Producer at Berk’s Nest, and directed Monkey See Monkey Do. He says: “It was very much designed for the live show... That is why that show is so special, and why it resonated with audiences. He was doing something in that live space that couldn’t be done elsewhere.” And doing something that couldn’t be done elsewhere, having something to say, is why comedians come to the Edinburgh Fringe. With thanks to Alan Gordon, Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Sources: Edinburgh Fringe programmes 1987-2016 edfringe.com Read parts 1-3 at theskinny.co.uk/comedy

Feature

THE SKINNY

July 2017

Feature

Grief Encounter The Skinny speaks to Zinnie Harris about her not one, not two, but three shows at the Edinburgh International Festival this year Interview: Amy Taylor

s Zinnie Harris the most in-demand playwright in Scotland right now? With three plays in this year’s Edinburgh International Festival programme, Harris’s time is understandably tight. We meet in the Traverse Bar Cafe in the west end of Edinburgh, just before she is due to cycle to the Traverse’s rehearsal space in Leith to sit in on rehearsals for Meet Me at Dawn, her latest work. The other two plays on the EIF programme are adaptations of classic theatre texts; Rhinoceros, a new version of Eugène Ionesco’s play and Orestera: This Restless House, an adaptation of Aeschylus’s 2,500 year-old tale of bloody revenge. At first glance, the three plays seem to have little in common: Meet Me at Dawn is a two-hander, focusing on a gay couple, Robyn and Helen, torn apart by the sudden death of one of them. While Rhinoceros focuses on a small French village, where, seemingly overnight, the residents start turning into the aforementioned ungulates, while This Restless House focuses on family dysfunction and the dark consequences of the characters’ murderous actions. However, Harris is quick to explain that this is not the case. “They’re not three plays that you would choose to put beside each other as a trio,” Harris admits, but, while they were not designed to fit together initially, it soon became apparent that while different, each play shared a common theme: grief. “The thing about grief is it’s all about love,” explains Harris, “because you can’t experience grief without having loved something or someone. And it turned out that writing a play about grief was the perfect place to explore the various ways in which we grieve a loss, and the often complex emotions involved during the process. “Theatre, for me, is a contemplation of what it means to be human. It suits grief; it is a place of wishes.” The experience of writing Meet Me at Dawn was an enlightening one for Harris, who found that alongside the obvious reasons for grief, such as the death of a loved one, there are various other reasons and situations which cause us to grieve. “I was writing this last year, and I was really aware that there are so many different ways to experience grief,” she explains. Perhaps one of the most universal, or possibly, acceptable reasons for grieving is the sudden death of someone, such as the loss of a partner after an accident, something which the characters

in Meet Me at Dawn experience. The play was inspired by the legend of Orpheus and Eurydice, who were separated by Eurydice’s sudden death. Inconsolable and lost without Eurydice, Orpheus travels to the underworld to bring her back, and is told he will be successful, as long as he doesn’t look back at Eurydice until they arrive back in the real world. Something which he fails to do; turning around just before they reach the surface, and sending Eurydice back to the underworld forever. And it was this moment, this second-long backwards glance between the two lovers that inspired Harris. “He can’t get there. As soon as he looks at her, it’s all gone.

“ The thing about grief is it’s all about love” Zinnie Harris

“In Orpheus and Eurydice, it seemed to be that the real propulsion is the impossibility of death in that you never get to see them again, and that can be almost maddening.” explains Harris. Although she explains that “Meet Me at Dawn departs quickly from the Greek myth that inspired it, that feeling of hope and wanting to see a lost loved one for one last time is what helped shape the play. “You long for one last conversation, one last moment, one last day. But actually, what would it be like if that wish was granted? “[Meet Me At Dawn is] a purer play than some of my other plays in that it’s not also talking about politics or society, it’s quite a kind of meditational, chamber piece, almost. There’s something that’s quite pure about it, and maybe that is a bit of a move. That’s why it sits so well alongside This Restless House which is quite the opposite, it’s as broad a canvas as you can get; it’s got a massive cast, and there’s so many themes, although a lot of it is still about loss, but a lot of it is about revenge and attachment and guilt. So, there’s a whole range of human emotions and I suppose with Meet Me at Dawn I closed it down to love and grief.” This Restless House premiered at Glasgow's Citizen Theatre last year to both critical and com-

mercial acclaim, and was the result of three years work. Based on the tragic trilogy by Aeschylus, “You can’t broach Aeschylus and hold back, you have to meet it squarely on. I was quite tough and rigorous, so that it became this huge intellectual, emotional, theatrical challenge to get it out.” But if the other two plays appear to balance each other out, Rhinoceros is the wild card of the three. Exploring themes of loss in a totally unique way, Harris worked with David Greig and the radical Turkish theatre company DOT, to create a contemporary re-staging of this bizarre play. It imagines a world where people suddenly regress to an animalistic state, more concerned with “fighting and fucking” and “rolling about in the fields” than they are with being human. Written in 1959, this farce is set in the 1930s and is seen as an allegory for the rise of fascism in the early 20th century. But it also, chillingly shows how quickly humans can adapt to change, no matter how extreme, while mourning the loss of what once was, just like the Brexit result. While Ionesco’s play is obviously farcical,

what makes it work so well is its allusions to the wider political landscape of the time, which seems somewhat prophetic now. For Harris, waking up on the morning after the Brexit campaign and seeing the responses of Remain voters on social media, which looked a lot like grief, served as inspiration for her adaptation of Rhinoceros. “I think we all felt that the world had been turned on its head, which is very similar to a sudden death, you just can’t work out which way up you are,” muses Harris. “And I think what Ionesco did is find a really theatrical way of expressing that.” With three plays in one festival, Harris is clearly in demand in Edinburgh. As it so happens, Harris is also in demand over the border, too. “I’ve got a play that goes into rehearsal at the West Yorkshire Playhouse on 20 Aug.” Meet Me at Dawn, Traverse Theatre, 4-27 Aug (not 7, 14, 21) Oresteia: This Restless House, The Lyceum, 22-27 Aug Rhinoceros, The Lyceum, 3-12 Aug (not 7) eif.co.uk

Five Festival Shows On Grief Bright Colours Only Returning to the Assembly Rooms after a long absence, Pauline Goldsmith’s Bright Colours Only takes the form of her own, now legendary Irish wake, which first caused a stir at the Fringe in 2002. Featuring sandwiches, a dram of whisky and a perfectly polished maple coffin which has toured around the world. This show is a funny, yet deeply affecting hour that might make you a little less afraid of meeting your maker, maybe. Assembly Rooms (Venue 20), 3 -26 Aug (not 14), 2.25pm

COW From Jessica Barker-Wren and Lucy Wray, COW follows a girl returning to Devon to help her widowed father on the family farm. Touching upon her own personal grief, as well as that of her father, the play is about dealing with sudden change and asking for help. COW is also raising money for the Plymouth charity, Jeremiah’s Journey, who support bereaved children and their families. Underbelly Cowgate (Venue 61) 3-27 Aug (not 16), 12.10pm

salt. Part of the 2017 British Showcase, Selina Thompson’s salt. uses film, performance and sound to explore the route and lasting legacy of the Transatlantic Slave Triangle, which operated from the 16th – 19th century. Based on her experiences aboard a cargo ship that retraced the route of the slave traders, this politically urgent piece explores grief, identity and what it means to be Black in the UK today. Northern Stage, Summerhall (Venue 26), 5-26 Aug (not 9, 16, 23), 2.30pm

The Man on the Moor In December 2015, the body of an older man was discovered on Saddleworth Moor in the Peak District. He carried £130 in cash, train tickets from London and crucially, no ID. Max Dickins explores the story of the unknown man from the perspective of an adult son looking for his missing father. This is a story of missing people, of those looking for them and the grief that unites it all. Underbelly, Cowgate (Venue 61), 3-27 Aug, 3pm

Translunar Paradise Returning hit show Translunar Paradise made its successful Edinburgh Fringe debut in 2011. Inspired by the death of his father, director and performer George Mann's silent play uses masks, dance and music to tell a love story from the youthful beginning, and first meeting over cups of tea, until the final heartbreaking end. Pleasance Courtyard (Venue 33), 2-28 Aug (not 9, 15, 22), 3.45pm Check out Death on the Fringe for more shows and talks about our least favourite subjects death and grieving. deathonthefringe.wordpress.com

Feature

THEATRE

THE SKINNY

Bigfoot's Fringe Party The Skinny talks to one of rock’s finest provocateurs, Roddy Bottum, about his first Fringe show, Sasquatch: The Opera

just felt like I had a bigger story to tell,” explains Roddy Bottum. Perhaps best known as Faith No More’s keyboardist, Bottum’s musical career has taken him in all sorts of different directions since he first began playing professionally in the 1980s. From Faith No More, to his indiepop group, Imperial Teen, where he does most of the vocals, to his latest musical collaboration, The Nasty Band, experimental sounds and even more experimental lyrics have always been part of his repertoire. More recently, however, Bottum decided to literally and figuratively move in a different direction. Packing his bags and moving from California on the West Coast to New York to make theatre. Opera, specifically. “And I do love telling stories,” he continues, “And I’m always working on stuff in my head, and it just felt like it was time to attack that. So I moved to New York with that intention, I was watching a lot of opera and I just sort of had this idea.” This idea became Sasquatch: The Opera, and originally premièred in Brooklyn two years ago. A love story between a woman and a sasquatch – also called ‘Big Foot’ – set in the deepest darkest parts of America, it follows a hillbilly family who profit off the sasquatch legend; that is, until, they meet the real thing. And Bottum readily admits that his decision to choose one of the most bizarre American legends as a protagonist of a new opera was designed to get a strong response.

“I love turning the sort of classical notion of an opera upside down and just applying new strange forces to it” Roddy Bottum

“It gets a funny reaction,” he muses “just the concept of it when I tell people about it. They go, ‘So what are you working on?’ And I’m like, ‘Oh, I’m writing an opera!’ and they’re like, ‘Oh, what’s it about?’ And I’m like, ‘Sasquatch!’ And they’re like ‘Huh?’ And then I go... ‘it’s a LOVE STORY! WHAAAAA.’” His eyes bulge and his mouth hangs open in mock surprise, but if he’s expecting a negative reaction from Fringe audiences, he is well-prepared. “The theatre world is a weird place for me to traverse,” Bottum explains. “I think I’m going to get a lot of, ‘That’s not opera!’ Questions like that. But also the piece is very sparse and it doesn’t do an awful lot. It might do more than I think it does, but in my head it’s very slow. It was an uncomfortable place to sit in. I think there’s some discomfort involved, some sort of anxiety-inducing things that happen, and even some mildly offensive things.” These “mildly offensive things” could be described as Bottum’s calling card. From his early days in Faith No More, the band loved to get reactions from their audiences, preferably the more negative the better. From deliberately playing more mainstream songs, like Van Halen’s Jump at gigs (“they

August 2017

would go, eeewww, corporate rock!” remembers Bottum fondly), to writing Be Aggressive, the infamous track about fellatio – featuring singer Mike Patton shrieking the refrain, ‘I swallow! I swallow! I swallow!’ – on Faith No More’s 1992 album Angel Dust, Bottum and the band were keen to get a response. “There was always the idea to incite and provoke, and there was nothing better to get strong reactions. If we did get an unfavourable reaction, it was like, all the better! We love to piss people off,” he grins. “I love turning the sort of classical notion of an opera upside down and just applying new strange forces to it. I mean, it’s not so new, a lot of people have done it. ” One of his favourite traits of opera is its extreme themes, high drama and strong presentation, all of which can be seen in one of his favourite operas, Aida. “At one point in that opera there’s a big parade, and there is literally, the way that New York puts it on, an elephant on stage. I couldn’t believe the extent to which people were taking the artform.” So, if a production of Aida in New York can have an elephant on stage, what’s so bizarre about writing an opera about Bigfoot? As Bottum explains, this piece could have more in common with more classical pieces than you might think. “Most opera that I like anyway, the characteristics of the protagonists are very extreme, and with that in mind, the protagonists in Sasquatch, we’re dealing with an area of America that’s, for lack of a better term, sort of white trash hillbilly, its dirty aesthetics.” Although the opera features an extreme snapshot of contemporary America, with, as Bottum puts it, a “wigs and twigs” aesthetic, Sasquatch’s premise is much closer to home. It’s about the misunderstood monster, the gentle giant, and it seeks to examine prejudices and fears and what we can do to escape bad situations. Interestingly, the opera’s press release makes allusions between the sasquatch and Bottum's sexuality, specifically his experience of being the first openly gay man in rock (Bottum came out in 1993, five years before Judas Priest’s Rob Halford). While he admits that this was something he hadn’t really thought about when he first started writing it, his experiences as a gay man and a musician in the traditionally heteronormative world of rock may have had more of an effect on the piece than he initially realised. Perhaps then, the story of sasquatch isn’t just a riff on being a gay man in a very straight-presenting industry, but more the experience of being on the fringes as a bigger force, such as fame, takes hold. The press images for the show feature Bottum half-wearing a sasquatch costume. Perhaps, then, he himself is the sasquatch? “It was a very male energy force,” says Bottum of his time in Faith No More during their first run of fame in the 1980s and 1990s. “And there was a side to it, the keyboard side – I mean, lucky me, I got to supply that side – the gentle quality, that had a sense of beauty to it that wasn’t there inherently or obviously. And that was very sasquatch.” In the years after Faith No More’s demise in 1997, just after the release of Album of the Year, and between their eventual reunions in 2009 and 2015, Bottum has kept busy, writing music for film, performing in various bands, and writing his first mini-opera, The Ride, in 2016, about two men doing a sponsored bike ride for an AIDS charity,

which reflected on contemporary attitudes to AIDS and the AIDS crisis. But Sasquatch marks his first foray into writing a full piece. “As a kid I always considered myself a writer, but I never really write. I write good emails and good texts and stuff, but I’ve never done a big project like this. So, as a kid, I would be like, ‘Oh

THEATRE

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, older Roddy writing, that makes sense.’ Not knowing that older Roddy didn’t write anything!” But oh, what a big story he has to tell this August. Sasquatch: The Opera, Main Hall, Summerhall, 4-27 Aug (not 14), 9.15pm (60 mins)

Photo: Jonathan Grassi

“I

Interview: Amy Taylor

Feature

THE SKINNY

No Walls, No Borders Based on real life experiences, the National Theatre of Scotland’s Adam has a worldwide, digital cast of over 100 transgender and non-binary persons. We visit Rockvilla to find out more

t’s the hottest day (probably ever) when The Skinny visits Rockvilla, the National Theatre of Scotland’s brand new home, or ‘engine room’, on the banks of the Forth and Clyde canal. After ten years without a building to call its own, the NTS has collected its astonishing team of makers, directors, writers, builders, designers and actors under one roof. It’s a theatre nerd’s dream: props from previous performances hang on the walls, the costume department glitters with sequins, and a mirrored set is half-built in Rockvilla’s largest rehearsal space. There are hawks (!) on the lawn outside. Still, the NTS hasn’t lost its original “theatres without walls” premise – the company creates work here, but will continue

to perform in venues the length and breadth of Scotland, and beyond. We’re here to talk about Adam – a brand new show which will run at the Traverse for the duration of the Fringe. It’s one half of a duo of productions which elevate transgender experiences: Eve will be performed by veteran of the boards Jo Clifford, while Adam stars Adam Kashmiry and Nesha Caplan, plus a digital choir of 100+ transgender and non-binary individuals from all over the world. Kashmiry and project manager Leonie Gasson are here to discuss how this ambitious performance has evolved. They explain that the impetus for the show came from a single Google search. Kashmiry was

born in Alexandria, Egypt, and sought asylum in the UK when he was just 19. After spending time in London, he was moved to a detention center (“To this day, I still have no idea where it was.”) before being relocated to Glasgow. Although there’s no explicit ruling against transgender people in Egypt, LGBTQI+ rights are systematically and aggressively threatened. Individuals can be prosecuted on grounds of “debauchery” and methods of entrapment have been employed by a so-called “morality police”. As a result, trans issues are kept far from the public eye. In an interview for the Refugee Week Scotland in 2013, Kashmiry remembers thinking that “I was probably the only person who had ever felt this way”. After arriving in Scotland, Kashmiry began to search the internet for a way to describe his experiences, and a digital universe of faces and stories unfurled. “What I wrote down [on Google] was, ‘Can the soul of a man be trapped in a girl’s body? I didn’t know the term ‘trans’, so…” he says, shrugging. “I remember seeing YouTube videos of people who were already transitioned. They started talking, and I’m like, ‘Oh? I’m looking at this wrong. He has a beard and stuff.’ I just thought, no, that’s not related to me, that’s not what I’m talking about. Then later I realised, crap – that’s actually a trans man like me, but after transition. I just didn’t realise how much you can change.”

“When you talk about an entire community, then that is a cause. That’s powerful”

Adam Kashmiri (left) and Neshla Kaplan (right)

August 2017

Photo: Leroy Barrett

Adam Kashmiry

As information flooded into his Glasgow flat, Kashmiry realised that he was far from alone – and that transitioning could change his life. To illustrate the power of online interconnectedness, the NTS have formed the Adam World Choir – a digital community with over 140 self-identifying members, and counting. Gasson, who manages the choir and keeps its contributors safe, describes how the group was born from “this idea of suddenly having access to all these people around the world, that you don’t know. And it doesn’t matter who you don’t know them, because it matters that they exist, and that you can see them.” Pre-recorded videos of choir members singing an original score, written by Jocelyn Pook, will make up a certain part of the show – but that’s as much as Kashmiry and Gasson are willing to reveal. The recorded element was vital, though – “It’s much more inclusive,” Gasson explains. “If you’re in Russia and you’re trying to submit, you can do it in your own time. You don’t need fancy tech or a brilliant internet connection that’s going to get you into the Trav. It’s all been recorded on phones or laptops. Anything that anyone had to hand, that was the right kit.” This immense, global project is a world first – but Adam also marks Kashmiry’s theatrical debut. Asking him if he’s always been interested in theatre is answered by a big laugh, and a loud “No!” He describes “the change of heart” as having “happened very suddenly,” but by now Adam’s been in the pipeline for several years. Kashmiry first met director Cora Bissett “at a community

THEATRE

Interview: Katie Hawthorne

work sort of thing, funded by the Scottish Refugee Council.” He explains, “Straight after I’d been granted refugee status, I was told that I should go on jobseekers. I didn’t really understand these things, so I had no money and had to visit the SRC. Someone was like, ‘Hey man, there’s this thing happening. You get free food and stuff.’ I wasn’t really interested, but maybe a week later I decided to give it a go. “There were Scottish people, refugees, asylum seekers, kind of a mix. Everyone took part and gave a story. After the performance, [Bissett] said hi, and that she’d been really touched. We met for coffee a few weeks later, and she’s saying, ‘I’d love to do something with your story… are you happy with that?’ ‘Yeah!’ Then, two years later…” Initially he found the development process strange. Playwright Frances Poet turned his story into a script, and Kashmiry remembers watching the team read it for the first time: “Everyone’s analysing the character saying, ‘Oh, Adam must have felt that way…’ And I’m like, ‘YES, he must have felt that way!’ But now it’s all a bit different, because I don’t connect myself to the characters so much. Adam is a character in a play. Now when we analyse the characters I can ask Cora, ‘So, what’s Adam feeling at this point?’ “The story is a little bit different, which I actually like a lot. It’s odd when you say, ‘This is a story about one person’ – it feels like you’re completely neglecting everybody else. Are you saying that just because this person is trans, that’s why this story is important? But when you talk about an entire community, then that is a cause. That’s powerful. “So lots of bits in the story didn’t necessarily happen to me, but they happened to somebody else and it’s in there to show the variety of different, or horrible, things that have happened to trans people. The fiction is not so fiction – it represents a cause, and it’s a cause that’s much needed right now.” To depict Adam, Kashmiry’s joined by a co-star, Neshla Caplan. “It’s quite brilliant that there’s two actors,” he grins. “They’re two parts of Adam. There was a lot of conflict in that period of my life, and having two people to tell it gives you the real feeling of how that was. So that bit is kind of real.” As the timeline for the show shifted, the Choir took on a momentum of its own. Gasson enthuses, “Now the Adam World Choir is not a group of singers, it’s a project. Everything we’ve done has been in response to what people are interested in: we’ve got a book being released, we live-streamed a digital symposium, and we have an album of music – one of the choir members produced it, and different members submitted songs. Because the choir part that’s in the play uses people’s faces, some people said, ‘Well, I can’t do that’. The book is a great way of giving people time and space to tell their story, in a way that isn’t threatening. You can be totally anonymous.” Gasson lists members from Slovenia, Canada, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Luxembourg, Australia, Russia, Pakistan, Nigeria and Jordan, and describes that the key ambition of the choir is to provide a safe space of expression for a “geographically, socially and politically diverse” digital community. For a theatre without walls, but a brand new home, it feels right that the National Theatre of Scotland should be seeking to break down other kinds of boundaries and borders. Adam opens on July 30, but the projects are ongoing: “We’re still open! You can still join the choir, if you want. I hope that once people see the show it’ll be like, ‘Wow. I’d like to be a part of that’.” Adam, Traverse, Edinburgh, 30 Jul - 27 Aug; Macrobert Art Centre, Stirling, 5-6 Sep; Citizen's Theatre 13-16 Sep

Feature

Wait, What *is* Theatre? With more and more theatre companies doing innovative and different things with the art of theatre, The Skinny ponder the eternal question, what *is* it, tho? What is it?

f we did a Family Fortunes, and asked the public to name things that make theatre theatre, you’d probably get something like: actors, audiences, scripts, stages, etc. But what happens if a show only has one of the above? Trying to describe what theatre *is*, or what it can be, proves deceptively difficult. So, to make the matter more confusing, we spoke to three theatre makers about the formpushing, game-changing productions they’ll be bringing to the Fringe this August. Tim Etchells, artistic director of Forced Entertainment – Real Magic After 33 years in the business, award-winning Sheffield-based mavericks Forced Entertainment are infamous for testing the limits of theatrical form – and their audiences’ stamina. Their work can be extremely lengthy, improvised, and/or repetitive, but more than anything, FE go out of their way to provide a challenge. Real Magic involves chicken suits and mind reading... and Tim explains the rest: “It’s actually quite short, but we’ve managed to make it feel like you’ve really gone through something! We’ve boiled it right down to its essence. It’s like a game show, or a cabaret act from late night television. Later, [we realised] it’s about being trapped, and the possibilities of inventing your way out of something, creatively and comically. Can we effect change inside a system when it doesn’t really allow for it? Can you change capitalism? None of this is explicit, but I think [the piece] is plugged in to this moment in time. “Real Magic is focussed on this one scene, and going back to it… and going back to it. Trying to figure it out. To me, there’s a pretty direct

connection to sharing viral video, viral moments – taking a thing and reworking it. Digital has crystalised a certain way of being able to think about and look at the world. It’s about dispersal and repetition, and that’s something we’ve responded to. “We don’t make things easy for people. But I think we’re good at realising what the limits are. When to change things, when to stretch people, when to push. There’s drama in that. “It’s raw and live, and we try to preserve the feeling of something that’s just falling into place. It often involves careful rehearsal; that kind of chaos, we wouldn’t dare leave it to chance!” Nassim Soleimanpour, playwright - Nassim Soleimanpour is an Iranian writer who found fame with White Rabbit, Red Rabbit – a script designed to be performed ‘cold’ every night. No rehearsals, no directors, just an unprepared actor and an eager audience. All the pros from Whoopi Goldberg to Alan Cumming have had a go at it, and his new work Nassim, uses a similar premise... but this time the playwright will be on stage, too. “So one of the possibilities of this structure is that there’s no gender, no age, no race. We think Nassim is the next level: it’s a translation machine, based on the idea of language, to make new friends! Tell some stories, have some fun. “Rabbit took me a long time to write. Six, seven years – you learn your lessons. Take notes, imagine different possibilities, and then there’s a point that you’re confident: I’m pretty sure this can fly! But look, the history of flying proves, over the years, that it doesn’t always work… And with this metaphor, Nassim is an even bigger flight. “I work with algorithm. I studied engineering

for a long time, I worked in architecture. I work with all the ‘if ’s. It’s like, if you rent a new place, the building should stand. A toilet is a toilet. But people move in, and they bring their own life. They change the building they way the want it. I just don’t want it to collapse! If it collapses that’s my fault; that’s bad writing. “I’m not a performer – I’m just myself. I’ll age with this show – this show will last as far as I live. If I die, the show dies. That’s why we call it a machine.”

“ I’m pretty sure this can fly! But look, the history of flying proves, over the years, that it doesn’t always work...” Nassim Soleimanpour

Candice Edmunds, artistic director of Vox Motus - Flight Based in Glasgow and founded in 2003, Vox Motus are a touring theatre company renowned for exuberant puppetry and explorative, multi-media shows. Flight is an adaptation of Caroline Brothers’ novel Hinterland, and tells the story of two young, Afghan brothers seeking refuge through a unique, one-on-one experience.

Interview: Katie Hawthorne

“[We tried] to find a form that would bring audiences right into the emotional lives of our two protagonists. While riffing on the idea of worlds in miniature, we developed the idea of audience members seated around a revolving carousel of beautifully realised miniature worlds. Individual booths [and sets of headphones] makes the experience even more intimate; we have effectively made a theatre for one! “The boxes [within the carousel] are handcrafted environments inhabited by over 500 3D printed characters. Step 3D in Glasgow partnered with us, and a team of model makers has worked for the past six months hand-crafting each ‘world’. “The storytelling came together much like a film. We had to think in ‘frames’, and this had a knock-on effect to recording the dialogue. We had an amazing cast who didn’t bat an eyelid when we pulled out a stopwatch at the top of each scene... and a very patient playwright who crafted the dialogue so that the visual and spoken worlds could marry perfectly. “It’s with great sadness that I recall a conversation several years ago where we wondered if Flight would even still be [relevant]. It’s really important to us to humanise this issue: this is what motivated the design, the need to connect, one-to-one, with two brothers, who have names and faces, dreams and aspirations, and remarkable resilience and imagination.” Real Magic, 22-27 Aug, The Studio, 22 Potterow Nassim, 3-27 Aug (not 7, 14, 21), Traverse Theatre Flight, 4-27 Aug, Church Hill Theatre & Studio

Gray Matter The Skinny chats to Michael ‘Mikey J’ Asante of the award-winning East London hip-hop company, Boy Blue Entertainment, about their latest work, Blak, Whyte Gray Interview: Roisin O’Brien

You and Kenrick 'H20' Sandy are co-artistic directors, yourself as the composer and Kenrick as the choreographer… Me and Ken have been friends since we were twelve

Feature

years old. We have trust but we also challenge each other, we know how to get each other going. We’re still hip-hop at the end of the day, it’s the battle mentality. I think, ‘Here, I’ve got something that will make Ken go crazy.’

Blak Whyte Gray was nominated for Best New Dance Production at the 2017 Olivier Awards: what do these awards mean to you? I talk for myself, not on Boy Blue’s behalf or Ken’s. People noticing the work is powerful, especially coming from our community, it helps us promote the need for more of this work. It is not the driving force, however. It’s never for the applause, it’s to try build a relationship with the audience. You have many youth platforms: what is the aim of these platforms? Do many of the dancers go on to dance professionally? This is the big debate for me and Boy Blue. With industry, for people of, one, my colour, and two, my community, there are not many spaces where their dance is being sold or presented. The debate is about where. We are in the GCSE syllabus now, young people will learn our work: where’s the next set of jobs for them, the next set of spaces?

Blak Whyte Gray

It’s about retention of skills, especially if these young people are going to say “I can’t do this because there’s no work for me.” Your website says you are bringing hip-hop beyond streets and clubs: is anything lost or gained in the theatre? I think the misconception about street or hip-hop is that it has to be in those spaces to make it happen. But the most powerful thing about hip-hop, that makes it one of the most important art forms in the last forty years, is that it relies on the freestyler, on their personal truth. So, as a

THEATRE

breaker, you learn your 6-step, you learn your power moves, but then you have to put it into a sequence. And that sequence is you, defining you as an individual. And it doesn’t discriminate. Hiphop or breakdance borrows from gymnastics, Capoeira, African dance. And that’s what makes hip-hop powerful, it wants you. It wants you to take all your vibes, all your experiences, and put it there. So I don’t think it loses anything, it expands. Because a space is a space, a dancefloor is a dancefloor, so let’s go. Blak Whyte Gray, The Lyceum, 16-19 Aug

THE SKINNY

Photo: Carl Fox

The programme for Blak Whyte Gray reads ‘A world in flux; a need for change. The time is right… to break free from a system that no longer works.’ What in particular about today’s political landscape did you latch onto when creating? To say it’s totally political is an understatement and a little bit incorrect, because it is more about the world as a whole. For instance, the advent of social media, its effect on psyches and information that exists… the ways you can feed your brain as opposed to twenty years ago, when there were only five TV channels. The internet alone is allowing people to delve into situations and scenarios they once thought they never could. And there’s the advent of the camera phone, which allows us to get to the source, to see what is actually happening. Then there’s the adverse side to all that, the misinformation. To quote Mr Trump, ‘fake news’ and all that crap. So it’s more a conversation surrounding that.

August 2017

A Dangerous Game Playwright Tim Carlson discusses cyber surveillance, personal freedom, and pushing audiences to confront the shocking realities of the digital age im Carlson, Canadian writer and developer of Theatre Conspiracy’s much-anticipated play Foreign Radical, has been fixated with cyber-surveillance, privacy and the violation of civil liberties for several years. But it was only after Edward Snowden’s revelations of global surveillance programmes in 2013 that he began to understand the depth and magnitude of these issues in our digitally-saturated world. Gradually, a daring and challenging new theatrical work emerged. “Initially what I was interested in was cyber warfare,” Carlson explains, when asked what made him want to explore these themes in the interactive, game show-style piece. “That was [in the] six months leading up to the Snowden revelations, and of course that made everything a little bit deeper and more interesting when it comes to issues of security, personal freedom and racial profiling. And so the question became: 'How do we theatricalise those concerns?' We wanted to look at – sort of, physicalise, say – what we do on social media. We debate, we argue, we rant, we share, we collaborate, and so those kinds of things happen in different scenes between audience members.” Questions of how our digital information is used and by whom, and equally how we use and interpret digital information, are becoming ever more pertinent – and frightening. Central to Foreign Radical’s premise is the notion that the use and misuse of cyberspace, both by governments and individuals, causes real harm. More to the point, some groups of people are especially at risk, as structural and personal prejudice collide with the rapid erosion of privacy in the digital age. The play centres on the character Hassam, a young Persian man who is profiled at the border as he tries to enter the country. How the narrative unfolds depends on the audience, who, guided by

the uncanny choice of a game show host character, are presented with fragments of information, and must debate what it means and the kind of response that is appropriate or necessary. It’s certainly an unusual scenario for a theatrical audience to be placed in, but Carlson felt it was necessary to adopt this fully interactive, immersive approach. “I think what’s important in the dramatic scenario is, you’re standing two to three feet away from this guy in some pretty heavy circumstances, and that’s very different from seeing something on video,” he says. “There’s a fair amount of freedom to voice your opinion, to act in a certain way or to back off and not take part, and all of that makes the social dynamic more interesting.” While many audience members choose to play the game as themselves, some may choose to roleplay, he adds. This allows Foreign Radical to provide a space of moral limbo, in which the audience have the option of exploring perspectives that they would never usually hold, or even engage with. “Sometimes people will refuse to take part [in a certain scene], because they find that they’re playing the aggressor,” says Carlson. “They don’t want to do that. On the other hand, [you find] some people that you would not expect to take part, for instance one time it was a human rights lawyer getting into it, and playing the role that she would ordinarily resist.” The improvised nature of each performance makes it impossible to predict what the outcome will be, or how the audience will behave. But if one thing’s for certain, it’s that the experience will be challenging, uncomfortable, and at times, surprisingly playful and fun-filled. This latter element is intriguing: how can humour emerge out of such heavy and disturbing subject matter? But Carlson points out that the stance adopted by state governments towards individual rights

and freedoms is nothing if not absurd, and there comes a point where nervous laughter is the only possible response. He is particularly concerned with the US Watch List, a database of individual names maintained by the federal-run Terrorist Screening Center. There are currently over 700,000 names on the list, and yet the criteria for being placed on it is utterly nonsensical, as Carlson discovered during his research. The official guidance, he says, states that a person may be placed on the list “if they are in any way associated with a terrorist organisation, even if that organisation has not been designated as a terrorist organisation by the US government. They can be treated as representatives of the organisation, even if they have neither membership in, nor association with, the organisation.” The implications of this ridiculous policy for people likely to be targeted by the government, particularly Muslims and people of colour, are nothing short of terrifying. Carlson hopes that Foreign Radical will help audiences become more aware of how the state abuses our personal information through sinister methods like the US Watch List. And if the play incites people to advocate for more civil liberties, so much the better. But he’s conscious of not wanting to hammer home any specific political message. In fact, the play is as much concerned with interrogating our individual behaviours as it is with its broader political focus. He raises an interesting point about how our personal attitudes towards digital information and privacy reverberate within a much bigger, structural picture. “We would demand some better basic human rights be honoured by the government, by law. But you know, we have all of this personal technology. Do we actually extend those rights to a lover when we’re jealous, do we extend those rights to

co-workers who we might be competing with? How personally do we guard those rights in our day-to-day lives?” The line between personal and political, then, is especially blurred in the age of cyberspace. Carlson elaborates on the play’s use of three different languages: English, Arabic, and Farsi. “I’ve always thought it’s a really interesting dynamic to see how we can play with multi-lingual elements, as a way to animate new thought processes about what we understand and don’t understand.” This will undoubtedly add another dimension to an already multi-dimensional play about the slippery nature of information and access to it. Furthermore, Carlson points out that using languages which many audience members won’t understand has the interesting effect of subverting power dynamics that we’ve unconsciously come to take for granted. “People who are fluent in Farsi and Arabic are the most likely to be profiled at this point in history. So it kind of flips the usual dynamic. People who are fluent in those languages actually have a strategic advantage in the game. They can look at certain information, or hear it, and choose whether or not to share it with collaborators or keep it to themselves, and obviously that will influence the debate.” It’s difficult to fully get to grips with the nuanced ideas and unconventional methods at work in Foreign Radical before experiencing it first-hand. But there can be no doubt that this will be a performance like no other at the Fringe this year. Uncomfortable though it may be, Tim Carlson’s play is surely essential viewing for all of us who care about safeguarding our digital and personal freedoms at a time in history when these are more under attack than ever. Foreign Radical, Canada Hub @ The King’s Hall in association with Summerhall, 2-27 Aug (not 8, 15, 22), 1pm

Tim Carlson

Feature

THEATRE

THE SKINNY

Photo: Stoo Metz

Interview: Cat Acheson

Stories That Demand To Be Told One-woman shows, identity and the power of storytelling with Betty Grumble and Aisha Josiah

“W

e gather together in live space – an ancient thing we do as humans – to storytell, and storytelling empowers us,” enthuses selfproclaimed ‘sex clown’ Betty Grumble. “It connects us, helping us to feel community, and community makes us stronger. Performance art allows us to access our humanity in a world that is muting it.” Indeed, there is nothing at all muted about Ms Grumble (off-stage known as Emma Maye). Her new show, Love and Anger, seems set to be a colourful, explosive and empowering performance. “It’s about the protest spirit. It’s fun and fleshy – it’s about pleasure as a radical act.” Although her show seems pretty playful and zany, Grumble also speaks passionately about the more serious ideas behind it. Referencing her idol, Simone de Beauvoir, saying that she believes that “if some of us are not free, none of us are. I want to explore ideas about being a body that resists within a world that is oppressive.” She sees anger as a really positive thing, especially in the context of woman’s history, where women were told their anger was hysterical – and as she puts it, “the figure of the witch was a crazy bitch.” So, how, as a ‘professional sex clown’, does she strike a balance between humour and seriousness? “Well, laughter and laughing at enemies of grooviness can be a way of laughing back at and dismantling power,” She says, a twinkle in her eye. “Laughter is our weaponry.” Last year she appeared at the Fringe with her show Sex Clown Saves the World, and this year she wants to continue moving through her ‘Womanifesto’ to explore further issues surrounding femininity and freedom. In particular, she is focussing on the idea of ‘eco-sexuality’. This is the idea of “repositioning the Earth from Mother to Lover” – in other words, viewing the Earth as a place you need to

August 2017

support and love, rather than a place that will love you unconditionally as a mother would. Grumble speaks animatedly: “There’s more of a sensuality of give and take. We are all the Earth – where do our bodies end and the Earth begin? The poetry to it opens up the discourse for environmentalism in a new way. And this idea extends beyond to other humans – we need to be good to each other.” So, Love and Anger is set to be one woman show that explores a lot of big and complex ideas in a visually intense way. Are there any specific challenges to telling one’s story as a solo female artist? She reflects for a moment. “In the current climate of sensitivity and identity politics, I’ve been really conscious of how to speak, and when to speak. I really want to take care of the people who I invite into the room with me. “It also is a challenge to sit with my own vulnerability. Being someone who uses their naked body and sexuality on stage, when creating the show I asked myself how I might deepen my own eroticism. This is a particularly radical idea, since I was focussing on specifically female pleasure which has obviously been considered taboo throughout history. I found myself constantly asking – ‘How do I deepen the love energy?’” A very different, yet just as intriguing female storyteller is Aisha Josiah. The playwright’s one woman performance piece, Dickless, is concerned with exploring the idea of how women may be placed into set roles by others, rather than determining these roles themselves. “The play is about adolescence, the ways people come to define themselves and why. It also explores the role sexuality plays in that – how you use it to define yourself, but also how other people use that to define you. There is an interesting connection between the two.”

Following on from this idea of others projecting definitions onto you, Josiah talks about some of the challenges she faced with the dif ferent receptions of her play. “As a writer, you don’t really consider the reception you will get. For example, since I have a distinctly English voice, would the American audience at NYU, where it was first shown, ‘get it’? My professor didn’t know what to do with it – being a black and British writer, she had certain expectations for the piece (she strangely thought I was Nigerian, even though I am not). Now, it’s interesting taking the show to different places as there’s still a surprise about who the author is, and what the work is about.”

“When creating the show I asked myself how I might deepen my own eroticism” Betty Grumble

Dickless seems to be a very nuanced portrayal of femininity and identity. Does the piece have a strong feminist message? Josiah contemplates. “One of the central character’s ‘superpowers’ is her way of being able to manipulate men, yet on the flip side she is also constantly at risk from men. It’s a story and a character that deals with gender, yet I don’t know if I would say she was a

THEATRE

Interview: Alice Lannon

feminist since there is no larger purpose to what she does – it is very much a fight or flight spiral.” As with many women artists, definitions and categories seem like a frustrating issue for Josiah. “I’m not really sure where to place myself as a female writer. If I write about ‘women’s issues’, then I fall into a particular category. Yet if I don’t, it’s seen as a glaring omission. I just want to write whatever the hell comes to mind!” Yet, for all of the definitions that are projected from society, Josiah sees storytelling as a way of becoming empowered through creating your own definition. “One of the cool things about a one person show is that there is always a layer above the character that you’re portraying, and that’s the character of the storyteller. And that’s just you.” What is the most special part of one woman shows – does Josiah find them empowering? “It feels absolutely empowering! In my show, there’s something really powerful about watching a female character take on a male persona – both in the role of the storyteller and midway through the show when she literally takes on the part of a male character. I think that it highlights the common humanity that sometimes it’s easy to forget even on stage, when you are so used to seeing actors play female roles and there are specific limits to what they can do, what role they’re allowed to play in the story.” Josiah concludes, “There’s just something so amazing about being able to say, ‘actually, this is how I see it from my point of view.’” Two strong female voices, and two very intriguing shows. Both Aisha Josiah’s Dickless and Betty Grumble’s Love and Anger will no doubt take the Fringe by storm. Love and Anger, Heroes @ Monkey Barrel, 3-27 Aug (not 9,14, 21), 8pm, £5 Dickless, New Town Theatre, 3-27 Aug (not 15), 6.50pm, £8-10

Feature

Photo: Liz Ham

Betty Grumble

ADVERTISING FEATURE

Shaping Futures We meet some of the emerging acts arriving in the Pleasance for this year's Fringe, courtesy of the Charlie Hartill Special Reserve

he Charlie Hartill Special Reserve is a fund that supports emerging artists at the Edinburgh Fringe. Running since 2005, the fund has helped send some of comedy’s big names on their way. Previous beneficiaries of the Comedy Reserve include Jack Whitehall, Doc Brown and Roison Conaty, long before they hit the small and big screens. And the nightly showcase is an integral part of Pleasance’s programme but also the Fringe as a whole. As Whitehall has said about the Reserve: “Without the Pleasance finding ways to bring new comic talent to Edinburgh the Fringe wouldn’t be quite the same.” By taking care of accommodation, expenses and marketing costs, the fund frees artists to focus on the creative side, learn about all aspects of production and build valuable stage time. Not only does this take away the worry and risk of putting on a Fringe show, the recipients also take centre stage with a prime time slot at Pleasance. It is a unique chance to showcase work in front of Edinburgh’s comedy and theatre loving crowd. The initiative is nothing short of an investment in performers’ talent. And while the Reserve fund helps people get started, it often acts as a foundation for an ongoing relationship between artists and Pleasance Theatre. And, there could not be a better example of this than in the number of Reserve returnees in this year alone, with 16 Comedy Reserve participants coming back to Pleasance with their Fringe shows. The fund was set up in memory of Charlie Hartill, who died in 2004, aged 32. Charlie was a former president of Cambridge Footlights and became a crucial part of the Pleasance team,

making many invaluable contributions behind the scenes. The fund ensures his dedication and support to the arts is honoured. Ryan Taylor is Head of Comedy at Pleasance. While he remembers a relatively unknown Jack Whitehall asking him if he could try out for the Reserve, he is perhaps more proud of the way in which the Reserve’s reputation grows, than he is of it spotting and supporting future stars. “The Reserve has built a real legacy over its 13 years. It has become such a juggernaut. Joe Lycett supported Jack on tour, and Jack told him to go and do the Reserve – people pass it on.” It is Taylor who has the daunting task of whittling down 200 hopefuls to an initial shortlist of 20. “It is getting much harder because of the high standard,” he explains. “The applicants start online and around 200 people send in clips – I then go through each one.” This is only the beginning though, it is only then the tricky bit starts. As Taylor says: “Over two nights the remaining 20 acts perform sets of 10 minutes each in front of a judging panel, which usually comprises of me, Anthony Alderson [Director, Pleasance] – and Christopher Richardson [Pleasance founder]. And there is also an audience vote to help us select the final four.” This ensures a strong line-up each year – and, of course, 2017 is no exception. Catherine Bohart’s striking stand-up has already captured the attention of the BBC, who named her on its New Talent Hotlist 2017. With her star similarly rising, Sophie Ducker impressed at the 2015 Funny Women Final and mines intelligent humour from complex topics. There’s also smart and well honed stand-

up from Nigel Ng, who has also turned heads early by winning the 2016 Amused Moose Laugh Off. Then there is Danny Clives, he’s supported the aforementioned former Reserve Joe Lycett. It had always been a dream for Clives to perform at Pleasance. As he tells us: “The Pleasance is always the main place I go to watch comedy at the Fringe as they always put on my favourite comedians. It is an honour to have them pick me to be one of their four comedians performing as part of the Comedy Reserve. When I first started out in comedy I went to see the Comedy Reserve at the Jack Dome. I dreamed of being able to do this showcase – and now I have made this a reality.” It takes courage to become a stand-up comedian, to stand alone on stage and attempt to make a room full of people laugh with nothing but your own wits. There is often a steep learning curve that only gig after gig can help with. Clives has been grafting away at comedy and winning a place on the Reserve has allowed him to see that his work has been worthwhile, telling us with some candour: “The Comedy Reserve has reminded me that I am funny and all my hard work and determination to be a comedian over the last few years hasn’t been a complete waste of time.

“Most importantly it is going to help me get better as a comedian by being able to perform every night for a month” Danny Clives

Pippa Evans

“I guess the Comedy Reserve has shown me that dreams can come true. I am honestly over the moon as it makes up for all the bad gigs and nights spent stuck in motorway traffic contemplating getting a job in admin. The Comedy Reserve gives new comedians an opportunity to play in a theatre room, to an audience of up to 75 people who like comedy, which compared to performing in a pub in front of a dartboard to five people – who would rather be playing darts – is a miracle. Most importantly it is going to help me get better as a comedian by being able to perform every night for a month allowing me to sharpen up my act.” And in Clives’ case his place on the Reserve may have also saved his relationships at home. He adds: “Oh, and it has also allowed my family to be proud of me whereas previously they were in disarray that I decided to follow this path.” The Theatre Reserve runs along similar lines, supporting up-and-coming companies to stage fresh and innovative performances of a fully produced play. Pleasance provides guidance and in-house support and, as with comedy, the performance gets to shine in one of the Fringe’s most coveted time slots and venues. This year, Unpolished Theatre present Flesh and Bone, the story of an East London estate told through the voices of its tower block residents – which sold out during its Pleasance Islington preview. It is the company's first ever production and directors Olivia Brady and Elliot Warren's first visit to the Fringe. Without the support of the award, they could not have made

the journey. As Warren says: “This fund seriously means the world to us. We have never performed at Edinburgh and it is a life-long dream to be at The Pleasance. The fund allows us to create a fantastic show and dedicate our time to making it the best it can be on and off the stage. We don't have investors and we don't have much money, just a show that is itching to be seen!” And, the group will be hoping to follow in the footsteps of last year’s recipients – the trio who form the company In Bed with My Brother (Nora Alexander, Dora Lynn and Kat Dory). The fund helped kick start a glorious year for their hit play We are Ian – the story of politics and an acid house DJ, ambitiously told through a mix of clowning, dance and biscuits. They return to Pleasance (Pleasance Dome, King Dome, 10pm) with the play this year. As the company told us: “Receiving the Charlie Hartill fund last year was a massive turning point for us. As a little Devonian company of best mates (it is just the three of us) it takes a lot of time and drive to get our stuff out there. We live in Exeter, a small city, but we’ve always had big ideas for work! We wanted to get it out to as many people as possible. Being able to showcase in London and on the Edinburgh Festival Fringe has had a huge and extremely positive impact on the company and our show. We are over the moon to be back at Pleasance. Off the back of the Fringe we’ve been (and are still) on a national tour of the show. And we’re still enjoying and creating new work with the Pleasance, now that we are Associate Artists. We are so chuffed to still have them as friends.” This final point is an important one as it isn’t just the financial help and support, it is having the backing that Pleasance’s reputation brings and also the ongoing relationship that is crucial. “Pleasance is such a prestigious and important venue in Edinburgh, so for emerging companies Charlie Hartill is a great leg up. Without the Reserve, it would be unlikely that we would have the funding or support to tackle Edinburgh. We Are Ian did really well up there, and again, we were over the moon. The show received five star reviews, was nominated for a total theatre award and won the Brighton Fringe award for excellence.” For In Bed with my Brother it was a game changer: “The Charlie Hartill reserve is invaluable. Without it we would probably be performing to each other in our bedrooms.” An undoubted highlight of the 2017 Pleasance comedy brochure is the prominence of comedians bringing their first full show to Edinburgh. With some 28 newcomers in total, it is little surprise Pleasance has organised something of a debutant celebration in the form of the brand new Pleasance Comedy Newcomer Gala. And this is in addition to its regular night HUB Fresh. “We wanted to do something to showcase the newcomers that we have,” says Ryan Taylor, “and to make it huge, in The Grand, with 750 people. Many of the acts haven’t performed to an audience that big before. It is free and will encourage people to see newcomers’ shows. Hopefully it will become a regular thing.” The gala is hosted by John Hastings. Hastings is a former Reserve from the 2013 intake, and is this year back at the Courtyard with his new show Audacity (Pleasance Courtyard, Bunker Two, 9.15pm). He holds great memories of the Reserve, especially how it mitigated the financial risk. “The Comedy Reserve rules! It gave me the opportunity to start off in the dreaded paid side of the Fringe on a truly positive note.” Of the 28 debutants, seven have progressed through the Comedy Reserve, and again it is testament to Pleasance’s continuing support to

THE SKINNY

We are Ian

performers. From the class of 2016 – where there were eight Reserve participants as opposed to the normal four – Ryan Taylor is delighted that five already feel confident to perform their debut shows. “Last year they were all so up for it and for the whole festival. They were talking about poster ideas and what they were going to call their shows.” This particular group of comedians is a special bunch. They have gained a great deal of recognition before even putting on that all important first hour. It includes the last two Leicester Mercury Comedian of the Year winners – in the form of Alasdair Beckett-King (Pleasance Courtyard, This, 6pm) and Tom Lucy (Pleasance Courtyard, The Cellar, 6pm). Then there is Michael Stranney (Pleasance Courtyard, Below, 6pm). His character Daniel Duffy won him the NATYS (formerly Hackney

August 2017

Empire award) in 2015. Darren Harriott (Pleasance Courtyard,The Attic, 9.30pm) and Kae Kurd (Pleasance Courtyard, Bunker Two, 5.30pm) are also set to make a big impression, with intriguing stories to tell, the former homing in on a single train journey in while the latter takes a look at the identity of growing up in a refugee family in Brixton. Other former Reserves making their debuts are Evelyn Mok (Pleasance Courtyard, Bunker One, 6pm) and Joe Sutherland (Pleasance Courtyard, That, 7.45pm). But it isn’t just the debutant Reserves returning to the Pleasance. Pippa Evans (Pleasance Courtyard, Cabaret Bar, 2.40pm) was in the second Reserve line-up back in 2006. Evans rocks into the Cabaret Bar with her new show Joy Provision, about finding hope in troubling times. And the

talented stand-up and songwriter will be backed by a full band. “It was comedian Luke Toulson who encouraged me to audition for the Comedy Reserve,” says Evans. “I had been told it was unlikely I’d get through because they tended to go for straight comedy, rather than character stuff.” Fortunately this assumption proved incorrect and Evans wasn’t going to let such doom-mongering put her off. “Luke was sure I could be the wild card on the bill. So when I got the call from Ryan from the Pleasance, I was absolutely stoked! To get that early experience at the Edinburgh festival was a real treat. 15 mins in a mix bill show, every night, supported by the Pleasance was a real big deal. From that I was asked to do a bunch of other shows and started getting booked on the University circuit. We were in the Jack Dome,

Photo: Matt Austin

Secret Life of Humans

Photo: David Monteith-Hodge

which backed onto the Brooke's Bar, so myself, Marlon Davies, Michael Fabbri and the now sadly departed Stuart Hudson were often found propping it up. Gaz, one of the security guards, still reminds me of his having to throw me out at 4am every night. Larks! “And this year I return to the bosom of The Pleasance with my 9th solo show, Joy Provision. Since Comedy Reserve, I’ve travelled through character comedy, straight stand up and improvised musicals to end up a sort of Sandi Toksvig/ Josie Lawrence/Brian Conley hybrid. This year, I wanted a space that could add some showbiz razzmatazz to Joy Provision, and really there’s no space but the Cabaret Bar to make that happen. Bring on the festival!”

“The Charlie Hartill reserve is invaluable. Without it we would probably be performing to each other in our bedrooms” And Evans is not the only Reserve recipient returning having established a great career. David Byrne is artistic director of New Diorama Theatre. He was able to bring A Stroke of Genius to Edinburgh in 2009. He tells us: “Without support from Pleasance at the beginning of my career, I wouldn’t be where I am today. They’re unique in Edinburgh, offering meaningful, no-strings-attached support. Their generosity and kindness has made Pleasance, for me, a lifelong passion: it’s still where I want to premiere my best work.” And this is certainly true of the work Byrne brings to Pleasance this year. “I’m back this year with an incredibly technically ambitious show, Secret Life of Humans (Pleasance Courtyard, Two, 6.30pm) which is inspired by the epic bestseller Sapiens, A Brief History of Humankind. Any other venue would have baulked at the challenge but Pleasance, as always, just asked ‘how can we get this done?’. That’s why, during August, Pleasance Courtyard feels like the centre of the world.” The Comedy Reserve, Pleasance Dome (Jack Dome), 2-28 Aug (not 14 & 21), 9.30pm, £6-£9.50 Flesh and Bone, Pleasance Dome (Jack Dome), 2-28 Aug, 4pm, £6-£10 Pleasance Newcomer Comedy Gala, Pleasance Courtyard (The Grand), 5 Aug, 11.15pm, free HUB Fresh, Pleasance Courtyard (Cabaret Bar), 7-8 & 14 Aug, 5.20pm, free

WTF Circus? Contemporary circus seems to be booming. We meet some of the performers and programmers to find out more about how the landscape has changed

All the Fun

“T

he primary emotion of circus is fear.” So said a critic one year ago at a dance festival in the Czech Republic. We had just seen a small, intricate performance that this same (very wise) critic stated was working with the ideas of “new circus.” New circus? Did that imply there was… old circus? (Turns out, the term ‘new circus’ has been in use since the 1970s.) Coming back to the Fringe that year (2016), the new Underbelly Circus Hub was on its second outing (having outbid the Lady Boys of Bangkok for the coveted space on the Meadows). Circus skills are popping up in the world of contemporary dance, where many practitioners are proficient in tumbling or aerial dance. So what is circus today, and how different is it to the gaudy tents and lion tamers of its predecessors? We speak to Marina Dixon (Festival Producer & Programme Manager from Underbelly) about why the Circus Hub was set up; where did the demand come from? “I think there’s always been a circus element at the Fringe, long before Circus Hub existed… but it feels that over the last few years there is a larger appetite for it… We were working with more and more incredible artists… plus running a circus competition to find up-andcoming young performers so it felt like the perfect time to create a specifically dedicated circus venue at the Fringe.” For Dixon, there is a supportive vibe among the artists: “Circus Hub has been great for bringing artists together for a month in the same place where they can see work and learn from each other. Often a lot of the artists in one show have worked with other performers in other shows…” So what are our perceptions of circus today? Two artists performing this year may be able to enlighten us on what this distinction between

Feature

traditional and new circus might mean. Ellie Dubois (No Show, Summerhall), whose knowledge of circus seems infinite, rapidly rattles off some core tenets: “Contemporary circus often sits in theatres rather than tents, doesn’t have animals, and doesn’t follow the traditional narratives with clowns, etc.” A lot of contemporary circus has an emotional trajectory, that aims to connect with the audience in much the same way theatre does. For Dubois, it’s not, however, simply a difference in style: “Traditional circus in a tent that tours around places, it represents a way of life… In pre-television times, it was often how people got their information about other ways of living. Yes, there was exploitation, but audiences also saw people of other races. And women’s roles in circus were very interesting, at a time when they were not equally paid in other areas.” Bram Dobbelaere from Belgian company Cie Ea Eo (All the Fun, Underbelly’s Circus Hub) has thoughts on this division as well: “I wrote about this recently and admitted that I was a very fervent supporter of this schism… praising the contemporary and comparing the traditional with dinosaurs soon to be extinct. Now, I think the very discussion about old vs new needs to be extinct… As circus artists, we should appreciate the diversity without judgement. The last couple of years we’ve seen a lot of young circus performers picking up forgotten circus skills with the help of incredible circus ‘dinosaurs.’” Both shows stand out for their questioning the spectacle of circus: All the Fun also taps into wider concerns. “The concept… grew out of frustration with advertisement and its portrayal of these beautiful, clean-shaven, young stereotypes,” says Dobbelaere. “And the way we all seem to accept this and contribute to it… Look at my beau-

tiful exotic travel pictures… look how smart I am with this really interesting article I posted. We wanted to create a cathartic ritual which allowed the artists and audience to get rid of this constant brainwashing pressure… We looked for juggling routines that were physical, where we could run, jump, fail and sweat, for routines where the outcome was different every time.” So what does it take to be a circus artist these days, and is there support? For Dubois, the situation in the UK is different from places like Canada or Australia, where you can grow up regularly attending youth circus. Many circus artists in the UK, in her experience, are gymnasts to begin with, which has different technical and entertainment emphases. Speaking more widely, Dobbelaere finds France still the epicentre of circus in Europe. He is grateful for the government support available in Belgium, which is one of the differences he sees with Canadian or North American companies: “If you invest your own savings in a show that needs to fill 2000 capacity venues, and needs to sell $37 tickets, you make a different kind of show…” Is this commercialisation prevalent at the Fringe? “Almost all the circuses here will be commercial,” Dubois responds. “Circus makes a lot of money; if anything, I think the market is oversaturated.” There is also, for Dubois, a lack of artistic risk in circus: “Because we can do a backflip, we’re often lazy: we fall back on the tricks.” She is also concerned about the lack of professional opportunities for women, with the number of all male casts far outweighing even gender balanced casts. “The majority of students in my circus course were women – where do they go? I guarantee you there is nothing a man can do that a woman can’t also do.”

THEATRE

Dubois does not share the optimism that circus in Britain is growing in demand, certainly not the type of work she wants to see more of. “Circus in Britain feels to me where contemporary dance was 20 years ago. Now, at least, if you say you’re a dancer, people might ask you what type of dance you do… when you say you are a circus artist, the reaction is more” – she inhales – “‘OH MY GOD you can do that?!’” And the Fringe is not an easy gig: “If I wasn’t based in Scotland, and didn’t have Summerhall’s support, I wouldn’t do it.” Returning to the earlier encounter, slightly wiser about the circus scene in Britain, we ask the artists; is the primary emotion of circus fear? For Dixon, alongside the spectacle, there is escapism; for Dobbelaere, “It is the WAAW!, the gasp of air from the audience… a primary reaction, the same reaction you might get from witnessing an incredible goal by Lionel Messi.” Dubois has a different take: “I think it’s the opposite to fear, you feel incredibly safe. You only see the top, the tricks we’ve done a million times and absolutely perfected… For me, strength and power are more interesting, not just physically but the power of who is watching whom, who is there to be entertained.” So, perhaps the perception that circus was suddenly a booming new art form was a) misplaced (if it’s been ‘new’ since the 70s) and b) optimistic, given the financial and social restraints artists struggle with. But like many art forms, a bit of digging reveals performers passionate about their art, and willing to debate where it’ll go next. Maybe it’s time to invest in that ticket this year. All the Fun, Underbelly’s Circus Hub, 5-26 Aug (not 14 or 21), 4pm, £8.80-15.30 No Show, Summerhall, 2-27 Aug (not 10 or 21), 4.15pm, £6-12

THE SKINNY

Photo: Ben Hopper

Interview: Roisin O’Brien

August 2017

The Power of Protest We speak to author Laura Hird about her Radical War story in the new anthology Protest, and the Edinburgh Book Festival event to mark it. In a time when political protest is so relevant, it’s important to learn from an often forgotten past

he editor of Protest, Ra Page, has achieved an extraordinary and timely feat, considering our current political climate: a collection of short stories, each one illustrating a moment of protest in British history. The book begins with the Peasant’s Revolt of 1381 and ends with the anti-Iraq war demo of 2003. He invited authors to pick a protest from his list and write a short story about it. His one condition: every writer must work with an expert – a historian, sociologist, crowd scientist – someone who knew the subject. And so each story has an afterword, explaining the historical and political background that forms the basis of the story. The result? A great gathering of voices, a dispersal of perspectives. It is a direct response to a world of fake news and post-truth politics; a collection of well-researched, historically accurate stories that trace a long tradition of kicking up a fuss. It’s tempting to think of protests as brief moments that rupture the way things are done. People come together to stand up against a system that acts on their behalf but doesn’t represent their values – and then things change, or they stay the same. It’s tempting, too, to feel a bit hopeless about protest as a means of changing the world:

for every success story, there are many moments of failure. But reading these stories shows how strategies, tactics and themes are shared across time. One group of protesters might inspire another – one person’s courage becomes the spark that ignites another’s. In Kit de Waal’s deeply moving story, a black man falls in love with a white barmaid in racially segregated Smethwick in 1965. They are discovered, and Alfonse very nearly loses Lillian for lack of courage. Then he sees, of all people, Malcolm X walk down his street, and it’s this moment of quiet defiance that gives Alfonse the courage to stand up for his love. It is a finely tuned story that illustrates how a political moment can have deeply personal ramifications. And it has the strange depth that some short stories achieve – in the mind, it seems to cover as much ground as a novel might. The moment of change is, of course, the ignition of any story – but in Protest these moments of change are heated connections of the personal and political. These are not tales of the supposedly grand moments of history, where great men swish about and take definitive action. These stories take place in the shadows, or on the sidelines, where ‘normal’ people make rough, piecemeal

decisions based on circumstance. For instance, Laura Hird’s story, Spun, explores Scotland’s Radical War of 1820 through the eyes of Andrew White, a sixteen year old boy who gets swept up and politicised almost by accident. The story begins with a group of lads getting pished on the Clyde – it ends with them in a rabble, making an ill-advised stand against a group of expertly trained Hussars. The Radical War was, as Gordon Pentland writes in the afterword, “an abortive attempt to stage an insurrection in the Lowlands of Scotland against government.” The long wars with Revolutionary and Napoleonic France had drained the economy, and work was scarce for young men like White. On the first of April 1820, a proclamation was posted on doors and shop windows across Glasgow calling for a national strike – which roughly 60,000 people responded to in and around the city. Far fewer took up arms, and the weeks that followed were a time of paranoia and disorganisation, one instance of which saw a group of men, including White, attempting to take over the Carron Iron Works. They were defeated at the Battle of Bonnymuir on 5 April 1820 – the battle that forms the centrepoint of Laura’s story. “It’s a period of Scottish history I knew not-

Interview: Galen O’Hanlon Illustration: Lucy Kirk

hing about,” says Laura, in our interview ahead of her event this month at Edinburgh International Book Festival, “... and I think that’s the case for many people.” As an accomplished writer who first made her name in the pages of the counterculture stable Rebel Inc. (alongside Alan Warner and Irvine Welsh), it seems fitting that Hird chose a group of rebellious Scottish lost boys as her starting point. It might not be her usual exploration of the gritty underside of Scottish youth culture, but if you swap the sex and drugs for illicit whisky and muskets, you’re almost there. “History’s not my pet subject,” she says, “but I loved all the research. Gordon Pentland was so helpful with everything – pointing me to the transcripts of the trials, to the sources that reveal what life was like for people then – I got really caught up in it. And I enjoyed immersing myself in 1820.” As her first foray into historical fiction, she relished having the constraints of the historical record. “It was great to have the commission,” she says, “and I was lucky that Gordon and I worked so well together. The details we found were fascinating – somebody kept a weather diary in Glasgow for 1820, so we knew it was raining and sleeting that April. And he was helpful in checking for anachronisms and the sort of language they might have used.” So how does a book like this work? It is, above all, evidence of Ra Page’s considerable skills as an editor. To commission 20 authors and 20 consultants, to see each story through several drafts, and to bring it together in less than a year is more than many might achieve in double or triple the time. It’s also a strong pack [including David Constantine and Alexei Sayle]: these writers know how to put a story together, and the result makes for a kaleidoscopic feast. Read chronologically, you feel the momentum of protest build over the centuries – starting with Sara Maitland’s anarchic, triumphant treatment of the Peasants’ Revolt. The story takes up the perspective of a young woman, returned from the revolt, standing up for her actions even as a well-meaning priest tries to get her to seek pardon for them. She recounts her experience of sweeping into London with the crowd, charging into the Savoy Palace and breaking everything. “We the vengeance of God and it was fun,” she says. It’s a deeply satisfying beginning to a book all about subversive, disruptive behaviour – the first of many explorations of how people find the strength to stand up to authority. But however you read it, Protest is a peculiarly rewarding experience. Each story is balanced by its afterword, carrying the reader with a kind of metronomic rhythm: fiction and non-fiction, story and history, foreground and background. But these distinctions are impermanent – and both disciplines make decisions on how the story is told; they all take part in the process of turning a collection of events into a narrative arc. Protest gives us the two tied together, and in doing so leaves us with a sense of hope. These stories illustrate what many in power would have us forget: that people working together can achieve a lot. And while that sounds like an obvious platitude, these stories don’t just document grand political shifts – they represent many hundreds of quiet, personal transformations. Possibly forseeing more to come. Protest: Stories of Resistance is out now, published by Comma Press, RRP £14.99 Laura Hird appears with Gordon Pentland for Up in Arms at Edinburgh International Book Festival on 22 Aug

Feature

BOOKS

THE SKINNY

Book Binge Our Books Editor asks you to engage with the grand questions facing the world today, all being discussed in one small square in Edinburgh’s west end over August. Here’s his highlights for the Edinburgh International Book Festival 2017

Hollie McNish

t’s both the easiest and most challenging task of the year. Edinburgh International Book Festival offers a seemingly bottomless pail of goodness for me to recommend to you and I have only one Tardis-like page to fit everything in. So, let’s not waste words. Firstly, I recommend you not only visit individual shows at EIBF, but the Book Festival more generally. Charlotte Square is a gorgeous suntrap (occasional Scottish floodplain) in August; a tea and beer soaked oasis where all are welcome to peruse the daily programme and make leisurely choices. Worrying rumours of pastel coloured, shoulder-draped cashmere and Panama hats are wildly exaggerated. And while evident, these fashion choices are neither compulsory nor contagious. I’ve been attending for years and have still to show a touch of class, middle or otherwise. EIBF is a festival of ideas for all, engaging with important themes, tackled by intelligent, inspiring and vibrant writers, thinkers and speakers. Come and be a part of it, dilute the stereotype and add your voice to the symphony. Let me prove my point instantly. Forget about the big hitters such as Paul Auster and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (they’ve already sold out). More exciting than proven genius is the evidence of green shoots and that hope springs eternal. The past 12 months have offered a bumper crop of Scottish debuts – from Helen McClory moving from flash fiction to the novel with Flesh of the Peach (Wells of Loneliness, 15 Aug, 7pm), Ever Dundas tackling gender and animal rights in Goblin (Outlaws and Exiles, 16 Aug, 7pm), Kaite Welsh introducing a Victorian feminist crime heroine in The Wages of Sin (Partners in Crime, 21 Aug, 2pm) and Martin MacInnes’s rabbit hole of a novel Infinite Ground (Infinite Madness, 14 Aug, 7pm). EIBF is pairing them up with interesting and varied contemporaries from around the world. Get in on ground level, and also consider voting for those up for the first book award. Aside from individual authors, it’s interesting to consider the festival in terms of the various themes marbled through its meat. Race and identity are two of the most pressing questions being asked of the world of late, and form the headlines decorating our broadsheets and online news sources (fake or otherwise). EIBF explores race throughout modern history. The Last Poets (23

August 2017

Aug, 6.30pm) – often competing with Gil ScottHeron for the title Godfathers of hip-hop – were formed in the racial cauldron of 1960s America, an era of Civil Rights battles and the Black Panthers. They chat with the teller of their tale, author Christine Otten, and then perform later that night at the festival’s free Unbound series of events (an open-door performance-based gem each evening). Scotland’s Makar Jackie Kay interviews Pulitzer Prize winner and author of memoir Negroland, Margo Jefferson – combining feminism with civil rights in what will be an important event on 20 Aug (8.45pm). Two powerful voices. Paul Beatty provoked from the first line of his racially charged satire The Sellout, a book which challenges a history of race relations in the US. He also won the 2017 Man Booker Prize and his event will be a hot ticket (Exploring the Nature of Genius, 26 Aug, 2.15pm). Reni Eddo-Lodge has also provoked (readers and non-readers: the latter often the most vocal) with her book Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race. Come and engage with the subject rather than simply the title on 18 Aug (4pm). It promises to be challenging and illuminating. Then, light a fire under the political questions of the past that reflect into today. There’s a revolution double bill on 22 Aug: Laura Hird and Gordon Pentland discuss the Radical War of 1820 when workers of Scotland rose up (4.30pm) – if this is a gap in your historical knowledge then fill it here. Both are contributors to an excellent new anthology titled Protest: Stories of Resistance And this is simply one example in history of the people rising up against oppression. Take your notepad and jot down tips – the time is right. Perhaps take less from The Bolsheviks (or at least add caution), but certainly head along to The Language of Revolution (same day, 7pm) to hear guest poets Sean Bonney and Hollie McNish recite the translated work of Vladimir Mayakovsky, the most significant poet of the Russian Revolution. Another which links so well with our current times. ‘What does it mean to have a language of revolution?’ the event asks, and ‘how can we use it?’ There are many other events not tied to theme. They are good, and being good is good enough. James Kelman will in my opinion be the finest writer walking among us in Charlotte Square. Others will disagree, some lightly, some

vehemently. But hey, that’s literature. The Book Festival title his event accurately (Fiction’s Master Craftsman, 18 Aug, 1.30pm) where he will discuss his new short story collection That Was a Shiver. As a master of the short form it will be a treat and an education to hear him shine a light on it. It would take cheese before bedtime (or perhaps even hallucinogenic mushrooms) to imagine Kelman playing the kazoo during his event, but Joe Hill certainly did at the launch I attended for his novel The Fireman. Storytelling runs in his blood, being the son of a certain Stephen King. And while he’s never played up to that heritage, ensuring he made his own name and dropped that of his father, the influence is clear in his novels. His fantasy and horror is fast moving and fun, with much socially and politically lurking in the subtext. And he performs like a man on his eighth espresso, ensuring a lively event (Terrifying Dystopian Dramas, 20 Aug, 5.45pm). Then we have John Niven. When he’s not joining Irvine Welsh in an expletive-laden Twitter commentary to Andy Murray tennis matches, he's writing fine books. While I’ve not yet read No Good Deed, I have read the Twitter feedback about a notorious blocked toilet scene. I feel I can’t look away (Judging John’s Deeds, 26 Aug, 6.30pm). His partner in profane tennis punditry is notable by his absence this year. EIBF always takes the International in its name very seriously, which means it offers rare opportunities to see writers from around the world discussing their work on these shores. West Coast California meets with West Coast Scotland when Ryan Gattis teams up with Stanley Odd MC Dave Hook for (Words on the Street, 15 Aug, 4pm). Gattis’s incendiary LA riots novel All Involved lit up the festival in 2015. His new novel Safe (Treading the Mean Streets, 17 Aug, 7pm) is a more than worthy follow-up. But he puts this to the side to discuss different forms of storytelling with Hook; rap and street art two of these. Further highlights for 2017 include twin Argentinian talents Mariana Enriquez and Samanta Schweblin. Enriquez drops any ego to claim she’s happy to be termed a horror writer, but her work simply cannot be constrained by genre. She fear-

BOOKS

Words: Alan Bett

lessly tackles the dark political past of her country in twisted short stories of the highest calibre. She was also part of EIBF’s outrider project where Scottish writers such as Jenni Fagan (13 & 14 Aug) were sent on road trips across the Americas, Enriquez teaming up with Kevin MacNeil (13 Aug, 5.30pm & 8.45pm, also 15 Aug, 2.30pm). Schweblin’s Fever Dream is quite simply the most uneasy and effective piece of writing I’ve read this year, with such an unsettling power I’ve locked my copy in a vault. She’s appearing in the festival’s smallest venue, Writers’ Retreat (Deeply Unsettling Secrets, 16 Aug, 3.30pm), which each year seems to offer up-close and personal connoisseur’s choices for the informed or lucky who stumble upon its events. But let’s save the best to last. The Skinny is sponsoring two standout events this year. Perennial Skinny favourite Hollie McNish’s passionate and wonderfully crafted poetry connects with the lives of many and so breaks into audiences outside the poetry faithful. She is talking with Hera Lindsay Bird (21 Aug, 7.15pm), whose debut collection is the most popular poetry book New Zealand has ever published. Then secondly there is literary superstar Karl Ove Knausgaard (Lexicon of Life’s Loveliness, 23 Aug, 5pm). The author’s expansive and meticulous six-part autobiography My Struggle should come with its own complimentary bookshelf. Never one for doing things by half, he’s moved on to his seasons quartet and discusses the first, Autumn, here – begun as a letter to his then unborn daughter. This is simply a flavour of what’s taking place in Charlotte Square this August. You can season these choices with many fine writers appearing across the two weeks – Anneliese Mackintosh, Katie Kitamura, Gwendoline Riley – but my intention is not to direct you towards individual events but to what the Book Festival offers as a whole, a vast tapestry of authors and themes and conversations, covering the most vital questions facing us as individuals, as nations, as humans. These events allow you to become part of that conversation. Edinburgh International Book Festival takes place in Charlotte Square (and slightly beyond) from 12-28 Aug edbookfest.co.uk

Ever Dundas

Feature

IS IT ART? Chris McQueer’s stories are beautifully profane and fucking hilarious, yet often echo with the truth of working class lives too rarely seen in literature. A live scene regular, he’s now put them to page for debut collection Hings. Read IS IT ART? here

rawford stood alone in the art gallery. It was a rainy Tuesday afternoon and he had the entire place to himself. Studying the scene in front of him, he stroked his beard. He allowed his mind to wander as he considered what the artist behind this piece could have been trying to convey. In front of him stood a concrete bollard. Resting on top of the bollard was a ball of multi-coloured wool. Crawford postulated that the wool perhaps represented the creatives of the world while the concrete stood as the uncultured proletariat. Perhaps, he thought, the whole thing was a scathing attack on the capitalist system. Or maybe it was… Crawford’s contemplation was disturbed by the presence of someone standing directly behind him, chewing loudly. The sound of lip smacking and heavy breathing filled the empty gallery. Crawford sighed, turning round to see who had ruined the ambience. He was met with the scornful gaze of a teenage boy, maybe about 15, holding a box of chicken nuggets. “Wit’s this aw aboot, mate?” the teenager asked him. “Um, I’m sorry?” Crawford said. He always felt intimidated by the working class. “That,” the teenager nodded at the concrete and wool exhibit in front of Crawford. “Wit’s it aw aboot?” “Well, um, I think, in my opinion, it’s ummm…” Crawford stumbled over his words; he hadn’t expected to be put on the spot like this. He didn’t really know much about art. He just liked to kid on he did. It made him feel clever. Like when his pals spoke about Eastern European politics or something, he knew no one really had a clue what they were saying, they were just regurgitating facts they’d memorised from the paper in order to feel smart. “I think what the artist is trying to portray here is the, um, class struggle as viewed by–” Crawford was cut off as the box of mechanically-reclaimed chicken was thrust into his face. “Ahm Deek, by the way,” announced the teenager, “Want a nugget?” Crawford struggled to process what was going on. Sizing Deek up, he noted he looked like a caricature of a ned. He had a standard short back and sides haircut with the rest of his hair gelled forward. He was wearing a bright blue tracksuit, the joggies tucked into yellowy-white sports socks. Topping off the look was a pair of chunky red trainers. Crawford declined Deek’s offer of a nugget. “Um, no thanks,” he said. “I try not to eat junk food.” “Suit yerself,” Deek said and ate the last one, dropping the empty box and wiping his hands on his tracksuit top. “Wit is this meant tae be exactly, mate? You look smart. Wit is it? And wit’s the deal wi your accent? Where ye fae?” “Well, I suppose, technically, it’s a sculpture or maybe it would be classed as an installation. And I’m from Hillhead, Byres Road actually.” “Hmmm,” Deek mused, stroking his own bum fluff covered chin. “Is it art though?” Crawford snorted.“Of course it’s art.” Deek walked around the concrete bollard, rubbing his greasy hands on his tracksuit top. “Is it though? Ah mean, don’t get me wrang, ah don’t

Feature

know much aboot art. Ahm just here incase anycunt catches me doggin school, but it disnae look like art tae me.” “Just because it doesn’t conform to normal artistic styles it doesn’t mean it’s not art.” “Dunno man. Bein honest, ah hink it’s a bit shite.” Deek shrugged and turned his back on Crawford and made his way to another gallery. Crawford shook his head. He went to join Deek in the other gallery, leaving the empty chicken nugget box behind. He decided he was going to try and educate this lad. In the next gallery, Deek stood watching a video on a giant screen. One by one, glass bottles of juice were dropped from a great height and on to a pristine white surface while a woman’s voice recited the names of the different kinds of juice as the bottles smashed. “Pineappleade. Smash. Limeade. Smash. Cream Soda. Smash. Lemonade. Smash,” and on she went. “Here,” Deek motioned for Crawford to join him in front of the screen. “Ye cannae say this is art, surely? That’s just makin a fuckin mess.” Crawford sneered at Deek’s ignorance once again. “The artist is obviously trying to get a point across,” he said. “Maybe it’s about the fragility of man’s ego?” Crawford turned to see Deek’s bewildered face. “Maybe the burd joost disnae like gless boattils ae ginger? This isnae art either.” “Well what exactly would you class as art then, Deek?” Deek looked deep in thought for a moment. “Ah want tae see what else there is in here. Then ah’ll show you wit art is, mate.” “Okay,” Crawford said. “It’s a deal.” Upstairs, they explored a gallery displaying a range of rubber fetish-wear. Gas masks, gimp suits and all manner of imposing black instruments adorned the walls. Crawford felt a bit uneasy about being seen with a minor in this room so he tried to make this viewing a quick one. “OOFT,” Deek announced, touching a shiny black gimp suit. “Is this wit goths wear cutting aboot the hoose?” Crawford rubbed the back of his head. Deek clocked his uneasiness straight away. “You no intae this kind ae hing then, big man?” “No, I can’t say I’ve ever tried it.” “Wit? Shagging?” Deek laughed, examining a huge double-ended dildo. “No, I mean, just not, um, this kind of, um…” Deek burst into laughter. “Ahm pullin yer pisser,” he said, breezing past Crawford and out of the gallery. “Moan, big man. This place is fuckin weird.” -Crawford found himself following Deek through the streets of Glasgow. “Where are we going exactly?” he asked his new pal. “We’re gawn tae see some REAL art, mate.” Deek took Crawford on the bus to Easterhouse. The furthest east Crawford had ventured before this trip was to the gentrified area of Dennistoun. This was an entirely different world to the one Crawford inhabited despite only being 20 minutes away from where he lived.

Hopping off at the shopping centre, Deek motioned for Crawford to follow him. They made their way to a pub where Deek stopped to talk to one of the many grim faces huddled outside. “Da,” Deek said to a man who looked like a smaller, dehydrated version of himself. “This is Crawford. Ahm gonnae show him mah art.” “Fucking art,” Deek’s da snorted. “Should you no be in school?” “It’s an, eh, in-service day. Tell mah maw ah’ll be in fur dinner, awrite?” Deek’s da blew smoke in Crawford’s face. “Nae bother.” “Moan,” Deek motioned for Crawford to follow him again. “What do you mean your art? You said to your dad you were going to show me your art.” “Aye,” Deek said. “Exactly. Mah art. Ahm something of an artist maself.” “No way? Really?” “Aw aye. Ah’ll show ye. Ah’ve goat a wee ‘installation’ as you might say roon fae mah hoose.” -Crawford and Deek stood in front of a dilapidated garage covered in graffiti. In amongst the various FUCK THE POLIS and hash leaf daubings, some more wholesome things were sprayed in pink paint on the wall. LIVE, LAUGH AND LOVE said one, nestled beneath a crudely drawn dick. FOLLOW YOUR DREAMS said another. Crawford stood open-mouthed. “Was this you?” he said, stunned. “Aye,” Deek replied proudly, puffing out his chest. “Ah like tae think ae maself as, like, a mare positive version ae that cunt Banksy.” “This is beautiful, Deek. I mean the juxtaposition of the positivity of your messages and the language of the streets is just staggering. I love it. And this mural,” Crawford ran his hands over a painting of a young couple, both clad in Kappa gear from head to toe, “is just stunning.” Crawford couldn’t wait to tell his friends about Deek’s work. ‘Outsider art’ he was sure they called this kind of thing. He imagined himself hosting an exhibition of Deek’s work and being hailed as a hero for discovering this incredible new artist from the fringes of society. He wasn’t usually one for thinking about money, but he could see himself now as Deek’s agent, making them both an absolute fortune. Deek also had visions of making some money as he watched Crawford bend over to inspect his work more closely: Deek noticed Crawford’s wallet peeking out of his back pocket. It was too good an opportunity to resist. Deek grabbed the wallet out of Crawford’s chino pocket and bolted away down the street. Crawford felt himself go red in the face and felt his now-empty back pocket with a shaking hand. “Cheers, mate. You’re the only person that likes it though. Everycunt else just hinks ahm weird. Especially mah da. He fuckin hates it.” “You’re right ah fuckin hate it,” said a gravelly voice from behind Deek and Crawford. It was Deek’s da. “Your son has a real talent,” said Crawford, his voice quivering as he tried to defend Deek. “And it’s a shame you won’t encourage him.” Deek stood in silence.

BOOKS

“Know where he gets that talent fae, eh?” Deek’s da pointed a finger at his own chest. “Me – that’s who. Ye know who ah um, mate?” Crawford shook his head. He felt his mouth go dry as Deek’s da took a step towards him. Even though he was a small man, he looked like he could fight like fuck. “Ahm Banksy.” At this, Crawford breathed a sigh of relief. This guy was obviously at the wind up. “You are Banksy?” “Ye fuckin deef as well as stupit? That’s wit ah said.” “Prove it,” Crawford said smugly. “Just look right there,” Deek’s da pointed to the mural. “There’s a wee signature ah added. It’s in aw mah work. Just look, mate.” Crawford went up to the wall and studied the mural. “I can’t see anything,” he said, squinting hard with his hands on his hips. “Look closer,” Deek said. “He’s right.” As Crawford bent over, inspecting the mural, Deek looked at his da. His da replied with a wink. Deek pulled Crawford’s wallet quickly out of the back pocket of his chinos and sprinted down the street, laughing. Crawford felt himself go red in the face and felt his now-empty back pocket with a shaking hand. He felt sick. Deek and his da had made him look like a right tit. “Fuck you and yer daft accent!” Deek’s da shouted back at Crawford. He high-fived his son and they both headed back to the pub. Hings is out 27 Aug, published by 404 Ink, RRP £8.99 You can see Chris McQueer perform live at Belladrum in The Verb Garden on 4 Aug, then during Flint & Pitch at Edinburgh International Book Festival’s free Unbound series of events on 27 Aug, drop in 404ink.com

THE SKINNY

August 2017

Feature

THE SKINNY

Midnight Oyster Fight Our poetry columnist speaks with Michael Pedersen, co-pilot of Neu! Reekie! and Scott Hutchison of Frightened Rabbit, to get the dirt on their succulent new collaboration of Michael’s poetry and Scott’s artwork: Oyster The Skinny: how does Oyster compare to your first collection, Play With Me? Michael Pedersen: It’s longer; it’s stronger; it’s likely more playful and severe in the one dollop. Most of these poems are appearing for the first time. Unlike with Play with Me where I published pieces in magazines and anthologies as I went, I kept these mostly to myself. Having worked with Gerry Cambridge [Editor of The Dark Horse poetry magazine] editorially and published and read further and fiercer, I’m now more confident in unveiling them in one strident swoop. The love poems remain ubiquitous, the liberalist free thinking attitude towards drugs and shagging balloons up and boogies. I’ve mined deeper with contemporary Scots language pieces and think I’ve upped my pop poetry ante. As of, the sugar paper lilted love pieces with brutal wee endings, well they get soppier and more gnarly still. Play with Me was soupy noodles, this is the full ramen. I noticed a lot of the poems have a very strong, sensual thread… tell me more? MP: Oyster is sensual, sure. I’ve never had a problem with candour – in fact, the opposite. Not in a gossip column kind of way, but to transmit experiences. It’s also a way of showing how new people came into my life. I’m shyer in person, so putting it on the page matters. Not a prescription, just a lusty invitation to wander into your imagination. They say oysters are an aphrodisiac – it’s not conclusive. I hope the same goes for these poems and illustrations combined... ‘inconclusive aphrodisiacs’... that’s the dream (it’s more alive than ever). How did your collaboration on Oyster begin? MP: The poems came first, and I knew I wanted

Scott to illustrate them. Scott chose poems he felt he could relate to, or fragments he felt he could relate to at one point in time. Scott Hutchison: We’ve known each other for six years and have been aware of each other’s work in every sense. It was a no-brainer for me to accept the offer to illustrate them. Which came first for you, Scott – music or drawing? SH: I’m glad to draw in a more ‘official’ capacity these days. It’s the only job I’m actually qualified to do, having spent four years studying to earn a degree at GSA. It’s strange how the two pursuits have intertwined for me, music and visual art. When I was at art school I was fully immersed in what turned out to be a wonderful, eye-opening journey to nowhere (for a while). I felt I was only making work to entertain the brains within the institution and that the wider world, quite rightly, couldn’t give a shit about my project discussing the social struggle of chairs. When I found a different mode of expression within my songs it was really freeing. It felt like that was a more real, raw and unprocessed version of me, whereas the art school lad had been trying so hard just to fit in and learn the rules for breaking the rules. The whole thing has flipped now that music is my day job, and I find drawing very therapeutic and mentally liberating in much the same way as songwriting back in college. How did you go about illustrating Oyster – did you plan, or was it mainly instinct? SH: It was a bit of a challenge to distil various pieces of Michael’s work into a single image, given that his work flips across the page in a way that is

hard to pin down. His poems can easily pull a nutmeg on you, run rings, tap you on the shoulder and then knock you flat out. I tried not to overthink it and the drawings were often a fairly instinctive reaction to what I saw in my head while I was reading through. Some images show what’s in the poem, some are purely interpretative. which means some are simple, plainly obvious and others a little more left-footed. All take a fresh reaction to what I read; I didn’t want them to be absolute. MP: I feel these illustrations are a very special part of Scott that not enough people get to see. It’s cherished and champion to have them sit alongside these poems – the poems being special and susurrus parts of my thinking not commonly talked about in the pub or over chips.

Interview: Clare Mulley Illustration: Scott Hutchison together in a cohesive (or comprehensibly chaotic) way. Michael is the master of the variety event and I think we’ll both relish chucking ideas about in front of willing eyes and ears. It’s a thrilling prospect, venturing out under the wing of a great friend and admired collaborator. I’m always much happier playing second or third fiddle, or indeed no fiddle at all. Oyster is launched on 1 Sep when the authors will share a stage at Electric Fields, published by Polygon, RRP £9.99 Michael and Scott are performing before this at Edinburgh International Book Festival on 18 Aug and the book will be available exclusively from the Festival bookshop

Dare I ask, what next? MP: The show myself and Scott will create around Oyster is yet to reveal itself. We’re still working on how to do it live, with set boundaries, and it needs to reflect the antithesis of what people expect. It’s not just about an illustrated book – it’s a living organism. The ‘me reading for a bit then Scott playing for a bit’ structure with a stream of surrounding chatter is a mere starting point. I’m envisioning a potpourri of songs, visuals, voices and performances which can’t be categorised as either poem or song or as belonging strictly to either one of us. We take Oyster on tour soon: Edinburgh, Glasgow, Nottingham and London – in my mind the end of this tour is the starting point for something quite remarkable. SH: I hope the live Oyster shows can begin to bring all these pieces of artistic endeavour

Edinburgh Festivals Poetry Highlights Words: Clare Mulley

Our poetry columnist provides a rundown of highlights and recommendations across the Edinburgh festivals

t’s that time of year again – the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and International Book Festival are poised and ready for the off, and as per usual there is so much poetry in the air that the city is creaking at the seams. The Book Festival could take up a whole magazine all by itself. Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy is, as ever, in town with A Laureate’s Posy Of Poetry (13 Aug) an absolute must if you’ve never heard her read aloud – and Makar Jackie Kay will be premiering her specially commissioned poem in honour of WW1 poet Wilfred Owen, as well as joining Don Paterson and John Glenday for an evening celebrating 20 Years of Perfect Poetry at Picador (23 Aug). Michael Longley (20 Aug), Douglas Dunn (18 Aug) and John Burnside (17 Aug) are all on the menu, each reading from their latest collections, Liz Lochhead is appearing on 22 August, Fiona Sampson’s Stone Diaries (12 Aug) will celebrate some of our most iconic landscapes and Simon Armitage is bringing us Poetry from the Pennines (27 Aug). Lesser-known in the UK, perhaps, (but all the better to check out if you haven’t met her yet) is Queen of Radical Poetry Eileen Myles (23 Aug), a complete all-rounder whom the NY Times dubbed ‘a kickass, countercultural icon’ and whose work feels like a stab, a weep and a breath

August 2017

of pure, rain-drenched air all in one. Duos are thick on the ground, with many well-loved voices teaming up to complement one another’s work. Roger McGough (also starring in a Charles Causley event) is appearing with much-loved illustrator Chris Riddell to talk about their new collaboration and do a live performance with accompanying images on the 19th. Imtiaz Dharker and Daljit Nagra’s Stepping Stones (13 Aug) will explore the emotional and cultural elements which make people what they are, with Dharker reading from her grief-inspired collection Over the Moon and Nagra sharing poems inspired by our institutions and museums. Also, Kayo Chingonyi and Adam O’Riordan’s event Elegant and Essential Poetry (19 Aug), about the wonder and folly of life, promises to be equally thought-provoking. Gillian Clarke and Lorna Goodinson are reading together (14 Aug), as are Heavenly Voices Rachel McCrum and Miriam Nash (13 Aug). The capital itself is the focus of an event entitled Edinburgh, City of Poetry led by Claire Askew and Russell Jones (17 Aug). Many highlights shout out from the regular Babble On strand of events at EIBF – as ever, an absolute bevvy of newer and established spoken word artists, taking the everyday life details we

know in all their humour, joy and horror, and turning them into dazzling performances. Ted Hughes Award winner and author of Plum Hollie McNish and New Zealand’s phenomenal Hera Lindsay Bird will be lighting up the stage for an hour on 21 August (Poetry’s Superstars). The day before that is another lady-powered humdinger – Phenomenal Women Speak Out, with rising talents Jemima Foxtrot, Iona Lee, Sabrina Mahfouz and Sophia Walker. On Saturday 12 Aug, some of Scotland and Australia’s finest spoken word talents – Luka Lesson, Jenny Lindsay, Omar Musa and Michael Pedersen – will come together for The Poetry of Performance, and on the 18 Aug Pedersen will return with Frightened Rabbit songwriter and illustrator Scott Hutchison to showcase their new collaboration Oyster. As well as reading from his fantastic new collection The Toll [Putting Austerity to the Verse-Sword, 18 Aug], Luke Wright will be taking listeners on a mind trip through 350 years of Poets Laureate, exploring what it means to be a poet who is chosen to represent a collective voice (19 Aug). Over at the Fringe, there is even more spoken word to get your teeth into. At Bannermans, Attila the Stockbroker will be chatting the unholy trio

BOOKS

of Brexit, Trump and bladder cancer (so no low bars there, then), and at Underbelly, Matt Abbott’s Two Little Ducks provides a similarly hard-hitting look at current affairs. The Glummer Twins are back with their Beat take on the 21st century, Texan Neil Hilborn is making his Fringe debut and The Loud Poets are at full throttle in the Scottish Storytelling Centre. The Naked Dietician (an LGBT artist described as ‘the love child of Ginsberg and Winterson’) is also well worth a visit, taking listeners on a tour of their emotional landscape with the help of story and science. Finally, if you’re the sort of person who likes to get involved, there is plenty on offer, from open mic (Other Voices Spoken Word Cabaret at the Fringe, Banshee Labrynth) to close-reading workshops and masterclasses at the Book Festival. Fans of children’s literature will especially love Katherine Rundell’s workshop on Journey to the River Sea by Eva Ibbotson (13 Aug). But hurry – tickets for certain events are selling horrendously fast. All Edinburgh International Book Festival events take place in Charlotte Square Gardens edbookfest.co.uk edfringe.com

Feature

Adam Quinn, Bastion, 2016, cast concrete, pin and parcan lights

Platform 2017 Platform returns with a new crop of selected emerging artists, this year including those working diversely with alternate histories, ‘retrofutures’, large scale and functional sculpture (a fold-down bell tower) and science fiction filmic forms

his year, the four artists share certain common threads and overlaps, each of them variously interested in invented science fiction, better or lesser-known histories and defunct ‘retrofutures’ (more below on this odd contradiction), or an interest in monumental scale and its subversion. Nevertheless, there’s an ostensible diversity to the kinds of practices and work that will be showcased Speaking to Kotryna Ula Kiliulyte, the work that she’ll be showing is still fresh in her mind as it’s only been installed one week earlier from our discussion mid-July. Coming from a photographic background, she describes this “as the first opportunity to show work that involves photography but also has other elements.” Displaying photo etchings and over 200 beeswax sculptures, she has created a “fictional archive of migration that never happened, but is based on writings from 100 years ago by a Lithuanian diplomat and geographer Kazys Pakštas. In between the First and Second World Wars, due to Lithuania’s tense geopolitical situation, he proposed that the country would establish “a peaceful colony somewhere far away, where the whole nation could move.” Though it never happened, Pakštas travelled between “Belize, Madagascar, Quebec, and Brazil, [where he] met the local people and tried to see if the land was suitable, and how much it would be to rent or buy it.

Feature

“That never happened but his writings still remain, and I was imagining what it would be like if it had happened and if they had moved, and what kind of artefacts and what kinds of museums they would have.” These don’t mark the strict parameters of the Platform work, but do mark its beginnings conceptually. Specific ideas or sensations began to emerge as interesting for Kiliulyte, “it became this thing that has these romantic notions of landscape. When you arrive to a new land and landscape, how does that feel? Are you looking at the landscape or is the landscape looking back at you?” Bringing these different elements together, Kiliulyte will include beeswax artefacts shown in a museum display case, and photoetchings give the impression of being older photographs, as the process combines newer technology with much older printing processes. There will be some video work included, too, on the process of digitisation, as well as a larger fabric flag-like work. Though this last large hanging piece mentioned is more abstract than the rest of the work, it still relates to the experiences of migration that define her practice currently. “It looks like an abstract gradient of cyan colour. It’s something I imagined as people arrive to new land through water, being that liminal space and that becoming the flag, the identity that rejects national identities and choosing something fluid and transitional.”

By different means, fellow exhibitor Uist Corrigan also seeks to complicate senses of place, location and site. Corrigan himself identifies this similarity in their mutual exploration of “narrative, using a piece of work to explore various stories.” His work in part takes the form of a travelling, fold-down bell, which is rung at different locations around Scotland, displayed alongside documentation in the form of photographic prints and audio. “The work explores making bells, and how that translates into a landscape. I built a belltower out of wood and cast a bronze bell, all of it folds down and sits in the back of my girlfriend’s Micra. I’ve taken that to various sites across Scotland that I’m interested in exploring. There are some near where I live in Aberdeenshire, then a few down in Iona, Mull where I spend quite a lot of time, and a few where I’m from in Angus, Kirriemuir.” In a lot of ways an interactive project, Corrigan has had some good reactions during the time he’s been travelling with the fold-down belltower. “I put it up in a pier on Carsaig, which is at the bottom of Mull. There were some walkers in the distance that were there as we were starting to put it up, but by the time I was ringing it they were quite far away but I could see they were hearing something and were turning around, knowing it was just us and them. Then some seals appeared after that, as well.” Laughing, he says, “I like to think that had something to do with me.”

ART

Interview: Adam Benmakhlouf And he’s been directed by locals as well. “I told a few people when I was on Mull that this is what I was doing and they told me I had to go up to a place called Kilvickeon, which is an old church just out of Bunessan, which is at the bottom south corner – a wee town on Mull. It was quite nice having them react to the project and telling me sites they thought were good.” Speaking more broadly of some of his motivations, he mentions his interest “in functional sculptures, that have a function outside of being a piece of work. My work was originally based on making tools and learning skills, and a lot of this fits into that.” Not necessarily thinking of a bell in these terms, he does think of them as useful for “exploring different narratives, stories and landscapes.” For Corrigan in particular, there is a particular importance of being able to show at the heart of the capital during its busiest and most international moment. “I’m interested to see who comes to the openings, because I work and live in a rural location not in the Central Belt. Especially during the festival, I like the idea that I might open a little door to a part of Scotland that wouldn’t be explored so much as so many tourists pass through Edinburgh.” For Rebecca Howard, the show is an opportunity to present an ongoing body of research that has spanned the previous two years. At the

THE SKINNY

time of interview, Howard’s keeping her cards close to her chest, wanting to save details for the exhibition, but nevertheless divulges a few details. Drawing upon her knowledge of the supernatural and the metaphysical, Howard will be showing a self-made “science fiction film based around a series of objects that have been reproduced as sculptures.” Within the film, she explores “supernatural and metaphysical events that these objects induce but are never visually represented in the film.” So it is that Howard sets up an “interplay between narrative and visible fiction as well.” Giving some more teasers, when it comes to the importance of the objects included, Howard tells us “they become the central characters themselves, and the film is told from the perspective of the room they’re in. There aren’t any human characters as such in the film.” Originally, the work began as a spoken word performance with still images. As the project and research grew more interdisciplinary and multimedia, so the style became informed by different influences. Howard mentions the movie “steals from a lot of filmmaking techniques”, including an overlaid narration, animated elements and location shooting. Based in Glasgow, some parts would be shot in her studio, then going further afield to Mull and Iona. Here, she was intending to make “strange natural landscapes”, incorporating them into the sci-fi narrative.

“I like the idea that I might open a little door to a part of Scotland that wouldn’t be explored so much”

find out were swimming pools or what were new office blocks.” This includes “the role of... brutalist art and architecture, and certain utopian ideas of the artist within that, and comparing them to a bit of a trickster. And from that, employing different techniques of theatrical scenic construction and use of mise en scène within that.” By these means, he frames his work in the language “of theatre and artifice.” The title gives some of this influence away, Dais 17 – ‘dais’ being the technical word for raised platforms for lecturing or performance. It’s important that the viewer is able to step on the platform exhibited, as “it allows that engagement with proposed utility, and playing with that in the environments you would find… in a public place.” In this way, he proposes a slight alteration of the artist-audience relationship. This relates more generally to his interest in considering public spaces and the coexistence of different identities. However, concretely, he also thinks of the process “of developing practice skills as well, how to build things in a certain way that are convincing in a certain way but give away their secrets, and how they’re held.” Speaking to each of them, they mention their surprise at unexpected moments of recognition and rapport between their work during install. While there might be points of reflection or corresponding approaches, each of the artists’ presentations for Platform 2017 represent a moment of refinement and (for the moment) resolution of their practices so far. Though perhaps not a tangible theme, this does make for a highly anticipated group show. Kotryna Ula Kiliulyte, Impossible Colonies, 2017, photo etching

Platform runs until 27 Aug at The Fire Station, 76-78 Lauriston Place, Edinburgh

Uist Corrigan

Locating her own work in the show, Howard thinks about the strong connections between herself and the other artists that she observed from the beginning of the process as they shared site visits. “As we learned more about each other’s projects, it was really interesting to see the relationships, whether that was in an exploration of objects or developing research from truth, or fictional worlds or staged set-ups. I think we all sit really nicely along one another.” For Howard, it has also been an important moment for producing her own work concentratedly. For the last two years, she has “primarily been working on producing projects for other people and other artists.” She speaks of the especial importance of having “the support of the festival, both critically and financially, as well, and to produce an exhibition as part of the Festival and to see the show in this context.” Corrigan also sees an aesthetic relationship that bonds the exhibitors together, in particular between the different approaches to large sculptural installation. Adam Quinn will be exhibiting a large platform with a monument on it, some wooden flats and bollards. “It’s been dropped into the space, and I’ve really tried to make it look as though it’s been there for a while, or that it has been built there specifically. So there’s a certain element of trickery involved in that, convincing the viewer it is this concrete platform and [have them question] how did it get there?” These gestures of installation and sculpture extend from his interest in ”that consciously clichéd formal vocabulary and that ubiquitous art and architecture from the post industrial era and sculptures.” He thinks of “those monuments you

August 2017

Uist Corrigan, Bell, 2017

ART

Feature

Take this Outside Edinburgh Art Festival includes two artist duos who each make use of celebratory and collaborative performance, Pester and Rossi and Zoë Walker and Neil Bromwich

Interview: Adam Benmakhlouf a Patrick Geddes saying into the initial procession, “by leaves we live, not by the jangling of coins,” to be chanted by children dressed as leaves. These young participants are some of the locals from Wester Hailes, an area of postwar development to the South West of Edinburgh. This is one part of the project that points obviously “to other economies that are important that aren't money, for example the natural world, that are as valuable as private profit.”

Pester & Rossi

his year’s Edinburgh Art Festival includes two artist duos known for their major interactive outdoor art events – Pester and Rossi, and Zoë Walker and Neil Bromwich. For the Festival, each of them respond to historical writings or alternative value systems using large costumes, props and joyous performance. Both twosomes work with diverse communities, handmade props and costumes, as well as large and iconographic sculptures. On 26 August, Pester and Rossi bring their Lunarnova Campout to Jupiter Artland for one night of entertainment and camping. They’ve got planned a night of collective actions “running from dusk til dawn.” Thinking about their choice of the overnighter format, they mention that they’ve “both recently been reading Rebecca Solnit’s book Hope in the Dark and thinking about… finding ways to embrace and celebrate the ‘unknown’ and the ‘unknowable’ together.” With these ideas in mind, they’ve made the “whole event… as collaborative in spirit as possible and so we have invited collectives or artists, musicians and friends.” They mention each of them excitedly, including Fallop & the Tubes “Glasgowbased DIY punk/weirdo siphonophore that [Pester and Rossi] are both a part of.” They promise that they “will be spending some quality time together at Jupiter to plan some collective magic for sunset and sunrise.” Throughout the evening and night, they have scheduled “live actions [which] will explore nocturnal rituals and notions of destruction and renewal that come with cycles of the moon and the sun.” Lunarnova Campout comes after over ten years of their collaborative work. “Last year we took a decade’s worth of costumes and props to Supernormal Festival in Braziers Park, inviting people to wear them with us and parade around the fields together. Some children bounded off wearing our giant gut sculptures straight into a mosh pit chanting ‘We are guts.’” When it comes to working with new groups and participants, Pester and Rossi see them as “integral to our practice; bringing collective energy, redirecting our direction and creating a totally new one-off experience together.” Just as important as it is for them to work with new people and audiences, they mention the importance of the one-off event to their work. “Over the last ten years we have worked in and out of different artist groups and collaborations. It feels like the work only really exists when we are all together. The way we work doesn’t seem suited to spaces within traditional galleries; it

tends to lose its energy and feeling when things are left on their own in a big white space. We’ve felt this recently when putting work into a gallery setting. It can be a bit deflating. “One-off temporary events provide us with a much more energetic and active place where our ideas can have life. There’s something about making live work that is both thrilling and terrifying: it could go to shit at any moment, and there’s something in that energy that keeps it alive. The temporal nature of things is always enticing and invigorating and usually whatever happens is fascinating – you never know what will be until the moment happens and then the moment is gone and will probably never be recreated again.” For Walker and Bromwich, they have combined an exhibition at Trinity Apse with their opening performance. Speaking to The Skinny mid July, they describe their plans for a procession that will take place along the High Street, beginning at Trinity Apse at 2pm on 27 July. They’re planning this as the first outing for the dragon sculpture that’s at the centre of their exhibition. On one side, this sculpture is emblazoned with the phrase ‘Profit Private Ownership’ and ‘Corporate Greed’ on the other side. “It’s inspired by a Northumbrian Mineworkers’ Banner. We’re reimagining that symbol and using it again now.” Speaking of this symbol of the dragon, Walker mentions that “it’s been used a lot in anarchist pamphlets from the 19th century.” In particular, they reference Walter Crane, an illustrator, who is famous for the Workers’ Maypole. This is the

second maypole in EAF, with Pester and Rossi already looking forward to the artist collective Babawaltz’ “quintessential maypole dance for uncertain times.” For Walker and Bromwich, they will reproduce this iconography on the back of a banner they have made, with the same original accolades that were included in Crane’s: “aspirations like health and education that we achieved postwar and are now being eroded at the moment.” They have also included the Miners’ Banner within the exhibition alongside a number of videos made largely in Ashingdon, where much of the symbolism of their project originates. Walker mentions Patrick Geddes as another important figure for their work. “He’s mainly known as a town planner but we’re interested in his ecoanarchist leanings, that isn’t written so much about in those terms. We’ve been looking at a grouping of ideologies around that time.” This research also relates to the themes of this year, as the organisers look to the origins of the Edinburgh Festival and the rebuilding of society through the arts and the “reflowering of the human spirit.” Walker also mentions that EAF organisers looked further back too towards the beginning of the 1900s when Patrick Geddes was socially reforming as “two pivotal times in Edinburgh.” Using these older archives of social reform, these imageries and texts appear as signifiers of loss. “We’re interested in looking at historical precedents in the place we’re working in and how they resonate now, and how you conjure them back up through making artwork, and taking them out into the public realm.” For example, they built

“Some children bounded off wearing our giant gut sculptures straight into a mosh pit chanting ‘We are guts’” Pester and Rossi

Speaking of some of the sculptures and their references, Walker agrees that “There’s a bit of protest methodology. It’s important for us to take our work into the public realm, into the city, so that it butts up against the real, outside world. It doesn’t stay within the art world bubble, it goes out into the rest of society and can – in an ideal world – have a wider effect on the way people think about social structures. We see them as protest meets celebration.” Walker also describes the play they have made to show as part of the procession for the Edinburgh Festival Opening. It’s taken from a Patrick Geddes pageant, “he was described as a serial pageanteer, he used them as an educational tool. We’re following in that line, and it’s taken from a traditional [telling] of George and the Dragon … but we’ve woven in some socialist, ecologist ideologies from the 19th century. That’s a really interesting time when those ideologies are strong and that questioning of society and what we can take from it now in this very difficult political climate we’re in, and this time of change.” Pester & Rossi: Lunarnova Campout, Jupiter Artland, Sat 26 Aug, 8pm-8am, 27 Aug (overnight), £30 Zoë Walker and Neil Bromwich: The Dragon of Profit and Private Ownership, Trinity Apse, until 27 Aug

Walker and Bromwich

Feature

ART

THE SKINNY

August 2017

THE SKINNY

Occupying by Invitation

Imagine Calais

s the many festivities rage on, around and inside Summerhall, they have planned for their programme a series of politically charged presentations to coincide with the busy festival month ahead. In advance of their Summerhall projects, we’ve caught up with the refugee advocacy and support organisation Imagine, artist Jane Frere and Article 11, who are touted as blurring the theatre/visual art boundary. Each represent very different kinds of politicised artistic and creative practices. For their exhibition, Imagine present works made by those living in the Calais refugee camp. The organisation itself is led by Marthe Chabrol, Hari Reed and Lujza Richter. Speaking to Lujza Richter a few weeks before the show, she’s careful to delineate the ambition, intentions and place of herself and the organisation within the show. Richter describes the beginning of the project as March 2016, when as a group Imagine travelled to Calais. “We developed art workshops and we went through the summer to Calais and did art classes every afternoon. They were very popular, and people would come day after day to draw with us. That was the project itself, and at the time we weren’t thinking of an exhibition at all.” However, Richter describes the upcoming display of some of the works in Summerhall as “the fulfilment of a silent promise that we made in the camp in those workshops.” For Richter, tacitly it was agreed that, “Although these are just drawings or a scribble on a piece of paper, these pieces of art are very important testimonies of the people that lived there... being ignored... in horrendous living conditions.” For Richter, this was all the more urgent as the camp in Calais was dismantled. “Some of the people that were in our workshops, we have no idea where they are and what happened to them. In a way, then, it felt very very important to show these drawings… [and that they] could talk for themselves on some sort of platform. In a very basic way, that’s what this project is, [a way] to

August 2017

honour these voices and make them travel as far as possible, and to a public and audience that is as broad and eclectic as possible as well.” On this front, the international setting that comes with Edinburgh in August is a necessarily diverse audience. “One thing that tends to happen in our refugee active world or the solidarity network, we create work and exhibitions that are aimed to advocate for human rights and refugee rights and talk about the crisis in [such] a way that only people that already know about the crisis or have been to the camps attend these events. … But we really wanted to get a platform that [included] people that come to the Fringe not to listen or hear about the refugee crisis.” Artist Jane Frere in her #ProtestMaskProject also considers the opportunity of being able to present work to audiences that come to Summerhall without necessarily being aware of the exact exhibitions that are on, either as a casual art audience or to see some of the Fringe. Frere will present a large wall drawing and text work that references what she identifies as the most pressing political events currently. “I’m doing two walls, in that main thoroughfare space in Summerhall which has a lot of people going through it in the day and the evening. In a sense, it’s like public theatre as it’s not a dedicated gallery space.” Thinking of the possibilities of this high footfall, she cites David Hockney who has been outspoken about his own frustration that people “use art of painting as a backdrop for their selfies. Now I’m actually hoping for that, as I’m hoping people will be using these walls to take selfies against.” With one wall themed on Trump and the other Brexit, emblazoned with the highest trending hashtags, Frere seeks to grab the attention of the passerby who will in turn tag the wall across social media platforms. Also part of the politicised Summerhall programme this August, they will host Article 11 over the course of 7-25 Aug. This series of events is titled Rematriation, and organised by the

multidisciplinary performers Tara Beagan and Andy Moro (who comprise Article 11). This most recent suite of performance, live art and dance forms part of their wider project Declaration. One of the key principles of Declaration is that it is “informed by place and [the] people of that place.” It is for this reason that they are not only hosting indigenous artists from Turtle Island (North America), but “are also connecting with Indigenous and marginalised artists who will be in Edinburgh for August. All will be collaborators, creating performative explorations of relevant issues such as repatriation of Indigenous remains and sacred/stolen items and the absurdity of monarchy.”

“An epidemic number of Indigenous women and girls ... go missing and get murdered in Canada” Article 11

Realising that some of the audiences in Scotland might not be aware of the subject matter they discuss, they also bring to light a recent tragic instance of the violence against Indigenous peoples, and give a sense of what makes Rematriation for them a timely and important project. “Indigenous peoples continue to fight to have our humanity recognised. Recently an Indigenous woman named Barbara Kentner died of an injury she sustained from an attack in Thunder Bay, Ontario. She was walking with her

ART

Interview: Adam Benmakhlouf

Photo: Nelle Renberg

Through Summerhall’s programme this August, there’s an observable trend towards politicised or protest work, considering issues relating to the refugee crisis, indigenous cultures, as well as Brexit and Trump

sister when men drove by them, throwing a trailer hitch aimed at the women. Barbara was struck and the assaulting man shouted ‘I got one!’ After several months, she died of her injuries. The man has yet to be charged with her death. This is one insight into what is causing an epidemic number of Indigenous women and girls to go missing and get murdered in Canada. Currently there is an inquiry into this epidemic, yet the inquiry is not exploring the impact law enforcers have on this death toll. Yet, as recently as July 13 2017, two police officers were charged with the killing of Indigenous woman Debra Chrisjohn. DECLARATION: Rematriation is an act of survivance simply by existing.” Coming from these urgent and present events, Rematriation has been programmed as a multidisciplinary range of performance events, as well as “an active, evolving, installation work.” Ticketed events include, for example, Hot Brown Honey who “are a hip-hop infused, politically vibrant, high concept cabaret group who shatter preconceptions in an explosion of colour and controversy.” With the line-up also including poetry, dance and being steered by weekly conversation, it is the difference between each of the elements that they argue “make(s) for a strong weave. The collaborators are diverse, as are the hundreds of Indigenous nations in Turtle Island.” It is also important for them to reflect the multidisciplinarity that they have come to identify as characteristic of the indigenous art practices they have experienced. Going further, they “believe this comes, in part, from a shared worldview that acknowledges how everything also holds its opposite. In creation is destruction. In grief lies the seed for rebirth. Inviting vastly different energies and artists means each person will push into sharper relief the strength in each of our unique ways of being.” Through August, see summerhall.co.uk for full details of each event

Feature

Flotilla Charlotte Barker’s elegant sculptures critically sit on the borderlines of art, design, craft, ornament and functionality. We meet her ahead of her upcoming solo show at Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop Interview: Rosie Priest

lotilla will be the first major solo exhibition by ceramicist Charlotte Barker, presented as part of the Edinburgh Art Festival programme in the Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop. We meet in her bright and dusty studio to find out more about her inspirations, nods to ceramic history and the incredible craftsmanship behind the exhibition. The title itself is a reference to the methods of display of Barker’s work, themselves as much a part of this exhibition as the ceramics: “I don’t really like putting ceramics on plinths very much and I wanted something that wasn’t a table, so I started making small benches.” With the support from her partner and an Icelandic intern, Barker took inspiration from a 17th century ‘Pig Table’ (one of which is perfectly propped in the corner of her studio), to create incredible benches from newly sawmilled wood, showcasing the wood’s interior grains: “After making a few of these benches, they started to look like a small group of vessels and I really started to enjoy this kind of movement, this kind of suspended in motion idea, and I wanted some kind of movement for the space.”

“I almost want to make something that you can get inside.” Charlotte Barker

Pissing on Monuments Patrick Staff presents a Collective Observers' Walk which combines diligent history telling with sharing of erotic nighttime adventures on Calton Hill Interview: Adam Benmakhlouf

Charlotte Barker, Flotilla, Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop until 26 Aug

Photo: Morwenna Kearsley

This creation of movement is echoed in Barker’s ceramic pieces. She explains, “I really like it if the surfaces of my ceramic pieces are almost alive and writhing and skin-like so that you can feel that there has been a hand in there and you can see the path that it has taken.” The contrast between the controlled marking of Barker’s ceramic pieces and the natural markings of the wood creates a beautiful balance between the

man made and the natural. “I wanted to bring in these very textured wood grains, to have these two materials against each other, and to have something that is really textured and layered and made by nature, and then my gestures that are texturally marking the pieces.” It’s clear that this exhibition has at times been an exploration of itself, referencing the artworks’ creation and display as a continual organic and growing concept. Speaking of the ceramics’ relationship with their display benches Barker says “…it reminded me of log driving, and of taking logs down river, and just floating, and putting these works on the benches just reminded me of men walking over logs and this sort of floating group.” A discovery that could only have been made once her artwork had been created, and its display explored. Having spent much of her Royal College MA creating large scale and colourful sculptures, it is interesting that Barker is now “stripping back” her work. All the ceramics in Flotilla are black and/or white, and none stand above two feet tall. “I had previously been making large scale work, I just realised I couldn’t lift stuff in my own in the studio. So, I decided to start making smaller scale work that I could handle myself, making stuff that I could wrestle with… I do definitely like something that has a physical impact on your body; I almost want to make something that you can get inside. Just something that has an impact on you physically.” Presenting a mixture of both pots and sculptures, Barker’s work crosses between functionality and fine art, continually exploring the ceramic medium’s history. “I like going to museums and seeing what people have used the material for.” This exhibition is by no means an exploration of ceramic history though – it is a reinvention of clay’s relationship to its displays: the height the pieces are exhibited at allow the viewers to explore the internal empty space of some of the ceramics; they are showcased as floating objects, not like art works on plinths but as constructions floating down a river.

Feature

or the audio tour, as commissioned by Collective Gallery, Patrick Staff looks to the biological science and colonial history of Calton Hill, as well as its use as a place for cruising and sex in the dark. This approach emerged from an ongoing conversation with Collective – they would send Staff information about the history of the area. In turn, Staff would send Collective their own questions about the particularities of the hill, “a lot of information on the geology… and what grows on the hill.” Thinking about its more recognisable beginnings as a historical guide, Staff sees this form as taking its cue from the site itself. “It’s a more diligent and well-behaved way to start the piece, which is more historically grounded. And that’s like the way Calton Hill is set up, these monuments to scientific discovery. Then there’s the messiness of people’s bodies that upset this historical narrative.” Beginning with the plants of Edinburgh, the first layer of bodies that come in are women within colonies who ingested the flower Bird of Paradise to commit suicide. “It was a plant that was considered this beautiful thing but most of these colonial botanists were ignorant to the fact that the plant was being used [for suicides] and instead celebrated how big it could grow in Europe.” There’s a parallel already for Staff in this illicit and obscure second use with Calton Hill: tourist destination by day, seedy hook-up spot by night. There’s another snapping of the timescale, as the work moves from thinking about colonial histories, to last night’s cruising, then sees Calton Hill itself as “liquid” in a different geological timescale. “It’s a lot about hierarchies.” In this vein, Staff cites Mel Chen’s book Animism as an inspiration. “Mel Chen talks a lot about how culturally we ascribe aliveness and deadness in a hierarchy. We see humans as being most alive and rocks… the most dead. Within that we start to ascribe these other hierarchical judgments. Often it’s cis white men that are [deemed] the most alive.”

ART

Following Chen’s scientific and linguistic troubling of these hierarchies, at one point the hill is the most alive part, then during the sex scene a puddle of piss becomes more active a participant in the sex going on than the person peeing.

“I want it to be like whispering in your ear about something” Patrick Staff

While Staff questions and subverts the usual historical tour that’s more oriented towards “100 years ago in this spot…” the form of headphone audio guide itself was exciting to them. In particular, there’s a closeness to this setup they describe. “I want it to be like whispering in your ear about something… It was fun for me to ask, What does this form offer? It offers me a really close intimacy, talking to you about fucking in your ear… I like that you’re more than likely to be walking around during the day, but being encouraged to think about the place at night.” This intimacy stems from Staff ’s own pleasure in getting to know the location. “I was enjoying the intermingling that every time I’ve been on that spot it’s been raining and the amount of people that piss on that hill at night, probably piss on these monuments.” They describe this form of engagement coming into the work as a “hard subjectivity, to take that more historical tone that’s potentially an objective narration. For me as an artist it’s pleasurable to flip that [and the narrative then changes to] ‘when I’m fucking, in my cunt, what I feel, how my body is reacting.’” Patrick Staff’s Observers' Walk is available from Collective during their opening hours, see collectivegallery.net

THE SKINNY

August 2017

Feature

I Will Survive Newsflash – festival season is a mental health minefield. Here’s our crowd-sourced guide to keeping it together this August, whether you’re here for one day or the entire month Words: Chloë Maughan Illustration: Sonny Ross

estivals evoke memories of fun and frivolity for most people. But I, and many others like me, find they’re often also reminders of bad mental health and lost opportunity. A couple of years back I had a not-so-rosy Fringe experience. Timed almost perfectly to the moment I stepped on to the Royal Mile, my anxiety levels went into overdrive. Suddenly, the excitement and enthusiasm I’d been filled with earlier in the day were replaced by nausea and panic. We’d planned for a day of back-to-back shows, had fuelled ourselves with samosas on the train to Edinburgh, ready to jump straight in on the other end. In reality, the day ended up with us spending six hours in a coffee shop off the beaten track to steady my nerves. We made it to just two shows. Over the day I resented myself for not having the reserves to soak in the culture around me. I was filled with this sense of pressure to be having fun, to be present, to battle through. It’s as if, in the midst of it all, I’d just forgotten that bad mental health days still happen. We’re less forgiving of them, for their poor timing. For detracting from the places we’ve got to be, we’ve got to see and experience. And on that day, I felt that sharply. With so many expectations, so much to do, so much to see, soak in and celebrate; it’s no wonder that we allow ourselves to get swept up in the festival pace of life. A cocktail of working too hard, too many shows and too little sleep, followed by a hangover of burnout (and, most likely, an actual hangover too). So, with the festival season well under way, we got talking to seasoned Fringegoers and makers, movers and shakers about the common pitfalls of festival season, and how to avoid them in the quest to protect your wellbeing. It was also a great excuse to gather their worst burnout horror stories (you’re welcome). Evan Beswick, Editor of Fest, (our Fringe sister magazine) claims immunity to burnout syndrome. “Here’s why: I am blessed / cursed with an excellent regulatory mechanism whereby I just fall asleep if I overdo it.” Such soporific tendencies haven’t always proven convenient or timely, however. “I once fell asleep while reviewing a show, and did so right in front of the producer. Not, like, a little snooze. A full on head-wobbler. He clearly realised I was asleep, and me dropping my notebook really gave the game away. I had to go see the show again. In all honesty, it was better the first time around.” We spotted a similar theme in the tale of professional terror shared by Mihaela Bodlovic, a seasoned photographer who worked last year as Edinburgh International Festival’s official photographer (she’s shit-hot). “Pretty much every year features at least one horror story of missing out on fun or important things because I’d fallen asleep hunched over the laptop somewhere. It’s not something I’m proud of and it’s Really Bad Self-Care”, she told us. In 2015 she found herself working so hard over the festival period, dashing between three jobs, that a brief nap – a blessed moment of self care – turned into a potentially career costing catastrophe. “I was meant to be coming down to photograph Fest’s launch party but made the foolish, fateful decision to take a brief nap to get me through the night,” explains Mihaela, “Fast forward to next morning… It’s funny now but it definitely wasn’t funny then.” Claire Stewart, Director of Creative Edinburgh,

Feature

tells us how festival burnout forms part of what she calls “festival martyrdom.” She explains that with festivals come expectations “that you will work far too hard, collapse with exhaustion, probably have a blubbering existential crisis, and have to detox and sleep for a week.” This tendency to treat festivals as some kind of endurance test is a concept sure to strike a memorable chord in both creatives pulling endless shifts throughout the festivals this summer, and audience members alike. “For me there have been times where a kind of flat brain-fog set in at an inconvenient juncture and refused to shift. Appetite and sleep pattern were destroyed, and the overriding mindset became dejection and resentment towards absolutely everything. I didn’t know until more recent years that was what burnout felt like... once it hits you, you’re out of the game.”

“Whatever your role in the festivals, know that you are neither indispensable, nor invincible, and nobody expects you to be” Claire Stewart, Creative Edinburgh

Joseph Seal has worked many a Fringe as a sound engineer and installations technician. One year, he was expected to work an 11am-1am shift six days a week for the whole of August. The sheer volume of hours and the intensity of work melded into a month of insomnia, fueled by anxiety and pressure. “I was an emotional wreck. The people in charge wouldn’t recognise the fact I was working beyond my physical and emotional capabilities as everybody else around me was coping.” We jest about these endurance stories that mark us as true festival veterans. But underneath it lies a very serious issue. Burnout necessarily intersects with our wellbeing, and can be a test too far. So how do we protect ourselves against festival burnout? If you can, take breaks Claire Stewart states: “Whatever your role in the festivals, know that you are neither indispensable, nor invincible, and nobody expects you to be... You are just one tiny cog in a huge machine and if you need to stop to take a rest, nothing catastrophic is going to happen.” Reject FOMO As Mihaela Bodlovic puts it: “Where physical exhaustion ends, existential crisis begins.” Moments of self-care become replaced with questions: “Am I having enough fun? Does it look like I’m having enough fun? I’m supposed to be

enjoying this. Oh god, look at those people, they’re enjoying this. Wait, why am I not enjoying this?” And those last questions linger for visitors too. Stewart’s solution to this? “There is more than enough fun to be had, you don’t need to have all of it, all the time.” Looking back at my own Fringe crisis, and the coffee shop hideout that ensued, I think that might be the year I did the Fringe right. Admittedly, not by will, but by circumstance, I took things at a slow pace. I spent time in the quieter areas of the city, and measured my experience by how well I looked after myself, not how many hours I racked up in the stalls. I came back from it a

DEVIANCE

much healthier person than if I had disregarded the warning signs and attempted to drag my anxious body through the crowds. Escape sometimes Festivals are glorious. They are vibrant and exciting and full of new opportunities and experiences to meet. But it is for that exact reason that they can also be exhausting, busy hives of anxiety. Joe Seal advises “keeping out of people’s hair and having a sanctum away from it all.” Evan Beswick agrees. “Get out of the city when you can. Edinburgh in August is like no place in the world. But it all means nothing if you lose perspective.”

THE SKINNY

Stranger than Fiction Manaf Halbouni speaks candidly about his recent new film work made in Huntly, Aberdeenshire, in response to Middle Eastern politics and the Syrians that have recently settled as new Scots

hat If? Manaf Halbouni’s work asks in its title, as it imagines an entirely different geopolitical structure. Recently an artist in residence in the Scottish rural market town Huntly, and commissioned by an organisation there, Deveron Arts, Halbouni worked as much as possible with the local population to produce his new work. Shot on mobile phones and cast exclusively from the town’s inhabitants, the film crucially involved many recently settled Syrians, ‘new Scots’ as they’re called informally. In the trailer for the film, two of these formerly Syria-based and now Huntly locals are seen acting out some of the script’s speculative fiction. On whether this presented a particular challenge, Halbouni considers it as not so different from the usual challenges of filmmaking, “especially if it’s a short one and you only have three months to do everything: training, filming, editing.”

For Halbouni, this was an essential decision as mobile phone film clips represent for him “the medium of our time. Almost everyone has one or at least a digital camera.” Going on, he describes, “When something happens around the world, the first [footage that emerges] are short mobile video clips or photos.” Furthermore, he thinks of using this medium as “an experiment to see how people would film” the possibilities of what might be used to make a film. Using this fictional narrative and timeline was Halbouni’s strategy to challenge the propagated or conventional sense of events in the Middle East. Though there might have been an awareness of the Syrian situation in Huntly and “a lot of people were talking about it, nobody really knew the real problems or how the people are [really living] over there.” People would often men-

tion ISIS, war and fighting. “I wanted to transport another image, and introduce people and how they are, and actually [communicate] that they’re humans and not different from people in Europe, even in their behaviour. I can’t remember during the 24 years in Damascus that life was so different than living in Europe, except for the weather actually. Human behaviour is actually always everywhere the same.” For the film, Halbouni has deliberately chosen a room with large windows. In this way, while the Syrian actors perform, in the background the town of Huntly is seen bustling by. “You can see the real life outside, people walking and the market, and actually that’s very funny. You have this weird conversation with these two dudes in Arabic, and they’re talking about how they [will] split Europe and destroy the German revolution, and support

“ Human behaviour is actually always everywhere the same” Manaf Halbouni

Interview: Adam Benmakhlouf

the Scottish. At the same time, you can see the real life outside. Even in the first part of this project, I was drawing on normal maps of Europe, changing names of cities and drawing troops’ movements. So I had my fictive story over a real story, or something that happened in reality.” This idea of the reality and fiction of the situation is further complicated, as Halbouni uses his newly constructed vision of Europe and the Middle East as a means of giving a new sense of the cause-and-effect and temporality of what is happening in Syria. “Not a lot of people know about the Sykes-Picot Agreement, or about other agreements that happened in Africa with Germany and France and Britain. I think it’s important to show the people, or let the people think about it that these problems aren’t new. I also wanted to transport them a little bit, imagine the feeling that you’ve been colonised and your country has been split into many smaller countries. Probably people cannot understand these feelings, but it’s worth trying to explain a part of history in a funny or fictive timeline story like this.” Thinking more about the miscommunication of mass media, Halbouni is clear, “I don’t have to tell [you] how the media works”. Going on a little further, for him, when it comes to large media outlets, “They only cover what sells.” For this reason he uses his work to recontextualise the usual big headers: “ISIS or Syria or Israel.” Instead, as he proposes: “It’s talking about history and problems that have existed for more than 100 years, and a lot of them [are] because of colonial history.”

Positing a reversal of Middle East and West, Halbouni makes the Arabian States and Turkey the large industrial states in his new map of the world. The project started in 2015, when Halbouni began to imagine a ‘fictive timeline’ in which the industrial revolution came to the Middle East in 1845 rather than Western Countries. “I worked on this fictive timeline and invented many characters for this play, and developed new stories out of this timeline. For Deveron Projects my aim was to make a short film out of the people around there because they told me about the new Scots who had settled around Aberdeenshire from Syria. I thought about explaining a little about the problems of the Middle East. As we know it now, the Middle East was created by the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916. I wanted to play this meeting from these two British and French representatives in a different way. I thought about an Arabian and Turkish guy meeting in Scotland to talk about how they’re going to divide Europe into pieces and how they will push Scotland into a big revolution against London, because London in my fictive story is supporting the revolution in Germany.” On why he chose Scotland and London as the central relationship in his newly imagined global scheme, Halbouni is straightforward about his reasoning: “because of Brexit. From my point of view, I see that Scotland has been betrayed twice. First at the referendum [then later during] Brexit. The Scots have been promised something they never [received].” He then draws a parallel to the people of the new Arab nations after the 1916 Sykes Picot Agreement. “By fighting against the Turkish they were promised liberty and did not get it.” Instead, Western European political actors divided the Middle East. Halbouni also made the conscious decision to locate the responsibilities for filming with the people of the town. “The film we made is actually a play where we invited people from all around Huntly to film it with their mobile phones, and I used all these mobile footages and my good friend Oscar HR [a video artist] edited them all together.”

August 2017

ART

Feature

Emer Tumilty E

mer Tumilty is an illustrator and artist from Northern Ireland, now based in Glasgow. With a background both in Architecture and Visual Communication, Tumilty uses bold colour combinations and simple geometric forms, working across a wide range of projects from illustration and printmaking to murals, installation and set design. These images are taken from screen prints that were created during a residency at Edinburgh Printmakers in the spring of this year, for their Edinburgh Art Festival exhibition New Edition. Tumilty used her time on residency to explore a personal project â&#x20AC;&#x201C; a looser, more gestural way of working, where large, multi-layered collages were translated into flat screen printed works. Throughout the process she shifts, rotates, adds and subtracts from the printed image, creating a dynamic series of prints, all of which differ slightly from one another. New Edition is a group exhibition of new work by Emer Tumilty, Museums Press and Poster Club, curated by Sarah Lowndes, at Edinburgh Printmakers, until 21 Oct. emertumilty.com Collage 3 (detail), 2017

Instagram/ Twitter: @emertumilty

Collage 1 (detail), 2017

SHOWCASE

THE SKINNY

Collage 3 (detail), 2017

Collage 2 (detail), 2017

August 2017

SHOWCASE

ADVERTISING FEATURE

The Dram Team We take a look at Auchentoshan’s unique Auchentoshan and Ale serve, through the eyes of some of the best bars in the whisky’s home city of Glasgow

helma and Louise. Laurel and Hardy. Jean Claude van Damme and Dennis Rodman. The double act is one of the great cultural traditions – take one thing, find a second that complements it perfectly, and you've got a third, even better thing. The pairing of Auchentoshan whisky and ale is a great example of a good partnership elevating both parties. Inspired by another classic – the hauf an’ a hauf pairing of a dram and ale chaser – the clean citrus notes and bold nuttiness of triple-distilled Auchentoshan whisky is a perfect companion to crisp, hoppy craft ale. Throw in some lemon juice, honey syrup and bitters for extra flavour and complexity, and you've done that trick from earlier of making something extraordinary. Of course, sometimes you need to throw some other elements into the mix – elements such as ‘people’ and ‘nice chairs’. That’s where the great bar scene in Auchentoshan’s home city of Glasgow comes in. With Auchentoshan distilled in the city since the 1820s, the whisky has seen its fair share of drinking dens over the years, but it’s fair to say that Glasgow’s bars are in pretty rude health right now, each plowing their own furrow. At Redmond’s on Duke Street in Dennistoun, the focus is on creating a neighbourhood space with a strong sense of community and identity.

“We play vinyl all day, every day,” they say. “We try and do some quirky stuff with our food – the provenance of the ingredients is a big priority – and we rotate our craft beer fridge range every week too. If you came in for the first time, you might have your interest piqued by batch cocktails (all made in house), and gins and whiskies that we change every week, too.” Over at Drygate in the east of the city centre, the drinking experience is key. Drygate is dubbed as ‘the UK’s first experiential brewery,’ and the bar at the fully-operational microbrewery features 26 different draft beers at any one time. It’s hard to get fresher beer when the brewery is at the other side of the room. Bag O’Nails, next to Kelvinhall subway in the city’s West End, aims to be a hub for the people of Partick and the West End. As such, it wears a number of different hats – it’s a bar, a restaurant, and a live music venue, and a general home from home for its regulars. The bar was, in the words of Bar O’Nails’ Gerry Tartaglia, “born out of the ashes of a spot that has long been associated with bars of some sort. The site has housed a bar as far back as most can remember.” Innis & Gunn’s latest Beer Kitchen bar may be a fairly recent addition to the nightlife of

Ashton Lane in the West End, but it’s already starting to bed in to the city’s beer scene with the help of a bar staff who know their way around a pint (in the best possible sense). “Some of the staff have worked with craft beer for years, while some are new to it,” they tell us, “but the one thing they all have in common is their passion to learn more. Each time we get a new beer in, the staff are lining up to try it for themselves. There’s a real interest and enthusiasm there that we can spot through all parts of the team, and which is then in turn shared with our customers.” That enthusiasm, and desire to go the extra mile to get things done properly, is a common thread throughout Glasgow’s bar scene and in the story of Auchentoshan. Most Scottish whiskies are distilled twice, but Auchentoshan is triple-distilled; it’s a move that adds a bit of extra time, effort and expense to proceedings, but the result is a whisky that’s smooth, fruity and packed with citrus oomph. As with most things in life, when it comes to drinks you get out what you put in, and a bit of extra inventiveness and give-it-abash attitude never goes amiss. This month, the first of Innis & Gunn’s bespoke barrel aged beers launches at the Beer Kitchen, and it’s a rich, malty amber ale aged in Auchentoshan whisky casks for

60 days. The result is a rich, oaky beer with hints of toffee and caramel. That spirit of making and doing for yourself can be found in the Beer Kitchen, where, as they put it: “When someone walks into the bar for the first time they will notice our onsite craft brewery, where we brew beers exclusive to Ashton Lane to be served straight from fresh beer tanks onsite. Our craft brewery is highly visible and we encourage people to have a look and talk to our Head Brewer, Digger.” There’s also something of the unconventional about the Beer Kitchen, with the option for beer dispensed through a unique-toglasgow fruit infuser that’s regularly filled with new and intriguing fruits. Now, we would be remiss if we overlooked the fact that there is a bar in Glasgow that’s infusing beer with fruit, a fact that would have drawn genuine confusion a few decades ago, and not just in Glasgow. The drinks scene has evolved at lightning pace in the new millenium, as has the city itself. As Glasgow has changed over time, its nightlife has evolved and grown, but as is often the case, when moving forwards you sometimes end up embracing the past. At Bag O’ Nails, this meant a refurb that revealed original fixtures like roof beams, and

THE SKINNY

a decor that mixes the classic (a locally-made copper bar top, polished daily) with the contemporary (surrealist illustrations by local West End artist Jim Byars). The Drygate building, meanwhile, is a revived 1960s monolith, with its original structure and seven-peaked sawtooth roof all preserved in its restoration. Inside, work by local artists and graduates of Glasgow School of Art adorns the walls, helping root the bar firmly in contemporary Glasgow culture.

“The citrus notes and nuttiness of Auchentoshan is a perfect companion to crisp craft ale” And it’s that contemporary Glasgow scene that plays host to the Auchentoshan and Ale, the whisky’s signature serve which marries the malt with ale, honey and citrus. It’s a great way to try out a popular local drink produced in the city for hundreds of years, and its local providence doesn’t exactly go unnoticed. As Redmond’s put it: “When we get Auchentoshan in, it doesn’t last long! Its great to have on the shelf because it’s basically our local whisky (a nice talking point with the backpackers and Air BnB-ers we get in...). The 12-year-old is a cracking whisky, but the Three Wood is the favourite amongst [our] staff and punters.” The Auchentoshan Three Wood Single Malt is also favoured by the team at Drygate, for its “floral nose with sweet & smooth chocolate, hazelnut and oak notes finishing with a hint of sherry, grapes and dried fruit.” The uncompromising but welcoming nature of the whisky is what’s drawn the Drygate team to regularly include it in their Beer Club: Hawf n Hawf nights, pairing craft beers from around the globe with a craft spirit. We’re told the Three Wood has paired

particularly well with Drygate’s mosaic IPA Seven Peaks, with the crisp hoppy beer contrasting nicely with the smooth, fruity whisky. Local greats playing nice together; always lovely to see. The Beer Kitchen team follow similar principles to their Drygate contemporaries with their ‘hoptails’ – cocktails built with beer. The team say that the goal of their hoptails is to “find a way to elevate the flavours” of beers and spirits, pairing Innis & Gunn Original with the whisky to “highlight the flavours that oak brings to the table in both whisky and beer.” The Beer Kitchen crew also feel that the whisky’s local nature gives it an edge: “We’ve hosted a couple of events now with Auchentoshan, so our team have had a chance to work closely with the product, learn how to use it and know what it works best with. I think they appreciate the authenticity of Auchentoshan – it’s a great single malt that comes from a local distillery just on our doorstep.” At Bag O’ Nails, the focus is on both quality and quantity; provide plenty of options, make sure they’re all excellent. As they put it: “We take pride in our ever-evolving bottled beer selection and our spirits are the same, with a gantry that would give you a stiff neck; we like to cover bases from all across the world. We are particularly proud of our bourbon selection with bottles that cannot be found anywhere else in the West.” The bar staff are regularly working on their own cocktail creations to vye for a place on the menu, with one such cocktail being the Auchentoshan and Ale riff, the Glasgow Warrior. The drink is action-packed – a double shot of Auchentoshan American Oak, shaken with fresh lemon juice, Seville orange marmalade, Angostura bitters and a homemade ginger syrup, topped off with the Gladeye IPA from fellow local drinks heroes Drygate. The Auchentoshan American Oak’s citrus notes make for a great compliment to the orange and lemon flavours, and the team at Bag O’ Nails are keen to support their local whisky, having visited the distillery for themselves. Well, what’s the use of living in a big city if you don’t pop round to see your pals every once in a while, eh? Redmond’s, 304 Duke St, Glasgow G31 1RZ Drygate, 85 Drygate, Glasgow, G4 0UT Bag O’Nails, 165 Dumbarton Rd, Glasgow G11 6AA Innis & Gunn Beer Kitchen, 44 Ashton Ln, Glasgow G12 8SJ auchentoshan.co.uk Photos by Mihaela Bodlovic

Auchentoshan and Ale recipe 35ml Auchentoshan American Oak 25ml Lemon Juice 25ml Honey Syrup 90ml Pale Ale Lemon Wedge Garnish (Bitters optional)

August 2017

Sacred Places We speak to Julie Byrne ahead of her appearance at Summerhall this August to talk about spirituality, moving, touring and her latest album, Not Even Happiness

merican musician Julie Byrne’s got a reputation for roaming. It’s become customary for any interview with the songwriter to begin by listing her extensive tours, and the multiple cities – Chicago, Seattle, Kansas, New York, etc. – that she’s called home at some point, even if only for a brief while. Her records lend themselves to easy comparison with a life on the road; her first ‘official’ album Rooms With Walls and Windows (2014) combined two previous cassette releases and captured the transience of living sparsely, in shared, DIY spaces. Her latest LP Not Even Happiness was released in January this year, and each song feels like a postcard; Byrne’s soft, scenic poetry captures the view and turns it into crystal. Anyway, the rumours prove true. When The Skinny rings Byrne, she’s just moved house. This time from New York City to rural New York state, and a town some forty minutes outside of Buffalo. She’s staying in her family home for a couple of weeks before she embarks on yet another long tour, and she’s delighted to be back: “It feels so good I could just weep with joy,” she laughs. “I grew up out here in the country, in a pretty simple place. It’s quiet and green. Clean air!” Ideas of ‘home’, or of finding some perfect town to finally, permanently, set down roots, have been a consistent thread throughout Byrne’s work. On an older song, Marmalade, she sings ‘All I want is a brick house with a porch that wraps around,’ toying with the idea of a specific kind of idyllic, picket-fence family in just a few words. More recently, on Not Even Happiness’s closing track I Live Now as a Singer, she asks: ‘I have dragged my lives across the country / And wondered if travel led me anywhere / [...] Tell me how’d it feel for you to be here now.’ She describes the impulse to keep moving as one that’s misled her, slightly: “[I had] this mentality that I would be able to travel somewhere, and there would be a place… or a person, that could offer me a much different experience of life. It’s exhausting to constantly place all of your hopes on these exterior changes, and [I Live Now…] comes from the dawning realisation that it’s actually much more complex. I feel that I am becoming more connected to the idea that we can carry that sense of place within us. Lord knows, I’ve learned that you move somewhere else and you carry your burdens with you! So it’s really a matter of addressing that, rather than being like ‘Maybe Seattle? Maybe that’s where I can really live?’” There’s a gentle irony, then, that an album about searching for constancy should have been recorded in her one, truly consistent home. The outside-of-Buffalo family house became an impromptu studio for Byrne and collaborator/ producer Eric Littman, because, as she describes it, “We just needed a quiet place where we could concentrate, that had a particular spirit to it. And this house does. I’m really blessed in the way that my family still lives here, and it’s rich with so much love and activity. There’s a sense of security that exists here that we couldn’t have come in contact with anywhere else.” Not Even Happiness has a lushness that marks it apart from Byrne’s earlier, straight-to-tape recordings. Her sparkling, finger-picked guitar work remains, played on a 1976 Martin that she inherited from her father, but it’s embellished with sweeping strings and touches of synth – never overwhelming, and just enough to add a little extra shape to the soul of the songs. “It was something I always imagined,” she explains, “but a lot of the opportunity for it to come to fruition was through working with Eric.” Before they met, Byrne was a “big fan” of Littman, the founder of New York’s Phantom Posse

Feature

collective and a solo artist under the moniker Steve Sobs, and a chance video shoot during South by Southwest brought them together. “We drove to this dried up lake bed and recorded there,” she recalls, “then we ended up living together in New York, and we toured together, and it’s been my good fortune that he’s felt so inspired. He has such a brilliant mind – he works as an infectious disease researcher by day – yeah, I know!” At the core of the album, though, is Byrne’s dedication to careful lyricism. “Sometimes it will take me a year to finish a song, and it’s usually not the melodies,” she says. “I’ve always felt very impassioned by poetry and that was one of my first interests, before I could play guitar. So I guess at the core, they’re more like poems than anything else – I hope.”

“I think a lot of us suffer from a pretty limited way of thinking, especially in America” Julie Byrne

Her reading list is long and varied; Byrne describes a close group of friends with whom she swaps poetry suggestions, but also a good friend in New York who’s been introducing her to a wider world of spiritual literature. She laughs, loudly: “Oh god, I’m going to sound like such a phony. But I think a lot of us suffer from a pretty limited way of thinking, especially in America and elsewhere, because we’re so conditioned towards a more material conception of success. But that doesn’t say anything – even when you get there.” So a little like moving from city to city, looking for something that doesn’t exist? “Right. So I’ve been reading the Bhagavad Gita for the first time, it’s the principle scripture of Hinduism, and I’ve become very interested in a tradition called Gaudiya Vaishnavism. To go to service with [my friend] and witness the spirit of the congregation – there are so many people who really do radiate love in this way that confirms they’re in contact with something, and that’s the most thrilling thing to me.” A little while ago, Byrne took three years off from touring. She admits that she was starting to find it a “grind”, and hard to reconcile with her search for some kind of (inner) permanence.Now, she sees it as all part of the same process. “Touring demands so much physical and emotional energy, and when I perform I want to use that as an opportunity – to sanctify the experience of holding space with whoever has chosen to be there, night after night. Drinking and, um, other extra-curricular stuff is so ingrained in the culture, and it took me a while to realise that, engaging in those things – and I still do, now and again – but it weakens my ability to continue on in this lifestyle. “Paramount to this opportunity of travel is just to have the chance to meet people, and I want to be as present and openhearted as possible. So, you know, touring is my true religion,” she deadpans, before letting out a huge cackle. “Everything else I’m just exploring right now.” juliemariebyrne.com summerhall.co.uk

Photo: Tonje Thilrsen

Interview: Katie Hawthorne

Nothing Ever Happens Here

f you’re looking for an oasis of calm in an otherwise overwhelming month, Julie Byrne plays for Nothing Ever Happens Here, in the Dissection Room at Summerhall, 23 Aug. All August long, NEHH’s stellar line-up boasts all kinds of cures for festival-related troubles: Danish punks Iceage will torch the place on 5 Aug, bringing bravado, glamour and brutal riffs. On 16 Aug, riotous, joyful Madridbased four-piece Hinds will steal hearts and minds. Artist, songwriter, poet and (probably) sorceress Jenny Hval brings her singular performance style on 20 Aug. Blanck Mass will

provide a service of soul cleansing through immense, intense drone on 22 Aug. And everyone’s best friend Charlotte Church returns for two nights with her Late Night Pop Dungeon in tow on 25 & 26 Aug: if it’s anything like last time, you’ll be singing En Vogue in a ditch come 3am. Throughout the rest of the month, you’ll also find sets from Awesome Tapes from Africa and Optimo, havoc from the Lemon Bucket Orkestra and Orkestra Del Sol, and guest appearances from some of our local faves: Pictish Trail, Withered Hand, Iklan and Savage Mansion.

Dissection Room, Summerhall, Edinburgh, Wed 23 Aug

MUSIC

THE SKINNY

August 2017

A Fly on the Wall Former Mercury Prize winner Benjamin Clementine is set to perform new material at the Edinburgh International Festival. He tells The Skinny why it’s his most ambitious work yet

Interview: Jonathan Rimmer

Clementine, who was himself bullied as a child, identified the connection, although different in scale, between victimisation at home or school and the trauma of displacement by war. “I wanted to touch on issues I’d read or heard about that are ongoing and somehow bring them as close to me as possible,” he says. “It’s a risk I’m taking but it’s one I’m happy to take. If you read in a book about Aleppo, about a bomb being thrown or whatever, that can be very complicated. So it’s a way to better convey issues and understand a situation.” Elsewhere, Clementine references the infamous Calais refugee camp on the song God Save the Jungle as a way to make wider comment on chaotic western foreign policy. He even labels our political leaders as “nothing more than mere animals.” Continuing, he goes on to say, “Maybe I’m being harsh but it’s hard not to describe them in any other way. You look at what happened at Grenfell recently; look at what happened in elections and how our leaders behave towards normal human beings. The song basically says if there is a God out there, then that God needs to come out and save our jungle.

“When people understand what you’re doing it’s the most vitalising thing” Photo: Micky Clement

Benjamin Clementine

enjamin Clementine is a promoter’s dream and he knows it. Although it’s two years since the avant-garde singer and pianist picked up the Mercury Music Prize for his debut album At Least for Now, the rags-to-riches tale that led him to that point has been told and retold. It bears repeating once more: as a 19-year-old Londoner he left home “in a crisis state” due to family trouble. He flew to Paris, where he was essentially homeless for four years, but managed to get by busking on the underground. He was discovered by a travelling agent and signed to Virgin/EMI not long after. It’s a magnificent story, no doubt, but you get the impression Clementine is exhausted talking about it. Despite his achievements so far, he’s frustrated by what he perceives as a lack of recognition from the British public for his type of music. “There’s an emptiness in me whenever I tour the UK,” he says. “There’s this thing in me that makes me wish and hope whenever I come home, but I wish you could feel what I feel.” As dramatic as that sounds, it’s in keeping with Clementine’s impassioned style. Compositions are raw and intense, with his oscillating vocals dictating the mood and direction of any given track. His voice is often described as ‘soulful’ by fans and critics, but, with the exception of Nina Simone, the frequent comparisons to American soul and jazz artists tend to leave him cold. “I never really liked that kind of music – in fact I hated it,” says Clementine. “I thought it was too vain and pretentious. They just said the same

Feature

things over and over again. Although it’s hard to get away with saying this looking like I do, I just didn’t find an interest in it and it’s important to me to not get boxed into that category. I grew up listening to the likes of Puccini, Debussy and Pavarotti before I ever listened to ‘popular music’. If you look at Puccini’s operas, for example, they’re all so varied. For me, that is creativity.” That might surprise some listeners; Clementine has a penchant for the operatic, but his delivery and choice of language can be strikingly personal. However, his time in France has also inspired him to draw from different musical movements. Chanson performers like Édith Piaf, Henri Salvador and Léo Ferré have had an influence in particular. “In France, and continental Europe as a whole, there’s still this concentration on bards and poetic expression,” he says. “In England, we seem to be more obsessed with celebrity and farce. We once had that storyteller tradition of Noël Coward, Cecil Sharp and Jake Thackray. In France, they’re still in touch with their own traditions. “In the UK and America, there’s this emphasis on how you look and how well you sing in a popular context. If you look at someone like Serge Gainsbourg, he could hardly sing but it was what he was saying that made people adore him. When I’m making music it’s not about how well I sing the song but what I’m trying to say.” Clementine’s disillusionment with his home country makes sense. While he has returned to living in England, most of his time is spent on the

road. It’s a lifestyle the former busker prefers, especially for the sake of his writing process. In his words, I Tell a Fly, his upcoming second album, is all about “being a wanderer and an alien.” This is reflected in his choice of instrumentation on the project. Whereas his debut was characterised by vintage strings and subtle percussion, the follow-up is decidedly more left-field. Clementine says he was inspired by a trip to the London studio of Damon Albarn, with whom he collaborated in January. “I always start off with one instrument: the piano. I arrange songs that way and then I build from there, but when I first went back to the studio it just sounded like the first album. Luckily, when I worked with Damon Albarn, his studio had so many different instruments and sounds,” he tells us. “I thought to myself, why not try and use these to capture the themes of the album, of being an alien and so on. It helped me reach the place I wanted to go to. If I hadn’t gone to the studio and discovered those instruments, I’d still be somewhere trying to bring that second album into reality.” But Clementine’s mission to avoid what he regards as cliché and narcissism goes deeper than just the tools he uses. Rather than spilling out all his personal demons onto the canvas, he prefers to use other stories and situations as a conduit for his various messages on political and social issues. He wrote his latest single The Phantom of Aleppoville, for example, after being emotionally affected by the writings of a psychoanalyst.

MUSIC

“I try not to be totally direct in these messages because that can sound preachy. Rather, I try to put my feet in other people’s shoes and write as if I am them. Then I go to an instrument – I play piano quite alright – so I go to the piano and try to bring a thought I’ve conveyed to life. I get into a surreal place and then I somehow bring it to reality.” Clementine is unnecessarily modest about his technical abilities but determined in his artistic scope. He says he was “deeply chuffed and appreciative” of his Mercury Music Prize in 2015, but didn’t regard it as “the greatest of heights or something for an artist to put their life on a line for.” Nina Simone, one of Clementine’s heroes, famously said “it’s an artist’s duty to reflect the times in which we live.” While he might appear aloof or pretentious at first glance, there’s a clear yearning on his part to live up to those words. Ahead of his performance at the Edinburgh International Festival, where he intends to perform much of his new material for the first time, The Skinny ask what his biggest ambition is? “To share my music wherever I go, of course,” he responds. “But I increasingly realise I also want to be appreciated for what I do more than where I’ve come from.” He continues, “When I get on stage I can feel whether it’s going to be a good night or not, whether the vibrations are right. In most cases in the UK, although people love it, it still feels like there’s still some work to be done on my side to get people to understand what I do. That’s one of my main ambitions because when people understand what you’re doing it’s the most vitalising thing.” Benjamin Clementine plays Festival Theatre as part of EIF, Edinburgh, 10 Aug, 7.30pm £20-35 benjaminclementine.com

THE SKINNY

The Mane Event We speak to MANE ahead of her first trip to the UK as part of this year’s Made in Adelaide programme he Adelaide Fringe is the Australian equivalent of its Edinburgh namesake, and is the second biggest annual arts festival in the world. With music at its core, in 2015 the South Australian capital was declared a Creative City of Music as part of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network. Last year the Arts South Australia-funded Made in Adelaide scheme was launched, to help raise the profile of artists from Adelaide to an international audience. This year Arts SA has partnered with Olaf Furniss, director of Edinburgh’s Born to be Wide showcases, to co-host a special Music Made in Adelaide evening on 9 August at Summerhall. Beginning with a live panel discussion, the free event will also feature a live showcase from three of Adelaide’s best up-and-coming artists. One of the acts set to perform at the showcase is MANE. Also known as Paige Renee Court, MANE has been getting national radio airplay in Australia, and in 2016 she won two South Australian Music Awards for Best Female and Most Popular Pop Artist. Last year she released her debut EP House of Horror, and over the past couple of years has toured extensively around Australia as well as taking in shows in New Zealand and the USA. Due to the almost ten-hour time difference, we send some questions to Court via email ahead of her upcoming visit to Edinburgh. “This is my first time to the UK and Europe and I’m really looking forward to playing shows and exploring the market,” she tells us. “I’ve heard such great things and I think some of the shows are going to be quite

special. Being able to play in Edinburgh during the Fringe will be pretty amazing.” As well as playing shows in Edinburgh, Court is also going to be playing shows in London, Hawick and Germany. On her Facebook page she announced the “exciting news”, and gave “big cheers to Little Acorn Music, Arts South Australia and Born to be Wide for conjuring up such a special time.” We ask how important it truly is for an artist like MANE – who’s hoping to gain traction beyond Australia – to have this kind of support network. “It’s super important to be in tune with each other and have good communication. Sian [Walden] – my manager – from Little Acorn has done such a great job setting the majority of this tour up and I’m stoked she is going to be coming over for it.”

MANE

“ Being able to play in Edinburgh during the Fringe will be pretty amazing” Paige Renee Court

She also recognises the importance of government schemes like Arts South Australia, who operate much like our own Creative Scotland, saying: “Arts SA have been great to me. Like a lot of government schemes [they] help provide the

Sounding Modern Ahead of their involvement in the Made in Scotland 2017 programme this August, we speak to Modern Studies about their special SOUNDING show

t the onset of World War One, still a few decades before the invention of radar, the British Navy figured that if they couldn’t see submarines coming, perhaps they could at least hear them. It was this reasoning that found esteemed nuclear physicist Ernest Rutherford holding a colleague by the ankles and effectively giving him a swirly in the Firth of Forth. The poor fellow “had his head dunked vertically to see if he could hear in the water,” Rob St. John of Modern Studies recounts. “It was like something from a Monty Python sketch!” St. John had this bizarre scene in mind when the band conceived SOUNDING, Modern Studies’ collaborative concert with Lomond Campbell which runs for three nights at Stockbridge Church during the Fringe. He came across the anecdote via anthropologist Stefan Helmreich, the author of Sounding the Limits of Life, from which the event takes its name. “I had this phrase, this idea in my mind about ‘sounding’... sounding depths, soun-

ding space,” St. John explains. “This idea of sounding out a space, sounding someone out about an idea, this kind of pushing a little bit at the limits of things but also inviting people into a conversation.” Come August, that conversation will take the form of an audiovisual experience in which band members Emily Scott, Rob St. John, Pete Harvey and Joe Smillie will debut material from their second album alongside a considerable cast of musicians. “We’ve got ten strings, two trombones and three extra singers,” Scott confirms, “so hopefully it’ll be a fairly epic occasion!” It will also be the first time that Lomond Campbell will perform his 2016 album Black River Promise as it was recorded, featuring ornate string parts written by Harvey and performed by the Pumpkinseeds Chamber Orchestra. It’s thanks to funding from Made in Scotland, an organisation that supports homegrown performing arts at the Fringe, that the band were

Modern Studies

August 2017

soon, I’m really excited about it,” Court says. “It’s been a work in progress for a while so I’m stoked to finally be able to get it out there. There will definitely be more tour dates in the pipeline with that release and hopefully that will involve coming back to the UK and EU at some point.” MANE’s sound is reminiscent of Lana Del Rey, Lorde and Moloko, and much like them she has a voice of her own. Her rich, soulful vocals are full of emotion, and layered over a bed of well crafted beats, piano and guitar. We’re certain MANE will find more than just a few new fans during her UK and European travels this August.

able to put together such an ambitious show. “I really want people to feel like they’ve had a sort of one-off experience,” says Scott. “I don’t know if we’ll ever have the kind of funds or the wherewithal to do this kind of thing on a regular basis.”

dard approach but generally we do like to change the mood drastically,” says Scott. “It’s almost like, you don’t want to practise the person’s song; you want to listen to it and then sing it how you remember it. You obviously don’t want to offend somebody by doing it totally wrong but it’s sort of easier to interpret something if you don’t know it massively well to start off with.” As for their new material, the pair drop intriguing hints. “There’s lots of nice old 60s and 70s analogue synths and tube organs and various tape delays and all this sort of stuff,” says St. John. “We’re drawing from the same well but everything’s going to be louder, weirder, you might even be able to dance to it.” Scott concurs: “I think things have sort of gone in a [slightly different] direction, maybe a little bit darker, a little bit more driven. Rob’s guitar playing went from really beautiful tender folk picking to actually slamming his electric guitar with a drumstick six months later!” They’ve got some exciting news too – the new record will be released early next year on Fire Records, the label once home to acts like Pulp, Neutral Milk Hotel and Spacemen 3. The deal was signed “at Glastonbury of all places, on the bonnet of someone’s Volvo in the artist’s camp next to some bins,” St. John reveals. “We’re really delighted. They’re a great label with a real cool pedigree.” For now though, Modern Studies are focused on making SOUNDING “really special and really generative,” says Scott. “Something where you go and it’s maybe just a little bit more than just your normal gig.” With the promise of two stellar acts, accompanying projections and a specially printed publication distributed to all ticket holders, it’s shaping up to be among the most invigorating and immersive experiences going in Edinburgh this summer save being dooked headfirst in the Forth.

Emily Scott

Photo: Paul Marr

guidance, tools and financial support needed to embark on things such as an international tour, which can be crucial as an independent artist.” And she adds that having the extra help from Born to be Wide’s Furniss is going to “make the time over there that little bit more special.” Much like Adelaide, Edinburgh is a festival city so Court is making the most of her time here already with six shows planned between 7 and 13 August. We ask what she’s hoping to get out of playing in Edinburgh: “I think for the most part being able to play to a different audience,” she replies. “Given the time of the year I’m sure it will be buzzing with people who appreciate live music, which no doubt will help create a great vibe for all the shows we have locked in while I’m there.” So after her UK and EU tour, what’s next for MANE? “I’ll be releasing a brand new single very

“ It’s like they’re a bed of soggy lettuce and then the band sort of sits on top of that”

Interview: Andrew Gordon

Photo: Cantwell

Interview: Tallah Brash

With this in mind, Scott was adamant her arrangements make the most out of the available resources. “I think a lot of people will have a string quartet on things but then aren’t really using them well. It’s like they’re a bed of soggy lettuce and then the band sort of sits on top of that.” Scott believes that strings and brass should be integral to the work rather than just embellishment tacked on at the end, as is so often the case in pop music. As well as performing their own work as never heard before, the two acts decided to try their hand at each other’s material (and to great effect, we might add). Campbell opted for the Studies’ buoyant beauty Father is a Craftsman, deep-frying its delicate melody in oily psychedelic Americana, while Scott, St. John and co. took on the brooding Every Florist in Every Town. Modern Studies have established something of a procedure for doing covers at this point, having recorded a few already for Mojo magazine and Earth Recordings. “I wouldn’t say we have a stan-

Music

MANE plays as part of the Made in Adelaide showcase at Summerhall, 9 Aug. Other Adelaide acts joining her on the night are Carla Lippis and Wanderers manemusicaus.com madeinadelaide.club

SOUNDING is on at Stockbridge Church, Edinburgh, 20-22 Aug Modern Studies play Electric Fields, Drumlanrig Castle, 1-2 Sep sounding.org.uk

Feature

THE SKINNY

Castle Rock Finally on the verge of releasing their debut album, The Skinny meets up with Neon Waltz in the Islay Inn to find out what the future holds for the six-piece band from Caithness

Interview: Chris McCall

travelled to Scotland twice to attend gigs by her favourite band. “Has anyone ever made that journey before?” wonders Shearer. “Tokyo to Wick. You fly into John O’Groats International Airport.” Joking aside, their home county remains important to them. Few Scots ever make the journey north of Inverness, let alone Japanese super fans, and Neon Waltz’s gradual climb of the music industry ladder is a source of local pride. They still rehearse at a former croft belonging to the family of the band’s bassist Calvin Wilson. The weekend before our interview, the band convened at Freswick Castle for an intensive writing session focusing on new material. The former Norse stronghold and local landmark belongs to a friend of the band, which it’s safe to say offers more inspiration than the average suburban rehearsal studio.

“We had beers and tried to keep them cold by putting them in the bath. And they still tasted like they’d been in a kettle”

Photo: Ronan Park

Jordan Shearer

late Saturday morning in a quiet Glasgow pub on the edge of Kelvingrove Park. A group of friends in cord jackets and denims, with sunglasses at the ready, nurse their first pints of the day, looking to shake off hangovers of varying strengths and face the new day with vigour. It’s a scene being played out in bars and cafes across the West End of the city after a night spent on the other side of town at the opening day of TRNSMT, the stripped down urban music festival held at Glasgow Green. Neon Waltz have the quiet confidence of artists who nailed their performance. Except they’re not due on stage for another seven hours. This is merely the warm-up before the soundcheck before the show. The group, who all live in or around John O’Groats, some six hours’ journey by car to the north, have rented rooms in a nearby student halls as their base for TRNSMT. Judging by the face being pulled by frontman Jordan Shearer, it wasn’t the most comfortable of stays. “The rooms were so hot,” he groans, placing his head in his hands. “We had beers and tried to keep them cold by putting them in the bath. And they still tasted like they’d been in a kettle.” Such is the glamour of life on the road for touring bands not blessed with the riches of major label support. But Neon Waltz aren’t complaining. Far from it. This is a group who happily drive themselves across the UK for shows, believing a tour manager is a luxury they can live without. “They are pretty much taxi drivers who

August 2017

print out setlists,” deadpans drummer Darren Coghill. “But we’ve made a lot of friends doing it our way.” The Skinny first met Neon Waltz back in March 2015 before a show at Nice ‘N’ Sleazy, a short stroll down the road from where we are now. Despite only forming the year before, and hailing from one of the most remote corners of Europe, they had by then secured a deal with Atlantic Records and were being managed by Ignition – the firm which oversaw the not-too-shabby careers of Noel Gallagher and Johnny Marr. Fast forward two years and the band have cut ties with Atlantic – albeit on good terms – but remain with Ignition. They’ve played countless shows and released several well-received singles. But now, at last, following recording sessions across Glasgow, London, and Eastbourne, they have an album in the can and ready for release. Strange Hymns is out on 18 August via Ignition’s own label. A stronger debut LP from a Scottish band you are unlikely to hear in 2017. The ten tracks will be largely familiar to anyone who’s caught Neon Waltz live at one of the 70 or so shows they play annually, but they still have the power to inspire. Bare Wood Aisles – the song that first got them noticed online – sounds unlike anything else produced in recent times. The organ fills provided by keysman Liam Whittles elevate them above the average guitar band. Then there’s recent single Dreamers, a life-affirming anthem which features Shearer imploring ‘You should do

what you love while you can’. But then you need a positive attitude if you’re going to spend half your life driving to and from Caithness on roads far removed from the luxury of motorways. “Being on the road is second nature to us,” Coghill says. “Even before we were in a band. If you live in Caithness and want to see a show, you have to travel down to Inverness or Glasgow. Besides, we’re cooking with gas now – we’re a better live band than we’ve ever been – something just feels right. Maybe it’s not having the pressure of a big record label behind you. We’re having a lot more fun [and] there’s something about it now that makes more sense. We have more confidence in what we’re doing [and] we’re not praying before shows that people like us.” Shearer agrees. “It’s at a stage now that we can play anywhere and revel in it.” Being a six-piece band, it’s little wonder they hope to reach a level where they can routinely perform on larger stages. They got a taste for it supporting Noel Gallagher at the famous Apollo theatre in Manchester in 2015 and are eager to reach that level again. What worried them most ahead of that show wasn’t stage fright, but more the worry of being hit with a plastic pint of weak lager... or worse. The band are launching their album somewhere closer to home, at Wick Assembly Rooms, and will welcome many of their diehard fans. Among those making the journey will be Nanase Iwakawa, a 25-year-old jeweller from Tokyo who has already

MUSIC

Meanwhile, the artwork for Strange Hymns was taken on the island of Stroma, two miles off the coast of Caithness in the Pentland Firth. It was inhabited for millenia and as recently as 1901 was home to almost 400 people. But its population – like many island communities across Scotland – went into freefall as the 20th century marched on. Its final residents abandoned the island in 1961, leaving behind numerous houses, a church and a school which are slowly being reclaimed by nature. “The view from my kitchen window of the Orkney Isles is blocked only by Stroma,” Coghill explains. “There’s nothing other than a mile of water between me and the rock. I look at it every day, but the maddest thing is that I’d never been. Finally getting the opportunity to go I didn’t know if it could fulfil what my imagination was suggesting. We took an acoustic guitar and a little Casio battery operated keyboard with us hoping to make some recordings on the island… possibly the first ever recordings. We had no idea that we’d find this organ and that it’d work. Sometimes it just all adds up: the song, the sound, the surroundings, the people and the history. I see the island in a totally different way – there’s something really magical about it for me now.” Refreshed from these adventures, the band are already planning album number two. “It’s important to keep the momentum going,” says Shearer. So will album number two be another couple of years away? Coghill issues an emphatic no. “I don’t want people to think we’re the kind of band that take years to release anything. There are six of us writing songs. There’s a whole lot of material piled up.” Strange Hymns is released on 18 Aug via Ignition Records Neon Waltz play Belladrum Tartan Heart Festival, 5 Aug; Wick Assembly Rooms, 19 Aug; Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh, 6 Sep facebook.com/neonwaltz

Feature

Rave Tapes Ahead of his appearance at Summerhall this August as part of the Nothing Ever Happens Here series, we speak to Brian Shimkovitz about his Awesome Tapes from Africa

rian Shimkovitz is a DJ with a difference. Not only does the LA-based selector (who also splits his time between NYC and Hamburg) specialise in niche music from the African continent, but he also delivers his sets via an unlikely format – the humble cassette tape. “I don’t think that there are too many DJs in the world that are doing that,” Shimkovitz agrees. “It’s a thing that kind of just happened, because people started asking me to DJ when I was doing the blog, and it just never even crossed my mind not to play with tapes.” Shimkovitz is the man behind Awesome Tapes From Africa – a DJ moniker, music website, and record label that brings the diverse sounds of African countries to the ears of music lovers around the globe. The unique project began over ten years ago, when Shimkovitz was a student in Ghana and became captivated by the cassette culture of the country. He later returned to the region on a government research grant, and as he explains, “I brought back a lot of tapes [from that trip], and moved to New York after a while, and just kind of started it as a hobby, and as a way to show people what African music sounds like.” Shimkovitz’s description is a modest one. Take one look at his Awesome Tapes From Africa website and you’ll see thousands of unearthed records, catalogued meticulously by decade (from the 1970s to 2000s) and geographical location. Each listing appears with a scanned image of the original cassette cover artwork, and Shimkovitz also provides a few concise lines of context and background to each tape. It’s a music-obsessive’s treasure trove, and one that is even more impressive given that, when Shimkovitz started his project in 2006, there was nothing else on the internet quite like it. “At that time, there weren’t as many Africabased music streaming sites,” he agrees. “Now there are a lot more, for every country, so you can

Feature

actually find so much more music online [now] than you could back then.” As well as opening up the sounds of West Africa to a global audience, the obvious thing that stands out about Awesome Tapes From Africa is the atypical music format. When CDs began to capture the market in developed countries in the early 90s, cassettes faded into the background, but Shimkovitz reveals that “between 2002 to 2008 or 2009, in most countries that I’ve been to around Africa, cassettes were still being produced during those years. “I was collecting tapes because tapes were the big thing, the main thing, if you were trying to check out as much music as possible,” he says. Ironically, he notes that “now more recently when I go there, in Ethiopia, Senegal, South Africa, places like that, you can’t really find tapes unless you really look for them,” describing how the tapes have now acquired a kind of rare collectors status once reserved for obscure vinyl. The blog became so successful at introducing the music of these countries to new and eager audiences that in 2011, Shimkovitz launched the Awesome Tapes From Africa record label, which reissues tapes from his repository in vinyl and CD format. It’s further homage to the tangible quality of analogue recording, Shimkovitz concurs, citing the current vinyl and cassette resurgence as further proof of a consumer appetite for material objects. He muses, “I think part of it is that people like the physical [aspect of tapes], because the CD and the MP3 got us away from that tangible medium. Even mainstream artists are starting to press tapes, just as another thing to sell – so it’s a bit capitalistic, in a way,” he adds with a laugh. “But it never went away – with noise music and certain underground music, the tape never went away.” Cassette tapes are also ingrained in

Shimkovitz’s early musical influences. “When I started going to raves in the mid-90s, it was all tapes. I grew up in Chicago, and people were making beat tapes with hip-hop producers, and then I grew up listening to The Grateful Dead, and that was all tape-trading of their live shows. So the tape thing was never too foreign to me, just because of my age, and the stuff that I was into growing up.”

“Before I knew how to match beats on cassettes, I just found ways to make it not sound too bad” Brian Shimkovitz

The tape may not be foreign to Shimkovitz, but for many selectors, DJing a set entirely via cassette would present a daunting challenge. “You kind of have to fast forward and rewind a whole bunch of times,” he says of the technical aspect of tape DJing. “You find the beginning of the song, which takes some time – you have to focus, you can’t be hanging out and talking and drinking and stuff. It takes a few go-arounds to find matching tempos, the way that you would with vinyl or a CDJ, but it’s just a weirder mechanism. It’s less minute, it’s more difficult to deal with, but I’ve gotten used to it just from years of doing it.”

CLUBS

Interview: Claire Francis It sounds like an acquired skill, we offer, and he laughs. “I wasn’t so good at it at first – before I knew how to match beats on cassettes, I just found ways to make it not sound too bad,” he admits. “I’m not someone who dreamed of being a DJ all day when I was a kid. It just kind of happened, very organically.” And what about that most dreaded cassette fate; the moment where ribbons of tape are suddenly chewed up by the deck? “Usually I’m watching out and I’m careful about that!” he responds. “There’s times where a cassette can go into the machine and it’s a little bit messed up in there, and you don’t see it because it’s dark, or the machine might be old and it might have some dust… I try to use my own tape decks most of the time on tour; I used to just kind of rely on whatever people could give me because I didn’t want to be picky, but I’ve gotten pickier,” he laughs, “so I usually bring my own stuff.” As for his ‘record bag’, Shimkovitz estimates that his collection is now numbering upwards of 5,000 tapes. “I used to say 4,000 but I was saying that for like a really long time,” he laughs, “I’ve gotten a lot more tapes since then, so I would say more like 5,000. People kind of hit me up sometimes and sell me tapes, or give me tapes as gifts, I get a lot of random people emailing me.” Going back to Shimkovitz’s work as a label owner, ethics is one thing that he agrees comes up often in conversation. Before you pass him off as a white, American male profiting from the music of underprivileged, black artists, consider that before reissuing any record, he works tirelessly to track down each artist and ensure they are properly recognised and remunerated for their work. “I have to get the rights to reissue the records; I have to actually track [the artist] down before I can start the project. So at any given time I have ten or twenty things that I’m working on where I’m trying to find somebody – through journalists, or through community organisations overseas, and then also through good old-fashioned Google stalking.” When we suggest that this process, at least, has surely gotten easier due to the constantly expanding amount of information available online, he says, “that’s a good call – yeah, it has gotten a lot easier, because when I first started the blog, I noticed that for a lot of the artists, you couldn’t actually find any information about them online. Now fast-forward ten years and there’s quite a lot more hits coming up. But there were quite a few artists and records that I would search and you would get zero Google results, which is a really fascinating thing.” In addition to reissuing the work of artists on the label, Shimkovitz also plays a hands-on part in connecting them with booking agents and helping them obtain visas to play shows. “The most rewarding thing for me in life these days – the thing that I’m most focused on – is helping maintain the touring lives of the artists on the label,” he says in a heartfelt tone. “Being someone who’s lived in West Africa, and also travelled in other parts in West Africa, I have a lot of friends there, and there’s obviously a tonne of poverty and a lack of resources. Any time that you can connect directly with a family and help bring foreign exchange into their zone and they can do stuff with it, that’s just a huge thing. By putting out the records, reissuing the records and getting the artists on tour, that’s providing in some cases quite significant income.” With that ethos in mind, Shimkovitz’s tapes from Africa seem very awesome indeed. Awesome Tapes From Africa plays Summerhall, Edinburgh, 10 Aug; The Berkeley Suite, Glasgow, 11 Aug awesometapes.com

THE SKINNY

Fully Flexed Interview: Claire Francis

Ahead of their long anticipated debut album, we speak to Belfast duo Bicep to find out what’s taken so long

he Feel My Bicep blog started out in 2008 as a way for childhood pals Andy Ferguson and Matt McBriar to share music with like-minded friends. On the strength and growing popularity of the blog, via which the Belfast pair would curate a constant stream of head-turning club tracks and unearthed gems, their production career as Bicep was born. Almost a decade later, as DJs, producers and label owners, the duo are one of the most popular and significant acts on the UK’s current dance music scene. After years of prolific EP releases and a constant touring schedule that’s seen them develop a renowned live show, Bicep are set to release their self-titled debut album on 1 September. The duo have become synonymous with hard-hitting dancefloor cuts, but when we speak to them ahead of the imminent album release, McBriar reveals that the forthcoming record showcases a different side to Bicep. “We were definitely not thinking about the dancefloor when we were making this album,” he states. “We spend a lot of time making and listening to stuff that’s maybe slower or more intricate, and I think obviously when you’re thinking about nightclubs you’re often thinking about the dancefloor. “It is, I suppose, showing a different side to us,” he continues. “It’s a bit more musical and a bit more thoughtful than some of the club records we’ve made. And so it’s definitely going to appeal to some people, and there’s [also] going to be some people that just really want to hear club material. And that’s fine, we’ll still release club material in future, but I think it was definitely about sort of broadening our appeal.” The album, which is comprised of 12 tracks that blur the distinction between raw energy and refined ambience, is the product of a willingness to experiment and explore their sound, the duo concur. “We did about 60-odd demos of really varied music – some of it very ‘clubby’, some of it really not – and then from those demos we whittled it down to 12 tracks that were a broad representation of what we were doing and enjoying at that time,” explains McBriar. “It’s definitely a more home-listening album rather than club music,” he adds. “It’s pretty varied, there are some ambient tracks on there. It’s kind of a slice of our influences, but the influences are really across the board.” Befitting for a duo that boast an expansive knowledge of music, Ferguson explains that when they were recording the album, “there wasn’t one style or one artist that directly influenced it. I think it’s a process of us just building up the music over ten years. You’ll hear little bits of everything in there, hopefully.” McBriar adds, “We definitely wanted to approach it more from a long player perspective, as opposed to a load of stand alone tracks.” Their first EP was released in 2010, so for many Bicep fans, this album feels like a long time coming. The pair explain that the decision to release an LP stemmed from both a combination of the right timing, and a desire to diversify their creative process. “I think we got to the point where we’d done quite a lot of EPs, and it does just get a wee bit restrictive in terms of, you’ve gotta have something that works in a club,” says McBriar. “We’ve talked about an album for years and years but it just felt right now. We had our initial studio experiment, and yeah, it just kind of came at the right time.” “I think if we’d been [just] DJing for ten years, and not released as much music, there’d have been a lot more pressure, but we’ve released so much music already, this is kind of like it was an album for us, not necessarily an album for everyone else,” Ferguson offers. “I think you can rush an album – if we’d done one three years ago, it would

August 2017

have been immature. I think we’re at the level now where we’re just happy with what we’ve done.” The pair certainly appear to have relished the opportunity to set aside any industry or consumer expectations and focus on making a record that allowed them free rein to experiment with their sound. They explain that this unencumbered mindset was responsible for Aura, the final track and lead single from the album. An up-tempo track that marries ominous bass notes with buoyant synth lines, they describe the process as a “happy accident”. McBriar says, “I think we approached every track quite differently, we tried to experiment a lot. I don’t think we’ll ever make a track like that again – it was just one of those things where it was like, ‘that was amazing’, and then we moved on,” he laughs. This looser production approach has also gone some way to reinvigorating the duo’s writing efforts, they agree. Ferguson muses that “there was a period, I think maybe two years ago, where – not that you run out of ideas… but through that experimental process of making the album, we loosened up a lot. Even going through the process of translating the tracks into a live show, you come up with way more ideas. You may as well keep making music while you still have ideas,” he laughs. “And it’s only the first of many [albums] that we’ve been planning,” reveals McBriar. “We’re going to start working on the next one pretty soon.” This productivity clearly reflects a close working partnership between the two. Nearly ten years in the game together and a series of relentless international tours must sometimes add pressure to their relationship, we venture. “It seems like we’ve always got something to do,” laughs Ferguson. McBriar agrees: “Yeah, we don’t

have time to fight because we’re always busy, we’ve always got an interview or a track to do,” he laughs. “Fighting would literally take up too much time,” he adds. Ferguson laughs, “yeah, it’d be inefficient.” With the album all wrapped up and set for release, for the remainder of 2017 Bicep will concentrate on a busy international tour that sees them take their live show on the road throughout the UK, Europe, Asia and the USA. On 5 August, the duo will return to Edinburgh for their third successive performance as part of Nightvision on The Fringe. They’re undoubtedly firm favourites in Scotland, and it seems as though the feeling is mutual, as they enthuse about the multitude of shows they’ve played here previously.

“You may as well keep making music while you still have ideas” Andy Ferguson

“To be honest, they’ve all been amazing. It’s really hard to single one out. It’s very similar to Belfast – it must just be the constant bad weather,” laughs McBriar. “I suppose some of our first ever gigs, in Edinburgh and Glasgow, when we were first DJing out… you go from playing in a bar with like 12 people, and you have to play something really slow because you don’t want to be hammering it out in the corner of a bar. And then

suddenly you release a few records, and then you get your first [big] gig. Like the first time we played Sub Club, it was completely packed, people were thumping the roof, screaming and cheering.” Despite the big-room appeal of their live performances, the pair also agree that they regularly look for the opportunity to play intimate venues, explaining that smaller, more relaxed shows complement their diverse musical palette. “We often say ‘look if possible, can we play in the afternoon or early evening’ and that gives us the chance to play a lot more down-tempo and a lot more chilled [music], and that’s something that we actually love. It means you can play records that you never actually think you can play,” McBriar discloses. Feel My Bicep was born from a love of music, so it feels only right to close the conversation by asking two people with such an expansive ear for music about an album they never tire of hearing. Surprisingly, the answer comes instantly, and is a unanimous choice for them both: “We literally just answered this in another interview,” they laugh. “It’s [Aphex Twin’s] Selected Ambient Works [Volume] II. I still get goose bumps when the third track kicks in!” McBriar exclaims. “I listen to a couple of tracks off it every week. It’s like the perfect ambient music, especially after a lot of heavy music touring, it’s just so musical. It’s definitely my favourite album ever,” adds Ferguson. Such is Bicep’s reputation as both trusted performers and esteemed curators that when they name a classic, we’ll take their word for it. Bicep is released on 1 Sep via Ninja Tunes Bicep play Nightvision at The Liquid Room, Edinburgh, 5 Aug. BAaD, Glasgow, 30 Nov feelmybicep.com

Photo: Ben Price

CLUBS

Feature

Photo: Vernon Maxwell

Constant Movement We speak to Angus Andrew about break-ups and idyllic nature ahead of the release of TFCF, his first solo record as Liars

or almost two decades, there haven’t been many projects like Liars. Constantly shapeshifting, the Australian-American band have frequently moved locations (Brooklyn, Berlin, Los Angeles), managing to escape the perils of sterility that befall many other acts who have been active that long. Liars started during the Napster-years with their 2001 debut They Threw Us All in a Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top, moved seamlessly through the hype-blog era where “noise” became briefly trendy on 2004’s They Were Wrong, So We Drowned; hit the Vice Music Berlin hipster scene before it became over-saturated (Drum’s Not Dead / Liars), predicted indie’s increasing turn to LA (Sisterworld), and then electronica (WIXIW / Mess), always remaining fresh and innovative with each release. However, life so often gets in the way, even for the most established or respected acts. For the majority of their existence, Liars were a trio: Angus Andrew, Aaron Hemphill and Julian Gross, who would collectively play as many instruments as humanly possible across their ever-changing material. Gross left in 2014 after the completion of the band’s last album Mess, leaving the original core of Liars, Andrew and Hemphill. When the time came to write the follow-up, things started normally enough, in a Los Angeles studio – where the band had been based since the late 00s – recording new samples and pieces towards a new album. “I would just set a drum kit up and play an interesting sound or bass guitar or whatever, and ended up with thousands of files upon files to work with,” Andrew explains on the phone from New York. However, what he didn’t yet know, was that his partner in crime, Hemphill, who had returned to Berlin, announced he was done with the project and the band. It was initially a devastating blow for Andrew, who had all of a sudden lost his creative partner of 17 years. “Don’t get me wrong, we came to a mutual understanding and we are still good friends, but creatively that relationship is over, which was a very difficult thing to understand but also very inspiring,” Andrew explains. “It was like writing a romantic break-up album as if I was writing directly to Aaron.” So while Liars traditionally stayed

Feature

unpredictable and ahead of the curve due to their restless abandon for experimenting and challenging themselves, this time around, the new element is pure unbridled emotion, something rarely shown in the electronic, noise or indeed post-punk genres. But, that is where we find Liars’ eighth album, TFCF – short for Theme From Crying Fountain – the first as a solo venture from Andrew. It’s something of a spiritual sister to Björk’s Vulnicura (also her eighth, coincidentally enough) in that it’s a brutally raw album, about a break-up, in which both Andrew and the listener have to confront the situation. This can go a long way in explaining the album’s striking artwork too, an image of Andrew as a jilted bride, left at the altar with his/her wedding cake, after his/her partner has left them. “I felt like I was married to Aaron and I had been abandoned. I liked the idea of being the bride because, for so much time, you get the impression that your music is only appealing to men. I wanted to create something for the men to digest, which was me as a woman, which I hoped would make people feel uncomfortable.” This idea of discomfort and juxtaposition, against the relatively warm sounding music, is something that has constantly driven Andrew as an artist: “I want to feel frightened with a decision that I’ve made and the whole process of putting out this record was that, so it only made sense to make something consistent with that in the artwork.” After realising he would be creating this album solo, Andrew retreated to his native Australia and effectively became a hermit. “I always made the conscious decision to live in certain cities as part of my creative process, whether it be Berlin, New York or Los Angeles, and they suited me at the time. However, I always knew I would come back to Australia eventually,” Andrew recalls. “I made quite a drastic change because I moved from LA to an island in a national park just north of Sydney, completely cut off from roads, and to get here you have to travel by boat. I always wanted this idyllic place to live.” These idyllic surroundings are featured in a series of recent teaser videos promoting his latest album. To him, isolation has always been a central focus of his music, though he does admit

he wasn’t sure if this would work in his homeland. “I felt a bit worried because I was no longer an outsider as I always considered Australia my home. So I set up this studio out in the bush, and for the first few weeks I would just sit and listen to the surrounding nature, all alone, which was pretty inspiring.”

“I felt like I was married to Aaron and I had been abandoned” Angus Andrew

Andrew used his isolated surroundings as the literal background noise while recording TFCF. “I always had a live microphone pointed outside towards the bush while I was recording inside the studio, so I could use these natural rumbling sounds. Nature has an irregular rhythm. There’s no consistent beat or time signature, just this constant movement which meant I wrote this much more free-formed music. Compare that to Mess and Wish You (stylised: WIXIW) which were very rigid, computer-based albums because technology forces tempos on you but that matched the rhythm of living in a big city. It’s very tough to isolate yourself so drastically but also very rewarding creatively. I loved making this record as a result.” Using his surroundings as a backdrop to his music, Andrew began putting together the myriad samples and ideas he had recorded in LA. Inspired by Detroit house and hip-hop, he used the “chopping and screwing” technique with his recordings to create something new. “When I began thinking about this record it was the first time I had really considered sampling. I had done it previously but without really recognising what potential it had. I would just use stuff to suit me as and when. Hip-hop was certainly one of the big touch points for this but I also discovered

MUSIC

Interview: Adam Turner-Heffer vaporwave. It’s become kind of uncool now but I found it really interesting the way those guys would re-appropriate certain everyday recordings into new songs.” As a result, much of TFCF feels like a weirdohip-hop record, such as recent single Cred Woes, reminiscent of Beck’s work on Odelay! with the Dust Brothers. However, this only tells half the story, as for perhaps the first time in Liars history, the album opens with an, albeit very warped, acoustic guitar ballad. “The idea was to completely mess around with these samples of live instruments, with pitch and tempo, to create something completely new and open up new possibilities in my music. The chance to completely change stuff was very exciting.” There is a deep emotional resonance created from this technique, something similarly displayed on Nicholas Britell’s score for the film Moonlight, which is consistent with the ‘break-up’ motif. “This is certainly a very emotional album and while I didn’t necessarily know that’s what I would create when I started, it naturally progressed that way. I was writing about this deeply personal time in the breakdown of my relationship with Aaron and I wasn’t even sure at first if I was even going to be able to release this material. But at some point, you just have to take the plunge and go with it.” Despite the amicable break-up, Andrew is excited for his upcoming tour with an entirely new live band and the opportunity that brings. “When you have a large back catalogue you tend to think about your own music in a certain way, so it was really exciting to have some new talented musicians to join in and say, ‘Why aren’t you playing these songs live?’ It’s meant there is a new lease of life on some songs that are well over a decade old, so expect some material we’ve never played live before,” which surely, is just as exciting for any fan, old or new, seeing Liars this year. TFCF is released on 25 Aug via Mute Records Liars play Doune the Rabbit Hole, Cardross Estate, Stirlingshire, 18-20 Aug liarsliarsliars.com dounetherabbithole.co.uk

THE SKINNY

August 2017

THE SKINNY

Cold Sweat Two years ago, Everything Everything predicted Brexit, Trump and terror. We speak to frontman Jonathan Higgs to talk about their fourth album, A Fever Dream, as they go back to human basics to find a solution

“I

t was such a strange experience. We were watching on as things started to become more true than when we’d written them down.” A little over two years ago, Everything Everything released their third full-length, Get to Heaven. There’d always been a political bent to their music, and particularly to frontman Jonathan Higgs’ lyrics, but only then had it come to the fore – and dramatically so. Taken purely at face value, it remained very much what we’d come to expect from the Manchester outfit; complex rhythms and yelped vocals, dance music with an acid tongue. This time, though, the nervous energy that had always been their calling card was being channeled in another manner entirely. Get to Heaven had Everything Everything looking outwards, and they didn’t like what they saw – to put it mildly. The Wheel (Is Turning Now) was born out of revulsion at UKIP, but touched more widely on the idea of demagogic leaders. Regret seemed to be about suicide bombers, specifically Britons leaving the country to join ISIS in the Middle East. No Reptiles spoke to Higgs’ deep disdain for Britain and what it stands for. Zero Pharaoh talked about how absolute power corrupts absolutely. You can see where this is going, and that’s just it – two years ago, so could Everything Everything. They might not, admittedly, have foreseen it happening quite so quickly, but in retrospect, Get to Heaven is deeply unsettling in its augury, given that its overriding message seemed to be that it was a matter of time before the atrocities that played out day in, day out on 24-hour rolling news channels became a reality for the Western world, too. Since Get to Heaven was released, populism has gone on to score two huge victories, with Britain voting to leave the European Union and Donald Trump being elected President of the United States – both notions that would’ve been dismissed as absurd on the day that the record dropped. Terrorism has since arrived right on the band’s doorstep, too – first metaphorically, at a rock club in Paris, and then geographically, at the arena in Manchester, a venue they opened for Foals last year. “To see these things fall into place as we were promoting the album was bizarre,” says Higgs. “We played our own show in Paris a week after the Bataclan attack, and the atmosphere... I can’t even put it into words. To have been so close to that, and to what happened in Manchester, and to see Trump and Brexit become reality – these were all things that we were hinting at, saying ‘this could happen here soon’. It was frightening to see it happen the way it did; the night of the Bataclan, we did a gig in Newcastle, and my niece came along – she would’ve been nine or ten. Realising that it could have been her caught up in something so devastating really brought home the fact that maybe we’d been saying those things on the last record at a comfortable distance. All the same, they came true.” Perhaps that was what spurred the group into following up Get to Heaven so quickly. From Higgs’ perspective, there was a feeling that their last LP was already a little out of date – not just because it had correctly augured ill for the immediate future, but also because the news cycle, the one he seemed so horrified by, and yet so unable to extricate himself from, is now moving at such a pace that anything too specific is quickly outstripped by whatever the next story is. “It’s not just that things are changing so quickly now,” he explains. “It’s that, unlike two years ago, everybody’s talking about these huge events that are happening all around us.

August 2017

“We wanted to distance ourselves from them a little bit, and get back to what’s being forgotten about – things that are happening on a micro, human, personal level. Everybody seems 50% angrier than they were, and nobody’s trusting the media, or the police, or the government. It feels like everything’s up for grabs, and we’re not talking about me and you any more; everyone’s in their own echo chamber, and the new record is trying to tap into ideas of neighbours and communities. Where has everything I used to take for granted gone?”

“It’s not like we called it This Is a Fucking Nightmare, because there’s positives and negatives, horror and joy”

that’s had to happen subtly, because you don’t want to make some great shift that isn’t true to yourself. We might switch to a minor key in a way that we wouldn’t in the past; there’s little moments of hope and positivity in the music that we would previously have stamped out for fear of looking weak. There might be less of a juxtaposition than before, but I suppose ultimately, trying to impart any kind of message through the medium of a beat is kind of insane.” In turn, that begs the question as to how audiences are going to react to an increasingly political Everything Everything at live shows; for all Get to Heaven’s justified doom-mongering, the songs themselves were never especially difficult

Interview: Joe Goggins

to move to, but the sonic gloom can feel suffocating at points on A Fever Dream. “I guess it remains to be seen,” laughs Higgs. “There’s a lot of dark shit on the record, but we’ll always shake it up on stage if we feel like it’s becoming too miserable. The key is energy – high-energy and low-energy is a much better way to describe music than happy and sad, or heavy and light. We want people to move, and we want them to be moved. Those things are much more important than making sure everybody goes home with a smile on their face – and god knows what band you’d be going to see if that was the case! We want to fuck you up, basically – so no change there.” A Fever Dream is released on 18 Aug via RCA

Jonathan Higgs

In that respect, A Fever Dream feels like their most powerful statement to date, and not just because far more people will be minded to sit up and listen to them now that they’ve proved how perceptive they can be. It’s their first to be produced by Simian Mobile Disco’s James Ford, a long-time target of theirs for his ability to meld both dance and rock – something they’ve done more strikingly here than ever before, with Higgs pitching the album somewhere between the electronica of Warp Records in the early 90s and the instrumental brutality of Radiohead at their most intense. It’s their darkest-sounding record by a distance, all pounding drums and guitars that wail like sirens, but it’s also one on which they find a level of emotional balance that perhaps evaded them previously. “Pretty early on, we had this recurrent idea of what a fever dream is; this nightmarish landscape that feels surreal,” Higgs tells us. “That’s true of the last couple of years, where we’ve seen things happen that we never thought would, where we’ve lost things we thought we’d have forever, and seen things returning that we thought we were rid of. That said, there’s been positivity in unexpected places, too, and the title A Fever Dream seems like a perfect way to comment on what it is to live in the west now. I mean, it’s not like we called it This Is a Fucking Nightmare, because there’s positives and negatives, horror and joy.” Lead single Can’t Do serves as a good example of that overarching theme, speaking to the near-universal frustration of not feeling good enough or that you truly fit in – the latter being something that Everything Everything, with all their myriad eccentricities, know plenty about. Despite the angst, though, the track carries the band’s trademark of being infectiously danceable, which isn’t always true of A Fever Dream overall – there’s some thumping rock brooders, too, and you wonder whether, for the first time, the band have made a concerted effort to square their sound and their message. “I think Alex [Robertshaw, guitarist] was keen to make sure things matched up a little bit more this time,” Higgs admits, “and that’s something

MUSIC

Feature

Ready to Go We speak to Big Thief’s James Krivchenia about life on the road and their latest album, Capacity, ahead of their upcoming support slots with Conor Oberst

location in Woodridge was a familiar environment to the band – cold and snowy with nothing to do outside – yet a stark comparison to New York City where the four now live. “There was this really intense focus on working on the record and there wasn’t anything to do around town or anything besides go[ing] for walks and stuff,” Krivchenia explains. “We were definitely very focused.”

“If it’s not really doing anything different, then I’d rather just hear Adrianne play it solo because that’s usually pretty powerful” James Krivchenia

The getaway gave Capacity a more concentrated yet relaxed recording process than its predecessor, Big Thief’s debut record Masterpiece, released just last year. The band had a general idea of how they wanted Capacity to sound, but they didn’t work on the record prior to arriving in the studio. On the first day at Outlier Inn, Lenker brought her bandmates songs she had in mind as potentials for the record, as many as 22 or 23, which they eventually whittled down. Each day the band recorded a few of these, planning the arrangement before putting the song to tape. Lenker may have even written a few songs on Capacity at

the studio, although Krivchenia can’t remember if any of these ended up on the record. “[Lenker]’s friggin’ cray-… She’s a prolific writer,” Krivchenia says, checking his enthusiasm. “She’s always writing and so there’s so much material she has. She just sends the songs over text and we talk about it and then when we show up we actually flesh out the idea.” Given the quiet intensity of the songs on Capacity, we can’t help but imagine that the band playing them together for the first time in the studio must have affected the atmosphere substantially. For some of them, it must have been quite an emotional experience. “Yeah, it was cool,” Krivchenia replies. “It was nice to not have the baggage of comparing something to what it feels like live or how good it can be live, because that can often happen in the studio. [When you] get a song that really feels good live and people connect to, and then you try to do that in the studio, oftentimes it doesn’t really translate the same way because it’s just a different process. It’s cool to not have anything to compare to; just trying to make it as good as it can be in that moment.” Capacity is far more than just ‘good’; it’s an elegant and affecting record which has been met by much critical acclaim. Starting with the lingering acoustic ballad Pretty Things, which Lenker plays alone with unsettling rumbles in the background, Capacity quickly brings the rest of Big Thief in for Shark Smile’s harrowing highway blues and the clanging celebration of the title track. Krivchenia praises the hands-on work of producer Andrew Sarlo for aiding the flow of the record, as he encouraged the band to start recording or keep working on certain tracks, preventing them from getting bogged down by one song for too long with so many to record. Krivchenia says that there were already songs that he saw as contenders for Capacity before the band started to record, but there were others that surprised him as they came together, like the

Photo: Shervin Lainez

ig Thief have grown accustomed to being on the road. When we speak with James Krivchenia, drummer of the indie-folk quartet from Brooklyn, New York, the band are taking a pit stop in the middle of a long drive in the middle of a long tour. For the bulk of the past few weeks Big Thief have been playing across the Midwest and the Canadian Prairies, as the band spend their summer attending festivals and squeezing tour dates in between. On the day we talk, they’re set to play in Omaha, Nebraska, home of their record label Saddle Creek, and will hang out with everyone associated with the label that night. Over the coming weeks the band are supporting big hitters like Belle and Sebastian and Wilco, sure to discover new fans along the way. “The shows have been great,” Krivchenia says when we ask what he’s enjoying about the tour so far. “A lot of places have just had a really good energy in the crowd and people are really stoked to see us. It’s revitalising to show up to a place when we’ll be really tired from a drive and people are genuinely pumped and want something to happen.” The band’s travels aren’t limited to North America either. Big Thief played a short UK tour earlier this year, and are back this month for a string of dates which will be followed by further touring in the States, before they return to Europe again for a round of headline shows in October and November. It must be a pretty draining experience? “This is kind of just like the norm now,” Krivchenia replies, laughing. “We’ve been touring pretty non-stop for a couple of years now so we’re getting pretty good at it at this point!” The building interest in Big Thief comes on the back of their latest record Capacity, their gentle yet captivating second LP which was recorded at Outlier Inn in upstate New York in the depths of winter. With Krivchenia born in Minnesota and the group’s lead songwriter Adrianne Lenker also growing up in the North Star State, the studio’s

Interview: Chris Ogden

Feature

MUSIC

album’s soothing guitar closer Black Diamonds. The track was very different at the demo stage – written by Lenker on piano and one of the songs recorded at Outlier Inn. However, after sitting on it for a week the band thought it could be better, worried they were adhering too closely to the demo. They subsequently rented a night of studio time in NYC to tinker with it and the song has now become one of his favourites on the record. “My personal comparison is always just like, ‘Is the band version better, or does it do something different than the solo version?’” Krivchenia explains. “If it’s not really better, and if it’s not really doing anything different, then I’d rather just hear Adrianne play it solo because that’s usually pretty powerful.” The best case for the power of Big Thief as a quartet is Capacity’s centrepiece Mythological Beauty, a hypnotic and raw song which Krivchenia says was an obvious contender for the record from the off. With Krivchenia’s soft, crisp drums setting the pace for Max Oleartchik’s propulsive bass groove, Buck Meek’s swelling guitar work only makes Lenker’s gentle picking and tender reflections on parenthood and mortality more touching. “I thought a lot about that one,” Krivchenia confirms. “It wasn’t a groove that necessarily presented itself to me super clearly in the beginning, when I was just listening to Adrianne playing it on guitar. In my head I was like, ‘Ah man, it can’t be like half-time…’ I wanted to keep the drivingness of it. That beat came from me trying to just be really simple and honour some of the original groove that was in Adrianne’s fingers [on] the guitar.” The first chance people in the UK will have to see Big Thief since Capacity’s release will be when they support Conor Oberst at his London, Liverpool and Glasgow shows this month. Krivchenia listened to the indie-folk idol as a teenager – his favourite Bright Eyes record was 2000’s frenetic Fevers and Mirrors – and he expresses his admiration for how Oberst is continuing to evolve alongside other artists. “We [aren’t] really thinking about Conor at all when we’re making our music now but we definitely have a lot of respect for his conjuring,” he says respectfully. “He’s a master conjurer – a teenage conjurer. He taps into something, for sure.” Krivchenia had never been to Europe before Big Thief started touring, so all the cities the band visit are new discoveries to him. He’s most enjoyed playing Glasgow where the shows have been great, but is keen on visiting more cities now the band are travelling to Europe so much, starting with their headlining tour. “I want to go to Wales more because my grandma is from Wales,” he says, enthusiastically. “We drove through Wales playing a festival [on] our first tour; it was just amazingly beautiful and there were castles like every half an hour! I don’t think we’re going to hit any of it in October / November but I really want to do an Eastern European tour and see a lot of those cities and travel around there. It seems like we’re going to be going back [to Europe] at least a couple of times a year so I’m stoked about that.” We’ve already been momentarily interrupted as Krivchenia climbed in the car, with he and Lenker doing interviews at the same time, but it seems our time is up. “They’re kind of ready to go,” he says, trailing off. So we leave Big Thief to get back on the road, with four more hours to go before Omaha. We imagine that with Capacity there’ll be many more places yet to come. Capacity is out now Big Thief play Doune the Rabbit Hole, 18-20 Aug. They also support Conor Oberst at The O2 ABC, Glasgow, 22 Aug bigthief.net

THE SKINNY

A Beam of Light We speak to Tom Scholefield, aka Konx-Om-Pax, in light of his recent shortlisting for the SAY Award and in anticipation of his new EP, Refresher

onx-Om-Pax roughly translates to ‘light from a single beam’, a fitting moniker for multifaceted artist Tom Scholefield. Based in Germany but hailing from Glasgow, his output spans various media, unified by a singular vision and drive. The impressive number of forward slashes in his job title (musician/animator/director/illustrator/ artist/DJ) speaks of a singular talent and an unbridled desire to create. While he could easily have ended up tied in knots trying to reconcile all the different strands of his work, he’s an artist with a finely tuned sensibility whose projects are increasingly interconnected, and one who is clearly entering a period of maturity. This is perhaps best showcased on his latest album, 2016’s Caramel, a golden slice of rave nostalgia which was shortlisted for the 2017 Scottish Album of the Year award. The surging, multicoloured forms created by Scholefield for the album cover serve as a precursor to the burst of euphoric sound within. Following on from this album’s success, new EP Refresher is set for release on 11 August via Planet Mu. Within a limited space of just four tracks, Scholefield draws upon techno, Italo disco and ambient to create a stylised release working in the distinct sonic signature introduced in Caramel, even when switching tone and genre. With so many ongoing projects, Scholefield still found the time to fit in a chat with us. Calling from Berlin, he talks about his influences, creative process and his forthcoming projects, shedding light on his vibrant, creative world. To begin, Scholefield explains his choice of recording name – clearing up any occultist associations deriving from the homonymous Aleister Crowley publication on the dark arts – and the thinking behind such a distinctive alias. “It’s a piece by an Italian composer called Scelsi and it roughly translates into ‘light in extension’. I thought it was fitting for a visual album, I liked the way it looked and sounded and it’s quite cool to draw.”

buying lots of Ministry of Sound compilations and trance stuff. I know a lot of friends my age and that’s what everyone listened to really.” Talking more about how this fed into the making of Caramel, Scholefield explains: “I was listening to a lot of rave music and then listening to lots of William Basinski and Arthur Russell and Zoviet France, lots of ambient music. It was kind of about joining the dots between opposite ends of the spectrum, in a way – old school rave music that’s really fast and energetic for dancing but then trying to cross it over with really long loops, pieces that remind me of Steve Reich. “I’m trying to make music which sounds like what my graphics look like; bright and detailed, and [that] has more energy. I started off releasing music that was really harsh and noisy and abstract and I’ve sort of manoeuvered it into slightly more melodic stuff as I’ve got older. The image-making has always been quite bright and psychedelic so I’m trying to make the music more like that, so they become one.” Shrugging off the stress of combining so many projects, he says “It all kind of blends together, it’s like making a short film and I’m just art-directing everything and doing it at my own pace.” Continuing, Scholefield fills us in on the inspiration behind the vivid graphics that acco-

mpany Refresher: “The artwork for the new EP is kind of a remix for the [Caramel] album artwork. I’ve had time to think of it the last year and I developed the complexity and the way it looks. There’s remixes of [Caramel] tracks [on Refresher], so it’s nice to do the same for the art. We’re releasing a limited edition print that’s just like a super high-res detailed version that took fucking weeks to make – I assembled it as a jigsaw because it was too complicated for my computer to render at one time so I had to do it in bits.” Refresher is noticeably more danceable than its predecessor, Caramel – Scholefield tells us: “It’s the first dancefloor material I’ve made that I’ve really liked and I’m chuffed about it getting released. It’s getting some good feedback from DJs I really like. I just find making dance music really difficult, compared to weird ambient, there’s a lot more rules to follow.” As a DJ himself, it seems fitting that he release his own dancefloor-focussed material: “The more music you play, the more you listen to how it’s structured and you just try and copy it; it’s difficult yet really simple,” he explains. “I love artists like Robert Hood and Jeff Mills where there’s not much going on in their music but everything’s really well-crafted and interesting and delicate. It’s like a minimalist sculpture;

Interview: Megan Wallace

what’s there is really interesting and [so is] how they manoeuvre it.” It might sound a bit odd to liken dance music to minimalist sculpture, but it makes sense once you begin to understand things from Scholefield’s creative perspective. He makes music which is textured and tactile, as well as graphics-depicted, in such vivid detail that they seem to call out at you from the page. Unsurprisingly then, he carries this desire to create an all-around sensory experience into his DJ sets, where he often incorporates his own custom-designed visuals. In line with his increasingly mature sound as a recording artist and his career as a DJ, the graphics he creates alongside his releases are progressing in new directions: “I’m developing the album artwork into live visuals, using the 3D models and trying to animate them. It looks something a bit Ghost in the Shell but more like sculptures. It just looks like a movie version of my last album sleeve and they had lots of different loops but intertwined, a bit like the music.” On that note, we can’t help but hope that we hear (and see) a lot more from Scholefield in the future. Refresher is released on 11 Aug via Planet Mu soundcloud.com/konx-om-pax

“It all kind of blends together, it’s like making a short film and I’m just artdirecting everything and doing it at my own pace” Tom Scholefield

August 2017

Photo: Alba Rupérez

Elaborating, he adds: “I primarily picked it because it looked good written down, just from a graphic design point of view. The more I read into it, the more sense it made from a meditative point of view. And it’s nothing to do with Aleister Crowley! Someone wrote into Wire magazine years ago complaining that the journalist had got it wrong and thought I was an occultist.” On the subject of his beginnings as a musician, it’s easy to see why Caramel is so nostalgic for 90s rave culture: “I remember making quite weird trance music as a teenager on a Yamaha DJX keyboard. It’s like this toy almost, but you could record eight tracks on to it. And I remember listening to the radio a lot, trying to copy stuff like that. This was in the late 90s so I was

MUSIC

Feature

THE SKINNY

The Creative Process When he’s not stealing scenes as Hollywood’s finest character actor, Stanley Tucci writes and directs comic studies about creative people. His latest is a love letter to Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti and his struggle to complete his final portrait

Interview: Jamie Dunn

tanley Tucci loves his job. But then, of course, if you’ve seen any of his films, you don’t need to be told that; his joy radiates off the screen. He’s been working steadily in the movie business for three decades. His first credited role was in John Huston’s Prizzi’s Honor, in 1985, although Tucci claims “I was only a glorified extra”. But this is an actor who has thrived while appearing as the sixth or seventh name down the bill, and from these supporting positions he invariably ends up stealing the movie from his more famous co-stars. Throughout the 90s he’d pop up in all sorts – a gangster in Bill Murray’s Quick Change, an assassin in The Pelican Brief, one of the many Woody Allen stand-ins in Deconstructing Harry – but it’s his performances this century that have cemented his place as one of Hollywood’s favourite character actors. He’s played Meryl Streep’s acid-tongued right-hand man in The Devil Wears Prada and her charming husband in Julia & Julia. He was hilarious as Emma Stone’s goofball dad in Easy A, an effervescent bright spot in the dour Hunger Games series as a flamboyant game show host, and a salt-of-the-earth Boston lawyer taking on the Catholic church in Spotlight. Tucci is so good, he won the best supporting acting Oscar while playing a despicable character (a ponytailed child killer) in an awful film (Peter Jackson’s misguided The Lovely Bones). When we meet Tucci he’s in a buoyant mood, fresh from a riotous Q&A at The Edinburgh Film Festival where he had the audience in stitches with tales of thespian hijinks, including the story of a farting game he would play with Billy Connolly, Alfred Molina and Isabella Rossellini on the set of 1998 farce The Impostors. “I do like those Q&A things, they’re the best,” beams the 56-year-old New Yorker. “To me, that’s the perfect way to promote a film. You get a whole bunch of people in a room, everybody talks, asks you a few questions; it’s fun.” We’re speaking to Tucci the week that Michael Bay’s Transformers: The Last Knight, in which he plays Merlin – we’re not sure how the toy franchise meshes with the Arthurian legend, but roll with it – hits the big screen. The film he’s in Edinburgh to promote, however, does not contain any robot battles or wizards. In fact, it doesn’t even contain Tucci. He’s behind the camera as writer-director of Final Portrait, his love letter to Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti (played by Geoffrey Rush). The film focuses in on Giacometti’s painting of American writer James Lord (played by Armie Hammer) in his Paris atelier in 1964. Initially, Giacometti promised Lord that it would take him an afternoon to immortalise him. Weeks and several cancelled flights home later and Lord was still returning to the studio to sit for the self-conscious artist as he continued to paint over and rework the picture. Lord turned the Beckettian ordeal into elegant memoir A Giacometti Portrait, still considered a masterful study of the artistic process five decades later. “I love Giacometti and I love Lord’s book,” says Tucci when we ask what drew him to this particular episode in the artist’s colourful life. “Lord wrote really beautifully about Giacometti, and Giacometti was so articulate about his process. I carried the book around with me forever and I thought, ‘If I can make a movie out of this someday, I will.’ And so I did.” While the artist’s portraiture is striking, it’s his sculptures that are truly jaw-dropping. Two years before he painted Lord, Giacometti’s surreal, spindly creations, which range from artworks a few inches high to several metres tall, won him worldwide acclaim and the grand prize for sculpture at the Venice Biennale. When we speak to Tucci, he’s fresh from seeing those sculptures in

August 2017

the flesh, having visited Tate Modern’s major retrospective of Giacometti a couple of days earlier. “They knock you out,” he says of Giacometti’s sculptures. “Seeing them in the flesh you just see him trying to continue digging away to find the truth, to realise his vision, and that’s really what it’s all about. Whether you’re a painter or a musician or an actor, it doesn’t matter.” Tucci attributes his love for art to his father. “He was an art teacher, and used to paint and sculpt and do all that stuff at home, so he was greatly influential.” His father’s ardor for art even dragged a young Tucci and his family to Florence while he spent a sabbatical year studying bronze casting. “He was always sketching or doing something. He taught me how to do all sorts of different things, pottery or jewellery making or silk screen or whatever. He made art really exciting.” Final Portrait is Tucci’s fourth film as director, and within this small body of work there’s a theme emerging. Debut effort Big Night, which he co-directed with friend and fellow actor Campbell Scott, and which is still his finest film so far, is concerned with a perfectionist chef. Screwball farce The Impostors, his second film, focuses on two actors, while his third directing effort, Joe Gould’s Secret, is a charming portrait of bohemian author Joe Gould based on the writing of New Yorker journalist Joe Mitchell. In each case, the focus is on people with an urge to create, and Final Portrait follows this pattern “I know, I know,” laughs Tucci. “You found me out. I keep making the same movie all the time. They all have a similar theme, which is, ‘Why do you do what you do?’ They’re about identity, they are about creativity and about where that person fits into the whole of society. It’s all the same movie.” Final Portrait is perhaps the least successful of Tucci’s studies in creativity, but it’s not without its visual invention. Almost all of the film takes place in Giacometti’s messy Paris studio, which

has been lovingly recreated by the film’s art department, and Tucci and his cinematographer Danny Cohen make great use of the space, particularly in the long opening shot that introduces us to Giacometti and his place of work.

“The space people create between each other is a conscious thing. In movies, we never see this space, but it tells the story much more than a close-up” Stanley Tucci

“That opening is kind of a joke,” says Tucci, “because Lord goes, 'Oh, it’s going to take an afternoon' and then the door opens and it’s like a tomb, a tomb of creativity.” For Tucci, the space in which the action takes place is as important as the performances. “The space people create between each other is a conscious thing. In movies, we never see this space, but this [gesturing to the space between us] tells the story much more than a close-up of you or a close-up of me. This tells the story. It’s something that I work towards in every film. I’m getting better at it, I think.”

FILM

Over his three decade acting career, Tucci has had the opportunity to observe first-hand the working styles of some of the finest directors in the business. We ask what he’s learned along the way. “Every director is different,” he says. “You have someone like Steven Spielberg (Tucci’s director in The Terminal), who thinks in pure cinema and to watch him put together shots is pretty impressive. And then you’ve Tom McCarthy (Tucci’s director on Spotlight), who comes more from where I come from, which is the theatre and independent filmmaking, and Tom is in some way much more like I am as a director.” A filmmaker from whom we assume Tucci has borrowed little is Michael Bay, who he’s worked for twice in the Transformers films, playing two different characters. But to our surprise, Tucci is as enthusiastic about his work with Bay as the other directors he mentions. “Oh, Michael’s completely manic and frantic, and what’s so great about working with him is that he’s totally spontaneous, which can drive the crew crazy because they never know what they’re doing from one day to the next, but as an actor it’s actually really fun. He’ll throw away the script and just say, ‘make something up.’ He loves actors, and they love him.” He does admit there are a couple of other reasons he likes to take roles in huge blockbusters like Transformers. “Well number one you make money,” he laughs. “That’s nice. But there’s a second reason and it’s even more important: more people are seeing what you do, and hopefully that’ll make them want to go see the smaller movie.” While we’re not sure the overlap between Transformers and Giacometti fans is significant, we’re happy to see Tucci mixing it up. Final Portrait is released 18 Aug by Vertigo Giacometti runs at Tate Modern until 10 Sep

Feature

Saints, Dragons & Spooks Ain’t Them Bodies Saints director David Lowery returns with a ghost story like you’ve never seen before

ou might imagine most directors coming from a large project would want to take some time off. Not David Lowery. Over the past five years, the Texas-based filmmaker has been directing non-stop. Two days after completing work on his heartfelt reboot of Disney film Pete’s Dragon, he went straight to work on a more personal feature, A Ghost Story, a profound meditation on the nature of loss, love and existence in a story where houses are haunted by ghosts draped in white sheets with holes for eyes, making them look something like a parent’s last ditch attempt at a Halloween costume. With A Ghost Story, Lowery is once again reunited with Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara, with whom he collaborated on the modernist Western Ain’t Them Bodies Saints. The story follows a 30something couple whose lives are transformed by tragedy when the enigmatically named ‘C’ (Affleck) is killed in a car accident a few feet from his home. He awakens on a hospital gurney draped in a sheet, gets up and sorrowfully wanders back to his home to find his girlfriend, ‘M’ (Mara). Wandering across a field in the early hours of the morning, he looks like the sort of cartoonish spook regularly pursued by the Mystery Inc. van. “I love Scooby-Doo ghosts!” begins Lowery excitedly. “I don’t know where the idea came from, but it has been bubbling in my mind for a long time.” When he says a long time, he means it. The 36-year-old director recounts old script and

Feature

short film ideas from years ago that all contained a ‘sheet ghost’ of some sort. “I thought about making a very traditional horror movie, something like The Conjuring or Poltergeist – the idea would be to make it as scary as possible but there would be this sheet ghost in it.” His new film couldn’t be accused of being scary. You quickly learn that this ghost isn’t the bump-in-the-night, scare you out of your wits type. Instead, Lowery wanted to take the iconic sheet ghost image and produce something more brooding. “There is something about taking the image of the classic children’s costume and using it in a serious fashion that has always appealed to me.” Lowery is well aware that at first glance the central premise is pretty wacky. “It always made me laugh, we all recognised how goofy the idea was.” Goofy it may be, but how did the director convince Casey Affleck to take a role where he would be hidden for much of the movie? “I texted him saying, ‘Do you want to come to Texas and make this ghost movie where you will be under a sheet?’ and he just text back, ‘Okay’” – it’s an exchange that speaks volumes of the pair’s close working relationship. But directing an actor in a large white sheet with a couple of holes for eyes proved to be more of a challenge than Lowery had expected. “It’s a lot more akin to operating a puppet than directing an actor,” he says. In fact, Lowery ended up having to rein in Affleck’s performance. “I believed before we started shooting that we would see

Casey’s performance through the sheet, and that was what we pursued early on.” It didn’t work. “[I] had to strip back Casey’s performance. It came down to a great deal of technical specificity and almost zero emotional investment. I would say, ‘Move your head an inch to the left and then stand still for five minutes.’”

“We all recognised how goofy the idea was” David Lowery

Central to the film is the theme of time passing. We see Affleck’s ghost sorrowfully watch as his girlfriend moves on and new residents move in and out of their old home; all the while he’s unable to affect what happens before his dead eyes. “I am fascinated by the idea that time is a physical dimension that we have the potential to transcend. The idea of breaking through that and being able to move in any direction fascinates me.” The director also wanted to make sure there was an emotional response to the grand ideas at the centre of the movie. “On an emotional level, it is incredibly resonant. I’m not fascinated in H.G. Wells’ time travel to change things, rather it is the idea – to use Kurt Vonnegut’s term ‘Unstuck in Time’

FILM

Interview: Joseph Walsh

– to transcend the idea of linear progress or thought. I didn’t want to make a grand statement about those ideas, rather I just wanted to explore it.” For all A Ghost Story’s philosophical concepts, Lowery does inject a great deal of heart into the film. In part, it’s due to the choice of music, including the sorrowful single I Get Overwhelmed, by Dark Rooms, which is used in a lynchpin scene of heartbreaking beauty. “When I was working on Pete’s Dragon, Daniel Hart, who wrote the score for the film, played a song for me that he had just recorded for his band’s new album. It blew my mind. The lyrics of the song don’t really apply that much to the movie, but the tone of the song is exactly in line with what I wanted to do with the film, and I knew it would become a defining aspect of it.” Unsurprisingly, Lowery is already at work editing his next project, also featuring Casey Affleck. Based on David Grann’s New Yorker article Old Man with A Gun, it’s a film that is taking him in another direction. “It is different, it’s mostly a comedy, it’s light hearted,” explains Lowery. “When we were shooting it, I kept on wanting to go in the opposite direction of where my instincts wanted to take me. I wanted to see how far I could push myself out of my comfort zone. I still think that it will feel like one of my movies but it is different.” A Ghost Story is released 11 Aug by Picturehouse Entertainment

THE SKINNY

ADVERTISING FEATURE

MEDITERRANEO OPENING PARTY Fri 4 Aug, 10pm-3am, £10 Mediterraneo brings Africa, southern Italy and Scotland crashing into Summerhall. Featuring pizzica exponents The Badwills, Zimbabwe jit legend Rise Kagona (ex Bhundu Boys), and Scottish psychedelic ceilidh maestros Awry.

Power Ballad

Dawn til Dusk then Dusk til Dawn T

he best chocolate bars are the ones with something hidden at the centre – gooey caramel, crunchy hazelnut, yet more chocolate. If the Fringe is a chocolate bar, then Summerhall is what’s hidden at the centre, a sharp-sticky-sweet-popping-candy chamber of things that make you “ooh” and “aah,” sometimes both at the same time (“aooohaahh”?) Summerhall hums from AM to PM – yes, like the Christina Milian song, don’t pretend you don’t know exactly what number it is at the karaoke. Get there early for bacon rolls and exceptional coffee, stick around for food trucks, Made In Adelaide’s coffee and wine bar, and some of the most exciting and dynamic performance the Fringe has to offer. The programme is full of the kind of things that will keep you talking all the way into The Royal Dick while sampling libations from our on-site brewery and gin distillery. The powerful political and social commentary of The Second Copy: 2045 will light a fire underneath you first thing, delivered with acerbic sci-fi wit. Power Ballad is a feminist rallying cry that doesn’t skimp on the guitar solos and key changes, while BlackCatFishMusketeer is a one-woman, threehander about our relationship with the internet, and each other. The spirit of rebellion is matched in the art programme – the This Is Hull! Rock Against Racism exhibition displays the iconic

images from one of music’s most powerful movements of the 1970s. The performances don’t stop when the sun starts to climb down beneath Edinburgh’s layers. The Nothing Ever Happens Here… line-up throughout the month has picked some of the world’s most interesting bands and songwriters to rock up in The Dissection Hall. Danish punks IceAge combine the sprawling drama of Nick Cave with the brash rebellion of Billy Bragg; Made In Scotland will be hosting three of the country’s best songwriters in Withered Hand, Savage Mansion and Iklan; and there’s a genuine-possibly-once-in-alifetime event in the shape of Lift to Experience, the Texan alt-rock supergroup who emerged at the beginning of the 21st century with a genredefying, critically-lauded rock opera, and then disappeared for over a decade. They’re back, baby, and if you wanna see them in Scotland, you’re gonna have to come here. The other thing about chocolate bars is, well, they’re pretty moreish. Summerhall’s the same, because once you get to one centre, you’ll inevitably find something new and different to bite into. We’re here to indulge your best urges this August.

ICEAGE Sat 5 Aug, 7-10pm, £16.50 Erupting into life in 2011 with the appropriately-named debut album New Brigade, recorded when the band were all in their teens, Danish punk quartet Iceage reinvigorated the idea of rock music as a primal, dangerous force for youthful expression. RHYTHM MACHINE Sat 5, 12 & 19 Aug, 11pm-2am, £6 This August Rhythm Machine – a night of dance music and live art – returns to Summerhall for three consecutive Saturday nights after a twelve month sell-out run in 2015/16. LEMON BUCKET ORKESTRA & BEN CAPLAN Tue 8 Aug, 8-11pm, £12 The Lemon Bucket Orkestra: Canada's only balkan-klezmergypsy-party-punk super-band. Born on the streets of Toronto as a busking band in 2010, the original quartet of guerrilla-folk troubadours quickly amassed a battalion of musicians. AWESOME TAPES FROM AFRICA Thu 10 Aug, 11pm-2am, £12 Since 2006, Brian Shimkovitz's Awesome Tapes From Africa blog has been shedding light on obscure and wonderful sounds from across the continent. BALKANARAMA Fri 11 Aug, 10pm-3am, £10 This year again we welcome Balkanarama – Scotland's own riotous night of all things Balkan! OPA!

ORKESTRA DEL SOL Sat 12 Aug, 7-10pm, £12 2017 is their last year! Edinburgh’s favourite purveyors of sousaphone-fuelled brassy honkstep will be hanging up their horns at the end of this year. FRANCOIS & THE ATLAS MOUNTAINS Tue 15 Aug, 8-11pm, £12 Frànçois & the Atlas Mountains are a French/British pop group, combining indie pop, folk pop, and African rhythms. HINDS Wed 16 Aug, 8-11pm, £18.50 Since bursting onto the Madrid DIY scene, Hinds – Ana Perrote, Carlotta Cosials, Ade Martin and Amber Grimbergen – have mastered a raw and playful sound all their own.

gothic metal band and nominee for the Norwegian version of the Brit Awards, Jenny Hval is a polymath creator with a strong track record. BLANCK MASS Tue 22 Aug, 8-11pm, £14 Electronic artist from the UK and one half of F*ck Buttons. Blanck Mass is a heavy, shimmering and orchestral work defined by manipulated field recordings, warm analogue synth, heavy sub and deep drone. JULIE BYRNE Wed 23 Aug, 8-11pm, £12 American wanderer Julie Byrne's second album, Not Even Happiness, vividly archives what would have otherwise been lost to the road.

LIFT TO EXPERIENCE Thu 17 Aug, 8-11pm, £32 The best band in the whole damned land (and Texas is the reason), they kissed the sublime, and splintered apart in the process. Their arc, however, isn’t yet complete – see them together once again in The Dissection Room.

PICTISH TRAIL & FRIENDS Thu 24 Aug, 8pm-3am, £14 Svelt, intelligent balladeer trapped inside the body of an oversized, oft-bearded folk ogre. 'A heady and enthralling mix of genres are each anchored in solid melody' (LouderThanWar. com). Live music and special guest DJs.

OPTIMO Fri 18 Aug, 11pm-3am, £12/£10 The legendary duo of Optimo will be taking over The Dissection Room space for another Optimo (Espacio) event this Festival.

CHARLOTTE CHURCH’S LATE NIGHT POP DUNGEON Fri 25 & Sat 26 Aug, 10pm-3am, £20 Up the dark, dark stairs, upon the bloody gallows of soft rock, through the oubliette of cheese, into the torture chamber of disco, you are welcomed to the Late Night Pop Dungeon.

WITHERED HAND, IKLAN, SAVAGE MANSION Sat 19 Aug, 7-10pm, £14 A live, eclectic set from three contemporary Scottish artists. Summerhall's unique and enchanting Dissection Room will see NEHH team up with Made in Scotland for an evening of innovational music. JENNY HVAL Sun 20 Aug, 8-11pm, £12.50 A singer, songwriter, novelist, journalist, former singer in a

XYLOURIS WHITE Sun 27 Aug, 7-10pm, £14 Master of Cretan lute George Xylouris and Jim White (Dirty Three), a most innovative and charismatic drummer, are creating a musical duo. Fluid in nature, exciting and edgy, the music is riveting, compelling and spellbinding.

What’s On in Summerhall in August SUMMERHALL VISUAL ARTS Wed 2 Aug, 7-9pm, FREE Summerhall launches twelve visual arts exhibitions across the sprawling building ahead of the fringe opening. Come down, have a mooch round and a wee glass of wine, at the Private View. SUMMERHALL VISUAL ARTS Thu 3 Aug-24 Sep FREE From Protestimony an exhibit created as a platform for refugees in Europe, Liliane Lijn’s works – an artist praised for pioneering the interaction of art, science and technology to Richard Lee’s This is Hull! Rock against Racism posters – the visual arts programme is there for the taking.

August 2017

SUMMERHALL THEATRE & PERFORMANCE PREVIEWS Wed 2-Thu 3 Aug (various prices) A chance to catch the fresh new work of theatre makers, dancers and performance artists from around the world as they preview their fringe shows ahead of Edinburgh Fringe. SUMMERHALL THEATRE & PERFORMANCE From Fri 4 Aug Head to summerhall.co.uk or swing by the venue (for a beer?) and pick up our Blue Blue Electric Blue brochure 2017 and get stuck in with the queerest, darkest, most magic of them all on stage at Summerhall.

Iceage

Feature

THE SKINNY

Losing It Gareth Tunley and Tom Meeten discuss making mind-bending psychological thriller The Ghoul

“I

think most directors would benefit from trying to be an actor for a day or two to see what it is like, and they would be more sympathetic every time they shout ‘action!’” That’s how Gareth Tunley, the actor-turned-director behind trippy psychological thriller The Ghoul, starring Tom Meeten and Alice Lowe, begins when we sit down with him ahead of the film’s UK release. The shift behind the camera has been a longgestating dream for Tunley. He’s been working as an actor for over two decades, appearing in the likes of Ben Wheatley’s Down Terrace, and collaborating for years with The Ghoul’s lead, Tom Meeten, but it’s taken awhile to get his own film projects off the ground. “I had been around the film industry with scripts,” explains Tunley, “and I was impressed by the feedback I received both positive and negative. But it became really clear that people weren’t about to give me half a million pounds to make a film. I knew that the only way to do it was to start pulling in favours.” For a first feature, Tunley has come up with an ambitious script. The story is squarely focused on Chris (Meeten), a police officer investigating a psychologist he believes is linked to a double murder. Managing to disguise himself as one of the psychologist’s patients, Chris finds that his mind is beginning to unravel and reality is no longer quite what it seems. Tunley wrote the script, honing it with Meeten and the film’s producer Jack Guttmann. The plot is intricately woven with a structure that bears similarities to Shane Carruth’s Primer, and explores themes as wide-ranging as the loneliness of London life, mental health and the occult. The Ghoul was partly inspired by what Tunley called

August 2017

his “black moods,” quipping that “they generally blow off after a decade or two.” The theme of depression – or rather psychology and its relationship to magic and the occult – lies at the core of this thriller. “When people are depressed they feel trapped in a cycle. So really it was about finding a visual representation of that.” Tunley is quick to state that he doesn’t have a huge interest in the occult, but years earlier had read Douglas Hofstadter’s Gödel, Escher, Bach, described by its publisher as “a metaphorical fugue on minds and machines in the spirit of Lewis Carroll.” Hofstadter’s novel lodged itself in Tunley’s mind, after “gestating, or percolating, or even festering” in his brain for several years, before becoming The Ghoul. Knowing that a first feature is always a challenge, Tunley wanted to make a film that could be adapted for a low-budget project, rather than start with an idea constricted by financial concerns. Fortunately, having worked in the industry for so long, he was able to call on past colleagues and friends. One such acquaintance was Ben Wheatley, who has lent his name to the film as an executive producer. Tunley’s experience working with Wheatley on Down Terrace was a formative one, allowing him to observe how to approach working on a low-budget feature. “Ben [Wheatley] has been a galvanizing force on all of us who’ve worked with him. With his early films and the initiative he showed in how he made them, there was a degree of canniness.” Tunley also knew that he was able to pull favours from old actor friends like Alice Lowe and Rufus Jones, who were happy to work under the demanding conditions of a first-time feature of this size. “I had a great crew. Our cast were under

a lot of pressure, working very fast: where normally you might have a day to shoot something we would have an hour or two.”

“ I have done a lot of crazy comedy roles – getting my balls out and things like that. Here instead I had to give a balls-out performance” Tom Meeten

He was also able to attract actors he hadn’t worked with before including Niamh Cusack and Geoffrey McGivern as a pair of sinister psychologists, and Paul Kaye, who provides a stellar scene as a worldly crook recounting a robbery gone wrong. “Paul took this little scene and invested in it wholeheartedly,” explained Tunley, giving one of many examples of the level of cast and crew he was fortunate to be able to bring on board. “Paul imbued the scene with a sense of gravitas and took it in its own direction – with very little input from me. I basically stood by the monitor eating Jaffa Cakes thinking, ‘This is going well.’” Meeten, who is better-known for his comedic

FILM

Interview: Joseph Walsh

collaborations with The Mighty Boosh’s Noel Fielding and for his Edinburgh Fringe double act with Steve Oram, was another friend of Tunley’s who threw himself heart and soul into The Ghoul, even taking on an ancillary role as one of the film’s producers as well as playing Chris. “I have done a lot of crazy comedy roles – getting my balls out and things like that. Here instead I had to give a balls-out performance,” jokes Meeten. Tunley also teases, adding, “The first time I met Tom was in a basement. He was wrapped up in bin liners and gaffer tape being shouted at by Steve Oram… I should say that this was part of a comedy sketch and not some form of terrifying mental breakdown. I immediately thought ‘If I ever want to make a serious cerebral psychological thriller, Tom’s my man’.” Not long before working on The Ghoul, he collaborated with Tunley on a short, The Baron, allowing them to develop a shorthand that would come in useful for the feature. Despite the unconventional role, Meeten embraced it with open arms. “I didn’t want to be too big a performance,” he explains. “The key to it was working with Gareth. We rehearsed a lot. Not walking through the scenes, but more reminding ourselves where we are in the characters’ journey. This gave us both the confidence to go for it.” Both Tunley and Meeten relished this way of working, having artistic control, but also being able to work with friends on a project into which they could pour their hearts and souls. As Meeten puts it: “There is no room for poncey egos. It was more like a gang of troubadours making something together – everything has to pull in the right direction to get it made, and that is an immersive experience.” The Ghoul is released 4 Aug

Feature

LE Y ST FE LI

My Tits Are More Feminist Than Your Tits What could #FreeTheNipple and International Go Topless Day do to be more inclusive and representative? Well, a lot actually..

Words: Kate Pasola Illustration: Jacky Sheridan

’ve been topless in public twice. Once, when trying out nudist swimming in Glasgow, and a second time at a boob-friendly beach in Barcelona. Neither were without secondary agendas; one gave me a banging story for an article, the other, an even tan. Plus, I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of semi-nudist beaches and the sandy, nipple-positive microcosms they provide. But apart from those brief forays into taps aff territories, my rack has barely seen the light of day. My nipples are not yet ‘free’ by western standards. And, unless you’re a cisgender man, chances are yours aren’t either. Instagram’s censorship rules still outlaw female nipples unless they’re mid-breastfeed (see: Useful Nipples), postmastectomy (see: Inspiring Nipples) or tastefully obscured by mesh or coloured pigment (see: Artful Nipples). The situation’s just as bad IRL, too. Though it technically isn’t illegal for a person to be naked in public in the UK, the legality of the situation is on the condition that their stripping off wasn’t intended to ‘shock or upset’ onlookers. That, if you ask me, is pretty subjective. Plus, arrest or no arrest, all sorts of social stigma and judgements tend to keep bras firmly locked to the ribcages of female-identifying people. Safe to say, there’s a hell of a way to go, boobwise. If you’re unconvinced, I’d like to suggest you take a short hiatus from this article to go and listen to Salena Godden’s poem My Tits Are More Feminist Than Your Tits, a riotous performance piece with such nuggets of lyrical ingenuity as “Walk a mile in my bra, see how you like them tits” “Would you talk to your mother’s tits like that?” and, my personal favourite “Can everyone stop being such a dick about tits?” And while I agree that freeing the nipple is kind of low on the list of feminist priorities, (waaay below preventing Trump the terracotta tyrant from tearing the globe into pieces) equal nip exhibition rights would be truly convenient and pretty symbolic. That said, the chances of me attending Edinburgh’s annual Free The Nipple rally, taking place on 26 August at St Giles’ Cathedral are littleto-none. The demonstration is an annual invitation for people of all genders “to stand up for women’s rights to go topless in public,” and this year marks the 10th anniversary of International Go Topless Day. But, as tit-liberation as I am, I don’t really see the point. Here’s the thing. In a way, I get it – an army of boob-hosts proudly marching through the streets during high Fringe-tide definitely raises awareness for the cause. And sure, these bra-discarders are pretty brave people. But designating just one day of the year to encourage the normalisation of fully naked boobs seems counter-productive. Do you know what else happens only once a year? Christmas – one of the least normal, most sensationalised creations of the modern age. You can see where I’m going with this, can’t you? Despite good intentions, we’ve basically created nippleChristmas, and I don’t think it’s even close to bridging the gap to knocker-equality. Sorry. But beyond that, there’s another obstacle between me and my participation in nipple-liberation movements. My own boobs. For context, they’re quite fucking massive (yes, hilarious, they’re both a literal and figurative obstacle). Their very existence – which, if you’re au fait with

Lifestyle

boob alphabetisation, lies somewhere between H and J – hurts my back and shoulders, and often makes it difficult to sleep and exercise.

“Designating just one day a year to #freethenipple is counter-productive. Do you know what else happens only once a year? Christmas” But also, more inconveniently, they’re shrouded in shame, they’re sexualised without my input and politicised to within an inch of their lives. I’ve spent the last decade feeling freakish because of them. There was the the adolescent

policing from other girls, (“Like, certain things just look sluttier on you! It’s so funny!”). There were the leering men who failed to realise I was just an abundantly-endowed 15 year-old and not an acceptable target for their advances. There was the dreaded bikini shopping with my mother that, without exception, would leave me sobbing in a Debenhams changing cubicle. I’m only just on board with my mammary lot as it is. They’re not the sort of wondrously perky, perfectly-sized boobs normally associated with nude feminism. And, while I’m not particularly eager to be publically topless any time soon, I’m pretty sure lots of women like me are, but don’t feel represented or invited. #Freethenipple is stuck in a feedback loop of white, slim, acceptably-boobed women. Out of the millions of types of breasts in the world, theirs are the closest to being publicly approved and the most wilfully received by the public. This means that slim, white women continue to feel able to turn up, and consequently inspire others like them to take part. But introduce weight, race, culture, ability, gender and most other intersections within feminism and things get more complicated. It becomes a little scarier to take off your top. It’s riskier. It is, to an extent, more radical. What’s more, the movement as it exists seems to be suffering from tunnel vision. Sure, the out-

DEVIANCE

lawing of lady-nipples in particular is a pervasive and easily identified problem. But taking off a top and unclasping a bra means so much more than just ‘freeing’ one’s nipples. It means showing a whole torso that might not feel acceptable to the world. It’s revealing the indentations from years of underwiring, it’s the scars, the stretchmarks and everything else that comes owning a pair of breasts. It means facing shame and troubled backstories and repressed memories. Acknowledging this wouldn’t dilute the #freethenipple movement – it would truly enrich it. Bodily liberation doesn’t begin and end at asking people to turn up topless. We need yearround discussion and representation; body positivity movements like @NonAirbrushedMe; specific provisions to tailor the campaign and its events to the diverse range of people interested in it. We need the erasure of rape culture, victim blaming and slut shaming. We need better sex education that teaches girls how to have a comfortable attitude toward their newly changing bodies. Nipple freedom will not be earned without intersectionality, thoughtful discourse and legislative changes. After all, to quote queen of tit-chat Salena Godden herself, “all tits are equal, but some tits are more equal than others.”

THE SKINNY

Living in Adelaide One Adelaide resident makes a convincing case for everyone to move to a land down under

lose your eyes. Picture a city. A city of wide footpaths and tall gum trees which line the outskirts of the CBD (Central Business District). Whose winter sun cuts through the chill to illuminate a bright blue sky spanning the full extent of the horizon. A young city of just over one million people. One million people who like to smile. Who like good coffee, great wine and some of the world’s best produce. A festival city, a city of churches – never mind the outdated labels, this city likes to imagine and reimagine itself. Forever critical and unrelentingly optimistic; Adelaide. She knows how to win you over, and once she does she’ll make it very hard for you to leave. Now open your eyes again. It’s summer where you are? A summer of grey buildings and greyer skies? Maybe I caught you on a good day. Maybe you think the fleeting summer sun will last this time. Adelaide’s summers are long and warm. It might be 10,000 miles away from your family, your friends, and everything you know, but maybe that’s what excites you. So how about, just for now, keep on imagining. For the space of this article, choose your own adventure to Adelaide. First things first: out of any and everywhere in Australia, why choose Adelaide? Now I don’t want to sugar-coat or misrepresent it. Despite the common self-defeatist cry in opposition, this city really does have everything. But usually only one of everything – making critical competition limited and growth slow and conventional. Excluding a history of pioneering women’s suffrage and banning the plastic bag, Adelaide is usually a little behind the curve of the avantgarde. Considering a lack of government funding in the arts in recent years and the rate of unemployment worryingly high, her people have learned that resilience and entrepreneurship may be their greatest assets. But she’s growing faster than she has in previous years and is bursting with small bars, cafes, pop-up festivals and events occurring across the calendar year. Furthermore, she is more affordable than Sydney or Melbourne but only a cheap plane flight away. She is no more than a 30-minute drive to the Adelaide Hills or to an endless strip of clean sandy beaches, and brimming with day trips to world class wineries. Birds sing in the trees and stars are visible from backyards. In a lot of ways Adelaide lives up to its stereotype as a glorified country town. This isn’t everyone’s thing, but it’s comfortable, and you’ll run into people you know all the time walking down the street or drinking at the pub. Oh and then there’s the festival season.

it is the best time to be in Adelaide, and a fantastic time to arrive as an international traveller.

months and you can apply to stay a further 24 months.

So now that I’ve convinced you, what type of adventure are you pursuing?* 1. Study abroad scholarship? The visa process may take a few months, but you’ll be eligible so long as you’ve been accepted to study full-time in an Adelaide university. The scholarship here is important since you can only work 20hrs a week (unless completing post-graduate research). You’ll also be required to fork out a significant health insurance fee – but the plus side is that you can stay in the country for as long as you are studying.

3. Temporary skilled work? Stay for up to four years working in a position nominated by an approved business. This job arrangement must be settled prior to visa application, so you’ll need a dedicated employer willing to stick out the process.

“The first six months will be the hardest. But if you keep pushing, barriers will eventually wear down” 2. A working holiday? Super easy to attain for those aged 18-30. Use Adelaide as a base for a year, work in a café and forget about the £7 an hour you'd make working behind a bar in the UK. In Adelaide you’ll be raking in $22-27 (£13-16). Want to stay longer than a year? Hit the road and get to know the ‘Great Outdoors’ working in regional Australia in specified work for three

4. Stay for good? To apply for permanent residency it helps to be a temporary skilled worker for at least five years. However, if you tick all the right boxes this isn’t always necessary. But don’t take my word for it – better to talk to a professional who can dot the i’s and cross the t’s. *Please note this is not an exhaustive list – check out www.border.gov.au for more advice. Finding your new home in Adelaide 1. You’re organised and booked student housing in advance. This is great for meeting those just like you and building a community amongst other international students, but these friends keep moving on and you want to connect to the actual residents of the city… 2. Searching Gumtree and Flatemates.com.au It isn’t hard to find a shared house just out of the city with three others, huge rooms, high ceilings, plenty of common areas, and both front and back yards. Maybe even a shed. And it’ll only take you a ten-minute Uber ride, or 20-minute cycle or bus ride to get central. 3. Your work is a little more stable and you want to live in the CBD. This will see you forfeit some of that extra common space as well as those

Words: Steph Daughtry

front and back yards, but you won’t meet a single hill cycling to the office or your favourite café. The city streets are quiet after dark and you’re unlikely to run into any trouble. 4. You want to buy a house. If you lay off the smashed avocados you may be looking at affording a deposit in 60 years or so. The final word… Casual daydreaming aside, if this has your feet itching for change here’s a few words of advice that will put you in good stead. Moving abroad will be the best of times, but it will also be the worst of times. If your intention is to break into the local community you’re going to have to put in the hard yards. You’re going to have to put yourself out there and continuously leap outside of your comfort zone. The first six months will be the hardest. But if you keep pushing, barriers will eventually wear down. Remember that friends, true friends, are a result of shared experiences and time passed. Most locals won’t be going through similar experiences to you. They’ll just be going about their daily lives. But like planting seeds, give it time, care and patience and connections and experiences will grow. As an Adelaide local I’ve never experienced migration to Australia, but I have done it the other way around. It changed me in ways I couldn’t even describe and I have met so many people across the opposite side of the world that I never would have known if I hadn’t taken my foot off the well-worn path and forged my own. Edinburgh, Scotland and its people are ever etched into my mind. You could make Adelaide a part of yours. Adelaide Fringe, 16 Feb-18 Mar 2018

Mad March aka The Adelaide Fringe A multi-arts festival that takes over the entire city might sound all too familiar, but imagine Edinburgh Fringe on a condensed scale and you will see the small but perfectly formed Adelaide Fringe. Only the best acts travel so far. Meaning you won’t see any amateur American high school groups naïvely wanting to ‘make it big’ on the international (open-access) circuit. Meaning the locals embrace the temporary cultural injection and you don’t get an endless mass of flyerers impeding your commute to work. Instead you soak up the warm days and nights by the riverside or in the parklands where green spaces have been transformed into magical garden oases and local venues burst onto the footpath with pop-up bars, street food and experimental acts. Without doubt

August 2017

TRAVEL

Lifestyle

At Souq Edinburgh, we bring the Middle East to you. A stunning array of hand crafted Turkish & Moroccan lights as well as ceramics, leather goods, sweets, and gifts from the region, adorn our loaded Souq shelves. The owners of the well loved Hanamâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s, Pomegranate and Lailaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s restaurants also bring you their atmospheric Arabic cafe in the basement of Souq for that authentic market place experience. 57-59 South Clerk Street, EH8 9PP souq-edinburgh.com info@souq-edinburgh.com 01316676601 @souqedinburgh /souqedinburgh

THE SKINNY

Food on the Fringe From the compelling to the slightly confusing, we round up the food-inspired shows and pop-up bars at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe that have attracted our attention

nother year, another Edinburgh Fringe. The world’s biggest arts festival rolls into / over / through town this month, and pervades every aspect of the cultural scene. That, naturally, includes the merry old land of food and drink, so we’ve put together a selection of the best food-related happenings at this year’s Fringe. Your pop-up veggie restaurants, your cabaret shows starring giant eggs – y’know, the usual Fringe stuff.

Theatre and Comedy We’ll start with something straightforward – an Egg. A solo theatre piece from Theodora van der Beek, Egg tackles issues of feminism, power and privilege, through the story of ‘one yolk’s quest to make it in a human world.’ It is also, and we can’t stress this enough, a one-woman show in which the lead character is a human-sized anthropomorphic egg. Something for everyone, then. 5-27 Aug, 2.15pm, Bourbon Bar (Venue 333), free. Speaking of eggs, when it comes to combining food with comedy, few people have been as effective in recent years as George Egg. His schtick is a cracker – Egg makes food on stage using a host of unconventional appliances and items, while doing the jokes at the same time. After the runaway success of his Anarchist Cook show – in which, amongst other things, Egg made a makeshift pancake station out of a pair of hotel room irons and copies of the Bible – he’s back with a new host of recipes and techniques in DIY Chef. He’s been digging around in the toolshed by the looks of things, so prepare to laugh, eat, and be inspired to misuse some common domestic tools. 2-27 Aug (not 14), 4.15pm, Gilded Balloon Teviot (venue 14), £9-10. Next, a dark comedy about accidental drugdealing! Flour is a new comedy from the Imperial College Dramatic Society, in which a pair of bakers stumble across a new and highly-addictive synthetic drug that just happens to be an exact doppelganger for the titular ingredient. What follows promises to be a hoot – the ‘bakers accidentally send customers into coke-fuelled frenzy’ premise is a potential Fringe classic, and the fact that the first two adjectives in the show’s description in the Fringe guide are ‘sweary’ and ‘aggressive’ bodes extremely well. Just work White Lines by Grandmaster Flash into the soundtrack, and we’ll be applauding in the aisles. 14-19 Aug, 6.20pm, theSpace on the Mile (venue 39), £5-7. From baking-related drug warfare to a bakingrelated sing-song, and The Bakewell Bake Off. Set in the village of Bakewell, ...Bake Off presents the stories of eight contestants and a trio of judges in an annual baking competition packed with intrigue and eccentricity. Ideal if you’ve ever wished Sue Perkins et al would bust out into a full-on dance number mid-bake, or if you simply want to reminisce about the simpler times before the Bake Off became synonymous with TV production politics. 7-12 Aug, 6.50pm, Quaker Meeting House (venue 40), £6-8. At the slightly less advanced end of the scale, The Great Comedy Cooking Challenge is the result of a challenge set to comedian and ‘culinary incompetent’ Jay Sodagar by fellow comic Andrew Roper. Sodagar was challenged to produce a three-course meal from scratch, once a week, for a year; this show will see Sodagar share his knowledge, do some cooking, and hopefully get one over on the colleague who’s been making him cook all year. 7 & 14 Aug, 2pm, Laughing Horse @ The Free Sisters (venue 272), free. Here in the food pages of The Skinny, there are two things that make us happy – delicious artisanal coffee, and ill-advised challenges and

August 2017

Words: Peter Simpson Illustration: Luis Pinto

feats of derring-do. And what do you know, those two things have been combined into one show at this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe! What are the chances? Tom Goodliffe’s Coffee Run sees the comedian tell the story of his attempt to visit every cafe and shop on the London Speciality Coffee Map in the space of a day – pull up a chair and hear how Tom got on. Naturally, he is providing coffee for everyone. 2-27 Aug (not 15), 2.50pm, Underbelly Med Quad (venue 302), £10/11. Finally, we’d be remiss to print this kind of round-up without at least one reference to the near-constant boozing that goes along with an Edinburgh August. Mother’s Ruin: A Cabaret about Gin fits the bill, and then some. Part history lesson, part comic take on the role of gin in society and part pissed-up sing-song, Maeve Marsden and Libby Wood’s dark cabaret charts gin’s influence across centuries and continents. It also features songs by Nina Simone and Martha Wainwright, plus free gin, so we are on board. 2-27 Aug (not 14 & 21), 6.15pm, Gilded Balloon at Rose Theatre (venue 76), £11-14. Events and Pop-ups The New Waverley Arches host a pair of delightfully boozy pop-ups this month to add to the Fringe fun. First up is Paolozzi at the Arches, a pop-up bar presented by Edinburgh Beer Factory and pulling together some of the leading lights in Edinburgh’s indie food and drink scene. Besides the beer, there’s a wine selection put together by Stockbridge bar Smith & Gertrude, mixed drinks courtesy of the Cocktail Kitchen, and food from the ever-present and always on-point The Pitt. There will also be art installations, a pop-up cinema, and the chance to get your hair cut. Thumbs up all round. 7-28 Aug, midday to midnight, edinburghbeerfactory.co.uk/arches Also sited at the New Waverley Arches this August is the Edinburgh Cocktail Festival, which at first glance sounds fairly straightforward until you dig a little deeper. There’s a Bloody Mary Kitchen run by Ketel One in which you can design your own Bloody Mary, and your gin and tonics will be ‘flash-infused’ with fresh ingredients from the Tanqueray Future Forest. Elsewhere on the programme are masterclasses and talks on how to do all this cocktail stuff for yourself, but suffice it to say this is one worth checking out. 4-28 Aug, 12-10pm, edinburghcocktailfest.com Another pop-up that’s piqued our interest is Eating House at the Meeting House, a festival diner from Ian Wilson of veggie street food truck Susie’s Wholefood Wagon, and Ben Reade of experimental dining colossus Edinburgh Food Studio. The pair’s August plans centre on providing a healthy, interesting and constantly evolving option in the midst of constant boozing and Fringe-related stress. Expect foraged, fermented and organic ingredients, exciting flavour combinations, and to never be served the same thing twice. 7-26 Aug (not Sun), 12-8pm, 7 Victoria St. And good news for the people of Leith, or anyone who wants to take a brief break from the Old Town’s wall-to-wall jugglers and avant-garde theatremakers, as top-notch cocktail bar Bramble are running their first ever pop-up bar this month. Bramble x Custom Lane takes up a spot in the new development at Custom House at the Shore alongside local coffee aces Williams & Johnson, and will serve up tasty, tasty cocktails down by the water each weekend of the Fringe. Edinburgh; it’s not just about hills and having flyers thrust in your face any more! Fri-Sun until 27 Aug, 67 Commercial St.

FOOD AND DRINK

Lifestyle

Food News This month's food news focuses on Glasgow, with drinks festivals, vegan celebrations and tasty gins to try Words: Peter Simpson

e kick off this month at Kinning Park Complex for Street Food Fusion. It’s ‘a three course adventure of street food with multi-continent influences using all intercepted food waste from supermarkets,’ as Kinning Park aim to celebrate and share different culinary background and cultural influences, while also saving perfectly good food from landfill. Win-win if you ask us. 3 Aug, 5.30pm, more info via cca-glasgow.com Following that is another simply-titled event – The Scottish Drinks Festival at The Briggait. Pleasingly straightforward this one; dozens of drinks brands and purveyors, from old school whisky folk to new gin distillers to craft breweries, all bunged into one big building for your amusement. 5-6 Aug, 12pm and 4.15pm sessions, £29.50, scottishdrinksfestival.com A few months back, we mentioned the Bottle of Ginger series of events at CCA, aiming to create a community-focused soft drink in Glasgow’s East End. Well guess what? They’ve only bloody gone and done it. The Bottle of Ginger team launch A Couple of Drinks – a pair of collaborations with London’s East End community drinks group, Company Drinks – this month, with plans for further celebration in September. For now, head down, crack open a cold one, and toast a job well done. 8 Aug, 9am-3pm, Bridgeton Cross, more info via cca-glasgow.com Staying with the CCA for a second, the gallery hosts the launch of Artists’ Cookbook, a new book exploring the cultural contexts and rituals which surround dining. A host of artists reflect on the forms of their meals, their place in culture and society, and the central place of food in all of our relationships and communities. Artist and cook, Claire Dearnley, will prepare and serve recipes from the Artists’ Cookbook on the night. 11 Aug, 5.30pm, free, more info via cca-glasgow.com It’s back to the Briggait mid-month for this year’s Vegan Connections festival. While the fest features gigs from such Skinny faves as Pinact and Breakfast Muff, our attention is drawn to VC’s food market which hosts dozens of options for the discerning herbivore. Booze, baked goods, vegan pies, vegan pizza, and five different vegan confectioners – if you’ve ever wanted to try living without animal products but were concerned it could become a utilitarian slog, this is the event for you. 12 Aug, 10am-4pm, £3, vegan-connections.com Next up, a chance for juniper lovers to get themselves a new favourite tipple, as Gin71 host An Evening with Scapegrace Gin. Distilled at the foot of the Southern Alps on New Zealand’s South Island, Scapegrace takes advantage of the country’s unspoilt nature to make, they tell us, a delicious gin. The Scapegrace website does have a ‘2013’s greatest web design hits on shuffle’ vibe, so why not head along and get some more straightforward intel, and a chance to try the stuff out for yourself. 21 Aug, 6.30pm, 71 Renfield St, tickets via gin71.com To close the month, the Cocktails in the City festival makes its first appearance in Glasgow following several successful runnings in Edinburgh over the past five years. Sixteen of the city’s best cocktail bars are represented, with tasting tables and various other activities to supplement the main event – tasting lots of delicious cocktails without the usual hassles of ‘walking’ or ‘planning an evening’. 25 Aug, 6pm, £12 (includes one cocktail), tickets via cocktailsinthecity.designmynight.com

Lifestyle

Civerinos Slice - Pineapple Controversy

Chews Your Own Adventure In Edinburgh for those festivals we’re having? Need to find some food and/or drink? Here are some decent places to start Doughnuts and craft beer near Pleasance Baba Budan (East Waverley Arches) You’re fresh off the train and you’ve been flyered dozens of times already. You are tired and fed up. At this stage, you hate basically everyone. Get to Baba Budan, have a delicious, sugary and surprisingly light doughnut and a flat white and you’ll be comedy-ready in no time. Come back later for the shit-hot bacon sandwiches. You are welcome. Salt Horse (57-61 Blackfriars St) Salt Horse offer an eclectic and impressively dense range of beers that will literally take you the whole festival to work your way through. Sours, Gueuzes, IPAs, Stouts; they’re all here, and they’re all lovely. The beer garden is also an oasis of solitude, therefore we don’t really want to give you too much of a steer on how to get to it. Try the stairs. Pizza for days and delicious coffee near Bristo Square Civerinos Slice (49 Forrest Rd) A great option if you’re in town for a few days over the Fringe because of the range of ‘zza on offer. Grab one of the New York-style slices – standard sourdough, or their new ‘nonna’-style square pizza – and have a beer; come back later and try another slice with another beer, repeat at your leisure.

top-notch, and rather pleasingly the place is bloody enormous, so grabbing a seat is never too much of an issue even at the Fringiest of times. Curry and cocktails near The Stand Dishoom (3a St Andrew Sq) A take on the Iranian cafes of Bombay, Dishoom’s menu is packed with everything from subcontinental takes on the cooked breakfast to intriguing veggie options. They serve food until late, and they have a speakeasy-style bar in the basement that’s open til 3am; these are both things which we massively approve of. Bramble (16A Queen St) If you feel the need to hide away from it all during the Fringe, head to Bramble. Tucked away down an unassuming staircase on Queen Street, Bramble turns out some of the city’s best cocktails in a quirky but homely setting. Lively, dark, and with bar staff who know their way around a liquor cabinet, Bramble is a great hideaway for when the flyering and laughter all gets a bit too much.

Words: Peter Simpson Secret entrances and dog ice cream by the Book Festival Panda and Sons (79 Queen St) Just down the street from Charlotte Square, you’ll find a barber shop purportedly run by a large bear. Spoiler alert – this is a front for one of the city’s most interesting cocktail bars. Also, to get to the fun, you’ve got to push one of those secret bookcase doors that you thought only existed in spy films and fairytales. Also, all this book chat is bang-on message, so that’s nice too. Affogato (36 Queensferry St) A dinky little gelato spot just off the west end of Princes Street, Affogato tread the line of tradition and innovation quite nicely, then throw the contents of that line into incredible ice cream. Ideal for a post-discussion energy boost, and if you’re the kind of person who brings your dog to cultural events you’ll be pleased to hear they serve dog-friendly gelato. 2017, everyone. Find more of The Skinny’s Fringe Food tips at theskinny. co.uk/festivals

Africano Wrap Place (5 Chapel St) Clue’s in the title, but there’s a surprising amount of complexity waiting behind the simple frontage and perfunctory choice of name. Take the falafel wrap; homemade falafel packed with fresh herbs and spices, paired with a light, smooth houmous and a delightful spicy peanut sauce – it’s a party in your mouth, and everyone’s invited. Thomas J Walls (35 Forrest Rd) Taking up residence in (as well as the name of) the former opticians on Forrest Road, Thomas J Walls is a pretty grand place for a coffee. The decor’s lovely; dark wood everywhere, bronze statue of a rabbit with a shotgun, etc, etc. The coffee is

FOOD AND DRINK

Dishoom - Horniman's Old Fashioned

THE SKINNY

August 2017

THE SKINNY

RE V IE W

Big Wheel Keep on Turning Ahead of Magic Nostalgic’s Edinburgh Fringe shows this August, John-Paul Mason tells us about ten of his favourite tunes from some of the categories you might find on their famous wheel

n 24 Oct 2009 Magic Nostalgic was born at Edinburgh’s Electric Circus. It’s a club night like no other which leaves everything to chance with the spin of a wheel every 30 minutes, deciding your dancing fate. From Girl Bands vs Boy Bands to Disco Divas, 90s Rave to Power Ballads and more, it’s guranteed that wherever the wheel lands there’s always something worth dancing to. Founder and DJ John-Paul Mason talks us through ten of the best you can expect to hear at their Fringe nights in Edinburgh this August. CATEGORY IS: RIP Queen and David Bowie – Under Pressure [Hot Space, 1982] A category that actually came to be as a result of a Skinny poll nonetheless. It’s one that has provided a lot of very emotional moments since we started it a few years back. On occasion the entire half hour has even been given over to an artist we love who has passed away – Whitney Houston, George Michael, Prince – but David Bowie last year was really special, and this song in particular. We had a live Bowie DVD on the screens at the Electric Circus and during this song it properly hit me that I was never going to see him live. I think it was the double whammy of hearing Freddie and Bowie at the same time. It was a special moment and also the first time we have ever played it.

CATEGORY IS: ONE HIT WONDERS The Buggles – Video Killed the Radio Star [The Age of Plastic, 1980] One Hit Wonders is one of my favourite categories and right from the start I knew we could have a

lot of fun with it. It’s a thin line when it comes to them, you can’t go too obscure as you don’t want to lose the crowd but this song is a sure fire winner and it’s incredible that The Buggles only really came up with this and nothing else. The break when you can turn it down and have the crowd singing ‘You arrrrrre!’ is a pretty great buzz to be on the other side of. CATEGORY IS: CAMP DAVID Erasure – A Little Respect [The Innocents, 1988] I always (ALWAYS!) have to explain this category, the savvy amongst the crowd will know that it’s an Alan Partridge reference but simply put, it’s camp or gay anthems. And there is no better than this song; if there is anyone in the room who doesn’t know this song then they need to get out more. It’s as infectious now as it was when it was released and really brings a crowd together in a way that few other songs can. I absolutely love it and it’s usually what we finish that half hour with. CATEGORY IS: 90S RAVE N-Trance – Set You Free [Electronic Pleasure, 1995] 90s rave is normally one that we keep covered up ‘til the end of the night but during the festival it’s going to be there from the start, so if we have to start with this, in my opinion, one of the finest songs of the 90s, then it’s no great shame. It’s been covered by both Arab Strap and Frightened Rabbit and there’s a reason why; it’s incredible. I can’t remember us ever playing it and it not going down well, it’s even sparked several stage invasions!

Words: John-Paul Mason

CATEGORY IS: POWER BALLADS Bonnie Tyler – Total Eclipse of the Heart [Faster Than the Speed of Night, 1983] One of our favourite categories, and the crowd’s as well, is another one that we normally keep covered up but it’s going to be there from the start in August too. This song is, quite simply, difficult to contain, it is that big. The atmosphere when we play this is euphoric and I love watching groups in a huddle absolutely belting it out. It’s also another one that is very difficult to follow up!

discover that I could in fact, scissor kick and jump at the same time; I even did this in heels one Halloween while dressed as Frank N Furter from The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Landed it too! CATEGORY IS: KARAOKE CLASSICS Neil Diamond – Sweet Caroline [Brother Love’s Travelling Salvation Show, 1969] It’s no secret to anyone who knows me that Diamond is one of my favourite singers of all time, I have seen him live five times and will make that six later this year in Glasgow. I made my karaoke debut in Bathgate singing Cracklin’ Rosie so it’s pretty great to be able to play this to a room full of people who all give it back to you at full pelt. Another song that regardless of its age, everyone knows it, this category is a lot of fun to do too as we have played some pretty wild songs in it. I’ll never forget the first time we snuck in Ironic by Alanis Morissette, the place went mental!

CATEGORY IS: MOTOWN AND SOUL Ike & Tina Turner – Proud Mary [Workin’ Together, 1971] Whenever the wheel lands on this category it always surprises me how much of a reaction it gets, I suppose I underestimate how much people love it. It’s always great to get people dancing if it’s after Power Ballads or Rock Gods for example. The songs are so short too so we can pack so much into the half hour, and we never fail to play this song. It’s just so great and despite it being released in 1971, everyone knows it, it also has the line ‘big wheel keep on turning’ so how could we not play it?!

“If there is anyone in the room who doesn’t know A Little Respect then they need to get out more"

CATEGORY IS: ROCK GODS Van Halen – Jump [1984, 1984] One of the best openings of a song ever in my opinion, that fizzing synth just sets up the rest of it. It’s pretty ridiculous that Eddie [Van Halen] nearly threw it on the scrapheap as the rest of the band didn’t like it. It’s always been a favourite of mine and it’s also the song that allowed me to

John-Paul Mason

CATEGORY IS: MOVIE MUSIC Kenny Loggins – Footloose [Footloose (soundtrack), 1984] I think this may be my [actual] favourite category as it allows two things I love dearly to come together. There are so many great songs in films and they really spark something with the crowd as you have that double delight of hearing something that relates to something they’ve watched many times. Footloose is a ridiculous film, about a small town that tries to ban rock music and dancing but it has some amazing songs and this is one of them. If you aren’t up for losing it on the dancefloor to this then you should be at home.

John-Paul Mason

August 2017

MUSIC

Photo: Sara Cameron

CATEGORY IS: HIP HOP Notorious B.I.G. – Juicy [Ready to Die, 1994] This category used to be merged with R’n’B but we decided it deserved to have its own half hour as there was so much of each genre. I remember my epiphany with Biggie Smalls came one night when I was sharing the decks with Jack Sutherland at Electric Circus. He played this and after about 30 seconds, I leaned over and asked what it was, he was appalled I didn’t know it and looking back, so am I. I was always more West Coast than East, so had disregarded this. I can now say it’s one of my favourite hip-hop tracks, there are so many amazing lines in it – ‘Birthdays were the worst days, now we sip Champagne when we’re thirsty’ being just one of them. Magic Nostalgic runs at The Gilded Balloon at Rose Theatre, Edinburgh, 5, 12 & 19 Aug facebook.com/magicnostalgicedinburgh

Review

Going for Gold Interview: Nadia Younes Photo: Ryan Johnston

As he swaps hip-hop for highlife on new album GOLD, we speak to Kobi Onyame about embracing his musical heritage and the benefits of being an independent artist

Fela Kuti, slightly over-saturated sound: that tape, almost vinyl sound, so the whole album was recorded that way.” Rather than go down the route of a traditional album release format, Onyame decided to release GOLD track-by-track via streaming sites such as Spotify, Apple Music and SoundCloud to build up more of a buzz around the album before its actual release. “I feel like in this day and age, albums come out and just get lost,” explains Onyame. “I think the whole album structure only works for superstars, like Beyoncé and Jay-Z can put out a whole album and everyone gets excited about it but for lesser known artists, sometimes the whole release date thing makes the album get lost.” Taking a leaf out of one of his hero’s books, Onyame’s method of releasing GOLD is much like the way in which Kanye West promoted his 2010 album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. In the months leading up to the album’s release, West released a new song every Friday as part of his G.O.O.D. Fridays project, four of which turned out to be alternative versions of tracks that ended up on the album. “I finished recording the album round about the start of December last year, and basically what I’ve been doing is putting out alternative versions, so when the album finally comes out some of the tracks will be different to the single versions I’ve actually released,” says Onyame. “I really believe that the album is something special and I’m saying quite a lot on it so I didn’t want an album release date to just come and go.” Initially starting his music career as a producer, Onyame believes that being allowed time and space to develop on his own away from London, without the demands and pressures of record labels, has helped him grow into a more rounded artist and performer. “Up here, labels don’t have the time or money to develop people anymore so I guess we’re developing away from them and by the time they notice that, we’re way ahead of their acts,” stresses Onyame. “I would never say no to the right label or the right situation but I think in this day and age, being independent is the strongest position you can actually be in.” Since moving to Glasgow to do his Masters degree at Strathclyde University, Onyame has found that being based in Glasgow has benefitted his music career, as there are just as many

“I think in this day and age, being independent is the strongest position you can actually be in” Kobi Onyame

Onyame’s interest in pursuing a more highlife-leaning sound though, stems mainly from his time working with Ghanaian producer and head of production company/record label Pidgen Music, Panji Anoff. “They’ve got artists that are very authentic to highlife and Panji’s a very big influence on my music,” says Onyame. “Just working with him and getting that vibe, I wanted to create something that reminded me of the old

Kobi Onyame

Do Not Miss

Review

Vegan Connections Festival, Glasgow, 11-12 Aug

Photo: Sarah Donley

TeenCanteen

Photo: Matthew James-Wilson

Frankie Cosmos

GOLD is self-released, 1 Sep kobionyame.com

Carnival Fifty Six, Camperdown Park, Dundee, 12-13 Aug

Frankie Cosmos, La Belle Angèle, Edinburgh, 3 Aug New Yorker Greta Kline, who performs under the name Frankie Cosmos, is bringing her laid-back, dreamy indie-pop to Edinburgh’s La Belle Angèle this month. Her Next Thing album was one of our favourites of 2016 and we can’t think of a much better way to ease yourself into a month of, what for most Edinburgh residents, will be utter chaos. Frankie Cosmos for the win.

tage of being able to develop and being unique to your sound.” Success may feel like a long time coming for Kobi Onyame, but if patience really is a virtue, then GOLD might just see him end up in first place.

opportunities to get yourself noticed but there’s not as much competition between artists. “I’ve always thought that being up here gave me an advantage because it’s kind of like being away from the hub that London can be sometimes,” says Onyame. “Obviously, there’s a disadvantage of being so far away from where everything happens but at the same time, there’s the advan-

The line-up for the inaugural Carnival Fifty Six festival in Dundee this month features some big guns like Mark Ronson, Rudimental and Clean Bandit, as well as DJ sets from Hot Chip and Basement Jaxx. Further down the bill you’ll find an outstanding collection of Scottish talent which we think deserves your attention: Jonnie Common, Be Charlotte, Elle Exxe, WHITE, King Eider and Indigo Velvet amongst others. Top stuff.

After the success of their 2016 event, Vegan Connections are back for 2017 and it’s looking more delicious than ever. Taking place over two days across five venues – The Briggait, Stereo, Mono, The Old Hairdresser’s and The Flying Duck – expect vegan stalls aplenty, vegan goody bags and live music from some of our faves including Breakfast Muff, Spinning Coin, Pinact, TeenCanteen and American Clay.

MUSIC

Be Charlotte

Riot Jazz Brass Band

Riot Jazz Brass Band, La Belle Angèle, Edinburgh, 13 Aug Manchester’s Riot Jazz Brass Band have been getting the party started since the late noughties and are bringing their live show to Edinburgh’s La Belle Angèle this month. The nine-piece band – made up of trumpets, trombones, sousaphone, drums and an MC – play a uniquely twisted mix of funk, soul, hip-hop, re-interpreted dubstep, drum’n’bass and dancefloor bangers, including a killer brass version of Britney Spears’ Toxic.

THE SKINNY

Photo: Steven Sibbald

or over ten years, Glasgow-based musician Kobi Onyame has been gradually making a name for himself, under numerous different guises, as one of the most promising hip-hop acts in Scotland; but for his new album GOLD, he’s going back to his roots. “I wanted to challenge myself to do something that I haven’t done before because I feel like I did the hip-hop thing and I didn’t want to just make another boom bap hip-hop album,” says Onyame. “I’ve kept the hip-hop undertones but it incorporates a lot more percussion and that whole West African, Ghanaian highlife feel.” Born to Ghanaian parents, Onyame’s earliest memories of highlife music come from hearing his mum and dad playing it around the house. It wasn’t until he spent three years doing his undergraduate studies in Ghana, however, that he became fully immersed in the Ghanaian music scene and met many of the artists who he went on to work with on GOLD. “For those three years, I started a hip-hop crew in Ghana, so I know M.anifest, M3NSA and Wanlov (the Kubolor) from those days, from 1998 or 1999,” Onyame tells us. “Each time I go out to Ghana, I try and make time to network with artists, soak up that energy and collaborate.”

Photo: Amy Muir

On the Edge Interview: Claire Francis Photo: Kat Gollock

We meet up with Glasgow three-piece Pinact for a Saturday afternoon pint in Nice ‘N’ Sleazy to chat about their latest album, The Part That No One Knows

heady mix of fuzzed-out guitars, melodic riffs and crashing cymbals, Pinact’s sound instantly conjures up the ghosts of Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr and Nirvana. Just don’t be too quick to pass them off as mere grunge revivalists, sighs singer and guitarist Corrie Gillies. “I get why we’re labelled that way, but if you listen to the actual music… not every song is like a fucking Nirvana rip off, you know?” He pauses. “Well, there’s maybe one or two that are,” he adds, as the group burst out laughing. After releasing their debut record Stand Still And Rot in 2015 on Brooklyn-based imprint Kanine Records, the group are back with their follow-up – The Part That No One Knows – on the same label, recorded with the help of Rory Attwell of Test Icicles fame. It’s their first release as a three-piece, since bassist Jon Arbuthnott came on board alongside Gillies and drummer Lewis Reynolds. A group’s sophomore release is always regarded as a high-pressure undertaking, Gillies confirms: “It was a tough record to make, we put a lot of pressure on ourselves. This time round we’ve got a contract… When you go through the stages of writing a record, or anything creative, self-doubt creeps in.”

It took Pinact a lot longer to write and record The Part That No One Knows, compared to the relative speed of Stand Still and Rot which was recorded and mixed in the space of six days. “We recorded in a studio on a boat on the Thames. We spent like two weeks recording it,” Gillies tells us. “For us, we’d never spent that much time in a studio, so it was kind of a different process to the way we’d usually go about doing a record. We had one day off in those two weeks, and on the one day we had off I got food poisoning,” he grimaces. “I felt really ill for a few days – though maybe that helped to add a sense of desperation in the vocals,” he laughs. Lulling the listener into a false sense of security, The Part That No One Knows begins with a gentle piano overture before the blasting guitar work of the second track, Bring You Down, steers the record firmly back into noise rock territory. The album title seems to hint at this kind of confounding of expectations, we suggest? “’The part that no one knows’ is a lyric from one of the tracks on the album,” Gillies muses, “but it’s sort of about moving on in your life…” He trails off, and takes a

Pinact

Jenny Hval, Summerhall, Edinburgh, 20 Aug

“Not every song is like a fucking Nirvana rip off, you know?” Corrie Gillies

Though they’ve had their fair share of obstacles, it’s their love of music – and in particular, playing live – that has steered Pinact through. Just over a week after we meet them for this interview, Pinact will embark on a short US tour, before returning to the UK for a further run of live dates in August and September. Of their exuberant and often rowdy performances, Reynolds enthuses, “It’s great watching a show where you feel like at a certain point in a set, it can get so wild that it feels like it could fall apart… but it never does. We’re on that fine line,” he smiles. “We try to be really tight, we practise a lot, but I love it to just sit on that edge. If it was too straightlaced and neat... that’s not what we’re trying to achieve as a band.” “I really love playing shows, that’s probably my favourite part,” Gillies admits as we wind up the interview. “I like recording, but I think writing can be gruelling. You just end up hating yourself,” he laughs. “It’s that self-doubt thing that I was talking about, that comes back and you just start to think ‘this is rubbish, this is so bad’… that’s just part of it.” And then, in a light-bulb moment, he shrugs and adds, “That’s the part that no one knows, you know?” The Part That No One Knows is out on 25 Aug via Kanine Records Pinact play Vegan Connections, The Flying Duck, Glasgow, 11 Aug; Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh, 10 Sep facebook.com/Pinact

Benjamin John Power was once described by his Fuck Buttons cohort, Andrew Hung, as the ‘fuck’ to his ‘buttons’, and if you’ve listened to Power’s solo records as Blanck Mass, then you’re likely to agree with that. Power’s face-melting third album as Blanck Mass, World Eater, came out earlier this year and it truly is an assault on the senses: it’s electronic, industrial, challenging and utterly thrilling. Experiencing Blanck Mass live is a must this month.

MUSIC

Mdou Moctar

Mdou Moctar, Mono, Glasgow, 30 Aug

Alvvays

Mdou Moctar is a Tuareg songwriter and musician based in Agadez, Niger. In a somewhat crowded scene, guitarist Moctar stands apart from his peers as one of the few original Tuareg songwriters willing to experiment. Pushing the boundaries of the style, he’s also one of the few musicians to perform modern electronic adaptations of Tuareg guitar music. This is a night of West African music not to be missed.

Review

Photo: Jerome Fino

Toronto-based indie-poppers Alvvays (pronounced ‘Always’, in case you were wondering) are set to release Antisocialites – the highly anticipated follow-up to their 2014 self-titled debut – this September. In the lead up to the album’s release, the four-piece embark on a UK tour this month, taking in Glasgow’s St Luke’s tonight. Expect a vibrant mix of old and new tracks, making for a lovely jangly way to round off a busy month.

Photo: Arden Wray

Blanck Mass, Summerhall, Edinburgh, 22 Aug

Photo: Jenny Berger Myhre

Jenny Hval

Blanck Mass

Photo: Claire Maxwell

Alvvays, St Luke’s, Glasgow, 27 Aug

Oslo-born Jenny Hval last graced us with her presence at Glasgow’s Stereo towards the end of 2016 as she toured her excellent sixth studio album, Blood Bitch. Hval is known for her weird and wonderful live performances, so we’re looking forward to seeing what she offers up at Edinburgh’s Summerhall as part of Nothing Ever Happens Here’s festival programme tonight.

August 2017

than I think other people have,” Gillies admits. “And I still think we constantly have to work harder. For some bands things just happen really quick and easily, and I think a lot of bands, if they went through some of the stuff we went through, they wouldn’t even exist anymore. There’s a sense of persistence with this band.”

sip of his pint, as Arbuthnott and Reynolds rib him for not having prepared his answers. Arbuthnott steps in. “I think it’s about how much work goes into a record, and the part that no one knows is everything that leads up to making that record. Everyone thinks that these ideas and emotions are just plucked out of nowhere. I think now, in the Spotify generation, we just listen to a record and if we don’t like it, we skip it or we go on to something else… but people [have] put their emotion and heart into it and spent a long time on it.” There’s no doubting that a solid work ethic underscores this band. When Gillies and Reynolds started out as a two-piece, Pinact gigged relentlessly, often playing house parties and makeshift venues. They’ve also encountered their fair share of setbacks. Personal circumstances caused the group to entertain a semi-revolving line-up – at one point, Chris McCrory of Catholic Action stepped in after Reynolds temporarily departed – and it seems as though Pinact are only now entering a period of stability. “I feel like throughout this band’s career, for want of a better word, we’ve had to work harder

Photo: Kat Gollock

Album of the Month EMA

Exile in the Outer Ring [City Slang, 25 Aug]

rrrrr

Somewhere on the outskirts of the city, there lies what Erika M. Anderson calls the “outer ring”. It’s an area where people pushed out by the expense of the city centre and those looking to move from the country collide within a backdrop of beige shopping malls and nondescript streets; an oddly alienating and isolating space, which acts as a form of limbo. It’s this very specific locale, often characterised by poverty and tension, which forms the focus of EMA’s latest album. On it, she weaves tales of being ignored by wider society simply for being poor, struggling to simply survive. Although opener 7 Years might seem sweepingly romantic, this is hardly a rose-tinted collection. Instead, Anderson presents her tales from the fringes in tones that are often as harsh as reality itself. Breathalyzer’s very muddy, hazy mix makes it literally feel like drowning under a thick fog of ether, while Blood and Chalk blends sensitive vocals with crushing guitar riffs. Meanwhile, Fire Water Air LSD is an all-out foot-stomper, but it swims in crushing, industrial fuzz, Anderson’s yells crackling out from the void, and 33 Nihilistic and Female similarly coats a core pop melody in distortion and noise. The music simply adds power to Anderson’s seething social commentary, which pierces knife-like throughout the album. Aryan Nation

Konx-Om-Pax

Refresher EP [Planet Mu, 11 Aug]

rrrrr

Coming off last year’s Scottish Album of the Yearnominated album Caramel, Glasgow producer and animator Konx-Om-Pax is content to simply ride the wave with his new EP Refresher. At only four tracks long – two of them Caramel remixes – it’s a meticulously crafted addendum to his last release, but an addendum nonetheless. That’s not to say there’s nothing here worth spending time with. The two new tracks are appropriately energising, with the throbbing Species With Amnesia a scuzzy standout. A rolling bassline simulates blinding strobe lights, while warm melodies pulsate in and out like pure ecstasy, climaxing in a break in the back half of the track before the bass crashes back in like a sledgehammer. Both the remixes, meanwhile, are broadened in scope compared to their original versions and, given room to breathe, evolve into something less tangible. Ambient closer Beatrice’s Visit (Huerco S Extended Stay – The Morning Version) doesn’t direct you to any particular emotion or state of mind, but rather lets you ride its shimmering synths to whatever destination your mind takes you. It’s a comedown, but a smooth and otherworldly one. If Caramel was an exercise in colour, vibrancy and excess, and a loving memory of a bygone rave scene, Refresher is an all-too-brief tribute to the after-party. [Alexander Smail] Listen to: Species With Amnesia, Beatrice’s Visit (Huerco S Extended Stay – The Morning Version)

Review

rrrrr Brilliant rrrrr Life-changing

addresses a wide range of issues, including habitual drug abuse and a revolving door prison system, factors that keep a specific societal strata alienated and isolated. ‘Go back home to below your station,’ Anderson sings, speaking to both inescapable poverty and a wider perspective on certain segments of the American working class. Though musically it’s one of the album’s most muted moments, Down and Out still manages to be scathing, questioning society’s eagerness to determine a person’s worth purely by their financial status. While it’s a piercing examination of social class though, it also manages to sound empathetic, and encourages the listener to similarly put themselves in the other’s shoes. Her question of ‘What are we hoping for?’ isn’t directly answered; instead, she leaves the audience to answer it themselves. EMA has frequently dealt with tough, sometimes controversial topics. With Exile in the Outer Ring though, Anderson has all but perfected a very delicate balance. She presents subjects boldly and forcefully, but also with a great deal of sensitivity and thought-provoking tact. The questions she presents here will linger long after its final notes fade out. [Eugenie Johnson] EMA

Listen to: Down and Out, Fire Water Air LSD

Pinact

FRAUEN

The Part That No One Knows [Kanine Records , 25 Aug]

Unreal City [Gold Mold, 25 Aug]

rrrrr

Glasgow three-piece Pinact are back with The Part That No One Knows and it’s a solid treat. This is rock music formed from a kiln in which records by Nirvana, Sonic Youth and Weezer have previously been forged. The album opens with the title track and a gentle piano refrain. Have we turned on the new Agnes Obel record by accident? No. No we haven’t. Bring You Down kicks in with the kind of bassline you might once have attributed to Krist Novoselic; here is the crunch of wiry guitars; here is a sneer of frontman Corrie Gillies. Here are three young men dedicated to the idea of creating music you might want to play more than once, loud, while pretending the hoover’s a guitar. This is ‘rock music’ and it’s up there with the best rock albums we’ve heard this year. Their finest moment here is Separate Ways which marries a monster bass riff to a stepped on cat of a guitar noise, but it isn’t alone. There are earworms aplenty. Seams takes a single play to become a song you’ve known all your life, and Against the World is as good as anything on Weezer’s White Album. While at times they can sound a bit too much like Nirvana, when they step out of the shadows they rage with a sound all of their own. [Pete Wild] Listen to: Separate Ways, Bughouse, Against the World

A brief internet search could leave you thinking that FRAUEN are new to the scene, but Adam Lamont, Kenni and Joe Campbell have done time in a multitude of Glasgow-based outfits; this being the first fronted by Lamont. Borrowing its title from T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, Unreal City was digitally released in February and finally gets its vinyl release this month. Putting a deeply personal spin on the experience of battling life, relationships and mental health it describes two years Lamont spent living in London. A press shot with American Football and Braid

Neon Waltz

Strange Hymns [Ignition, 18 Aug]

rrrrr

The debut from Caithness six-piece Neon Waltz has been widely anticipated and is well worth the wait. Strange Hymns bursts into life with Sundial and doesn’t slow down until You & Me at the album’s midpoint. The band know their way around a hook, and Dreamers is proof of this with its singalong chorus already a firm favourite in the band’s live repertoire. Although it’s clear Neon Waltz were taking notes while listening to the likes of The Coral, the

RECORDS

shirts, plus a band bio citing Drive Like Jehu and Jawbreaker as influences, makes plain FRAUEN’s musical heritage. Early track Seven Years feels a little like early Get Up Kids as it breaks down to bare, percussive bones and describes a harrowing break-up with plenty of damning details on both sides. For a male band whose name translates as ‘women’, Intoxicated’s boozy recollection of a first, post-break-up shag has an uncomfortable ring as it promises, ‘Later, I’ll grow to respect you for what you are’ – but, to their credit, FRAUEN never shrink away from examining themselves at their worst. Triumphant, storming closer 27 brings the record full circle. Two years have passed, and Lamont’s heading home. ‘I’ll start that band,’ he promises, and it feels like FRAUEN were worth weathering the storm. [Katie Hawthorne] Listen to: In-Between, Seven Years album is brilliantly fresh and original which shows the band have great confidence in themselves even at this early stage. Dreamy pop which manages to avoid going fuzzy at the edges features heavily, and Jordan Shearer’s vocals drift along on seas of jangly guitars on songs like Veiled Clock. It’s compact at just ten tracks, many of which will be familiar to those who have previously heard the band’s First Light EP, but Strange Hymns gives each song more space to breathe. Strange Hymns is an excellent debut full of climaxes and hooks. Despite many of the songs having been previously released, it’s sure to quench the thirst of their existing fans and will likely gain them many new ones at the same time. [Eala MacAlister] Listen to: Perfect Frame, Dreamers

THE SKINNY

Photo: Alicia Gordon

rrrrr Shite rrrrr Boring rrrrr Solid

Everything Everything

A Fever Dream [RCA, 18 Aug]

rrrrr

‘We didn’t think that it would happen and we never will,’ cries Jonathan Higgs on Ivory Tower, the most on-the-nose song on perhaps Everything Everything’s most pointedly political album to date. We find our Manchester futurists trapped in the present, living out our terrifying modern-day futures – an era where The Handmaid’s Tale is more documentary than drama, where Brexit looms and every attempted step forwards is met with grazed knees on the loose scree of divisive rhetoric. A Fever Dream is aptly named; this contemporary unreality feels like a diseased, intoxicated reverie, one we hope is ending soon while we anaesthetise ourselves with obstinate denial. The album delivers the band’s message via their consistently experimental approach to genre; rock‘n’roll at times (Run the Numbers), and ambient piano pop at others (Good Shot, Good Soldier, Put Me Together), A Fever Dream explores a broad, though familiar, aural space. Close second on the political scale is

Kobi Onyame

GOLD [Self-Released, 1 Sep]

rrrrr

For his fourth album, Kobi Onyame hasn’t so much put hip-hop to the side as much as he’s just brought highlife to the forefront, as he fully embraces his Ghanaian heritage. Featuring collaborations with

opening track Night of the Long Knives, whose title likens recent world-stage surges of right-wing ideologies to the notorious purge of political opponents to the Nazi regime. Musically, it rockets along, strapping Higgs’ distinctive falsetto to the nose of a rapid bassline and cocksure, offbeat synth hits. The leap from early records Arc and Man Alive to 2015’s remarkable Get to Heaven does, however, dwarf that of the step to A Fever Dream, whose vibrant artistry offers comparatively less novelty. And in the minesweeping of stylistic variation they’ve even ended up accidentally sounding like post-Absolution Muse on the harmoniesrich Desire. Despite this, there is still a wealth of texture and musical brio on offer here, framing the restrained development as a narrowing of the laser rather than a sign Everything Everything are hitting their limits. [George Sully] Listen to: Night of the Long Knives, Run the Numbers, Ivory Tower

Ghanaian musical royalty M.anifest, as well as M3NSA and Wanlov the Kubolor, GOLD feels like Onyame’s love letter to the West African country. The use of horns, percussion and call-andresponse chants call to mind the traditional sounds of West African highlife, particularly on the aptlytitled album opener Home and on the chorus of Wedadi, a track which features Glasgow-based Kenyan singer Heir of the Cursed. Back Again and DMCRZY are the most modern-sounding of the album’s tracks and both see Onyame spitting an

The War on Drugs

Downtown Boys

Girl Ray

rrrrr

A Deeper Understanding [Atlantic Records, 25 Aug] Opener Up All Night sets the tone for A Deeper Understanding immediately, with juddering synths and squalling guitars you can imagine reverberating around a stadium. It’s perhaps the song most reliant on electronic effects from the band to date, giving it a glossy, audible sheen. Lead single Holding On follows in the same vein, and sees the band go full-Springsteen. And the album’s best moments (Pain / Thinking of a Place) would have sounded most at home on 2014’s Lost in the Dream. While stylistically The War on Drugs have never released anything revolutionary, A Deeper Understanding as a whole lacks the spark of their previous releases, which could perhaps be down to the influence of their move to a major label. [Will Moss]

Listen to: Pain, Thinking of a Place

August 2017

Everything Everything

Cost of Living [Sub Pop, 11 Aug]

Some music has a mission to shake you awake. And, with the righteous thrash and playful bilingual polemic of 2015’s Full Communism, Downtown Boys stirred enough excitement to propel themselves to a larger label and a producer of great eminence in Fugazi’s Guy Picciotto. Dialing down some of the hardcore and d-beat elements of their last LP, Cost of Living moves towards steadier, cleaner arrangements of lean guitars, drums and bass with the familiar tenor saxophone and synthesizer for extra colour. In doing so, there’s ample space for frontwoman Victoria Ruiz’s commanding, strident sloganeering to shine through, louder and clearer than ever. Sensing that Downtown Boys are capable of ever greater ferocity, you just want to urge them on even further. [Ed Bottomley] Listen to: A Wall, Lips That Bite

almost grime-like flow, yet still incorporating the highlife-influenced percussive sounds and chants filtered across the album. As far as mainstream singles go, Chosen Ones is a sure-fire radio hit. The production is unlike that of the rest of the album: it’s clean, crisp and grand. If there’s one chorus that’s going to be stuck in your head after you’ve finished listening to the album, it’s this one; and perhaps also the chorus of ‘chukka chukka chukka chukka, like a train,’ on the album’s eponymous track Gold.

Listen to: Chosen Ones, DMCRZY

Ghostpoet

Oh Sees

Liars

rrrrr

Earl Grey [Moshi Moshi, 4 Aug]

Dark Days & Canapés [Play it Again Sam, 18 Aug]

With a maturity far beyond their years, North London three-piece Girl Ray deliver a debut that’s witty and wistful in equal measure, capturing the uncertainty and intensity of the adolescent years where everything feels possible but nothing lives up to expectations. Typically enough for an album so rooted in adolescence, love and infatuation are recurring themes, with Stupid Things discussing the lengths we go to to feel intimate with someone and Cutting Shapes tackling the thorny subject of post-break-up-blues. The combination of delicate melodies and introspective lyrics seem too carefully crafted to be produced in such a short incubation period – just two weeks of recording. Earl Grey delivers twelve thoughtful, quirky tracks which deserve to be listened to again and again. [Megan Wallace]

The oxymoronic title of Ghostpoet’s latest album says a lot about where Obaro Ejimiwe’s head is at the moment. There’s an urgency to Dark Days & Canapés, as if Ejimiwe is screaming at us, but we can’t – or choose not to – listen. Musically, the album is an organic evolution from 2015’s excellent Shedding Skin, continuing his fruitful foray into alt-rock tinged arrangements. Dramatic compositions drag us in to his bleak, but frank, world, where societal troubles aren’t faraway abstract concepts, but matters that should be on everybody’s mind. Dark Days & Canapés is an expertly crafted assault on the fallacy that ignorance is bliss, an eye-opening invitation to see our society for what it really is. Bliss is overrated anyway. [Alexander Smail]

Listen to: Just Like That, Preacher

Recorded entirely on tape, the album immediately has the authentic, unpolished, lo-fi feel commonly associated with the highlife sound. There’s nothing pretentious about it; there are no frills, no bells and whistles, just community-feel, jam music. It may have taken him a while to fully find his feet but on GOLD, Kobi Onyame has really come into his own and produced a body of work that is as current as it is nostalgic. [Nadia Younes]

Listen to: Trouble + Me, Immigrant Boogie

RECORDS

Orc [Castle Face, 25 Aug]

TFCF [Mute, 25 Aug]

As you might expect from the relentlessly imaginative Oh Sees, each of Orc’s songs are bursting at the seams with ideas. The Static God explodes into clattering life first of all, before wending its way into sunny pop ‘oohs’ and a borderline-trance dropout section, while John Dwyer’s voice sounds more cartoonishly malevolent than ever before. It’s a dizzying four minutes; more frantic and more energised than they’ve ever been. Later the band throw down their heaviest riff to date in the form of Animated Violence, before a mournfully blissed-out coda takes over – and this is merely the tip of the iceberg. Orc’s directions may chop and change at a frantic pace, but no other band is this consistently brilliant right now. [Will Fitzpatrick]

Liars have been in a state of flux their whole career. Dance-punk, experimental rock, spooky ambience and hard-nosed techno make up some of their many mutations. After the amicable departure of founding guitarist Aaron Hemphill, Angus Andrew returned to Australia to write as Liars’ sole member. TFCF is a fractured, aching record, formed from clattering drum loops, eerie acoustics and hollowed-out vocals. Pieces of the band’s history creep up as influences, but TFCF feels distinct in how it flits between these archetypes. As soon as you get a grip on it, TFCF wriggles into another shape. But even at its weirdest, Angus Andrew’s songwriting couldn’t be clearer, and that’s what makes it a mess worth unravelling. [Stephen Butchard]

Listen to: The Static God, Animated Violence

Listen to: Cred Woes, No Help Pamphlet

Review

Guest Selector: Sub Club Soundsystem With Sub Club celebrating their 30th birthday this year, we’ve brought in three of the club’s most notable residents for this month’s Guest Selector duties Interview: Claire Francis

arri & Domenic are the original Sub Club resident DJs, having been at the helm of Subculture – the longest continuous club residency in the world – for the past 23 years. Telford is the third Subculture resident; after starting his career with the club as a glass collector, he now heads up A&R for Sub Club’s in-house label Nautilus Rising. With the Subbie celebrating its 30th anniversary this year with a run of special events, including this month’s Sub Club SoundSystem festival, we got the trio together to pick out some of their favourite records. An album that you can listen to from start to finish, and never tire of? Massive Attack – Blue Lines [Wild Bunch, 1991] Myself and my mates Osar Felone, Ian Whitelaw, Brian Docherty and a guy that played sax had a gig in Perth. It was Boxing Day and really heavy snow. We had to drive the whole way there and back at about 20 miles an hour, driving into a vortex of snow. Luckily we had a really comfy bandwagon with a great soundsystem. We played this album the whole way there and back. We were all blown away at how good it was. At this time we thought all the best music came from the States; this was unashamedly British and amazing. [Harri] A favourite club banger from 2017 so far? Quim Manuel O Espirito Santo – Senhor Doutor (Adam Port Edit) [Keinemusik, 2017] Love this so much, I have sickened myself of it. Already a fan of most African music, this opened the doors of Angolan music for me. Thanks Adam Port for a great edit. [Harri]

A track that is guaranteed to draw people onto the dancefloor? Amadou & Mariam – Bofou Safou (Henrik Schwarz remix) [Because Music, 2017] I recently closed the club after Henrik played live – he always sets the bar so high and the club was completely insane that night. It’s difficult to follow a Henrik Schwarz set when the most appropriate thing is another Henrik Schwarz record. [Telford] A track that can make you cry? Round Two feat. Andy Caine – New Day [Main Street Records, 1995] I don’t know about crying, but music, clubbing, it’s all about emotion. This is a classic house record that is absolutely loaded with it. So earnest. Particularly refreshing to be reminded of records like this while disposable, written-forprofit, in-vogue house music fills the charts. [Telford] Your favourite disco cut or remix? Keni Burke – Risin’ to the Top [RCA, 1982] Impossible question! There are too many great disco tracks, [I’ve] been listening to this a lot recently though. Perfect for when the sun is shining... you won’t hear me play it much in Glasgow. When we’re travelling though, it’s incredible. [Domenic] A techno track that you wish you had written? Âme – Rej [Defected, 2006] Âme and Innervisions have always been incredibly influential for me. This is a seminal, minimal

masterpiece. It’s a track that sounds unbelievable in just about every scenario – best for dark rooms though. If I ever write anything like this, I have a lot to thank Âme for. [Telford] A track that you love to hear played in Sub Club? John Cage – 4’33 [1952] To understand this one you probably have to have worked in an underground venue for over ten years. Perversely, even when listening to the best soundsystem in Scotland, club music five hours a night most days of the week… silence can be the sweetest thing. [Telford] A favourite obscure blues track? Sonny Boy Williamson – Keep it to Yourself [Checker Records, 1956] The one I wanted to give you isn’t [even] on YouTube, but you did ask for obscure… Instead I’ll just give you one of my favourites. I got into DJing through blues bars in Glasgow; Sonny Boy Williamson has a lot to answer for. [Domenic]

A song you’d play on a Sunday morning? Arthur Russell – Another Thought [Point Music, 1994] I’m usually playing at the club most Sunday mornings, but I imagine you are talking about something more mellow. Question number one has just reminded me of how good Massive Attack’s Blue Lines is.... I might play that or some reggae, Joni Mitchell, Arthur Russell or Neil Young. Depends on your mood I suppose. [Harri] A track that you’d play to kick off a Glasgow after-party? The Deacon – Soulsaver [Somewhere in Detroit, 1997] This goes down well every time it’s played, no matter the time or the crowd. Been playing it again recently and people having been going nuts to it. Total funk that keeps people moving late into the morning. [Domenic] Sub Club SoundSystem 2017, Barras Art and Design Centre, Glasgow, 26-27 Aug subclub.co.uk

Clubbing Highlights With two Bank Holiday weekends, August is packed to the rafters with clubbing choices; here are our picks Words: Claire Francis Dr Packer @ The Buff Club, Glasgow, 1 Aug Killer Kitsch are back with disco-edit king Dr Packer, considered one of the pioneers of dance music in Western Australia. He’s played for Ministry of Sound, Defected and Space Ibiza, and has over 25 years of experience as a selector. This marks his debut show at The Buff Club. Field Artists Charity Showcase @ The Art School, Glasgow, 4 Aug This belter of a charity showcase has been put together to raise funds for Glasgow Children’s Hospital Charity, and Paragon Music – an inclusive organisation that uses music to transform the lives of young people and adults. The line-up features Denis Sulta, Chaos In The CBD, Doc Daneeka, Big Miz, MWX, and live sets from Brassica and Solid Blake. 100% of the profits from the event will be donated to help these two essential Glasgow institutions.

Review

Nightvision on the Fringe: Bicep (Live) @ The Liquid Room, Edinburgh, 5 Aug The mighty Belfast duo Bicep drop their self-titled debut on 1 Sep, and to celebrate they’re bringing their renowned live show to the capital, marking the third year in a row that Andy Ferguson and Matt McBriar have come to town during the Edinburgh Fringe. With a 5am licence in place, they also have Hammer, Space Dimension Controller, Lord of the Isles, Telfort, Gav Miller and Simon Bays in tow. Optimo 20 @ The Galvanizer’s Yard (SWG3), Glasgow, 6 Aug 2017 marks the 20th anniversary of Optimo (Espacio) and to celebrate, JD Twitch and JG Wilkes have hand-picked this stellar all day line-up. There’s a heavy focus on live acts and too many talents on the bill to name them all – but The Black Madonna, Ben UFO, and Midland (plus Optimo themselves) are all sure to be highlights.

Fractal Club with Peggy Gou @ The Mash House, Edinburgh, 6 Aug Fractal Club’s first party for this year’s Fringe sees breakout talent Peggy Gou take over The Mash House. Relentless touring, high profile gigs and some killer online mixes have marked her as one to watch, so make the most of the 5am licence and enjoy the first of two August Bank Holiday weekends. Awesome Tapes From Africa @ Summerhall, Edinburgh, 10 Aug and The Berkeley Suite, Glasgow, 11 Aug Brian Shimkovitz started his Awesome Tapes From Africa blog back in 2006 as a way to share the unique cassette tapes he unearthed while studying and travelling in West Africa. Since then the website has grown into a record label that supports African artists to re-release and tour their music. As Awesome Tapes From Africa, Shimkovitz performs DJ sets around the globe, playing a mix of African disco, Ghanaian hip-hop, South African electro and everything in-between, via two tape decks and a whole lotta cassettes. Thunder Disco: Leon Vynehall @ Sub Club, Glasgow, 18 Aug The Brighton-based Vynehall makes a welcome

CLUBS

return to Subbie this month. As a producer he crafts house music that roams from bright and effervescent to lush, atmospheric and samplebased, so expect plenty of eclectic dancefloor selections. Subliminal presents Illyus & Barrientos @ Fubar, Stirling, 19 Aug Fubar continues to prove that top clubs nights can be found in Scotland’s smaller cities, this time with the booking of Glasgow duo Illyus & Barrientos. The pair are building up a strong following thanks to their European festival performances and some solid releases on the likes of Defected Records and Guesthouse Music. You can also catch them in Edinburgh on 17 Aug at the 99 Hanover Street Festival Party. Black Coffee Edinburgh Fringe Closing Party @ Bourbon, Edinburgh, 27 Aug blk29, Hector’s House and Bourbon proudly present their annual Edinburgh Fringe Closing Party, with an Edinburgh debut from South Africa’s most revered DJ, Black Coffee. Further guests are still to be announced. theskinny.co.uk/clubs

THE SKINNY

Hito Steyerl, Abstract, 2012 Two channel HD video with sound 7 minutes, 30 seconds

Polygraphs

Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow

rrrrR

In seven minutes and over two screens in Abstract, Hito Steyerl combines her own documentary footage of a site in Kurdistan of armed conflict with the Turkish Army, and still shots of the exterior of a German office building housing some of the corporate actors who manufacture and supply weapons to Turkish forces. These are then overlaid as the video of the battlefield is shown on an iPhone on one screen held by Steyerl, then she is seen face on, though her face is covered partially by the mobile phone she holds. This angle of intention or refusing the patina of innocence or the global-political irrelevance of certain countries is a line of enquiry that’s picked up by some of the permanent collection works that are on display in the next room. For example, one suite of artist prints (by Graham Fagen) reproduce the plans that show tiny figures

sleeping arm-to-arm and head-to-toe in punishing conditions, as well as the details of some of the many slave ships that sailed from Greenock, one of the main ports and exploiters of slavery at that time. Amongst many moments like these, there is also an etching and collage by David Hockney My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean - a lyrically scratched drawing with the ocean appearing as overlapping scragged and sharp marks, and Hockney leaning precariously at the top of what looks like the Empire State Building. Just around the corner from the video, it poignantly reminds those who have just watched the video of the friendship that forms its basis as Steyerl finds out about the gruesome murder of her journalist friend. At the same time, as the video complicatedly resists sentimentalism, the exhibition contextualises the etching’s fond quotation with the information in the previous room as to Burns’ decision at one point to move to Jamaica as a slave-profiteer. [Adam Benmakhlouf]

Credit: The artist and Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York

This Month in Scottish Art This month is filled by the Edinburgh Art Festival and surrounding events, as well as new shows opening in Glasgow Words: Adam Benmakhlouf

ith August comes the annual Edinburgh Art Festival, with many events and almost every Edinburgh gallery is either officially or unofficially involved with the main programme of events. Throughout this month’s issue, we’ve already highlighted some of this year’s top picks, including Patrick Staff’s audio guide at Collective Gallery. Also featuring in our top five (see Listings), there is the Pester and Rossi night of collaborative music and art at Jupiter Artland on 26-27 August as they try to find “hope in the dark”. And in Stills, Kate Davis presents her solo show, Nudes Never Wear Glasses, including the screening of her recent film commission she made as part of the esteemed Margaret Tait Award. Also happening as part of EAF, Rhubaba present the work of Melbourne-based writer Jessica Yu. In her writing, she is interested in “reconstituting memory and place”, and “‘love’ is interrogated, stretched and practiced as a creative and productive force.” Also incorporating diasporic identity and postcolonial concerns, Yu incorporates long distance collaboration into the work on display, which includes in-gallery press on a purpose built street-front display case. Another interviewed artist, Charlotte Barker has a series of events accompanying her Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop exhibition. Until 12 Aug, she has arranged a Clay Mountain, four tons of clay to which visitors will be encouraged to contribute as a changing sculpture. A further two workshops take place on the 12 and 26 Aug, bookable via learning@edinburghsculpture.org Also as part of Edinburgh Art Festival, The Number Shop showcases its own studio holders on a week-to-week basis. Those working there include artists and creatives, and themes will include “nationalism and border control, superheroes, digital landscapes and super-tasters,” explored through the multimedia practices on show. See edinburghartfestival.com for full details.

As well as Patrick Staff ’s audio guide commission, Collective Gallery exhibit Ross Little. For his presentation, Little screens a film on the globalised labour of the cruise ship industry, including the on-board crew, the digital nomads who use them as a live-work space and the ship breaking yards of Alang, India. The film is installed within a soothing anteroom that replicates cruise ships’ new age and soothing interiors. In Glasgow, in the CCA Intermedia Space, a new exhibition previews 4 Aug, 6-9pm and runs until 23 Aug. As a two-person exhibition, artists Katherine Ka Yi Liu and Sulaïman Majali present as if we were strangers; that strangeness was ours. They find their common ground in their use of fiction as a subversive gesture and to examine the implications of the body and mind of colour in navigating structures that inherently antagonise and quietly erase. Reserving the right to “ambiguity”, they nevertheless exhibit – unapologetically – as people of colour and occupy intersections of race “(& the racialised)”, queerness and gender. Also previewing in Glasgow from 6-9pm on 11 Aug (then running until 3 Sep), 16 Nicholson Street open a new exhibition by artist and Skinny Art Editor Adam Benmakhlouf. Titled Les Pavés, La Plage (The Paving Stones, The Beach), the exhibition combines queering DIY tutorials with experimental merchandising, gestural painting and concrete sculptures. Later in the month, the Civic Room previews on 17 Aug I See Doors of Opportunity Where There Are No Doors. For this exhibition, David Sherry pivots on the pressure to perform in the knowledge economy, the contradictions defining success, and the disruptive effect of nonsense humour. Sherry opens the show with a performance which triggers an anthology of small-scale works, requiring the preposterous labour of audience and invigilators, open during the weekends 18-20 Aug and 25-27 Aug. theskinny.co.uk/art

Finas Townsend III CCA, Glasgow

rrrrR

Find the playlist for Finas Townsend III’s exhibition online, publicly available on Spotify under the same title as the show itself: ...grabbing the gin and regretfully leaving the sauce. Townsend is in the space invigilating for the entirety of the exhibition. Whether this is to be paid attention to, thought of as performative, is left moot. This subtly indistinct boundary of intention is contrasted in the careful arrangement of the 16 abstract painted works over two walls, then the gallery map pile (below, embedded and incorporated at the centre of all the works) and two pieces of perspex with objects on the floor. Colours (subtly different blue hues, sharp red pink) are allowed to glance and relate, but neither the predominantly brighter nor richly darker works are allowed to bunch together. Sharper edges or marks are set next to (within the same

August 2017

work, or in relation to that next to it) diffuse areas of less definite edges and powdery blurring. Seeing the title Sexy chat […] for the mainly white oil on canvas, squared off near its edge. Townsend explains it’s been scraped away using a palette knife to the black gesso that is underneath all of the paintings shown. It’s seen at the edges, dripping underneath, presumably primed lying on their back. This kind of formal description is made inadequate by the five pictures titled BCB (Beautiful chocolate booty) that are on the floor under a square and clear hard plastic sheet, then a lube packet (branded text: ‘Trojan Magnum Bearskin’) and the sheet with the titles of the paintings: Sexy chat […], ….the real fantasy is having a dance, Bish … whatever. Interrupting the rhythm of coolly universalisable abstraction, the texts draw attention to a more colloquial and personalised narrative or exceptions for their operation. [Adam Benmakhlouf] A Plea For Common Ownership, 2017

ART

Review

Photo: Mark Pinder

Install View

Total Immersion Step into a virtual world with FuturePlay’s immersive 3D gallery Interview: Andrew Gordon

he greater an artist’s body of work grows, the more it seems to become a world in and of itself. Artists with especially distinctive creative languages – your Dalis, your Yayoi Kusamas – create alternative realities with their own rules and logic that operate very differently from our own. To become familiar with such an artist’s work is to begin seeing things from their perspective and, if only in a poetic sense, to step into their world. Or at least that’s how it used to be. With the arrival of more readily accessible virtual reality technologies, it’s now possible for artists to create whole worlds you can literally enter and have a poke around in. Imagine a fully immersive 3D ‘gallery’ where everything you see and hear was put there by the artist. “Everything you look at is catered to the experience,” explains Daniel BurkeWard of the Edinburgh-based art collective Reality is Only Screen Deep. “There is nothing that doesn’t belong.” He and co-founder of the collective Nikita Wolfe Murray are bringing two such works to this year’s Fringe as part of the FuturePlay programme, offering attendees a chance to strap on a VR headset and experience the fascinating new medium that they’re calling immersive art. “It’s immersive in that your world is replaced,”

Petite Fleur

By Iosi Havilio, translated by Lorna Scott-Fox

RRRRR

In endings, there are perhaps new beginnings. Starting with the explosive end to his job at a fireworks factory, this new novel from Argentina’s Iosi Havilio explores the life of Jose as he begins to try and find a new direction for himself without employment. His wife is distant, his daughter is too young to notice, so Jose instead immerses himself in mundane housework until one DIY task leads to the gruesome discovery of an otherworldly talent. What follows is a spiralling account of Jose’s battle with inertia, marriage and suburbia. Perhaps more suited as a collection of short stories, the book, although intriguing, fails to bring much new to the suburban genre. The tone is varied, with hints of the absurd and magical realism. An uncanny plot mixed with attempts at humour that register as more unnerving than anything else. Unemployment and the boredom of modernity open many doors for a book like this in terms of plot. Havilio, however, also opens windows and transforms this text into an obscure mess. Instead of adding flare or an educated back story to the main characters, references to acclaimed Russian novelists and classical musicians do more to distance them from the plot and provide an unflattering comparison to what becomes a loosely crafted, obscure tale. Although comparisons have been made with Camus, Murikami and Kafka, it will be interesting to see how this new novel is taken by Havilio’s significant cult following. [Rosie Barron]

says Burke-Ward. “With virtual reality there is no sense of the real world left over when you’re in there. It’s immersive also in the sense that you can walk around in this space; that you can use your hands and get your body really involved.” The two VR artworks the pair have commissioned are dynamic, almost living things that will react to a visitor’s presence in unexpected ways. “We’ve got an audio reactive component to the experience,” Burke-Ward continues. “You’ll listen to one of the songs that are [chosen] specifically for these pieces and the brush strokes will move and pulsate with the audio.” One comes courtesy of Mr. Clandestine, a photographer and filmmaker who recently began dabbling in VR art as a hobby. His piece, entitled Queen Alala, features an “alien African goddess” composed of inky, tentacle-like cables coiled around one another that flicker menacingly, with a glowing golden facemask at its core. The second, Handria, was composed by Dutch artist Handiedan using much the same techniques and iconography she has employed in her collage work. A spiral of cardboard cutout pin-up girls clipped from post-war erotic illustrations is a towering presence in the centre of her expansive, multi-layered world where floating electric

railroads lead the participant from one pocket of the space to another. Both works were created using Google’s Tilt Brush software, which Murray describes as “like Paint on Windows but in three dimensions. It’s almost like sculpting in a way, like building 3D art in a 3D space.” “The best likeness I could use to describe it would be if you have a sparkler and it’s really dark and cold outside and you draw in the air and sign your name or something and the letters hover there,” Burke-Ward adds. “It’s like that but permanent and with lots of different brush types, not just sparklers.”

Such Small Hands

Let Us Be True

By Andrés Barba, translated by Lisa Dillman

By Alex Christofi

RRRRR

Children can be so cruel. Easy when there’s no perception of consequence. Perhaps that’s why they’re a tool horror uses to tap into primal fears: we lament our own loss of innocence or shun those uncivilised things we once were. To cut through the psychology, kids are creepy little bastards. Exhibit A: Andrés Barba’s Such Small Hands, where he takes us through the looking glass into a consciousness bordering on psychosis, or the mindset of a child. There are hints of Something Wicked this Way Comes in the blend of fantasy and terror that forms this worldview, but Barba’s tale is inspired by truth – a horrific incident in 1960s Brazil where a girl was killed by others at an orphanage, who then played with her body parts for a week. Thankfully, Barba plots a more psychological course in his fairly bloodless Gothic horror. seven-year-old Marina is sent to a girls home after a fatal accident leaves her parentless. While her comfortable background distances her from the other girls, they obsess after her dangerously. She is god, monster and sacrifice. It’s a novella about many things, among them trauma, loss and longing, but most of all about simply being a child. Lisa Dillman fluidly translates impeccable literary technique, most notable when the girls – without parents to draw the lines within which their lives should be lived – speak in their anonymous first person plural, a sinister Greek chorus. They are legion. [Alan Bett]

Scarred by a traumatic childhood and his participation in WWII, Ralf seeks solace and solitude in the dive bars of Paris. Although he is convinced of his incurable isolation, Ralf’s universe is turned on its head when the beautiful and spontaneous Elsa comes crashing into his life. But just as Ralf begins to envision a world in which he doesn’t have to be alone, the past and the present come rushing together to upend his imaginary future. With his second novel, Alex Christofi explores themes of love, loyalty and opportunities lost, all set against the bloody backdrop of 20th century European politics – a period which underlines the insecurity and uncertainty which so often cloaks decisions both public and private. Though set over half a century ago, there are many echoes of issues that are still hugely relevant today, such as the persecution of minorities and the futility of raging against an inscrutable machine. But for all the weighty themes explored on both an individual and a societal level, the real merits of Let Us Be True lie not in its storylines, motifs or characters, but the writing itself. Just as Ralf cannot help but be enamoured with Elsa’s quirky and even abrasive charm, the reader is sucked into Christofi’s prose, a prisoner to his wit and imagination. You might dislike the history, but you’ll love the historian. [Jonny Sweet] Out 10 Aug, published by Serpent’s Tail, RRP £14.99

Out 3 Aug, published by Portobello Books, RRP £9.99

Out 3 Aug, published by And Other Stories, RRP £10

Review

As part of their thirty minute time slot, visitors to the Immersive Gallery will get a go at drawing their own shapes in Tilt Brush (we’ve got dibs on the cool ‘S’), all in the name of raising the profile of VR as an artistic medium. “For each individual person who comes through the doors, we want them to leave with a similar experience to the first time we tried VR,” says Burke-Ward. “Which was sort of an overwhelming wow moment where you’re like ‘I can’t really see any future in which this is not a part of it.’” FuturePlay Immersive Gallery, Assembly Rooms, 3-26 Aug, £6 assemblyfestival.com/futureplay

So Happy It Hurts By Anneliese Mackintosh

RRRRR

Roping together Ottila McGregor’s struggle to quit alcohol, recover from her father’s death, support her mentally ill sister and form a relationship which isn’t totally self-destructive, So Happy It Hurts is all about trying. Trying to be happy. Trying to be healthy. Trying to be kind. Trying to be better. You try, you fail, you try again and fail again better. In another author’s hands this might have strayed into vapid, ‘uplifiting’ self-help territory – think Drink. Pray. Love – but Mackintosh’s sharp humour is quick to cut down anything approaching saccharine, with Ottila writing her own sarcastic rebuttals to the lame advice prescribed by therapists and waiting room literature. The novel balances irony and earnestness perfectly, offering both a heartbreakingly sincere quest for happiness and an acerbic intolerance of hollow quick-fixes. Told through a scrapbook of letters, emails, Snapchats, therapy transcripts and text messages, Mackintosh builds a novel out of the language we actually use day to day. More than anything though, her characters bring it to life. Maybe it’s the intimacy of revealing them through their private messages, maybe it’s just how powerfully Mackintosh draws them and what they mean to Ottila, but the effect is so strong and the threat of some new catastrophe so tangible that each page turn feels like a horrible gamble with these people’s lives. When it hurts, it really fucking hurts. But when it’s happy, Anneliese Mackintosh’s latest work is positively radiant. [Ross McIndoe] Out now, published by Vintage, RRP £14.99

TECH / BOOKS

THE SKINNY

August 2017

In Cinemas England Is Mine

Director: Mark Gill Starring: Jack Lowden, Jessica Brown Findlay, Jodie Comer, Simone Kirby, Peter McDonald, Katherine Pearce, Laurie Kynaston Released: 4 Aug Certificate: 15

rrrrr

Musician biopics are not without their clichés, but director Mark Gill, who wrote this Morrissey biopic with William Thacker, does a good job of either sidestepping these tired narrative tropes or making them more palatable in England is Mine, which ingeniously focuses on young Stephen Patrick Morrissey (Lowden) and his messy lead up to forming a songwriting partnership with Johnny Marr (Kynaston). There are barely a handful of scenes of the future Smiths linchpins together, however, with the overarching narrative hinging on Morrissey daring to take a chance with Marr, having felt abandoned by his artist friend Linder Sterling (a pitch perfect Brown Findlay) and his bandmate Billy Duffy (Lawrence) when both sequentially find success and move to London, leaving Morrissey to languish in his depression and a Valium-induced haze in Manchester. This is, of course, a streamlined, fictionalised account of Morrissey’s biography, which takes poetic license to distill this part of his life into a lean 94 minutes, and undoubtedly this may cause some upset among Mozza purists. Without being too much of a pedant, it’s worth pointing out that there are some faults in Morrissey’s characterisation here. The script doesn’t easily differentiate between Morrissey’s driven self-belief and classism. Also, Morrissey’s queerness is bizarrely elided, with the only hints being his idolisation of Oscar Wilde. There’s nothing inherently wrong in rejecting historical accuracy for a better story (see Amadeus), but that’s not necessarily the case here. Despite its flaws, England Is Mine is an entertaining watch, funny and tragic, and particularly enjoyable for its depiction of the singer’s relationships with the strong women in his life – his best friend Linder who grounds him and his mother Elizabeth (Kerby) who tries to instill him with self-confidence in his darkest hours. [Rachel Bowles] Released by EntertainmentOne

Your Name

Director: Makoto Shinkai Starring: Ryûnosuke Kamiki, Mone Kamishiraishi, Ryô Narita, Aoi Yūki Released: 23 Aug Certificate: 12A

rrrrr

Makoto Shinkai’s previous films have been celebrated for their dazzling, painterly animation, but less so for their scripts and characters. That complaint can’t be thrown at Your Name, where the effervescent young protagonists shine just as brightly as the glistening background details of every composition. Mitsuha is a high school girl living in a small lakeside town, who longs for big city life; so much so that at night she dreams she inhabits the form of a schoolboy in faraway Tokyo. Except this is no dream. Every so often, Mitsuha really does take control of this urban teen. And that boy, Taki, is suffering the reverse fate, controlling Mitsuha’s body in his own sleep a few nights a week. Their respective uses of each other’s forms leave strange consequences for the body’s owner to deal with the next day. Eventually clocking on to what’s happening, the pair begin communicating with each other, leaving messages on their phones so they can piece together what’s happening to them. But then one day the body swapping stops.

Your Name

The celestial event that may have caused their shape-shifting shenanigans is also responsible for a cataclysmic disruption. And so this fantastical Freaky Friday riff enters the mode of Back to the Future, in that our heroes seek to correct a known forthcoming catastrophe through a fight against time and destiny. Your Name has been a massive hit at the Japanese box-office and its populist appeal makes a lot of sense. It’s got a high-concept premise

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets

rrrrr

Director: Aisling Walsh Starring: Sally Hawkins, Ethan Hawke, Kari Matchett, Zachary Bennett, Gabrielle Rose, Billy MacLellan Released: 4 Aug Certificate: 12A

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets is the most expensive French film ever made and there’s no denying that the budget is all up there on the screen. Luc Besson has conjured a fantastic universe in this 25th century space opera. The film takes place in a series of extraordinarily detailed environments populated by imaginative and brilliantly rendered alien life forms, and the fact that we only glimpse many of these species in passing suggests a vast galaxy that expands for light years in every direction. You might be content to overlook the slapdash plotting and boilerplate dialogue and just enjoy the spectacle, but there’s a black hole in the middle of the picture. As the heroic protagonists, Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne deliver callow, charmless performances, and their flirtatious bickering is painful to endure. Thank God, then, for Rihanna. In just a few minutes on screen she injects Valerian with a much-needed jolt of wit, sensuality, charisma and sheer star power. They’re the kind of qualities money can’t buy. [Philip Concannon]

Released by Sony Pictures

Released by Lionsgate

A Ghost Story

Final Portrait

A Ghost Story is definitely an actual ghost story, but it’s certainly not a horror film. Instead, as its rather perfect poster tagline posits, it’s all about time. Casey Affleck plays a ghost (complete with white sheet) who, having turned down an entrance to an apparent afterlife, choses to returns to his suburban home to keep an eye on and try to console his bereft wife (Mara). As the woman he loves moves on, along with traces of the life he knew, he’s trapped in their home, forced through years of changes in inhabitants and eventually witness to the Texas land’s transformation in a near future. And then things get... cosmic. A Ghost Story is quite a hard film to get a full grasp on with just one viewing, but to give a taste of its aesthetic sensibilities, think a blend of ghost fiction, 2001: A Space Odyssey and the patient works of director Apichatpong Weerasethakul. So, y’know, don’t come to it expecting Affleck and Mara to go crazy with a pottery wheel and a Righteous Brothers soundtrack. [Josh Slater-Williams]

Review

Director: Luc Besson Starring: Dane DeHaan, Cara Delevingne, Elizabeth Debicki, Ethan Hawke, John Goodman, Clive Owen, Rihanna Released: 2 Aug Certificate: 12A

Maude Lewis lived a singular life. A hunched figure afflicted by debilitating arthritis, Lewis spent decades living in a tiny shack in Nova Scotia, where she created vibrant watercolour paintings that ended up in Richard Nixon’s White House. It’s an interesting story, sure, but is it a film? On the evidence of Aisling Walsh’s Maudie, the answer is no. Walsh and her screenwriter, Sherry White, take a bog-standard biopic approach to the material, taking us through Maude’s life step-by-step – her illness, her marriage, her artistic flourishing – but the sluggish pacing and banal filmmaking means each scene just sits there on the screen, failing to tie into any larger theme or illuminate deeper truths about the characters. Sally Hawkins works hard to give the film a motor, but her physical exertions aren’t matched by a sense of Maude’s inner life. At least she fares better than Ethan Hawke, who scowls and grunts embarrassingly as Maude’s taciturn, abusive and finally grudgingly affectionate husband. Hawke is usually a fine actor, but his miscasting here is a disaster. [Philip Concannon]

rrrrr

Released by National Amusements

Maudie

Director: David Lowery Starring: Casey Affleck, Rooney Mara, Will Oldham, Sonia Acevedo, Jonny Mars, Kesha Released: 11 Aug Certificate: 12A

A Ghost Story

that Shinkai exploits to its fullest comedic potential in a stellar first act, before then working a fine balance between sweet sentiment, mindbending existential crises, heart-wrenching romance and a probing of traditional gender roles. Most pleasingly, Your Name eventually evolves to be one of the few great films concerning mass destruction via comet. One might say it leaves a deep impact. (Sorry.) [Josh Slater-Williams]

Released by Picturehouse Entertainment

Director: Stanley Tucci Starring: Geoffrey Rush, Armie Hammer, Clémence Poésy Released: 18 Aug Certificate: 15

rrrrr

The artistic process is under the spotlight in Stanley Tucci’s Final Portrait. For its subject, Alberto Giacometti, it’s an ordeal, but watching his stalled creativity proves similarly torturous. The Swiss artist (played by Rush at his most actorly) was famed for his spindly sculptures; Tucci’s film feels similarly stretched. We follow prissy American writer James Lord (Hammer) as he vainly agrees to have the great artist paint his portrait, not grasping that Giacometti’s crippling insecurity means that the proposed afternoon’s sitting in 1964 will become an extended stay in Paris as the artist repeatedly reworks the painting, usually with proclamations of “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” at his own mediocrity. Almost all of Final Portrait takes place in and around Giacometti’s stylishly cluttered atelier, and the roaming camera, expressive set design and likable performances can’t disguise the film’s built-in repetitiveness. Lord’s purgatory ends when he abruptly calls a halt to his ordeal, leaving him with an incomplete painting but pleasure in the knowledge it’s over. By Final Portrait ’s anticlimactic finish, the audience has a similar feeling. [Jamie Dunn] Released by Vertigo Releasing

FILM

THE SKINNY

The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T

Westfront 1918 / Kameradschaft

Mickey One

rrrrr

Director: Roy Rowland Starring: Tommy Rettig, Hans Conried, Mary Healy, Peter Lind Hayes Released: Out now Certificate: PG

A critical and commercial flop on its 1953 release, this zany and fairly daft romp from the pen of Dr. Seuss (his first and last film script) has earned a cult status among aficionados of strange cinema. Ostensibly an extended dream-sequence, we meet plucky Bart Collins (the often cloying Rettig) and his strict piano teacher Dr. T (Conried), who has a peculiar distaste for any instrument other than the piano. Dr. T’s insistence that “practice makes perfect” is lost on little Bart as he falls asleep at the piano and ends up in a weird compound where the eponymous doctor has built a ridiculously long piano ripe for the 5000 fingers of 500 children to play it simultaneously. In the dream, the doctor parades around like a pompous dictator, keeping Bart’s mum (Healy) in hypnotic servitude while their plumber neighbour (Hayes) potters about installing sinks – he also becomes something of a surrogate father to Bart. Added to this are two roller-skating twins conjoined by one humongous beard (“they were men of infinite jest!”), a gimp-masked elevator operator who sings about torture dungeons and a bottle of potion that sucks sound out of the air. If that all sounds fairly mental, that’s because it is, but what’s really striking about the film is the sheer imagination and creative talent pouring from every corner of the frame, from the elongated, expressionistic set designs (courtesy of Cary Odell and Rudolph Sternad) to the rousing and often beautiful musical score and songs created by Frederick Hollander and Seuss himself. Extras A jam-packed embarrassment of riches. There’s insightful commentary from film historians Glenn Kenny and Nick Pinkerton; interviews with the relatives of the actors and son of director Roy Rowland; on-set images gallery and booklet with a new essay by artist Peter Conheim and more. [Adam Stafford] Released by Indicator

Director: G.W. Pabst Starring: Fritz Kampers, Gustav Diessl / Alexander Granach Released: Out now Certificate: 15

GW Pabst is perhaps best known to modern audiences for his collaborations with Louise Brooks, the bob-haired flapper whose iconic style has endured long beyond the films in which she starred. Associated with glamour and progressive sexual politics, the director’s fascination with grime tends to get overlooked. Nowhere is it more pronounced than in the offerings which make up this double feature. Both Westfront 1918 and Kameradschaft are so steeped in dirt that one may feel compelled to shower after watching. The former is the easiest sell of the two, boasting a handful of famous images and presenting an alternative view of a familiar subject. The trenches of the Great War are depicted from a German perspective and we’re shown the extent to which our own cinema’s bad guys suffered in unsparing detail. It’s a fascinating counterpoint to the likes of All Quiet on the Western Front, but suffers from pacing issues and a meandering narrative. Kameradschaft, on the other hand, is stunning. Lean and taut, it shows a rescue party of German miners rallying together in aid of their French peers, trapped underground on the other side of the border. A claustrophobic masterpiece, it points to the interwar years as a progressive age, the humanist values of which Europe never quite regained. Having survived the transition to talkies, it was fascism that would finally derail the director. Extras Limited edition O-card (first 2000 copies); both films presented on Blu-ray in stunning 1080p; uncompressed PCM soundtrack for both titles (on the Blu-ray); alternate subtitle options of Kameradschaft authentic to the film’s original presentation in both France and Germany; introduction to both films by film scholar and author Jan-Christopher Horak; 44 booklet featuring a new essay by Philip Kemp, alongside rare archival imagery. [Lewis Porteous] Released by Eureka Entertainment

It could have been different. Had audiences known what to make of Arthur Penn’s homage to French New Wave cinema on its release in 1965, it could have been the film that critics pointed to as the one that signalled a shift to the ‘New Hollywood’ era of American cinema. Instead it stands as an almost completely forgotten cinematic curio. Warren Beatty stars as a devil-may-care nightclub comic who flees Detroit after falling into debt with the mob. Washing up in Chicago, he assumes the identity of a Pole whose name he abbreviates to Mickey One and soon finds himself back performing in one of the city’s sleazy clubs. Consumed by paranoia, he repeatedly sabotages opportunities to play in better venues for fear of being recognised until finally summoning the courage to confront his fate. Combining a plot straight out of film noir with the narrative and stylistic innovations of the French New Wave, Mickey One certainly doesn’t lack for ambition. Its Kafka-esque plot is conveyed with jump-cuts and bizarre symbolic imagery unlike anything from American cinema at the time. But Penn ultimately fails to successfully blend his stylistic urges to his story and the film frequently comes across as overly obtuse and pretentious. Unsurprisingly, it failed to find an audience on release and promptly disappeared. Penn would find a better balance between his blend of American narrative and European cinematic technique two years later in Bonnie and Clyde – the film that is widely heralded as the starting point for the new wave of talent in American cinema. In another world that film might have been Mickey One. Nevertheless it remains an ambitious failure – one signalling greater things to come. Extras A decent selection of trailers and interviews. Stand-out is The Guardian Lecture with Arthur Penn – an hour long audio recording providing fascinating insights into one of American cinema’s most talented directors. [Michael Jaconelli] Released by Indicator

eurekavideo.co.uk

powerhousefilms.co.uk

August 2017

Director: Arthur Penn Starring: Warren Beatty, Alexandra Stewart, Hurd Hatfield Released: Out now Certificate: 12

powerhousefilms.co.uk

DVD

Review

THE SKINNY

Top Edinburgh Festival Picks

Glasgow Music

Our section editors narrow their Edinburgh Festival picks down to a tick-'em-off-as-you-go top 5...

Tue 01 Aug

KARA-LIS COVERDALE & CUCINA POVERA

Music

Theatre

Comedy

Art

Books

1. Tubular Brass with Hannah Peel

1. Wild Bore

1. Sofie Hagen: Dead Baby Frog

1. Patrick Staff: To Those in Search of Immunity

1. Karl Geary & Samanta Schweblin

What better way to kick off your 2017 Edinburgh Fringe than with a 28-piece brass band playing one of the most iconic albums of the 20th century, Mike Oldfield’s triumphant 1973 work Tubular Bells? The evening will also feature a special performance of Hannah Peel’s latest long player, Mary Casio: Journey to Cassiopeia, which combines synthesizers and brass to stunning effect. The show also features specially commissioned audio visuals by Daniel Conway. St Cuthbert’s Church, 5 Aug, 7.30pm £8-14

2. PJ Harvey

The inimitable Polly Jean Harvey is stopping by Edinburgh this August to play not one, but two nights as part of this year’s Edinburgh International Festival programme. Accompanied by her nine-piece band, they’ll be performing tracks from 2016’s Grammy nominated album, The Hope Six Demolition Project, as well as material from her extensive back catalogue. Edinburgh Playhouse, 7-8 Aug, 8pm, £15-48

3. Frànçois & the Atlas Mountains It’s been a few years since Frànçois & the Atlas Mountains have played in Edinburgh so we’re looking forward to welcoming them back this August. Comprising members of various groups from France and the UK, including Petit Fantôme, Jaune!, Archipel and Glasgow’s Babe, together they make glorious dreamy French indie-pop inflected with African rhythms. Summerhall, 15 Aug, 8pm, £12

4. Room 29: Jarvis Cocker & Chilly Gonzales

Inspired by his stay in Room 29 at the Château Marmont Hotel in Hollywood – previous occupants include Jean Harlow and Marilyn Monroe – Jarvis Cocker wrote a new collection of songs using the room’s baby grand piano. Now with the aid of piano virtuoso Chilly Gonzales, and assisted by the Kaiser Quartett, the stories of Room 29 will be brought to life on stage as part of EIF. King’s Theatre, 22-24 Aug, 8pm, £11-40

5. XFRMR

In 1891, Serbian-American inventor Nikola Tesla tamed lightning with his Tesla coil, a device which makes electricity visible; now Glasgow-based artist Robbie Thomson has harnessed the coil’s sonic capabilities to create XFRMR. Part of the Made in Scotland showcase series, XFRMR will also feature audio-reactive projections, so we are 100 percent sold. The Leith Volcano, 22-26 Aug, times vary, £6-12

Zoe Coombs Marr? Ursula Martinez? Adrienne Truscott? At the Traverse for an entire month? Yes, please! This new all woman supergroup bring their blend of political spiky performance and comedy to the Fringe to prove that, as their poster shows, they too, can talk out of their arses. Contains nudity, obviously. Traverse Theatre, 8-27 Aug (not 14, 21) times vary, £9.50-21.50

2. The Last Queen of Scotland

In 1972, the Ugandan dictator, Idi Amin, ordered the expulsion of all Ugandan-Asians from the country within 90 days. In 2017, Stellar Quines brings Jaimini Jethwa's first play to the Fringe, to tell the story of how her family left their homeland, settled in the schemes in Dundee, before she made the journey back to where once was home. Supported by the National Theatre of Scotland and Dundee Rep. Underbelly Cowgate, 3-26 Aug, 6.50pm, £7.30-13.80

3. The Divide

The latest from one of the UK’s greatest living playwrights, Alan Ayckbourn, The Divide imagines a dystopian England, ravaged by deadly contagion that makes any contact between the opposite sex fatal. With society broken down, and the survivors divided by their gender – the males wear white and are considered pure, while the women dress in black to signal their infection – this world premiere could be both terrifyingly prescient and brilliant. King’s Theatre, Edinburgh, 8-20 Aug (not 9, 10, 14), times vary, £14-32

2015 Best Newcomer Sofie Hagen explores her grandfather’s psychopathy and discusses a parable where a frog is boiled alive. It’s her third show, and is also “anxietysafe”, meaning you can email anxietytour2016@gmail.com with specific accessibility requests. Bedlam Theatre, 2-28 Aug, 2pm, £8-10

2. Michael Legge: Jerk

Ever been told you should be ashamed of yourself? The team captain from the excellent Do the Right Thing podcast is back after a year away from Edinburgh, and he's wondering if a little shame is no bad thing. The Stand Comedy Club 2 (16 North St Andrew Street), 3-27 Aug (not 14), 1.20pm, £8-£9

3. Lucy Pearman: Maid of Cabbage

One half of talented comedic duo LetLuce, Lucy Pearman is now flying solo with no less invention. Her debut show seems to be set in the Edwardian era, and revolves around a quest to find the quintessential cabbage - of course. Heroes at Monkey Barrel (Basement), 3-27 Aug (not 14, 15), 12.30pm, £5/PWYW

4. Ahir Shah: Control

Shah’s Edinburgh hours distil stormy politics into incisive humour. His shows have a knack of getting to the nub of how our day-to-day lives connect with a more panoramic view of the world, mining thoughtful and powerful comedy from big questions and big issues. Laughing Horse at Cabaret Voltaire (Main Room), 3-27 Aug, 2pm, free

4. Mark Thomas: A Show That Gambles on the 5. Fin Taylor: Future Lefty Tighty 2016 was an unpredictable Righty Loosey shitshow of a year, but is it possible to predict what the rest of 2017 and beyond has in store? This is the question that master storyteller, Mark Thomas will attempt to answer by examining his own predictions, as well as those of the audience. Expect the weird, the wonderful the totally unexpected, and even, possibly, hope, for 2018 and beyond. Summerhall, 4-27 Aug (not 3, 14, 19), 6pm, £10-15

5. Meow Meow’s Little Mermaid

The Queen of Cabaret, Meow Meow, returns to the Edinburgh International Festival with the European premiere her subversive take on Hans Christian Andersen’s beloved, yet utterly depressing fairytale. Based on her own “misadventures in love”, and featuring original songs by Amanda Palmer, Kate Miller-Heidke and Megan Washington, Meow Meow is a reassuring presence even when the world is going to shit. The Hub, 3-27 Aug (not 8, 15, 22), times vary, £15-32

After his acclaimed 2016 show Whitey McWhiteface, Fin Taylor returns embracing his inner jingo and defending certain indefensible invasions. Satirising self-serving and tepid lefty bullshit, Taylor isn't convinced by phoney political convictions – and by adopting a contrarian perspective demonstrates his keen eye for bunk. Just the Tonic at The Tron, 3-27 Aug (not 14), 10.20pm, £6.50/ PWYW

Film, installation, performance and dance artist Patrick Staff’s work examines dissent, labour and the queer body. This month, Collective presents Staff’s Observer’s Walk of Calton Hill which melds audio essay, memoir and story. Collective Gallery, Until 27 Aug, 10am-6pm, free

2. Pester and Rossi: Lunar Nova Campout

Since 2008, Pester and Rossi have been producing wearable sculpture, DIY costume and props working with an anarchic and feminist approach. On 26 Aug, they host an overnight campout and search for hope in the dark, inspired by nocturnal rituals and notions of destruction and renewal that surround the cycles of the moon. Jupiter Artland, 26 Aug, 8pm, £20-30

4. Charlotte Baker: Flotilla

At the meeting point of art and design, Charlotte Baker makes materially and formally elegant work using diverse traditional methods. Tool marks expose the intricacy of their production, and the objects themselves deconstruct the hierarchies of fine art, craft and the decorative arts. Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, Until 26 Aug, free

5. Kate Davis

For her Stills solo show, Kate Davis presents her recent Margaret Tait Award commission, which reimagines the fundamental but overlooked and unpaid processes that we employ to care for others and ourselves. This is presented alongside Davis’ prints, drawings and photography, which present aesthetic and political ambiguities from a contemporary feminist perspective. Stills Gallery, Until 8 Oct, free

Kara-Lis Coverdale creates colourful arrangements with a unique penchant for long-form melody, harmony and sonic detail. ED ASKEW (ORION’S BELT)

THE GLAD CAFE, FROM 19:30, TBC

THE HAZY SHADES

STEREO, FROM 19:00, £5 - £7

SWG3 GLASGOW, FROM 21:00, £15

Thu 10 Aug

THE SHE STREET BAND

The world’s first (probably) Bruce Springsteen covers band. That’s right.

LIONIZE (DOG MOON HOWL + MANTIS TOBOGGAN)

EVERYDAY PHARAOHS (CLOSET ORGAN + THE HONEYBADGERS + THE SWAY)

2. Ever Dundas & Hwang Sok-yong

O2 ABC, FROM 19:00, £11.25

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:00, TBC

There seems a lateral train of thought in pairing these novelists at either end of the literary life cycle. Scottish newcomer Ever Dundas brought a Goblin into our lives with her fantastical tale woven with timely themes. On the other side is the elderly Korean master Hwang Sok-yong, whose own life of imprisonment and exile is as affecting as his legendary body of work. Both have created characters that exist on the edge of society. Baillie Gifford Corner Theatre, Charlotte Square, 16 Aug, 7pm, £6-8

The Babble On spoken word strand at EIBF often veers between riotous and reflective moments. We would expect both from the combination of young female poets performing here on themes of womanhood, including Skinny favourite Iona Lee and Sabrina Mahfouz, who brought the wonderful collection of writing from Muslim Women – The Things I Would Tell You – together earlier this year. Garden Theatre, Charlotte Square, 20 Aug, 4pm, £12-10

4. Ryan Gattis & Dave Hook

When Ryan Gattis isn’t writing the most wild, kinetic and emotionally charged LA gang stories, he’s working with a street art crew – just one more way to tell stories on the street. Here he teams up with Stanley Odd MC Dave Hook to celebrate these many forms of communication. Word and image will combine alongside these two fine storytellers. Garden Theatre, Charlotte Square, 15 Aug, 4pm, £12-10

5. Kapka Kassabova

Kassabova’s Border is quite possibly the book of the year. Both timely and timeless, this travelogue around the outer reaches of Europe has Cold War history echoing into our modern times, where desperate refugees attempt to cross those all-too-important lines on a map. It is beautifully poetic, heart-breaking, and humane. The book will transform you. We imagine this event could too. Garden Theatre, Charlotte Square, 28 Aug, 5.45pm, £12-10

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 20:00, £10

Japanese psych-pop duo comprising Kawabata Makoto and Afrirampo’s Pikacyu. YES LAD (REUBEN GRAY)

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:00, £8

Boy band with lyrics for the lads. Head down and crack open some cold ones.

The Maryland rock quartet hit the O2.

Wed 02 Aug

RAUCOUS ROSSINI: L’OCCASIONE FA IL LADRO

CCA: CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART, FROM 20:00, £1 - £7

Raucous Rossini are an upand-coming professional opera company based in Glasgow who specialise in Rossini one-act comedy operas. They return to CCA this summer with L’occasione fa il ladro. SARAH DAVACHI (LUMINOUS MONSTERS + BELL LUNGS)

THE GLAD CAFE, FROM 19:30, £7

The electronic and electroacoustic music producer brings her complex sonic experimentations to The Glad.

STEVE HARRIS: BRITISH LION (ATTICA RAGE) CLASSIC GRAND, FROM 18:30, £15

The Iron Maiden bassist heads to Classic Grand with bis British Lion band.

Thu 03 Aug

RAUCOUS ROSSINI: L’OCCASIONE FA IL LADRO

CCA: CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART, FROM 20:00, £1 - £7

Raucous Rossini are an upand-coming professional opera company based in Glasgow who specialise in Rossini one-act comedy operas. They return to CCA this summer with L’occasione fa il ladro.

WUH OH (HQFU + CALLUM EASTER)

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 20:00, £5

Peter Ferguson – aka Glasgowbased electronic composer Wuh Oh hits The H&P with pals.

SPOOKY WOODS (CARA ROSE + ROSS WOODHOUSE)

The Durham folk group debut a new line-up of band members.

New York painter and singer/songwriter hailed as a bit of a legend on the folk-psyche landscape. PIKACYU - MAKOTO

Wed 09 Aug

The Glasgow rock’n’rollers play a selection of new songs for your aural delectation.

Books Editor Alan Bett’s main reason for turning up at this event will be to hand Samanta Schweblin a therapy bill after her dread-filled English debut Fever Dream brought anxieties of death into his every day. She appears in a strong pairing with Karl Geary, whose novel Montpelier Parade we called ‘an astonishing debut’ in a 5-star review. Two incredible emerging talents. Writer’s Retreat, Charlotte Square, 16 Aug, 3.30pm, £6-8

3. Platform 2017 (Uist Corrigan, Rebecca Howard, Kotryna Ula Kiliulyte and Adam Quinn) 3. Jemima Foxtrot, Platform is the Edinburgh Art Iona Lee, Sabrina Festival’s showcase of selected emerging artists. This year, previ- Mahfouz & Sophia ously EAF commissioned artists Walker Graham Fagen and Jacqueline Donachie have put together four artists working across performance, filmmaking, photography, work with archives, sound installation and sculpture. The Fire Station at ECA, Until 27 Aug, free

CCA: CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART, FROM 20:00, £10

Sat 05 Aug

ON THE HOUSE 6TH BIRTHDAY: NOSTALGIA

BROADCAST, FROM 23:00, £5

OTH mark 6 years with a night of their favourite anthems, both present and past. MAD FOR MUSICALS

ORAN MOR, FROM 19:00, £13 - £15

A musical concert celebrating the best of Broadway and The West End featuring the Glass Slippers Show Band and vocalists.

Trio of Glasgow lads touting indie, post garage, punk and rock. KEV HOWELL (JAMIE COLEMAN + DARYL SPERRY + LISA KOWALSKI)

O2 ABC, FROM 19:00, £9

Howell celebrates the launch his debut album Haunting Ambition, bringing his alt rock and blues to a live audience.

Sun 06 Aug OPTIMO 20

SWG3 GLASGOW, FROM 14:00, £40

Optimo (Espacio) salute two decades of bangers bringing a lineup featuring the likes of The Black Madonna, Ben UFO, K-X-P, Carla dal Forno, Sofay and more. ST LUKE’S ALL-DAYER (SINDERINS + RASCALTON + LUCIA + EMME WOODS + MIRACLE GLASS COMPANY + NIEVES + THE GREAT ALBATROSS AND MORE) ST LUKE’S, FROM 15:00, £10

After last year’s success, St Luke’s reprise their all-dayer, this time drafting in Sinderins, Rascalton, Lucia, Miracle Glass Company, Nieves and more. BOMBSKARE

BROADCAST, FROM 19:00, £7

Scotland’s best part-time band bring a ska cavalcade to Broadcast.

Tue 08 Aug

FEIS ROIS: CEILIDH TRAIL

THE GLAD CAFE, FROM 19:30, £7 - £9

A fivesome of young traditional musicians perform lively reels, jigs and beautifully crafted Gaelic songs. SINGING BIRDS (MIKE EDWARDS + ZOE GRAHAM + JO FOSTER + MARTINA ALBERI + ROBBIE ORR) BROADCAST, FROM 19:00, £5

BROADCAST, FROM 19:00, FREE

DOOTCHI

STEREO, FROM 18:30, £5

Biggar-hailing alternative funk rock quartet who joined musical forces in 2014. LOUISE DISTRAS (STRUNG OUT NIGHTS)

BROADCAST, FROM 19:00, £7

Critically acclaimed female punk rocker carrying the torch of Billy Bragg and Joe Strummer. FUTURE HORIZONS

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 19:30, £5

Progressive hardcore hailing from Hartlepool.

Fri 11 Aug

HOUSE OF 4 (STONE IVY + ROLY MO + THE AFTER SHAKES)

CLASSIC GRAND, FROM 19:00, £8

A farewell show with a trio of supports. THE TREND

BROADCAST, FROM 19:00, £5

The Glasgow party rock band play Broadcast. DEAD HOPE (CURDLE)

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 19:30, £5

Glasgow trio specialising in post-punk.

LAYAWAY (SERAPH SIN + TWO TONE TELEVISION + IKARI)

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:30, £7.70

Big, melodic rock sounds from four veterans of the field. SEASIDE SONS (PELIKAN ROGUE + REVOLVER)

O2 ABC, FROM 19:00, £9

Ayr-based indie rock’n’rollers mixing social poetry with funked-up bass lines, guitar riffs and noisy drums.

Sat 12 Aug

MITCHELL MUSEUM (ROSS CLARK)

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 19:30, £6

The Glaswegian quartet make their return. POWDERKEG (THE SUPER PUMAS + ROCKET REDUCER + BOB DUNCAN)

CLASSIC GRAND, FROM 19:00, £5

Beer-fuelled, feel-good hard rock, apparently.

A NIGHT OF MODERN PSYCHEDELIA II ( ST DELUXE + AL HOTCHKISS) BROADCAST, FROM 19:00, FREE

Cosmic cowboys The Kundalini Genie lead up an eve of psych at Broadcast.

CLENCH (FALSE FRIENS + BOTTLE NOTE)

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 19:30, £6

The alternative bunch take to Sleazy’s.

Fri 04 Aug

A songwriting showcase bringing the finest tune-merchants to Broadcast.

STAR SHAPED FESTIVAL: THE BLUETONES (THE BLUETONES + SLEEPER + SPACE + DODGY + MY LIFE STORY + SALAD UNDRESSED)

STEREO, FROM 19:00, £7

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 19:30, £5

The English indie-rock Britpop troupe return to the live stage as part of Star Shaped Festival.

MARY OCHER (YOUR GOVERNMENT)

Moscow-born Mary Ocher’s work is as enchanting as it is polarising, ranging from traditional folk to raw 60s garage, ambient with ethereal vocals and abstract synths, to experimental pop with African and South American rhythms. JUNIOR (THE YOUNG HEARTS)

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 19:30, £6

SHANTI POWA

Get a load of reggae, hip-hop, dancehall, ska, Latin and more from this 12-piece northern Italian orchestra.

O2 ABC, FROM 13:00, £41.70

Sun 13 Aug

MABEL & THE FREEWHEELERS (BAILE AND JOSIA + LUDWIG) BROADCAST, FROM 19:00, TBC

Folky five-piece who skim their inspo from a wide range of genres.

South Wales pop-punk trio. TEIKIRISI

CLASSIC GRAND, FROM 19:00, £6

A night of dance classes, including casino, salsa, bachata and kizomba, followed by performances and a dance party. ATHENA’S ARMY (SECOND SUNS + THE SWAY + TRIPTYCH)

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:30, £7.70

All-girl rock band from local turf.

FEATHERWEST (MARILYN CARINO )

THE GLAD CAFE, FROM 20:00, £9 - £10

The indietronic art rockers launch the first in a new series of high class recordings accompanied by NYC David Byrne collaborator’s soulful electronica.

WELCOME TO THE NEW MALT ORDER

KIOKO (UMBONGO NAMBARRIE)

THE RUM SHACK, 20:00–01:00, £3 - £8

Kioko, fresh of the most recent Lee Scratch Perry tour bring their sound to the Rum Shack.

August 2017

Find full listings at theskinny.co.uk/whats-on

Listings

Mon 14 Aug

START TO END: DAVID BOWIE

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 20:00, £8

Start to End – a project which brings in live bands to interpret selected albums in full – tackles Bowie's Blackstar.

Tue 15 Aug FLAMING LIPS

BARROWLANDS, 19:00–23:00, £35

The famously O.T.T. live merrymakers return. LOST STARS

THE ART SCHOOL, FROM 19:30, £10 - £12

Lost stars follows three young women and their battle to understand the difference between Equity and Equality, lust and love and true and false. VASUDEVA (VASA)

BROADCAST, FROM 19:00, £6

Instrumental rock from New Jersey.

Wed 16 Aug LOST STARS

THE ART SCHOOL, FROM 19:30, £10 - £12

Lost stars follows three young women and their battle to understand the difference between Equity and Equality, lust and love and true and false. STAR ROVER (HOME ECONOMICS + THE TROPICANAS)

BROADCAST, FROM 19:30, £3

The fuzzy pop troupe headline a Double A-Side Records show at Broadcast. QUEER THEORY

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 19:30, £5

An alternative evening of music, poetry, comedy and drag.

Thu 17 Aug

ADAM TORRES (KATIE MALSO + THE GREAT ALBATROSS)

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 19:30, £7

Singer-songwriter signed to Fat Possum. ARD MATTHEWS

CLASSIC GRAND, FROM 20:00, £15

The Just Jinjer frontman heads out with new solo rock material to share. LOST STARS

THE ART SCHOOL, FROM 19:30, £10 - £12

Lost stars follows three young women and their battle to understand the difference between Equity and Equality, lust and love and true and false.

THE SPACE GIRLS (MONDEGREEN + STONETHROWER)

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 19:00, £5

Barcelona punk rock band The Space Girls are joined by Glasgow ‘weirdo rockers’ Mondegreen and Dunondian rock band Stonethrower. TOO MANY ZOOZ

ORAN MOR, FROM 19:00, £18.50

Pellegrino, Doe, and King of Sludge bring their ‘brass-house’ sound to Glasgow.

FLYING BY MIRRORS (INDIGO SIXTEEN + THE PACIFIC BLUES + BAD HOMBRES)

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:30, £7.70

The Scottish rock band swing by King Tut’s.

CUD O2 ABC, FROM 19:00, £14.10

Carl and Mike from the longstanding Leeds-based indie rock group resurrect their alter-ego two-piece outfit, playing classic Cud tunes.

Sat 19 Aug

FUNDRAISER FOR ALZHEIMER SCOTLAND: JACK LAW (THE SPYRES + STEVE GROZIER + JENNY BIDDLE + QUICK) STEREO, FROM 18:30, £6.50

An eve of music in aid of Alzheimer Scotland.

ALTERNATIVE PRIDE PARTY (JUNGLEHUSSY + MONDOBONGO + SARRA WILD + PUSH IT + WHEELMAN + LIZ SNEDDON + UNCLE MARGY AND MORE) STEREO, FROM 23:00, £4

Pride shindig with a massive gang of performers, DJs and live visuals / installations from Vaj Power MICHAEL TIMMONS

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 19:30, £5

The Glaswegian fella, once heralded by Steve Lamacq as “A man of some lovely words in song”, hits The Hug and Pint. THE PERFORMANCE ENHANCING SUPPOSITORIES + DISCHORD + KRINGER AND THE BATTLE KATZ

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 18:00, £5

Contraversial rock’n’roll from TPES, along with Blackpool DIY band Dischord and metal band Kringer and the Battle Katz.

OCEVNS (THE NAKED FEEDBACK + DELPHI + PYRAMIDS)

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:30, £8.80

Anthemic alternative rock band from Glasgow.

CONOR FERRAIOLI (NEON HURRICANE + ANDREW DICKSON + SUNNY SENSE)

O2 ABC, FROM 19:00, £9

The singer-songwriter heads our way. FFO The Chainsmokers and Hurts.

CAITLIN’S GIG (THE HUMOURS + FIRST WEDDING DANCE + FOREIGN FOX)

O2 ABC, FROM 23:30, £5 - £8.40

Inclusive live gig for families and friends.

Sun 20 Aug

MODERN STUDIES (LOMOND CAMPBELL + PUMPKINSEEDS CHAMBER ORCHESTRA)

THE GLAD CAFE, FROM 19:00, £8 - £12

Chamber pop band from Glasgowvia-Yorkshire whose quietly experimental landscape songs are played on analogue synths, cello, double bass, drums, guitars, a wine-glass orchestra and, at the creaking centre of things, a Victorian pedal harmonium. PANIC ANCHOR (KATEE KROSS + MICK HARGAN)

BROADCAST, FROM 19:00, TBC

Glasgow-based alternative country two-piece.

Mon 21 Aug

MODERN STUDIES (LOMOND CAMPBELL + PUMPKINSEEDS CHAMBER ORCHESTRA)

THE GLAD CAFE, FROM 19:00, £8 - £12

BROADCAST, FROM 19:00, TBC

Experimental math rock band from Kyoto, formed in 2010. MIRANDA LAMBERT (WARD THOMAS)

THE SSE HYDRO, FROM 18:30, £53.90 - £62.45

American country music singer and songwriter who’s also a member of the Pistol Annies alongside Ashley Monroe and Angaleena Presley.

Tue 22 Aug

MODERN STUDIES (LOMOND CAMPBELL + PUMPKINSEEDS CHAMBER ORCHESTRA)

THE GLAD CAFE, FROM 19:00, £8 - £12

STEREO, FROM 18:30, £14

Rock duo from Scranton, Pennsylvania. LISTENER

BROADCAST, FROM 19:00, £10

Spoken word rock from the Arkansas outfit, who initially started out as Dan Smith’s solo underground hip-hop project. LISTENER

BROADCAST, FROM 19:00, £10

Spoken word rock from the Arkansas outfit, who initially started out as Dan Smith’s solo underground hip-hop project. ONR + MONDO COZMO

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:30, £8.80

Dumfries and Galloway band ONR join alt rock’n’roll from four-man Mondo Cozmo for a double-header at the Wah Wah Hut. CONOR OBERST (BIG THIEF)

O2 ABC, FROM 19:00, £25.35

Lead singer of Bright Eyes – as well as Desaparecidos, and a sometime player in myriad other outfits – Conor Oberst takes to the road solo to showcase tracks offa his latest LP Salutations.

Wed 23 Aug

ROB CROW’S GLOOMY PLACE (HERBERT POWELL) STEREO, FROM 19:30, £10

New band from the co-founder of Pinback. CASEY LOWRY

BROADCAST, FROM 19:00, TBC

Young thing who identifies his genre as “California brunch pop”. Sounds tasty.

Fri 18 Aug

GLASGOW SONGWRITING FESTIVAL OPENING CONCERT (KARINE POLWART + EMMA POLLOK + FINDLAY NAPIER + JIM HUNTER)

THE GLAD CAFE, FROM 19:00, £10

Cure your writer’s block and get some lyrical inspo from Glasgow Songwriting Festival’s in a launch gig at the Glad.

BROADCAST, FROM 19:00, £5

Indie rock, fresh from the shores of Glasgow / Coatbridge. DESERT STORM (LIMB)

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 19:30, TBC

Oxford five-piece rock, metal, blues and psych unit. NECROCRACY (HEAVY SMOKE + IGNITE THE SKY)

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:30, £7.70

Glaswegian black metal outfit.

STEREO, FROM 19:30, £5

Glasgow-based musician who has supported the likes of Withered Hand, RM Hubbert, De Rosa and BMX Bandits. CODIST (WALT DISCO + WHY NO?)

BROADCAST, FROM 19:00, TBC

The Glasgow-based lo-fi foursome play Broadcast. HOLLOW ILLUSION

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 20:00, £6

Norwegian Metal hailing from Stange, Norway. THE HUR

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:30, TBC

Local folksters headed up by Iain Wilson.

Fri 25 Aug GOSPELBEACH

MONO, FROM 19:30, £8

Californian folk-pop.

HOUSEWIVES (FAT BLACK CATS + OBJECTIFIED)

BROADCAST, FROM 19:00, £6

The London four-piece are joined by Fat Black Cats and Objectified for a triple-hieder at Broadcast.

GERRY JABLONSKI & THE ELECTRIC BAND

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 19:30, £12.50

Perth alt rockers make a long awaited return to Sleazy’s.

PARALLEL LIGHTS (TINY MURDER + NEON MARAUDERS + LILURA)

The NYC ensemble make their way to the Northwest, mixing up punk-rock and indie in their own inimitable way. BREAKING BENJAMIN (STARSET)

O2 ABC, FROM 19:00, £20 - £113

American rock band from WilkesBarre, Pennsylvania, founded in 1999 by lead singer and guitarist Benjamin Burnley and drummer.

Tue 29 Aug DEAP VALLY

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:30, £11

Primal, bluesy, LA rock’n’roll duo consisting of crochet pals Lindsey Troy and Julie Edwards.

Wed 30 Aug MDOU MOCTAR

MONO, FROM 19:30, £15

One of the few original singer/ songwriters willing to experiment and push the boundaries of the genre, Mdou Moctar’s unconventional styles have won him accolades both in Niger and abroad. THE XX (PERFUME GENIUS)

SWG3 GLASGOW, FROM 16:30, TBC

The indie trio take a trip to Glasgow’s SWG3.

LE BAINS III & THE GLORY FIRES

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 19:30, £10

Rock’n’roll straight outta Alabama.

Thu 31 Aug

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:30, £7.70

Sat 26 Aug

Helliwell and Moore are joined by their four-piece band for a night of musical treats at Broadcast.

Four-piece melodic punk rock band based in West Lothian. FEKKY (RANSOM FA + PAQUE + VALLI + GRT WSTRN)

SWG3 GLASGOW, FROM 19:00, £13.45

The South London grime MC touches down in Glasgow in yet another formidable booking from underground collective J Bone. SCHNARFF SCHNARFF

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 19:30, £8

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

BROADCAST, FROM 19:00, £12

Cinematic folk-soul / rock from Langhone Slim and his trusty band. WE CAME FROM WOLVES (THREE HEADED MONKEY)

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 20:00, £6 - £8

The SAMA winners end a long summer run of dates with a headliner at Sleazy’s. THE DICKSONS (COLOUR TRAP + NEONWAVES)

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:30, £7.70

The Fife indie / rock’n’roll band touch down in Glasgow.

KARYBDIS + INTERNAL CONFLICT (BURNING THE DREAM ) IVORY BLACKS, FROM 19:00, £5 - £8

A co-headline tour with Londonbased Karybdis and Leicesterbased Internal Conflict.

Sun 27 Aug

BROADCAST, FROM 19:00, TBC

THE DISTRICTS

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:30, £14.75

Pennsylvanian band of young things playing at the Wah Wah Hut.

Edinburgh Music Tue 01 Aug

KATE NASH (SKATING POLLY)

THE QUEEN’S HALL, FROM 19:00, £18

Nash keeps it reliably chirpy with her vocally-loose melodic ramblings on her Made Of Bricks 10th anniversary tour.

D.O.A. (SVETLANAS + CRITIKILL + THE JACKHAMMERS)

BANNERMANS, FROM 19:00, £15 - £20

The Canadian Punk legends play Edinburgh for first time in 14 years.

Wed 02 Aug POLLYANNA

PARADISE PALMS, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Hold your cocktails tight! Join host Pollyfilla for a showcase of performance art, drag, DJs and glittery carnage and ‘down-and-dirty joy’.

ALVVAYS

CHRIS DIFFORD & KATHRYN WILLIAMS

ST LUKE’S, FROM 19:00, £12

THE QUEEN’S HALL, FROM 19:30, £20

Toronto-based indie-poppers Alvvays (pronounced ‘Always’, in case you were wondering) are set to release Antisocialites – the highly anticipated follow-up to their 2014 self-titled debut – this September. Load up on synth pop and synthwave courtesy of London-based, Berlin-raised talent NINA. FRAUEN VS GROTBAGS (LOVERS TURN TO MONSTERS + FREDDIE QUELL)

STEREO, 18:30–22:00, £4

TRY AN AUCHENTOSHAN & ALE

PARQUET COURTS THE ART SCHOOL, FROM 19:00, £16.50

JADE HELLIWELL + EMMA MOORE (KEVIN MCGUIRE)

NINA

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 19:30, £7

VOODOOS (KASHMERE + THE DUNTS + PLEASURE HEADS)

JASON RIDDELL (SULKA + EGOPATTERNS + GILLEON BLAMFORD)

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 19:30, £10

BUCK & EVANS

The Cardiff trio head to the Hug and Pint with more in the way of rock and soul.

Thu 24 Aug

It’s a bank holiday showdown between Glasgow vs Manchester as FRAUEN and Grotbags duke it out in a night of punk rock, tears and tinnies.

Mon 28 Aug MADDIE & TAE

O2 ABC, FROM 19:00, £18.50

Country music duo. RYLEY WALKER

MONO, FROM 19:00, £12.50

Ryley Walker treats us to a night of folky goodess.

The Squeeze duo tour head back to Edinburgh.

Thu 03 Aug HOMO DISCO

JUST THE TONIC AT THE CAVES, 23:55–02:55, £5

Homo Disco is a disco dance party for all who want to act a fool to camp classics. Dance into the early hours with drag queens and more. Get your tickets fast. POLLYANNA

PARADISE PALMS, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Hold your cocktails tight! Join host Pollyfilla for a showcase of performance art, drag, DJs and glittery carnage and ‘down-and-dirty joy’. RICHIE RAMONE (MASSIVE)

BANNERMANS, FROM 19:30, £12 - £15

Legendary Ramones drummer back for one-off Scottish date. FRANKIE COSMOS

LA BELLE ANGELE, 19:00–22:00, £10.50 - £12.50

Greta Kline’s musical output as Frankie Cosmos exemplifies the generation of musicians born out of online self-releasing. See her live this month.

Edinburgh Music PORT ERIN (NASARI, + ECHO ARCADIA + ORDINARYSON)

SAGE FRANCIS & B. DOLAN: TRICKNOLOGY

SNEAKY PETE’S, 19:00–22:00, £5 - £7

NEW TOWN THEATRE, FROM 18:20, £15

Port Erin have near-cult status as purveyors of original genrebending music. Their musicality is jazzy with Krautrock undertones; magnetic with tightly wound dives, and grooves.

Fri 04 Aug HOMO DISCO

JUST THE TONIC AT THE CAVES 23:55–02:55, £5

Homo Disco is a disco dance party for all who want to act a fool to camp classics. Dance into the early hours with drag queens and more. Get your tickets fast. SAGE FRANCIS & B. DOLAN: TRICKNOLOGY

NEW TOWN THEATRE, FROM 18:20, £15

The American duo seek to expose the trickery of slam artists, rapbattlers, improvisers, life coaches, faith healers and more. RUNEMASTER

BANNERMANS, FROM 20:00, £5

Heavy metal from Edinburgh. ITALOBLACK (DJ BENNETTI)

PARADISE PALMS, 22:00–03:00, FREE

The legendary italoBLACK returns, all the way from Rimini, for one night only at Paradise Palms. Maestro DJ Benett spins classic and rare Italo disco gems all night long as part of the Paradise Palms Festival Bash. SISTER SLEDGE

CORN EXCHANGE, FROM 19:30, £28.50

Sisters Debbie, Joni, Kim (sans Kathy) bring the classic D-I-S-C-O vibes through old favourites like Thinking of You, He’s the Greatest Dancer, All American Girls and, of course, We Are Family.

Sat 05 Aug HOMO DISCO

JUST THE TONIC AT THE CAVES 23:55–02:55, £5

Homo Disco is a disco dance party for all who want to act a fool to camp classics. Dance into the early hours with drag queens and more. Get your tickets fast. SAGE FRANCIS & B. DOLAN: TRICKNOLOGY

NEW TOWN THEATRE, FROM 18:20, £15

The American duo seek to expose the trickery of slam artists, rapbattlers, improvisers, life coaches, faith healers and more. JACUZZI GENERAL (LO KINDRE + OPTMO) (JACUZZI GENERAL)

PARADISE PALMS, 22:00–03:00, FREE

Jacuzzi General, purveyor of aural sex and all things pleasure is joined this month by Lo Kindre (Optimo) for a festival special. DIRTY HARRY

LA BELLE ANGELE, 19:00–22:00, £15

A definitive homage to punk and new wave’s best. ICEAGE

SUMMERHALL, 19:00–22:00, £16.50

Erupting into life in 2011 with the appropriately-named debut album New Brigade, recorded when the band were all in their teens, Danish punk quartet Iceage reinvigorated the idea of rock music as a primal, dangerous force for youthful expression. THE OPENING CONCERT

USHER HALL, FROM 20:00, £15 - £49

EIF kicks off with a joint concert between the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and the Edinburgh Festival Chorus, and vocalists Dorothea Röschmann, Emma Bell and Werner Güra.

Sun 06 Aug POLLYANNA

PARADISE PALMS, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Hold your cocktails tight! Join host Pollyfilla for a showcase of performance art, drag, DJs and glittery carnage and ‘down-and-dirty joy’.

The American duo seek to expose the trickery of slam artists, rapbattlers, improvisers, life coaches, faith healers and more. DIE WALKÜRE

USHER HALL, FROM 17:00, £20 - £60

Sir Andrew Davis leads the Royal Scottish National Orchestra in a performance of Wagner’s Die Walküre, comprising part two of the International Festival’s fouryear Ring cycle.

Mon 07 Aug POLLYANNA

PARADISE PALMS, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Hold your cocktails tight! Join host Pollyfilla for a showcase of performance art, drag, DJs and glittery carnage and ‘down-and-dirty joy’. LAST GANG

BANNERMANS, FROM 20:00, £6

Punk trio from the OC and LA. PJ HARVEY

THE EDINBURGH PLAYHOUSE, FROM 20:00, £15 - £48

PJ Harvey returns to Edinburgh with her full nine-piece band, performing tracks from the critically acclaimed album The Hope Six Demolition Project, as well as material from her catalogue.

Tue 08 Aug POLLYANNA

PARADISE PALMS, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Hold your cocktails tight! Join host Pollyfilla for a showcase of performance art, drag, DJs and glittery carnage and ‘down-and-dirty joy’. SAGE FRANCIS & B. DOLAN: TRICKNOLOGY

NEW TOWN THEATRE, FROM 18:20, £15

The American duo seek to expose the trickery of slam artists, rapbattlers, improvisers, life coaches, faith healers and more. LOS FASTIDOS (OI POLLOI + PANIC ATTAK)

BANNERMANS, FROM 19:00, £8

The Italian street punk and ska legends return to Bannermans.

LEMON BUCKET ORKESTRA & BEN CAPLAN

SUMMERHALL, 20:00–23:00, £12

The Lemon Bucket Orkestra: Canada’s only balkan-klezmergypsy-party-punk super-band. Born on the streets of Toronto as a busking band in 2010, the original quartet of guerrilla-folk troubadours quickly amassed a battalion of musicians. BBC SCOTTISH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

USHER HALL, FROM 19:30, £13 - £47

Thomas Dausgaard leads pianist Sergei Babayan and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in a concert of Schubert Symphony, Schumann and Strauss. PJ HARVEY

KARINE POLWART TRIO THE QUEEN’S HALL, FROM 19:30, £18 - £20

The Borders lass brings the loveliness with her provokingly poetic and bittersweet folk tunes, this time performing in trio form. SAGE FRANCIS & B. DOLAN: TRICKNOLOGY

NEW TOWN THEATRE, FROM 18:20, £15

The American duo seek to expose the trickery of slam artists, rapbattlers, improvisers, life coaches, faith healers and more. BRYN TERFEL & MALCOLM MARTINEAU

USHER HALL, FROM 20:00, £20 - £55

Songs by Schubert, Britten, Brahms and Meirion Williams as opera star Bryn Terfel joins Edinburgh-born pianist Malcolm Martineau for an EIF concert.

Thu 10 Aug HOMO DISCO

JUST THE TONIC AT THE CAVES, 23:55–02:55, £5

Homo Disco is a disco dance party for all who want to act a fool to camp classics. Dance into the early hours with drag queens and more. Get your tickets fast. POLLYANNA

PARADISE PALMS, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Hold your cocktails tight! Join host Pollyfilla for a showcase of performance art, drag, DJs and glittery carnage and ‘down-and-dirty joy’. BWANI JUNCTION: GRACELAND ALBUM (DAVIE LUHANGA + TILITOSE)

THE LIQUID ROOM, 19:00–22:00, £18

Bwani Junction return with their joyful rendition of Paul Simon’s Graceland album, featuring a full 12-piece band with guest appearances from accordion legend Phil Cunningham, the Dopplegang horns, and Davie Luhanga. SAGE FRANCIS & B. DOLAN: TRICKNOLOGY

NEW TOWN THEATRE, FROM 18:20, £15

The American duo seek to expose the trickery of slam artists, rapbattlers, improvisers, life coaches, faith healers and more. MARLEY DAVIDSON

BANNERMANS, FROM 20:00, £5

The solo artist makes a welcome return with his unique songwriting. BENJAMIN CLEMANTINE

FESTIVAL THEATRE, FROM 19:30, £20 - £35

The 2016 Mercurcy prize winner brings his seeply personal and soulful music to EIF. I, THE LION (BAD PROTAGONIST CLUB + ATTIC CHOIR)

OPIUM, FROM 19:00, £5 - £7

Three-piece post-punk trio from Cheltenham featuring heavy progressive bass lines, twisting guitar riffs, hard hitting drums and melodic harmonious vocals.

Fri 11 Aug HOMO DISCO

THE EDINBURGH PLAYHOUSE, FROM 20:00, £15 - £48

JUST THE TONIC AT THE CAVES, 23:55–02:55, £5

Wed 09 Aug

BWANI JUNCTION: GRACELAND ALBUM (DAVIE LUHANGA + TILITOSE)

PJ Harvey returns to Edinburgh with her full nine-piece band, performing tracks from the critically acclaimed album The Hope Six Demolition Project, as well as material from her catalogue. POLLYANNA

PARADISE PALMS, 23:00–03:00, FREE

THE LIQUID ROOM, 19:00–22:00, £18

Homo Disco is a disco dance party for all who want to act a fool to camp classics. Dance into the early hours with drag queens and more. Get your tickets fast.

THE LIQUID ROOM, 19:00–22:00, £18

NEW TOWN THEATRE, FROM 18:20, £15

The American duo seek to expose the trickery of slam artists, rapbattlers, improvisers, life coaches, faith healers and more.

A NEW GENERATION OF WHISKY... 96

Listings

THE SKINNY

THE COCONUT CLUB (JACUZZI GENERAL + NIKNAK NIK) PARADISE PALMS, 22:00–03:00, FREE

Palms resident NikNak Nik and newcomer Ted Dancin’ join forces, creating an almighty rush of musical energy to blast you through the weekend on a wave of deep-felt joy. Healthy tunes for good time charlies. ELGAR’S KING OLAF

USHER HALL, FROM 20:00, £13 - £47

Sir Andrew Davis conducts the Philharmonia Orchestra treat an EIF audience to this rarely heard masterpiece.

Sat 12 Aug HOMO DISCO

JUST THE TONIC AT THE CAVES 23:55–02:55, £5

Homo Disco is a disco dance party for all who want to act a fool to camp classics. Dance into the early hours with drag queens and more. Get your tickets fast. SAGE FRANCIS & B. DOLAN: TRICKNOLOGY

NEW TOWN THEATRE, FROM 18:20, £15

The American duo seek to expose the trickery of slam artists, rapbattlers, improvisers, life coaches, faith healers and more. NITROVILLE

BANNERMANS, FROM 20:00, £5

Full band show from the rock group.

THE RISING SOULS (RICHY NEILL & THE REINFORCEMENTS + NO QUARTER) OPIUM, 19:00–22:00, £6 - £8

Dynamic soulful rock band hailing from Scotland’s capital city; a punchy and intoxicating amalgamation of rock and soul.

Sun 13 Aug POLLYANNA

PARADISE PALMS, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Hold your cocktails tight! Join host Pollyfilla for a showcase of performance art, drag, DJs and glittery carnage and ‘down-and-dirty joy’.

FRANCOIS & THE ATLAS MOUNTAINS

HAD WE NEVER

SUMMERHALL, 20:00–23:00, £12

SCOTTISH NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY, FROM 23:00, £25

Frànçois & the Atlas Mountains are a French/British pop group, combining indie-pop, folk pop, and African rhythms.

Wed 16 Aug POLLYANNA

PARADISE PALMS, 23:00–03:00, FREE

THE LIQUID ROOM, 19:00–22:00, £18

NEW TOWN THEATRE, FROM 18:20, £15

The American duo seek to expose the trickery of slam artists, rapbattlers, improvisers, life coaches, faith healers and more. THE MIS-MADE

BANNERMANS, FROM 20:00, £5

The Ozzie female rock group make Edinburgh debut. HINDS

SUMMERHALL, 20:00–23:00, £18.50

Since bursting onto the Madrid DIY scene, Hinds – Ana Perrote, Carlotta Cosials, Ade Martin and Amber Grimbergen – have mastered a raw and playful sound all their own. ANOUSHKA SHANKAR (FAIZ ALI FAIZ)

USHER HALL, FROM 19:30, £7 - £34

The ‘queen of sitar’ continues her masterful craft of translating ancient Indian sounds into contemporary pop, electronica, classic and flamenco.

SAGE FRANCIS & B. DOLAN: TRICKNOLOGY

Thu 17 Aug

NEW TOWN THEATRE, FROM 18:20, £15

JUST THE TONIC AT THE CAVES 23:55–02:55, £5

The American duo seek to expose the trickery of slam artists, rapbattlers, improvisers, life coaches, faith healers and more. RIOT JAZZ BRASS BAND

LA BELLE ANGELE, 19:00–22:00, £13 - £15

The bad-ass brass band returns to grace the stage of La Belle with style and panache. Riot Jazz bring their nine-barreled Balkan-toBrooklyn brass-boosted bounce to the Cowgate. ALL I SEE IS AN EMPTY CIRCLE AT OPIUM (SLEET WALLS)

HOMO DISCO

Homo Disco is a disco dance party for all who want to act a fool to camp classics. Dance into the early hours with drag queens and more. Get your tickets fast. POLLYANNA

PARADISE PALMS, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Hold your cocktails tight! Join host Pollyfilla for a showcase of performance art, drag, DJs and glittery carnage and ‘down-and-dirty joy’.

OPIUM, FROM 20:00, TBC

BWANI JUNCTION: GRACELAND ALBUM (DAVIE LUHANGA + TILITOSE)

Mon 14 Aug

Self-proclaimed Edinburgh psychedelic mystery prophets All I See Is An Empty Circle align your chakras, with support from swirly, shoegaze, glitched-out drones and mathy beats of Sleet Walls. POLLYANNA

PARADISE PALMS, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Hold your cocktails tight! Join host Pollyfilla for a showcase of performance art, drag, DJs and glittery carnage and ‘down-and-dirty joy’.

Tue 15 Aug POLLYANNA

PARADISE PALMS, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Hold your cocktails tight! Join host Pollyfilla for a showcase of performance art, drag, DJs and glittery carnage and ‘down-and-dirty joy’. LIZ LOCHHEAD WITH THE HAZEY JANES AND STEVE KETTLEY

THE QUEEN’S HALL, FROM 20:00, £15 - £16

Collab between poet and playwright Liz Lochhead, along with Dundie indie-pop band The Hazey Janes plus saxophonist Steve Kettley. BLAZIN’ FIDDLES

THE QUEEN’S HALL, FROM 20:00, £15 - £16

The prolific fiddle group bring 18 years in the folk biz to Edinburgh Fringe. SAGE FRANCIS & B. DOLAN: TRICKNOLOGY

NEW TOWN THEATRE, FROM 18:20, £15

The American duo seek to expose the trickery of slam artists, rapbattlers, improvisers, life coaches, faith healers and more.

August 2017

THE LIQUID ROOM, 19:00–22:00, £18

SAGE FRANCIS & B. DOLAN: TRICKNOLOGY

NEW TOWN THEATRE, FROM 18:20, £15

The American duo seek to expose the trickery of slam artists, rapbattlers, improvisers, life coaches, faith healers and more.

Late-night concerts enlisting Poet and Makar Jackie Kay, singer-songwriter Ghetto Priest, bass Brian Bannatyne-Scott and renowned countertenor David James to explore the topics of Robert Burns, slavery and Scotland. HAD WE NEVER

SCOTTISH NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY, FROM 23:00, £25

LEITH DEPOT, 19:30–23:00, FREE

Forward-thinking electronic music from the Edinburgh underground.

Fri 18 Aug HOMO DISCO

JUST THE TONIC AT THE CAVES, 23:55–02:55, £5

Homo Disco is a disco dance party for all who want to act a fool to camp classics. Dance into the early hours with drag queens and more. Get your tickets fast. BWANI JUNCTION: GRACELAND ALBUM (DAVIE LUHANGA + TILITOSE)

THE LIQUID ROOM, 19:00–22:00, £18

NEW TOWN THEATRE, FROM 18:20, £15

The American duo seek to expose the trickery of slam artists, rapbattlers, improvisers, life coaches, faith healers and more. HELLBASTARD (PANZERBASTARD)

BANNERMANS, FROM 20:00, £8 - £10

Punk / thrash band viewed as an early founder of crust punk genre. PARTIPETS

PARADISE PALMS, 22:00–03:00, FREE

B2b all through the night from the finest purveyors of Bebe Musika. Expect bubblegum pop, cheese toppers, grinders, electro heatwave, meaty five-step, hiphop hoorays, cheeky wee belters and more. HAD WE NEVER

SCOTTISH NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY, FROM 23:00, £25

RYAN HAMILTON & THE TRAITORS (FORT HOPE )

Sat 19 Aug

BANNERMANS, FROM 19:30, £13.50

JUST THE TONIC AT THE CAVES, 23:55–02:55, £5

Dreamy melodies and rocking songs from a band whose success grows by the day. LIFT TO EXPERIENCE

SUMMERHALL, 20:00–23:00, £32

This band kissed the sublime, and splintered apart in the process. Their arc, however, isn’t yet complete – see them together once again in The Dissection Room. THE MUSIC OF THE INCREDIBLE STRING BAND

THE EDINBURGH PLAYHOUSE, FROM 20:00, £10 - £35

former Incredible String Band manager and producer Joe Boyd invites guests to perform songs in homage to psychedelic pioneers The Incredible String Band. Performers include Withered Hand, Robyn Hitchcock, Greg Lawson and more.

HOMO DISCO

Homo Disco is a disco dance party for all who want to act a fool to camp classics. Dance into the early hours with drag queens and more. Get your tickets fast. SAGE FRANCIS & B. DOLAN: TRICKNOLOGY

NEW TOWN THEATRE, FROM 18:20, £15

The American duo seek to expose the trickery of slam artists, rapbattlers, improvisers, life coaches, faith healers and more. BREAKING WAVES

BANNERMANS, FROM 20:00, £5

The alternative rock duo return to Bannermans. PERCY MAIN SOCIAL CLUB

PARADISE PALMS, 22:00–03:00, FREE

A monthly social with Percy Main and pals spinning shakin’ disco, balearic boogie, garish gospel and hermetic haus. Bring your friends, your mum and your dancing boots.

MADE IN SCOTLAND SHOWCASE (WITHERED HAND + IKLAN + SAVAGE MANSION) SUMMERHALL, 19:00–23:00, £20

A live, eclectic set from three contemporary Scottish artists. Summerhall’s unique and enchanting Dissection Room will see NEHH team up with Made in Scotland for an evening of innovational music.

Sun 20 Aug POLLYANNA

PARADISE PALMS, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Hold your cocktails tight! Join host Pollyfilla for a showcase of performance art, drag, DJs and glittery carnage and ‘down-and-dirty joy’. SAGE FRANCIS & B. DOLAN: TRICKNOLOGY

NEW TOWN THEATRE, FROM 18:20, £15

The American duo seek to expose the trickery of slam artists, rapbattlers, improvisers, life coaches, faith healers and more. SAGE FRANCIS & B. DOLAN: TRICKNOLOGY

NEW TOWN THEATRE, FROM 18:20, £15

The American duo seek to expose the trickery of slam artists, rapbattlers, improvisers, life coaches, faith healers and more. JENNY HVAL

SUMMERHALL, 20:00–23:00, £12.50

A singer, songwriter, novelist, journalist, former singer in a gothic metal band and nominee for the Norwegian version of the Brit Awards, Jenny Hval is a polymath creator with a strong track record.

Mon 21 Aug POLLYANNA

PARADISE PALMS, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Hold your cocktails tight! Join host Pollyfilla for a showcase of performance art, drag, DJs and glittery carnage and ‘down-and-dirty joy’. BERT INSPIRED (JACQUI MCSHEE + MIKE PIGGOTT + STEVE TILSTON + BERNARD BUTLER + BEN WATT + KARINE POLWART + ALASDAIR ROBERS + ARCHIE FISHER) THE QUEEN’S HALL, FROM 20:00, £25

Bert Jansch’s musical colleagues come together in an evening show at The Queen’s Hall.

CRYPTOPSY (SODOMIZED CADAVER + PARTY CANNON + SOMAESTHESIA)

BANNERMANS, FROM 19:30, £13 - £15

Canadian extreme metal that’ll rip the roof off the place. ANDY SHAUF

LA BELLE ANGELE, 19:00–22:00, £10 - £12

Ornate arrangements of fuzzedout guitars, string sections, clarinets and dreamy synths, all draped over delicate piano, acoustic guitars and rainy-day drums.

Tue 22 Aug POLLYANNA

PARADISE PALMS, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Hold your cocktails tight! Join host Pollyfilla for a showcase of performance art, drag, DJs and glittery carnage and ‘down-and-dirty joy’. ACADEMY OF ANCIENT MUSIC

THE QUEEN’S HALL, FROM 20:30, £9 £32.50

The period-performance ensemble come together for two special concerts at the 2017 International Festival under the galvanising baton of Music Director Richard Egarr. SCOTLAND’S WILD HEART

THE QUEEN’S HALL, FROM 11:00, £9 £32.50

Folk traditions meet orchestral grandeur in this audio-visual spectacular, led by award-winning composer/pianist Donald Shaw. SAGE FRANCIS & B. DOLAN: TRICKNOLOGY

NEW TOWN THEATRE, FROM 18:20, £15

The American duo seek to expose the trickery of slam artists, rapbattlers, improvisers, life coaches, faith healers and more. STIFF LITTLE FINGERS

THE LIQUID ROOM, 19:00–22:00, £20

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

BULLETS & OCTANE (POWDERKEG + TANTRUM) BANNERMANS, FROM 19:30, £8 - £10

Hard rockers from USA bringing sleaze to Bannermans.

Find full listings at theskinny.co.uk/whats-on

ROOM 29 (JARVIS COCKER + CHILLY GONZALES)

VENERA GIMADIEVA & PAVEL NEBOLSIN

KING’S THEATRE EDINBURGH, FROM 20:00, £11 - £40

THE QUEEN’S HALL, 11:00–12:45, £9

Using music, dance, theatrics, and Hollywood movies, the former Pulp frontman joins piano virtuoso Chilly Gonzales to breathe musical and lexical life into the ghosts of Room 29 at the Château Marmont Hotel in Hollywood. BLANCK MASS

SUMMERHALL, 20:00, £14

Benjamin John Power of Fuck Buttons hits Summerhall with more shimmering heavy electronic.

Wed 23 Aug POLLYANNA

PARADISE PALMS, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Hold your cocktails tight! Join host Pollyfilla for a showcase of performance art, drag, DJs and glittery carnage and ‘down-and-dirty joy’. SAGE FRANCIS & B. DOLAN: TRICKNOLOGY

NEW TOWN THEATRE, FROM 18:20, £15

The American duo seek to expose the trickery of slam artists, rapbattlers, improvisers, life coaches, faith healers and more. JULIE BYRNE

SUMMERHALL, 20:00–23:00, £12

American wanderer Julie Byrne’s second album, Not Even Happiness, vividly archives what would have otherwise been lost to the road. ROOM 29 (JARVIS COCKER + CHILLY GONZALES)

KING’S THEATRE EDINBURGH, FROM 20:00, £11 - £40

Thu 24 Aug HOMO DISCO

JUST THE TONIC AT THE CAVES, 23:55–02:55, £5

Homo Disco is a disco dance party for all who want to act a fool to camp classics. Dance into the early hours with drag queens and more. Get your tickets fast. POLLYANNA

PARADISE PALMS, 23:00–03:00, FREE

Hold your cocktails tight! Join host Pollyfilla for a showcase of performance art, drag, DJs and glittery carnage and ‘down-and-dirty joy’. MOISHE’S BAGEL

THE QUEEN’S HALL, FROM 19:30, £16 - £18.50

Cutting-edge, jazz-inflected brew of Eastern European dance music, Middle Eastern rhythms and virtuoso performances. ACADEMY OF ANCIENT MUSIC

THE QUEEN’S HALL, FROM 20:30, £9 £32.50

The period-performance ensemble come together for two special concerts at the 2017 International Festival under the galvanising baton of Music Director Richard Egarr. SAGE FRANCIS & B. DOLAN: TRICKNOLOGY

NEW TOWN THEATRE, FROM 18:20, £15

The American duo seek to expose the trickery of slam artists, rapbattlers, improvisers, life coaches, faith healers and more. JUNKYARD (THE FIASCOS)

BANNERMANS, FROM 19:30, £15 - £18

The legendary Hollywood rockers play the only Scottish date for the first time in over 20 years. PICTISH TRAIL & FRIENDS

SUMMERHALL, 20:00–23:00, £14

The intelligent balladeer and Lost Map fella hits Summerhall’s NEHH programme.

ROOM 29 (JARVIS COCKER + CHILLY GONZALES)

KING’S THEATRE EDINBURGH, FROM 20:00, £11 - £40

Music. Part of Edinburgh International Festival. PLAYING POLITICS: THE LAST HURRAH

THE QUEEN’S HALL, FROM 19:30, £15

Wicked musical comedy from the political parody specialists, singing truth to power for their ninth (and final) Fringe year. SAGE FRANCIS & B. DOLAN: TRICKNOLOGY

NEW TOWN THEATRE, FROM 18:20, £15

The American duo seek to expose the trickery of slam artists, rapbattlers, improvisers, life coaches, faith healers and more.

USHER HALL, FROM 19:00, £43.50

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 23:30, FREE

The Irish “alternative” rockers take head out for more live dates.

Wed 30 Aug MAC DEMARCO

USHER HALL, 19:30–23:00, £20

Mac Demarco announces new album This Old Dog and a show at Edinburgh’s Usher Hall in August. THE DISTRICTS

THE CAVES, FROM 19:00, £12.50

Pennsylvanian band of young things.

PARADISE PALMS, 22:00–03:00, FREE

KING’S THEATRE EDINBURGH, FROM 20:00, £10 - £32

CLARKS ON LINDSAY STREET, FROM 19:00, £10

Stephin Merritt celebrates his 50th birthday with a brand new set of 50 songs, performed across the course of two nights at EIF.

Sat 26 Aug HOMO DISCO

JUST THE TONIC AT THE CAVES, 23:55–02:55, £5

Homo Disco is a disco dance party for all who want to act a fool to camp classics. Dance into the early hours with drag queens and more. Get your tickets fast. JULIE FOWLIS

THE QUEEN’S HALL, FROM 19:30, £22

Traditional folk loveliness moving from the sprightly to the melancholic ballad, with Fowlis’ words riding the flowing fiddles and guitar with the usual consummate grace. JADED EYES (NATTERERS + IRON SYSTEM + US VS THEM + BURT WARD)

HENRY’S CELLAR BAR, FROM 22:45, TBC

The Leeds hardcore band head to Scottish shores for the third time. SAGE FRANCIS & B. DOLAN: TRICKNOLOGY

NEW TOWN THEATRE, FROM 18:20, £15

The American duo seek to expose the trickery of slam artists, rapbattlers, improvisers, life coaches, faith healers and more. FINITRIBE

PARADISE PALMS, 22:00–03:00, FREE

Davie from Finitribe and FRANk introduce the first of a series of musical projects under the name Many Animals. SOUL FOUNDATION

LA BELLE ANGELE, 19:00–22:00, £10

Join The Soul Foundation for a euphoric, floor-filling extravaganza of classic soul, motown, Northern soul and disco. This street band combine high energy Detroit sounds with the authentic sound & style of motown and groove.

Thu 03 Aug STAN URBAN

The rock’n’roll fella stops by with his piano smarts for a night of 50s bangers.

Fri 11 Aug LOUISE DISTRAS

BEAT GENERATOR LIVE!, FROM 19:00, £7 - £8

Critically acclaimed female punk rocker carrying the torch of Billy Bragg and Joe Strummer.

Sat 12 Aug

DEVOTION (THE WEIGHT OF ATLAS + BLACK BLOOD + SONOROUS + HOWLETT) CONROY’S BASEMENT, FROM 00:00, £5

The Italian metal band play Conroy’s Basement. CARNIVAL FIFTY SIX

CAMPERDOWN PARK 12:00 - 11PM, £56.15-112.90

Dundonian music fest, featuring the likes of Mark Ronson, The Fratellis, Clean Bandit and more.

Sun 13 Aug CARNIVAL FIFTY SIX

CAMPERDOWN PARK 12:00 - 11PM, £56.15-112.90

Dundonian music fest, featuring the likes of Mark Ronson, The Fratellis, Clean Bandit and more.

Young musician, vocalist, songwriter and recording artist from Livingston.

Thu 24 Aug

OCH PLAY CAPTAIN BEEFHEART

CLARKS ON LINDSAY STREET, FROM 19:30, £8

IN EVIL HOUR (IN EVIL HOUR + LOVE NASTY + HARDCORE PUNK RIDE THE TIDES + FOR PONY + ASEC + THRASH PUNK + WRENS )

CONROY’S BASEMENT, 18:00–23:45, £6

Punk rock fundraiser fest in aid of SAMH.

THE QUEEN’S HALL, FROM 19:30, £15 - £17.50

SAGE FRANCIS & B. DOLAN: TRICKNOLOGY

NEW TOWN THEATRE, FROM 18:20, £15

The American duo seek to expose the trickery of slam artists, rapbattlers, improvisers, life coaches, faith healers and more. XYLOURIS WHITE

SUMMERHALL, 19:00–22:00, £14

JUST THE TONIC AT THE CAVES, 23:55–02:55, £5

Mon 28 Aug

LEATHERWOLF (THE DARKER MY HORIZON)

BANNERMANS, FROM 19:30, £12 - £15

The Triple Axe Attack heads out on their first UK tour in 28 years.

Thu 03 Aug Euan Neilson plays the best in classic R’n’B and hip-hop. JELLY BABY

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £5

Thursday nighter of chart, disco and party tunes. Can’t say fairer. KUNST (KRIS BELL + JOE MCGHEE)

LA CHEETAH CLUB, FROM 03:00, £0 - £5

The Kunst lot wrap things up in their last ever show at La Cheetah. ELEMENT

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 23:00–03:00, TBC

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

CATHOUSE, 23:00–03:00, £2 - £4

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

FIRST DATES (SPOOK SCHOOL DJS)

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 23:30, FREE

Post-everything indie disco with free entry.

Fri 04 Aug OLD SKOOL

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £6 - £7

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

CATHOUSE, 22:30–03:00, £5 - £6

Screamy, shouty, post-hardcore madness to help you shake off a week of stress in true punk style. NUMBERS (JOSEY REBELLE + BLEAKER)

LA CHEETAH CLUB, FROM 03:00, £10

Josey Rebelle and Bleaker take over Numbers at La Cheetah for the first time. JAMMING FRIDAYS

MAGGIE MAY’S, 22:00–03:00, £3 - £5

Exactly what it says on its sparkly tin – a dazzling night of disco Europop.

Sat 26 Aug

Innovative English folk musician, still going strong some 40 years on.

Jump on the night train and be taken on a journey through disco, love and magic. In aid of Drumchapel Food Bank.

CLARKS ON LINDSAY STREET, FROM 19:30, £6

KING’S THEATRE EDINBURGH, FROM 20:00, £10 - £32

MARTIN CARTHY

ALL NIGHT PASSION

LA CHEETAH CLUB, FROM 03:00, £3 - £5

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

MEGAN BLACK WITH LONELY BONES (TAYLOR RAY + DEMI MCMAHON)

THE MAGNETIC FIELDS: 50 SONG MEMOIR PART 2

Sun 27 Aug

WRAP-IT

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 23:00–03:00, £0 - £4

DJ Craig cures your Wednesday woes at The Garage.

Thu 17 Aug

With Steve Kettley on sax and vocals, Stuart Allardyce on guitar, Dave Beards on bass, and Des Travis on drums, Orange Claw Hammer get stuck into the wild world of Don Van Vliet aka Captain Beefheart.

Stephin Merritt celebrates his 50th birthday with a brand new set of 50 songs, performed across the course of two nights at EIF.

Italo disco, funky house and detroit techno.

HIP HOP THURSDAYS

Dundee Music

THE MAGNETIC FIELDS: 50 SONG MEMOIR PART 1

LIGHTS OUT

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £3 - £5

Nik and Nak are back for their lastFridayofeverymonth special; this time with a festival special There’ll be ripe rhythms, pick-meups, disco, electonoqueefa and “a massive disco sausage”(?!).

HOMO DISCO

Homo Disco is a disco dance party for all who want to act a fool to camp classics. Dance into the early hours with drag queens and more. Get your tickets fast.

Wed 02 Aug

THE SCRIPT (JP COOPER)

NIKNAK

Master of Cretan lute George Xylouris and Jim White (Dirty Three), a most innovative and charismatic drummer have joined forces. The resulting music is fluid, riveting, compelling and spellbinding.

Fri 25 Aug

Tue 29 Aug

GLITTERBANG

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 23:30, £0 - £3

FRESH BEAT

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 23:00–03:00, £3 - £6

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

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £4

Clubber’s favourite of indie classics and baggy greats, from Primal Scream and the like. DJ SUNNY EGG

THE FLYING DUCK, FROM 22:00, FREE

Rapid Tan and Breakfast Muff legend Eilidh McMillan playing pop and punk bangers. FRIDAY NIGHTS

SHED, 22:30–03:00, £4 - £6

Student-friendly Friday night party, playing (as one might expect) cheesy classics of every hue. ANIMAL FARM (MARCEL DETTMANN)

SUB CLUB, FROM 23:00, £25

Glasgow Clubs Tue 01 Aug #TAG TUESDAYS

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 23:00–03:00, £0 - £4

Indoor hot tubs, inflatables as far as the eye can see and a Twitter feed dedicated to validating your drunkeyed existence. DR PACKER

BUFF CLUB, FROM 23:00, £3 - £7

Killer Kitsch are back, this time with disco-edit king Dr Packer. Dr Packer is the alias of DJ Greg Packer, who is considered one of the pioneers of dance music in Western Australia.

Berghain’s own Marcel Dettmann hits up Sub Club for four whole hours of Animal Farm madness, with Quail and Turtle on the warm-ups. FIELD ARTISTS CHARITY SHOWCASE (DENIS SULTA + CHAOS IN THE CBD + BRASSICA + SOLID BLAKE + DOC DANEEKA + BIG MIZ + MWX) THE ART SCHOOL, FROM 23:00, £10

A gig in support of Paragon Music and Glasgow’s Children’s Hospital, featuring reps from the Field Artists agency.

Sat 05 Aug NU SKOOL

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £6 - £7

Nick Peacock spins a Saturday-ready selection of vintage disco, soul and funk.

Listings

Glasgow Clubs CATHOUSE SATURDAYS CATHOUSE, 22:30–03:00, £5 - £6

Or Caturdays, if you will. Two levels of the loudest, maddest music the DJs can muster; metal, rock and alt on floor one, and punky screamo upstairs. THE ROCK SHOP

MAGGIE MAY’S, 22:00–03:00, £3 - £5

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

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £5

Wed 09 Aug

ELECTRIC SALSA (BWI-BWI + BISSET )

LA CHEETAH CLUB, FROM 03:00, £5 - £7

Up-and-coming French superstar extraordinaire Bwi-Bwi hits La Cheetah for a special Electric Salsa party. WRAP-IT

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 23:00–03:00, £0 - £4

DJ Craig cures your Wednesday woes at The Garage.

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

Thu 10 Aug

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 23:30, £0 - £3

Euan Neilson plays the best in classic R’n’B and hip-hop.

HARSH TUG

Hip-hop and rap brought to you by Notorious B.A.G and pals.

SUBCULTURE (ROMAN FLÜGEL) (HARRI & DOMENIC) SUB CLUB, FROM 23:00, £10

Long-running house night with residents Harri & Domenic, oft’ joined by a carousel of super fresh guests. BEACH PARTY (DJ QUIZ + MARCO BASS)

CLASSIC GRAND, FROM 21:00, £8 - £20

Summer-themed beach party club night, where bikinis and Speedos are the attire of choice, naturally. I LOVE GARAGE

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 23:00–03:00, £5 - £7

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

Sun 06 Aug SESH

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 23:00–03:00, £3 - £4

Twister, beer pong and DJ Ciar McKinley on the ones and twos, serving up chart and remixes thorough the night. NULL / VOID

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 23:30, FREE

Industrial techno night at good ol’ Sleazy’s.

Mon 07 Aug BARE MONDAYS

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 23:00–03:00, £3 - £4

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

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £3 - £5

Long-running trade night with Normski and Mash spinning the disco beats. REMAKE REMODEL PIXIES AFTERPARTY

BROADCAST, FROM 23:00, £3 - £5

Broadcast slices up two massive Pixies afterpaties, complete with art, visuals and a merch stall.

Tue 08 Aug KILLER KITSCH

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £3 - £5

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

I AM (GEORGE FITZGERALD) (BETA & KAPPA) SUB CLUB, FROM 23:00, £8

HIP HOP THURSDAYS

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £3 - £5

JELLY BABY

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £5

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

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 23:00–03:00, TBC

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

CATHOUSE, 23:00–03:00, £2 - £4

Cathouse’s Thursday night rock, metal and punk mash-up. SMALL TALK (DJ ADIDADAS)

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 23:30, FREE

DJ Adidadas brings vaporbeat and Eurowave hits to Sleazy’s.

PROPAGANDA O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £4

Clubber’s favourite of indie classics and baggy greats, from Primal Scream and the like. ANNA & HOLLY’S DANCE PARTY

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 23:30, £0 - £3

Rock’n’roll prom night extravaganza. AWESOME TAPES FROM AFRICA

THE BERKELEY SUITE, FROM 23:00, £5

As Awesome Tapes From Africa, Shimkovitz performs DJ sets around the globe, playing a mix of African disco, Ghanaian hip-hop, South African electro and everything in-between, via two tape decks and a whole lotta cassettes. FRIDAY NIGHTS

SHED, 22:30–03:00, £4 - £6

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

CONFIDANCE (MYSTERY SEASON) (TOM & IRA) STEREO, FROM 23:00, FREE

Get down and funky at Stereo with Tom & Ira and groove-chasing headliner Mystery Season. MOUNTAIN HIGH: SUMMER DISCO!

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 20:00, £10

Expect all the usual motown and soul classics, with lots of extra disco and funk thrown in. APACHE RECORDS (ZUNI)

CLASSIC GRAND, FROM 22:00, £3 - £5

BASSMENT (BUTCH + BREEZY) SUB CLUB, FROM 23:00, £10

THE FLYING DUCK, FROM 22:00, FREE

The collective responsible for creating space for female, queer and marginalised voices throw on a rammy.

Sun 13 Aug SESH

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 23:00–03:00, £3 - £4

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

RED BULL MUSIC ACADEMY (CARL CRAIG + COURTESY)

SUB CLUB, FROM 23:00, £10

The RBMA returns to Scotland with a host of renowned producers and artists in tow.

Mon 14 Aug BARE MONDAYS

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 23:00–03:00, £3 - £4

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

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £3 - £5

Long-running trade night with Normski and Mash spinning the disco beats. NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY

Fri 11 Aug

Veteran selector and Tribal Waves founder ZUNI beings his electronic music smarts to Classic Grand.

Indie disco and cheesecore from a super-secret special guest.

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £6 - £7

Sat 12 Aug

Tue 15 Aug

OLD SKOOL

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

CATHOUSE, 22:30–03:00, £5 - £6

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

MAGGIE MAY’S, 22:00–03:00, £3 - £5

Indie rock’n’roll from the 60s to 00s with resident tune-picker DJ Jopez. RETURN TO MONO (SLAM) (DAX J)

SUB CLUB, FROM 23:00, £12

Monthly night from Soma Records taking in popular techno offerings of all hues. NIGHT OF THE JAGUAR

THE ART SCHOOL, FROM 23:00, TBC

NU SKOOL

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £6 - £7

Nick Peacock spins a Saturday-ready selection of vintage disco, soul and funk. SUBCULTURE (HARRI & DOMENIC)

SUB CLUB, FROM 23:00, £10

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

CATHOUSE, 22:30–03:00, £5 - £6

Or Caturdays, if you will. Two levels of the loudest, maddest music the DJs can muster; metal, rock and alt on floor one, and punky screamo upstairs. THE ROCK SHOP

Art School residents Night of the Jaguar bring the flavour of their parties to the bar every fourth Saturday of the month.

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

LA CHEETAH CLUB, FROM 03:00, £5 - £7

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

WE SHOULD HANG OUT MORE

WSHOM turns three in the place it all began. Shahaa Tops and Peter Panther bring their festival-approved brand of noise for all four hours, with a few surprises in the pipeline. FRESH BEAT

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 23:00–03:00, £3 - £6

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

THE FLYING DUCK, FROM 22:00, FREE

OH141 honcho Sarra Wild plays her monthly disco / Afro / house and world boogie night.

MAGGIE MAY’S, 22:00–03:00, £3 - £5

LOVE MUSIC

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £5

SINGLES NIGHT

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 23:30, £0 - £3

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

LOOSEN UP (FERGUS CLARK + CHARLIE MCCANN + DAVID BARBAROSSA)

THE RUM SHACK, 21:00–01:00, £3 - £5

Fergus, Charlie and David delve into their vast record collections to bring you the best roots reggae, cosmic soca, Afro disco, island funk and more.

Resident young guns Beta & Kappa play the usual fine mix of electronica and bass, with a special guest or two in tow.

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 23:30, FREE

KILLER KITSCH

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £3 - £5

Eclectic Tuesday nighter playing the best in house, techno and electronic – or, in their words ‘casually ignoring shite requests since 2005’. #TAG TUESDAYS

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 23:00–03:00, £0 - £4

Indoor hot tubs, inflatables as far as the eye can see and a Twitter feed dedicated to validating your drunkeyed existence. FLAMING LIPS UNOFFICIAL AFTERSHOW PARTY!

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 23:30, FREE

DJ Raindeer leads an after-rammy for Flaming Lips.

Wed 16 Aug NOT MOVING

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 23:30, FREE

Golden Teacher and Dick 50 DJs spinning outer-national sounds and exotic international groove worship. STEREOTONE (THE BURRELL CONNECTION B2B WHEELMAN)

LA CHEETAH CLUB, FROM 03:00, £3 - £5

Continuing their streak of all night b2bs, The Burrell Connection join Wheelman behind the turntables at Stereotone.

Thu 17 Aug HIP HOP THURSDAYS

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £3 - £5

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

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £5

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

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 23:00–03:00, TBC

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

#TAG TUESDAYS

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 23:00–03:00, £0 - £4

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

PARTIAL (SAMO)

LA CHEETAH CLUB, FROM 03:00, £0 - £9

Responsible for multiple standout L.I.E.S. releases, Samo’s tweaked out edits and remixes have also been issued by Public Possession, Macadam Mambo and Klasse Wrecks.

REMAKE REMODEL PIXIES AFTERPARTY

BROADCAST, FROM 23:00, £3 - £5

Broadcast slices up two massive Pixies afterpaties, complete with art, visuals and a merch stall.

I LOVE GARAGE THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 23:00–03:00, £5 - £7

DISTILLED DIFFERENT

UNHOLY

CATHOUSE, 23:00–03:00, £2 - £4

Cathouse’s Thursday night rock, metal and punk mash-up. DRUGSTORE GLAMOUR

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 23:30, FREE

Maxed out messy vibes; trashy, tacky, glamorous and ridiculous. Oh, and fun, too. Very fun.

Butch and Breezy go b2b in the booth at Subbie.

Fri 18 Aug OLD SKOOL

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £6 - £7

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

THE RUM SHACK, 20:00–00:00, £4 - £5

Pop and R’n’B classics at The Rum Shack. CATHOUSE FRIDAYS

CATHOUSE, 22:30–03:00, £5 - £6

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

Sun 20 Aug SESH

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 23:00–03:00, £3 - £4

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

Mon 21 Aug BARE MONDAYS

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 23:00–03:00, £3 - £4

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

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £3 - £5

MAGGIE MAY’S, 22:00–03:00, £3 - £5

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

FRESH BEAT

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £3 - £5

JAMMING FRIDAYS

Indie rock’n’roll from the 60s to 00s with resident tune-picker DJ Jopez. THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 23:00–03:00, £3 - £6

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

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £4

Clubber’s favourite of indie classics and baggy greats, from Primal Scream and the like. WRONG HANDS

THE FLYING DUCK, FROM 22:00, FREE

Another night of eclectic selections from Subcity’s Wrong hands. ULTIMATE BELTERS

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 23:30, £0 - £3

Tue 22 Aug KILLER KITSCH

Eclectic Tuesday nighter playing the best in house, techno and electronic – or, in their words ‘casually ignoring shite requests since 2005’. #TAG TUESDAYS

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 23:00–03:00, £0 - £4

Indoor hot tubs, inflatables as far as the eye can see and a Twitter feed dedicated to validating your drunkeyed existence. PALA (DOMENIC CAPPELLO)

LA CHEETAH CLUB, FROM 03:00, £5

Pala’s second night with Domenic Cappello of Subculture and Nautulis Rising.

Suzie Rodden melts the ego and burns the flag of inhibitions.

Wed 23 Aug

SHED, 22:30–03:00, £4 - £6

DJ Craig cures your Wednesday woes at The Garage.

FRIDAY NIGHTS

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

THUNDER DISCO: LEON VYNEHALL (LEON VYNEHALL + HAMMER + JUBÉ)

WRAP-IT

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 23:00–03:00, £0 - £4

Thu 24 Aug HIP HOP THURSDAYS

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £3 - £5

SUB CLUB, FROM 23:00, £10

Euan Neilson plays the best in classic R’n’B and hip-hop.

NIGHTRAVE (NIGHTWAVE)

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £5

Thunder Disco Club welcome Aussie producer Leon Vynehall to their lair. LA CHEETAH CLUB, FROM 03:00, £5 - £7

Nightrave founder Nightwave takes us on a four-hour journey into the vast musical universe that shaped her as a producer and DJ.

HIGHLIFE: SUN RITUAL (AUNTIE FLO + ANDREW) THE ART SCHOOL, FROM 23:00, TBC

Afrobeat, funk and house with the ever-capable residents and guests.

Sat 19 Aug NU SKOOL

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £6 - £7

Nick Peacock spins a Saturday-ready selection of vintage disco, soul and funk. CATHOUSE SATURDAYS

CATHOUSE, 22:30–03:00, £5 - £6

Or Caturdays, if you will. Two levels of the loudest, maddest music the DJs can muster; metal, rock and alt on floor one, and punky screamo upstairs. THE ROCK SHOP

MAGGIE MAY’S, 22:00–03:00, £3 - £5

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

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £5

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

SUBCULTURE (JASPER JAMES) (HARRI & DOMENIC) SUB CLUB, FROM 23:00, £10

Long-running house night with residents Harri & Domenic, oft’ joined by a carousel of super fresh guests. THE LANCE VANCE DANCE

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 23:30, £0 - £3

Feel good beats for hands and feet. SYCOPHANTASY

THE FLYING DUCK, FROM 22:00, FREE

Cross-genre wild child Sycophantasy is one part of Push It, has played alongside Paula Temple and has risen through the ranks in the Glasgow DJ scene. Who knows what she’ll play, but it will be good. I LOVE GARAGE

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 23:00–03:00, £5 - £7

BORN AND RAISED IN THE CITY

JELLY BABY

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

LA CHEETAH CLUB, FROM 03:00, TBC

Expect the rarest cuts and a bloody good party. ELEMENT

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 23:00–03:00, TBC

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

CATHOUSE, 23:00–03:00, £2 - £4

Cathouse’s Thursday night rock, metal and punk mash-up. BREAKFAST CLUB

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 23:30, FREE

Gerry Lyons delivers 80s and 90s pop and rock hits.

Fri 25 Aug OLD SKOOL

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £6 - £7

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

CATHOUSE, 22:30–03:00, £5 - £6

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

MAGGIE MAY’S, 22:00–03:00, £3 - £5

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

THE BARRAS ARTS AND DESIGN CENTRE, FROM 00:00, £39.50 - £60

Meanwhile, Sub Club celebrates 30 years of troublemaking with its annual two-dayer. Today’s all about Subculture, tomorrow’s Sensu. SHAKA LOVES YOU

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 23:30, £0 - £3

Hip-hop and live percussion flanked by wicked visuals. FRESH BEAT

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 23:00–03:00, £3 - £6

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

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £4

FRIDAY NIGHTS SHED, 22:30–03:00, £4 - £6

Student-friendly Friday night party, playing (as one might expect) cheesy classics of every hue. D-BLOCK & S-TE-FAN

CLASSIC GRAND, FROM 21:00, £12.50

Diederik Bakker and Stefan den Daas bring their melodic, catchy stage knack to Classic Grand’s booth. PEACH

BROADCAST, FROM 23:00, FREE

Beautifully inclusive night of grime, rap, trap, hip-hop and future promoting a safe atmosphere for harassment-free hoofin’. HOT FOOTIN’ (DIXON AVENUE BASMENT JAMS + LUCA LOZANO )

LA CHEETAH CLUB, FROM 03:00, £10

Kasse Wrecks bossman Luca Lozano joins DABJ at their Hot Footin’ residency in La Cheetah.

Sat 26 Aug NU SKOOL

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £6 - £7

Nick Peacock spins a Saturday-ready selection of vintage disco, soul and funk. CATHOUSE SATURDAYS

CATHOUSE, 22:30–03:00, £5 - £6

Or Caturdays, if you will. Two levels of the loudest, maddest music the DJs can muster; metal, rock and alt on floor one, and punky screamo upstairs. THE ROCK SHOP

MAGGIE MAY’S, 22:00–03:00, £3 - £5

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

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £5

Saturday night disco manned by your man Gerry Lyons and guests. NIGHT OF THE JAGUAR

THE FLYING DUCK, FROM 22:00, FREE

Art School residents Night of the Jaguar bring the flavour of their parties to the bar every fourth Saturday of the month. SUB CLUB SOUNDSYSTEM

THE BARRAS ARTS AND DESIGN CENTRE, FROM 00:00, £39.50 - £60

Meanwhile, Sub Club celebrates 30 years of troublemaking with its annual two-dayer. Today’s all about Sensu. I LOVE GARAGE

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 23:00–03:00, £5 - £7

Sun 27 Aug SESH

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 23:00–03:00, £3 - £4

Twister, beer pong and DJ Ciar McKinley on the ones and twos, serving up chart and remixes thorough the night. RAISE THE ROOF (JAWJE)

CLASSIC GRAND, 22:00–03:00, £5

A Club Night in aide of The Prince and Princess of Wales Hospice’s Raise the Roof Campaign. LATIN ALL DAY PARTY (HARRI + WERKHA + ANDREW DIVINE + MELTING POT + CAPRI COLLECTIVE + WSHOM + REBECCA VASMANT)

THE RUM SHACK, 14:00–00:00, £6

Rebecca Vasmant curates an all day Latin party with some of the best DJs in Glasgow.

Mon 28 Aug BARE MONDAYS

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 23:00–03:00, £3 - £4

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

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £3 - £5

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

Tue 29 Aug KILLER KITSCH

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £3 - £5

Eclectic Tuesday nighter playing the best in house, techno and electronic – or, in their words ‘casually ignoring shite requests since 2005’. #TAG TUESDAYS

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 23:00–03:00, £0 - £4

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

Wed 30 Aug WRAP-IT

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 23:00–03:00, £0 - £4

DJ Craig cures your Wednesday woes at The Garage. SILVER DOLLAR CLUB

LA CHEETAH CLUB, FROM 03:00, £3

The SDC residents in their first electronic all-nighter since forming last year.

Thu 31 Aug HIP HOP THURSDAYS

BUFF CLUB, 23:00–03:00, £3 - £5

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

O2 ABC, 23:00–03:00, £5

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 23:30, TBC

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

HOTBOYZ ALL NIGHT SUMMER PARTY

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, 23:00–03:00, TBC

Cat Reilly spins the best in joyous party magic. THE ART SCHOOL, 23:00–03:00, FREE

The Hotboyz return to the Vic for an all night take over. Expect a comprehensive rundown of UK club music and beyond for the last euphoric goodbye of summer. UKG, jungle, hardcore, UK funky, grime, rap. TRIASSIC TUSK: GREG BELSON (GREG BELSON, TRIASSIC TUSK DJS)

THE RUM SHACK, 21:00–01:00, £10

Dublab’s Greg Belson brings a selection of one of the worlds best record collections to the Rum Shack

ELEMENT

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

CATHOUSE, 23:00–03:00, £2 - £4

Cathouse’s Thursday night rock, metal and punk mash-up. HUNTLEYS & PALMERS

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 23:30, TBC

H+P fire into Sleazy’s with more of the good stuff.

Clubber’s favourite of indie classics and baggy greats, from Primal Scream and the like.

A NEW GENERATION OF WHISKY... 98

Listings

THE SKINNY

Edinburgh Clubs Tue 01 Aug TRASH

THE HIVE, 22:00–03:00, FREE

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

Wed 02 Aug COOKIE

THE HIVE, 22:00–03:00, FREE

Resident midweek student rammy of chart, club and electro hits. WITNESS (ROSS BLACKWAX + FAULT LINES + SKILLIS + SQUELCHY)

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–05:00, £0 - £2

House, garage and bass adventures with Blackwax and Faultlines.

Thu 03 Aug JUICE (KA MI + DAN,)

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–05:00, £0 - £2

Dan and Kami make weird waves through house and techno. HI-SOCIETY

THE HIVE, 22:00–03:00, FREE

Early weekend-welcoming (y’know, for students) chart anthems, bolstered by hip-hop, R’n’B and urban in the back room. YOU DESERVE TO DANCE (TELFORT) (PERCY MAIN + PADDY D + GRANT CLARK)

RAW (DJ ORIGIN)

BIG N BASHY

THE MASH HOUSE, 01:00–05:00, £4

THE MASH HOUSE, 00:00–05:00, £3 - £5

Special guest DJ Origin (Lowdown Deep / Killer Bytes) heads up at night at The Mash House, with support from Resident Djs: Aesthetics, Upfront, Jammin and Reevah. FIRECRACKER RECORDINGS: HEAL YOURSELF & MOVE #10 (CHARLIE BONES + HOUSE OF TRAPS)

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–05:00, £7

Resident House Of Traps is joined by NTS’ The Do!! You!!! Breakfast Show host Charlie Bones. Thoroughly great vibes across disco, soul and house the world over.

Sun 06 Aug

COALITION (BELIEVE + GAV MILLER + STU + JORDAN COCHRANE + GED & SKANKY B) SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–05:00, FREE

Weekly bass institution hosted by DJ Believe & Friends THE CLUB

THE HIVE, 22:00–05:00, FREE

Two rooms of all the chart, cheese and indie-pop you can think of/ handle on a Sunday. FRACTAL CLUB (PEGGY GOU)

THE MASH HOUSE, 00:00–05:00, £13 - £13.50

You really do, and Cabaret Voltaire are seeing to it with a roster of banging party-starters throughout the festival.

Together with the Main Ingredient trio, residents Hi & Saberhägen stir up a hybrid support slot for Peggy Gou. In the bar Odyssey residents Khalid Hussain & Nick Checketts take control in the bar.

Fri 04 Aug

Mon 07 Aug

CABARET VOLTAIRE, 23:00–05:00, £5 - £7

MEDITERRANEO

SUMMERHALL, 22:00–03:00, £10

Mediterraneo brings Africa, southern Italy and Scotland crashing into Summerhall. Featuring pizzica exponents The Badwills, Zimbabwe jit legend Rise Kagona and Scottish psychedelic ceilidh maestros Awry. HEADSET

THE MASH HOUSE, 00:00–05:00, £5

A Headset festival special of Garage, techno house hip-hop, funk, R’n’B. FLIP

THE HIVE, 22:00–05:00, £0 - £3

Yer all-new Friday at Hive. Cheap entry, inevitably danceable, and novelty-stuffed. Perrrfect. PROPAGANDA

THE LIQUID ROOM, 22:30–05:00, £3 - £5

Clubber’s favourite of indie classics and baggy greats, from Primal Scream and the like.

LIQUID FUNCTION (LIQUID FUNKTION SCAVENGER + UNCLEAL + BC)

THE MASH HOUSE, 01:00–05:00, £5

Summer drum’n’bass vibes all night long. SOULSVILLE (SONNY MAY)

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–05:00, £0 - £5

MIXED UP

THE HIVE, 22:00–05:00, FREE

Monday-brightening mix of hip-hop, R’n’B and chart classics, with requests in the back room. MINDSET (GARETH SOMMERVILLE)

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–05:00, £0 - £3

Strictly House grooves from Edinburgh house DJ don Gareth Sommerville.

Tue 08 Aug TRASH

THE HIVE, 22:00–05:00, FREE

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

Wed 09 Aug COOKIE

THE HIVE, 22:00–05:00, FREE

Resident midweek student rammy of chart, club and electro hits. LUCKYME FESTIVAL PARTY (NINA LAS VEGAS) (THE BLESSINGS)

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–05:00, £0 - £2

Luckyme’s annual festival bash returns, cramming a huge line-up into the Sneaky’s sweatbox.

Sonny May and Cal Evans flex only the finest in funk, Latin, Afro and rare goove 45s. Boom.

Thu 10 Aug

Sat 05 Aug

Early weekend-welcoming (y’know, for students) chart anthems, bolstered by hip-hop, R’n’B and urban in the back room.

BUBBLEGUM

THE HIVE, 21:00–05:00, £0 - £4

Saturday mix of chart and dance, with retro 80s classics thrown in for good measure. SAMEDIA SHEBEEN (ASTROJAZZ)

THE MASH HOUSE, 00:00–05:00, £5

Samedia returns to The Mash House for their first ever proper Fringe session, complete with a late license. They’ll be delving deep into the box of sounds to keep the energy running ‘til the early morn. RHYTHM MACHINE

SUMMERHALL, 23:00–03:00, £6

This August Rhythm Machine – a night of dance music and live art – returns to Summerhall for three consecutive Saturday nights after a twelve month sell-out run in 2015/16.

NIGHTVISION (BICEP) (SPACE DIMENSION CONTROLLER + HAMMER + LORD OF THE ISLES)

THE LIQUID ROOM, 22:30–05:00, £20

Catch a set of tasty techno from hyped Belfast-based duo Bicep, who’ll be taking advantage of a 5am license along with the likes of Hammer, Space Dimension Controller and Lord Of The Isles in tow.

HI-SOCIETY

THE HIVE, 22:00–05:00, FREE

AWESOME TAPES FROM AFRICA

SUMMERHALL, 23:00–03:00, £12

Since 2006, Brian Shimkovitz’s Awesome Tapes From Africa blog has been shedding light on obscure and wonderful sounds from across the continent. BBR AT THE FESTIVAL

THE MASH HOUSE, 00:00–05:00, FREE

Glasgow club night BBR head along the M8 to make their debut Edinburgh Festival appearance, having built up a strong fan base in the last 12 months with their high energy, feel good sets.

YOU DESERVE TO DANCE (ART ALFIE) (FARRES + JACK STANLEY + PADDY D + GRANT CLARK) CABARET VOLTAIRE, 23:00–05:00, £5

Mighty mix of reggae, grime, dubstep and jungle played by inimitable residents Brother Most Righteous, Skillis, Era and Deburgh. PROPAGANDA

THE LIQUID ROOM, 22:30–05:00, £3 - £5

Clubber’s favourite of indie classics and baggy greats, from Primal Scream and the like. BIGFOOT’S TEA PARTY: IL BOSCO (BIGFOOT RESIDENTS) SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–05:00, £0 - £5

Expect plenty of test pressings, Italo gems, synths, breaks, rave, hardcore classics in a three-hour set from the Manchester based DJ and label owner. Support from the esteemed Bigfoot crew, on before and after.

Sat 12 Aug BUBBLEGUM

THE HIVE, 21:00–05:00, £0 - £4

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

THE LIQUID ROOM, 19:00–22:00, £12

One of the leading eighties cover/ tribute bands in the UK, Party Fears Three play classic songs from the 80s, the decade still regarded by many as one the most innovative and enduring periods in music ever. DECADE

LA BELLE ANGELE, 23:00–05:00, £3 - £5

Monthly pop, punk, cheese and metal party. DISORDER

THE MASH HOUSE, 00:00–05:00, £8

Disorder Edinburgh and Bulletdodge Records join forces for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival to bring in Arnaud Le Texier and Stockholm Syndrome. ELECTRO CYCLE

THE VILLAGE, FROM 20:00, FREE

The best in Chicago, deep and funky house music old and new with resident Djs Foxxy DJ and Hi Tech John. TEESH (GLOWING PALMS + TALL ORDER)

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–05:00, £5 - £7

As both a DJ and producer Glowing Palms is a purveyor of disco heat, boogie belters, odd glimmering 80s house and raw synthesizer power. He returns to the ‘all you can eat mind buffet’ as a previous favourite. RHYTHM MACHINE

SUMMERHALL, 23:00–03:00, £6

This August Rhythm Machine – a night of dance music and live art – returns to Summerhall for three consecutive Saturday nights after a twelve month sell-out run in 2015/16. NIGHTVISION: CONGO NATTY (IRON DREAD + CONGO DUBZ)

LA BELLE ANGELE, FROM 23:00, £12.50

Hailing from Tottenham, Congo Natty AKA Rebel MC has been at the vanguard of the genre for over 20 years. His definitive combination of accelerated drum breaks, beefy sub-bass lines and soulful lyrics carries and reinvents the roots of dub reggae. PINNACLE

THE MASH HOUSE, 01:00–05:00, £3

Screw the festival and freshers’ week, the tourists and students – Pinnacle’s next three summer sessions are for the people. Residents Acid Buddha and Col_Panic bolster a selection of guests. FLY: TWEAK FESTIVAL SPECIAL (BAYS) (APTER + HERD) CABARET VOLTAIRE, 23:00–05:00, £5

Edinburgh and Glasgow-straddling night, with powerhouse of local residents joined by a selection of guest talent.

You really do, and Cabaret Voltaire are seeing to it with a roster of banging party-starters throughout the festival.

Sun 13 Aug

Fri 11 Aug

Weekly bass institution hosted by DJ Believe & Friends

BALKANARAMA

COALITION (BELIEVE + GAV MILLER + STU + JORDAN COCHRANE + GED & SKANKY B) SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–05:00, FREE

SUMMERHALL, 23:00–03:00, £10

THE CLUB

FLIP

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

Balkanarama, Scotland’s own riotous night of all things Balkan hits Summerhall. OPA!

THE HIVE, 22:00–05:00, FREE

Mon 14 Aug MIXED UP

THE HIVE, 22:00–05:00, FREE

Monday-brightening mix of hip-hop, R’n’B and chart classics, with requests in the back room. MINDSET (GARETH SOMMERVILLE)

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–05:00, £0 - £3

Strictly House grooves from Edinburgh house DJ don Gareth Sommerville.

Tue 15 Aug TRASH

THE HIVE, 22:00–05:00, FREE

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

Wed 16 Aug

WICKED DISCOURSE:08 (JOSH BAKER) THE MASH HOUSE, 01:00–05:00, £5

Josh Baker’s tracks embody a raw and driving force, proving to be explosive dance floor material. At just 21 the Mancunian has seen releases on Blind Vision Records, Arupa Music and more recently his first vinyl release on Rich NxT’s What NxT label.

Sat 19 Aug BUBBLEGUM

THE HIVE, 21:00–05:00, £0 - £4

Saturday mix of chart and dance, with retro 80s classics thrown in for good measure. NO STRINGS ATTACHED (MARSHALL JEFFERSON)

THE MASH HOUSE, 00:00–05:00, TBC

Thu 17 Aug

No Strings Attached and Hector’s House come together to celebrate 30 years of acid house by inviting one of the founding fathers of house music, Marshall Jefferson, to the capital for his first club appearance in nearly 15 years.

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–05:00, £0 - £2

SUMMERHALL, 23:00–03:00, £6

WITNESS (ROSS BLACKWAX + FAULT LINES + SKILLIS + SQUELCHY)

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–05:00, £0 - £2

House, garage and bass adventures with Blackwax and Faultlines. JUICE (KA MI + DAN,)

Dan and Kami make weird waves through house and techno. HI-SOCIETY

THE HIVE, 22:00–05:00, FREE

Early weekend-welcoming (y’know, for students) chart anthems, bolstered by hip-hop, R’n’B and urban in the back room. TEXTURE (MATRIXXMAN)

THE MASH HOUSE, 00:00–05:00, £10

One of the more talked-about Alisters in the scene in recent years, Charlie Duff has upheld a diverse discography and a well-earned reputation as a slamming performer, with releases on Dekmantel, Planet Rhythm and more. YOU DESERVE TO DANCE (MOOMIN) (TELFORT + GAV MILLER + PADDY D +GRANT CLARK) CABARET VOLTAIRE, 23:00–05:00, £5

RHYTHM MACHINE

This August Rhythm Machine – a night of dance music and live art – returns to Summerhall for three consecutive Saturday nights after a twelve month sell-out run in 2015/16.

Nightvision DJ set from the musical mastermind, known for mixing a junk-shop bag of sounds and bringing his beats to life with squiggly, scribbled animations. WASABI DISCO (KRIS WASABI)

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–05:00, £0 - £5

Resident ear offender Kris Wasabi all night long. COALITION (BELIEVE + GAV MILLER + STU + JORDAN COCHRANE + GED & SKANKY B) SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–05:00, FREE

THE CLUB

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

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

SUMMERHALL, 23:00–03:00, £10 - £12

Mon 21 Aug

FLY (THEO KOTTIS)

CABARET VOLTAIRE, 23:00–05:00, £5

Edinburgh and Glasgow-straddling night, with powerhouse of local residents joined by a selection of guest talent. FLIP

THE HIVE, 22:00–05:00, £0 - £3

Yer all-new Friday at Hive. Cheap entry, inevitably danceable, and novelty-stuffed. Perrrfect. NIGHTVISION (MR SCRUFF)

LA BELLE ANGELE, 23:00–05:00, £16.50

Nightvision DJ set from the musical mastermind, known for mixing a junk-shop bag of sounds and bringing his beats to life with squiggly, scribbled animations. ATHENS OF THE NORTH (FRYER + GARETH SOMMERVILLE + LEL PALFREY)

WEE RED BAR, 23:00–03:00, £5

One of Edinburgh’s finest LGBT+ club nights, playing the best synth-pop, electro-pop and Hi-NRG from the 80s to the present day. Nothing is too cheesy, nothing is too camp, nothing is too queer.

Thu 24 Aug

JUICE (CHOW MAIN + KA MI + DAN)

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–05:00, £0 - £2

Dan and Kami make weird waves through house and techno. HI-SOCIETY

THE HIVE, 22:00–05:00, FREE

Early weekend-welcoming (y’know, for students) chart anthems, bolstered by hip-hop, R’n’B and urban in the back room. SHAPEWORK

THE MASH HOUSE, 00:00–05:00, £5

Monthly techno night with residents Crimzon, Zip Lock and Sholto at the helm.

YOU DESERVE TO DANCE ( DEEJAY ASTRAL) (EOIN R + PADDY D + GRANT CLARK)

CABARET VOLTAIRE, 23:00–05:00, £5

Fri 25 Aug

NIGHTVISION (MR SCRUFF)

Weekly bass institution hosted by DJ Believe & Friends

The legendary duo take over The Dissection Room space for another Optimo (Espacio) mad one.

TEMPTATION: RELIGHT MY FIRE

LA BELLE ANGELE, 23:00–05:00, £16.50

Fri 18 Aug

OPTIMO

House, garage and bass adventures with Blackwax and Faultlines.

Lo-fi raw house and techno.

OVERGROUND

THE MASH HOUSE, 01:00–05:00, £5

Sun 20 Aug

THE LIQUID ROOM, 22:30–05:00, £4

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–05:00, £0 - £2

You really do, and Cabaret Voltaire are seeing to it with a roster of banging party-starters throughout the festival.

You really do, and Cabaret Voltaire are seeing to it with a roster of banging party-starters throughout the festival. REWIND

WITNESS (ROSS BLACKWAX + FAULT LINES + SKILLIS + SQUELCHY)

THE HIVE, 22:00–05:00, FREE

MIXED UP

THE HIVE, 22:00–05:00, FREE

Monday-brightening mix of hip-hop, R’n’B and chart classics, with requests in the back room. MINDSET (GARETH SOMMERVILLE)

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–05:00, £0 - £3

Strictly House grooves from Edinburgh house DJ don Gareth Sommerville.

Tue 22 Aug TRASH

THE HIVE, 22:00–05:00, FREE

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

Wed 23 Aug COOKIE

THE HIVE, 22:00–05:00, FREE

Resident midweek student rammy of chart, club and electro hits.

RAW

THE MASH HOUSE, 01:00–05:00, £4

Resident DJs Aesthetics, Upfront, Jammin and Reevah sort you out with a night of drum’n’bass at Mash House. FLIP

THE HIVE, 22:00–05:00, £0 - £3

Yer all-new Friday at Hive. Cheap entry, inevitably danceable, and novelty-stuffed. Perrrfect.

CHARLOTTE CHURCH’S LATE NIGHT POP DUNGEON

SUMMERHALL, 22:00–03:00, £20

Up the dark, dark stairs, upon the bloody gallows of soft rock, through the oubliette of cheese, into the torture chamber of disco, you are welcomed to the Late Night Pop Dungeon. PROPAGANDA

THE LIQUID ROOM, 22:30–05:00, £3 - £5

Clubber’s favourite of indie classics and baggy greats, from Primal Scream and the like. FRACTAL (STEFFI)

THE LIQUID ROOM, 00:00–05:00, TBC

Fractal continues its mission to bring badass underground acts to Edinburgh, this edition playing host to Panorama Bar resident, Steffi. FLY: LA LA LAND (REMELIE)

CABARET VOLTAIRE, 23:00–05:00, £5

Edinburgh and Glasgow-straddling night, with powerhouse of local residents joined by a selection of guest talent.

Sat 26 Aug BUBBLEGUM

THE HIVE, 21:00–05:00, £0 - £4

Saturday mix of chart and dance, with retro 80s classics thrown in for good measure. RIDE (LAUREN ILL + CHECK YERSEL)

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–05:00, £0 - £5

Hip hop and R’n’B from the 90s ‘til now with the Ride gals.

MADCHESTER THE LIQUID ROOM, 22:30–05:00, £5 - £7

Established in 1994, Madchester’s a long running Edinburgh club night celebrating the baggiest beats from the late 80s and early 90s. TWEAK_

THE MASH HOUSE, 01:00–05:00, £5

House and techno club bringing the world’s most credible artists to Edinburgh. CHARLOTTE CHURCH’S LATE NIGHT POP DUNGEON

SUMMERHALL, 22:00–03:00, £20

Up the dark, dark stairs, upon the bloody gallows of soft rock, through the oubliette of cheese, into the torture chamber of disco, you are welcomed to the Late Night Pop Dungeon. PHONIK (LAYTON GIORDANI)

LA BELLE ANGELE, 23:00–05:00, £10

A very special festival closing party enlisting a man who has taken the mighty Drumcode label by storm this year. ¡CARNE!

THE MASH HOUSE, 00:00–05:00, £5

A meaty party showcasing some of the towns most garish edits from the depths of your deepest, darkest guilty pleasures. Angel will be dishin’ out all manner of sass and tossing coins to the tidiest dancers. PULSE (DAX J)

THE MASH HOUSE, 00:00–05:00, £10

Dax J is a London-born, Berlin-based artist, known as a powerful DJ, producer and label boss. His trademark sound is on constant rotation from the biggest DJ’s in electronic music today. NIGHTVISION (DIXON) (ALAN DOBSON + KIERAN APTER + JAMIE MCKENZIE) LA BELLE ANGELE, FROM 23:00, £20

Dixon, one third of the legendary Innervisions label alongside AME, plays an extended three-hour set, making up for lost time after an almost ten-year long hiatus from the Scottish Capital.

Sun 27 Aug

Tue 29 Aug TRASH

THE HIVE, 22:00–05:00, FREE

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

Wed 30 Aug COOKIE

THE HIVE, 22:00–05:00, FREE

Resident midweek student rammy of chart, club and electro hits. WITNESS (ROSS BLACKWAX + FAULT LINES + SKILLIS + SQUELCHY)

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–05:00, £0 - £2

House, garage and bass adventures with Blackwax and Faultlines.

Thu 31 Aug JUICE (KA MI + DAN)

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–05:00, £0 - £2

Dan and Kami make weird waves through house and techno. HI-SOCIETY

THE HIVE, 22:00–05:00, FREE

Early weekend-welcoming (y’know, for students) chart anthems, bolstered by hip-hop, R’n’B and urban in the back room.

Dundee Clubs Fri 04 Aug ROOMS RESIDENTS

READING ROOMS, FROM 22:30, TBC

A selection of Reading Room residents hold the fort for the evening, playing good vibe tunes all night long.

Sat 05 Aug

THE NEXT CHAPTER OF KAGE

CONROY’S BASEMENT, FROM 23:00, £5

Departed club Kage is resurrected at Conroy’s Basement.

COALITION (BELIEVE + GAV MILLER + STU + JORDAN COCHRANE + GED & SKANKY B)

Fri 11 Aug

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–05:00, FREE

Weekly bass institution hosted by DJ Believe & Friends

A selection of Reading Room residents hold the fort for the evening, playing good vibe tunes all night long.

THE HIVE, 22:00–05:00, FREE

Fri 18 Aug

THE CLUB

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

JACKHAMMER (PARANOID LONDON) (GARY BECK + STEVE BICKNELL + HARBINGERS + DRUM CREW) THE LIQUID ROOM, 22:30–05:00, £10 - £15

The Liquid Room leans into that 5am Fringe license tonight with a blazer of a night courtesy of Jackhammer, who’ll be bringing in an army of techno-appreciating party starters including duo Paranoid London into the booth.

Mon 28 Aug MIXED UP

THE HIVE, 22:00–05:00, FREE

Monday-brightening mix of hip-hop, R’n’B and chart classics, with requests in the back room. MINDSET (GARETH SOMMERVILLE)

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–05:00, £0 - £3

Strictly House grooves from Edinburgh house DJ don Gareth Sommerville.

ROOMS RESIDENTS

READING ROOMS, FROM 22:30, TBC

ROOMS RESIDENTS

READING ROOMS, FROM 22:30, TBC

A selection of Reading Room residents hold the fort for the evening, playing good vibe tunes all night long.

Sat 19 Aug LOCARNO

READING ROOMS, FROM 22:30, TBC

A night dedicated to the 50s and 60s that’s been running for over half a decade.

Fri 25 Aug

DICKY TRISCO & BEN ROTHES

READING ROOMS, FROM 22:30, TBC

Dundee heats upn with the help of dance / electronic act Dicky Trisco and fresh selector Ben Rothes.

Sat 26 Aug BOOK CLUB

READING ROOMS, FROM 22:30, TBC

The Good Stuff DJs spin all genres of disco house and techno, alongside anything else they damn well fancy.

SNEAKY PETE’S, 23:00–05:00, £5

The wildly popular Athens of the North record label has finally become a club night, revealing top picks from their extensive vinyl collections. Expect deep soulful funk and disco, rare Brazilian, fucked up 80’s boogie, with a sprinkle of house music. PROPAGANDA

THE LIQUID ROOM, 22:30–05:00, £3 - £5

Clubber’s favourite of indie classics and baggy greats, from Primal Scream and the like.

HEADSET (HODGE) (PEVERELIST + CHRIS FARRELL + DANIELLE + SKILLIS)

THE MASH HOUSE, 00:00–05:00, £8

Bristol’s finest make the journey to Edinburgh for a one-off 5am showcase at The Mash House for Headset.

THE HIVE, 22:00–05:00, £0 - £3

Yer all-new Friday at Hive. Cheap entry, inevitably danceable, and novelty-stuffed. Perrrfect.

August 2017

Find full listings at theskinny.co.uk/whats-on

Listings

Theatre

Comedy

Glasgow Theatre

Glasgow Comedy

Citizens Theatre

THE ORESTEIA: THIS RESTLESS HOUSE

15 AUG-9 SEP, TIMES VARY, PRICES VARY

An adaptation of Greek tragedy The Oresteia, in which a father’s chilling sacrifice of his daughter initiates a cycle of grisly revenge.

Stereo

SMUT SLAM GLASGOW: PRIDE

17 AUG, 7:30PM, £5 - £6

This fast-paced storytelling open mic based on real life, real lust, real sex is back for another blast of (inclusive) Smut.

The Glad Cafe KEVIN P GILDAY

11 AUG, 7:30PM, £5

Award winning spoken word artist Kevin P. Gilday launches his new collection Gigantic Lying Mouth and performs a special preview of his fringe show by the same title.

The King’s Theatre FLASHDANCE

5-12 AUG, 7:30PM, £16.50 - £59.90

All those unforgettable ‘anthems’ – What a Feeling, I Love Rock and Roll, etc. – performed by Strictly’s own Joanne Clifton and A1 sweetheart Ben Adams. Matinees available.

Theatre Royal JOE MCELDERRY

8 AUG, 7:30PM, £13.10 - £26.25

The former X Factor winner releases a nostalgia-soaked album, Saturday Night At The Movies.

Tramway

YDANCE PRESENTS PROJECT Y

2-3 AUG, 7:30PM – 9:30PM, PRICES VARY

A collection of four new and exhilarating contemporary dance works created by guest choreographers Alan Greig, Hagit Yakira, Steven Martin and Theo Clinkard.

Dundee Theatre Caird Hall

CAIRD HALL ORGAN CONCERTS

2 AUG, 7:30PM, TBC

A Tribute to Marcel Dupré, including music from the man himself, plus Bach, Parry, Franck and Dupré.

Dundee Rep TOMMY

16-19 AUG, 7:30PM, £10 - £13

Dundee Schools Music Theatre make a trip back to Dundee Rep with The Who’s rock musical Tommy, a dramatic adaptation of the original chart album. AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY

29 AUG-16 SEP, 7:00PM, £9 - £25

A Scottish Premiere for Tracy Letts’ Pulitzer Prize-winning play.

The Gardyne Theatre THE WIZ

23-26 AUG, 7:30PM, PRICES VARY

A souped-up version of the Wizard of Oz, told through brassy musical numbers with a rock, gospel and soul twang. Matinees also available. YDANCE PRESENTS PROJECT Y

2-3 AUG, 7:30PM – 9:30PM, PRICES VARY

A collection of four new and exhilarating contemporary dance works created by guest choreographers Alan Greig, Hagit Yakira, Steven Martin and Theo Clinkard.

Whitehall Theatre SISTER ACT

30 AUG-1 SEP, 7:30PM, PRICES VARY

Theatrical re-telling of the hit movie, in full singalong glory with original music by eight-time Oscar winner Alan Menken.

PROFESSOR HEISENHOFF’S BIG BIRTHDAY BASH (STEPEN HALKETT) THE STAND GLASGOW, 15:00–16:30, £4

Children’s show with prizes and lots of daft stuff.

Mon 07 Aug Tue 01 Aug

RED RAW (DAVID TSONSOS)

THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:45, £3

Open mic-style beginners showcase, plus some old hands dropping by to road test new material.

Wed 02 Aug

NEW MATERIAL NIGHT (JULIA SUTHERLAND )

YESBAR, FROM 20:30, £3

Resident host Julia Sutherland introduces a variety of stand-up comedians from the Scottish circuit delivering all new material.

BILLY KIRWOOD’S PICK OF THE FRINGE

THE STAND GLASGOW, 21:00–23:00, £6 - £8

The Stand’s Glasgow outpost loops the West coast into the festival action with a specially-curated night of highlights.

Thu 03 Aug

BRUCE MORTON’S PICK OF THE FRINGE

THE STAND GLASGOW, 21:00–23:00, £8 - £10

The Stand’s Glasgow outpost loops the West coast into the festival action with a specially-curated night of highlights. YESBAR VIRGINS

JIM SMITH: NORTH COUNTRY BOY

THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:00, £8 - £10

Perthshire farmer/stand-up with more funny tales of rural life

Tue 08 Aug

RED RAW (ADAM ROWE)

THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:45, £3

Open mic-style beginners showcase, plus some old hands dropping by to road test new material.

Wed 09 Aug

NEW MATERIAL NIGHT (JULIA SUTHERLAND )

YESBAR, FROM 20:30, £3

Resident host Julia Sutherland introduces a variety of stand-up comedians from the Scottish circuit delivering all new material.

BILLY KIRWOOD’S PICK OF THE FRINGE

THE STAND GLASGOW, 21:00–23:00, £6 - £8

THE LATE SHOW

YESBAR, FROM 22:00, £10

SUSAN MORRISON’S PICK OF THE FRINGE

THE STAND GLASGOW, 21:00–23:00, £8 - £10

YESBAR VIRGINS

Graham Barrie introduces a selection of fledgling comedy talent handpicked fae Scotland.

Fri 11 Aug

SUSAN MORRISON’S PICK OF THE FRINGE

THE STAND GLASGOW, 21:00–23:00, £10 - £12

Yesbar lols at – aye – 8pm.

The Stand’s Glasgow outpost loops the West coast into the festival action with a specially-curated night of highlights.

Sat 05 Aug

YESBAR, FROM 22:00, £10

Late night lols at Yesbar. THE EARLY SHOW

YESBAR, FROM 19:00, £10

BRUCE MORTON’S PICK OF THE FRINGE

THE STAND GLASGOW, 21:00–23:00, £17.50

The Stand’s Glasgow outpost loops the West coast into the festival action with a specially-curated night of highlights. THE LATE SHOW

YESBAR, FROM 22:00, £10

Late night lols at Yesbar. THE EARLY SHOW

YESBAR, FROM 19:00, £10

Yesbar lols at – aye – 8pm.

Sun 06 Aug

MICHAEL REDMOND’S PICK OF THE FRINGE

THE STAND GLASGOW, 21:00–23:00, £6 - £7

The Stand’s Glasgow outpost loops the West coast into the festival action with a specially-curated night of highlights.

THE STAND GLASGOW, 21:00–23:00, £6 - £7

THE LATE SHOW

Late night lols at Yesbar. THE EARLY SHOW

YESBAR, FROM 19:00, £10

Yesbar lols at – aye – 8pm.

Sat 12 Aug

SUSAN MORRISON’S PICK OF THE FRINGE

THE STAND GLASGOW, 21:00–23:00, £17.50

The Stand’s Glasgow outpost loops the West coast into the festival action with a specially-curated night of highlights. THE LATE SHOW

YESBAR, FROM 22:00, £10

Late night lols at Yesbar. THE EARLY SHOW

YESBAR, FROM 19:00, £10

Yesbar lols at – aye – 8pm.

BARRY CRIMMNS: ATLAS'S KNEES

THE STAND, GLASGOW, 20:30, £8-10

The US legend brings his first ever Fringe show to Glasgow.

THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:45, £3

THE STAND GLASGOW, 21:00–23:00, £10 - £12

RED RAW

Open mic-style beginners showcase, plus some old hands dropping by to road test new material.

Wed 16 Aug

NEW MATERIAL NIGHT (JULIA SUTHERLAND )

YESBAR, FROM 20:30, £3

Resident host Julia Sutherland introduces a variety of stand-up comedians from the Scottish circuit delivering all new material.

BILLY KIRWOOD’S PICK OF THE FRINGE

THE STAND GLASGOW, 21:00–23:00, £6 - £8

The Stand’s Glasgow outpost loops the West coast into the festival action with a specially-curated night of highlights. JOJO SUTHERLAND’S PICK OF THE FRINGE

THE STAND GLASGOW, 21:00–23:00, £8 - £10

YESBAR VIRGINS

YESBAR, FROM 20:00, £3

Graham Barrie introduces a selection of fledgling comedy talent handpicked fae Scotland.

Fri 18 Aug

JOJO SUTHERLAND’S PICK OF THE FRINGE

THE STAND GLASGOW, 21:00–23:00, £10 - £12

The Stand’s Glasgow outpost loops the West coast into the festival action with a specially-curated night of highlights. THE LATE SHOW

YESBAR, FROM 22:00, £10

Late night lols at Yesbar. THE EARLY SHOW

YESBAR, FROM 19:00, £10

Yesbar lols at – aye – 8pm.

Sat 26 Aug

JOE HEENAN’S PICK OF THE FRINGE

THE STAND GLASGOW, 21:00–23:00, £17.50

The Stand’s Glasgow outpost loops the West coast into the festival action with a specially-curated night of highlights. THE LATE SHOW

YESBAR, FROM 22:00, £10

Late night lols at Yesbar. THE EARLY SHOW

YESBAR, FROM 19:00, £10

Yesbar lols at – aye – 8pm.

Sun 27 Aug

MICHAEL REDMOND’S PICK OF THE FRINGE

THE STAND GLASGOW, 21:00–23:00, £6 - £7

The Stand’s Glasgow outpost loops the West coast into the festival action with a specially-curated night of highlights.

Mon 28 Aug

JOKESLAM TO HELL (BILLY KIRKWOOD + NEIL THE WEE MAN BRATCHPIECE + CHRIS BROOKER) THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:30, £8

A comedy look at wrestling culture, this one’s a must for any fans of fighting.

Tue 29 Aug

THE EARLY SHOW

THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:45, £3

Late night lols at Yesbar. YESBAR, FROM 19:00, £10

Yesbar lols at – aye – 8pm.

Sat 19 Aug

JOJO SUTHERLAND’S PICK OF THE FRINGE

THE STAND GLASGOW, 21:00–23:00, £17.50

The Stand’s Glasgow outpost loops the West coast into the festival action with a specially-curated night of highlights. THE LATE SHOW

YESBAR, FROM 22:00, £10

Late night lols at Yesbar. THE EARLY SHOW

YESBAR, FROM 19:00, £10

Yesbar lols at – aye – 8pm.

Sun 20 Aug

MICHAEL REDMOND’S PICK OF THE FRINGE

THE STAND GLASGOW, 21:00–23:00, £6 - £7

The Stand’s Glasgow outpost loops the West coast into the festival action with a specially-curated night of highlights.

Tue 22 Aug RED RAW

THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–22:45, £3

Open mic-style beginners showcase, plus some old hands dropping by to road test new material.

Wed 23 Aug

NEW MATERIAL NIGHT (JULIA SUTHERLAND )

YESBAR, FROM 20:30, £3

Listings

JOE HEENAN’S PICK OF THE FRINGE

YESBAR, FROM 22:00, £10

THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:00–22:00, £12

100

YESBAR VIRGINS

YESBAR, FROM 20:00, £3

Fri 25 Aug

A work-in-progress show with Kevin and a select group of his favourite comedians.

Broadway Baby

THE STAND GLASGOW, 21:00–23:00, £8 - £10

The Stand’s Glasgow outpost loops the West coast into the festival action with a specially-curated night of highlights.

Tue 15 Aug

KEVIN BRIDGES & FRIENDS

London City Nights

JOE HEENAN’S PICK OF THE FRINGE

Graham Barrie introduces a selection of fledgling comedy talent handpicked fae Scotland.

Mon 21 Aug

rrrr rrrr

Thu 24 Aug

The Stand’s Glasgow outpost loops the West coast into the festival action with a specially-curated night of highlights.

Thu 10 Aug

YESBAR, FROM 20:00, £3

The Stand’s Glasgow outpost loops the West coast into the festival action with a specially-curated night of highlights.

MICHAEL REDMOND’S PICK OF THE FRINGE

The Stand’s Glasgow outpost loops the West coast into the festival action with a specially-curated night of highlights.

Fri 04 Aug

BRUCE MORTON’S PICK OF THE FRINGE

Sun 13 Aug

Thu 17 Aug

The Stand’s Glasgow outpost loops the West coast into the festival action with a specially-curated night of highlights.

THE STAND GLASGOW, 21:00–23:00, £10 - £12

Kids’ show with music, jokes, stories and hunners of laughs.

The Stand’s Glasgow outpost loops the West coast into the festival action with a specially-curated night of highlights.

Graham Barrie introduces a selection of fledgling comedy talent handpicked fae Scotland.

YESBAR, FROM 20:00, £3

NEVER GROWING UP (MR FIBBERS) THE STAND GLASGOW, 15:00–16:30, £4

Resident host Julia Sutherland introduces a variety of stand-up comedians from the Scottish circuit delivering all new material.

BILLY KIRWOOD’S PICK OF THE FRINGE

THE STAND GLASGOW, 21:00–23:00, £6 - £8

The Stand’s Glasgow outpost loops the West coast into the festival action with a specially-curated night of highlights.

RED RAW

Open mic-style beginners showcase, plus some old hands dropping by to road test new material.

Wed 30 Aug

FRANKIE BOYLE: WORK IN PROGRESS (FRANKIE BOYLE) THE STAND GLASGOW, 20:30–21:30, £12 - £15

Work in progress from the legend that is Frankie Boyle NEW MATERIAL NIGHT (JULIA SUTHERLAND )

YESBAR, FROM 20:30, £3

Resident host Julia Sutherland introduces a variety of stand-up comedians from the Scottish circuit delivering all new material.

Thu 31 Aug

THE THURSDAY SHOW (SUSIE MCCABE + DAVID WARD + MARC JENNINGS + STU MURPHY) THE STAND GLASGOW, 21:00–22:45, £5 - £10

Weekend-welcoming selection of handpicked headline acts and newcomers over a two-hour showcase. YESBAR VIRGINS

YESBAR, FROM 20:00, £3

Graham Barrie introduces a selection of fledgling comedy talent handpicked fae Scotland.

Art Glasgow Art

Hunterian Art Gallery

NEIL CLEMENTS: ELECTRIC EYE

1 AUG-8 OCT, TIMES VARY, FREE

The Hunterian showcases new paintings and sculptures by Glasgow-based artist Neil Clements, whose work concerns tends to take the form of monochromatic paintings, shaped canvases and geometric sculptures. THE TRUEST MIRROR OF LIFE

CCA: Centre for Contemporary Art THE HOUSE THAT HEALS THE SOUL

1 AUG-3 SEP, TIMES VARY, FREE

An exhibition focusing on the political and social status of libraries. Programmed in collaboration with artist Nick Thurston, CCA’s exhibition spaces will be opened up to house a selection of library and self-publishing resources alongside artworks that look at various histories of, and approaches towards, the protection and presentation of libraries’ collections, infrastructures and their users. AS IF IT WERE STRANGERS; THAT STRANGENESS WAS OURS

4-23 AUG, TIMES VARY, FREE

A collaborative investigation into the implications of the body and mind of colour.

David Dale Gallery and Studios IT IS FOREVER OURS

8 AUG-21 JAN 18, TIMES VARY, FREE

A display of 19th century French caricatures showcasing work by some of its greatest exponents, including Honoré Daumier and Gavarni.

Platform

PROJECT ABILITY: ASPIRE ARTISTS

1-27 AUG, TIMES VARY, FREE

Platform welcomes Project Ability and 18 artists from its Aspire programme, who have created large scale paintings specifically for Platform’s exhibition wall.

SWG3 Glasgow

JAMIE JOHNSON: PRIMITIVE PLANE

7-11 AUG, 12:00PM – 6:00PM, FREE

Johnson’s debut solo exhibition, comprising painting, collage, printmaking and video to examine cultural symbolism throughout time. There’s also promise of a “nod to Scottish geology and folklore”.

Street Level Photoworks SCOTLAND’S FAR NORTH

3-5 AUG, 12:00PM – 5:00PM, FREE

1-27 AUG, TIMES VARY, FREE

Glasgow Print Studio

The Common Guild

A Swimming Pool-curated show at David Dale featuring Stefania Batoeva and Goran Chanter. This is part one in an exchange between David Dale and Swimming Pool, Sofia with the latter half taking place in October 2017.

CUT

1 AUG-17 SEP, TIMES VARY, FREE

CUT brings together a mix of modern and contemporary woodcut prints in celebration of the woodcut technique. Exhibiting artists include Claire Barclay, Grayson Perry, Ian McCulloch, Katsutoshi Yuasa, Ann Desmet, and more.

Glasgow School of Art AGAINST LANDSCAPE

1-23 AUG, TIMES VARY, FREE

Against Landscape is curated by artist Daniel Sturgis in collaboration with Grizedale Arts and presents a diverse collection of contemporary and historic works that revolve around the idea of landscape representation in painting.

GoMA POLYGRAPHS

1 AUG-20 MAY 18, TIMES VARY, FREE

A group exhibition with a central point of Hito Steyerl’s film Abstract, which explores truth, fiction and evidence in a complicated world. Features Jane Evelyn Atwood, Muirhead Bone, Boyle Family, Gerard Byrne, Graham Fagen, Ian Hamilton Finlay and more. MARLIE MUL: THIS EXHIBITION IS CANCELLED

1 AUG-29 OCT, TIMES VARY, FREE

Artist Marlie Mul has cancelled her first exhibition in Scotland. Until 29 Oct, the gallery will lie empty. To use the gallery for your own activities, speak to a member to staff onsite or download a proposal form from the website. TASTE!

1 AUG-30 SEP, TIMES VARY, FREE

A snapshot of GoMA’s rich history combining artworks and archived material. Features work by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Beryl Cook, Fischli/Weiss, Sarah Forrest, Andy Goldsworthy, Douglas Gordon, David Hockney, Eduardo Paolozzi, David Shirgley, Stanley Spencer, Andy Warhol and Lawrence Weiner.

SLP showcases three bodies of work from the 1970s; Glyn Satterley¤s documentation of life in Caithness and Sutherland; Chick Chalmers Orkney project; and Tom Kidd¤s Shetland – all of which provide insight into Scotland’s remote landscape, islands and people. MARIA FUSCO: RADICAL DIALECT

1 AUG-30 DEC, TIMES VARY, FREE

An ongoing project conceived by writer Maria Fusco, including a cycle of events, a series of commissioned publications and a major new performance, all taking shape across 2017 and 2018. See thecommonguild.org. uk for info.

The Lighthouse GLASGOW INTERIORS

1 AUG-30 SEP, TIMES VARY, FREE

An exhibition showcasing Glasgow Style and Art Nouveau by pairing examples of Glasgow interiors with iconic Mackintosh chairs. GRIST

1-13 AUG, TIMES VARY, FREE

Glasgow’s Thirst Craft, a creative and social agency which specialises in craft drinks showcases their graphics, installations, illustrious lettering and typographic work. REST AND BE THANKFUL HERITAGE PROJECT

1 AUG-17 SEP, TIMES VARY, FREE

A showcase of the designs and inspirations behind KennedyTwaddle Architects’ project The Rest and be Thankful, a venue known in the motorsport community as a venue of international significance. CARISCC

15-19 AUG, 10:30AM – 5:00PM, FREE

A touring art and research exhibition from CARSICC, an interdisciplinary research network from seven universities leading the way in Caribbean Studies (Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Dundee, The University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, Brock University in Canada, Rutgers University in the USA, and the University of the West Indies (Mona) in Jamaica, Caribbean. This digital exhibition explores the interconnections and everyday negotiations between securities and insecurities in relation to precariousness and creativity. KCD

17 AUG-8 OCT, TIMES VARY, FREE

An exhibition of work from KCD, an family company founded by Krisztina MucCulloch, which designs eco-friendly interiors inspired by the renowned architecture of Glasgow and Paisley.

THE SKINNY

LINES OF THOUGHT 18 AUG-1 OCT, TIMES VARY, FREE

Curated and organised by the Alexander Thomson Society, this exhibition celebrates the bicentenary of architect Alexander Thomson in a selection of pen and ink measured studies, detailed digital renderings, precision models, journals, sketches, film and the more abstract work of artists. ART FOR ERSKINE CENTENARY EXHIBITION

9-13 AUG, TIMES VARY, FREE

View a wide selection of contemporary artwork and sculpture by acclaimed and up-and-coming artists. New to the exhibition in 2017, explore Erskine’s rich history through fascinating footage and archive displays.

Edinburgh Art &Gallery

ANNA SOMERVILLE: HORIZON

5-30 AUG, TIMES VARY, FREE

A true colourist, Somerville paints intuitively in mixed media and oil to imagine atmospheric horizons. These expressive paintings deliver expansive compositions of abstracted light and form.

Arusha Gallery ILONA SZALAY: TRYING

2-13 AUG, TIMES VARY, FREE

The Modern Institute

Arusha presents work by celebrated artist, Ilona Szalay whose paintings “trace a path through a world of conflict and power play”.

1-25 AUG, TIMES VARY, FREE

24 AUG-17 SEP, TIMES VARY, FREE

ALEX DORDOY: FROM SVALBARD SOUL

The Newcastle-born, London-based artist presents new work at The Modern Institute’s Osborne Street branch.

ELAINE SPEIRS: PORTRAIT OF HER

A showcase of work by Johannesburg-born painter Elaine Speirs, a regular exhibitor at the RSA, with VAS and the SSA.

The Modern City Art Centre Institute @ Airds EDINBURGH ALPHABET 1 AUG-8 OCT, TIMES VARY, FREE Lane An A-Z of Edinburgh’s collections, RICHARD WRIGHT

3-26 AUG, 12:00PM – 5:00PM, FREE

The Turner Prize-winning artist beings a new body of work to The Modern Institute. MANFRED PERNICE: BRÜCKE2

3-26 AUG, 12:00PM – 5:00PM, FREE

Berlin-based artist Manfred Pernice brings a new exhibition to Modern Institute’s Aird’s Lane branch.

Tramway

TSCHABALALA SELF

1-20 AUG, TIMES VARY, FREE

Bold, confident and vibrant paintings and works on paper from artist Tschabalala Self, an artist primarily concerned with the concept of the Black female body within contemporary culture.

iota @ Unlimited Studios JOHN TAYLOR: FRAGILE

8-19 AUG, 12:00PM – 5:00PM, FREE

Poignant, timeless and controversial; a powerful exhibition of watercolour painting.

16 Nicholson Street LES PAVES, LA PLÀGE

11 AUG - 3 SEP, FREE

Exhibition combining queening DIY tutorials with experimental merchandising, painting and sculptures.

Edinburgh Alphabet takes place across four gallery floors and features over 300 objects from paintings to tapestries, ceramics to silver. Each letter of the alphabet has been given a theme around which objects have been grouped. THOUGHT COLLIDER

1-27 AUG, TIMES VARY, FREE

Susana Cámara Leret and Mike Thompson’s practice explores metabolic processes, bodies and spaces. For Thought Collider they will experiment with meanings and values that can be derived from alternative ways of experiencing built and mediated environments.

Coburg House Art Studios COBURG HOUSE SUMMER OPEN STUDIOS 2017

5-6 AUG, 11:00AM – 6:00PM, FREE

Around 80 artists at Coburg House will be open their doors offering a rare opportunity to see behind the scenes, with work from painters, printmakers, textile designers, ceramicists, jewellers, designers and more.

Collective Gallery

ROSS LITTLE: THE HEAVY OF YOUR BODY PARTS AND THE COOL AIR OF THE AIR CONDITION

1 AUG-10 SEP, 10:00AM – 4:00PM, FREE

Glasgow-based artist Ross Little graduated from GSA in 2011, and mainly works with film and painting. For his film project at Collective he will trace different forms of globalised labour found in the ship breaking yards of India and on board a transatlantic cruise ship.

PATRICK STAFF: TO THOSE IN SEARCH OF IMMUNITY 1-27 AUG, TIMES VARY, FREE

Patrick Staff works with film, installation, dance and performance to investigate dissent, labour and the queer body. Using research into the ecology and botanical formations of Calton Hill, To Those In Search of Immunity melds audio essay, memoir, and story to examine illness, health, and both the social and individual body. Exploring ideas of immunity and the possible effects of ingestion of substances on the body, Patrick’s new Observers’ Walk reflects social concerns such as sex, gender and the construction of community.

Dovecot Studios DAZZLE JEWELLERY

4-28 AUG, 10:30AM – 5:30PM, FREE

Jewellery design exhibitors Dazzle return to Dovecot for the sixth time. See works from dozens of designers, including Kokkino, Elizabeth Campbell, Sue Gregor, Stephanie Johnson, Anja Percival, Steven Harkin, Heather Shields.

Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop

CHARLOTTE BARKER: FLOTILLA

1-26 AUG, 11:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

Charlotte Barker’s work sits at the intersection of sculpture and design. Her new workat ESW maintains many of the idiomatic elements that are associated with ceramics and furniture exploring their sculptural potential and deconstructing the hierarchical relationships between fine art, craft and the decorative arts.

Howe Street Arts THINK LESS, FEEL MORE

1-13 AUG, 10:00AM – 7:00PM, FREE

Think Less, Feel More is the second solo exhibition in Edinburgh by up and coming abstract artist, Alice Boyle. Her paintings plunge onlookers back into the feeling of winter while at the same time developing colour to soften the cold and break through to the promise of regeneration.

PABLO BRONSTEIN: THE ROSE WALK

TRUE TO LIFE

3-31 AUG, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

1 AUG-29 OCT, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, £8 - £10

Argentine-born artist Pablo Bronstein views drawing as the central core of his artistic practice. He will create an ambitious site-specific work at Jupiter Artland which will form part of the permanent collection, comprising two ten-meterhigh pavilions, one Gothic and the other in a Chinoiserie style will be connected by a twenty-five-meterlong rose garden.

Rhubaba

YOU HARDBOILED I SOFTBOILED

4-27 AUG, 12:00PM – 5:00PM, FREE

An ongoing polyvocal project centering around the work of Melbourne-based writer Jessica Yu, who is interested in reconstituting memory and place through her writing. This exhibition consists of an in-gallery press, and a purpose built street-front display case, making public the process of writing, editing and publishing.

BUILT IN TAPESTRY: DOVECOT TAPESTRIES AND ARCHITECTURE

Ingleby Gallery

Royal Scottish Academy RSA

1 AUG-22 DEC, 10:30AM – 5:30PM, FREE

2-26 AUG, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

1 AUG-1 OCT, TIMES VARY, FREE

A balcony-based exhibition at Dovecot highlighting projects from the studio’s history, featuring innovative and bold projects from commissions new and past. DAUGHTERS OF PENELOPE

1 AUG-20 JAN 18, TIMES VARY, FREE

Dovecot tells a tale of women’s work in the textile industry and within textile art in a group exhibition of work fro those who have contributed to the gallery’s history and present. Features Caroline Dear, Linder, Sonia Delaunay, Hanna Tuulikki and more.

Edinburgh College of Art

ECA: MASTERS DEGREE SHOW 2017

1-19 AUG, TIMES VARY, FREE

ECA’s MA and MSc students from the Art, Design, Architecture and Landscape Architecture schools exhibit their artwork, taking in culpture, painting, illustration, product design and architecture.

Edinburgh Printmakers NEW EDITION

1 AUG-21 OCT, 10:00AM – 6:00PM, FREE

Group exhibition displaying newly commissioned printed works by Museums Press, Poster Club and Emer Tumilty, curated by Sarah Lowndes. The title of the exhibition underlines the generational group of all of the exhibiting artists, who were born between the late 1960s and the early 1980s, and represent the current wave of Scotland-based artists working with print.

AND PER SE AND, PARTS XI-XIII

Ingleby celebrates its 20th year with an exhibition programme of 27 ‘pairings’ exploring the ampersand; notions of linkage, circularity and pairings. As the sequence reaches parts XI, XII and XIII, it becomes “a celebration of two artists whose work is connected by a spirit of obsession and isolation”, featuring a new painting by James Hugonin and a classic 1953 still life by Giorgio Morandi.

Institut français d’Ecosse

HEATHER LANDER: NEARER FUTURE

4-28 AUG, TIMES VARY, FREE

Heather Lander uses projection and sound to create an immersive sonic light sculpture in collaboration with composer Robert Bentall.

Inverleith House PLANT SCENERY OF THE WORLD

1 AUG-29 OCT, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

Exhibition presenting new, commissioned and existing work by Laura Aldridge, Charlie Billingham, Bobby Niven, Oliver Osborne and Ben Rivers; celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Botanics’ iconic modernist glasshouses.

Jupiter Artland LIZ MAGIC LAER: PRIMAL SPEECH

3 AUG-1 OCT, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

RSA OPEN 2017

Exhibition of small works sourced by open submission from artists across Scotland, including paintings, drawings, sculptures, prints and photographs – all available to buy – from around 400 different artists. Expect the usual pick’n’mix wonderland.

Scottish National Gallery A MEETING OF TWO MASTERPIECES

1 AUG-25 MAR 18, TIMES VARY, FREE

Six-footer British masterpiece Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows (1831) by John Constable, displayed alongside another celebrated landscape painting, William McTaggart’s The Storm (1890). BEYOND CARAVAGGIO

1 AUG-24 SEP, TIMES VARY, £10 - £12

A collaboration between the National Gallery, London, the National Gallery of Ireland and the National Galleries of Scotland, this is Scotland’s very first exhibition of works by Caravaggio and his followers (the so-called ‘Caravaggesque painters’). POUSSIN’S SACRAMENTS

1 AUG-30 SEP, TIMES VARY, FREE

French artist Nicolas Poussin was the founder of the classical tradition in French art. National Gallery exhibits the Seven Sacraments, considered to be one of the greatest sets of paintings in the history of Western art.

Artist Liz Magic Laser responds to Brexit and Trump with a video and room dedicated to the primal scream technique, encouraging audiences to let out their frustrations.

Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art

3 AUG-1 OCT, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

1 AUG-18 FEB 18, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

MARCO GIORDANO: SELF-FULFILLING EGO

Glasgow-based Italian artist Marco Giordano presents this year’s Temporary commission for Emerging Artists in the Outdoors at EAF. The new work draws interest from Le Cento Fontane and historic stonework set around the Jupiter estate, creating an avenue of sculptures that emit a mist of water, ‘blessing’ each visitor.

20TH CENTURY: MASTERPIECES OF SCOTTISH AND EUROPEAN ART

An exhibition of works offering a historical overview of some of the most significant artistic contributions made during the last century. The exhibition also aims to place Scottish modern art within an international context. NOW

1 AUG-24 SEP, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

A programme of contemporary art exhibitions celebrating the diversity of contemporary artistic practice, and the unique role of artists in society. Features Nathan Coley, Mona Hatoum, Louise Hopkins, Pete Horobin, Tessa Lynch, Jock McFadyen, Rivane Neuenschwander, Tony Swain and more. SURREALISM AND THE MARVELLOUS

1 AUG-31 OCT, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

Focusing on artworks by Dalí, Ernst, Magritte and many other Surrealist artists, this exhibtion uncovers the unconscious, the irrational, the absurd and the marvellous within surrealism. There are also African and Oceanic sculptures on display alongside a cabinet of curiosities. ARTIST ROOMS: MUSIC FROM THE BALCONIES - ED RUSCHA AND LOS ANGELES

1 AUG-29 APR 18, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

A display highlighting the ways in which Ed Ruscha (b.1937, Nebraska, USA) draws upon urban landscape and architecture, cinema, brands, car culture and language that refer and relate to LA and Hollywood to create works about the American Dream.

August 2017

Find full listings at theskinny.co.uk/whats-on

Comprising more than 80 paintings, this exhibition recognises an almost forgotten generation of artists and explores British realist painting in the 1920s and 1930s. TESCO BANK ART COMPETITION FOR SCHOOLS 2017

1-24 AUG, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

An exhibition of the winning entries from the 2017 Tesco Bank Art Competition for Schools, an annual competition which over 7,000 children take part in the competition annually. ABSTRACT ART AND BRITAIN BETWEEN THE WARS

1 AUG-30 SEP, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

A showcase of nine geometric abstractions, including works from Ben Nicholson, Piet Mondrian, Margaret Mellis and more.

Scottish National Portrait Gallery SCOTS IN ITALY

1 AUG-5 MAR 19, TIMES VARY, FREE

A showcase of the Scottish experience of Italy in the eighteenth century, a time when artistic, entrepreneurial and aristocratic fascination with the country was reaching boiling point. THE MODERN PORTRAIT

1 AUG-27 OCT 19, TIMES VARY, FREE

A display collating paintings, sculptures and works from the Portrait Gallery’s twentieth-century collection, ft. a variety of well-known faces, from Ramsay Macdonald to Alan Cumming, Tilda Swinton to Danny McGrain. REFORMATION TO REVOLUTION

1 AUG-1 APR 19, TIMES VARY, FREE

An exhibition examining the cultural consequences of the national religion becoming Protestantism in sixteenth century Scotland. A PERFECT CHEMISTRY

1 AUG-1 OCT, TIMES VARY, £9 - £10

A showcase of photographs by two Scots, Octavius Hill (1802-1870) and Robert Adamson (1821-1848) who mastered the medium four short years after its invention. The images featured have been said to be among the first examples of social documentary in the history of photography. GRAHAM FAGEN: THE SLAVE’S LAMENT

1 AUG-29 OCT, TIMES VARY, FREE

Graham Fagen presents a ‘soundclash’ in which Robert Burns’ The Slave’s Lament is performed by the Scottish Ensemble and Reggae singer Ghetto Priest, and produced by legendary On-U-Sound founder Adrian Sherwood.

GRAHAM MACINDOE: COMING CLEAN

1 AUG-5 NOV, TIMES VARY, FREE

Since recovering from years of his life as a heroin addict, Graham MacIndie uses this body of selfportraits as a means of opening up conversations about dependency and recovery. HEROES AND HEROINES

1 AUG-31 MAY 19, TIMES VARY, FREE

A re-examination of major Scottish figures which questions our habit of framing history around individuals and idols. LOOKING GOOD - THE MALE GAZE FROM VAN DYCK TO LUCIAN FREUD

1 AUG-1 OCT, TIMES VARY, FREE

A selection of portraits, from the National Galleries of Scotland and National Portrait Gallery, London collections illustrating elaborate fashions and grooming of courtiers and cavaliers in the 16th and 16th centuries, the 18th century dandy, the rise of the celebrity, and representations of gender and sexuality. DOUGLAS GORDON: BLACK BURNS

1 AUG-29 OCT, TIMES VARY, FREE

A specially commissioned installation created in response to John Flaxman’s full-length marble statue of poet Robert Burns, which stands in The Great Hall of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery.

Stills

KATE DAVIS

1 AUG-8 OCT, 11:00AM – 6:00PM, FREE

Using moving image, photography, drawing and printmaking, Davis’s work questions how historical narratives are produced and perpetuated. Part of Edinburgh Art Festival.

Summerhall

ALASTAIR MACLENNAN: AIR A LAIR

2 AUG-30 SEP, 11:00AM – 6:00PM, FREE

This retrospective comprises drawings, performance artifacts and video documentation, encapsulating different series of artworks made from the 1970s onwards, up to MacLennan’s current practice. EARLY EVENTS: FIVE NARRATIVE SCULPTURES

2 AUG-24 SEP, 11:00AM – 6:00PM, FREE

In Early Events (1996-2000), Liliane Lijn brings to Summerhall five narrative sculptures, exhibited for the first time in the UK, that form part of a series in which the artist examines her psyche. THE TIME IS RIGHT FOR…

2 AUG-24 SEP, 11:00AM – 6:00PM, FREE

Artists began to work with video from the late 1960s as a more accessible alternative to film. Although many of these artists are well known today, there are several women artists who experimented with video in the early years who have since been forgotten or marginalised. Works by Ketty La Rocca, Marikki Hakola, Giny Vos and Elaine Shemilt. RETURN: IN SEARCH OF STILLNESS

2 AUG-24 SEP, 11:00AM – 6:00PM, FREE

The Sri Lankan Visual Arts programme is a journey of installation, visual and performance art, curated to explore the push and pull within community histories and individual memories of past violence, ongoing provocations, and the myriad of hopeful possibilities that exist within Sri Lanka. Features work by Kannan Arunasalam, Abdul Halik Azeez, Maya Bastian, Radhika Hettiarachchi, Sujeewa Kumari, Vijitharan M., Anoli Perera, Rajni Perera, Venuri Perera, Pala Pothupitiya, Alex Stewart, Kanesh Thabendran, Anup Vega, Ruwanthie De Chickera and David Cotterell. SURA MEDURA, SRI LANKA

2 AUG-24 SEP, 11:00AM – 6:00PM, FREE

UZ Arts presents the work of twenty-one European artists who have been resident at Sura Medura in Sri Lanka since 2006. The programme includes performances, installations, video and visual arts. Features works by Sita Pieraccini, Maria Mccavana, Nicola Scrutton, Natasha Russell, Hannah Brackston and more.

COSMIC COLLISIONS AT MERZ 2 AUG-24 SEP, 11:00AM – 6:00PM, FREE

An exhibition of new works by Charles Jencks, cosmologists Carlos Frenk and Noam Libeskind together with drawings and models by architect Daniel Libeskind for his recently opened Ogden Centre for Fundamental Physics at Durham University.

Talbot Rice Gallery

STEPHEN SUTCLIFFE: SEX SYMBOLS IN SANDWICH SIGNS

1 AUG-30 SEP, TIMES VARY, FREE

An exhibition named after a damming review of David Storey’s novel ‘Radcliffe’, investigating notions of self-doubt, obsession, cultural constructs and class conflict. Central to the exhibition are two new video works, plus a collection of notes and images from Sutcliffe’s personal archive associated with previous video works, placing emphasis on the central role of collage within his creative thought. JACOB KERRAY: LOOKY LOOKY

1 AUG-30 SEP, TIMES VARY, FREE

A TRG3 commission in which Jacob Kerray explores and respond to the Edinburgh University’s vast art collection to create new work(s). His own work tends to draw on the visual cultures peripheral to his central interests – football, wresting and historical painting.

The Fire Station PLATFORM: 2017

1-27 AUG, 10:00AM – 6:00PM, FREE

The third annual edition of a new(ish) EAF initiative dedicated to providing greater opportunities for artists at the beginning of their careers, taking in work by Uist Corrigan, Rebecca Howard, Kotryna Ula Kiliulyte & Adam Quinn.

The Fruitmarket Gallery JAC LEIRNER: ADD IT UP

1 AUG-22 OCT, TIMES VARY, FREE

A Scotland debut from Brazilian artist Jac Leirner, who makes sculptures from a limited range of everyday materials which engage with notions of repetition, obsession and addiction.

THIS TIME IN HISTORY, WHAT ESCAPES

2-24 AUG, 11:00AM – 6:00PM, FREE

This Time in History, What Escapes is an installation about Afghanistan, where the humanitarian and political crisis continues. Work by Rose Frain. #PROTESTMASKPROJECT

2 AUG-24 SEP, 11:00AM – 6:00PM, FREE

CAT (Creative,Aesthetic,Transgressi on) started life several years ago as a social media project. The CAT mask became an emblem of protest spread via social media in 2014. CAT masks, handmade by artist, were adopted by “owners” who travelled the world posting selfies on Social Media #proTestbed. THIS IS HULL! ROCK AGAINST RACISM

2 AUG-24 SEP, 11:00AM – 6:00PM, FREE

A visually stunning retrospective of original silk screen prints, representing one community’s fight against racism. RUDOLPH VON RIPPER: WAR, RESISTANCE, ART AND LOVE

2-24 AUG, 11:00AM – 6:00PM, FREE

Austrian aristocrat Rudolph von Ripper was an acclaimed printmaker. His masterwork Écraser L’Infâme is a portfolio documenting the collapse of the Austria-Hungary Empire, the rise of fascism, and his suffering at the hands of the Nazis at Tempelhof Prison and Oranienburg concentration camp. PROTESTIMONY: WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT CALAIS…

2 AUG-24 SEP, 11:00AM – 6:00PM, FREE

IMAGINE, a small non-for-profit organisation based in London, ran art workshops in Calais in 2016, and Protestimony exhibition is the fulfilment of the commitment to use this artwork for political purposes: protest, advocacy and awarenessraising.

Dundee Art DCA: Dundee Contemporary Arts CLARE WOODS: VICTIM OF GEOGRAPHY

1 AUG-10 SEP, TIMES VARY, FREE

DCA exhibits a selection of vast oilpaintings by Clare Woods, in which found images of people at their most vulnerable are painted on large aluminium sheets. BLOWING THEIR OWN HORNS

10 AUG, 8:00PM, FREE

As part of this instalment of Echo, Red Note Ensemble bring to life some of the curious instruments from St Cecilia’s Hall, the home of the University of Edinburgh’s musical instrument museum, to be played in the company of Clare Woods’ new paintings.

The McManus

A SENSE OF PLACE: TWENTIETH CENTURY SCOTTISH PAINTING

1 AUG-1 SEP, TIMES VARY, FREE

An exhibition of primarily landscape paintings, including work from the Glasgow Boys, the Scottish Colourists, James McIntosh Patrick and Joan Eardley. FIRE AND STONE

1 AUG-8 OCT, TIMES VARY, FREE

An continuation of the NMS and British Museum’s Reflections on Celts spotlight tour, featuring a replica of the Monifieth II Pictish stone which has been commissioned from stone carver David McGovern.

Listings

101

102

Listings

THE SKINNY

August 2017

Listings

103