The Skinny July Issue

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July 2021 Issue 186

We're optimistic they won't be cancelled

January 2020

Books

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Art January 2020

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The Skinny's songs we want to hear at a festival this summer Sharon Van Etten & Angel Olsen — Like I Used To Róisín Murphy — Shellfish Mademoiselle Laura Mvula — Got Me The Comet is Coming — Lifeforce Part II Dizzee Rascal — Bonkers Free Love — Synchronicity Pictish Trail — Turning Back Bo Burnham — All Eyes On Me Orbital — Impact (The Earth is Burning) Niteworks — Air Fàir an Là Bo Burnham ­­­­­— Look Who's Inside Again

Listen to this playlist on Spotify — search for 'The Skinny Office Playlist' or scan the below code

Issue 186, July 2021 © Radge Media Ltd. Get in touch: E: hello@theskinny.co.uk

July 2021

The Skinny is Scotland's largest independent entertainment & listings magazine, and offers a wide range of advertising packages and affordable ways to promote your business.

Get in touch to find out more.

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

Printed by DC Thomson & Co. Ltd, Dundee ABC verified Jan – Dec 2019: 28,197

printed on 100% recycled paper

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Championing creativity in Scotland

Meet the team We asked – What's your most notable (festival) camping memory?

Editorial

Rosamund West Editor-in-Chief "My tent was pissed on at T in the Park."

Peter Simpson Digital Editor, Food & Drink Editor "Kelburn Garden Party, 2018.

The worst hayfever you've ever seen. Rough times."

Anahit Behrooz Events Editor "Never been camping and, god willing, never will x"

Jamie Dunn Film Editor, Online Journalist "Discovering that Asda's Spider-Man tent is not designed to withstand the precipitation levels of your typical Scottish summer (T in the Park circa 2006)."

Tallah Brash Music Editor "Almost blowing away at Wickerman in my tent, having to get up in the middle of the night, pack everything up and go sleep in the car before heading home. It was the absolute worst."

Nadia Younes Clubs Editor "Sixteen-years-old at my very first festival (T in the Park) and waking up in the middle of the night to our tent being pissed on.

Stunning. Still love 'em though. TAKE ME BACK!"

Polly Glynn Comedy Editor "My tent was pissed on at T in the Park."

Katie Goh Intersections Editor "The shower when you get home."

Eliza Gearty Theatre Editor "My tent was pissed on at T in the Park."

Heather McDaid Books Editor "Deciding I am too old for festival camping and never again."

Sales & Business

Production

Rachael Hood Art Director, Production Manager "Dancing non-stop for an entire weekend at Loopallu. A huge group of us went, so in some of the tents it felt like the performance was just for us!"

Adam Benmakhlouf Art Editor "Sixteen, up all night in Balado, seeing the sun never quite set. That and full body baby wiping."

Phoebe Willison Designer "I'm not telling cause my mum reads this – hey mum!"

Sandy Park Commercial Director "Watching my mate that out of it on the campsite, he had a full conversation with a woman he thought was someone we were with, despite the only resemblance being the hair colour. Wasn't the same person. That mate might have actually been me."

Tom McCarthy Creative Projects Manager "Waking up on the first morning of my first ever Glastonbury and poking my fresh-faced teenage head out the tent only to be confronted with a naked bearded hippy dude enjoying the morning sunshine."

George Sully Sales and Brand Strategist "T in the Park, 2014. It's the final morning. Turns out those clever pop-up tents are much, much harder to put away than they are to set up. Took hours. There may have been tears."

Laurie Presswood General Manager "I was woken by my friend muttering 'sorry I think I'm in the wrong tent' and trying to climb out over me. Turns out that having woken up disoriented, she thought I was a man she had just drunkenly hooked up with."

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Editorial Words: Rosamund West

L

et’s try this music festivals special thing again, shall we?

Our last music festivals special ran in March 2020 and let’s just say things did not go to plan. But we’re very hopeful that this year’s edition will continue to be accurate for more than a fortnight, and some if not all of the events featured here will happen, and everyone will get to go and stand in a field in sunshine and in rain, as is traditional here in Scotland. It’s not a summer festival if you haven’t been treated for both exposure and sunburn, amiright?

We’ve kept the focus local this year because, you know, that’s what we’re about and also we are not getting involved in the gamble of foreign travel under ever-shifting restrictions at home and abroad. We’ve taken a deep dive into the safety, hygiene and testing measures that are being put in place to make mass gatherings safe this summer. We examine how festivals continue to work to improve their sustainability, despite the setbacks caused by COVID. And one writer pens a love letter to music festivals, and the place they fill in all our lives. Our Music editor, Tallah, has put together a detailed calendar of the festivals coming at you in the next 12 months.

We remain optimistic. They. Will. Happen.

In the penultimate instalment of our EIF-partnered series surveying the arts in 2021, one writer explores questions of access in Scottish arts post-COVID. An unexpected benefit of lockdown was the sudden pivot to digital presentation giving disabled people at-home access to arts and culture. The easing of restrictions means many are, justifiably, concerned that this access will now be cut off. Our writer surveyed an array of Scottish institutions to find out what they plan to do to continue facilitating access, and how they are centring disabled people in their planning going forwards.

It’s summer, it’s degree show time! And what a weird time

for a degree show it is. Our Art team have scrutinised the work of this year’s graduate cohort from Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dundee, and found digital presentation offers both challenges and opportunities.

Intersections offers a fascinating insight into the Paisley print, exploring how its meaning has changed over the centuries in a history ranging from Babylonia to Renfrewshire. Section editor Katie Goh visits Govanhill’s Remade Network to find out how this social enterprise is fighting the climate crisis, capitalism and consumerism by advocating for repair culture.

In Comedy, neurodiversity has come to the forefront of conversations in recent months. We speak to neurodiverse comics from across the UK to ask if the changes we’re currently seeing may herald genuine change in the wider cultural sphere.

Film meets director Quentin Dupieux aka Mr. Oizo (remember the 90s?) to discuss his new twisted comedy, Deerskin.

Danish director Thomas Vinterberg discusses binge drinking culture and Mads Mikkelsen ahead of the release of his new film Another Round. And we meet filmmakers Kristina Lindström and Kristian Petri whose The Most Beautiful Boy in the World tells the story of Björn Andrésen, who in 1971, aged 15, became a symbol of youthful beauty after starring in Luchino Visconti’s Death in Venice.

Elsewhere, we mark the 20th anniversary of So Solid Crew’s 21 Seconds with a celebration of its huge influence on the mainstream, and examine how it paved the way for grime.

Clubs talks to Istanbul-born, Berlin-based producer Nene H about her debut Ali, paying tribute to her late father while celebrating her Middle Eastern heritage. Finally, we close the magazine with a Q&A with local-ish artist Barry Can’t Swim, who reveals a profound fear of wrists, and a tragic tale of failing to talk to Ainsley Harriott at a festival.

July 2021 — Chat

Cover Artist Beatrice Simpkiss

Beatrice Simpkiss is a freelance illustrator and designer based in Hackney, London.

She is inspired by colour, chaos and travelling – as well as bridging the gap between illustration and graphic design. i: @beatricesimpkiss beatricesimpkiss.com

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Love Bites

Love Bites: Meet me at the cemetery gates This month’s columnist reflects on the macabre romanticism of cemeteries Words: Sophie Wilson

“I

July 2021 — Chat

smoked a Gauloises at Jim Morrison’s grave.”

“You’re trash.”

I was having a drink with my ex who I hadn’t seen for two years and we were talking about Père Lachaise, the Parisian cemetery, home to the graves of Oscar Wilde, Marcel Proust and Jim Morrison.

It was the first place I visited the last time I was in Paris, the last time I went anywhere abroad. I sounded like a pretentious cliché talking about French cigarettes and dead rock stars but it’s easy to seem like a caricature when you talk about loving cemeteries. Once upon a time the cemeteries of Sheffield were favourite dating spots for me and my ex. I took photos of him on the steps of the mausoleum. We shared our first sober kiss in the cathedral crypt the day Bowie died. I’ve always found romance in the macabre.

My local cemetery is one of the only places I visited regularly during lockdown, usually to walk my dog. I think she likes them too. People say that dogs can sense things that humans can’t and I wonder if she feels a calming energy coming from the old stones the same way that I do. In the flowery names and faded epitaphs of Victorian headstones I find tranquillity.

In Cemetry Gates by The Smiths (spelling mistake Morrissey’s own), Morrissey sings of a “dreaded sunny day” where he meets a friend at the cemetery gates and walks around the graveyard quoting and misquoting lines of poetry. I was obsessed with this song as a teenager. So, last summer I sat in a graveyard in the dark drinking beer with some friends and listening to sad songs by Bright Eyes and Keaton Henson like emo teenagers and it felt like it all made sense. Maybe that’s dark or unnecessarily ghoulish but, these days, good things seem to happen to me in cemeteries.

Crossword Solutions Across 7. SANDRA BULLOCK 9. COMEDY 10. ELOQUENT 11. DISTRACT 14. ORANGE 15. SSRI INTERACTIVE 18. SYNTAX 20. TRANSMIT 22.

HAIRCUTS 25. SHOWER 26. DEREALIZATION Down 1. PARODIES 2. ODDEST 3. BABY 4. TUNE 5. ALTO 6. OCCUPANT 8. SNUG 12. ANNEX 13. TREAT 14. OBAMA 16. INTERNET 17. VOICE BOX 19.

YEAR 21. SHOOTS 23. USES 24. SOLO 25. SIZE

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Heads Up

Festival season is here, baby! We’ve got performing arts festivals, we’ve got visual arts festival, and we’ve got everything in between – summer has officially started.

Compiled by Anahit Behrooz Image: Courtesy of artist and Victoria Miro

Edinburgh Art Festival

Heads Up

Various venues, Edinburgh, 29 Jul-29 Aug With over 35 exhibitions across Edinburgh’s arts spaces, this edition of Edinburgh Art Festival is more than making up for lost time after last year’s cancellation. The full programme has yet to be released but highlights include a major new film installation centred on acclaimed British artist Isaac Julien at Modern One and a soundscape by Emeka Ogboh, presented in partnership with the Talbot Rice Gallery.

Isaac Julien, J. P. Ball Studio, 1867 Douglas, 2019,

Signal-on-Sea Irvine Beach, Irvine, 16-25 Jul

SWG3 + Online, Glasgow, 31 Jul Scotland’s first ever grime and hip-hop conference from the folks at Scottish Alternative Music Awards, this day-long affair includes digital panels on the history of hip-hop in Scotland and discussions on how to break into the industry, as well as an unmissable live music showcase in person at SWG3, featuring recent SAY Award-winner NOVA, India Ros3, Bemz, and more. Live music, you say? Sign us up now.

Photo: rawtape

Developed by Glasgow-based art house Cryptic – the team who brought you Sonic Bites – and created by Dutch soundscape artists Jeroen Strijbos and Rob van Rijswijk, Signal-on-Sea takes place on the stunning Irvine Beach just north of Ayr, melding extracts from operatic performances with an evocative soundscape that captures the wildness of the coastline and the Isle of Arran in the distance.

HANG

Cryptic, Signal-on-Sea Photo: Brian Slater

Image: Courtesy of festival

NOVA

Rosie Kay: Absolute Solo II Festival Theatre, Edinburgh, 24 Jul, 7:30pm Taking place in Edinburgh’s Festival Theatre (that’s right!), this triple bill of solos created and performed by award-winning choreographer Rosie Kay examines Kay’s experience as a woman in the dance world. Exploring the ways in which the female body is observed, categorised, and controlled, her solos consider what it means to be an older female dancer, and how agency and identity can be captured through the art form.

Merchant City Festiva; Rosie Kay in Adult Female Dancer

Merchant City Festival

July 2021 — Chat

Image: LFF

Various venues, Glasgow, 8-11 Jul Bringing a much-needed dose of excitement to the streets we’ve become so accustomed to, Merchant City Festival returns to Glasgow. The four day festival begins with a Baroque Venetian-themed carnival and pop up performances throughout the Merchant City area – the full programme has yet to be announced, but expect plenty of outdoor performance, arts, circus, and dance come rain or shine.

The Skinny and MUBI are delighted to bring you special preview screenings of the BAFTA-nominated tragicomedy Limbo, about a Syrian refugee awaiting asylum on a remote Scottish island. The screenings will be held between 23-29 July at select locations in Edinburgh and Glasgow, include a pre-recorded Q&A with director Ben Sharrock and – best of all – are absolutely free for our readers!

For confirmed dates, locations, and tickets, sign up to our Zap newsletter at theskinny.co.uk

Move Stills, Edinburgh, Until 10 Jul Image: courtesy of Stills

Photo: Tommy Ga-Ken Wan

CCA: Centre for Contemporary Art, Glasgow, Until 24 Jul

Under Canvas Festival Eden Court, Inverness, 1 Jul-30 Sep

Locations and Dates TBC

Tomoko Konoike: Stories Stitched and Sewn

Image: courtesy of artist and CCA

Image: courtesy of Under the Canvas Amy Henderson Trio

Limbo

The Skinny and MUBI Present Limbo

Stephanie McGregor as Rosalind in As You Like It,

Bard in the Botanics Tomoko Konoike, Storytelling Table Runner

Glasgow Botanic Gardens, Glasgow, 7 Jul-28 Aug

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Move

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Photo: Simon Vogel

Karla Black: Sculptures (2001 – 2021) The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, 7 Jul-24 Oct It’s been almost two years but Edinburgh’s Fruitmarket Gallery is reopening its doors after a major renovation project. Having expanded into the neighbouring building, the impressively roomy new space will be home to Turner Prize-nominated artist Karla Black’s new exhibition, which combines pieces from her prodigious body of previous work with new, large-scale art created especially for the gallery’s redesign.

Karla Black, InstallatIon view, Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt

Yard Life SWG3, Glasgow Things may have been quiet on the music side over at beloved Glasgow venue SWG3, but their arts programme is only getting bigger and better. This summer sees the opening of new urban gallery space Yard Life, exhibiting the best of street art and graffiti in one of SWG3’s archways. Artists exhibited include Molly Hankinson and Ursula Kam-Ling Cheng, with new pieces added on a rolling basis.

Ruined: Reinventing Scottish History Assembly Roxy + Online, 16-25 Jul This year’s Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival takes place both online and as socially distanced gigs in Edinburgh’s Assembly Roxy, making it the perfect event whatever your current isolation status.

Highlights from the programme include jazz and hip-hop fusion by the acclaimed Soweto Kinch Trio, a collaboration between Nicole Smit and Grainne Duffy Band, and roundtables on women in jazz.

Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh, Until 14 Nov Created over the last four years by a group of young Scots named the Image Liberation Force, RUINED is a radical reimagination of Scottish history, mashing up works from the gallery’s collection and subverting our ideas of historical record and national truth. Told by the exhibition’s very own “bard”, rapper and producer Mercurius MC, RUINED is a mind-bending time machine to a past that never existed.

Heads Up

Image: courtesy of artist

Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival

Image: Neil Hanna © National Galleries of Scotland, Tinderbox Collective, Impact Arts and the artists

Image: Courtesy of Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival Ali Affleck

Show Up Glasgow, 16-31 Jul

Yard LIfe: Molly Hankinson, Sisterhood,

Mercurius MC is RUINED, featuring Matt Tulloch.

Image: courtesy of artist

Image: courtesy of artist and Tramway

Show Up: Michael Tran, Gray Area

Bodys Isek-Kingelez, Kimbembele Ihunga

An alternative degree show featuring work by over 150 students from art schools and colleges spanning across Scotland, Show Up – run by Design Weans C.I.C. – spotlights the amazing talent coming out of this year’s various graduating classes in the form of a COVID-friendly walking trail that starts near St Enoch and winds through the city towards the Barras.

Dumfries and Galloway Arts Festival Various Venues + Online, 16-25 Jul

Kate Kyle

Sammy Baloji and Bodys Isek Kingelez Tramway, Glasgow, Until 25 Jul One of the Glasgow International exhibitions carrying over through almost the whole month of July, this show by Congolese artists Sammy Baloji and Bodys Isek Kingelez uses intricate sculpture and photography to juxtapose colonial past with futuristic urban environments, exploring the ongoing legacies of colonial rule and systems of capitalist extraction and imagining radical potential new futures.

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

Morwenna Morrison, Outpourings

Miyu Kurihara, Miniature Moon Jars

Miyu Kurihara: Miniature Masterpieces The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, 1-24 Jul

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White Nights: A Sentimental Diary of a Dreamer Pitlochry Festival Theatre, Pitlochry, 7-10 Jul Image courtesy of Pitlochry Festival Theatre

Various Venues + Online, Until 11 Jul

Arusha Gallery, Edinburgh, 1-25 Jul Image: courtesy of artist and Arusha Gallery

Edinburgh Science Festival

Image: courtesy of The Scottish Gallery

Photo: Ian Georgeson Strong Women Science

Morwenna Morrison: Fixing Eyes With the Unseen

White Nights

July 2021 — Chat

Photo: Ruari Barber Fleming

Scotland’s largest rural performing arts festival returns with over 60 digital and in-person events spread over ten days. Rooted in the diverse culture found among local creative communities, each piece directly engages with artists and audiences from the area – highlights from the programme include live comedy from Mark Nelson, music from the critically acclaimed Kate Kyle, and travelling theatre and music with Townsend Theatre Productions.

July 2021

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5 Meet the Team — 6 Editorial — 7 Love Bites — 8 Heads Up 12 Games — 32 Intersections — 44 Albums — 46 Film & TV 47 Food & Drink — 48 Design — 50 Books — 51 Comedy 52 Listings — 54 The Skinny On… Barry Can’t Swim

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40 Image Credits: (Left to right, top to bottom) Beatrice Simpkiss; Beatrice Simpkiss; Aly Wight; AJ Higgins; Jake Gatehouse; Edward Moore; Deerskin; Henrik Ohsten; Mario Tursi; Mara Ploscaru; Mel Legarda; Alex Wong

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16 Our later-than-usual FESTIVAL GUIDE (!!!) looks forward optimistically to a warm summer of live music in fields. But is it safe?! We take a deep dive into the hygiene and testing measures that should allow us back in said fields.

19 We look at some of the people fighting to keep sustainability top of the festival agenda.

20 A handy calendar guide to the next 12 months of festivals.

24 The penultimate EIF-support longform feature platforming emergent writers investigates the topic of accessibility post-COVID. Lockdown offered disabled people unprecedented access to the arts – how can we make that continue?

28 It’s degree show time for a cohort who have experienced unprecedented challenges in their final year! We round up our picks of Edinburgh, Glasgow and Dundee.

34 We speak to neurodiverse comedians from across the UK to ask if the changes we’re currently seeing may herald genuine change in the wider cultural sphere.

36 Quentin Dupieux (aka Mr. Oizo!!!) on his latest twisted comedy, Deerskin.

37 Thomas Vinterberg discusses boozy new drama Another Round and its star Mads Mikkelsen.

38 Filmmakers Kristina Lindström and Kristian Petri on why they wanted to tell the story of The Most Beautiful Boy in the World.

39 Istanbul-born, Berlin-based producer Nene H on her debut album Ali. 40 Sara Jafari on The Mismatch, her new novel exploring second-generation Iranian identity and its relationship to romantic and sexual desire.

41 Looking forward to HANG, Scotland’s first ever hip-hop and grime music conference.

On the website...

Exciting but currently-underwraps news from some of your favourite festivals, plus more book and film reviews...

July 2021 — Contents

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Features

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7. Star of The Blind Side that Bo Burnham hopes to channel in his new Netflix special Inside (6,7) 9. How Bo Burnham vows to heal the world in his new special Inside (I hope you can see where I'm going with this) (6) 10. (But indulge me, okay? I had a rough year) Persuasive – well-spoken (8) 11. (And it's really helped me. You should watch it) Sidetrack (8) 14. The background lighting colour during How the World Works (from Bo Burnham: Inside) (6) 15. The fictional studio behind the 'game' Burnham plays in Inside's Twitch-style skit – transitive cries (anag) (4,11) 18. (If you haven't seen Inside you might struggle with this crossword) Grammar (6) 20. Convey – send out (8) 22. Salon sessions – Burnham booked one "but it got rescheduled" (8) 25. Burnham hasn't "had a ___ in the last nine days" (6) 26. "Googling ___, hating what you find" (Yes, also from Inside – sorry not sorry) (13)

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1. Lampoons (8) 2. Most unusual (6) 3. Infant – term of endearment (4) 4. Melody (4) 5. A male singer with a high voice (4) 6. (Have you watched Inside yet?)

Inhabitant (8) 8. (No?) Cosy (4) 12. (I'll wait) Seize (territory) – append (5) 13. Deal with – gift (5) 14. This president "sent the immigrants to vaccinate your kids" (according to Bo Burnham: Inside) (5) 16. Welcome to the ___, an excellent song from Bo Burnham: Inside (8) 17. Larynx (5,3) 19. Twelve months – at least how long Burnham spent making Inside (4) 21. (I've been feeling better, btw) Films (6) 23. (In case you were worried) Utilises (4) 24. (Basically you should just watch Inside) Alone (4) 25. (If lockdown sucked for you too) Magnitude (4)

Turn to page 7 for the solutions

Compiled by George Sully

July 2021 — Chat

Can you find these words in this puzzle?

ACCESSIBILITY BABYLONIA BARRY CAN'T SWIM DAYTRIPPING DEERSKIN DEGREE SHOW FATHER TED FESTIVALS GREEN RECOVERY HANG JOY JUMBO LIMBO

MADS MIKKELSEN MUSIC NENE H NEURODIVERSITY PAISLEY PATTERN QUENTIN DUPIEUX REMADE NETWORK SARA JAFARI SCOTTISH WEATHER SO SOLID CREW SUNSHINE

They could be horizontal, vertical or diagonal, forwards or backwards

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July 2021

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July 2021

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Festival Guide Words: Tallah Brash Illustrations: Beatrice Simpkiss

A

h music festivals, remember those? For most of us, it’s been two long years without those all-important dates in the diary to look forward to. Heading to a lush, or otherwise, field and bouncing from stage to stage watching bands either at the top of their game, or just starting out, seems like a thing of the past. But the wait is almost over, and festivals all across the UK are raring to go.

In this year’s slightly later-than-usual festival guide, we take a deep dive into COVID safety at festivals and how lateral flow and PCR testing could help pave the way for a return to pre-pandemic times. We examine how the virus has threatened to impede all the positive steps taken in recent years to make festivals more sustainable, and one writer pens a love letter to festivals, discussing why their return is culturally vital for those all-important shared moments. Finally, we’ve put together a handy calendar of just some of the music festivals taking place across Scotland over the next 12 months.

Fingers crossed. HWFG!

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Safety First Festival Special

With music festivals in the UK scheduled to return in the coming months, we speak to some of the people working on the reopening of the industry, from festival directors to rapid testing innovators Words: Nadia Younes Illustrations: Beatrice Simpkiss

July 2021 — Feature

P

icture the scene: you’re standing in a field in the middle of a crowd of thousands of people. The sun is shining, you’ve got a cold pint in your hand, and you’re waiting for your favourite band to walk on stage. Twenty minutes later, you’re still waiting. A rowdy group of people position themselves next to you. It starts to cloud over and begins to rain. You begin rummaging in your bag for your mac in a sac. You manage to get it on just in time for a torrential downpour and you’re about to lose your shit. But then the music starts, and that whole chaotic lead-up feels worth it. Unnameable international beer companies don’t do (all) UK music festivals, but if they did they would probably look like this.

For many of us, festival season feels like a strange and distant memory, and live music is one of the things many people have missed the most throughout the pandemic. In fact, a recent study conducted by ticketing app DICE found that almost a quarter of the nation agree that the number one thing they’re looking forward to after lockdown is returning to gigs and festivals.

Over the last few months the UK Government has been gathering information from its Events Research Programme, which has seen large crowds gather at a number of indoor and outdoor events. The programme has been developed and will be analysed by a science board, made up of experts in public health, ventilation, modelling, testing, ethics and analysis, who have all been brought in to ensure that it generates sufficient evidence to inform the UK Government’s decision on lifting restrictions on large-scale events.

In the first phase of the pilot events, Festival Republic were brought in to stage an outdoor gig at Sefton Park in Liverpool on 2 May. Attendees were required to take a lateral flow test 24 hours before the event at a community testing site, and had to produce a negative result in order to enter.

Additionally, attendees were also encouraged, but not required, to take an at-home PCR test on the day of the event and five days afterwards to monitor any transmission of the virus.

Currently in the second phase of the programme, Festival Republic were brought back to stage a scaled-back version of Download Festival.

Operating at an eighth of its usual size, the festival took place over three days, between 18 and 20 June, hosting 10,000 people instead of its usual 80,000, where camping and – crucially to a rock festival – moshing was allowed.

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Let’s Talk About Tests

Veit-Ander Aichbichler, testFRWD

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PCR Test PCR tests detect the virus’ ribonucleic acid (RNA), by using a swab of the nose and/or throat. They can be taken at home or at a test site, but have to be sent to a laboratory, with results taking one to three days. They should only be taken if you *do* have COVID-19 symptoms, have tested positive on a lateral flow test, or have been in contact with someone who’s tested positive.

LamPORE Test LamPORE tests are used for local community testing in areas with high rates of COVID-19. They use either swab or saliva samples to detect the virus’ RNA and can be administered at mobile testing units, with results in 90 minutes, as well as an overall sensitivity of 99.57% and specificity of 99.4%. They can be used for people with or without symptoms.

become an integral part of the festival entry process. “The first event trials have been conducted in Austria and have been a great success,” says Veit-Ander Aichbichler, Co-Founder and CEO of testFRWD. “As we are learning now, the virus will not disappear... so we anticipate that testing will become a part of travelling, going to an event or attending mass gatherings for years to come,” he continues. “However, those checks need to be convenient and cost-effective. identyME is helping to achieve this goal to make sure we never see a lockdown again.”

With further delays to the last stage of the government’s roadmap out of lockdown announced last month, festival season still has a big question mark hanging over it at the moment. But with the success of the Events Research Programme and new innovations by companies like Swallow Events and testFRWD proving that events can be carried out safely and securely, it no longer feels like such a strange and distant memory.

July 2021 — Feature

At the time of writing, the results from the Download Pilot have not yet been publicly shared.

However, the data will be added to the evidence gathered from the first phase of the programme in determining the return of outdoor and large-scale events as part of Step 4 of the UK government’s roadmap out of lockdown, as well as influencing further easing of restrictions in Scotland.

Outside of the UK, EXIT Festival is set to become the first major European festival to take place this summer, celebrating its 20-year anniversary at the Petrovaradin Fortress in Novi Sad, Serbia from 8 to 11 July. With over 50% of Serbia’s adult population vaccinated, the United Festivals of Serbia received approval from the Crisis Response Team to take place on its scheduled dates this year.

“The conditions for organising the festivals were previously presented through the security protocol, Safe Events Serbia,” says Sanjin Djukic, Director of PR at EXIT Festival. “Entry is controlled and limited to those who have been vaccinated, recovered from the COVID-19 virus and have antibodies, or are negative on a PCR or rapid antigen test.”

As well as allowing Serbian residents to attend, the festival set out a plan to encourage foreign visitors by offering vaccinations to guests attending from outside the country, made available through an application process on the festival’s website.

“We have provided 1500 vaccines that aim to help the citizens of countries that do not have enough vaccines at the moment, as well as to provide an additional contribution to the general safety and security at this year’s festival,” says Djukic.

But before all of this, companies were already coming up with innovative ways of reopening the events industry. “Born out of pure frustration,” according to Managing Director Oli Thomas, Swallow Events launched their 15-minute COVID-19 test kits in November last year. The test is the first of its kind to receive MHRA and CE approval for self-administration within the UK and Europe, and has a 98.8% overall accuracy, 96.8% diagnostic sensitivity and 97.1% specificity.

The company offer three levels to their service: Supply Only (just test kits), Rapid Testing Service (test kits and fully-trained staff to administer the tests), and Full Event Compliance Consultancy Service (test kits, fully-trained staff, and a full bespoke delivery plan for the event).

“We have been extremely busy quoting and supplying to over 500 events, festivals and businesses globally,” says Thomas.

“Until the [UK] government announces the results of the Events Research Programme and what the protocols are moving forwards, we are all in a holding pattern,” he continues. “It’s extremely frustrating as we have a much more robust and viable solution…[and] were strongly recommended to the Government and DCMS by many of those who took part in the UK Government’s Events Research Programme.”

Just a few months before Swallow Events, Austrian company testFRWD launched their own at-home rapid COVID-19 test kit in September last year, and as of March they began distribution in Germany, Spain, Portugal and the UK. The saliva test kits work simply by using a mouthwash and are pitched as being much easier to use than the invasive swab kits many of us have suffered through. Similar to Swallow’s kits, they also have a very high accuracy rate, with a specificity of more than 99%.

The company has since launched a new digital layer to their tests too, called identyME. This can be applied to any home test and combines the person’s digital identity with AI-driven result recognition to provide a digital health certificate that can then be used to enter events.

Currently, identyME is in talks with the two biggest suppliers of Antigen tests to the UK government, and may

Festival Special

“We anticipate that testing will become a part of attending mass gatherings for years to come”

Lateral Flow Test A rapid antigen test, which detects proteins from the virus by using a swab of the nose and/or throat. These can be taken at home, with results in 30 minutes. They should only be taken if you don’t have COVID-19 symptoms.

July 2021

THE SKINNY

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THE SKINNY

Greener Fields After The Big Pause in 2020, music festivals are imagining new ways they can push for sustainability when they make their comeback Words: Becca Inglis Illustration: Beatrice Simpkiss

Photo: Mike Massaro

The danger then was that the pandemic would undo the hard work that festivals had already put in to increase sustainability.

Confidence in reusable cups plummeted, drive-in raves were touted as the next big thing (threatening to exacerbate the impact of audience travel, which already contributed up to 80% of a festival’s carbon footprint), and in a government consultation on music festivals, environmental charity Julie’s Bicycle asserted the need to restore confidence in public transport and “avoid a ‘rebound’ of audience travel into private vehicles”.

Bourdon did get her job back, and she’ll spend this summer grappling with COVID’s impact on sustainability as Love Saves the Day prepares for its return this September. The festival should have a good head start – it’s already switched to 100% HVO biodiesel and replaced disposables with compostable cutlery

“The gates are open for behaviour change and audiences know that things aren’t going to be quite the same” Claire O’Neill, A Greener Festival — 19 —

who co-wrote the report. “There’s a more conscious and responsible way we can do this.”

The practice of stacking artists on a line-up and zigzagging them from country to country without considering an efficient route is enabled by the abundance of cheap flights, according to MacWilliams. But this might not last forever. Last year the Climate Assembly UK proposed a frequent flyer levy, which would increase costs the more regularly a person flew. Perhaps, if flight prices are to increase, there’s an opportunity to book fewer acts for longer, more immersive sets, or to platform local artists instead. “We’ve seen that a lot with COVID where people aren’t able to travel as freely.

Because of quarantines and restrictions the local scenes are really thriving,” MacWilliams says.

Festivals’ response to the pandemic, paradoxically, has demonstrated what might be possible as we hunt for green solutions. And this is just the beginning. With the climate crisis still looming, festivals make a fertile testing ground for new ways of living, which we can pick up and take home with us afterwards.

“That’s why festivals are so important,” says O’Neill. “Places like festivals, where people are coming together in unusual environments, they’re very celebratory and communal. That’s what’s going to help us to have a stronger connection with our surroundings.”

Loves Saves the Day is planned to go ahead at Clifton Downs, Bristol, 4-5 Sep. More info can be found at lovesavestheday.org

July 2021 — Feature

Love Saves the Day

and plates – but the uncertainty of the pandemic could complicate things.

“It really depends where we’re at with regulations at the time,” Bourdon says. “For example, with the current COVID restrictions, we wouldn’t be able to encourage car sharing.” There’s also the issue of PPE, which can contain plastics like polypropylene and is by nature single-use. “We can already see it in the streets,” says Bourdon.

“You’ve got masks on the floor all the time. It’s polluting our environment.”

In spite of these challenges, 2020’s great pause has offered festivals a unique opportunity for self-reflection. “Normally the industry is so busy, there can be the willingness and the desire to focus on sustainability, yet there’s not always the time,” says Claire O’Neill, co-founder of the environmental consultancy group A Greener Festival. “One of the benefits now is the gates are open for behaviour change and audiences know that things aren’t going to be quite the same.”

That might mean festivals taking advantage of COVID regulations to inspire green choices. If testing or proof of vaccination becomes a criteria for entry, for example, that could be done at coach pickups or train stations to reduce queueing on site. Or contact details collected with track and trace could be used to assign campsite pitches to attendees, giving people a greater sense of ownership and accountability over their space and the waste they produce. “People have got used to that now, rightly or wrongly. I think that could be an opportunity,” says O’Neill.

Other changes might shake up what we see programmed. Back in March, Clean Scene’s Last Night a DJ Took a Flight report analysed the 2019 tour schedule of Resident Advisor’s top 1,000 DJs. Those artists took an estimated 51,000 flights, generating 35,000,000kg of CO2 and using 3,200,000 litres of fuel – enough to power 8,000 festivals for three days.

“I don’t think it’s about people not flying anymore, or not booking headliners,” says promoter and DJ Fallon MacWilliams (aka Darwin),

Festival Special

B

ack in a land before COVID, 2019 represented a watershed moment for music festivals and the wider conversation about sustainability. That was the summer Glastonbury banned plastic bottles, Boomtown joined the Take Your Tent Home campaign, and Shambala – already a meat-free zone – eliminated cow’s milk from their catering. It seemed like live music was finally ready for a serious conversation about its environmental impact.

But then the pandemic came, and the entire live music ecosystem was forced to shut up shop.

“Everything just stopped within a couple of weeks,” says Pauline Bourdon, who joined Team Love – the promoters behind Love Saves the Day and Love International – in 2019 as Head of Sustainability and Social Cohesion. What was meant to be Team Love’s Year Zero, which Bourdon would spend assessing their current environmental impact and working out potential reductions, was suddenly lost to lockdown. Festivals everywhere were going into survival mode and Bourdon, a freelancer, found herself without work for six months.

THE SKINNY

Welcome Back

Kathryn Joseph

TAAHLIAH

Edinburgh International Festival Various, Edinburgh, 6-29 Aug The announcement of EIF’s 2021 programme at the start of June made us nearly spit coffee all over our laptops. After almost a year-and-a-half of practically NOTHING going on in the capital, EIF are picking up where they left off with one of their most exciting contemporary line-ups yet featuring Caribou, Floating Points, Tune-Yards, black midi, The Comet is Coming, Kathryn Joseph, Laura Mvula, Anna Meredith and more. Just wow. eif.co.uk Photo: Aly Wight

Doune the Rabbit Hole Port of Menteith, Stirlingshire, 12-15 Aug It’s apparent from a quick glance at the stacked new line-up that the team behind Doune have been working their wee butts off this past year. It’s not often you see Dizzee Rascal, Utah Saints, Sleaford Mods, 10CC, Peggy Seeger, Goat Girl, Nadia Rose, Camera Obscura, Snapped Ankles and Teenage Fanclub on the same bill, but we can’t imagine it any other way at Doune. A delightful mix of vintage, established and up-and-coming bands, there’s something to keep even the pickiest of family members happy. dounetherabbithole.co.uk

July 2021 — Festivals

Jupiter Rising Jupiter Artland, Wilkieston, nr Edinburgh, 28-29 Aug At West Lothian’s Jupiter Rising festival, local is the name of the game for their 2021 return to the stunning surrounds of Jupiter Artland. Sarra Wild’s OH141 returns to curate the late night stage, while two of Scotland’s much-loved indie labels, Lost Map Records and Night School Records, have helped curate the rest of the programme. The line-up includes Pictish Trail, Apostille, Rachel Aggs (Sacred Paws), Free Love, Alabaster dePlume, Guttersnipe, Callum Easter and the unofficial King of Scotland, Romeo Taylor. jupiterrising.art

Riverside Festival Riverside Museum, Glasgow, 3-5 Sep If all you want to do this summer is dance yourself silly on the banks of the River Clyde, then Glasgow’s Riverside Festival has got you covered. Jamie xx, Disclosure and Amelie Lens head up this seriously impressive return which also includes big hitters like Floating Points, Afrodeutsche, Ellen Alien, Eclair Fifi, Jayda G, Ben UFO and Leon Vynehall. On the Saturday night the party will continue until 3am in the nearby SWG3 complex for Riverside by Night, with sets from Skream, Nightwave, Rebecca Vasmant and more. riversidefestivalglasgow.com

TRNSMT Glasgow Green, Glasgow, 10-12 Sep trnsmtfest.com

Riverside Festival

Photo: Fabio Scalici

Photo: Allan Lewis

Edinburgh Summer Sessions Princes Street Gardens, Edinburgh, 6-15 Aug smmrsessions.com

Hidden Door

Hidden Door Granton Gasworks, Edinburgh, 15-19 Sep hiddendoorblog.org Little Simz

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Stag & Dagger Glasgow, 13 Nov; Edinburgh, 14 Nov facebook.com/ StagAndDaggerScotland Photo: Brian Sweeney

Photo: Hannah Logan

DMA's

Jupiter Rising

Nile Rogers and Chic

Photo: Joe Hart

Photo: Kristian Lam-Clark Doune the Rabbit Hole

King Tut’s Summer Nights King Tut’s, Glasgow, 4-31 Aug Like practically every other venue in the UK, the iconic King Tut’s has been closed for an inconceivable amount of time since the pandemic hit, so it’s a beautiful thing to see them reopening for their King Tut’s Summer Nights festival. This year’s line-up is a testament to how diverse and exciting Scotland’s up-and-coming musical landscape is with Nova, Kapil Seshasayee, TAAHLIAH, Swim School, Kitti, HYYTS and Dead Pony all set to play! kingtuts.co.uk Photo: Ian Scott

Photo: Andy Catlin

Music

Photo: Vasso Vu

I

t feels equal parts surreal and emotional compiling a festival guide in 2021, but here we are; vaccines have been created at record speed, test festivals and events have been going on with huge success, high levels of euphoria and, although we’re still very much in the ‘we’ll believe it when we see it’ camp, festivals are very much back on the menu and we can’t wait to get stuck in! Ponchos, raincoats and suncream at the ready, without further ado, here’s just some of what’s on offer across Scotland in the next 12 months.

Carla J. Easton

THE SKINNY

With Scotland’s festivals back on the menu for 2021, we take a look at just some of what’s on offer in the next 12 months Compiled by Tallah Brash Photo: Courtesy of festival

Photo: Stevie Powers Knockengorroch

Photo: James Gourlay

1. The festival you’ve been looking forward to for what feels like a lifetime might get cancelled/postponed at short notice. Chin up! There’ll be other festivals.

2. Your favourite band might cancel at the last minute, but they’ll be back; go find a new favourite band in the interim – don’t let COVID win!

3. You might have a positive COVID test yourself and have to cancel last minute. Shit happens. Stay safe, isolate, make new plans for the future, watch your favourite band’s old set from when they last played Glastonbury on YouTube. Don’t beat yourself up over it.

4. A lot of insurance policies no longer cover COVID as it’s now something we have to live with. A harsh reality, but one that needs highlighted for sure.

Important note: all of the information in this festival guide was correct at the time of writing, but is subject to change.

Kelburn Garden Party Kelburn Castle, nr Largs, 1-4 Jul 2022 kelburngardenparty.com

The Selecter live at Belladrum 2019

Out East Dalkeith House, Midlothian, 6-7 Aug 2022 outeastfest.co.uk Photo: Allan Lewis

Photo: Stevie Powers

Eden Festival Raehills, nr Moffat, Dumfries & Galloway, 9-12 Jun 2022 edenfestival.co.uk

Terminal V Festival: Halloween Royal Highland Centre, Ingliston, 30-31 Oct After an enforced hiatus it seems only right that Terminal V would make its grand return at the end of October, especially given how outrageous their past Halloween parties have been! This year’s line-up looks nothing short of epic as The Blessed Madonna, Avalon Emerson, Eris Drew, Derrick Carter, Floorplan, Robin Hood, Sven Väth, Shanti Celeste, Helena Hauff, and Jayda G are all set to play; you just need to figure out what fancy dress to wear and let Terminal V do the rest. terminalv.co.uk

Thanks to COVID things are, simply put, just not going to be the same when festivals return this summer, so it’s important to consider the following before you get too excited about heading back to your favourite muddy green fields or dimly lit venues.

Photo: Allan Lewis

Photo: Stevie Powers Eden Festival

Free Love

Managing your expectations

Belladrum Tartan Heart Festival Belladrum Estate, nr Inverness, 28-30 Jul 2022 tartanheartfestival.co.uk

Kelburn Garden Party

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Swim School

July 2021 — Festivals

Terminal V

Knockengorroch Carsphairn Hills, Kirkcudbrightshire, 16-19 Sep The Knockengorroch World Ceilidh is usually one of the first big weekends of the festival season in Scotland, ushering in the start of the warmer weather in May with their much-loved world music/trad/ hip-hop/fusion knees-up. This year, however, Knock takes place smack bang in the middle of September, but we know it’ll be no less of a party, especially after what, by then, will have been a two-and-a-half-year break. This year’s line-up so far is suitably eclectic with Afro Celt Sound System, Mungo’s Hi Fi and Lowkey all playing. knockengorroch.org.uk Photo: David Wilkinson

The Great Western; The Great Eastern Various, Glasgow, 13 Nov; Various, Edinburgh, 27 Nov After the success of Glasgow’s inaugural Great Western Festival at the end of 2019, we were very much looking forward to its return in 2020, along with its Edinburgh counterpart The Great Eastern, but it sadly wasn’t to be. Well, lads, the wait is finally (crosses everything) over as both multi-venue festivals return this November. Traceyanne & Danny, TAAHLIAH, Smoothboi Ezra and Ruby Gaines are playing in the west, with BEAK>, Free Love, BC Camplight and Hamish Hawk playing in the east. tgwfest.com thegreateastern.org

FLY Open Air Festival

FLY Open Air Festival Princes Street Gardens, Edinburgh, 17-19 Sep As well as bringing back the legendary Slam Tent this summer for one weekend only (30 Jul-1 Aug) in an as-yet-undisclosed location, with sets from Slam, Optimo and Denis Sulta, September will see the return of FLY’s Open Air Festival in the heart of the capital. With Edinburgh Castle as its breathtaking backdrop, this year FLY welcome Folamour, FJAAK (live), Big Miz, Eclair Fifi, La La, Or:la and Seren Seo to the city centre party. flyflyfly.co.uk/open-air

Music

Playground Festival Rouken Glen Park, Glasgow, 24-26 Sep While their sophomore year was dashed by the pandemic, Glasgow’s Playground Festival haven’t let it dampen their spirits too much and plan to return to the leafy surrounds of Rouken Glen Park this September with a bang. Their supercharged line-up features everyone from Nile Rodgers and Chic to Orbital, with Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, Culture Club, Macy Gray, Optimo, DJ Format and Horse Meat Disco thrown in for good measure. playgroundfestival.co.uk

THE SKINNY

Festivals, We Love You

July 2021 — Feature

Festival Special

After a year where everything changed, festivals have never felt so significant – and thank God, they’re finally back Words: Dylan Tuck Illustration: Beatrice Simpkiss

W

ith postponement after postponement, I’ve been thinking a lot about going back to festivals this summer. I keep picturing the scene: I arrive at the site full of excitement; I wait in a queue carrying what feels like all of my belongings, which are swiftly searched; I’m given the nod, a colourful band of fabric is clipped around my wrist, and I have arrived.

Stepping through to a sunny verdant field, the distant crackling of soundchecks float in and out on a gentle breeze. Ahead, I see thousands of beaming faces begin to gather at the main stage to listen to a grand concoction of noises. Their plastic cups filled to the brim and overflowing with pricey warm lager and sickly cider, and of course, having caught a glimpse of them, I now crave one too.

Like me, a sea of summer-ready outfits look skyward, praying that the ever-misleading British weather doesn’t inadvertently decide to punish our lack of waterproofs. My day ahead of juggling stage clashes between X, Y and Z, pegging it to Portaloos, lining in big queues, weighing up food trucks and sharing friendly drunk hugs awaits. After the longest and most challenging year and a half of most of our lives, festivals have never seemed so

vital – and thank God, they’re finally back.

In the absence of those special, collective moments, I, like many others, have been thinking deeply about what it actually is that I’ve been longing so much for when the world is reset. That feeling of pure, rushing excitement, of celebration, joy, anticipation, all of it. For me, that unreplicable, spectacular ‘something’ I’ve been waiting for is festivals.

In my head, they’ve been the ultimate grand finale, often the highlight of my whole year in a pre-pandemic world, and something that feels able to catapult me back into that form of normality in our current state. It might sound like a bit of an exaggeration to say something so extreme about what is, essentially, simply watching Wolf Alice or Queens of the Stone Age play some chords in a large public park, but festivals are so much more than what they appear on the surface.

While live streams, virtual concerts, and Zoom events half-plugged a gaping hole in my life, nothing could properly scratch the itch of being there and in the moment. In their absence, I even had a go at recreating festivals at home, with each room a new *ahem* ‘stage’, sharing a video call with some mates, blaring some loud punk songs through the Sonos, and leaving a few cans of Carlsberg on a sunny windowsill for good measure.

‘Crowd surfing’ across my bed to Jimmy Eat World was a particularly, er, unique highlight. Sure, the novelty of it was fun, but it was a long way from the experience I was seeking to replicate.

That longing feeling has had me asking myself, “just what is it about festivals that feels so irreplicable, so important?” For the last 18 months, festivals have felt unimaginable to me, like something so far in the distance, it could be a mirage.

Festivals, and live music in general, almost take on a different meaning to me now. They’ve always been a date to countdown to on my calendar, but I — 22 —

can’t imagine they’ve ever been more unitedly cherished and desired as they are now.

Personally, I feel like I’ve acquired a newfound level of gratitude around the sheer existence of these events, and I struggle to imagine that feeling isn’t shared with festival lovers the world over. It’s now symbolic of so much more within the context of what has occurred in its absence.

For us festivalgoers, it’s about enjoying art in person and celebrating it with friends, again; for bands and artists we love, it’s being able to perform and connect with fans, again; for promoters and organisers, it’s building line-ups and making memorable moments, again. All of those whopping great singalongs I’ve missed promise to be all the louder, the embrace of my glitter-coated friends all the warmer, and those long-awaited, to-be-treasured moments I’ve dreamt of all the more special. God, I won’t even give a shit when the inevitable sporadic downpour of rain happens – that’s how much I’ve missed festivals.

“Festivals have always been a date to countdown to on my calendar – I can’t imagine they’ve ever been more unitedly desired as they are now” With so much excitement for that first-festival-back feeling, somewhat understandably, returning to a festival experience leaves me feeling much anticipation, dare I even say, nervousness.

Thoughts of going back to those fabled ‘before times’ may strike up such worries, but hey, when I’m standing in the middle of a sweltering field attempting to do some disastrous form of ‘dancing’ alongside my best pals, all of those doomy thoughts will be lost in a sea of relief – and hopefully it’ll mean crowd surfing across my bed will remain firmly a thing of the past.

THE SKINNY

Solid Gold Twenty years since its release, we look back at So Solid Crew’s 21 Seconds and how it helped change the musical landscape of the UK, paving the way for grime Words: Sam Moore Illustration: Miranda Stuart Music

I

“21 Seconds brought the sound of the estate into the mainstream” The number one, the BRIT Award and the hundreds of thousands of records sold were nothing compared to the impact 21 Seconds had over the music industry in the early noughties. It’s impossible to imagine The Streets having hit records if So Solid hadn’t topped the charts first, or a teenage Dizzee Rascal winning the Mercury, or Wiley exploding onto the scene like a nuclear bomb if So Solid Crew hadn’t infiltrated the mainstream first. The sparse, ominous sound that was a stark contrast to poppy garage tracks like Daniel Bedingfield’s Gotta Get Thru This and Sweet Female Attitude’s Flowers was what endured and they solved the equation of remaining authentic while conjuring up club-ready hooks. At number one it was sandwiched between Atomic Kitten’s cover of Eternal Flame and pop group Five’s Let’s Dance; So Solid brought a much needed edge to the mainstream charts.

21 Seconds was the walkable bridge from garage to grime, from the old millennium to the new. It had an irreversible impact on British music – it brought the sound of the estate into the mainstream. The industrial bassline, the blunt, simplistic rhymes; it had a working class aesthetic — 23 —

and was far more indebted to Jamaican dancehall than it was American hip-hop. It’s only a short path from 21 Seconds topping the charts, petrifying politicians in the process, to the ongoing battle between the authorities and drill.

So Solid’s success should have been a celebration, but this was also the time of ASBOs, banning hoodies and oppressive schemes thought up and then scrapped to use high-pitched sounds to force teenagers from gathering in city centres.

Instead of a long, thriving career at the top of the music business, the gleeful smirk of the British press brought them back down to size. Their beginning was their peak. Unlike so many of the artists they created a space for, the rewards began and ended with their debut, and while a royalty cheque is a royalty cheque, they did not win the accolades of Dizzee or the international appeal of Skepta; it’s hard not to think they were robbed of a future in the game. 2001 was their year – that summer was the glorious summer of So Solid Crew, let it never be forgotten.

21 Seconds by So Solid Crew was released on 6 Aug 2001 via Relentless

July 2021 — Feature

t may have once been remixed for an advert selling car insurance (of all things) but before the tabloid self-immolation, beyond-parody reality TV stints and charge sheets longer than War and Peace, 21 Seconds by So Solid Crew was the grimiest, most anarchic sonic assault to ever top the UK charts. The group became pop superstars overnight, they appeared on Top of the Pops, won a BRIT Award for Best Video and for many, particularly suburban white kids, acted as a gateway into British underground music.

Introduced by the laughing of Lisa Maffia’s young daughter before its now iconic robotic bassline kicks in, the composition of the track is disarmingly simple. The title and infectious hook refers to the amount of time each of the eight verses lasts as the song takes on a competitive aura with every individual artist striving to make the most of their limited time on the mic. For a song that sounds so rugged, so raw, so evocative of subway rap battles, it was a very scientific way to put a recording together.

The energy of the cut bursts out immediately, with the simplistic garage beat that is emblematic of the ringtone era, and what is noteworthy is just how British it sounds. Sonically, 21 Seconds is a descendant from the days of jungle and grime is one of its children – nothing about it is trying to be American. This was in the days when UK rappers would rap in American accents to try and get on, but 21 Seconds is blow after blow of thick London accents.

Each of the MCs use their allotted time to introduce themselves to the listener and, with that, the nation as they strived to be more than pirate radio stalwarts and make an impression on mainstream culture. Unlike many artists who broke through, there was no compromise made to their sound, no collaborations with pop singers to put together a bland but catchy hook – a trap everyone from Tinie Tempah to Wiley has fallen into at times in search of chart traction. So Solid remained the So Solid that upset the underground with their combative lyrics over their jittery beats.

It was a life-changing record for the members of the crew and their families – Lisa Maffia was literally working full-time in an off-license when they blew up – and they’d frequently go from popping bottles of champagne back to their council flats where they were local heroes. Maffia along with Asher D, Romeo, Harvey and Megaman were the first superstar rap MCs to come out of the UK, recognisable to the average suburban mum. That was before infighting, tabloid scandal and arrests for just about everything imploded the group.

THE SKINNY

The Future of Access Theatre

Lockdown afforded one unexpected benefit, as it allowed disabled people at-home access to the arts that previously did not exist. As we return to live presentation, we ask some of Scotland’s arts institutions how they will continue to work to broaden accessibility. This is the penultimate part of our series platforming emergent writers, produced in partnership with Edinburgh International Festival Interviews: Jessica Secmezsoy-Urquhart Illustrations: AJ Higgins

July 2021 — Feature

I

t was in April during my talk appearance at the Glasgow Zine Festival that the changing nature of disabled access to theatre, the arts, entertainment and festivals hit home. My mother was in the audience. I was not in the same room as her or any of the people watching my talk. It and the whole festival were virtual this year and delivered via Zoom. I was sitting in my room on Zoom while my mother – who has rare autoimmune conditions like Behçet and Dercums, and uses a wheelchair – sat in bed watching it alongside everyone else present in the call. As someone autistic, with anxiety, I felt less nervous and more confident doing the talk in my own space than in a public room I was unaccustomed to.

Afterwards, my mum noted that if the event had been an in-person one then it was very likely she would have been unable to attend. From doctor appointments to concerts, my mother’s ill-health and lack of mobility often make her miss things even when she has intended to go. Past in-person performances or events I’ve been part of have often been missed due to her conditions and the sudden flare-ups of her symptoms. My mother’s words drove home to me how increased digital access to the arts and entertainment has improved the lives of many disabled people, including her and me.

This pandemic, COVID-19, has on the whole impacted disabled people negatively and impacted disabled people more than other groups. It is we, young and old, who are described as having died of COVID due to pre-existing conditions. It is we who were pressured earlier in the pandemic to sign do not resuscitate orders by an overwhelmed NHS; it is we who were forgotten in care homes when the scandal surrounding COVID’s spread in care came out; it is we who (often already isolated at home) have had to shield away for over a year; it is we who have had appointments to operations we need cancelled (sometimes resulting in our deaths) and it is we whom the parliamentary Women and Equalities Committee has called for an inquiry on behalf of, as the pandemic has led to ‘profoundly unequal adverse effects’ on our lives.

If you have ever wanted proof of the social theory of disability – the idea that someone is

disabled by societal oppression, not their condition on its own – then the last year shows it. In the past, when disabled people wanted to work remotely, have access to online streams or virtual performances of entertainment, and gain any other number of forms of access, we were ignored or told it could not be done as we were a group in the minority. Come the pandemic, with everyone required to stay at home due to lockdown in 2020, the fact a majority of people needed the same things suddenly made all this access incredibly easy to provide.

Despite how galling this rapid change to meet able-bodied, neurotypical people’s needs has felt for the disabled community whose attempts to gain this access had been ignored, we have benefited from it. One of these benefits has been the fact public demand has made entertainment more accessible to disabled people in their own homes.

“If you have ever wanted proof of the social theory of disability – the idea that someone is disabled by societal oppression, not their condition on its own – then the last year shows it” In-person access to cinemas, theatres, art galleries, festivals and concerts has often been lacking for disabled people in Scotland, although progress has been made slowly in the last decade.

Improvements range from the Centre for Contemporary Arts in Glasgow having BSL, subtitles and physical accessibility at the centre — 24 —

of their exhibitions, to hosted film festivals or the National Theatre of Scotland having sign language incorporated into shows, to the growing presence of subtitled, audio description and autism-friendly ‘relaxed’ film screenings offered by the likes of Glasgow Film Theatre and Dundee Contemporary Arts. Simple things like difficulty reading lips, being forbidden to leave a performance space briefly due to a condition like Crohn’s acting up, uncomfortable chairs which disabled audience members can’t use, or sensory overload for autistic audience members can make in-person events difficult for disabled people to enjoy or even attend.

The pandemic made commitment to online access essential for organisations in the arts and entertainment industries to survive this past year and as a result disabled audience members benefited. Overnight, it felt like the disabled community had the access to concerts, films, festivals and plays we had been fighting for. Many of these accessible online events and performances – due to the nature of Zoom and digital streaming platforms – have been able to incorporate accessibility further via captions, sign language and audio description. Disabled people over this last year, during which many of us felt trapped in our homes and at risk, could attend a play or multiple plays by the National Theatre from the past or present via the NT at Home platform by subscribing or paying for a particular show we were interested in.

During COVID, films have been released via streaming platforms and via VOD, and arts festivals have pivoted online, enabling disabled people and performers to ‘attend’ screenings and festivals across the world they might have been unable to if events were in-person. As art galleries, theatres, festivals, cinemas and more open physically to the public again many disabled people are asking ourselves a fundamental question: Will the lifechanging digital access we’ve finally won after so long remain after all lockdown restrictions are eased? When the public as a whole does not need it to engage with performances and entertainment, will these innovations be put aside, and will COVID impact in-person accessibility going forward?

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For the Edinburgh International Festival, looking forward to their August 2021 presentation, Community Engagement and Access Officer Calum McDonald is optimistic. “Our digital programme will hopefully be a way we can show the breadth of talent at the festival to a wider audience,” he says, “and making that programme as accessible as possible will be part of that.

However, while the digital dissemination of streamed arts means audiences can discover the content more easily, online availability is not a replacement for making live events accessible. Our live events and our digital events should both be built to minimise and remove any barriers to engagement – and that will be a particular focus for us as we move into this hybrid model.”

The National Theatre of Scotland, who have been at the forefront of in-person access in Scotland, are represented by Director of Artistic Development Caroline Newall. She says: “We are committed to theatre as a live artform and the joy of bringing audiences together in shared space.

We acknowledge that this can’t be replicated by digital presentations. However, we also highly value the opportunity to reach new audiences — 25 —

through sharing work on digital and broadcast platforms.” She reassures me: “I imagine that this form of creating and sharing work will definitely continue alongside a return to live performance.”

While disabled people who have enjoyed the online works shown by the likes of NTS are worried about digital access disappearing, Newall flags the logistical challenges this entails. “While opening our work to a more diverse and widespread audience in this year of digital presentation has been a great opportunity, this is something we continue to discuss and will most likely have to make decisions about on a project-byproject basis, as our work varies massively in scale and form.” Likewise, Newall brings up the important point that while digital access can remove many barriers for disabled people, “it can be a difficult medium to make fully accessible.

For example, our priority for BSL users is the artistic embedding of interpretation into live stage action, reducing the split focus for BSL users watching interpreters positioned to the side of the action. This is exceptionally hard to achieve in filmed work, whether live-streamed or pre-recorded.”

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These and other questions posed by disabled people including myself were put to different organisations in Scotland such as the Edinburgh International Festival (EIF), the National Theatre of Scotland (NTS), Alchemy Film & Arts and Dundee Contemporary Arts (DCA). These are organisations of varying size delivering performances and events in theatre, the arts, cinema and entertainment.

Their answers can suggest whether the impact of the pandemic will lead to a more accessible world of entertainment and performances in future or if this has been a brief moment of accessibility that will now go.

First, I asked them all whether showing or performing their films, plays or events virtually has enabled wider engagement with disabled and non-disabled audiences both locally and internationally and whether, with live performances and events possible again, they would now commit to continuing the access online which many disabled people are worried will disappear. All agreed on the need to make access online and in-person a priority going forward and discussed how their viewership and audience has changed over the last year-and-a-half.

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Alchemy Film & Arts deliver their programme in Hawick in the Borders. “We’re in the process of curating a new online programme of screenings and discussion events, so that we can continue to reach audiences who are not able or inclined to travel long (or even short) distances to access our events,” says co-director Michael Pattison.

“This of course also widens the pool of which artists we can work with, and which curators, because the programme is no longer rooted to a physical geography.”

Being a smaller fish in the industry does not necessarily mean providing poorer access, Pattison argues. “I think that in general, historically, it was already the smaller organisations that were innovating the link between access, curation and community,” he says. “Organisations of relatively modest means such as Scottish Queer International Film Festival or Glasgow Women’s Library or Dardishi Festival – and there are many, many others – were actively and meaningfully investing in access before more famous institutions recognised a need for it.”

Pattison continues: “Such organisations will never be fully or justly recognised for their work, because the same system that prioritises urbancentric models of growth is also the same system that generates disparities in exposure and marketing coverage.”

Dundee Contemporary Arts’ Director Beth Bate tells me: “We were quite swift to move into the [online] space, as our audiences were demanding it. We felt we could best continue to meet our commitment to public benefit, to artists and to audiences, by moving our work online and the popularity of our online work supported this move.” Like Alchemy, they are “committed to maintaining a vibrant online programme, be it our film streaming platform DCA at Home, our exhibitions talks and reading groups, or our digital learning activity, and are aware of how helpful people have found these when they are not able to get to the DCA building, due to issues with physical access, timing, geography or caring responsibilities. We have seen people from all over the world engage with our events and online work, we want to ensure this continues,” Bate explains.

With many organisations stating in-person events cannot be replaced and restrictions currently being scaled back, I ask about their commitment to in-person physical accessibility, how they’ve approached it in the past and whether access has been part of their plans for reopening (with funding to ensure it). Calum McDonald, working to deliver EIF’s in-person experiences in Edinburgh this August, concedes: “The physical make-up of Edinburgh does present unique accessibility challenges, but I see this as an opportunity to innovate, and problem-solve. I think that the city can grow to be truly accessible if the experience of disabled people is centred and

platformed in decisionmaking processes.”

The inaccessibility of Edinburgh’s festivals, sometimes just due to the city’s nature but other times due to the buildings chosen and the actions of festivals themselves, has been a big issue for the disabled community for years and is why projects like Euan’s Guide (a guide to accessible places in Scotland) came into being.

McDonald hopes the actions of organisations like EIF will result in “a sea-change in how people and organisations approach the issue.”

All of EIF’s plans for 2021 attempt to ensure their programme is as accessible as possible before social distancing is fully relaxed. “Any staged performance will have access provisions – this mainly means that all fully-staged theatre will have BSL interpretation, audio description and captioning. When we have a limited staging, such as our rehearsed readings, these will have BSL interpretation and captioning,” McDonald tells me.

The physical location for 2021’s events has been created specifically for the reimagined festival, consisting of three outdoor stages which are physically accessible with two including ramped access. Accessible toilets, flat surfaces and social distance bubbles have been created to keep all audience members safe.

Yet there is one area of access they can’t incorporate in 2021, as McDonald explains. “Touch Tours are something we usually offer as part of our Audio Described theatre tickets, where audience members who are blind or partially sighted can visit the stage before a show to get a sense of the physicality of the set and interact with the props which will be referenced in the audio description.

We are not allowed to lead groups backstage this year and touching props and sharing them around people will not be able to happen within our current COVID restrictions.” They will offer a pre-show audio description in its place.

In the time institutions have been shut for in-person events, “we have all been adapting our buildings and programmes to make them safely accessible for as many people as possible, in a way that was hitherto unimaginable,” says DCA’s Beth Bate. She points out the inherent hypocrisy in this swift turnaround. “If an institution now said, ‘Don’t visit us if you are in a vulnerable health group, we can’t afford to keep our building as clean as you need,’ there would be understandable — 26 —

uproar. Yet the costs and effort involved in making some public places fully accessible have been used as reasons – as excuses – not to do so for years. Now we all have shared access needs but there are still huge inequalities in how these are met. Let’s take some of the listening and learning from the last 12 months, and make sure we are welcoming to everyone.”

DCA continue to work to make their space as accessible as possible. Bate says: “We have budget for helping meet our audience’s access needs, whether that’s captioning at online events or the introduction of Braille and audio guides in our gallery spaces. We aim to give a good guide to visiting the organisation in person on our website, with information on nearby disabled parking, lift access, toilet provision, and what to expect from each part of the building. We fully accept we are a learning organisation and are responding to requests and demands, and also are in consultation with members of the disabled community to ensure we are able to hear and act upon what is needed.”

The NTS’s Caroline Newall likewise tells me: “We now consider access provision at the very start of the development and commissioning of every project, bringing in access specialists to R&D workshops to ensure we are thinking as creatively as possible about how our work includes, represents and caters to disabled people.” She continues: “Once a project has been greenlit for production, a detailed access budget will be drawn up that allows for necessary fees, expenses, technical equipment, venue modification, marketing etc and access workers are welcomed into rehearsals from the start of each process to ensure that we are considering access needs at every stage.” As in-person events return this process of ongoing access awareness will continue to be crucial to them.

“One of the sayings we’ve become fond of at Alchemy is that if a door is wide enough for

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improve year on year.”

As the leading theatre in Scotland, the National Theatre of Scotland emphasises to me that disabled people are one of their six priority groups, across board, staff, artists and audiences.

NTS add that they are setting new targets for the final two years of their current five-year strategic plan to include such groups. This has seen them create disabled artist-led works such as My Left / Right Foot by Robert Softley Gale and Thank You Very Much by Claire Cunningham.

Alchemy tell me of how they make the production of projects by disabled practitioners and groups as easy and accessible for those artists as possible. “We work closely with the practitioner or community group to ascertain

“The costs and effort involved in making some public places fully accessible have been used as reasons – as excuses – not to do so for years” Beth Bate, Dundee Contemporary Arts

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This is the fifth of six extended features exploring the arts in 2021, produced with support from Edinburgh International Festival

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timelines, workflows and communication methods that allow for effective and meaningful exchange,” says Pattison. “We have committed to partnering specialist captioning services for both films and live events, as well as audio description services, and will generate text-only versions of our programmes. We are no longer screening online content without captions – and if that means that we need to be slower in making a recorded event permanently available afterwards, then it means we need to be slower in making a recorded event permanently available afterwards.”

Finally, I ask what the future of access for disabled people and audiences in general looks like, as we stand on the border between entertainment during- and post-COVID. For the National Theatre of Scotland, the future of access is “being able to directly ask and respond to collective or individualised access needs,” Newall tells me.

“That is much easier when working with a staff member or artist and much harder when thinking about audiences en masse, but we have found that building relationships with specialised organisations (such as Solar Bear, Birds of Paradise and the National Autistic Society Scotland) and regular disabled audience members has given us invaluable opportunities to listen and

learn. It is about making access provision visual to everyone, to normalise disability and diversity.”

Alchemy’s Michael Pattison tells me: “I’m not sure whether the future of the arts can be considered or predicted as something that is separate from or independent of broader social, cultural and political currents.” He continues: “Due to the ways in which mega-corporations such as Disney and Netflix have begun to shape and monopolise consumption standards, arts organisations now find themselves wanting to retain an exhibition model based on finite viewing windows while audiences are expecting, more and more, an ‘everything all of the time and all at once’ kind of cultural provision.” This type of universal and industrialised access can only favour companies able to hire monumental numbers of staff, not the arts organisations across Scotland’s cities and towns.

Pattison reflects on the fact that what will result is smaller organisations having “a difficult trade-off between doing less, so that access can be done better, and focusing on specific elements of the programme that are more accessible than other elements.”

EIF’s Calum McDonald says: “The future of access at the International Festival is one where we embed the mantra ‘nothing for us, or about us, without us.’ We want to create more spaces for disabled people to input when we build accessible performances as part of our process.

“Festivals should be for everyone, each performance should be accessible to each and every person who wishes to attend,” he says. Part of that is ensuring more spaces for disabled people to offer feedback. Deconstructing barriers for audiences with learning disabilities is especially important to the organisation and they hope, by partnering with Edinburgh’s first youth theatre group for young adults with learning disabilities, they can increase disabled employability in the arts at this 2021 festival and beyond.

While we cannot predict yet how different the theatre industry, film festivals, art exhibitions and more will be one, five or ten years from now, for Scottish disabled audiences and artists like myself it is comforting to know that our needs and access are no longer an afterthought but a central force in the decision-making and plans of Scottish organisations large and small. The future is accessible indeed.

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a wheelchair it is wide enough for everyone,” Michael Pattison says. “This metaphor has become central and applicable to much of our thinking, where curation and production, where programming and governance, are part of the same conversation. We’re investing in access to the point that, in order to properly fund it, and in order to make it a meaningful and sustainable part of our own workflow, we’re willing to screen and programme less in order to screen and programme better.”

With in-person performances coming back Pattison notes “rural isolation is a key challenge for our communities, and should be understood within the broader context of infrastructural abandonment, a result in itself of capitalism’s profit motive. Hawick and much of the Borders has been without a train station for more than 50 years, when the Waverley line connecting Edinburgh to Carlisle was decommissioned.

It’s not difficult to trace Hawick’s deindustrialisation, its economic decline, the rising average age of its population and more to the removal of such infrastructure.”

Pattison makes the case that access is not just a disabled issue but a class, race and environmental issue. As an organisation trying to “deinstitutionalise the art experience” and who have used disused spaces (often mills) for unique performances to facilitate this, they have recognised the needs to find places that are able to exhibit moving image work in new and interesting ways but also include disabled members of the public. “We’ve found ourselves increasingly unwilling to deploy them because of access issues for both the public as well as our staff and volunteers,” he explains.

Disability access also means making working within industries like theatre and art as accessible as possible and making works focused on disabled subjects. I ask on behalf of a respected disabled member of the theatre industry whether the organisations are ‘active allies of the disabled community’ who are talking to disabled practitioners in a way they had not previously, and commissioning and programming disabled-led works with policy commitments made to disabled artists, crew, staff and audiences.

EIF’s McDonald notes that in working with disabled creators, staff and crew, “we try to normalise thinking access in every interaction we have, across artists, crew, staff and audiences.”

He continues: “It’s a journey we are all on and I hope that it helps shift the conversation from access being an add-on, to accessibility being part of the fabric in all aspects of working, living and enjoying the arts in Scotland.” Internally, the International Festival are encouraging the development of events accessible from inception but acknowledge “as with all things in access, this is a continual process of improvement and evaluation, where we hope to

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The Show Must Go On After an impossible year, the graduates of Glasgow School of Art, DJCAD and Edinburgh College of Art share bodies of work that are – against all odds – considered, critical, poignant and memorable Words: Adam Benmakhlouf and Katie Dibb

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Image: Courtesy of the artist

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n entering the Glasgow School of Art Graduate Showcase, the signs of protest are clear as students sacrifice limited image space to ‘Hold GSA, Accountable’ banners.

In an open letter by GSA students to the university, the students outline that they were misled upon enrolment, claim there was no effort made for a socially distanced return yet they were still made to pay full fees, with many students encouraged to independently find and finance their own studio spaces. In sum and across the board, this year’s graduates have been through a lot. The fact that they have managed to complete their degree, while actively protesting their experiences during this time, is a huge feat.

WEMYSS BAY, Jake Gatehouse

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Image: Courtesy of the artist

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Installation of pallet wrap casts, Blair Wallace

Glasgow School of Art

“Viewing the degree shows online gives an advantage to the more subtle works that are prone to being missed”

experimenting with the limits of self-portraiture, Blair Wallace wrapped himself in what looked like duct tape, but was actually pallet wrap, 30 days in a row to create a collection of encased impressions of himself. Some of the most successful works shared a similar tenacity and humour, such as Bella Hansard’s Musical Playground in Wasteland, a video featuring a xylophonic instrument made (and played) between the rocks near the old Govan dry docks.

With a patient gaze, Francisco Llinas Casas’ film poetically documents his collaborative crafting with his mother on her first day as an immigrant in Glasgow. Speaking in Spanish, only some words are picked out in text on screen: “free”, “a fierce tribe”, “tacit”, “blood”. They slowly work towards one another through complex wool knots, as the subtitling gently negotiates with anglocentric expectations of translation.

Also working lyrically with family heritage and forms of manual labour, Molly Stubbs recreates, at magnified scale, a resuscitation device for canaries based on those used in mines. It’s impressively made, sets out to engage audiences physically, and becomes a point where historical enquiry and lyrical and literal reanimation meet.

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Holly Murphy engages with lost history in their work, Vita Thenogi. Carefully using accurate methods from the 12th century, Murphy has created a document of Saint Thenog, mother of Glasgow’s patron Saint Mungo. What emerges is a considered and retroactive relic, a material token against the erasure of “a woman, single mother, abuse survivor, and religious refugee”.

Josie KO’s sculptural work, My Ladye with the Mekle Lippis, is a highlight of the showcase. This installation was created in response to a poem by Scottish poet William Dunbar titled Of Ane BlakMoir, which records the first documentation of an African woman in Scotland. The large playful papier-mâché installation immediately subverts the poet’s original racist observations by presenting the Black women with autonomy and joy, standing tall with wide smiles and glitter. Yet it still intentionally mirrors a mammy-like caricature reflecting the complexity of the Black British experience. Aware of the predominately white audience her artwork would receive, KO plays with this power dynamic by manipulating the audience into performing a reenactment of their own oppressive white gaze unto the Black bodies, echoing the racial performativity initially described in the poem.

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Looking at the work on the (sometimes hard-tonavigate) websites, there’s a displacement of the usual departmental hotspots, where the limelight shines brightest on what the faculty deem as most praiseworthy. Similarly, viewing the shows online means losing the immediate impact and scale of the work, which arguably gives an advantage to the more subtle works that are prone to being missed.

A work that could have been overlooked is Jake Gatehouse’s photographic series. The works could be dismissed as mundane landscape scenes, but upon closer reflection they reveal themselves as self-portraits of the artist fully submerged in different bodies of water. Also

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Even without the IRL encounter, many Dundee students share artworks that take a direct interest in their craft, texture and materials. Take Angharad Jones, who works in embroidery and ceramics. Jones combines images of women that are built up from a dense network of stitches, with the motif of the circle as a symbol of the infinite underestimation of craft. Nevertheless, Jones demonstrates some of the possibilities and versatility of these techniques.

Speaking directly to the translation of the material to the virtual, Rachel Blackwell sets up a sophisticated feedback system between a digitally scaled-up “find on a beach”, of which she created an enlarged bronze replica via photogrammetry software. Documentation shows an elegant installation that draws together dramatically distinctive temporalities, evoking the ancient Mayan practice of scrying (looking into an obsidian mirror as a way to divine the future) and contemporary museological technologies.

Less cutting-edge technology is used to poignant effect in the work of Tilda WilliamsKelly, who works with European oil painting histories and techniques, putting them to service in representations of Black women artists in her life. The works demonstrate Williams-Kelly’s skill and ambitious vision for the repurposing of the practice of painting as dignifying and exalting those who have previously been routinely subjugated by the medium.

Many of the graduates’ works demonstrate a fascination with layering, and push the possibilities of surface. Ruby Leeson’s installation of ceramic and found objects, for example, brings the roughness and the palette of Scottish landscapes into new dimensions. The works create a landscape painting realised through installation, rewarding a closer look.

In contrast, Aimee Finlay pushes the allure of surface texture and patina into experimental realms, as she makes use of digital scanning and modelling to create a virtual copy of what looks like a cast of a small book or stone tablet with “ROSEMARY” set into its front. The animations quietly pull themselves apart as the computergenerated camera moves around and shows the object hovering above some snow on grass, making for a quietly strange and intriguing work.

Hannah Feuerstein uses museological display conventions to house her drawings and red earthenware clay forms, using her own creative capabilities to reimagine the idea of archive and what can be housed there, and give a charge to personal and everyday histories that may be left

Still from the film 'Gwawr & Blodeuwedd', Dulcie Ghost

Image: Courtesy of the artist

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Image: Courtesy of the artist

Duncan of Jordanstone, Dundee

Soothsayer, Rachel Blackwell

out of circuits of historical value. Feuerstein’s drawings are particularly captivating in their dramatisation of humble objects.

In graphite on MDF board, Lily Davidson virtuosically documents the gnarly organic forms of trees. Doing so, she activates and invites a slower and more attentive gaze at nature as a means of advocating for its protection from its slow destruction.

While it would be a treat to see some of the close details of the drawings and sculpted objects, Martha Cole’s online showcase comes at the top of the “wish I was there” list. They’re big, — 30 —

bold and bright, with humour and a gentle sense of joy in the bandy-limbed figures that sit on their mesmerising patterns.

The good vibes keep coming, even amid the murder and vengeful cursing of the Welsh mythologies told in Dulcie Ghost’s Gwawr & Blodeuwedd.

A Queer Welsh love story. Entirely (and presumably painstakingly) handmade, it tells the story of Blodeuwedd, created from flowers and arranged to be married. She breaks it off and so is turned into an owl, but only at night. In the animation, Blodeuwedd finds a new lover, Gwawr, as an enchanting refashioning of traditional mythology.

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Image: Courtesy of the artist

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And after that my brother saved me, Lorena Levi

Edinburgh College of Art different means, Hope Turnbull brings out a surreal note of disturbance in her gently unusual and alluring oil paintings of groups of people in comfortable-seeming interiors. Nevertheless, they sound out a note of angst.

For some students, the last year’s been spent in pursuits only loosely held by their Intermedia Fine Art degree. Alliyah Enyo has made a distinctive and haunting sound, music and video work.

See in particular HYMN *4 empty club*, which shows off her powerful vocals and singular visual identity. Once it’s begun, just try turning it off.

Meanwhile, Oliver FJ Jones’ work sets sight on the fashion industry. Their skilfully constructed garments involve fantastical references to suits of armour, while also combining usually kept-apart design features like bows and a bronze-style breastplate. The works are striking and dramatic.

Also finding their own idiosyncratic and impactful visual language, Yizhou Aiden Sun’s photographs of tied-up semi-peeled bananas draw out an unexpected squeamishness, each one a meditation on the artist’s experience of British-Chinese cultural identity, queerness, and mental health.

After a year of all different kinds of displacement, Lorna Phillips’ practice takes place outside, by an empty ancient lakebed in Kunda, Estonia.

Phillips has worked with clay taken from the site, — 31 —

making well-crafted pots and vessels using techniques practised since the earliest human settlements on the land.

Like some of the other graduates who critically engage with other making processes outside of the usual artistic disciplines (like pottery, garment-making and singing), Vira Putri centres the forms, materials and processes of Jamu, the Indonesian medicinal practice. Putri’s installation creates a “space between the studio and the kitchen”, using natural inks taken from material experiments and research using Jamu ingredients.

It’s an inviting space that Putri also makes a metaphor for “the objectified Asian female body as she sits in voyeuristic stillness.”

Okay, so it’s a pity not to be able to smell the paint that’s still drying on fresh works, but with a bit of imagination and patience, 2021 graduates made sure the showcases still brought with them the overwhelming and thrilling sense of debut as a new generation of artists come out into the world.

Run ended, some showcases remain online gsashowcase.net dundee.ac.uk/graduate-showcase graduateshow.eca.ed.ac.uk

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One work that sticks out in Edinburgh is by Lauren Green. It’s the second video on her digital showcase page. The first is a tongue-in-cheek ad campaign to move to Mars, the implication being it’s all gone to shit here on Earth. But the next one starts as if by accident, the phone camera rubbing along the silver costume. Then it rests its gaze on the ground, and in the background is the noise of dirt bikes. Not Mars, a racing track. A fixed shot shows the actor in the spacesuit having a close look at the prop – what looks like two shopping baskets disguised as a silver retro-space age gizmo. The two together talk about escapism and the labour of fantasy, with humour and genuine intrigue.

For more space-related content, there’s Andrea Robertson’s short video work, Playing Fetch With Laika. In it, someone’s throwing a light up ball up and down at night, dropping it and picking it up again. At the end, it keeps floating up, pops out of sight and a dog can be heard barking – Laika being the dog and first living creature to orbit the Earth.

Continuing with the always-relevant theme of existential crisis, Lorena Levi’s paintings delve into the psychology of family, friendship, online encounters and socialising. In her group portraits, body language and expressions contain at least one novel’s worth of narrative and tension. By

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Intersections

Persian Pickles and Welsh Pears From rock stars to emperors, the iconic paisley pattern has a long history. We go on a road trip from Scotland to Babylonia to explore how paisley’s meaning has changed throughout the centuries Words: Armaan Illustrations: Kaitlin Mechan

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n Cotton Street, Paisley, stands a sign that reads ‘Renfrewshire House’, the headquarters of the Renfrewshire Council. The sign’s logo is familiar to the townsfolk: two blue teardrops, entwined like the Yin and Yang. But the passing traveller will not think much of it. The teardrops are a variation of the famous ‘paisley pattern’, the motif that brought riches and ruin to the town that named it.

Though Paisley saw its heyday as a weaving hub during the Industrial Revolution, the pattern that blessed its economy is ancient. It is observed in Celtic art, which disappeared with the Romanisation of Britain, though its true origin is likely in the Chaldea, a Mesopotamian civilisation later absorbed into Babylonia. From there, it probably spread east into Asia, and into western Europe, which accounts for its presence in Celtic Britain. While the Babylonian origin theory is still contested, the paisley pattern as we know it was most certainly found in Sasanian Persia (between the third and seventh centuries CE), appearing on both regalia and commoners’ garments. It was the boteh jehgeh – the ‘ancient motif’, birthed in the shadow of the Zagros Mountains, eventually propelling itself into the European psyche as an exotic symbol of good times and the reckless spirit.

“The ‘ancient motif’, birthed in the shadow of the Zagros Mountains, propelling itself into the European psyche as an exotic symbol of good times”

The actual symbolic meaning of the boteh is disagreed upon; it is thought to depict a droplet, feather, tadpole, pine cone, almond, teardrop or cypress tree, and can connote strength, modesty, nobility, fertility, the sun or even the phoenix, depending on who is asked.

While still widely popular as a Zoroastrian religious symbol in the courts of the Persian Shahanshahs (king of kings), the motif travelled across the rugged highlands of Afghanistan, deep into Kashmir, India’s northernmost frontier. It was through the Kingdom of Kashmir that the boteh jehgeh continued its journey across mountain, sea, desert and jungle, into the most ramshackle of factories, and onto the garbs of the richest men in the world.

Kashmir was the birthplace of the extremely coveted pashmina shawl, which featured the boteh jehgeh more than any other design. The Mughal Emperor Akbar popularised the giving of the shawls as robes of honour, or khil’at. When East India Company officials first encountered Kashmiri princes, they too engaged in this ritual exchange and took these shawls back home.

Napoleon himself brought back a pashmina for Joséphine on his return from Egypt, and the latter is often credited with popularising it in Europe.

The shawl became so central to European fashion that many manufacturers made unsuccessful attempts at imitating the Kashmiri (or, as it came to be known, cashmere) garment. With the introduction of the Jacquard loom, Paisley-theTown’s shawl-making industry grew exponentially, and the boteh jehgeh became one of the most common sights in its factories, shops and homes.

In the English-speaking world, the word ‘paisley’ soon became synonymous with the word ‘shawl’.

Across the globe, different names cropped up for the boteh jehgeh: ‘tadpole’ in France, ‘little onion’ in Vienna, ‘Persian pickle’ in the United States, and ‘Welsh pear’ in Wales.

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The pashmina’s popularity was famously unstable, but it fell permanently out of favour in the 1870s, and the industry collapsed, hitting Paisley particularly hard. The Indian and Pakistani nationalist movements of the twentieth century revived its production, but with the fall of European demand, the dynamic journey of the boteh jehgeh also concluded in Asia, its significance static and its place in fashion entrenched.

In Europe, however, the motif emerged as a symbol of a bohemian lifestyle in the 1960s, after a few resurfacings in the first half of the twentieth century (unsurprisingly, on the smoking jackets of Oscar Wilde). Bowie, Jagger and The Beatles transformed it into a symbol of nonconformity and rebellion – John Lennon famously adorned his Rolls-Royce with paisleys. In the 1970s, it appeared on handkerchiefs as a secret code among gay men in San Francisco. As in Sasanian Persia, people still could not decide what the paisley stood for. The boteh is rich, malleable and infused with a spiritual essence the observer simply cannot explain. Perhaps this is why it has remained alive in the West even today, on waistcoats, bandanas and summer shirts.

The boteh jehgeh is a lesson in everlasting design. After having played a decisive role in Paisley-the-Town’s development, it is now retired to its museums. And what of the East? The pattern is woven onto pashmina even today, slightly less in fashion than it used to be, but still valued for its history and quality. It is sold in both khadi bazaars and expensive designer stores. But chances are that (much like a tourist outside Renfrewshire House) the average customer will think of the boteh jehgeh simply as a pretty motif, not an enigmatic emblem that once reigned supreme over the aesthetic tastes of rock stars and emperors.

THE SKINNY

Reduce, Reuse, Repair Glasgow’s Remade Network is putting the tools to repair in the hands of its community members. We visit the shop to learn how the social enterprise is fighting the climate crisis, capitalism and consumerism

Photo: Iain McLean

I

it’s great to have a shop, we need to think of radical ways to change the way we work together.”

Remade Network is a slightly different model, one that emphasises collaboration with the local area’s community. At the end of June, a second shop was launched in Cranhill, and the aim is to bring the network to different areas in Glasgow to fit their particular needs. “We don’t want to tell people what to do, we want to collaborate with the talent and skills already in communities,” says Unwin. “It’s so easy to blame people for not doing enough but if the facilities don’t exist for people to behave differently then how can they? It’s often more deprived communities that are the least polluting but have the most pollution to deal with.”

Although the Govanhill shop has only been open since February, the Remade Network team has already expanded to 15 people who have seen over 300 items come into the shop for repair. But despite Remade Network’s quick growth, Unwin and Hooper are keen to build a sustainable enterprise. “It’s a time of growth but also of consolidation,” says Unwin. “We’d like to see affordable repair services across the city. We’re also building on our digital inclusion work and have taken on paid trainees to give them the experience of fixing.”

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Remade Network’s ethos leans towards a community-centric solution to the climate crisis, rather than the individualistic mindset that is often pushed by those who want to make a profit from sustainability. Purchasing ethically sourced items is all well and good but, as Hooper points out, we can’t buy our way to a more sustainable world. “I want to find alternatives to capitalist structures and things like planned obsolescence,” she says. “Remade Network offers a service where people can actually fix their stuff rather than blame them for throwing things away.”

“We want to see culture change, not just behaviour change,” adds Unwin. “That’s when you get actual power shifts. Already there’s been a great feeling of solidarity with Remade Network which aims to be practical and radical. You need a big vision to inspire people and make big changes.

But the vision on its own is nothing if you can’t back it up with action and something deliverable.

We want to be both.”

Find out more about Remade Network by visiting remade.network Visit the Govanhill shop at 421 Victoria Road

July 2021 — Feature

f it’s broken, fix it. Or at least bring it down to Remade Network who will do their best to fix it.

Based in Govanhill, Remade Network is a social enterprise advocating for a repair culture in which we try to fix our broken items, instead of throwing them into landfills and buying new. The organisation’s base – a bright, freshly painted shop on Victoria Road – is humming with activity when we pay them a visit in early June: a sewing machine is being used to mend trousers, while technician Ross is wrestling with a broken Wii controller.

“Repair isn’t a new idea,” says Sophie Unwin, Remade Network’s founder. “Communities have been mending things for ages. It doesn’t have to be a shiny consumerist thing. We want to be on the high street with our community, not decrying the modern world but offering an alternative model.”

That alternative model comes in different forms, as shop manager Lauren Hooper explains.

There’s the repair service – “we do tech, electrical and textile repairs; so phones, laptops, anything with a plug, any sort of clothing” – as well as ongoing community-centric projects. “At the start of the pandemic, it was clear that everything was online but not everyone could get online,” says Hooper. “So, we worked on a desktop distribution project with the Glasgow City Council and refurbished and distributed over 500 computers to charities and community groups.” Alongside the projects and repair service, Remade Network also runs workshops teaching repair methods and sells refurbished laptops and phones in their shop at affordable prices.

Unwin was inspired to get into sustainability work after spending time in Nepal when she was younger. “I lived for a year in a village. It was a remote community and over the year I lived with six other people – we created one dustbin of rubbish. I came back to London, went into a supermarket and had so much worse culture shock coming back. The way we produce and consume is so shocking.”

In London, Unwin was part of the team that set up The Remakery. “I had the idea for it because I saw lots of people fixing things but not earning any money from it,” she explains. “I thought there must be a way you can create a business model around repair education.” After successfully launching London’s Remakery, Unwin moved to Edinburgh and helped set up its sister project, the Edinburgh Remakery, on Leith Walk, before heading west to Glasgow. “I wanted to work in a city where it wasn’t just one project but the impact was more embedded within communities. While

Intersections

Interview: Katie Goh

THE SKINNY

Neurodiversity in Comedy Comedy

Neurodiversity is having a moment on the comedy scene. We speak to several neurodiverse comics from across the UK to ask if the changes we’re currently seeing may herald genuine change in the wider cultural sphere Words: Emma Sullivan

Photo: Roweena Russell

Photo: Steve Best

July 2021 — Feature

W

ith several high-profile comedians recently revealing their neurodiversities (Josie Long discussing ADHD and Fern Brady and Hannah Gadsby both sharing their autism diagnoses among others) there’s an increasing sense that neurodiversity is becoming both more visible, and more freely acknowledged within the comedy scene. Tired tropes about neurodiversity still dominate the culture at large – with autism in particular a target for cheap laughs – yet comedy is a place in which marginalised groups can freely address mainstream preconceptions.

For Scottish comedian Ross Leslie, who was diagnosed with autism in 2014 and has long been open about his experiences, “a lot has changed in the last ten years.” Kate Fox, whose work straddles both stand-up and performance poetry, says that even in 2019, her autism diagnosis was met with disinterest during discussions with producers. Starting in 2020, however, the same people recognised that “it was something with wider appeal and interest." Stand-up Joe Wells agrees: “You can date what you read almost to the year by the way the conversation has changed. Not just comedy – there were so many books last year written by neurodivergent writers.” But he’s quick to point out that “there’s always a risk of transience with social movements. Last summer everyone was passionately anti-racist.

Anyone who’s not directly invested in it moves on.” Don Biswas, who has dyspraxia, echoes this, and argues that the gains won’t be permanent until the issue is embedded in the curriculum.

Ashley Storrie, meanwhile, is arguably at the forefront of this new wave of visibility. Starring as a young autistic woman in her new BBC Three pilot, Dinosaur, she’s very aware of the historical lack of representation around neurodiversity. She describes hungrily scouring pop culture growing up, looking for characters she could relate to. As a teenager she loved the Fox series Bones, whose eponymous lead Storrie was sure was autistic.

Although it’s never explicitly mentioned, “she struggles with emotions, she’s very interested in one subject and nothing else.” Another touchstone was Abed Nadir Don Biswas

Kate Fox

in Community, who has similar traits. The hope is that Nina, Storrie’s character in Dinosaur, will, like Abed, get the chance to develop over the space of a series.

Storrie describes the experience of playing the character as hugely liberating. Nina is undiagnosed, and lives her life without attempting to mask her autism. Inhabiting the character’s total lack of apology was a revelation – “it switched a switch in my brain” – and made her realise that “maybe I wouldn’t be so anxious and tired all the time if I weren’t constantly living to please other people.” Storrie recognises the circularity of the process (“a snake eating its own tail”) where effective masking results in disbelief when you do acknowledge your diagnosis. The familiar notion that “you don’t act like an autistic person – why are you lying?” can trap someone further into the exhausting business of “pretending to be normal.”

For Joe Wells, the aim is to get beyond the valorisation of ‘normal’, and instead move towards a genuine celebration of difference. He mentions a post-show discussion with a parent of an autistic child, who felt it was important the child was reassured ‘he was normal’, but Wells disagreed: “He’s not normal – it’s not important to be normal. Being normal is not inherently better.” The problem remains that the dominant social attitude to neurodiversity is that “it’s a bad, debilitating illness; a tragedy even”, and when parents say that they’ve got an autistic child, the standard response is still commiseration. Parents are expected to mourn the loss of something – it’s seen as a form of ‘bereavement’, a mindset that is obviously very damaging for neurodivergent children. Wells’ recent viral video models the overturning of this value system beautifully, deftly reversing the usual tropes of patronising pity so that they are

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THE SKINNY

Photo: Steve Ullathorne

Follow Don Biswas on Twitter and Instagram @donbiswascomedy and find him on YouTube

Comedy

success." Biswas also acknowledges that while his dyspraxia is “great for material”, he’s mindful of relying on it too heavily. As with jokes about his ethnicity, there’s a risk of playing to stereotype. Leslie admits to similar concerns, and with two sons with autism, he tries to protect his family from material that “gives too much away." Meanwhile Kate Fox has fully embraced her role as a representative of the neurodiverse community. She’s an ambassador for the National Autistic Society and happy to step up at what she sees as “a historic time." As a result she feels richly rewarded; she’s “part of a community, a movement, and a moment.”

Photo: Briony Leslie Ross Leslie

Ashley Storrie: Dinosaur is available now on BBC iPlayer; The Ashley Storrie Show airs every Friday night on BBC Radio Scotland and BBC Sounds Ross Leslie plays Glasgow Glee Club, 9 and 10 Jul (lockdown permitting); follow Ross on Twitter @RossLeslieComic Follow Kate Fox on Twitter @katefoxwriter / katefox.co.uk Follow Joe Wells on Twitter and Facebook @joewellscomic and on Instagram @joewellscomedian. Joe’s book, Differently Wired: 30 Neurodivergent people who you should know, is due for release in Spring 2022

July 2021 — Feature

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Photo: Edward Moore

directed instead at neurotypicals. There’s subversion, too, in his opening gambit as he casually identifies himself as autistic and asks cheerily: “Got any autistics in?”

It’s exactly this kind of casual naming that Kate Fox describes as so important in changing the dominant Ashley Storrie representations of autistic people, which so often tend to be medicalised and/or pathologising. In fact, given the emphasis upon “a lack of a sense of humour and absolute literalness” in such representations, the very competency of stand-ups who are open about their autism in their act is in itself subversive. As Fox points out, the word itself remains very problematic and almost toxic for many, and despite her reservations about the use of spectrum as a model (preferring to conceptualise it as a matter of dimensions, rather than a linear representation), she still uses the phrase ‘on the spectrum’ as a euphemism “because people can struggle with it so much.”

If stand-up is a particularly effective place for showcasing neurodiversity, it’s also a space that seems to actively attract neurodivergent people. Don Biswas reckons those comedians who share their diagnoses are just the tip of the iceberg: “There are loads of undiagnosed neurodiverse comedians on the circuit.” Wells agrees, arguing that if the best comedians are those able to look at the world differently, then the oblique perspective brought by neurodivergence is a perfect fit. The fundamentals of stand-up work well with specific neurodivergent traits: “It’s a one-way conversation with very clear rules about things that interest the speaker; there’s complete leeway if you say something socially inappropriate,” and even if the venue is cramped and noisy, comedians often get a separate room so “you don’t feel drained and exhausted at the end of the night.”

Fox’s account is similar: as a performer of monologues “you don’t have to negotiate conversations and transitions." She thinks there can also be a kind of fearlessness, a resistance to certain norms which allows for greater freedom. Women, for example, “are supposed to have internalised that they shouldn’t speak out”, but often neurodiverse women and non-binary folk simply haven’t taken that internalisation on. Ross Leslie notices the universal appeal of the freedom from such norms, and some of his material invites the audience to vicariously enjoy that freedom. It’s still a risk though, as he describes one gig where he was scolded afterwards for joking ‘inappropriately’ about autism.

What about the responsibility that comes with having a public platform? It’s clear that it’s keenly felt by all. Storrie, in particular, says, “I feel very nervous and anxious about it." She’s “super super aware that any form of neurodiversity has often been depicted as a burden” and that it’s her “job to change that." The pressure to be ‘manic pixie autistic dream girl’ is quite intense, and not a role Storrie has any appetite for. “I want to be as true to my experience as possible and hope that rings true for other people. And that’s all you can do.”

Wells also feels the pressure “to represent neurodiversity well” in his stand-up, and tries to avoid material “about how I get things wrong, how I say inappropriate things or I can’t cope” which are thought of as ‘wrong’, but shouldn’t be. He’s clear that there needs to be the space for many different perspectives, because “one story is not sufficient”, particularly given the ways in which social background comes into play.

Don Biswas picks up on the importance of social background when reflecting on his own experience, and the ways in which neurodiversity can be harder for those from “education obsessed, traditional cultures – with narrower criteria for

Joe Wells

THE SKINNY

Object of Desire If you’re a child of the 90s, you’ll remember throbbing techno track Flat Beat from Quentin Dupieux (aka Mr. Oizo). Dupieux now spends most of his time making twisted comedies, and his latest, Deerskin, follows a middle-aged man obsessed with a jacket

Film

Interview: Rafaela Sales Ross

July 2021 — Feature

“I

usually say that the movies I did in the US were a bit like training,” muses French filmmaker and musician Quentin Dupieux.

Dupieux became a cult figure in the film world thanks to Rubber, his outlandish horrorcomedy about a sentient tyre that goes on a killing spree, but is still best known, in the UK at least, as Mr. Oizo, the techno artist behind the 1999 charttopper Flat Beat.

We’re speaking to Dupieux ahead of the release of Deerskin, his eighth feature but only his second shot in France. It’s a deliciously farcical take on objectophilia that sees the director balancing his signature delirium with a newfound inclination to vulnerability. Even at the height of its frantic insanity, it’s still his most muted, intimate work. The increased refinement, Dupieux suggests, is down to the homecoming.

“What I was doing before was basically writing in my native language and thinking about translating – I was writing something simple because I wanted the translation process to be easy for me,” he says. “With French movies, I’m just writing the best I can, so I feel closer to them than the ones I did in the US. Movies like Rubber are concept movies, there’s absolutely nothing personal there. But now that I am writing in French, it is more my voice.”

Deerskin stars Jean Dujardin (from The Artist and the hugely popular French spy spoof series OSS 117) as Georges, an eccentric man with a weakness for leather attire. After dropping enough money on a tacky deerskin jacket to buy a fairly decent car, the chirpy man makes his way down to a secluded hotel to spend time with his new darling. Holding the outdated camcorder he was gifted alongside the lavish purchase, Georges vainly records himself in the mirror, happily sipping dopamine shots as he confidently whispers: “Killer style”. With empty pockets and nothing to lose, the oddball fashionista sets out to accomplish his long-life dream: to become the only person in the world to wear a jacket.

Unarguably outdated yet impeccably conserved, Georges’ jacket enables Dupieux’s absurdist premise to reach a level of emotional authenticity.

Its uniqueness has the viewer striving to understand the man’s unhinged obsession. In order to accomplish such a feat, finding the perfect piece of clothing was critical. “To define the tone of

everything else, we had to start with the jacket,” recalls Dupieux. “We tried ten or 12 and this one was the best. It’s almost perfect. You can see it’s too short, but he doesn’t look stupid. We were having fun because Jean was slowly becoming obsessed with the jacket himself, and he was looking good in it.”

The jacket clearly enabled Dujardin to… wear the character’s clothes.

Chillingly contained, the actor fully embodies the psychopathic traits of this peculiar maniac, from the mechanical half-smirks to his ludicrous dialogue. The heart of Deerskin, however, lies with bartender-turned-editor Denise (played by Portrait of a Lady on Fire’s Adèle Haenel), who Georges meets at the small town’s only hangout – a rustic, permanently empty bar. “[Haenel] took the character to another level,” says Dupieux. “Denise was written as an absolutely normal girl. She was nice and a bit naive and she wanted to get out of this boring bartender life. She was passionate about editing and that was it. But then, when we started working together, [Haenel] told me ‘I want this character to be as crazy as Georges’. And she did it without changing a single line of dialogue. It was in the way she played it; you can tell in her eyes that she is crazy.”

Haenel’s approach to working with Dujardin nurtured the film’s organic tension. “Jean was a bit scared of her,” reveals Dupieux. “He was scared she wasn’t available to him when we weren’t shooting, which was honestly a genius move because this is how we created the vibe that you see in the movie. They’re not two friends pretending to be characters, they are characters. They didn’t know each other then and still don’t. We shot for five weeks and they didn’t become friends.” And Haenel’s dedication to crafting a character as nuanced as her male counterpart’s indicates yet another vital break from Dupieux’s previous work, where women were, if not mere appendages, solely brought in as a one-dimensional plot device.

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Deerskin

“Movies like Rubber are concept movies, there’s absolutely nothing personal there. But now that I am writing in French, it is more my voice” Quentin Dupieux The director has had two years to reflect on the process of creating Deerskin, the film having debuted at the 2019 Cannes film festival. “When you show a film for the first time, especially when you go to Cannes and do this big premiere, it’s always scary. You overthink it. Now, looking back, I’m not scared anymore. I know it’s done, I know some people loved it, so it feels good to look back.”

This freedom, combined with the time he spent isolated with family during the pandemic, led Dupieux to pursue his dream of being able to make one film a year, a goal that now feels attainable. Of course, it also helps that he now has a fertile working relationship with one of France’s best-loved actors. “I still don’t know why, but I can have Jean Dujardin. So when I write a script, even if it’s crazy and absurd and weird, if Jean wants to do it, suddenly it is almost easy to produce. So that’s what I’m doing.”

Deerskin is released 16 Jul by Picturehouse Entertainment

THE SKINNY

Mads Skillz Thomas Vinterberg returns with boozy new drama Another Round. The great Danish director discusses his country’s binge drinking culture, why some of our greatest leaders are massive pissheads and the brilliance of Mads Mikkelsen Interview: Jamie Dunn who now bores his students with his stuttering, half-hearted lessons. His wife and children find him similarly tedious. However, a few shots of vodka for breakfast – bringing his blood-alcohol level to 0.05%, which he maintains throughout the working day by continual drinking – and he’s a new man. Sophisticated ideas flow freely in class while at home he’s a right laugh at the dinner table and a smooth lover in the bedroom. It’s a subtle and precise performance, and not the only great turn

by Mads Mikkelsen on UK screens this month.

He’s also in gruff Charles Bronson mode as a hard-as-nails soldier out to avenge the death of his wife in Anders Thomas Jensen’s comedy-drama Riders of Justice.

This versatility is typical of Mikkelsen. After all, there aren’t many performers today who could pull off playing a brutish one-eyed Norse warrior

“We can’t ignore that at the moment when Churchill sent a couple of hundred thousand civilian people into war on fishing boats, he was probably drunk – or at least he wasn’t sober”

Another Round is released 2 Jul by StudioCanal Riders of Justice is released 23 Jul by Vertigo Credit: Henrik Ohsten Another Round

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July 2021 — Feature

Thomas Vinterberg

(Valhalla Rising), a calculating bond villain (Casino Royale) and a timid kindergarten teacher (The Hunt, directed by Vinterberg), as well as breathe new life into a worn-out character like Hannibal Lecter in Bryan Fuller’s NBC series. Next up, he’s filling Johnny Depp’s ignominious shoes in the third Fantastic Beasts movie.

Another Round and The Hunt are both highlights in Vinterberg and Mikkelsen’s storied careers; they clearly work well together. “Mads and I have a very close mutual understanding of what is great and what is not great,” says Vinterberg. “We grew up in the same country, the same soil, having the same movie heroes, watching the same Scorsese movies and all of that. It’s as if we had the same education.

So our language is very close. Even in the way I say cut, he’ll know, ‘OK, we’ll have to do a little bit more of that.’ I don’t have to say much.”

Mikkelsen won Best Actor at Cannes for his performance in The Hunt, but Vinterberg reckons his turn in Another Round is even more special.

“Can I remind you how much I put on his plate? He has to be very tender and weep very honestly in one moment; in a different moment, he has to dance; and in a third moment, he has to be super silly and try to find codfish in a harbour in a stupid way. So I’ve really challenged him. But he’s the actor who enjoys that.”

If it’s not already clear, Vinterberg thinks Mikkelsen is not half bad at this acting business.

“Directing Mads is like working with Messi as a football coach; he can do anything.”

Film

W

hen Thomas Vinterberg hears where I’m calling from, some hazy recollections of cobblestone streets and too much whisky seem to be flooding back to him. “I’ve never been as drunk as I was in Edinburgh in my life – ever,” the 52-year-old Danish filmmaker says with a laugh. I’m braced for some fun anecdotes about his time in Auld Reekie, but unfortunately three subsequent decades have faded any memories that the booze hadn’t already extinguished. “I can’t remember much other than getting very sick and that it was a beautiful town back in the 80s.” More fresh in his mind are the drunken antics in his funny and rather moving new film, Another Round, which sees four listless high school teachers experiment with maintaining a low-level alcohol buzz to keep their midlife ennui at bay.

If you’re expecting the kind of moralising substance abuse melodrama that Hollywood regularly churns out, forget it. This is one movie about alcoholism where you might be tempted to have a tipple by the closing credits. “This whole project started as a celebration of alcohol,” says Vinterberg. “We wanted to acknowledge the fact that great world leaders have made their most important decisions under the influence. And if you look at the world of arts and literature, it’s massive how well the great drinkers have been doing.”

Tchaikovsky and Hemingway are just two talented boozehounds that the four teachers cite during their scheme, as well as the UK’s very own alkie-in-chief: Churchill. “We can’t ignore that at the moment when Churchill sent a couple of hundred thousand civilian people into war on fishing boats, he was probably drunk – or at least he wasn’t sober.”

Another Round explores Denmark’s very specific drinking culture, but some of its sentiments should chime with readers here in Scotland.

The film’s Danish title is Druk, which literally translates to Binge Drinking. The more cosy sounding Another Round was adopted as the international title, however, presumably because the phenomenon of binge drinking is typically a northern European pursuit.

Why does he reckon countries like Denmark and Scotland have embraced boozing to total annihilation on nights out, while our neighbours in southern Europe and across the pond have more responsible drinking cultures? “I don’t know how it is in your country, but in my country, there’s a double edge,” muses Vinterberg. “Danes feel we live in a slightly provincial, modest, even, at times, mediocre, slightly oppressive society. And yet still we can transform into crazy Vikings that go absolutely bazonkers. So there’s a duality and I think those two sides depend on each other.”

At the heart of the film is Martin (played by Mads Mikkelsen), a once-brilliant history teacher

THE SKINNY

The Beautiful and the Damned Film

In 1971, 15-year-old Björn Andrésen became a symbol of youthful beauty after starring in Luchino Visconti’s Death In Venice. Filmmakers Kristina Lindström and Kristian Petri tell us why they wanted to tell Andrésen’s full story five decades later Interview: Carmen Paddock

camera loves him. We were floating around him, he was smoking and playing on his piano. He was very easy about us being there.”

Andrésen’s increasing openness was matched by mountains of personal and professional archival material. Home recordings by Andrésen’s mother, who passed away in his childhood, proved a goldmine. “I never, in my professional life, have gathered so much material.

Ever,” Petri says. “We knew we were going to have archive material but not this! There was so much we had no idea about.” Lindström adds, “I was sitting and listening to hours and hours of audiotapes which his mother and aunt had made. I heard this young boy, Björn, three or four years old, and he’s reading this saga about the boy who finds his mother.”

The pair speak excitedly about the three-year search for Death in Venice’s press conference footage at the Cannes Film Festival, previously believed lost. “We went to Rome with an Italianspeaking Swedish girl, and she was very persistent and we found it,” Petri says. “It was very heartbreaking the way [Visconti] treated Björn,” he adds, alluding to the director’s comments during that press conference that his 16-year-old star was less perfect now than he was at 15.

Material from Japan proved equally rich. “I’m still amazed that of all these people [Andrésen] worked with, we found everybody,” Lindström says.

“They remembered Björn, he was not something that just dropped away from their lives.” Petri adds that “for many it was very emotional seeing him.

They could feel that he didn’t feel comfortable, doing these commercials and fashion shoots.”

Petri and Lindström do not believe the entertainment industry exploitation experienced

by Andrésen has disappeared. “I don’t know if it’s a #MeToo story,” Petri says, “but it has to do with the structures of power and objectification. I think some people say, ‘Oh, this was 50 years ago.’ But it’s very much the same today, behind the scenes.”

“When you go online you see all these fan pages, 50 years later,” Lindström adds. “People are making their own videos with his face; they are obsessed with him. He is really objectified in this extreme way.” She reflects that “to be so young drawn into turmoil that you cannot resist destroys the things you wanted to do. [Andrésen] wanted to be a musician, a pianist – he is, but he wanted to do so much more with it.”

The Most Beautiful Boy in the World is released on 30 Jul

by Dogwoof Photo: Mario Tursi

July 2021 — Feature

“W

e came to the Hotel de Bains, the hotel that was the set of Death in Venice, which is now a magnificent ruin,” recalls Kristian Petri, co-director of The Most Beautiful Boy in the World. “It’s one of the world’s most beautiful hotels and it’s just decayed. There was an architect who opened it up for us and we could shoot there for two or three days. And he [Björn Andrésen] stepped in there and said, ‘Oh this is fantastic, the house is just like me.’”

When Petri and co-director Kristina Lindström sit down with The Skinny via Zoom, their zeal for their five-years-in-the-making documentary is palpable. The Most Beautiful Boy in the World follows Björn Andrésen from his fateful audition for Luchino Visconti’s Death in Venice – in which he was subsequently cast as Tadzio, the stunningly beautiful adolescent who becomes the obsession of an ageing writer visiting the titular city – through a Japanese pop career before diving back to his earlier childhood and looking intimately at his life today.

Lindström is precise about the pair’s artistic vision: “We wanted this widescreen format like Death in Venice, so that [Andrésen] would in a way reclaim the film.” This vision helped sell the project to Andrésen, whose cooperation was essential.

“We didn’t want to come crashing into his life and make another horrible experience,” Petri says. “It might sound a bit pretentious, but we wanted it to be a piece of art, not a sort of regular TV documentary. We were very explicit that we wanted to make [Andrésen’s] story, not the story about Tadzio.”

With the film scheduled for release in 2021 – the 50th anniversary of Visconti’s film – there was an additional “element of curiosity and history.”

In the end, Andrésen agreed. “[Andrésen] had to decide when he wanted to let us in,” Lindström remembers, describing the “step by step” and “continuous” development process. “It took us one year before we even shot in his apartment!” Petri says. “Nobody else had been there for ten years, so it was a big step.

“The hardest thing to talk about was his boy [who died in infancy],” Petri continues. “But he knew and we knew, we wanted to talk about it, but he had to decide how.” On a more joyful occasion, Petri describes Andrésen’s “calm and casual attitude” during an apartment shoot: “He’s a film star, he has this presence and he’s very cool, the

Björn Andrésen shooting Death in Venice

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THE SKINNY

Heritage Trail Istanbul-born, Berlin-based producer Nene H pays tribute to her late father while exploring her Middle Eastern heritage on her debut album, Ali. She tells us about the cathartic process of making Ali and incorporating Middle Eastern and Western influences Interview: Nadia Younes

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“In between tracks, the genres somehow change or exchange material with each other, because I wanted to [show] this kind of fucked up-ness of my situation being a Turkish girl [in Germany]... your brain gets very confused,” she continues. “Because I had spent a lot more time in Turkey I became my younger self a little bit. I wanted to [show this duality] in the genres, the music, and the whole thing.”

Ali incorporates influences from Aydin’s Middle Eastern heritage and her formative adult years spent in Germany, with tracks sung in both German and Turkish and combining traditional elements of Turkish music with more modern electronic sounds. Lead single Lament, for example, combines a pulsing techno beat with the looping sounds of a ney – an end-blown reed flute that features prominently in Middle Eastern music.

“When I used the modality in the tracks – [the] bass motifs or the synthesizer motifs that I compose – these small motifs are very much made on certain scales that could be both a little bit Middle Eastern and a little bit Western,” says Aydin. “I try to keep the balance so that it doesn’t become some cliche... I want to keep the dosage right, and keep it sophisticated.”

As the album closes with the slow build of How We Say Goodbye, its sparse nature feels like a sense of calm washing over after a period of turmoil, as Aydin is able not to move on from her grieving period, but at least to move forward.

Ali is released on 16 Jul via Incienso

July 2021 — Feature

ago, and were intended as a tribute to him, as well as acting as a means of exploring her grief. “The process of making it was like nothing else for me,” she says. “In the end, it came to a point where any time that I listen to it, it gives me the same kind of feeling, which never happens.

“Always, at some point, I am tired of the things that I do… but I feel like this became some kind of working mechanism,” she continues. “It’s there now, it’s an object. It’s out of me now; that’s how I want to see it... For me, it helps to see it like this. It’s like making the whole process hearable, and [making] that lifetime or a phase of my life hearable and visible.”

Born in Istanbul, Aydin moved to Stuttgart at the age of 20 to study piano and was exposed to an entirely different culture at an age where she “didn’t know shit,” she says. “I don’t count myself as a human being when I was like 19/20,” she laughs. “So when I came here to Germany I wasn’t a human yet, I became human after.”

Following her studies, Aydin relocated to Berlin, where she has now lived for nearly ten years and where her interest in music production, especially within the realm of electronic music, was truly formed. During this time, Aydin would return to Turkey a few times a year, but her father’s passing saw her returning to Turkey more frequently to spend time with her family. This brought her closer to her Middle Eastern heritage and, in turn, had a huge impact on the making of Ali. “Musically, the genres are very different,” she says.

Clubs

Photo: Mara Ploscaru

C

ast your mind back to 2019: before COVID, before endless lockdowns, and before the entire shutting down of the live events industry. It was at that year’s edition of sonic and visual art festival Berlin Atonal where Beste Aydin, aka Nene H, first performed some of the tracks that feature on her debut album, Ali, due for release this month on New York-based label Incienso – the label run by Anthony Naples and Jenny Slattery.

When we call Aydin in Berlin, where she currently resides, to discuss the album, it’s on the same day that the city begins its reopening of the nightlife sector. As of 18 June, clubbing restrictions in the city were loosened, with outdoor events of up to 250 people now allowed, as long as guests are able to provide proof of a negative COVID-19 test and wear FFP2 face masks – proven to have enhanced effectiveness against spreading and contracting COVID-19 – when not seated.

But, like many of us, Aydin is slightly apprehensive about returning to these kinds of events, particularly with the added uncertainty around social interactions that COVID has created.

“When you meet people, you don’t even know [how to act] anymore, like should you hug or fist bump?” she laughs. “The social awkwardness of all of this is extreme.”

The album and Aydin’s performance, Rau// Reue, at Berlin Atonal act as extensions of each other. Both were developed around the same time, following the passing of Aydin’s father three years

THE SKINNY

Radical Sexuality We meet Sara Jafari to discuss The Mismatch, her new novel exploring second-generation Iranian identity and its relationship to romantic and sexual desire

July 2021 — Feature

Photo: Mel Legarda, MLKD Creative

Books

Interview: Anahit Behrooz

A

sexual revolution has been staged in our literary and cultural landscape. Its roots, like those of all good revolutions, are shifting and gradual, but its beloved leaders are known to all: Sally Rooney, Candice CartyWilliams, Raven Leilani. By the time Phoebe Waller-Bridge was staring into a camera barely two minutes into her TV series Fleabag to describe last night’s anal sex in anatomical detail, the movement had well and truly arrived.

Sara Jafari’s debut novel The Mismatch is very much a product of this sexually curious zeitgeist, with only the smallest of twists: its protagonist – 21-year-old British-Iranian Soraya – has never kissed anyone, let alone had sex. The child of Muslim Iranian immigrants, Soraya has been brought up in a household where virginity is prized and sex before marriage is unthinkable, and now – confronted with the end of university and the looming dread of adulthood – is forced to navigate the tension between her didactic upbringing and her desires. Half romance, half tender coming-of-age alternating between Soraya’s story and her mother Neda’s marriage in the aftermath of Iran’s Islamic Revolution, Jafari’s novel probes into the nature of

Sara Jafari

“ Growing up, there weren’t many Iranian stories out there. I wrote the book because I really wanted to help other people feel reflected in the stories they read. In a way, I wrote it for myself” Sara Jafari

repressed desire, and the ways in which cultural context moulds sexuality in unspoken ways.

“It is culture more than religion,” Jafari says thoughtfully. “The way her parents tell her she shouldn’t do certain things, that’s definitely culture.

And I think being brought up in that way makes you see sex as something that’s quite dirty. I was intrigued by that – I wanted to show the struggle internally when you’re brought up British Iranian and you’ve got friends who do whatever they want, and you’ve still got these teachings in your head. I wanted to explore the push and pull of it.”

For Jafari, the specificity of the second-generation immigrant experience is crucial to thinking through ideas of desirability, and the ways in which Soraya understands, or fails to understand, herself as a sexually viable person. It is an experience that extends beyond her protagonist, Jafari stresses, a dislocation between wanting and being wanted that informs the coming-of-age-experience of many visibly othered second-generation immigrants.

“Growing up she wouldn’t have been seen as someone desirable,” Jafari says. “That was my own experience anyway; I grew up in an all-white school and I wasn’t seen as attractive because I — 40 —

wasn’t like the people around me. I think that, as well as her upbringing, is why she doesn’t see herself as particularly sexual. It’s something quite relatable for people of colour in general, how in high school you’re less likely to get attention from boys or girls. It’s something my friends at university and I all related to: not feeling very attractive when we were younger and having to learn to see yourself in a sexual way.”

It is the act of writing that became, for Jafari, a way of counteracting this isolation, of offering plurality in a culture still obsessed with the rigid binaries of promiscuous or pure, of sexually liberated or oppressed. “I had written an article for gal-dem a while back about the complexities of virginity coming from a British Muslim background,” Jafari says. “It was quite a personal piece but so many people messaged to say they related to it. I still get messages from people who say they just don’t see these ideas explored in writing ever.

It made me feel less alone, which was the starting point for writing The Mismatch. Especially growing up, there weren’t many Iranian stories out there. I wrote the book because I really wanted to help other people feel reflected in the stories they read.

In a way, I wrote it for myself.”

The importance of representation becomes even more crucial within the romance genre, Jafari argues, a genre predicated on a collapse in boundaries between the narrative and the reader, on a capacity for self-insertion and unfettered fantasy.

Its overwhelmingly white history is a concrete demonstration of who is socially and culturally given access to these spaces, of whose sexuality is imagined generously and complexly. What The Mismatch does, then, feels radical. Spotlighting not only Soraya’s relationship with her love interest Magnus but also the private evolution of her desires as an Iranian Muslim immigrant, the novel sketches a fizzy portrait of young love whose specific cultural complications only serve to make it all the more accessible.

“Sareeta Domingo, the editor of Who’s Loving You [a romance anthology to which Jafari has contributed], talks about how it can be really damaging, growing up reading romances and never seeing yourself in them, because you think you’re not worthy of love,” Jafari says. “I think love is joy, and if we don’t see ourselves in it, it makes it seem like we’re not worthy of joy.” Thanks to Jafari and her contemporaries, the revolution has definitely arrived – and it’s a joyous one.

The Mismatch is out now penguin.co.uk

Photo: Alex Wong

THE SKINNY

Pass the Mic Ahead of HANG, Scotland’s first-ever hip-hop and grime music conference, we speak to Khaleda Noon from Intercultural Youth Scotland and Sami Omar from Up2Standard Interview: Rachel Bowles Music

Sami Omar

H

ANG (Hip-hop Aimed Networking with Grime) is Scotland’s first-ever grime and hip-hop music conference launching this summer with a one day, can’t miss interdisciplinary line-up of panels, workshops and live music.

Featuring the likes of BBC Radio 1Xtra’s Tiffany Calver, 2020 SAY Award-winner Nova, and Aberdeen grime artist Ransom FA to name but a few, HANG brings together talent, labels and industry experts from across the UK for a free, all-ages event designed for aspiring artists and fans alike. To celebrate its inauguration, The Skinny catches up with two of HANG’s finest guests – award-winning Khaleda Noon, executive director and founder of non-profit Intercultural Youth Scotland (IYS), and pioneering Sami Omar, the man behind Scotland’s premier grime platform Up2Standard. (The following has been edited for length and clarity.)

The Skinny: Hi guys! Can you introduce yourselves, please?

Sami Omar: I’m Sami, founder of Up2Standard. Growing up, I had a big passion for music but we had nowhere to go and record at a professional level. It pushed me to set up our

affiliate studios in 2014. As our network grew, we felt there was another gap in the market in terms of infrastructure. We needed a platform for our own community in Scotland, hence the birth of Up2Standard. We bridge the gap between the artists’ product and the consumer.

Khaleda Noon: I’m Khaleda Noon, executive director of IYS, Scotland’s leading charity for young black people, young people of colour and those with intersectional characteristics. We use hip-hop and grime and any sort of youth work as a vehicle to make sure that young people reach a positive destination.

— 41 — Khaleda Noon

TS: What would you say to aspiring youths who want to get involved in the music industry?

SO: I would say do not fear the system. That’s why we are here. You do not need the companies, the monopoly, the ones that are controlling the organisations, [Khaleda and I] are here to do our due diligence to support you. Embrace yourself, embrace your talent. As much as we all come together, we are also individuals, we’ve got our own sound, our own history to bring into this, to add to the table.

KN: What I’d say to aspiring artists is to collaborate, know your community, reach out to other communities and work together. Use your time wisely with people who share the same dedication; learn where the music and cultural art forms started. To truly appreciate something you need to grasp where it all began. Resist the divide and conquer approaches. Let’s not let inequality and lack of opportunity divide us; let’s unite because when you do, you will lead the way and hold the key to influence change in Scotland’s music scene.

HANG’s daytime programme takes place online from 11am8pm, 31 Jul; HANG’s live evening showcase with performances from Nova, Bemz, India Ros3 and mISTAh bOhzE takes place from 8:15-10pm at SWG3, Glasgow, 31 Jul More info can be found at officialsama.com/hang Sami Omar will feature on the Platforms, Promotion and Pitching panel, online from 3-4pm; Khaleda Noon will feature on the Hip-hop’s Multifaceted Role in Communities panel, online from 5-6pm instagram.com/up2stndrd interculturalyouthscotland.org

July 2021 — Feature

Photo: Khadija Moustafa

TS: What is HANG and what do you hope to achieve?

SO: HANG is the first conference/network building event to highlight the hip-hop and grime scene in Scotland. We hope to break the barriers of the music industry, which is so monopolised, by allowing organisations led by people of colour, people that are on the ground, to really connect with the scene as a whole and have seats at decision-making tables.

KN: It’s a great thing that HANG’s happening; truly bringing together Scotland’s skilled influencers and networks. It’s fantastic that SAMA [Scottish Alternative Music Awards] has the willingness to connect communities; bringing together those who already benefit from a system that’s designed to serve them and those who are furthest away from a culture and art form that belongs to them. It’s important that HANG have included speakers and panellists like myself and Sami, as engagement must be informed by an understanding of how intersectionality affects everyday life. It’s always #FundingSoWhite and that has to change. It’s time to pass the mic.

SO: [On the Platforms, Promotion and Pitching panel] I’ll be speaking about the importance of a platform to bring exposure, and highlighting all the talent that Scotland is brewing at the moment – providing that bridge for content to be well delivered and really appreciated.

KN: [The Hip-hop and its Multifaceted Role in Communities panel] is a great opportunity for me to present Intercultural Youth Scotland’s practice as we consider the intersecting power structures experienced by young, black, POC artists and adapt accordingly with the avoidance of further exclusion and equity as the main goal.

TS: What artists are you the most excited about?

SO: There’s Nova, Bemz, AiiTee, just some of the artists Up2Standard works closely with. India Ros3 representing Dundee… we’re representing Scotland from every corner under one roof.

KN: AiiTee is an absolute star in the making!

Please look out for her, she’s a gifted songwriter, singer and musician. She’s also super gorgeous and extremely kind. And, of course, our girl Nova who supported the beginning of IYS in 2018.

July 2021

THE SKINNY

— 42 —

THE SKINNY

Music Now From Good Dog’s computer game soundtrack to the new Adam Stafford album via Clair’s kaleidoscopic debut, there are some truly magical releases to get excited about this month

J

uly is often one of the quieter times of the year for releases as it’s usually jam-packed with a busy festival calendar, artists more focused on playing live than putting out new tunes in the summer months. But in the absence of festivals, July is perhaps the busiest it’s been in recent years – in Scotland at least.

The second Record Store Day drop arrives on 17 July, with the most notable Scottish release coming from Glasgow-based soundsystem collective and dub connoisseurs Mungo’s Hi Fi, whose tentrack album Antidote they describe as “an antidote to all the stress and restrictions of modern life”.

Record Store Day aside, Scottish-Sudanese musician Eliza Shaddad releases her latest record The Woman You Want on 16 July. Read our full review overleaf. On 9 July, The View’s Kyle Falconer releases his latest solo record, No Love Songs for Laura. Although we’ve not heard it in full yet, his most recent single – the pop-heavy Wait Around is such an earworm – and its accompanying music video definitely has us unexpectedly warming to his charms.

The ever-prolific Adam Stafford returns this month with Trophic Asynchrony, his latest album Photo: Beth Chalmers

— 43 —

Clair

Field recordings of birdsong and rivers can also be found on the beautiful Heart-Shaped Scars (30 Jul, SA Recordings), Dot Allison’s first album in 12 years. Recorded at Castlesound Studios in Edinburgh, four of the album’s tracks feature stunning string arrangements by the exceptionally talented Hannah Peel, but it’s Allison’s captivating, vulnerable and featherlight vocals that are knockout here.

If you’re looking for a heavy dose of chiptune this month then Good Dog, aka Suse Bear, has you covered with their Journey to the End of the Jelly World soundtrack. Set for release on 2 July via OK Pal records, it accompanies a super cute 8-bit RPG game of the same name, created as a collaboration between Bear and Faith Eliott, and made possible thanks to a commission from the Glad Cafe’s Glad: Online project. Evocative of the journey the game might take you on, its twists and turns can be felt in every synth stab, chord change and ethereal shimmer across the record. Closer Congratulations (Thanks for Helping) is particularly jubilant, making you feel like you’ve won at life before you’ve even played the game. Pure joy.

Elsewhere, Glasgow’s wojtek the bear release their latest album, the warming heaven by the backdoor (16 Jul, LNFG); Linzi Clark releases her latest single Balancing Act (2 Jul), featuring more of the gorgeous vocals we’ve come to expect from the Paisley talent; on 9 July, Ayr’s rising star Bemz releases 26, his summer-ready collaboration with Rory James; on 16 July, Goodnight Louisa returns with the super-catchy Get Your Hands Off My Girlfriend, while Katherine Aly unleashes the pulsing and retro-tinged Glow & Ignite.

Finally, citing the likes of Slowdive and Joy Division as influences, Fife four-piece Sunstinger release their glorious and full-sounding Beyond the Frame EP (2 Jul).

July 2021 — Review

Good Dog

on Song, by Toad (9 Jul).

Capable of myriad styles, it’s in the looping, building up and unpicking of instrumentation where Stafford really shines, as well as the unique way he manages to use his voice as an instrument. With its title inspired by “our relationship with nature at a time of intersectional crises” and “non-seasonal events due to climate change”, you can almost see the blizzards in summertime and daffodils at Christmas that he longs to depict here.

For the most part instrumental, across its eight tracks Trophic Asynchrony is cinematic and wholly engrossing, unfolding meticulously like the best stories captured on screen or in ink; fully invested from start to finish, you just want the best for its protagonist. At points dark, sorrowful and tense while others feel light and hopeful as they twinkle, you won’t want to turn away for a minute lest you miss something; a change in atmosphere, a twist of fate.

Glasgow musician and producer Clair also finds inspiration in nature, but on her debut album, Earth Mother, the focus is firmly on its healing power. Set for release on 15 July via her own Hot Gem label, Clair turned to music-making in a much-needed time of catharsis following a difficult period in her life, and, if you let them, listening to the album’s seven tracks could offer the same restorative properties.

Earth Mother is by no means a conventional record, but rather sees Clair bringing together more traditional instrumentation with a collection of unusual found sounds – sex toys, a mini sewing machine, a blow torch and jewellery-making tools all feature alongside an abundance of field recordings – to great effect. Despite the woozy nature of this record, there’s an urgency beneath the surface that helps propel it forward, despite there being no notable beats, rhythms or song structures to cling to. But it’s the buzzing insects, birdsong, wheezy harmonica, cat purrs, the crunching of leaves underfoot, sloshing water and lapping waves that help bring an effervescence to the record as they bob and fizz to the surface like a rejuvenating Berocca in a pint of water the morning after a heavy night.

Music

Words: Tallah Brash

Albums

THE SKINNY

LUMP Animal Partisan/Chrysalis, 30 Jul

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July 2021 — Review

isten to: Bloom At Night, L Animal, Paradise

Darkside Spiral Matador, 23 Jul rrrrr isten to: The Limit, I’m the Echo, L Only Young

It’s a rare privilege to glimpse an artist as if in an alternate universe.

What would they make with a different combination of experiences, influences and collaborators? That’s the sense that LUMP evokes. Uniting folk singer-songwriter Laura Marling and producer Mike Lindsay of Tunng, it’s a mad marrying of worlds, a creation that sounds nothing like the sum of its parts.

The pair return with Animal, a second record that is wild and visceral as the name suggests.

Described as “half cute, half dark and creepy”, the record is a living, breathing paradox, sitting somewhere between robotic and deeply human.

Recorded at Lindsay’s home studio, Animal’s soundscape was built around an Eventide H949 Harmonizer, the same pitch-shifter that defined Bowie’s Low. By her own admission, LUMP for Marling is an irresistible escape, “a repository” for ideas that fit nowhere else. Stripped of the poise and narrative of her solo repertoire, Animal’s lyrics flicker easily between playful, grotesque and devastating.

From the bombastic earworm title track to the pulsating requiem that is Paradise, to the twisted pop spectacle We Cannot Resist, Animal is utterly intoxicating.

[Katie Cutforth] Nicolás Jaar refers to Darkside as a “third being” which manifests in the room when the Chilean-American experimental producer hooks up with Dave Harrington to jam. It would take some kind of metaphysical summoning power to execute the unfathomable fusion of Jaar’s gurgling, shimmering electronics and Harrington’s freeform, pretty playing into proggy, funky rock music, as occurred on the duo’s 2013 album Psychic.

That was a record armed to the teeth with the element of surprise.

Spiral is a more settled affair. Jaar and Harrington lean into rhythm and repetition more here, not willing to pull out the same number of jump scares just for the sake of it. It’s a masterclass in the art of precision and withholding – Inside Is Out There is eight-and-a-half minutes of build before a six-and-a-half minute closer which has plenty of build itself. So when they do flip the switch, the album explodes. Harrington’s Knopfler-esque tone could be described as dependable, but here he takes the starring role. The piercing solo capping off Only Young is blockbuster.

Compared to Jaar’s pair of 2020 albums this all seems so conventional. But even that is thrilling when done this well. [Tony Inglis]

Emma-Jean Thackray Yellow Movementt, 2 Jul

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Listen to: Say Something, Venus

Eliza Shaddad The Woman You Want Rosemundy Records/ Wow and Flutter, 16 Jul rrrrr isten to: Fine & Peachy, Waiting L Game, Now You’re Alone

— 44 —

Emma-Jean Thackray is a woman on a mission. The diverse UK jazz composer, producer, performer and DJ refuses to be confined to one creative box and recently signed to Warner Chappell, who described Thackray as a “prodigy” in the jazz scene. Her 2020 standout single Movementt may not feature on her debut full-length, but its dancefloorangled take on jazz provides the perfect gateway to the spiritual depths that Yellow swims in with love and curiosity.

At Yellow’s core is a celebration of human experience. ‘Brighter days are coming’ is the mantra on Sun that resonates with our joint necessity for togetherness given the pandemic, while the spoken-word passage of listening, knowing and loving cuts through with candour in album opener Mercury.

Among its transcendental messages though lies the album’s core qualities: its musical compositions. Brass and strings, choral segments and ecstatic chants meld together joyously with elements of 70s jazz fusion, psychedelia, P-Funk and Alice Coltrane-esque spirituality.

Yellow brims with kindness and connection through its musical messages, reminding us refreshingly of what it is to be a human among humans. [Jamie Wilde] For someone who can list ‘multi-linguist’, ‘philosophy degree’, and ‘female-led arts collective founder’ on their CV, it’s surprising to hear that Eliza Shaddad is still wrestling with the idea of being a better human. But latest release The Woman You Want is the product of a year’s work of reflection for the Sudanese-Scottish artist, now based in the warmer climes of Cornwall.

Like lead single Blossom’s botanical nod, the record has gnarly roots that dig into thoughts of fatigue, identity, and insecurity. The recent grief of losing her grandmother permeates In the Morning (Grandmother Song) as she pushes against the protocols, dryly admitting to losing her affection for flowers.

The tenderness continues in Now You’re Alone, a bold penultimate track channeling Natasha Khan’s command for a spacious and roving orchestral line.

But it’s Fine & Peachy where we find Shaddad back in her indie bedrock with a sucker punch opener, as if snatched from nineties-era Juliana Hatfield herself, as she scathingly jibes: ‘Fuck you, just tell me what you want me to say / Instead of screwing with my head for days’.

Refreshing real-talk and righteous songwriting, The Woman You Want is all the better for it. [Cheri Amour]

THE SKINNY

Foodman Yasuragi Land Hyperdub, 9 Jul rrrrr isten to: Hoshikuzu Tenboudai, L Numachi, Gallery Cafe

After years honing his trademark glitched-out warpings of the rhythms of footwork, rather than jabbing as his older work was wont to do, there’s a softer more enveloping glow to the arrangements on Yasuragi Land, Foodman’s bow on Hyperdub.

Hoshikuzu Tenboudai, with its chaotic marimba lines and bursts of samples mangled beyond any recognition, should be all knees and elbows but somehow comes together into something oddly sleek and welcoming.

Yasuragi similarly manages to ping all over the place, but the sense of playful hodgepodge in the various tones mean it’s always inviting rather than jolting.

Across the record there’s enough experimentation with form to fend off any sense of repetition. Numachi’s sinister, almost seasick lurch works to remarkable effect, and when samples are allowed to run they’re spectacular.

That said, it’s one of these stylistic diversions that is perhaps the album’s weakest moment, Ari Ari’s more familiar house rhythm seeming a touch inert compared to the freeform beauty of the rest of the record.

Other than that, Yasuragi Land is an assured debut, aware of its own strengths, allowing intricate programming and arrangement to never feel forced and managing that trickiest task of evoking nostalgia without slipping into being cloying. [Joe Creely]

isten to: Fortress, Swimmer, L Party’s Over

Wavves Hideaway Fat Possum Records, 16 Jul rrrrr isten to: Help is on the Way, Thru L Hell, Hideaway

— 45 —

As the saying goes, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. On their seventh studio album, Nathan Williams and the Wavves gang certainly aren’t looking to complicate things. In fact, Hideaway ultimately goes back to basics in many ways, with Williams recording it in a shed in the backyard of his parental home, and releasing on Fat Possum Records, the home of a couple of the band’s early releases.

As such, their much-loved SoCal surf/indie-punk rock sound serves more like the record’s breadand-butter than the building blocks for anything more overly adventurous. Sure, it’s a tried and tested approach, but nothing feels uninteresting nor unimaginative as a result.

The backyard-borne, rough‘n’ready, raw production is front and centre throughout, with Thru Hell and the title track notably testing the limits of Williams’ unpolished vocals. The resulting ‘punkness’ of the album is thus particularly significant and tastes like a bitter twist of lemon to the clean, crisp Beach Boys inspiration found across its nine melodically sweet singalong choruses. Wavves are no stranger to this smooth-to-rugged combination, and on Hideaway, the mix feels like a familiar cocktail recipe that mostly hits all the right notes. [Dylan Tuck]

July 2021 — Review

isten to: Church Girl, Pink Noise, L Got Me

Half Waif Mythopoetics ANTI-, 9 Jul rrrrr

Mythopoetics recognises the inevitability of the “pandemic record” tag and leans into it. Hard. The first line sets out the stall for the emotional exploration and topical ennui that are to follow: ‘Have I forgotten how to be alone? / I blame you’.

Despite the increased studio tinkering, the arrangements here are mostly sparser than previous albums, foregrounding Nandi Rose Plunkett’s undulating vocals with martial, almost industrial percussion or cascading piano balladry. Swimmer and Midnight Asks are most reminiscent of typical synth-pop fare, but it’s the skittery electro experimentation of Fortress and the cut-up samples of Party’s Over that really elevate the material.

The lyricism is another big draw here, with big, capital-F Feelings on full display. Themes of loneliness, confidence, and dealing with death/trauma abound and work best when simply presented. Horse Racing runs a heavy-handed metaphor into the ground and it would take some sort of musical demigod to pull off a line about tasting ‘loneliness in the crust of every loaf’ on a song called Sourdough.

But overall there’s a great deal to love on this album, whether you’re hiding from the world or belting out some catharsis at your next (sociallydistanced) garden party. [Lewis Wade]

Albums

Laura Mvula Pink Noise Atlantic Records, 2 Jul rrrrr

Pink Noise sees Laura Mvula return with her first new music in five years and, on it, she’s gone full 80s. The album is Mvula’s first release on Atlantic Records and her first since being dropped by her previous label, Sony, via an extremely impersonal email in 2017. With this in mind, Pink Noise could well be described as a redemption record and Mvula spares few punches.

Church Girl is about as Whitney a single can come without being an actual Whitney single, with its synth patterns more than a little reminiscent of I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me). Simon Neil of Biffy Clyro makes a bizarre and unexpected cameo on the album’s one outright ballad, What Matters. Mvula’s unique vocal range is the album’s shining star, though, and her voice soars over tracks like Safe Passage, Pink Noise and Got Me. Pink Noise is a John Hughes soundtrack just waiting for its film to be written and it’s a bold return from an artist with a point to prove.

Describing it as the album she’s always wanted to make, it’s no wonder Mvula sounds so comfortable. [Nadia Younes]

THE SKINNY

Film Another Round Director: Thomas Vinterberg

Starring: Mads Mikkelsen

Film

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Simply existing as an adult in the modern world is an emotional, psychological and logistical ordeal.

Relationships must be maintained, homes cleaned, meals prepared and the grind of work endlessly pursued.

When Martin (Mikkelsen) and his three friends – all teachers – find themselves in this existential lethargy, they embark on a quasi-scientific experiment: exorcising their middle-aged malaise through a sustained blood alcohol content of 0.05%.

This provocative premise could so easily slip into machismo or moralisation, but Another Round is too sympathetic a film for such recourses, fuelled not by sensationalist voyeurism

Another Round

Jumbo Director: Zoé Wittock

Starring: Noémie Merlant July 2021 — Review

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When Jumbo is inevitably brought up in conversation, it is likely to receive a few awkward laughs, a few scrunched noses, and perhaps even a few sounds of mistaken disgust.

The film follows Jeanne (Merlant) as she spends her summer working at a theme park where she falls in love with its newest attraction. It would be easy to – consciously or unconsciously – place a seedy lens upon this girl, portraying her as some kind of sexual aberration. But first-time feature director Zoé Wittock refuses this, opting instead for a tender look at love, desire and understanding.

It’s Wittock’s attention to Jeanne’s love for the eponymous carnival ride, and Jumbo’s subsequent response, that makes the film so deeply sensory and palpable.

but a curiosity for the ways in which joy can be recognised and embraced.

Writer-director Thomas Vinterberg’s approach is markedly intimate, the affection between the men afforded rare depth through an emotionally astute script and performances made all the more dynamic for their understated, worn-in presence. It is an incisive psychological portrait that plays beautifully alongside the heady sensuality of their unconventional self-care: the crisp crackle of a vodka bottle’s seal breaking, the velvety glug of blood-red wine in a fine-spun glass.

There are no ironic digs at mid-life crises in Another Round, only compassion and warm moments of humour. Through this perfectly balanced tone, Vinterberg lays the groundwork for an evocative study of everyday life: a little mundane, a little devastating, and with infinite potential for beauty. [Anahit Behrooz] Released 2 Jul by StudioCanal; certificate 12A

Limbo Director: Ben Sharrock

Starring: Amir El-Masry, Vikash Bhai

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Limbo explores the experience of refugees living in Scotland, but leave any preconceptions you might have at the door. Director Ben Sharrock avoids the usual miserablism associated with cinema of these shores, mining instead a more drolly comic register as he follows the lives of several migrants waiting indefinitely for their asylum claims to be processed on an unnamed island.

Their new home’s dour weather and even dourer inhabitants suggest purgatory as much as limbo, with lonely phone boxes, deserted playgrounds and eerily-lit bus stops the only shelter from frosty winds.

Forbidden from working and given barely enough to live on, the refugees – all “low priority” single men – kill time watching Friends boxsets between

Jumbo

Multicoloured lights across faces, the rush of wind upon a theme park ride – it’s there to be felt and to be felt fully, by audiences as much as Jeanne herself. But Jumbo isn’t overly fantastical either: Jeanne’s touching yet fraught relationship with her mother, Margarette (Emmanuelle Bercot), feels truly authentic, although perhaps overly predictable.

But, ultimately, the complexities of the situation are not forgotten and Margarette’s character is never sacrificed for narrative ease.

And yet, for a film so wrapped up in feeling, Jumbo certainly has high stakes driving its narrative. It raises big questions about our relationships with objects, all while strapping us in for a fun ride. By the end, Jumbo has successfully pulled at some cliched romantic heartstrings, a feat that only adds to the film’s peculiar joy. [Eilidh Akilade] Released 9 Jul by Anti-Worlds; certificate 15

Limbo

The Sparks Brothers Director: Edgar Wright

Starring: Ron Mael, Russell Mael

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Sparks are a band best known for their operatic glam rock earworms of the mid-70s, but whose storied career has seen brothers Ron and Russell Mael withstand shifting cultural forces to varying degrees of critical and commercial success. In his exhaustive documentary, Edgar Wright seeks to examine the duo’s staying power, influence and undimmed creative instincts, yet ultimately succumbs to the enormity of this task. In presenting a linear history of the group, The Sparks Brothers amounts to little more than a screen adaptation of their Wikipedia page.

Perhaps Wright was just too much of a fan to make the brutal edits needed to create a satisfying narrative structure, or to hold his

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attending patronising cultural awareness classes that leave them feeling even more adrift.

Limbo is at its most poignant when focused on Omar (El-Masry), a celebrated Syrian musician who’s carrying a lot of baggage. We’re not just talking about his instrument of choice, the oud, which is a constant by his side even though he doesn’t have the spirit to play it. So much of the film plays out on his handsome, hangdog face, with Sharrock prone to gently turning his usually static camera off into space when the pathos gets too much to bear.

Sharrock’s visual sensibility recalls the fastidious fairy tales of Aki Kaurismäki as well as the more symbolic, spiritual filmmaking of Iran.

Flecks of hope break through the darkness, as do absurdist sight gags, but that doesn’t dampen Limbo’s emotional power or political substance.

[Jamie Dunn] Released 30 Jul by MUBI; certificate 12A

The Sparks Brothers

subjects up to anything approaching scrutiny. Over 80 talking heads are at pains to stress Sparks’ genius but can only muster bland cliches about staying true to oneself. It’s surprising that a work as detailed as this – each of Sparks’ 25 albums are covered, even the rightfully neglected duds – should be so lacking in curiosity.

Where the movie shines is in its extensive use of archive footage, the Maels’ charisma and eccentricity standing out against the showbiz world in which they’ve gained an unlikely foothold. If you’re a fan of the group, this is your chance to watch some of your favourite YouTube clips on the big screen, while newcomers will feel like they’ve stumbled on a goldmine. Ultimately Sparks’ work speaks for itself and proves far more articulate than those attempting to tell the band’s story.

[Lewis Porteous] Released 30 Jul by Universal; certificate 15

THE SKINNY

Coming to a Head Activists working in hospitality, craft brewing and union organising give their thoughts on beer’s sexual harassment problem, and how to tackle it Words: Briony Pickford Illustrations: Connie Noble

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“There needs to be awareness from the wider community that this still happens and it happens all the time” Charlotte Cook, Coalition Brewery

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Caitlin Lee, Chair of Unite Hospitality in Glasgow, says: “I think the culture of misogyny and sexism and lack of respect for the industry are things that create a really toxic, unsafe environment for workers. Customers often ask ‘what else do you do, or are you just a waitress?’ If you don’t respect someone’s job then you’re not going to respect someone’s safety.”

Lee is a strong advocate for Real Living Wage, paid transport home and proactive sexual harassment policies, and these all likely form part of the solution to the sexual harassment epidemic, but Lee also suggests that regulation could help change the environment.

“In hospitality, there is no actual body to hold hospitality venues accountable for a lot of situations,” Lee explains. “Scottish alcohol licensing is so rigorous [but] if you look at the licensing it’s all about customers. I think [sexual harassment] should fall within the licensing of the place. If your workers are not safe and they are not treated correctly, then you are not fit to run as a business, therefore your license is revoked.”

If you are a hospitality worker facing harassment at work, contact a trade union – Unite, UVW and IWW are all vocal supporters of hospitality staff – and speak out if you can. As Charlotte Cook puts it: “There needs to be awareness from the wider community that this still happens and it happens all the time.” The key is to keep talking, and keep trying.

July 2021 — Review

he craft beer industry has recently been the focus of a #MeToo resurgence with many stories of sexual assault, sexism and gender-based violence being shared on social media. Women and LGBTQ+ people working in hospitality have been spat and shouted at; flashed or physically and sexually assaulted on shift; and threatened with rape if they walk home alone.

A recent survey conducted by Women On Tap, who campaign for beer equality, showed that 73% of women have experienced sexual harassment while working in a pub/bar while 75% of people said that the harasser was almost always male. Yet the culprits are not only customers but colleagues and managers, and claims have been levelled against many craft brewery workers in Scotland.

Charlotte Cook is now Head Brewer at Coalition Brewery in south London, but she started her career as an assistant brewer at BrewDog aged 22, and the only female member of her team. Cook is now a signatory on the recently published open letter to BrewDog which alleged a working environment rife with inequality, bullying and unsafe working conditions, and has been signed by 300 ex-employees of the Scottish craft beer behemoth.

Back in 2013, the comment “Have her drink it naked” was left alongside a picture of Charlotte on BrewDog’s Facebook page, so she asked for it to be removed. Brewdog’s HR and social media teams both refused. Eight years later, and only following a recent BBC Woman’s Hour interview where Cook retold the story on-air, the comment has finally been taken down.

In the grand scheme of things, Cook does not consider this matter a huge issue but identifies it as evidence that the culture of misogyny she knew well is still embedded within BrewDog. “People need to take it with the gravity that it actually deserves rather than just saying ‘this is how it is’.

We also need more education on how to deal with [sexual harassment], how to de-escalate a situation and how to support someone who has been a victim of it.”

The open letter to BrewDog was inspired by the work of Siobhan Buchanan, a brewery worker and beer writer who has been publishing anonymised stories of sexism and sexual assault in the hospitality industry to her Instagram stories.

According to Buchanan, many sites claim that they are too small to have adequate HR departments or policies to deal with these sorts of claims, which explains why they are not reported and dealt with, but Buchanan suggests that attitude is as much of an issue as resources.

“I think a lot of breweries and small businesses, craft beer bars etc, don’t have to do it so they don’t,” Buchanan says. “They think, ‘we don’t have to bring in someone to do diversity and equality training because we know we’re all progressive feminists.’ But in actual fact, just because you think you are progressive and a good person doesn’t mean you’re not going to miss instances [of sexual harassment] when they happen.”

Buchanan’s own experience was refuted by a female colleague when she reported it and this is something that she has found to not be uncommon. She says: “I think that we not only have to raise awareness of the actions of predatory men and how uncomfortable they can make us feel. We have to raise the issue that there is so much internalised misogyny in women that they just let this behaviour slide and then men think it’s okay to behave like this because they are not getting shut down.”

More evidence of the difficulties faced by women in beer comes from the hospitality branch of trade union Unite. Their recent survey of hospitality staff found that 88% of those surveyed feel that their employer does not have sufficient training/protection to prevent or mitigate genderbased violence or harassment.

Food & Drink

Content warning: this article includes discussions of sexual harassment and assault

THE SKINNY

Daytrippers!

July 2021 — Feature

Local Heroes

Local Heroes curator Stacey Hunter introduces their latest design project – a collaboration with V&A Dundee that celebrates ‘the year of the daytripper’ with limited edition souvenirs and a bespoke mobile exhibition at V&A Dundee’s plaza

Photo: Gabriela Silveira

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THE SKINNY

Photo: Gabriela Silveira

Local Heroes

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July 2021 — Feature

his summer we are back with a very special project that celebrates contemporary Scottish design. Eight designers in total have participated in Daytrippers – a collaboration between V&A Dundee and Local Heroes aimed at supporting designers by commissioning collectable, limited edition souvenirs.

Identifying 2021 as ‘the year of the daytripper’, I invited emerging designers who embody Scotland’s dynamic design scene to create products that can help to make your window boxes into a mini-paradise for local wildlife; or are perfect for a trip to the beach and a picnic in the park.

Furniture designer Aymeric Renoud of Draff has worked with designer Martin Baillie to design two roaming exhibition bikes where you can purchase your souvenirs from friendly and wellversed V&A Dundee staff. Renoud and Baillie have adapted two iconic and award-winning Christiania cargo bikes from Copenhagen which will display billowing beach towels and bespoke boxes of wildflower seeds. These will be unveiled on 8 July when Daytrippers opens to the public and the bikes will be traversing the V&A Dundee plaza until the end of September.

Kate Scarlet Harvey, Lauren Morsley and Katie Smith have each designed a bold and beautiful beach towel that will add a distinctive edge to your beach or poolside presence. Made from 100% cotton terry they are jacquard woven, meaning you can enjoy the reverse of your towel just as much as the front. Titled Whizzing About, Daydreamers and The Swimmers, each design brings to mind hot summer days, conviviality and the heady scents of suntan lotion, the seaside and summer blooms.

Fiona Moon, Klara Sormark and Shweta Mistry have designed wildflower seed boxes featuring native flowers that support local wildlife.

These bespoke seed mixes have been specially created for Daytrippers by Scotia Seeds who grow native flowers at their farm in nearby Angus.

Each is aimed at attracting either Scotland’s tiniest butterflies species; bees or nocturnal pollinators like moths so as well as supporting designers you’re also supporting local wildlife with every purchase.

“The plaza surrounding V&A Dundee is one of the city’s newest riverside spaces and we’ve been working in partnership with creatives to envision interesting ways of offering design-led experiences to visitors,” says Christian Moire, Director of Operations, V&A Dundee. “Local Heroes have created a fun, welcoming and beautiful way for people to encounter design in a playful manner that supports our vibrant design community and continues to establish the waterfront as a vital civic space to gather, linger and enjoy.”

During lockdown citizens brought their own new ways of using the plaza space to the attention of V&A Dundee. Reflecting our changed relationship with outdoor spaces, it quickly transformed into an activity space for skateboarders, rollerbladers and families on their daily walk – becoming a valued addition to the city centre’s public space provision. Since June, Heather Street Food trucks have been serving bagels, ice creams, draft beer and Prosecco from beautifully designed vintage vehicles, turning the plaza into a chic waterfront hotspot. Meanwhile the addition of an — 49 —

urban beach (coming soon) and a cycling hub that offers bike hire on a central part of the National Cycle Network all combine to make Dundee’s waterfront a must-see for all kinds of visitors from daytrippers to those making the city their base to explore the wider area.

You can find out more about the designers and purchase your own collectable souvenir online at vam.ac.uk/dundee Don’t miss the August issue to see and read about the project in more detail

THE SKINNY

Books

Book Reviews

The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic

Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead

Smithers & Wing

We Need to Talk About Money

By Heather Palmer, illustrated

by Kirsty Hunter

By Jessica Hopper

By Emily Austin

By Otegha Uwagba

Originally published in 2015, The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic was an unrivalled masterclass in music journalism. The anthology documents Jessica Hopper’s two-decade career from self-started fanzines fuelled by righteous anger to becoming a heavyweight influence at major publications, pushing the envelope of what music writing could be without sacrificing a shred of integrity.

Through career-defining profiles of some of the world’s most prolific artists (Kendrick Lamar, Björk), deeply personal storytelling and dogged interrogation (including seminal essay Emo: Where the Girls Aren’t), Hopper observes and defines music culture through a resolutely feminist lens. Her writing is revelatory, unfaltering and underpinned by an expanse of crossgenre understanding. That’s what makes it believable – only can someone of the culture critique it in the way Hopper does, her ‘inextricable soul entanglement with music’ embedded and evident in every beat.

This revised and expanded edition adds several new dimensions.

With a foreword by bestselling author and blogger Samantha Irby, the addition of more recent works and a carefully curated reordering, The First Collection... enters the turbulence of 2021 as furiously edifying as ever. It ends on a breathtaking afterword that proves, while this might not actually be the first collection of its type, for a generation of punks and radicals – especially those of marginalised genders fighting for their place in the world – it remains the most essential.

[Kristy Diaz]

Gilda is having a very bad day when Emily Austin’s Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead opens. So anxious is she that she’d rather drive herself to A&E in her broken-down car than ask for help, for fear she might offend or inconvenience strangers going about their day. She is also constantly consumed by intrusive thoughts of how she might die, often lost in deep macabre thinking, and missing out on the world around her.

After her car accident, Gilda tries to set her path right by attending a free therapy session, but when a priest mistakes her for someone interviewing to replace the church receptionist, she winds up landing the job. What follows is a heartfelt and comedic story of an atheist lesbian trying to exist in a world destined to end, guided by an innate warmth and kindness that she is oblivious to, simply wanting everyone around her to be happy even if she doesn’t afford herself that very happiness.

What makes Austin’s novel stand out is the authenticity and care she employs when depicting Gilda’s struggles. As funny as the novel is, it’s equally dark and intensely harrowing. This debut is profound for its honest portrayal of mental health in a chaotic modern world, giving space for humour and tenderness while reckoning with the absurdity of the human condition. [Andrés Ordorica]

Flora Smithers and August Wing are partners in life, and in supernatural crime solving. The former is a magician ousted from the old guard, the latter a detective striking out on her own; together, they’re battling those that haunt the streets of Edinburgh.

Compact in size yet sprawling in scope, Heather Palmer and Kirsty Hunter follow the story of missing student Catriona Hewitt under mysterious, potentially supernatural circumstances. All the while, they artfully lay the groundwork of a magical realm and thread in the wives’ own complicated and dramatic pasts across times and worlds, and how they’ve come to this moment.

They blend genres from crime and supernatural, to shades of explosive action, all while subverting the easy trap tropes that can often diminish such stories.

Hunter’s artwork is exquisite, from the details to the colour and the sheer tone set, each atmospheric and enthralling whether a haunting green lull in a corridor to a fiery fight that sees glass shattered. Palmer’s writing is action-packed but authentic, building layers around the core story that make it feel all the richer – pacy, but never rushed.

First in the series, it is a slim volume of a graphic novel, but pulls no punches in launching the duo – bold and brilliant. Combining the dual talents of Palmer and Hunter is a masterstroke; Smithers and Wing aren’t the only formidable pair in town. [Heather McDaid]

Money plays a dominant role in most people’s lives, yet it’s rarely deemed a subject to be freely talked about.

Personal finances are often kept private, or alluded to in vague, bashful asides. In her new book We Need to Talk About Money, Otegha Uwagba smashes that social taboo with a candid account of her life, told through the lens of her own relationship to money.

From her earliest concepts of finances growing up to entering (and exiting) the workplace, Uwagba is astonishingly frank about how she has handled everything from navigating Oxford’s social hierarchy to sexist workplaces and the struggle towards home ownership in the wake of both recession and the COVID-19 pandemic. The book isn’t only a critical selfreflection on her own relationship to money, it’s also an examination of the culture that has defined our relationship to it. Discussing issues as diverse as workplace sexism, racism, unpaid labour and the cost of beauty, Uwagba deftly interrogates the societal constructs and complexities of finance.

When these essay-based segments feel less grounded in Uwagba’s own experience, they can begin to feel slightly disjointed.

Nonetheless, by mostly rooting this commentary in scenes from her own life, Uwagba ensures that We Need to Talk About Money is a relatable, recognisable and brave step towards dismantling the barriers surrounding this often tense subject. [Eugenie Johnson]

MCD X FSG Originals, 6 Jul, £12.75

Atlantic Books, 8 Jul, £14.99

Independent Publishing Network, 30 Jun, £12

Fourth Estate, 8 Jul, £14.99

fsgoriginals.com

atlantic-books.co.uk

etsy.com/uk/shop/KininchPublicLibrary

harpercollins.co.uk

July 2021 – Review

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THE SKINNY

ICYMI Comedian Jen Ives takes on comedy sacred cow Father Ted and its problematic creator

Comedy

I

“As we continue to realise that more and more of our favourite artists are actually flipping jerks, we continue to debate whether or not an artist’s work can be separated from their cack personality” can’t help suspect that the person who wrote it hates you. You can’t help but wonder if he maybe hated you as they filmed it.

Or if he’s thinking about how much he maybe hates you right now. Or if, even back then, he took breaks between typing scenes to sit back in his chair, light a cigarette and think “wow, I sure do maybe hate transgender people. Especially Jen Ives, who’s going to write a weird, off-piste article about me in 26 years time.”

But most people don’t struggle with that inner conflict.

Most people get a warm, fuzzy, nostalgic feeling inside their tummy when they remember “I hear you’re a racist now, Father?” Most people enjoy the endless reruns of his work. I don’t think they associate him as directly with his output as the trans community does – but I’ve recently had both Motherland AND Paddington ruined for me by learning of his involvement (and now, hopefully, I’ve ruined them for you too).

Overall, what I managed to stay awake for while watching Father Ted was fine. It’s a daft sitcom about some daft priests written by a daft man – that a lot of people still like. Linehan has certainly done better work in the years following it, such as his seminal sitcom Mrs. Brown’s Boys, which I wish he would make more of. * I’ve just discovered that the Dr. Oetker’s family had links with the Nazis, so that’s pizza ruined for me as well.

Jen Ives will be performing previews of her stand up comedy hour PEAK TRANS throughout the duration of the Camden Fringe in August – at 2NorthDown jenives.net twitter.com/jenivescomedian

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July 2021 – Review

t’s difficult to enjoy anything as a trans woman these days – it seems as if every other week a new national treasure is coming out publicly to denounce pernicious gender ideology.

I wouldn’t be surprised if eventually I won’t even be allowed to enjoy my favourite frozen pizza because Dr. Oetker has published an open letter about The Transgender Issue.* As we continue to realise that more and more of our favourite artists are actually flipping jerks, we continue to debate whether or not an artist’s work can be separated from their cack personality. Luckily though, Graham Linehan is a comedy writer and all-round really, really great guy whose postings on trans identity got him kicked off Twitter – so up until now, it’s been pretty easy for me to ignore him.

I’ve never really been a fan of his work (and I’m 100% not just saying that out of spite). I’ve seen some of The IT Crowd and it wasn’t really for me (I’m too hot for office work and simply couldn’t relate, sorry). I’m aware that he’s contributed to, and appeared in, some of my favourite programmes over the years (Brass Eye / Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace / I’m Alan Partridge) but I managed to get around his curse by only watching those shows through a series of tilted mirrors.

But up until now, I’ve somehow managed to avoid Father Ted. I’m aware of its legacy. People quote it, and talk about it on ‘Top 100 Greatest Shows Of The 90s’. I’ve seen out of context gifs of it, and I remember that advert where the tea lady (biologically born) says “oh, go on, go on, go on…” to sell insurance or something. But the truth is, you can only hide from a cultural phenomenon for so long. People love it, and people (generally) know what they’re talking about. I’m people – I might love it too?

Surely, just because I’m a trans woman that shouldn’t exclude me from enjoying a piece of classic, widely adored situational comedy? This would be the ultimate test of my maturity. A true experiment in objectivity. I booted up Channel 4’s badly coded video streaming service, and waited for Series 1, Episode 1, Good Luck, Father Ted to start.

Full transparency – I fell asleep. Pretty soon into it, to be honest. Somewhere between Father Jack smashing a TV and Father Ted restraining him against his will into a wheelchair.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to say it was boring or bad (because no doubt his fans will already be coming for me). It was harmless enough. I’m just really tired at the moment, because I’m not sleeping. I’m either worrying about the state of transgender protections, or I’m up most nights until about 4am arguing in the comments of my YouTube videos against people calling me a “man” or a “risk to children”. It’s a lot to take on sometimes, and I’m tired, okay? I don’t have time for old sitcoms.

The truth is, it is difficult to enjoy a light-hearted Irish comedy about a group of displaced catholic priests when you

THE SKINNY

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

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

Art

FRANCE-LISE MCGURN: ALOUD

Glasgow Art

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

CCA: Centre for Contemporary Art TOMOKO KONOIKE: STORIES STITCHED AND SEWN

Patricia Fleming

Collected by Japanese artist Tomoko Konoike from Akita Prefecture, Setouchi, Tasmania and Finland, this series of embroidered placemats are rooted in their makers’ stories, exploring how the personal can be communicated collectively.

1-30 JUL, 11:00AM – 4:00PM, FREE

1-24 JUL, TIMES VARY, FREE

David Dale Gallery and Studios

DAN WALWIN: LIKE CLOCK

1-17 JUL, 12:00PM – 6:00PM, TBC

Amsterdam artist David Walwin explores embodiment, subjectivity and the relationship between the internal and external in this arresting new show.

GoMA

NEP SIDHU: AN IMMEASURABLE MELODY, MEDICINE FOR A NIGHTMARE

1 JUL-5 SEP, 11:00AM – 4:00PM, FREE

TAKO TAAL: HALO NEVUS

Halo Nevus is a beautifully urgent film whose protagonist is the artist’s birthmark, a striking metaphor that draws from Gambian folklore to explore yearning for home and the shifting tides of civic rupture.

RGI Kelly Gallery

MEGAN SQUIRE, CHARLOTTE ROBERTS & CHARLOTTE HAYES: TALES FROM THE BARROW 1-10 JUL, 10:00AM5:00PM, FREE

Tales from the Barrow spotlights work by the three recent GSA graduates who received this year’s prestigious Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts Graduate Prize, bringing together photography, painting, and mixed media work.

JUNE CAREY: THE ROB ROY DRAWINGS

Canadian artist Nep Sidhu’s work is embedded in Sikh metaphysics and histories, exploring relationships between memory, memorial and the divine in his very first European show.

24 JUL-14 AUG, TIMES VARY, FREE

1 JUL-23 JAN 22, 11:00AM – 4:00PM, FREE

Studio Pavilion at House for an Art Lover

DRINK IN THE BEAUTY

July 2021 — Listings

1 JUL-1 JUN 22, 11:00AM – 4:00PM, FREE

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

An exhibition of original pastel drawings by artist June Carey to accompany the new Folio Society edition of Sir Walter Scott’s classic Rob Roy.

IRENE MCCANN: EARLY MORNING SONG

DATES TBC, 11:00AM – 4:00PM, FREE

An exhibition of Glasgowbased artist Irene McCann’s dreamy, collage-like still lifes.

The Briggait Kelvingrove JAMES LUMSDEN: Art Gallery and SHIFT 7 JUL-16 AUG, TIMES Museum CAROL RHODES: SEE THE WORLD 1-4 JUL, 11:00AM – 4:00PM, FREE

This first posthumous solo exhibition of Glasgowbased artist Carol Rhodes focuses on Rhodes’ rarely exhibited drawings exploring topographic blind spots, peripheries, and ‘non-places’.

VARY, FREE

James Lumsden’s work is primarily concerned with the material process of creation, building translucent glazes of paint to evoke a mesmerising illusion of light and depth.

Tramway

SAMMY BALOJI AND BODYS ISEK KINGELEZ

1-25 JUL, TIMES VARY, FREE

Bringing together two artists from the Democratic Republic of Congo, this exhibition is a melding of past and future, considering the legacy of colonialism in futurist urban environments.

Edinburgh Art &Gallery

ELFYN LEWIS: MÔR A MYNYDD 3 JUL-4 AUG, TIMES VARY, FREE

Translating to Sea and Mountains, Môr a Mynydd is an evocation of Elfyn Lewis’ native Welsh landscape. Made up of explosive layers and jagged shapes, her paintings bring a rare physicality to the traditional genre.

Arusha Gallery MORWENNA MORRISON: FIXING EYES WITH THE UNSEEN

1-25 JUL, TIMES VARY, FREE

Traditional paintings are turned on their head in this subversive, playful show, melding art history with contemporary iconography to explore our complex relationship to individual and collective past.

City Art Centre CHARLES H. MACKIE: COLOUR AND LIGHT

1 JUL-10 OCT, 10:00AM - 5:00PM, FREE

This major retrospective of Scottish painter and printmaker Charles H. Mackie brings together over 50 artworks, exploring his dynamic experimentation with French Symbolism, Japanese art, and the Celtic Revival movement.

DONALD SMITH: ISLANDER

1 JUL-26 SEP, 10:00AM - 5:00PM, FREE

Donald Smith’s paintings drew on large artistic movements across American and Europe, while remaining dedicated to exploring Lewis’ local fishing communities, his intense, lyrical images celebrating the indomitable human spirit of Scottish island life.

IAN HAMILTON FINLAY: MARINE

1 JUL-3 OCT, 10:00AM - 5:00PM, FREE

Exploring maritime themes in internationally renowned Scottish artist Ian Hamilton Finlay’s oeuvre, this exhibition pulls work across decades and media, from stone, wood and neon sculptures to tapestry and postcards.

Collective Gallery

CHRISTIAN NEWBY: BOREDOM >MISCHIEF>FANTASY >RADICALISM >FANTASY

1 JUL-29 AUG, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

Featuring a brand new tapestry commission responding to the gallery’s unique astronomical history, this exhibition by Christian Newby explores how textile making straddles both art and craft, interrogating ideas of labour and materiality.

BECKY ŠIK: MERCURY 1-11 JUL, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

An immersive installation that brings together experimental film, sculpture, and photography, this hypnotic work explores the intangible and ethereal, the parts of the world that lie beyond human perception and comprehension.

Dovecot Studios

ARCHIE BRENNAN: TAPESTRY GOES POP!

1 JUL-30 AUG, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, £8.50 £9.50

Centring on pop artist, weaver, and former Mr Scotland Archie Brennan, this exhibition shines a light on one of Scotland’s most neglected contemporary artists, bringing decades of vibrant tapestry to the fore.

JOCK MCFADYEN: LOST BOAT PARTY

1 JUL-25 SEP, TIMES VARY, FREE

Embassy Gallery

WELCOME TO BABEWORLD

9 JUL-8 AUG, 12:00PM – 6:00PM, FREE

An unabashedly pink, unabashedly garish exhibition, Welcome to Babeworld is a collaborative effort led by artist Ashleigh Williams that explores the precarity of sex work, and the dystopian realities that may already exist.

Ingleby Gallery JONATHAN OWEN

1-17 JUL, 11:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

Jonathan Owen’s sculpting take pre-existing classical busts and statues and subverts them to radical, striking ends, carving away and adding new marble to examine ideas of destruction and recreation.

FRANK WALTER (19262009): MUSIC OF THE SPHERES 29 JUL-25 SEP, 11:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

Overlooked during his lifetime but now considered one of the most important Caribbean artistic voices of the twentieth century, Frank Walter is known for his spools: striking circular paintings brought together in this unique, long-awaited exhibition.

Jupiter Artland RACHEL MACLEAN: SOLO EXHIBITION

1-18 JUL, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, £0 - £9

Celebrating Jock McFadyen’s 70th birthday, Lost Boat Party is an enigmatic, almost print-like exploration of the magnificence of Scotland’s landscape, juxtaposed and complemented by the artist’s signature urban dystopia.

Alongside brand new commission upside mimi ᴉɯᴉɯ uʍop, this expansive exhibition draws from work previously shown at the Venice Biennale and across Scotland, showcasing Rachel MacLean’s darkly comic, audaciously imaginative oeuvre.

Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop

RACHEL ROSS: PERFECT SETTING

TIMOTHEA ARMOUR: THIS IS MOTH DEATH 1-10 JUL, 11:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

This subversive, unique sound work takes the form of a radio drama set in a pub, featuring overheard snatches of a conversation between band members who all happen to be bats, dramatising ideas of ecological and creative survival.

Open Eye Gallery

1-24 JUL, TIMES VARY, FREE

Exploring the stories, memories, and haunted pasts held in personal objects letters, ribbons, notebooks - Rachel Ross’ work is a tender, considered study of how materiality shapes our everyday lives.

GILL TYSON: THE ABSENCE OF ALTERNATIVES

1-24 JUL, TIMES VARY, FREE

Edinburgh College of Art graduate Gill Tyson’s practice is rooted in depicting remote landscapes, using muted lithography to convey the abstracted yet tangible presence of the nonhuman world.

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Out of the Blue Scottish Drill Hall National JEANNE BLISSETT Portrait ROBERTSON AND Gallery DAVID GRAY: OFFKILTER

16-29 JUL, TIMES VARY, FREE

Showcasing work made by Jeanne Blissett Robertson and David Gray during a recent residency at Edinburgh Ceramics Workshop, this exhibition explores how ceramics can create structural forms that emulate the natural world.

Royal Scottish Academy RSA INTERIOR LANDSCAPES

1-25 JUL, TIMES VARY, FREE

Highlighting the relationship between ideas, materials, and manufacture, this exhibition explores the intricacies of domestic artefacts and furniture, with pieces designed by Royal Scottish Academicians and invited artists.

FRANCIS CONVERY RSA: HINDSIGHT

1-25 JUL, TIMES VARY, FREE

Characterised by a colourist sensibility and shifting forms, Aberdeenshirebased artist Francis Convery’s paintings are simultaneously enchanting and challenging, melding colours and shapes in a new and intoxicating way.

Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art

RAY HARRYHAUSEN: TITAN OF CINEMA 1 JUL-20 FEB 22, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, £5 - £14

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

ISAAC JULIEN: LESSONS OF THE HOUR

29 JUL-10 OCT, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

In partnership with Edinburgh Art Festival, this major ten-screen film installation from renowned British artist Isaac Julien offers a poetic mediation on the life and work of nineteenth-century African-American writer and abolitionist Frederick Douglass.

RUINED: REINVENTING SCOTTISH HISTORY

1 JUL-13 NOV, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

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

ALISON WATT: A PORTRAIT WITHOUT LIKENESS 17 JUL-8 JAN 22, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

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

THOMAS JOSHUA COOPER: THE WORLD’S EDGE

31 JUL-22 JAN 22, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

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

Stills MOVE

1-10 JUL, 12:00PM – 5:00PM, FREE

This collaboration between Works 4 Women and Stills, Move examines how gendered power dynamics play out both in private and public through a shared photographic journey created by women from Syria, Poland, Nigeria, and elsewhere.

SEKAI MACHACHE: PROJECTS 20 29 JUL-18 SEP, 12:00PM – 5:00PM, FREE

Featuring work from Sekai Machache’s The Divine Sky, these porcelain-like photographs were created during the pandemic, exploring new ways of structuring artistic output, inscribing and re-inscribing images and mediums.

Summerhall

BEVERLEY HOOD: WE BEGAN AS PART OF THE BODY

1 JUL-12 SEP, 12:00PM – 5:30PM, FREE

This immersive series of video projections, 3D prints, and virtual reality explores existential and ethical questions on the relationship between bodies and technology.

Presented as part of this year’s Edinburgh Science Festival.

VICTORIA EVANS: OSCILLATIONS

1 JUL-12 SEP, 12:00PM – 5:30PM, FREE

Using soundscapes and sonification of data in a unique, haunting way, Victoria Evans’ work engages with the way invisible forces in the universe tangibly affect our lives.

Presented as part of this year’s Edinburgh Science Festival.

Talbot Rice Gallery THE NORMAL

1 JUL-28 AUG, 10:00AM - 5:00PM, FREE

This group exhibition showcases numerous international artists responding to the global event of the pandemic, exploring how we can rethink our relationship to community and the environment, and affirming the urgent need for whole scale change.

The Fruitmarket Gallery

KARLA BLACK: SCULPTURES (2001 – 2021)

7 JUL-24 OCT, 11:00AM – 6:00PM, FREE

Combining traditional sculptural material with found objects such as cleaning products and cosmetics, Karla Black’s embodied sculptures fill the walls, ceilings, and floors of Fruitmarket.

The Queen’s Gallery

VICTORIA & ALBERT: OUR LIVES IN WATERCOLOUR

1 JUL-3 OCT, 9:30AM – 5:00PM, £0 - £7.80

Featuring 80 watercolours collected by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, this exhibition is a celebration of Scottish watercolour painting in the post-Romantic, industrial age, a glimpse of the wonders of the Scottish landscape 200 years ago.

The Scottish Gallery

ALEXANDER GOUDIE: AN ARTIST’S LIFE ACT I

1-24 JUL, TIMES VARY, FREE

A new exhibition shedding light on one of Glasgow School of Art’s most influential and flamboyant alumni, Alexander Goudie, whose disarming figurative paintings are ripe for rediscovery.

LARA SCOULLER: SEA CHANGE

1-24 JUL, TIMES VARY, FREE

Inspired by the wildness of the Scottish coastline, Lara Scouller’s mono-screen prints bring the landscape to life through flattened, deliberate swatches of colour.

THE SKINNY MIYU KURIHARA: MINIATURE MASTERPIECES

1-24 JUL, TIMES VARY, FREE

Drawing from ancient Asian ceramic practices, Miyu Kurihari’s work lives up to its exhibition name, bringing to life a menagerie of animals in traditional blue and white porcelain that is both intimate and playful.

ELLA FEARON-LOW, JOANNA MANOUSIS + JESSICA TURRELL: MATERIAL MATTERS

1-24 JUL, TIMES VARY, FREE

This exhibition brings together work by three unique jewellers, whose craft incorporates mixed media and non-traditional materials to push the boundaries of materiality in fashion design.

Torrance Gallery

LYNN RODGIE

3-24 JUL, 11:00AM – 5:30PM, FREE

Popular Borders-based artist Lynn Rodgie returns to Torrance Gallery for her regular Summer show, exhibiting a gorgeous selection of new oil landscapes and scenes of the city.

Venues

Dundee Art

The McManus

DCA: Dundee Contemporary Arts

EMMA TALBOT: GHOST CALLS 1 JUL-8 AUG, TIMES VARY, FREE

This major new exhibition brings together a series of works created specifically for the DCA by renowned British artist Emma Talbot, whose artistic practice spans the breadth of the visual arts, from drawing and painting to animation and modelling.

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

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

TIME AND TIDE: THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE TAY 1 JUL-2 OCT, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

This exhibition looks at the influence the Tay has had on the city of Dundee, and the ways in which its various faces, from early settlement to industrial giant, continue to reinvent its iconic waterfront.

V&A Dundee NIGHT FEVER: DESIGNING CLUB CULTURE

1 JUL-9 JAN 22, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, £5 - £10

The perfect exhibition in the light of the last year, Night Fever explores the relationship between vibrant global club culture and fashion, architecture, and graphic design, giving an intoxicating glimpse into the art that informs our nights out.

WHAT IF…?/SCOTLAND 1 JUL-21 NOV, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

Designed to be staged at the Venice Biennale, this exhibition responds to the festival’s theme “How will we live together?” by collaborating with and involving local communities, highlighting and seeking to return to the civic responsibility of design.

A round-up of our new favourite places in Glasgow this month, featuring Akara Bakery, Moskito 2.0, Fearless Space, Unalome and The Beresford Lounge

Compiled by Tara Hepburn

Image: Courtesy of Fearless Space

Photo: Gerardo Jaconelli Moskito 2.0

Akara Bakery

Unalome

Akara Bakery on Dennistoun’s Duke Street is a glassfronted takeaway bakery selling a changing menu of miniature baked goods that are almost Parisian in their delicateness. Vegan options, savoury pastries, donuts, layer cakes – there truly is nothing this place can’t do, and they do it all extremely well. Open until sell-out each day (which can often be very early indeed), it is worth taking the trip to Duke Street to join the excitable queue. Their vanilla, passionfruit and yuzu cheesecake lives long in the memory, as do all of their cheesecakes in fact. With new flavours popping up to try each month, they have truly become the stuff of local legend.

UNALOMEBYGC.COM

537 DUKE STREET, G31 1DL

36 KELVINGROVE STREET, FINNIESTON, G3 7RZ

Unalome arrived loudly and proudly, announcing their intention to get the Glasgow culinary scene another Michelin star. The accolade is rare in Glasgow, with Cail Bruich finally securing the city’s only one just earlier this year. But Unalome’s head chef Graeme Cheevers has previous experience in this area, having led the line at both Martin Wishart at Loch Lomond and the Ilse of Eriska Hotel when they won their stars under his leadership.

Unalome is his first solo venture – a modern European take on fine dining with a definite nod to Japanese tradition. Located among fine competition in Finnieston, time will tell on the awards front but as far as the food goes, for what it’s worth, it gets five stars from us.

Moskito 2.0

Beresford Lounge

MOSKITOGLASGOW.COM

BERESFORDLOUNGE.COM

196-200 BATH STREET, G2 4HG

468 SAUCHIEHALL STREET, G2 3LW

The Beresford Lounge has taken over the former home of the Art School Union, in the ground floor of the gorgeous Art Deco Beresford Building on Sauchiehall Street. A massive space, sprawling over three levels, it consists of a bar/restaurant, basement venue and mezzanine level pool hall, which is free to use. The bar also offers an outdoor beer garden, in which you can kick back and enjoy some shisha – a suntrap on those rare sunny days, and electrically heated for the rest of the year.

A jam-packed schedule of live music ensures entertainment every night of the week, including open mic and session evenings. Food is served until 9pm every night, there’s a choice of 18 beers on draught, from Tennent’s to Oranjeboom, and cocktails are as cheap as chips. Happy days.

July 2021 — Listings

Legendary bar Moskito shut up shop over two years ago, to the shock of many Glasgow drinkers who had come to rely on its laid-back New York-esque brand of basement cool. Moskito offered a cosier alternative on a stretch of Bath Street that was becoming increasingly showy. During its two year hiatus, the place has had a full facelift, and re-emerged as something new – but not so new as to be unrecognisable.

OG fans of Moskito can take comfort in the fact that the bar is keeping the same name, and much of the same DNA. The team behind the Moskito rennaissance are keen to retain Moskito’s alternative spirit, with nods to the world of art and fashion, but still sure of its identity as the quirky non-conforming kid brother of Bath Street. And, best of all, they still have great beer on tap at a reasonable price.

Fearless Space

Image: Courtesy of Beresford Lounge

Fearless Space

116 SWORD STREET, G31 1SG

Fearless Space on Dennistoun’s Sword Street is principally a yoga studio, but also serves as a multi-functional community hub for creatives in Glasgow’s East End. The brainchild of yoga instructor and all-round lovely person Carrie Wilde, who wanted a place to teach yoga classes that could also be used to support local artists and makers who might not have the funds for a spot of their own yet, the space has been used for craft workshops, small gigs, as a barber and a pop-up shop. Carrie plans to create a booking system where local creatives can reserve studio space to rehearse, work on projects or showcase their work. The possibilities really are endless. A great idea that gets to the heart of community and understands that sometimes all people really need is space and time – who knows which East End talents might pass through the doors of Fearless in the near future?

Beresford Lounge

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THE SKINNY

The Skinny On...

The Skinny On...

Barry Can’t Swim After racking up plays on BBC Radio 1 and gaining firm fans in Annie Mac and Jaguar, Barry Can’t Swim releases his debut EP, Amor Fati, this month. Before that, we find out about his fear of wrists, his favourite festival memory and more

Photo: George Quann

What’s your favourite place to visit and why?

I’m based in London but originally from Edinburgh and I love going back to visit as often as I can. It’s a beaut city. I appreciate it more now that I don’t live there. My favourite place I’ve one-off visited is probably Lebanon – food was quality, really nice people too.

Favourite food to cook in lockdown and why?

I was cooking a lot of fish until I saw Seaspiracy and that just ruined it for me. I can never look at a prawn the same way again now. A lot of curries – easy to throw together with what’s in the cupboard.

July 2021 — Chat

Favourite colour and why?

Purple. No real reason, just a really nice colour. Regal.

Who was your hero growing up?

John Lennon / my dad. Lennon because he’s the greatest songwriter in pop music history. My dad cos he’s a class joiner and a really good dad.

Whose work inspires you now?

I’m loving Aleksandir – unreal musician. His production is on another level. There’s so much space in all his tunes but it never feels empty. Big fan of Khruangbin too. Still got Skee Mask’s last album on repeat as well.

What three people would you invite to your virtual dinner party and what are you cooking?

Marcus Aurelius, John Lennon, then a toss-up between the Buddha or Tim Cahill. Might get a bit too deep and serious having both Marcus and the Buddha so probably Tim Cahill.

Meat and two veg.

What’s your all time favourite album?

Really hard question.

I can’t overlook Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not by Arctic Monkeys. That was an absolute gamechanger for me growing up.

Astral Weeks and Channel Orange are up there too.

What’s the worst film you’ve ever seen?

Meet Joe Black.

Don’t listen to people who tell you it’s a classic, nothing even happens.

What book would you take to a seemingly endless period of government-enforced isolation?

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius would keep me stoic and sane.

Who’s the worst?

The worst? Hmm. Priti Patel has to be up there, right? There’s something uniquely dislikable about someone who wears their ignorance as a badge of honour. James Corden too.

He’s just a bit of a knob, isn’t he?

When did you last cry?

I cried at Queer Eye the other day.

It’s the scenes with Karamo, man; he always gets me. I’m a big crier.

What are you most scared of?

Murderers. As stupid as it sounds, I’m not a big fan of wrists either – far too exposed and vulnerable. I don’t like seeing the underside of people’s wrists – all the veins, horrible.

When did you last vomit and why?

Probably on a night out.

Tell us a secret?

Chopper dyes his pubes ginger.

Which celebrity could you take in a fight?

Mary Berry.

If you could be reincarnated as an animal, which animal would it be?

In an ideal situation, I would like to come back as a monkey. They look like they have a good time. But I took one of those online spirit animal quizzes a few months ago and it said I was a butterfly, which was a bit annoying.

How do you stay inspired by the world when you are isolated from it?

I’m not sure really, it’s not something I proactively try to do. I think there’s still a lot that can inspire you at home. As dark as this past year has been it’s definitely given me time to reflect, which has been good. Just

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trying to find the time to do basic simple things like exercise, eating well, checking in on friends – so, so important.

What’s your favourite festival memory?

Sunday at Glasto two years ago was one of the best days of my life.

There’s something about the last day at Glasto. It’s just pure escapism.

The real world just seems to disappear for 24 hours. I even wrote a tune about it, called Sunday At Glasto.

What’s your worst festival memory?

I met a random guy in one of the tents at Houghton a couple years ago who was Ainsley Harriott’s nephew and we tried to call him but he didn’t pick up. That was a pretty bitter sting.

Amor Fati is released on 9 Jul via Shall Not Fade Barry Can’t Swim plays FLY Open Air, Princes Street Gardens, Edinburgh, 17-19 Sep

THE SKINNY

October 2020

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July 2021 — Chat

The Skinny On...

THE SKINNY

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