The Skinny October 2019

.CO.UK

INDEPENDENT

October 2019 Issue 169

CULTURAL

J O U R N A L I S M

FREE

ESCAPE INTO FILM Dive into a cinematic cornucopia with our autumn special

MUSIC | FILM | CLUBS | THEATRE | ART | BOOKS | COMEDY | TRAVEL | FOOD & DRINK | INTERSECTIONS | LISTINGS

P.49 Nick Cave

Photo: Portis Wasp Photo: Keith Hunter

P.32 Georgia

P.21 SHHE

Photo: Rachael Hood

P.10 Sorry We Missed You

October 2019

Issue 169, October 2019 © Radge Media Ltd. Get in touch: E: hello@theskinny.co.uk T: 0131 467 4630 P: The Skinny, 1.9 1st Floor Tower, Techcube, Summerhall, 1 Summerhall Pl, Edinburgh, EH9 1PL The Skinny is Scotland's largest independent entertainment & listings magazine, and offers a wide range of advertising packages and affordable ways to promote your business.

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Contents



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

Rosamund West Adam Benmakhlouf Heather McDaid Nadia Younes Polly Glynn Nadia Younes Jamie Dunn Peter Simpson Katie Goh Tallah Brash Eliza Gearty Paul Mitchell

Production Production Manager Designer

Rachael Hood Fiona Hunter

Sales Sales Manager Sales Executives

Sandy Park George Sully David Hammond

Online Digital Editor Online Journalist Web Developer

Peter Simpson Jamie Dunn Stuart Spencer

General Manager

Laurie Presswood

THE SKINNY

Contents Chat & Opinion: Welcome to the 06 magazine

Heads Up: It’s properly autumn, folks.

08 Give it up. It’s time to scurry indoors to enjoy all this wonderful art, music and culture around Scotland

LIFESTYLE

30 Intersections: We ask why Tarot has

become so popular in the digital age. Plus, we look at the consequences of friendship crossing over to romance and why bisexual men are slipping through the cracks of sexual healthcare

FILM SPECIAL

32 Travel: We go to Georgia. It's gorgeous!

10 Ken Loach, our great socialist filmmaker,

35 Food and Drink: Dive into the wild world

is back with Sorry We Missed You, and we need him now more than ever

to the commissioners at BBC 11 We speak and Channel 4 keeping the Scotland proud tradition of short films on TV alive

12 SQIFF, the film festival with the best

acronym, returns with another essential programme – SQIFF's coordinator, Helen Wright, tells us more

comes to 15 The best of European cinema Film Festival Scotland with the French and the Edinburgh Spanish Film Festival. Take that, Brexit!

the teams behind Africa 16 We hear from and Scotland Loves Anime,

in Motion two film festival with modest beginnings that are now leaders in their fields

18 Scottish musicians are carving out in-

teresting side hustles composing movie soundtracks. We speak to some of them

FEATURES composer Anna 19 Genre-defying talks to us about some of the Meredith fibs she's told – and also tells us about FIBS, her new record

21 SHHE's Su Shaw talks about defying

traditional expectations and pressures ahead of releasing her self-titled debut

22 Paisley's The Vegan Leather on anxiety, escapism and their debut album, Poor Girls / Broken Boys 25 Weyes Blood's Natalie Mering discusses millennial burn-out, the climate crisis and latest record, Titanic Rising

twins in pop, Tegan and 26 The biggest reminisce back to their school

Sara, days for their new memoir and album

28 Biennial dance extravaganza Dance International Glasgow is back – we hear from senior curator LJ Findlay-Walsh 29 Artist Thulani Rachia explores how Glasgow's dark links to the slave trade are written all over the city's streets and architecture

October 2019

of Scottish street food with Ailidh Forlan.

Plus, a guide to Edinburgh Cocktail Week and all your latest foodie news

REVIEW The Ninth Wave on part II of debut 39 Music:Infancy; a look at Last Night from album Glasgow and Olive Grove Records, labels putting artists and community over profit; plus the best of October’s album releases

44 Clubs: Floating Points talks us through his new album, we celebrate the good work being done by Made In Glasgow Recordings and dig into this month’s clubbing highlights

48 Books: Reviews of new words from

Zadie Smith, Emma Donoghue and Kirsty Logan, as well as this month’s poetry chat

49 Art: We talk to Alberta Whittle about

living in emergency and the racialisation of the climate crisis as her major solo show launches in DCA. Plus, reviews of exhibitions by Nick Cave (not that one) and Aman Sandhu

50 F ilm & TV: Reviews of new films from

Chris Morris and François Ozon, as well as Netflix’s jaw-dropping Dark Crystal prequel

52 Theatre/Digital: The most exciting

productions hitting Scottish stages this autumn, plus we hear from the people behind a new TEDx conference in Glasgow

We ask award-winning come53 Comedy:Documentary Now! virgin Elf

dian and Lyons to check out the genre-busting parody series, plus a chat with Mo Gilligan about The Lateish Show and his Netflix special

55 L istings! Your what’s on guide for the month

63 Local Heroes: We talk to some of the Scottish designers who showed at September’s London Design Festival



Contents

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Shot of the Month Maranta, Sneaky Pete's, Edinburgh, 17 Sep by Kate Johnston

Editorial A

independent labels – Last Night from Glasgow and Olive Grove Records – who both put artist and community over profit.

Art hears from Thulani Rachia, whose film work exploring Scotland’s links with the slave trade and its visible legacy in the city’s architecture is on show in Glasgow’s Civic Room this month. We also meet Alberta Whittle, whose major solo exhibition in DCA reveals complex, ambitious work exploring insidious anti-blackness, the racialisation of climate change and coping strategies for living in a state of emergency. Our design correspondent travels south to talk to some of the Scottish creative businesses showcasing at London Design Festival. Speaking of travel, our centre pages feature a visual exploration of Georgia, a country of spectacular scenery and cheese-filled cuisine.

Theatre looks at the programme of Dance International Glasgow, which returns to Tramway this month. Books meets musician twins Tegan and Sara, introducing their memoir High School, and reflecting on growing up in Calgary, Canada in the 90s. Clubs talks to Floating Points, kindly calling us from the envyinducing location of a friend’s Sicilian vineyard.

In Food, we meet Ailidh Forlan, the author of a new Scottish street food bible, and look forward to the return of Edinburgh Cocktail Week, this year featuring 70 bars, a cocktail village and a forest. Finally, Comedy meets self-proclaimed GIF master Mo Gilligan, whose Netflix special Momentum launches this month to 140 countries near you. [Rosamund West]

By Jock Mooney

s the nights draw in, Scotland’s cinemas host multiple film festivals to make the hours of darkness a little more magical.

Programmes arriving on a screen near you in the coming weeks include those of Africa in Motion, the French Film Festival, Edinburgh Spanish Film Festival, Scottish Queer International Film Festival, and Scotland Loves Anime. We’re celebrating with a film special, including coverage of all the above as well as some words with Ken Loach on his latest, Sorry We Missed You, which tackles the precarity of life on zero-hour contracts. We also take a look at the Scottish film industry a little more broadly, examining some of the new platforms on offer for short filmmakers before exploring the world of film soundtracks and the Scottish musicians who are composing them.

Speaking of which, we move seamlessly on to music and an interview with composer, performer and master soundtrack artist Anna Meredith! We discuss creating worlds and visual planning for her new album FIBS, the follow-up to her SAY Award-winning Varmints. We meet Su Shaw to discuss changing location and identity as she prepares to release her debut under the SHHE moniker.

The Vegan Leather introduce Poor Girls / Broken Boys, their debut of the ‘upbeat music and morbid lyrics school of thought’. Weyes Blood, aka Natalie Mering, talks to us about Titanic Rising and the ongoing climate crisis; Glaswegian duo The Ninth Wave introduce the second part of their debut, Infancy pt II; and we take a closer look at a pair of local

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Chat



THE SKINNY

Online Only

Declan Welsh and the Decadent West

Photo: Neelam Khan Vela

Competitions

Declan Welsh and the Decadent West track-by-track Welsh talks us through debut album Cheaply Bought, Expensively Sold one song at a time – head to theskinny.co.uk/music for the full rundown.

Bloody Scotland recap A look back on the eighth edition of Scotland’s annual crime writing celebration, with Ian Rankin, Lucy Foley and a visit to a real-life courtroom among the highlights. Go to theskinny.co.uk/books for all the details

Michael Schwartz and Tyler Nilson on The Peanut Butter Falcon The swamps and shacks, dirt roads and riverbanks of North Carolina are the setting for Schwartz and Nilson’s new film. We talk to the directorial duo – read our interview at theskinny.co.uk/film

Alejandro Landes on teen war flick Monos The Colombian-Ecuadorian filmmaker discusses his surreal survivalist war film with a crackling new score from Mica Levi. Head to theskinny.co.uk/film for the full story

Creative Edinburgh Awards 2019 This year’s Creative Edinburgh Awards will be dished out at The Hub on 10 Oct; visit theskinny.co.uk/news for a full rundown of this year’s nominees, and follow us on Twitter and Facebook to find out about this year’s winners on the night.

The Yummy Fur on never chasing attention The Yummy Fur have quietly become one of Glasgow's most beloved bands, despite releasing no music this century. Now, as a long-awaited compilation album, Piggy Wings, means their best songs finally enter the streaming age, frontman John McKeown explains their endurance. Read the full interview at theskinny.co.uk/music

Find more at theskinny.co.uk

Win tickets to Africa in Motion

Win tickets to Edinburgh Art Fair

To celebrate the 14th edition of Africa in Motion film festival (Fri 26 Oct-Sun 3 Nov), we’re giving away two tickets to their screening of documentary Talking About Trees.

Set in Sudan, the heartwarming documentary follows four retired directors who are united by their love of film and passion to reopen their local cinema. The film will be screening on Saturday 26 October at Glasgow Film Theatre.

For your chance to win, simply answer the following question:

Scotland’s premier Art Fair returns to the Edinburgh Corn Exchange this November with more than 50 galleries presenting thousands of artworks from over 500 artists. This year it features galleries from South Korea and Denmark alongside exhibitors from the UK and Europe as part of a three-day art buying extravaganza.

We have 25 pairs of tickets to the Fair's Private View on Thursday 21 November to give away to a collection of lucky winners. To be in with a chance of winning, simply answer the following question:

In which two Scottish cities does Africa in Motion happen every year? a) Manchester and Leeds b) Nairobi and Cairo c) Glasgow and Edinburgh Competition closes midnight Sun 20 Oct. Winners will be notified via email within one working day of closing and required to respond within 24 hours or the prize will be offered to another entrant. Our Ts&Cs can be found at theskinny.co.uk/about/terms For more info about Africa in Motion and to purchase tickets, head to africa-in-motion.org.uk

Where does this year's Edinburgh Art Fair take place? a) Edinburgh Corn Exchange b) Edinburgh Hay Market c) Edinburgh Wheat Bureau Competition closes midnight Sun 27 Oct. 25 winners will each receive two tickets. Winners will be notified via email within two working days of closing and required to respond within 48 hours or the prize will be offered to another entrant. Our Ts&Cs can be found at theskinny.co.uk/about/terms Edinburgh Art Fair, Edinburgh Corn Exchange, 22 Nov, 11am-6pm; 23 Nov, 11am-6pm; 24 Nov, 11am-5pm.

Admission £5 (concessions £3)

The Skinny on Tour

COVER ARTIST Julija Straižytė Julija is a freelance illustrator from Lithuania based in Edinburgh. After graduating from Edinburgh College of Art in 2017, she has been building her portfolio, working on her personal ideas as well as collaborative projects, such as editorial illustration, album cover artwork and poster design. Most of Julija’s images are monochromatic, with a special focus on characters, symbolism, graphics, lines, shapes and patterns. i: @yuloid w: yuliasdays.com

Things get extraterrestrial this month, as our intrepid film editor takes a trip out of this world thanks to the unique power of open-source Photoshop-style image editing software.

The moon has of course played host to many of the greatest names in cinema. They’ve all visited – from Ryan Gosling to Brad Pitt to Sandra Bullock, via Andy Samberg’s classic role in Space Chimps and Wallace and Gromit’s Grand Day Out in which they find out that, yep, it’s all cheese.

October 2019



To be in with a chance of winning a copy of Mary Costello’s new novel The River Capture, courtesy of the stargazers at Canongate, head to theskinny.co.uk/competitions and share the name of your favourite fictional (or factual) journey to the moon.

Competition closes midnight Sun 27 Oct. Winners will be notified via email within two working days of closing and required to respond within 48 hours or the prize will be offered to another entrant. Our Ts&Cs can be found at theskinny.co.uk/about/terms

Chat

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While grime has been blowing up all over the world, Kano has kept a fairly low profile, but this year he came back fighting once again. Along with starring in Netflix’s revival of Top Boy, he also released his sixth album, Hoodies All Summer. With his signature biting political lyricism and unstoppable flow, Kano is an endlessly vital voice in the UK music scene.

Menswear designer Nicholas Daley has gone from strength to strength since launching his own label in 2015. Daley’s Jamaican-Scottish heritage and his love of music are huge influences on his designs, which have become staples among the new wave of jazz musicians in London, including Yussef Dayes, Alfa Mist and Sons of Kemet’s Shabaka Hutchings.

There are film festivals in abundance this month across Scotland, but don’t worry if film’s not your bag as we’ve got all your other cultural needs covered too.

Studio Nicholas Daley

Chris McQueer

Lost Map Records take their all-day party to the sandy beaches of Porty for a day of live music and merriment this month. Vanishing Twin, Callum Easter and Maranta are just a few of the musical acts you can expect to see and hear on the day. Lost Map boss Johnny Lynch will also be in attendance in his Pictish Trail guise and Jane Weaver will present her new project, FENELLA.

Dr Mohammed Enayat

Vanishing Twin

Photo: Elliott Arndt

TEDx Glasgow Caledonian University, Glasgow, 12 Oct, 9am This independently organised TED event aims to commemorate Glasgow Caledonian University as the University for the Common Good, with the conference named Unfolding Good Together. Speakers at the event include co-founder of LMS Wellness Dr Mohammed Enayat, author and PhD student Emma Kidd, and founder of The Meeting of Minds concept Timi Hesselhoj.

Photo: Dr Mohammed Enayat

Lost Weekend: Strange Invitation Bellfield, Portobello, 12 Oct, 1pm

Photo: Mihaela Bodlovic

Dance International Glasgow Tramway, Glasgow, 4-26 Oct

Yuli

Gisèle Vienne’s latest production, Crowd, makes its Scottish premiere at Dance International Glasgow this month, and that’s just one of the many highlights on the programme. A selection of local artists and collectives have also been invited to create responses to Tramway’s current installation of Chicago-based visual artist Nick Cave’s Until to coincide with the biennial festival.

Elf Lyons: Love Songs to Guinea Pigs The Basement Theatre, Edinburgh, 13 Oct, 8pm Known for her weird and wacky comedy, Elf Lyons may have skipped out on this year’s Fringe but you’ll be able to get your fix of her signature clowning comedy this month. Lyons’ new show, Love Songs to Guinea Pigs, is all about love and loneliness, and details the health problems she has been dealing with over the past year.

Elf Lyons

Chlobocop

Scottish Alternative Music Awards St Luke's, Glasgow, 25 Oct, 6.30pm

Little Simz



Photo: Jack Bridgland

Photo: Edinburgh Cocktail Week

Edinburgh Cocktail Week

At just 25 years old, Little Simz’s musical career has been nothing short of prolific. Over the course of four mixtapes, seven EPs and three albums, she’s demonstrated the immensity of her talent. Her third and latest, Grey Area, was nominated for the 2019 Mercury Prize, missing out on the win to Dave’s equally excellent Psychodrama, but the nod alone is well-deserved.

With Scottish music continuously shunned from Londoncentric UK music award ceremonies across the board, the SAMAs provide a platform for those often ignored up north.

Celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, the ceremony will showcase the diversity of the Scottish music scene, with live sets from The Cosmic Dead, Chlobocop and Franky’s Evil Party.

THE SKINNY

Photo: Allan Lewis

Little Simz SWG3, Glasgow, 24 Oct, 7pm

Edinburgh Cocktail Week Various venues, Edinburgh, 14-20 Oct

Chat

The Circle

Photo: Brian Hartley

The stage adaptation of Jenni Fagan’s debut novel, The Panopticon – presented by the National Theatre of Scotland and directed by Debbie Hannan – opens Platform’s annual multi-arts festival Eastern Promise this year, making its world premiere. The line-up also includes music from Burd Ellen and Lubomyr Melnyk, spoken word from Chris McQueer, a new exhibition from Duncan Marquiss and much more.

It may have film in the title, but the Edinburgh Spanish Film Festival isn’t all about the big screen. The festival also offers the opportunity to indulge in some Spanish delicacies, with a tapas and wine event following a screening of documentary Chef’s Diaries: Scotland and an evening of food, drinks and flamenco in honour of Seville’s annual Feria de Abril.

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Kano

Eastern Promise Platform, Glasgow, 4 & 5 Oct

Edinburgh Spanish Film Festival Various venues across Scotland, 3 Oct-14 Nov

If you don’t like committing to just one spot and one drink on a sesh, Edinburgh Cocktail Week is definitely for you. Once you’ve got your wristband, hit up over 70 participating bars for discounted drinks, spend some time in the festival’s Cocktail Village and Forest at Festival Square or book one of the Cocktail Domes situated on the rooftop garden of The Glasshouse Hotel for a more private affair.

Photo: Michael McGurk

Compiled by: Nadia Younes

Kano The Old Fruitmarket, Glasgow, 2 Oct, 7pm

Photo: Olivia Rose

Heads Up

Studio Nicholas Daley V&A Dundee, until 2 Feb 2020

SQIFF celebrates its fifth birthday this year with five days of films made by and about LGBTQIA+ people.

This year’s festival features a strand dedicated to Latin American queer art and activism, Latinx Legends, a club night in collaboration with Vogue Scotland celebrating the ballroom scene and a screening of Janelle Monae’s Dirty Computer “emotion picture”.

Desiree Burch, Sofie Hagen and Paul Foot are among the names heading north to the Granite City for Aberdeen International Comedy Festival this month. Now in its fourth year, the festival continues to convince international and local comedic talents to make the journey up to Aberdeen.

2019 Fringe success stories Jordan Brookes and Fern Brady are further highlights on the bill.

The Drift

The National Theatre of Scotland presents The Drift Various venues across Scotland, 2-12 Oct

Dirty Computer

Starting at The Lemon Tree in Aberdeen and concluding at Glasgow’s Tron Theatre, Hannah Lavery’s spoken word theatre production, The Drift, embarks on a tour of Scotland this month as part of Black History Month. The autobiographical show explores Lavery’s relationship with her Scottishness and details her experience of growing up mixed race in Scotland.

Creative Edinburgh Awards The Hub, Edinburgh, 10 Oct, 7pm Celebrating creativity, and particularly local creativity, is what we’re all about at The Skinny, so the Creative Edinburgh Awards are very important to us. This year’s award categories include The Student Award, The Collaboration Award and The Creativity Award, among many others, and with the nominations already cast, all that’s left to do is celebrate those nominated and those who win.

Weathering With You

Scotland Loves Anime GFT, Glasgow, 11-13 Oct & Filmhouse, Edinburgh, 14-20 Oct

Creative Edinburgh Awards

Now that you’ve got that Sia song circling around your head, it’s probably a good time to tell you what thick skin, elastic heart is beyond lyrics from a smash hit pop song. Combining contemporary spoken word monologues and group poems, the production puts the focus on millennial voices, with the dialogue designed to play out like a social media scroll.

Kate Pankhurst

Photo: Joanne Crawford

thick skin, elastic heart Various venues across Scotland, 17-26 Oct

Photo: Stewart Tait

Golden Hare Books Festival Various venues, Edinburgh, 18-20 Oct Support your local independent bookshop! And support a really good one at that, as Golden Hare Books have put together a programme of talks, workshops and activities over the course of a weekend for their first ever festival.

From live podcasts to zine making workshops, and even a day dedicated to celebrating children’s books, there’s something to suit all your literary needs.

Scottish International Storytelling Festival Various venues, Edinburgh, 18-31 Oct Drawing connections between Scotland and Canada, this year’s Scottish International Storytelling Festival hosts 15 guest artists from Canada, alongside 60 Scottish storytellers, as part of its Canada Coast to Coast strand. As well as this, the festival will also host the world’s first Global Storytelling Lab, with storytellers from across the world leading sessions on how to respond to contemporary crises.

Dancers of Damelahamid

Africa in Motion Various venues across Scotland, 25 Oct-3 Nov

Charli XCX SWG3 Galvanizers, Glasgow, 27 Oct, 7pm

Weyes Blood The Art School, Glasgow, 28 Oct, 7pm

African cinema is celebrated at the 14th annual Africa in Motion film festival, with this year’s programme curated by 14 People of Colour from Scotland, Morocco, Brazil, Cameroon and Rwanda. The festival opens in Edinburgh with a screening of Sudanese filmmaker Suhaib Gasmelbari’s documentary about the demise of cinema in his home country, Talking About Trees.

Having been at the forefront of the PC Music scene over the best part of the decade, it may come as a surprise that Charli XCX’s latest album, Charli, is *technically* only her third to date. Over the course of her career, she has favoured the release of mixtapes over albums proper and collaborated on some of the biggest pop tracks of the last ten years.

Natalie Mering released one of the best albums of the year back in April with her fourth studio release, Titanic Rising. Glorious, allencompassing orchestration and Mering’s goosebumpinducing vocals aside, the record is also a crucial reminder for a disillusioned society that while the world descends into chaos around us even the slightest glimmer of hope can go a long way.

Talking About Trees

October 2019

Charli XCX



Weyes Blood

Chat

Photo: Chris Randle

Young Soul Rebels

The annual celebration of Japanese animation marks its 10th anniversary this year. At the centre of this year’s festival is a special screening of world-renowned anime studio Trigger’s new film, Promare, taking place at The Biscuit Factory in Edinburgh on 19 October. Outside of that, there will be screenings of Ride Your Wave, Weathering With You and many more across Edinburgh and Glasgow.

Photo: Kathryn Vetter Miller

To coincide with her exhibition, How Flexible Can We Make the Mouth, currently on show at DCA, Alberta Whittle has also chosen three films to screen as part of the venue’s Artist Choice Screenings series. Following screenings of Carmen Jones and Poetic Justice, Whittle’s final selection is Young Soul Rebels, artist Isaac Julien’s 1991 feature debut.

Photo: Eoin Carey

Artist's Choice Screenings: Young Soul Rebels DCA, Dundee, 8 Oct, 6pm

thick skin, elastic heart

Fern Brady

Credit: Matt Crockett

Aberdeen International Comedy Festival Various venues, Aberdeen, 3-14 Oct

SQIFF Various venues, Glasgow, 2-6 Oct

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SP FI EC LM IA L

Gig Economy Britain Consider the rumours of Ken Loach’s retirement well and truly quashed.

Following I, Daniel Blake, the tireless filmmaker is back with another powerful drama exploring austerity Britain, Sorry We Missed You

T

o say the films of Ken Loach are considered landmarks of British social realism would be putting it mildly. From Cathy Come Home (1966) to Riff-Raff (1991) and Ladybird Ladybird (1994), he’s renowned for his sympathetic tales of those at the very bottom of the social hierarchy, whose hardships and struggles he articulates with an activist’s energy.

It’s not surprising then that his best work tends to arrive during periods of heightened austerity, like his latest, Sorry We Missed You – a brutal, but ultimately moving drama, about Britain’s booming gig economy.

Set in Newcastle and inspired by real-life accounts of those forced to take on casual and insecure jobs, the film follows in the footsteps of Loach’s 2016 Palme d’Or winner I, Daniel Blake. “We’ve been aware of the way working conditions have been changing for a while,” Loach tells us when asked how he and longterm collaborator Paul Laverty developed their script. “When we were filming I, Daniel Blake, we noticed that a lot of the people who were reliant on food banks were in work, many of them on zero-hour contracts.”

Giving a voice to those affected by the rise in precarious employment, the film follows Ricky (Kris Hitchen), a struggling labourer who’s proudly never signed on. “I’ve got my pride,” he declares during a job interview at a local parcel delivery firm, “I would rather die.”

Afterwards, Ricky convinces his wife, Abby (Debbie Honeywood), to sell her car so he can buy a van and become a freelance delivery driver. His plan is to use the flexibility of the job to work extra hours and save towards a deposit on a home. However, as the demands of the job mount up, so do the fines and sanctions he receives for each missed delivery, and an enveloping inevitability begins to loom large over Ricky and his family.

In May 2019, the Institute for Public Policy Research estimated that the rise of zero-hours contracts had left 1.6 million people in Northern England earning less than what they needed to live. Some have argued this is an unfortunate aftershock of the 2008 financial crisis, but Loach believes it stretches back much further than that. “It began under Thatcher, and the destruction of the mining communities,” he tells us. “People were used to having jobs that would last a lifetime, and wages they could bring up a whole family with.

They went from secure jobs, with a guaranteed 40-hour week and eight-hour days, to casual work and zero-hour contracts.”

Unemployment in Britain has fallen to the lowest levels since the mid-1970s amid an employment boom that followed the recession.

However, many of these jobs are temporary and precarious. Some economists believe the reason job security in Britain has been undermined is due to the decline in trade union membership. “One of the big unspoken questions in the film is the need for unions,” Loach explains. “When Paul was researching the script he met with drivers like Ricky, but they were all very anxious about being seen talking to us.” With inequality on the rise, and more and more people being exploited in the workplace,

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Feature

the ingredients are all in place for a resurgence in the beliefs, policies and practices of trade unionism. So why are so few people signing up? “I think the main problem is people see a union as something you join as a consumer,” he suggests. “It’s the wrong attitude.

It’s our collective strength, that’s why you join a union. I hope the film can be used to show this.”

A large portion of the film is set in Ricky’s home, where the high-stress demands of his and Abby’s jobs begin to eat away at the supportive structure they’ve cultivated for their children. “People put on a brave face when they’re at work,” Loach says, “but the tensions and the tiredness tend to come out at home and it’s the family that pays.” This focus on family and the home resulted in a strikingly minimalist aesthetic, something Loach felt was important to get his message across. “The situation is so extreme, you just want the most economical way of portraying it. It’s like cooking. Providing all your ingredients are perfect, the simpler you make it, the better it turns out.”

His style might seem unassuming, but Loach’s latest work is considerably more complex than it appears, continuing the director’s fascination with the politicised language used by the state to dehumanise those trapped within the system. It’s a subject he explored in I, Daniel Blake, in which the title character finds himself caught in a Kafkaesque struggle with a mysterious and never-glimpsed “Decision Maker”. Ricky first encounters this style of

Interview: Patrick Gamble

obfuscating language when he discovers he isn’t being ‘hired’ by PDF (Parcels Delivered Fast), but ‘onboarded’. “There’s no clocking-on,” he’s told by the boss. “You become available.”

“It’s all management jargon,” Loach laments. “If I hear one more person say ‘going forward’ I might just strangle them!” He’s joking, but it’s clear there’s something in the way words are carefully chosen to confuse and conceal that infuriates him. “It’s basically propaganda. It’s manipulative language used to make you agree to something. For example, when someone is sacked we talk about ‘letting them go’… as if you’re keeping them against their will! It’s fraudulent language.”

The digital revolution is another important factor in the film. Technology was meant to free us from work, but instead of experiencing a ‘technology dividend’, in which workers can luxuriate in the free time created by automation, the reality is increased expectations surrounding efficiency. It’s a subject Loach cares passionately about, even if he seems proudly – even defiantly – happy to admit that it’s a topic he’s not particularly familiar with. “It fascinates me, but from a position of total ignorance. I’m from the wrong generation. I can barely turn my phone on let alone anything else,” he confesses, before returning to the film. “Ricky’s sold this idea of being his own boss, of being free, but nothing could be further from the truth. He’s a slave to the technology in his cab.”

Ricky realises this pretty quickly when

FILM SPECIAL

he’s handed his scanner, a small handheld device that not only tracks every package he delivers, but his every move. In the end, the only tool Ricky is given that helps make his job any easier is an empty plastic bottle so he can go to the toilet in between drop-offs. “Maybe it’s because I’m old, but to me it seems much healthier to engage with people face to face, not via a screen. It’s so disconnected, but it makes it easier for these companies to be inhumane towards their workforce and control them. There’s no need for a boss to come and shout at you, they just tap a message on a screen. But it’s not the technology that’s to blame; tech is neutral. It’s about who owns it and whose benefit it is used for.”

Sorry We Missed You is Loach’s second film after a short-lived retirement following the release of Jimmy’s Hall in 2014. “Filming is a long commitment, you’re away from home for maybe six to nine months,” he explains, when asked why he wanted to move away from narrative fiction. “When you get older you have grandchildren and family to visit, and let’s be honest, you’re never entirely sure how far the future will extend.” It might sound like he’s finally winding down after a career that’s spanned five decades, but a third film in what could become a ‘trilogy of austerity’ might not be off the cards.

“I guess it’s possible,” he says. “I keep returning to fiction because.... well, I just want to see if I can still get around the course!”

Sorry We Missed You is released 1 Nov by Entertainment One

THE SKINNY

Short Stuff With Scotland’s vibrant short film scene and myriad online platforms, it’s never been easier to see short films. And thanks to programmes like BBC Scotland’s Next Big Thing, there are plenty of opportunities to stumble across shorts on TV too

Interview: Jamie Dunn

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or a long time, I assumed my first introduction to the lush cinema of Jane Campion was The Piano. As a pretentious teenager, the Kiwi’s Palme d’Or-winner, with its striking visual aesthetic and gently elliptical storytelling, was very much my cup of tea. Years later as a university student, while attending a 16mm programme of Campion’s early shorts, I discovered my first foray into her work was much earlier.

During the first few seconds of Peel, Campion’s jarring short from 1982 about an incredibly tense car journey, my memories of seeing this spiky little film on TV came flooding back. The violence of Peel’s edits, the visceral sound design of thundering traffic, and the vividness of the close-ups on the three ginger-haired characters (a woman, her brother and his son/her nephew) as they bickered by the roadside, transported me to some point in the early 90s, catching the film by chance on BBC2’s Moving Pictures series.

I think what seared Peel so firmly into my cerebral cortex was the context. Coming across it while channel hopping between sitcom reruns, cheesy game shows and Daz doorstep challenges, this eight-minute wonder stood out like a nose bleed on freshly-fallen snow. Any film fan who came of age pre-YouTube will probably have a similar story to tell, of coming across a surreal short in the graveyard slot on Channel 4 or some weird Eastern Block animation before the early morning cartoons; films too avantgarde to take up space in primetime slots, but perfect in those awkward gaps between programmes when the audience at home is either half awake or still rubbing sleep from their eyes.

Thanks to the internet, filmmakers now have myriad options for showcasing their short film work; some go viral, some languish with a handful of views. The proud tradition of short films on television is still being kept alive, though, thanks to Random Acts, a collaboration between Channel 4 and the Arts Council that has seen hundreds of bite-sized shorts from emerging filmmakers commissioned, which are then showcased on the channel’s various platforms, including on television.

For Catherine Bray, Random Acts’ commissioning editor, the aim is simple. “I want to enable filmmakers to make films they wouldn’t always get to make elsewhere,” she tells us. “Hopefully films which surprise us, and films which genuinely hold the attention of the audience.” Her focus is very much on new talent. “I like it when we find people who exist a bit outside the system and enable them to create something that makes people sit up and take notice.”

One filmmaker who fits this bill is Bryan M. Ferguson, a maverick young director from Glasgow with an immediately recognisable visual style and a penchant for the extreme.

When The Skinny screened his short film Flamingo, about a young woman turned on by amputation, at the 2016 Glasgow Short Film Festival, not one but two grown men fainted in the audience. Satanic Panic ‘87, Ferguson’s new film made for Random Acts, which screens in October as part of Channel 4’s FilmFear season, is a wild blending of early Sam Raimi with J-Horror, as two goth kids do some dark deeds to open a gateway to hell via

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Concrete Flowers

Satanic Panic '87

a satanic aerobics workout VHS. It’s the kind of imaginative, outsider art that Channel 4 has been championing since its inception.

You can find Random Acts’ shorts on myriad platforms, but Bray doesn’t want to impose any hierarchy. She does concede, however, that television has an advantage over these other mediums in one respect: accidental discovery. “You can be watching one programme, and simply by carrying on watching you’re suddenly watching something completely outside your comfort zone. Online, there’s an algorithm usually trying to match you with content it predicts you will like. With TV, there’s a human scheduler, and they might be trying to match what they think you’ll like, but they might also be trying to throw you a tastefully curated curveball.”

Since the introduction of BBC Scotland back in February, Scottish viewers have been privy to similar curveballs thanks to Next Big Thing, a series that acts as an overview of recent short films to emerge from Scotland’s lively short film scene.

Louise Thornton, BBC Scotland’s commissioning executive for digital, social and youth, curates the series. “When I got this job, one of my objectives was to champion young talent,” Thornton tells us. Before her role at the new channel, Thornton had worked on the BBC’s popular digital platform The Social. “I was always aware there was all this brilliant talent out there in Scotland and The Social was trying to go some way to break down the walls of the BBC and bring people in who we can work with that we might not know about, many

of whom were already filmmakers in their own right doing lots of short films. So I was very much aware there was all this brilliant content being made and I knew there was obviously the Glasgow Short Film Festival and all these other little brilliant outlets, but we as the BBC weren’t showing any of these shorts.”

“ I like it when we find people who exist a bit outside the system and enable them to create something that makes people sit up and take notice” Catherine Bray

As part of her new commissioning responsibilities, Thornton was given some late night slots to play with. “It felt like a space where we could experiment a bit more and start working with some of these filmmakers,”

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she explains, “particularly the ones that have won awards and done well on the festival circuit.” The films that have screened on Next Big Thing will be familiar to those with one eye on Scotland’s short film scene. James Price’s bracing slice-of-life drama Concrete & Flowers is the most recent film on the channel at the time of writing, while Ainslie Henderson & Will Anderson’s stop-motion animation Monkey Love Experiments is next down the pike.

Award-winners like Tim Courtney’s My Loneliness Is Killing Me, Alia Ghafar’s Salt & Sauce and Robin Haig’s Hula have also turned up on the channel.

One thing that connects the above is that they’ve all appeared at Glasgow Short Film Festival over the last few years. “Any initiative that brings more short film to TV should be applauded,” says GSFF’s director, Matt Lloyd, when we ask his thoughts on Next Big Thing, “and it’s a great opportunity for the many fantastic filmmakers who have been featured.”

GSFF’s co-director, Sanne Jehoul, adds that TV somehow helps free short films from the association that they’re difficult to penetrate.

“While of course we’d want festivals to be as accessible as possible to all audiences,” she says, “there’s no denying that TV opens these kinds of works up to audiences that might not be at all familiar with short film festivals or online platforms for short film exhibition.”

While Jehoul and Lloyd are delighted that these works are finding a wider audience thanks to BBC Scotland’s enthusiasm for screening short films by emerging filmmakers, there is some scepticism about the approach. Jehoul doesn’t seem convinced the series engages with the depth and breadth of Scotland’s moving image scene. “I do think unfamiliarity with the wider artistic and industry scene might limit what is shown,” she suggests, “and how it could be seen in the context of other work and practices. It still feels a bit like it’s not being considered in its appropriate context or as its own art form, and programming decisions can consequently seem somewhat arbitrary.”

The series’ name is also problematic. “If I’m honest, I think to present filmmakers on TV as the ‘Next Big Thing’ seems a bit reductive,” Lloyd says. “It draws the focus away from the work itself; it reinforces the idea as shorts as mere stepping stones, not to mention putting the pressure of expectation on the filmmaker.”

Despite these concerns, the series does seem to be making good on its title. “Quite a few of the directors that have worked on some of the short films that I’ve put out as part of Next Big Thing, I now see them popping up in other things that we’re working on,” reveals Thornton. There’s Siri Rødnes, for example, the director of Take Your Partners, the first film to screen on Next Big Thing back in February when BBC Scotland launched, who has made a pilot for mini-drama Pancake. A mock-doc set at an elite ballet school, it will screen in the autumn along with three other new pilots, one of which will be chosen to go to series. “That really feels like what we’re set up to be doing in BBC Scotland.”

Next Big Thing continues on BBC Scotland Selected Random Acts will be broadcast on Film4 this October as part of Black History Month and FilmFear

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Cassandro, the Exotico!

Queer Aye SQIFF turns five this month, with a zesty programme including a celebration of ballroom culture, films on Latinx legends and Janelle Monáe’s Dirty Computer.

The festival’s coordinator and co-founder, Helen Wright, tells us more

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he festival with the best acronym returns with a full enough programme to satisfy even the hungriest LGBTQ+ filmgoer.

Scottish Queer International Film Festival, aka SQIFF, celebrates its fifth birthday with a flourish, culminating in a screening of Janelle Monáe’s visual album, Dirty Computer. For anyone who watched, impressed, as Monáe led a vagina dance through the desert in her video for the song PYNK, SQIFF understand. Partnering with We Are Parable and their season The Art of the Black Visual Album, Dirty Computer gives you the opportunity to get closer to the singer’s creative mindset. Monae sets her music to a dystopian nightmare where she is subjected to having her memories removed – it so happens, these are mainly ones that involve her relationship with Zen (Tessa Thompson). It will mark the finale of the biggest SQIFF yet. As festival co-ordinator Helen Wright explains: “We started off a four-day festival with about 35 events and are now a five-day festival with over 50 events.” Two staff have grown to 15, which sits alongside an expansion of ideas too. Wright continues: “We’ve really developed our access measures over the years, introducing pay what you can tickets, having a Quiet Space which people who get sensory overload can use during the fest, and honing the use of content notes.”

Fitting for a festival that puts queer audiences first, there is a wealth of diverse stories to choose from, with the hope that folk who don’t usually see themselves represented will feel encouraged to come along. One such example is Vision Portraits by Rodney Evans (in partnership with the Royal National

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Institute of Blind People). “I’ve become really invested and interested in disabled aesthetics in film and this is one of the most exciting examples of that we’ve had at the festival,” Wright elaborates.

Top picks also include a screening in partnership with LUX Scotland by guest curator Rabz Lansiquot, showing their own work and that of fellow artist Zinzi Minott, interrogating liberation versus representation in Black film.

Plus, a strand focusing on Latinx Legends, featuring stunning documentaries about queer Latin American artists and activists. Films screening include Queen of Lapa about Luana Muniz, a trans sex worker and mentor to other trans women in Rio de Janeiro; Cassandro, the Exotico! about an incredible gay lucha libre wrestler in Mexico; and Lemebel, about performance artist Pedro Lemebel, who was a force to be reckoned with during the period of Pinochet’s dictatorship in Chile.

Taking place during Black History Month, SQIFF will screen films celebrating vogue and ballroom culture. Fabulous follows international legend Lasseindra Ninja as she returns to her home of Guyana to introduce voguing to its LGBTQ community while Father Figure follows Guilliano, founding father of The Kiki House of Angels, and his family as they share experiences of homophobia and racism in the Netherlands. The screening is curated and hosted by artist and researcher Claricia Parinussa, co-founder and organiser of Vogue Scotland. Parinussa explains why this is the time to screen both films.

“This year both Guilliano and Lasseindra

have been recognised for their work in the scene, Lasseindra being deemed legendary and Guilliano now the first International Father of the House of Prodigy Dutch chapter (his house in the main scene, which runs parallel to the kiki scene). They are both people I hugely respect, who have done so much to build their communities, so I’m glad we get the chance to celebrate them.” In both films, “their stories come through very honestly and (I) felt it important to share these in Scotland where an understanding of the real culture and its roots in LGBTQ communities of colour is beginning to grow.”

With ballroom stories finding their feet increasingly in popular culture, this has seen an interest from new audiences, keen to try.

But despite any commercialisation, Parinussa does feel, “the culture has a very strong core and this remains.”

The SQIFF bubble is a joyous place to be, reflecting a dynamic queer filmmaking scene.

Wright says, “Things are really exciting and the sheer breadth, imagination and aesthetic experimentation out there is incredible, if harder to find out about for audiences.” The range of films SQIFF programmes is something the rest of the industry could learn from.

While in their annual report, GLAAD found an increase of LGB representation in films from the seven major picture houses, from 12.8% in 2017 to 18.2% in 2018, there was no trans representation and a drop in representation of POC. “What SQIFF shows tends to be what is less supported and recognised by film industries,” Wright explains, “which in their

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Interview: Eleanor Capaldi

capitalist outlooks obscure, reject and exploit many queer people.”

Over the years SQIFF has seen collaborations born, premieres given, parties thrown, and even Twitter fame, when a gay porn star who was a festival guest posted a pic of himself completely naked and “somewhat erect” wearing only his SQIFF festival pass.

Ah, memories.

It’s also the type of festival where all of that can happen as well as the more affecting.

“People have told us they haven’t been able to attend a film festival until ours due to things like the pay what you can tickets and disabled access measures,” says Wright. “Young people have shared their experiences of being LGBTQ+ or even on one occasion come out for the first time during our schools’ events.”

Producing a festival is hard work and emotional pressure, but it’s things like that which make it feel worthwhile.

SQIFF has achieved a lot in these short years, and there’s still much more it can go on to do. If additional funding could be secured, the festival could then offer staff salaries, and provide more training, opportunities and prize money to “encourage more of the type of exciting filmmaking the industry ignores.” With more of that vital support, the possibilities are sky-high. “Oh and I’d like to start an online SQIFF player – like a queer Netflix,” says Wright. “Some of these goals may be more realistic than others!”

SQIFF takes place at the CCA and venues across Glasgow, 2-6 Oct

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Portrait of a Festival on Fire Another eclectic mix of old and new titles from across the Channel arrives in UK cinemas courtesy of the French Film Festival. Here are five highlights from the 2019 crop

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rom some of the cream of the Cannes crop to restored classics and mainstream hits, the French Film Festival is a much-appreciated annual event for the UK’s Franco-cinephiles. The 27th edition is packed with new works from heavy hitter directors like Bruno Dumont, Céline Sciamma, Quentin Dupieux, Arnaud Desplechin and Christophe Honoré, which feature such onscreen favourites as Catherine Deneuve, Chiara Mastroianni, Léa Seydoux, Jean Dujardin, Adèle Haenel and Fabrice Luchini.

The entire programme’s worth checking out, but here are five we’re particularly keen to see: The Best Years of a Life Dir. Claude Lelouch Back in 1966, Claude Lelouch’s Palme d’Or

winner A Man and a Woman (Un homme et une femme) became one of the rare Frenchlanguage films to go on to box office success in the United States. It went on to receive four Oscar nominations and won two, including Best Original Screenplay. Its main theme remains one of the most enduring earworms of 60s cinema from any country.

A Man and a Woman followed a widow and widower – he a race car driver, she a script girl – falling in love but finding past trauma and tragedies difficult to overcome. Lelouch would revisit these same characters in 1986 with the aptly-titled A Man and a Woman: 20 Years Later, which we can only assume inspired the makers of Halloween H20: 20 Years Later. Now, in 2019, he’s got legendary stars Jean-Louis Trintignant and Anouk Aimée back in the same

Portrait of a Lady on Fire

roles for The Best Years of a Life, to pick up where they left off over 30 years ago. Beat that, Richard Linklater, Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire Dir. Céline Sciamma One of the buzziest titles from this year’s Cannes competition, where it picked up the Best Screenplay prize, the latest from Girlhood director Céline Sciamma is a 1760s-set lesbian romance anchored by incredible performances from Noémie Merlant and Adèle Haenel.

The former plays a painter commissioned to do the wedding painting of the latter, who’s a reluctant bride-to-be, having left convent life to be married off for her family after her sister’s death. Marianne and Héloïse grow close and eventually romantically intimate over the course of the painting of the portrait, the completion of which will, of course, bring an end to their relationship.

Young Ahmed Dir. Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne Although the consistently lauded Dardenne brothers picked up the Best Director(s) award at Cannes this year, the general critical reception to their latest, Young Ahmed, was decidedly mixed. With many accused the writer-director pair of deliberately courting controversy. The French Film Festival offers British audiences what might be one of the few chances to decide for themselves, as, unusually for the Dardennes, the film is currently still without a

Words: Josh Slater-Williams UK distribution deal. The story follows a Belgian Muslim teen hatching a plot to kill his teacher after a seemingly sudden radicalisation via an encounter with someone spouting an extremist interpretation of the Quran.

The Bears’ Famous Invasion Dir. Lorenzo Mattotti The animated directorial debut of eclectic artist and illustrator Lorenzo Mattotti is based on Dino Buzzati’s children’s book, and premiered in Un Certain Regard at this year’s Cannes Film Festival to much acclaim. After his son is snatched by hunters in the Sicilian mountains, Léonce, the king of Bears, attempts to invade the land of humans with the help of his bear clan.

Delphine and Carole Dir. Callisto McNulty One of European cinema’s greatest stars, Delphine Seyrig was a key part of enduring classics from the likes of Chantal Akerman, Alain Resnais, Marguerite Duras, Joseph Losey, Luis Buñuel, Jacques Demy and many more. Callisto McNulty’s documentary focuses on her collaborations with activist Carole Roussopoulos during the 1970s and 80s, when they made innovative use of new video technologies to fight for the women’s movement.

The French Film Festival runs from 1 Nov to 15 Dec in various cities across the UK, including Edinburgh and Glasgow. For full programme details and tickets, head to frenchfilmfestival.org.uk

Spain & Glory The Edinburgh Spanish Film Festival is back with a tasty menu of award-winning Spanish cinema as well as a literal tasty menu with Scottish chef Michael Innes

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on’t let that title fool you. The Edinburgh Spanish Film Festival, which returns for its sixth edition, doesn’t just cater to Hispanophiles living in the Scottish capital. As well as a lively programme planned at Filmhouse and the University of Edinburgh, ESFF will also be taking films to Stirling, Manchester, Aberdeen and Glasgow throughout October.

Some of the titles in this year’s ESFF programme are coming to us on a wave of acclaim from back home, such as opener The Candidate, Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s sinuous slow-burn thriller about a politician who finds himself tangled in a web of corruption. It’s no fun at all watching the lies and schemes of our real-life politicians play out on the news, but watching the world crumble around one on the big screen should prove a cathartic experience.

The Candidate won seven Goya Awards (Spain’s equivalent of the Oscars), including Best Director, Best Actor and Best Screenplay.

The film that pipped it to the post for Best Film, Champions, also screens at ESFF and demonstrates the eclecticism of the festival’s programming. The kind of feel-good comedy that would melt the heart of even the most hardened of cynics, Champions follows an arrogant basketball coach who finds himself swapping the big leagues for coaching a ramshackle team made up of people with disabilities as community service. This

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heartwarming comedy has been a huge hit in Spanish cinemas – see the original before the inevitable Holywood remake.

The strand 80 Years of Exile! features a series of films marking eight decades since the devastation of the Spanish Civil War, and explores how that conflict threw people from Spain to all corners of the world. The strand includes older films like Soldiers of Salamina, Broken Silence and Mexican Suitcase as well as the UK premiere of The Accordionist’s Son, Fernando Bernués’ adaptation of the classic Basque novel of the same name. An exhibition in Filmhouse’s Café Bar of Spanish film posters related to the Spanish Civil War and exile will complement the strand.

Among the other film highlights is Icíar Bollaín’s vibrant biography Yuli, which shows how the great dancer Carlos Acosta went from being a football-mad tearaway on the streets of Havana to the first black lead dancer at the Royal Ballet. Also be sure to make time for exquisite Galician film Fire Will Come from the talented Oliver Laxe. Soaked in the atmosphere and landscape of the region, this drama about a man returning to his secluded childhood home after a spell incarcerated for arson won the Un Certain Regard jury prize at Cannes this year.

You should also seek out ESFF’s two films from the Americas: The Eternal Feminine from

Words: Jamie Dunn

Campeones

Mexico, a biopic about the hugely influential Mexican feminist writer Rosario Castellanos; and from Argentina comes The Angel, a wry thriller inspired by the true-life crime spree of the baby-faced Carlos Robledo Puch, the country’s most notorious killer.

It’s not just films that ESFF have on offer though. As with seemingly every film festival nowadays, there’s some TV in the mix. The first two episodes of the Paco León-directed series Madrid on Fire will screen – we’re told the show is concerned with Hollywood star Ava Gardner and the time she spent living in the Spanish capital in the early 60s. There’s an

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event dedicated to Spanish gastronomy too. A screening of Chef ’s Diaries: Scotland – a doc exploring the culture, landscape, people and products from Scotland fronted by the Roca brothers, the celebrated chefs of famed Catalonian restaurant El Celler de Can Roca – will be followed by a selection of the finest Spanish wines and tapas by the Scottish chef Michael Innes, who has worked with the Rocas.

It’s quite a menu of Spanish cinema and culture. Buen provecho!

ESFF runs 4-12 Oct in Edinburgh, and tours to Manchester, Stirling, Aberdeen and Glasgow from 3 Oct-14 Nov

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A Continent’s Past, Present and Future In Africa in Motion’s 14th edition, Afrofuturism, VR and gaming sit beside the oldest surviving film by an African-American director

Talking About Trees

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frica in Motion approaches its 14th edition having jettisoned the position of Festival Director, instead opting for a more horizontal approach to programming that has seen them open up 14 curatorial positions to independent programmers. For a festival with such an expansive remit, this makes perfect sense, and the fruits of this openness to new voices are reflected in a collection of films, workshops, exhibitions and parties that pop with fun and invention.

Hybrid forms and the contested political ground of cinema are persistent themes across the programme. There’s a focus on Afro-Brazilian short film, mining stories of resistance and belonging from family archives,

while Queer Africa offers an effervescent snapshot into queer identity and desire across the continent. Curator Natasha Ruwona’s Afrofuturism programme, Black to the Future, features Kordae Jatafa Henry’s Earth Mother, Sky Father: 2030 (2019), John Akomfrah’s mind-bending essay on displacement, science fiction and techno, The Last Angel of History (1996) and Chelsea Odufu’s coming-of-age story Ori Inu: In Search of Self (2015). The triple bill is punctuated by a club night at Edinburgh’s Wee Red Bar. And the festival plunges further into futurology at the Africa in Motion Digital Hub at Glasgow’s Civic House. The Game On, Africa! exhibition is the UK’s first video games and VR

Words: Sam Kenyon

film exhibition dedicated solely to work developed on the African continent – with playable games challenging Western conventions around narrative, gameplay and aesthetics. An adjacent programme of feature films, workshops and discussions offers audiences an even deeper dive into the potential of new technologies to open up spaces for transformative thinking.

The festival also looks backwards in time, with two recently-restored films speaking to forgotten film histories and the relationship between memory and the moving image.

Within Our Gates (1920), Oscar Micheaux’s silent drama of racial violence – and the oldest known surviving film made by an AfricanAmerican director – stands as a direct riposte to D. W. Griffith’s notoriously racist The Birth of a Nation (1915). And there is a rare opportunity to see Mostafa Derkaoui’s long-censored classic of militant cinema, About Some Meaningless Events (1974) – a bracing docudrama questioning the role of art in Moroccan society.

Festival opener Talking About Trees (2019) is similarly concerned with notions of a national cinema. The heartfelt documentary charts the history of film in Sudan, following a group of retired filmmakers and their efforts to revive the once-thriving Sudanese Film Club. Its demise in the shadow of conflict precipitated their own stories of migration, creation and eventual homecoming that find poignant echoes elsewhere in the programme: in both Khalik Allah’s Black Mother (2018) and

Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese’s Mother, I’m Suffocating. This Is My Last Film About You (2019)– an aching, cinematic lament to creation in exile.

The co-mingling of past and present and cycles of migration are perhaps nowhere better articulated than in Malian filmmaker and cultural theorist Manthia Diawara’s An Opera of the World (2017), a meditation on centuries-old migration between West Africa and Europe. Restaging a performance of Wasis Diop’s opera Bintou Wéré, the film combines traditional Malian music with European arias, and oral histories with media footage of mass migration. Diawara will attend the festival in both cities to present the film, discussing the aesthetics of hybridity, and the “new meanings [that might] emerge [from the] porosity of borders and transgression of frontiers between Africa and the rest of the world.”

Rwandan filmmaker Joël Karekezi will also be in attendance, presenting his second feature film, The Mercy of the Jungle (2018) – winner of the top prize at Africa’s biennale international film festival FESPACO in Burkina Faso. Other must-see features include Søren Steen Jespersen and Nasib Farah’s Lost Warrior (2018), about a former Al-Shabaab terrorist in limbo between Somalia and the UK; and My Friend Fela (2019), Joel Zito Araújo’s fresh take on the legacy of legendary Nigerian musician Fela Kuti.

Africa in Motion takes places 25 Oct-3 Nov in venues across Glasgow and Edinburgh. For full programme info and tickets, head to africa-in-motion.org.uk

Talk of the Toons Scotland Loves Anime returns for its tenth edition. Festival Director Andrew Partridge talks us through this year’s highlights Interview: Josh Slater-Williams

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n annual celebration of Japanese animation that takes place at Glasgow Film Theatre and Edinburgh’s Filmhouse, the Scotland Loves Anime festival reaches a milestone 10th edition in October 2019. “It always feels like we’re younger still,” Festival Director Andrew Partridge tells us. “My how time flies when you’re stressing about running a festival!”

Regularly showcasing the best new animation from Japan, alongside restorations of established classics and the occasional live-action adaptation of an anime or video game, the festival has gone from strength to strength in terms of audience, reach, influence and programming coups. What was once just a relatively modest attempt to get more Scottish cinema showings for anime – that aren’t just from Studio Ghibli – has become one of the key European animation events on the calendar.

“I started with the lofty goal of being a wider animation festival with a segment for anime,” says Partridge, who is also President of the Anime Limited distribution label launched in 2013. “But due to my experience,

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we ended up the biggest theatrical event for anime annually! Over the last year or two, it’s been fascinating to see fans from outside of Scotland complaining about why all the anime events have to happen in Scotland – which is quite the reversal on a decade ago!”

On why it’s so important to see the anime he programmes on the big screen, Partridge says, “it’s about showing people there is more to animation than just kids’ content – that there are stories that can engage people of all ages in Japanese animation. We love showcasing that work regardless of whether it’s 2D or 3D – especially in an age where hand-drawn has shifted to digital tablets for a part of the process at least. I admit I do have a fondness for traditional hand-drawn 2D, though, and that’s because in a world of CG there’s something very magical about that style.

Variety and diversity are good, though, and ultimately, it’s showing people stories that cater to a range of audiences that matters. Our challenge was and is always to persuade people it’s worth that shot and to keep widening interest in anime.”

Alongside many other partners, Partridge

Weathering With You

attributes the support of GFT’s Allison Gardner and Filmhouse’s Rod White in taking a chance on the project to help make it a sustainable event in those early years. The festival is now a tourist attraction in its own way: “People plan week-long holidays up to see Scotland now, alongside the week of anime cinema. It’s things like that which are really heartwarming. Scotland’s always been my home and I want to share it with people as much as I want to share the films.”

SLA Recommendations Partridge has a few recommendations from this year’s programme, beginning with Makoto Shinkai's follow-up to global hit Your Name.

“Weathering With You (2019) has so much in

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common with what made Your Name the hit it was that it’s a natural starting point. Redline (2009) is also a great start as it’s very ‘anime’ without being confusing – it’s a straightforward Wacky Races situation with an amazing soundtrack and animation. If you watch one film with a beer in hand late night, make it this one at the GFT. And Ride Your Wave (2019) is the wild card option I’d suggest. The style is different but Masaaki Yuasa loves to tell a story and that translates well, regardless of if you’re a journeyman in anime or a novice.”

Scotland Loves Anime’s 10th edition runs 11-13 Oct at GFT and 14-20 Oct at Filmhouse. For the full line-up and screening times, visit lovesanimation.com

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What’s the Score?

Scottish cinema has had a resurgence of late. The same can be said for film music being produced by Scottish musicians. We speak to a range of different artists working in film to get a handle on how they approach this side of their practice

Interview: Jamie Dunn

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or a country with such a vibrant music scene, Scottish musicians are responsible for surprisingly few great musical moments in cinema. There are Mark Knopfler’s rousing scores for Bill Forsyth, we suppose, and Simple Minds’ Don’t You (Forget About Me) brought The Breakfast Club to a memorable close. But there’s little to shout about beyond these scraps. From Under the Skin (London artist Mica Levi) to Rob Roy (American music genius Carter Burwell) to Highlander (Queen at their most bombastic), we tend to ship in our composers. Even Trainspotting failed us.

Perhaps, though, there’s a change in the air.

Over the last few years, Scottish artists have been increasingly in demand by movie music departments, both at home as well as abroad. Earlier this year, Edinburgh Film Festival opened with Boyz in the Wood, a rambunctious action-comedy about four working-class teens being hunted down by demented aristocrats in the Scottish Highlands. A significant proportion of its pleasure is derived from its psychedelic orchestral score by Glasgow producer Alex Smoke, as well as the hilarious raps spat by one of the quartet, a wannabe hip-hop star who’s dubbed himself DJ Beatroot, which come courtesy of Glasgow-based producer S-Type.

Speaking of Glasgow, the Glasgow Film Festival closed with another great music-filled Scottish film: Beats. A coming-of-age movie set in West Lothian during the summer of 1994 when the UK government was cracking down on the country’s rave scene, the film’s period soundtrack was assembled by Optimo legend JD Twitch, who made sure Scotland was represented alongside The Prodigy and Leftfield, with Hudson Mohawke’s epic Scud Books closing the film.

The Scottish band with possibly the longest list of soundtrack credits on IMDb is Mogwai. The mighty post-rockers’ instrumental work runs the gamut from serene and melancholy to pensive and brutal – sometimes in the same song. In other words, their music is a dream for any scene that needs a wash of atmosphere, whether it’s sunny or disturbing.

“I think our music can be quite cinematic and emotional,” suggests Stuart Braithwaite,

Our Ladies

“which works quite well for film and TV.” The band’s first score proper was in 2006 for Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno’s experimental documentary Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait, which tracks the legendary French footballer Zinedine Zidane during the course of a single match. In the same year, they collaborated with Clint Mansell and Kronos Quartet on the music for Darren Aronofsky’s metaphysical sci-fi The Fountain. Since then, they haven’t looked back. They’ve composed the music for a gritty action sci-fi (Kin), a creepy French horror series (Les Revenants) and for Mark Cousins’ powerful cine-essay to mark the 70th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing (Atomic: Living in Dread and Promise), Braithwaite’s favourite of Mogwai’s scores.

They recently completed a score for the upcoming ZeroZeroZero, an Italian Mafia series from the makers of Gomorrah.

At this stage, film and TV work sit side-by-side withMogwai’s music-making. Not that the band see them as being the same, necessarily. “I think the main difference is that soundtracks are collaborative and you are working with many people,” says Braithwaite.

“On your own records, you only have yourselves to keep happy.” There’s also less room

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to manoeuvre. “Lots of times you’ll need to write very short pieces of music for scenes with exact start and end times,” Braithwaite explains. “Our music can be very free, so being so concise has been something we’ve had to learn.” The attitude of the collaborator also contributes significantly. “On Kin, the director literally came to the studio and had very definite ideas of the music he wanted, whereas with Zidane the directors gave us free rein. It varies a lot.”

One of the most memorable and innovative scores in recent years was found in Bo Burnham’s Eighth Grade, a coming-of-age film centred on Kayla, an extremely awkward adolescent girl that’s both sharp and tender.

What made Eighth Grade’s music – written by genre-defying Scottish composer Anna Meredith – so special is that its electronic blaring and bleeping directly tuned us into the anxiety of the film’s cripplingly shy 13-year-old protagonist.

Meredith reckons she got the gig because very few other musicians fitted the bill. “Bo Burnham was looking for quite a specific thing: a classical composer now working in electronics. And came across me – hurrah!” The music Burnham asked her to assemble isn’t what you’d expect for your typical indie movie about an alienated teen. The score is huge and strange, and seems to be part of Kayla’s psyche in some way. “I think it [feels that way] because Bo told me to really lean into her thoughts,” Meridith explains. “It’s not judging her or stepping back and observing her in a cute/distanced way. These discomforts are huge things for Kayla, so I tried to write them as if they were her equivalents of diffusing a bomb!”

Meredith’s next score, for Netflix show Living With Yourself, in which Paul Rudd plays an average shlub who’s replaced by a new and improved version of himself after a spa treatment, reworks some older tracks with new ones. “There’s a LOT of music in it!” Meridith tells us. “They had some bits where they’d worked a lot with these older tracks so I was balancing that up with newer material, which ranges from various kinds of drama and tension to full-blown love themes, which was fun to do!”

Another memorable melding of Scottish

FILM SPECIAL

film and music in recent years has been Anna and the Apocalypse, which as far as we’re aware is the first film in the sub-genre of Christmas zombie musical comedy. Responsible for the film’s infectious toe-tappers, which range from a shameless Hall & Oates rip-off to an arena rock number sung by the school jock boasting about his zombie-killing prowess, are Tommy Reilly and Roddy Hart, both solo singer-songwriters who were trying their hand at the musical format for the first time.

The pair have been friends since touring together back in 2009, but Anna… is their first time trying to write collaboratively. “We just felt it was the first great opportunity for us to work together and that’s really as simple as it was,” says Hart when we ask how the collaboration came about. “We just both thought, ‘let’s have a go at this and get in a room together and see if we can make it work as a team’, because movies – especially for a musical – are these big onerous projects and we felt it very important to have somebody else to work with.”

This collaboration wasn’t a one-off: the duo have got a taste for the movie business.

Next up they’re providing a very different type of score for Our Ladies, Michael Caton-Jones’ adaptation of Alan Warner’s rambunctious comic novel about six teenage choirgirls cutting loose in Edinburgh. “Michael, the director, was all about simplicity for that score,” says Reilly.

“So we stripped everything down to one string section, piano, the key elements.”

If it’s not clear already that this pair have range, they’re also currently working on a reboot of The Animaniacs, the animated series from the 90s produced by Steven Spielberg.

Having grown up watching the show on Saturday morning TV, the boys are finding the prospect quite surreal. “I think my head’s going to explode when that’s all done,” laughs Reilly. “We’ve been very lucky... we’re being asked to write songs in this film world and write underscore as well. So creatively we’re kind of having our cake and eating it.”

ZeroZeroZero comes to Sky Atlantic and NOW TV in 2020; Living With Yourself streams on Netflix from 18 Oct; Our Ladies has its world premiere at the London Film Festival; Animaniacs comes to Hulu in the US in 2020 with its UK release still to be announced

THE SKINNY

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Following on from her 2016 SAY Award-winning album Varmints, we speak to Anna Meredith about telling lies and creating her own worlds on its follow-up, FIBS

Interview: Tallah Brash

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Anna Meredith

On her latest album, FIBS, Anna Meredith hasn’t created her own web of lies so much as her own world, or perhaps more aptly, her own multiverse. Each song is its own universe, and across its entirety, Meredith – her vision, ideas and processes – is the constant. FIBS invites you into Meredith’s worlds, none more so than on the album’s second single moonmoons where, via an augmented reality app, you’re invited to view the universe of moonmoons through your own lens.

By placing a selection of obscure ceramic objects created by Meredith’s sister Eleanor wherever you like within your own world (your living room, kitchen, office, favourite park or even your hairdresser’s), each of these objects control different aspects of the song. With infinite possible configurations, the app

October 2019

Credit: Eleanor Meredith

“ I wanted to end things on a positive note, which obviously feels really mental given that the whole world feels like it’s fucked”

Photo: Gem Harris

hen is it okay to do something a bit naughty?” asks Anna Meredith, or Anna Meredith MBE to use her full title.

“I hope you’re bowing as we speak,” she laughs, still in disbelief. It’s a title she gained since we last spoke around a year ago – she suspects it’s either due to her work last year on Five Telegrams (“a giant big piece about the war”), which opened both 2018’s BBC Proms and Edinburgh International Festival, or her “sparkling wit”. As well as sharing tales of trips to the bingo and her recent obsession with Zelda (“I’m like a weirdo who’s playing it on the loo”), Meredith is chatting pork pies. Not the delicious meat-filled kind, but the lies you might tell to avoid hurting someone’s feelings.

A bending of the truth, or more simply put: a fib.

“We’ve all been in those situations where you’ve made this real web of lies,” Meredith says, following a short confessional of her disloyalty to hairdressers, where she tells us how she regularly pretends to be someone she’s not, like “a baker” or “a swimmer”, when she goes for a haircut. “Someone’s like, ‘Can I pop round?’ ‘No you can’t’, and you invent some elaborate reason,and then actually they’re coming round anyway and you’re going to have to pretend the builder’s in when they’re not and cover the whole house in sheets and paint pots. And your own web of lies catches you out. Awful. Definitely been there.”

allows you to endlessly manipulate and change how you experience the track.

“I think there’s a sense of wanting to make its own world,” Meredith tells us, “of wanting to make the world the album, which even to me goes through to the artwork, which is recognisable but also a wee bit off-kilter. The shapes are recognisable but the detail is not quite what you expect. It’s sort of got its own parameters. It looks like a landscape that is self-governed. God, this is sounding very weighty,” she sidesteps as if having an out of body experience. “It doesn’t look random, it looks like something that’s got structure to it, and that’s what I believe. All these tracks and all this stuff fits together, so that there is a sort of construct,” she stops in her tracks exclaiming “WOW” as if audibly pinching herself. She continues, “... of this album, of this world, where these objects and these things all live together. And some of them are not one thing or another and there’s a lot of grey area, which

musically is where I’m very happy to sit.”

The app for moonmoons was created by Arthur Carabott, who describes AR as a “way of tricking your brain into hearing virtual sounds as if they’re in the real world,” tying neatly back to this idea of a fib. “On some levels there’s a lot of fibbing to myself: ‘You’re nearly finished’. That kind of stuff as I was going with the writing, but yeah, I feel like each thing has been considered as a little invention. Each track has its own little rules, its own little infrastructure that’s been built around it. I don’t know if that makes it a lie or a fib. I’ve always liked the idea of fibs.

It’s a good/bad thing.”

While there’s nothing “bad” to be found upon first listen to Meredith’s follow-up to her Scottish Album of the Year Award-winning Varmints, lyrically, if you dig a little deeper, there is a quite negative arc of self-criticism to be found running through it. On songs like Inhale Exhale, which at times is fraught with tension, moments of euphoria shine through

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and, uplifted, you can breathe again. Callion then follows like a Jon Hopkins bubbler, filled with darkness and light, and you get the sense it wouldn’t work quite so well without these two sides of the story. Is this perhaps Meredith’s ‘good/bad’ when it comes to music?

As Bob Ross once said: “You need the dark in order to show the light.”

Ross was a painter, and so is Meredith.

Drawing “planning sketches” of each song in a first instance to make sure she gets “all the details right”, Meredith has a strong visual idea in mind of how she’d like a whole record to look and sound before anything is formally recorded. It’s unsurprising, really, as when listening to FIBS you can almost see shapes – her music really does paint a picture. Sounds throb in and out of focus and there’s a really strong tangential journey across the album, from its instrumentation to its lyrical content.

Beginning on the vigorous 90s trance of Sawbones, the feelings of being out of your depth are then explored on Inhale Exhale before the battering ram of Bump leads to the album’s midpoint, the comparatively mellow and dainty moonmoons. “I’ve got this creepy whiteboard in front of me, which has drawings I do of each track, and the shapes of each track, and moonmoons actually looks like a beetle”, she says. The second half kicks off with Divining, and following the unrelenting penultimate assault that is Paramour, the whole thing comes to a neat conclusion with the more delicate and defiant Unfurl: ‘Something’s bound to break / It better not be me / Uncoil / Skybound / Unfurl.’

“What I was vaguely going for [on Inhale Exhale] was other people saying: ‘You say you’re dancing in the deep end, but to me it looks like drowning.’ It’s other people’s idea of what a good time is. What’s fun or what’s crazy or what’s living. What constitutes being bold and adventurous, and actually I’m a bit cautious... there’s a sort of detachment, a sense of introspection and tension, you’re right, that comes through,” Meredith says of the album’s themes. “Killjoy is holding yourself back and self-criticism again, and Divining is ending a relationship and boundaries, but yeah, Unfurl, is,” she pauses, “freedom, basically.

“Lyrically,” Meredith says, “some of the stuff is actually quite self-critical and quite self-reflective and a bit negative, but I had this real sense that I wanted to end things on a positive – looking up and looking out – which obviously feels really mental given that the whole world feels like it’s fucked.

“I think there’s a kind of self-acceptance that comes by the end, a peace, after having gone through a lot of uncertainty and a lot of self-doubt. Whether that’s been done consciously, I mean I wouldn’t say I set out to make those things about the album, but I think you’re right, that is the journey through the whole thing.”

Whatever Meredith’s journey may have been to get here, we’re glad she took it, no word of a lie.

FIBS is released on 25 Oct via Moshi Moshi Anna Meredith plays The Art School, Glasgow, 8 Feb 2020 annameredith.com

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THE SKINNY

Altered Images Now performing as SHHE, and on the verge of releasing her self-titled debut, Su Shaw talks about defying traditional expectations and pressures to pursue her individuality, how location has inspired her creativity and growing into your true identity

Interview: Tony Inglis

ne day Su Shaw took a moment to breathe and thought: is this what I want in life? The stable relationship; the paid for home; the steady income. Settled, yes, but fulfilled? It seems almost cliché to then write that the talented artist gave that up to chase creative endeavours, when so many would pine for the former.

But is it? Even in a much more liberallyminded and forward-thinking world, whether from a position of privilege or not, the traditional pressures and expectations placed on young people maintain: get a job that pays well, find someone you’re compatible with, buy a house and watch life roll by. It takes immense courage and self-actualisation to push back against that and actually figure out who you’re meant to be as an individual.

“When I think about certain decisions I made in my life up until that point, I know that I wasn’t always completely honest about certain things,” says Shaw about that period. “I was working a full-time job completely outside of music; I was organising what I loved around these other things. Music was on the side. It wasn’t just a hobby, but I certainly wasn’t giving my best energy to it. I had fallen into that trap, that to survive you needed this and that. I had created that life for myself, and it wasn’t until I took a break to rethink that I realised I had been avoiding making changes in my life.”

Born in Fife to a Scottish father and Portuguese mother, Shaw, until a few years ago, self-released traditionally-minded, acoustic-tinged songs under the name Panda Su. This brought which brought her moderate attention but, as she admits, was a persona she was drifting away from, both in her personal and artistic life. Now, Shaw is set to release her first collection of songs under the moniker SHHE, a fiercely different, uncompromising and independent project, barely foreshadowed by her previous work.

“ If you’re looking for change, it’s really about figuring out what change you want that to be” Su Shaw

Where Panda Su was timid and happy to fall into the background, SHHE is daring and confrontational. Conventional features are replaced with experimentation and electronics. On her self-produced, self-titled debut, released via the Björk-associated One Little Indian label, whirring synths and ghostly loops can be both warm and confrontational. BOY is jarringly off-kilter, as if Mica Levi’s Under the Skin score were rewritten as a pop record. On Saint Cyrus and the double movement of Maps, Shaw is unafraid to allow small moments, and

October 2019

Photo: Portis Wasp

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melodies squeeze out from incidental to drawn out, hypnotic, strangely moving, beat or synth-driven instrumental passages.

“This was the first time that I felt completely in control of how I was making music and putting it out,” she explains. “I had this new-found courage, not really worrying about whether people would love or hate the music.

The main thing was just writing honest music that I wanted to release on my terms. I never really felt like that as Panda Su.” As with many an artistic reawakening, it took Shaw’s strength to uproot and move somewhere new and unfamiliar to tease all this out. “I’ve been kind of wary of people thinking ‘wait, she just literally moved across the River Tay and this is like a new life for her.

How does that work?’”

It may not be New York or Berlin she upped sticks to, but Dundee presented something Shaw had yet to experience as an artist – a place buzzing with a youthful energy and an opportunity to meet other like-minded people. “When I was in Fife, I was living in the country, in almost complete isolation. It was a very solitary sort of existence. Even just moving [to Dundee], and surrounding myself with other creative people, opening myself up to working with them, it was a place that gave me that almost instantly.” Fittingly, as a torrential downpour occurs on our end of the phone call in Glasgow, Shaw’s Dundee is bathed in sunlight.

This push and pull between extreme isolation and collaboration became integral to what was ostensibly a solo project in more ways than one. With the music recorded in the twilit hours of late nights and early mornings alone in her home, and mixing and mastering aided by Robin Sutherland and Heba Kadry, Shaw sought out other figures to bring her

compositions to life visually.

Through videos – such as the one designed for Saint Cyrus, in which the central amorphous figure is stretched, elongated and deconstructed – Shaw’s ideas of identity, in its myriad interpretations, and how it can be altered fluidly, are burrowed into. Work with photographer and dance theatre performer Harry Clark helped her accomplish this. “I always found it quite difficult to articulate how I wanted things to sound. When I took some time out, I found out how to communicate that.

With Harry though, he just gets the music. We’ll talk through ideas, but I never really have to explicitly explain. And he doesn’t feel like he needs to explicitly understand either.”

Two other very different places from Dundee allowed Shaw to work through what was essentially a crisis of identity. “When you move somewhere new, people like to think of having this opportunity to start afresh, but actually what tends to happen is you carry a lot of those learned behaviours or characteristics, your personality, with you. If you’re looking for change, it’s really about figuring out what change you want that to be.”

For Shaw, that meant seizing opportunities to put herself out of her comfort zone.

Last year, she took part in the Westfjords Residency in a small town in Iceland, tasked with composing music using minimal tools and instruments in a makeshift workshop in often harsh, if beautiful, surroundings. “It’s hard to find words which aren’t used so often, like magical,” Shaw says about where she was living. “I mean, it is. But they were extreme conditions. There, you’re never really in control. You can plan things, but you have to be prepared to change them. And I had never really lived like that before. It made me start writing music in a completely different way.”

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Shaw has since returned, and is scheduled to again. Call it a mystical pull (Shaw described being in an “altered state” while there); call it simply being forced to adapt (“it forced me to work with what I found there rather than some predetermined thoughts and ideas”). But all her experiences there fed into this new music – its expansiveness, its willingness to be chilly and sparse, to leave silence in spaces.

Shaw’s roots in Portugal even allowed her the opportunity to explore her identity in terms of history and heritage. Working on a project using field recordings and samples in Lisbon forced her to turn her gaze even more uncomfortably inward. Having grown up in a country now increasingly divided, it emphasised its importance in her life. “It’s something that’s on everyone’s mind in the current climate. I don’t tend to talk about politics, I guess because music is my escape from all of that, but I think it’s important to not remain ambiguous.

“I think the difference is clear when you look at the fact that I just recently applied for my Portuguese citizenship and it was granted almost immediately and without question, while my mum, who has been living in Scotland for more than 35 years, and has worked and raised her children here, is being questioned about her right to stay. It’s why I wanted my heritage to be part of all this.”

Mimicking what she’s learned over these last few years, SHHE is a culmination of Shaw’s inquiries into her personal identity in all its facets – her romantic, cultural, professional and artistic identity, but, most importantly, her identity as a young person navigating fulfilment in life.

SHHE is released on 11 Oct via One Little Indian shhe.bandcamp.com

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The Great Escape We chat to The Vegan Leather’s Gianluca Bernacchi and Marie Collins about anxiety, escapism and their debut album, Poor Girls / Broken Boys

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he opener to Poor Girls / Broken Boys, French Exit, is a perfect summation of the jittery, angular dance-pop journey you’re about to go on with The Vegan Leather’s debut album. An ode to getting the hell out of Dodge, its social anxiety theme is juxtaposed against a strutting, posturing beat. Just the thing to demonstrate the FOMO inherent in nights out in this time of social media and perfectly curated feeds.

With the disco ball’s shards never far from mind, are The VL dancing through the pain or dancing to forget? “We want to be seen as an escapism band,” says singer/guitarist Gianluca Bernacchi. “You listen to the album and you can get really into it, the themes all flow together. For a wee 45 minutes, it’s this weird jilted world that’s a bit real. But then put it down and come back out of it.”

This escapism theme is one echoed by co-vocalist Marie Collins, who cites music – both playing and listening – as being a lifeline for her in terms of keeping an even keel mental health-wise. All four band members hail from Paisley, whose industrialism and small Scottish town vibes meant there was little to do bar, luckily for The Vegan Leather, open mic nights.

“That makes it really easy to go into a depression or anxiety,” says Collins. “But it was the music that brought us together and that’s given us all sorts of amazing opportunities. It’s not tangible – you can’t really put your finger on what it does to you – but I hope our music can maybe do that to someone in the way bands have done that for us.”

Perhaps it’s this sense of escaping from a pre-written fate that makes The Vegan Leather so electric. Their live shows pulse with tension and sparks, with the exuberant Bernacchi at the front; Collins dipping in and out like a devil/angel on his shoulder and drum/bass kingpins Duncan Carswell and Matt McGoldrick keeping everything driving ever forwards. How, then, to capture this very ephemeral essence and lock it into an album? They credit producer Paul Savage to a certain extent.

“I say that Paul literally taught me how to sing,” says Bernacchi. “He taught me to go crazy, but to go crazy really quietly. It actually does sound much better.” Collins adds: “To just go for it, even if it’s out of tune. Those were some of his best takes.”

Savage encouraged the band to have

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Carswell and McGoldrick play live in the studio together for a couple of days, laying down all of the drum and bass backbone so that Collins and Bernacchi could come in later and experience the feeling of playing near-live. “It set a really good platform for us to go and add more stuff on top,” says Bernacchi. “It is a little bit more visceral and a little bit more alive.”

Poor Girls / Broken Boys has been a long time coming for The Vegan Leather. Most of the songs were written within the past couple of years, but some date as far back as 2012.

They’ve spent a lot of time honing their live show craft via coveted support slots, such as appearing alongside Paolo Nutini at Edinburgh’s Hogmanay in 2016, and gigs at London’s Roundhouse and Glasgow’s Barrowland Ballroom. It became clear an album was the next move.

“That came with a bit of anxiety as well,” admits Bernacchi. “In the latter half of 2018, we only played one or two gigs. Obviously we were doing work pretty much every day on the album, but it got to the point where we were all thinking, ‘Are we actually doing anything?

Because we’re not playing any gigs.’ It was fine, though – we’d been gigging for the whole four-and-a-half years before that.”

This is one aspect of what their single The Hit deals with. The concept of ‘waiting for the hit’ is one most bands can probably relate to, trying to juggle playing live, promoting themselves, releasing singles, finding time to record an album – but for what? With big hits comes commodification and commercialisation – and this is something The Vegan Leather have an ongoing battle with. In a music scene as ripe and fervent as Glasgow’s, there’s always going to be another band to measure yourself against, which isn’t an excellent situation to be in for a band as anxious as The Vegan Leather.

“It is hard sometimes,” says Collins.

“When you’re a band in the Glasgow scene, you’ve got a lot of peers doing really amazing things. You think, ‘Why are we not doing this?’ and you can feel a bit bummed out by that.

You have to measure your own success. We do all these shows and that’s enough. That’s cool.

If you’re going to keep striving to be better, you’re never going to be happy, I think. We’ve recorded an album. That’s amazing.”

The other side of The Hit is a look at the commodification of women, gender violence

Photo: Bovine

Interview: Kirstyn Smith

“ When you’re a band in the Glasgow scene, you’ve got a lot of peers doing really amazing things [...] You have to measure your own success” Marie Collins

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and the other more physical definition of ‘hit’.

Written by Collins, it’s a side-eye at a world that still doesn’t treat women equally, leading to passivity and women being treated as objects of other people’s pleasure. “There are a lot of dark themes,” says Collins, “but we wanted to have a message that there’s hope there as well.”

Poor Girls / Broken Boys exemplifies the upbeat music and morbid lyrics school of thought; art pop bangers on the outside, the songs linger, sometimes with a sense of beautiful unease. In fan favourite Days Go By, for example, playful 8-bit bloops and whoops become menacing when followed by the stark refrain that ‘The days go by / On and on and on / On and on and on / On and on and on / on and.’

Closer Zeitgeist begins with the lyrics ‘It’s too late, too cruel’, and details the horror of a life that’s inextricably laid out ahead of you. This is also, however, where the optimism starts to creep back in; indeed the album ends with the line: ‘Still you never quit’.

This seems to be the philosophy The Vegan Leather are espousing on Poor Girls / Broken Boys. For all the fear of dying alone, being stuck at home, feeling forced to have fun, and existential dread, the music is what drags everyone through the rough parts of life. At the heart of Poor Girls / Broken Boys there’s a message of triumph over adversity told through disco guitar, dirty riffs and mirrorball vibes, and the ghostly vocal interplay between Bernacchi and Collins only has our best interests at heart.

Poor Girls / Broken Boys is released on 25 Oct via Midnight Pink/Believe Digital The Vegan Leather play King Tut’s, Glasgow, 2 Nov theveganleather.co.uk

THE SKINNY

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Never Letting Go Five months on from the release of her fourth album as Weyes Blood, we speak to Natalie Mering about Titanic Rising and the ongoing climate crisis

Photo: Kathryn Vetter Miller

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“ Belief is like the antidote to fear, which is a very natural primal emotion, but it seems to bring out the absolute worst in everybody” Natalie Mering

October 2019

n the cover of Natalie Mering’s latest album as Weyes Blood, a model of herself can be seen staring out the window of a bedroom submerged in water. The visual relates directly to the album’s title, Titanic Rising, referencing the melting ice caps and subsequent rising sea levels that play a part in the ongoing climate crisis.

Speaking to Mering five months after the release of the album – and ahead of a string of live dates to close out the year – the record’s key themes feel as prevalent now as they did then. At the time of our conversation, many are still reeling from the shocking scenes filtered through the media of the burning Amazon and the destruction caused by Hurricane Dorian, with worldwide climate strikes set to take place in the coming weeks calling for immediate action.

Titanic Rising is a love letter to the natural world, and a reminder that while this world is ours to nurture, it is also one we are now rapidly destroying. ‘I’m wondering how we ever got here / With no fear we’d fall’, Mering sings on Wild Time, before her haunting vocals deliver the chorus of ‘It’s a wild time to be alive’ with the kind of resounding impact few can achieve in such a simple line. It’s a telling nod to the complacent attitude we’ve had towards caring for our planet that has landed us in this current crisis.

But Mering is not here for scaremongering or doom and gloom, instead she wants us to know that we can still make a change and wants to remind us that our planet can still be saved. “I think millennials in general are extremely burnt out and heartbroken because there was kind of an illusion of how life was supposed to be and then there are a lot of things that have changed that are beyond everybody’s control,” she says.

“In general, there’s just a lot of fatalistic stuff, like Chernobyl, The Handmaid’s Tale. I feel like our whole generation sides with the worst possible case scenario every time… so I’m not about to write about anything that’s like giving up because we’re going to need a little bit of hope to get through this. It’s important to approach it philosophically and keep people in a benevolent state of mind, because I really believe the universe is benevolent… I really believe it’s about structuring a benevolent philosophy that will hopefully heal the kind of fear and the sickness that I think causes most of the world’s biggest issues.”

Also referenced in the album’s artwork and a running theme across the record is the idea of youthful expectations not lining up with our current reality. The bedroom Mering can be seen in on the cover is designed to look like that of a teenager – the walls clad with posters, a teddy bear on the bed, and an old-fashioned laptop on the dressing table.

“The water also kind of represents the subconscious, and so... this bedroom is an imaginary place in my mind, and the water represents that it is imaginary,” she says.

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Interview: Nadia Younes

“The bedroom is really symbolic for how most kids were raised in the 90s, kind of positioned in a place where our coming of age is spending time alone in a room with posters and idealisms… and it becomes this very safe, subconscious zone that has very little meaning or value otherwise,” she adds. Beginning with a lament to her young, naïve self on album opener A Lot’s Gonna Change, she later contends with her obsession with the silver screen on Movies, and how they impacted her expectations of how life would be.

At the album’s emotional core, though, is Mering’s untangling of her faith on Something to Believe. Growing up Christian, her struggle to maintain her faith into adulthood is addressed as she pleads for something tangible: ‘Give me something I can see / Something bigger and louder than the voices in me / Something to believe’. “Denouncing Christianity at a certain point left a pretty big void in my mind of, like, a belief system and a moral compass... and realising that there’s not a lot that I believed in,” says Mering. “And I had kind of sided more with chaos, and how that wasn’t really serving a greater purpose in my life.

“Negativity is a strange virus that can affect most of your thoughts, in which case it’s very difficult to see the light in any given situation, so Something to Believe is about some sense of salvation, like something you can believe in to kind of quiet the negativity, and the voices, and the doom, and the fears. I think that’s really what belief is for, belief is like the antidote to fear, which is a very natural primal emotion, but it seems to bring out the absolute worst in everybody.”

And just five months on from Titanic Rising’s release, Mering is already thinking about what’s next, with concepts for the album’s follow-up already in the works. But a complete change of subject matter is not something that’s on the cards – she is still very much focused on drawing our attention to our environment and the climate crisis. “I can’t move on and just talk about something else; this is me, this is something I think about every day,” she says.

“I’m constantly in a state of trying to understand and comprehend what I can do personally to hopefully change it, and hopefully convert some people who are on the fence away from the fear and control side to the benevolent, holistic side of the environmental issues. So I will always be talking about this.”

As our planet, quite literally, burns before our very eyes, Titanic Rising is a beacon of hope amid all the chaos; a reminder that we don’t have to resign ourselves to a disastrous fate, and that even the slightest of changes can make the biggest of impacts. It’s a pertinent piece of art for those not ready to give up.

Titanic Rising is out now via Sub Pop Weyes Blood plays The Art School, Glasgow, 28 Oct weyesblood.com

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Back to High School

Photo: Trevor Brady

We meet Tegan and Sara Quin to hear about their first memoir, High School

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ostalgia is one hell of a thing – a warm nest that you can bundle safely inside, knowing that the sharp edges of experience have dulled and the pain lessened by the passing of time; the good memories and wisdom of hindsight rise, filtered to the top.

We might look back on our high school days – for those who have been through it – with a mixture of emotions ranging from a nostalgic fondness, embarrassment, or just pure and immense relief that such a dreadful juncture is over. Some people dream about it, waking up in a cold sweat from visions of turning up without clothes on or being unprepared for an exam – revealing insecurities and anxieties, if dream interpretation is to be believed. Please, though, breathe out: you’re not there anymore.

“ I think women, especially young women, are handled with kid gloves. We get shaved down to a ‘silly girl’ writing in a journal” Tegan Quin

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But imagine going back into the depths of your youth to revisit the excruciating details: first loves and heartbreaks, fateful parties and misadventures, complicated family dynamics, friendships that came and went. That is what twin sisters and bandmates Tegan and Sara Quin did when researching and writing their first memoir, High School. The book charts the pair’s teenage years and formation of the band that would start off recording demos at school and go on to be Grammy-nominated indie-pop icons selling over a million records, touring the world and seeing huge mainstream success all while maintaining their punk ethos.

And, importantly, being featured on the Grey’s Anatomy soundtrack.

Born of thousands of pictures and notes, 20-plus hours of VHS tapes and interviews with friends, family and ex-lovers, High School takes the trip back to Calgary, Canada where the sisters grew up in the 90s during the height of rave and grunge culture – both of which would influence their band’s sound for decades to come.

For Tegan Quin, however, looking back wasn’t all warm and fuzzy. “It definitely did not make me want to be back in high school,” she begins. “It just reminded me how fucking hard it is to be in high school and how hard it is to be young. When we look back, of course we feel like we know a lot [now], but I think that means we create a narrative for all young people that they don’t know anything. That they have to go out and live to truly have experience.

“But by the time I was 18, I’d uncovered my ability to create, I’d gotten offered a record deal, I had travelled, I had established that I was a queer person, I had experimented and got really deep into drugs and come out of it, I

was a latchkey kid, my parents divorced twice, I had the shit kicked out of me a thousand times because I went to a school with a lot of gangs and drugs and two friends had died.

What did I know about life and love?” she asks rhetorically, her voice now indignant. “A lot.”

The result of this deep dive into the past is a book that is universal – high school is a rite of passage almost everyone goes through, after all – but also unequivocally for the fans.

It’s a consensual rummage through your favourite band’s diary; the details wonderfully juicy, the humour sharp as it is silly, the ups and downs in parts relatable and enlightening, but all with an incredibly potent message at its heart.

Alongside their musical achievements and throughout their 20-year career, the band have been leading voices for LGBTQ+ and women’s equality and in 2016 formed the Tegan and Sara Foundation, a charity that advocates for economic justice, health and representation.

Writing the book allowed the pair to tell their stories, and those of their friends and peers, with the kind of candid and raw honesty that is rarely afforded to marginalised people, if their stories are told at all. It’s how the “varying degrees of excitement, apprehension and dread” felt by the core characters who agreed to participate and reveal what are, at times, particularly intimate details were eased – a deep and mutual understanding of why they needed to be shared.

“There’s just so few books and so little representation for queer women, especially women in music, that we really asked from this place of, ‘God, imagine how much this would have benefited us as young people’,” says Quin. She is anchored to her belief that this, above all, is why the book exists, speaking passionately about how society can “patronise and diminish young people” and how onedimensional the coming-of-age story can be for them, particularly when it comes to the discussions of drug use that feature heavily in the memoir.

“It’s like men are celebrated for exploring, stretching their minds. We just never see any depiction of women doing drugs unless it’s Amy Winehouse or Courtney Love, and then it’s a tale of warning and trepidation,” she notes. “I think women, especially young women, are

BOOKS

Interview: Kristy Diaz

handled with kid gloves. We get shaved down to a ‘silly girl’ writing in a journal, ‘I lost my virginity’ or ‘getting my period’, and yes, these are all big and important things, but we have more depth than that.” High School was their chance to “handle our past and our histories with more care and more respect.”

The real joy in reading the book is, even in its darker moments, their narrative perfectly captures the point of realisation that something exceptional is about to emerge. The transformative nature of music and counterculture for teenagers is well documented, but peering in at a micro-level and seeing two people reimagining themselves, forging their identities and healing from the painful experiences they faced with such clarity and self-assuredness is, well, punk as fuck.

But crucially, their origin story isn’t solely about Tegan and Sara, but how they galvanised the people around them. “I think it was very clear right from the start – literally we’d written three songs – from the reaction and having talked to my parents and friends and read all these notes, that it wasn’t just a lightbulb for us that we figured out this thing, everyone around us was excited, relieved, invested, caught up in it,” explains Quin. “It was as if we sat down and were able to capture everyone’s feelings and emotions.”

It separates the memoir from navel-gazing.

Sharing this journey of experimentation and self-discovery, Quin states, “wasn’t like being a rock star or getting a record deal. It was truly just the transaction of creating something, sharing it and being told that it brought comfort to somebody that comforted me.”

There was a solace to be found in looking back, but not at the expense of looking forward. Alongside High School, the band release their ninth album, Hey, I’m Just Like You, reworking and reinventing the songs they wrote as teenagers with the songwriting experience they’ve now graduated with. And, like anyone who has fought to make it out the other side, Quin feels at her strongest: “I learned that I could do more than I think I can. I have a lot of confidence right now that we don’t have to stay in our lane.”

High School is published by Virago, out now virago.co.uk/titles/sara-quin/high-school

THE SKINNY

October 2019

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Dance, Dance, Dance Tramway’s biennial dance event, Dance International Glasgow, is back this October. The Skinny chats to senior curator LJ Findlay-Walsh about the ‘myriad of conversations’ that make up the festival, and covers the highlights

Interview: Roisin O’Brien

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Scottish-based artists If you want to check out what’s on your doorstep year-round, V/DA should be your first port of call. Having premiered their latest work, Sonic Séance, at Take Me Somewhere this year, they return with a reworked version of 2017’s Grin. Directed by Mele Broomes (VOID, Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2018), you can expect pulsating sounds and emphatic, powerful movement, as the performers subvert hyper-sexualised notions of African and Caribbean dances.

Farah Saleh (Brexit means Brexit!, TMS 2019) is a Palestinian dancer based in Scotland. In What My Body Can/t Remember, Saleh attempts to recover gestures from

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performance, mixing movement, song, text, film and photography.

UK and International Work DIG sees the World Premiere of Endling from Rob Heaslip (UK/IRE) in what looks to be a fascinating combination of vibrant, acidic colours with the funerary and mourning rituals of Scottish and Irish Gaels, through dance, vocals, music and design.

Solos and duets are often the defining set-up of emerging artists, a reflection of both artistic choice and funding limitations.

Australian artist James Batchelor brings two works: his solo HYPERSPACE and duet DEEPSPACE. HYPERSPACE is slow and hypnotic, as Batchelor minutely maps different shapes and constellations, adorned with tiny tattoos of organic materials on his bare chest. Both HYPERSPACE and DEEPSPACE are creative responses to an opportunity Batchelor and his collaborators had to accompany a scientific expedition to sub-Antarctic islands in 2016. A duet from Frauke Requardt & Daniel Oliver, Dadderrs, considers experiences of neurodiversity in a standing show with optional audience participation.

If you’re seeking a grand ensemble piece, French artist Gisèle Vienne brings Crowd. With 15 performers, and a stage covered in soil and debris, Crowd looks at the experiences of a party crowd in a rave scene.

V/DA, Grin

dancing under curfew in 2002 in the West Bank. Saleh’s work often gently invites the audience in, and uses movement in a personal, interrogative way, rather than artificially distanced from its viewers.

Glasgow/Berlin-based choreographer Colette Sadler brings Temporary Store, an intellectually grounded and physically curious exploration of the body in a futuristic place between virtual and physical reality. Sadler was the creative genius behind Scottish Dance Theatre’s 2019 Fringe performance, RITUALIA. SDT themselves bring The Circle, choreographed by Emanuel Gat. A conventionally ‘performed’ piece, it is nonetheless an anarchic tribute to the dancers’ interrelationships, performed to a live recording of electronic musician Squarepusher. For something more immersive, go see their performance of Looping: Scotland Overdub by 7Oito, which embraces ceilidhs and Brazilian street festival vibes: the collective performance is led by the company of dancers.

Reckoning with (dance) history In the 1960s in Greenwich, New York, a group

Photo: Tiu Makkonen

f dance isn’t really your thing, Scottish Ballet might be the only company that flits across your radar. Most cities have their lofty Festival or King’s Theatre equivalents, but compared to the abundance and variety of theatre-focused performance spaces, dance houses are in short supply.

Institutions like The Work Room (Glasgow) and Citymoves (Aberdeen) fund artists in the creation of work but do not programme regular year-round performances (Dance Base in Edinburgh curates a festival programme in August). Visiting dance companies are mostly composed of London-based stalwarts like Rambert Company or Richard Alston Dance Company, while the brilliant Scottish Dance Theatre (Dundee) are one of only a few repertoire-based companies in Scotland.

Enter Tramway and their bi-annual festival, Dance International Glasgow (DIG).

Tramway programmes performance throughout the year, but DIG is their explicitly movementfocused three-week festival.

Senior Curator of Performance, LJ Findlay-Walsh, emphasises the year-round partnerships that go into making the festival.

“You can be forgiven for thinking that a festival is a moment in time, the work comes and goes, but really it represents… a myriad of partnerships and conversations that connect the city to Europe and beyond, that endure long after the audiences have left the building.” She continues: “I think that’s important, particularly in these unsettling times.”

The festival is an almost unintentional 50/50 split between Scottish and International artists. DIG features performances in theatre spaces, responses to Tramway’s visual arts programme, talks and workshops, and, as Findlay-Walsh describes, pieces that “traverse the streets of Govanhill in an act of resistance, considering the impossibility of the stage as a place of freedom for the black performer,” referencing the “wonderful” NIC Kay from New York and their work pushit!

“I think there is a misconception that dance can say less about who we are and where we are than some other creative forms.

The work in DIG definitely challenges this notion,” she emphasises. If you’ve never been to a dance performance before, or don’t know where to begin, DIG is a great place to start seeing the wealth of work on offer from contemporary artists.

of dancers formed the Judson Dance Theater.

In their rejection of spectacle and ‘skilled’ dance, and in response to the emotional heavyweights of their Modern Dance predecessors, postmodern dance was born.

Deborah Hay was one of the founding members, and has been invited by performance group Nora to create Where Home Is on them. Expect zeal and affection; don’t expect narrative or logic.

Trajal Harrell brings Dancer of the Year to DIG for its UK premiere. In his previous work, Twenty Looks or Paris is Burning at The Judson Church Series, he imagines what might have happened if someone from the voguing ball scene in Harlem had come downtown to perform alongside the early postmoderns at Judson Church. In this solo, he reflects on what it is to be named ‘Dancer of the Year’, a title bestowed on him by Tanz magazine in 2018.

Moving to broader terrain, Alesandra Seutin/Vocab Dance’s GIANT responds to Rwanda’s turbulent history, looking at the power that stories can consciously or subconsciously play in our lives. GIANT promises to be a stark and uncompromising

THEATRE

Out of the theatre If the thought of another fifty minutes sat in a dark space starts to test your new-found love of dance, DIG’s Dance in the Gallery programme shows ongoing developments in this strand of contemporary dance.

Tramway’s major new installation UNTIL from Chicago-based artist Nick Cave will have programmed performances in response to the work throughout its duration: artists Aya Kobayashi and Claricia Parinussa will present their works. Taking place within Tramway’s Galleries will be Ultimate Dancer’s Hevi Metle, which draws on a feminist approach to alchemy to explore matter and form. Hevi Metle will also include an integrated touch tour and visual descriptions.

Escaping even further from artistic spaces, Moving Out, co-commissioned by Tramway and The Work Room, supports artists in expanding their practice for outdoor and public sites.

SKETCHES by Katie Armstrong is a carefully crafted and often humorous series of duets that have been filmed in iconic locations across Glasgow’s Southside and will be shown off-site.

Dance activist Kate E. Deeming presents Four Corners, in partnership with children from four local primary schools, with the hope of showing the power of movement to cross boundaries of geography, politics and culture.

Whether you like your dance served dramatic, big and probing, or intimate and whimsical, you’ll find it in Glasgow this October.

Dance International Glasgow is at Tramway, Glasgow, 4-26 Oct tramway.org/events/pages/dig-2019.aspx

THE SKINNY

Written on the Buildings Artist Thulani Rachia explores Glasgow’s connection with the slave trade as told through its urban landscape Interview: Adam Benmakhlouf

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n Thulani Rachia’s first solo exhibition of sugar and Bones, he has created an ambitious video installation, developed from his own footage of a building being slowly taken apart over a period of several weeks. This forms a concentrated response to the politics of collective memory. More specifically, the frequently effaced but central role Scotland has as a site of the slave trade, and how this shapes the buildings, streets and monuments of the city.

Rachia’s work extends across from his time as a professional architect, as well as his years of training and practice as an artist and performer. On an intuitive level, the architecture of Glasgow has always been evocative for Rachia. “Arriving in Glasgow for the first time [from South Africa], never having been to the UK before, I connected with the imperial architecture.” He describes the “odd” feeling that came with this sense of the built environment of the city centre feeling “familiar”. It was after some reflection that he realised the common factor: colonialism.

“ When you’re thinking about this idea of urban renewal, how cities grow and what buildings remain, urban planners curate a certain experience within the city”

Glasgow and its relationship with colonialism came during Black History Month. “One person recited a poem about Buchanan Street [named after Lord Buchanan, a tobacco merchant whose riches came directly from slave plantations]. I had seen street names like Jamaica Street and felt something was amiss about that.” After this event in Black History Month, for Rachia, “all these things started popping up in the city centre.”

More research followed and with it a greater contextualisation of Rachia’s initial immediate sense of the architecture having a broader significance to him. “These buildings that signify wealth and institutions were made from the profits of the slave trade,” he says.

Architecture is one of the ways that history is perpetuated, maintained and made present today. It’s built material and form and it affects the way we experience the city.”

Hearing Rachia’s astute insights into the function of architecture, it’s easy to appreciate the years he spent training and working as a professional architect. It’s in this context that he became more conscious of the influence of architecture on the individual and society.

That’s to say, the acute (but often unacknowledged) sensitivity of people to, for example, the shape, scale, materials, age, design, and detail of the built environment, and how these factors can shape how a person may think of themselves, the places they live, work and visit, and the people around them. “Obviously, [buildings] are physical things, and [architecture exists in] the exterior world, but they have an effect on our interior and our psychology.

When thinking about these two things, psychology and architecture [architect and theorist] Juhani Pallasmaa has been a major influence since architecture school [Pallasmaa] introduced me to the idea of phenomenology,

… the senses and architecture. And [Pallasmaa has] been a guiding context in what I do.”

Which buildings are levelled, and what stays standing, for Rachia is a particularly charged judgement, and a point of intersection between two of the main ideas already discussed. First, how architecture affects those who live in and around it and, second, the realities of colonialism and colonisation are not only not taught, but erased from general awareness in insidious ways. “When you’re thinking about this idea of urban renewal, how cities grow and what buildings remain, urban planners curate a certain experience within the city,” Rachia says. “They choose which buildings are demolished. This brings up the idea of heritage and history.

Whose histories and heritage are being prioritised? [This process is] also complicit within maintaining these narratives that the Empire chooses to maintain and prioritise.

That’s the point at which I wanted to make an interjection. Since I’ve been here there has been a lot of urban renewal, gentrification of the South and East and with that comes again this idea of, what are we prioritising here?

Who actually has access to the city?”

Rachia’s enquiries led him to Glasgow’s Merchant City, a part of the city that was deliberately mapped out and named during a recent rebranding of the area. In its reference to Merchants, it deliberately and uncritically resurrects the wealthy generation that profited directly from slavery and operated their businesses in the area. “When I decided I wanted to document the Merchant City, I felt that it wasn’t about documenting the buildings that remain. I wanted to document the process of removing things. What is the process of erasure?”

For Rachia, this relates directly to “the

colonial project, what it did and what it’s still doing.” As he explains, “when the colonial project went to the colonies and took over populations and lands, there was a systematic erasure of the indigenous cultural and spiritual practices, and that’s another way that Christianity plays a major role in that erasure of those indigenous practices. Even though Christianity went there with good intentions, what it ended up doing was assisting the colonial project in its takeover in many ways.

Thinking back to that idea of erasure, I’m really interested in how that plays out in the urban scale, because that’s in the everyday. I wanted to highlight or slow it down in some way and in the work create a point of reflection on what’s happening. To question what is being removed here and what is remembered.”

Rachia’s footage is his own; he is the camera person. While it might feel like a small point, this process of being present within the work takes on significance for him, and poignantly draws out another intersection of urban space and colonialism. “Thinking about the history of my homeland, South Africa, people like me were not permitted to travel outwith certain zones and areas within the country and had to carry about documentation which classified them racially, and if they were in the cityscape, the urban space, they were allowed to be there if they were registered to work with someone. So for me to be able to actually permeate these boundaries in some way and to move, to document my body being there, I don’t take that freedom lightly. I’m conscious and aware of that, and how I can use that freedom. I’m always actively witnessing from that perspective and have that awareness.” of sugar and Bones, Civic Room, Glasgow,until 3 Nov, free

[A sidenote on the meaning of ‘colonialism’ and ‘colonisation’, a word that is often deliberately misunderstood. While the processes, structures and violence of colonisation are live and inform every dimension of personal relationships, cultural activity, mental health, social encounters and political decision-making, the terminology is only slowly coming into popular vocabulary. Colonialism can be understood on many levels. A first definition refers to the state sponsored, racist and xenophobic brutality through which nations systematically kill and enslave (note: present tense) populations of other countries, in order to violently exploit the people and resources there. These invasions and genocides emerge from, and institutionally reinforce racism and xenophobia, by creating a system of value that allows certain people to be killed, imprisoned, enslaved, silenced, worthless.]

A key moment in Rachia’s introduction to Thulani Rachia, of sugar and Bones, Civic Room

October 2019

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Photo: Matthew Arthur Williams

Thulani Rachia

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LE Y ST FE LI

Fall Where They May Tarot card readings have never been more popular. One writer explores how this boom is a cause and effect of the internet

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torytelling in the digital age has reached a crossroads. Torn between expressing ourselves as who we are and who we want to be, we publish stories of trauma alongside trivial anecdotes in order to enter the elite ranks of social media apps. The stories we tell online are increasingly marked by efforts to appeal to unknown audiences as we meticulously repackage our appearances, stories and selves for the sake of performance. The commercialisation of self-care means our frantic search for inner peace is supposed to be practised and performed outwardly – separated from the spheres of our own time, space and comfort zones. So what happens when an ancient storytelling and deeply spiritual practice like tarot reading re-emerges in the context of this brave new world of online performativity?

What began as a card game became layered with superstition when introduced into the occult in the late 18th century. Now, the 78 cards in a tarot deck are a coveted tool of modern witches, as well as those favouring a more spiritual form of self-care via the meanings in tarot’s rich symbolism. These might be located in the universal, human trajectory of the Fool’s Journey expressed in the Major Arcana’s 22 cards. Those found in the remaining 56 cards, constituting the Minor Arcana, are representations of everyday trials and tribulations and present four different themes of life as four different suits: wands, pentacles, cups and swords.

For my flatmate, Lorna, there lies an inherent optimism and reassurance in reading one’s tarot cards which helps her “feel less alone, because I know that others have shared in the ‘universal’ experiences in the cards.”

Nor does this take away from the fact that tarot cards’ fluidity of didacticism and artistry

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Interview: Liv McMahon Illustration: Jasmine Floyd

“differ from deck to deck, and can have totally different meanings and interpretations from person to person.” Increasingly, tarot reading has become what some close-knit friendships are built upon, as Lorna and friend, Naomi, confirm: “it’s such a bonding experience. I think it is a really good conduit to talk about emotions and events. It’s hard in everyday life to just bring up how you are feeling. When Lorna and I have done tarot together it’s definitely a jumping off point for us to discuss shit that is going down. It’s just an effective way to access deeper emotions.”

“ Modern tarot is making a case for the modern world” Naomi and Lorna introduced me to tarot during very different emotional stages of my life. Naomi read my tarot after a particularly bad break-up, and Lorna after I had finally begun to heal and feel more like myself again.

Though I regularly claim to conduct myself as an open book, on these occasions, I discovered that having my cards read to me would unearth issues often obfuscated by my bravado. Beloved friends reading my tarot became a powerful tool for improving my relationship with myself.

Many new fans of tarot similarly find themselves brought to it through friends who, like Naomi, enjoy the mutually beneficial experience of tarot reading. “I offer to read my friends’ cards because I want to offer something to them [...] You’re offering a kind of set space

and time to focus on one person’s psyche, whether it’s hidden or obvious,” she says.

Some even feel it offers a kind of “free therapy,” providing an inexpensive, intimate and accessible way of grounding yourself and cultivating generosity while capitalism pushes us to compete against each other to succeed.

“We live in a pretty melodramatic, intense environment, where there are so many pressures coming from different places,” says Peter, a young British director based in New York. He elaborates: “you’re kind of always like a pot ready to explode. Everyone’s just internally screaming and very few of us can afford to get help anywhere. Therapy is expensive. Healthcare for me, in America, is very expensive, and even therapy in the UK isn’t readily available for people.”

The cost and accessibility of mental healthcare remains a significant issue despite the overwhelming visible discussions happening daily on social media. At the very least, tarot provides some solace for those outcast from the means of being seen or heard by these costly and unavailable services. But its visual, spiritual and ritualistic mode of self-exploration also creates a space for the experiences of minorities, ostracised from mainstream depictions of mental health issues, to be shared and explored.

The Asian American Tarot: A Mental Health Project was created in 2016 as a testament to this, divined by Mimi Khúc, a professor in Asian-American Studies at the University of Maryland. On her highly successful Kickstarter campaign, Khúc establishes that “because Asian American wellness fundamentally depends upon anti-racism, our deck is an anti-racist hack for the traditional deck: take out the existing major arcana, insert ours, and

INTERSECTIONS

voila! An Asian American mental health tarot, a little self-care magic.” In the Asian American Tarot’s Major Arcana, you’ll find the traditional, archetypal tarot figures replaced with The Refugee, The Shopkeeper, The Foreigner as well as an open-ended articulation of Asian American history and livelihoods.

There’s been a wave of likewise revisions and modifications of traditional tarot decks to match the growing desire of tarot fans to see themselves in their cards. Antonina uses tarot cards as part of her witchcraft, and tells me of her plans to make her own decks: “I think the decks I make will be personal to my own ideas of the meanings behind the tarot cards and I’ll try to illustrate them in that way; there are so many decks out there and I really encourage people to find one that fits perfectly with themselves and one they are in love with.”

Such ideas inspire the production of tarot decks infused with messages and art drawn from the stories of LGBTQ+ and multicultural communities. Like The Asian American Tarot, The Next World Tarot was born from a Kickstarter campaign and driven by the desire to re-establish defiantly queer, inclusive readings and illustrations, once so visible in similarly revolutionary decks like the famed lesbian feminist cards of Thea’s Tarot. These creative reenvisionings of decks is reasserting the spirituality of tarot reading as exclusive from social hierarchies, rallying against a Fool’s Journey designed and devised as distinctly white and heteronormative.

The intrinsic capabilities of tarot cards to become active tools for communication are evident, as many internet communities dedicated to tarot cards and readings now double as proto-covens, where strangers gather to share their experiences and offer free readings to practise and connect with one another. Digital domains like Tarot Nerds or tarot reading Reddit threads connect communities of people through, but also far beyond the realm of internet interfaces. With this, it seems that modern tarot is making a case for the modern world, with a show of solidarity to those suffering outside mainstream political and cultural arenas. In her book, Modern Tarot, Michelle Tea tells us to “be the Three of Cups”, a card which typically depicts three women lifting their glasses, seemingly celebrating each other. This undoubtedly resonates among those I’ve spoken to about their love of tarot – which is as much about loving yourself and your closest friends as about letting the cards fall where they may.

THE SKINNY

Sexual Healing One writer explores how bisexual men are slipping between the cracks of sexual healthcare

Words: Matt Parrott Illustration: Tom Saffill

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hen I was single I made sure, like any responsible adult, to go for regular sexual health checks. Over the years, I’ve visited clinics across the UK and found varying levels of professionalism and compassion. I’ve had moralising lectures from prim nurses and engaging tête-à-têtes on the contradictions of the gay community with tattooed health workers. I’ve been offered tea and magazines in a warm, music-filled room, and hand sanitiser and badly-subtitled BBC News in a bleak, sterile cube. Quite often I’ve been sent away with enough condoms and/or lube to last me a millennium, which is funny because the last thing I want to do after going to one of these places is have sex ever again.

Yet, what has been clear in almost every case is that I, as a bisexual man, didn’t quite fit.

Attending a run-of-the-mill men’s walk-in clinic, I found myself having to ask for an HIV test – not because I considered myself particularly at risk at the time, but because I wanted the full MOT and the resultant peace of mind. But these services rely on a form of risk assessment that treats the population as if it falls neatly into two categories. As such, faulty assumptions around both the higher promiscuity of gay men and the prevalence of riskier practices among them abound. It’s a sad fact that until recently straight men weren’t routinely offered HIV and hepatitis tests. In some places they still aren’t. Yet in my own personal experience, straight people are just as promiscuous and far less likely to reach for a condom. The moralising, dogmatic spirit is so deeply ingrained in this aspect of medicine that going to many clinics without symptoms is a bit like going to confession. It too has its rituals, power dynamics and interrogative methods.

Calling up a sexual health centre in Edinburgh to make an appointment a few years ago, they asked me whether I was “straight or gay?” Feeling decidedly excluded, I said, in between. “Oh! So, you’re bisexual…” a receptionist rasped down the line. In my case, the answer is very much yes. I’m comfortable in my identity and in that label as an accurate

descriptor of my own sexual behaviour. So why on earth wasn’t that an option? Not that her faux surprise was anything new to me. I’ve heard that line during consultations in both general and gay men’s clinics. It’s always followed by the flicking of pages and rapid scrawling in margins. While I appreciate that the NHS is trying to determine which information and advice would most benefit me, with some of the reactions I’ve had you’d be forgiven for thinking that the bisexual – when actually existing – is an abhorrent and undiscriminating vector of venereal disease.

Little wonder then that, for the sake of ease, some bisexual men go to clinics designed for either straight or gay men, according to the majority sex of their recent sexual partners, glossing over any discrepancies. But this isn’t always conducive to the right care. Some genito-urinary infections, like trichomoniasis, can be sexually transmitted from women to men but not between men. If you’re a healthcare professional operating under the assumption that the man presenting with symptoms is exclusively gay, you are

less likely to consider an infection that should, in theory, be impossible for him to get.

“ Going to clinics is a bit like going to confession. It too has its rituals, power dynamics and interrogative methods” Things are complicated even further by the fact that the words ‘straight’, ‘bi’ and ‘gay’ are often quite useful indicators of someone’s sexual identity, but they’re totally unreliable guides to past and present sexual behaviour. As

Who Sets the Rules Here This month’s columnist explores when friendship crosses over romance

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few years ago, I stood outside a South London train station and tentatively held your hand. I didn’t know how to make it look as if we were just friends. You kissed me, long and hard, when we departed. I walked up the ramp to the platform, lightheaded, feeling as if everyone was staring.

Sometime after, you sat in my dorm over 400 miles away and we confessed that though it had only been a few weeks, it was undeniable there was something here.

Though I was late to rehearsal that evening, I refused your cab ride; I needed to wander away my thoughts.

Years on, after a summer commuting together, I can only say we kissed accidently. I saw you wrapped in someone else’s lap while

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I stumbled through the party and winked with mischief, even though you pouted back, shaking your head at the stranger.

The following summer, I revelled in keeping this a secret. The important people already knew. I was enjoying the stretches of morning and night spent lounging and dozing, feeling the days move as if they were edged forward by a breeze. I was tired of justifying what this was and decided to just feel instead.

It’s been a year now and I have not stopped feeling, comfortably making a home out of you.

Noname’s Song 31 opens with the line ‘All my everything is for you.’ Each time I hear it I think it a beautiful admittance of love. To love is to be vulnerable, and to be vulnerable is to admit someone outside yourself is worth

Words: Esme Allman being something more for. The snippets above reimagine moments when I’ve been lucky enough to cross that threshold of friendship to romance. To decide that the ‘everything’ Noname speaks of will become something different, more intimate: being on the brink of broaching an intimacy you’re not supposed to share with a friend. It is complex. It unleashes a plethora of emotions: guilt, excitement, shame, confusion, delight. Each time I have asked myself, what does it mean to push a boundary – to toe a line? Who sets the rules here? Are we hiding behind the guise of danger? Will we do this?

Why are we doing this? There are no definitive answers. Only trust in a feeling.

INTERSECTIONS

even the most cursory glance at the internet will tell you, some cis-men who confidently and whole-heartedly identify as straight are also having sex with men. More often than you think.

It has to be said that most young people are proactive about getting themselves checked. Yet, even if you, like me, identify as bi, when faced with that figure in the white coat or creased shirt and lanyard, nameless, disinterested, the entire weight of social expectation and heteronormativity bears down on you. Given this, it takes a herculean effort to correct “and was she British?” to “he wasn’t, no.” All that work to be responsible is undone in the face of stern, clinical authority. The truth is glossed over or watered down, the casualty of a practice that already has a pamphlet up its sleeve and a specialist to deal with cases like you.

The last time I went to a specialist, I found some things I was asked genuinely shocking: “Do you or have you ever exchanged sex for money? Have you ever used drugs, if so, which?

Have you ever used drugs during sex?” These questions had been introduced since my previous visit, and while I knew that everyone was being asked them, I couldn’t help but feel somehow accused. It felt like because I had gone to an outreach centre for men who have sex with men (MSM), it was assumed that I was a part of a world I had no interest in whatsoever. All the questions that are asked of MSM should either also be asked of straight men or not at all. When rates of HIV in Edinburgh are ‘higher’ (presumably than other comparablysized cities), why aren’t straight-identifying men being asked the same questions, or, at the very least, educated about the existence of HIV preventative medication, PrEP? We know from surveys that fewer and fewer young people consider themselves exclusively heterosexual. But this doesn’t mean that I want a once-a-week session for bi men introduced. Far from it. It’s high time for a holistic sexual health service that considers and includes the totality of society. Not just one section of the community but the entire community as an integrated, interactive and interdependent whole. Because the bottom line is that a truly effective, truly inclusive sexual health service needs to abandon outdated reliance on the validity of categories better suited to the last century.

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Visit Georgia Torn between a city break in Budapest and a backpacking adventure around Northern India?

Why not get the best of both worlds by visiting a country where Europe meets Asia, Georgia Words and Photos: Rachael Hood

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n an era where the West feels almost as turbulent as the East, there seems little reason to restrict your holiday destination shortlist to those familiar hotspots we all know and love. Once upon a time, you may have ruled out Eurasia to avoid the USSR, or indeed the unrest that continued in the newly-formed countries. But in many parts of Georgia – which sits between Turkey, Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan – this feels like a distant memory. Why, we hear you ask? You’re about to find out.

It feels safe No one seems interested in your possessions and even on the overcrowded metros in Tbilisi, fear of being robbed isn’t necessary. There’s no need to hide money in your sweaty sock and strap passports to your chest, but be sensible with your belongings like you would be everywhere else. Men sometimes stare, but not enough to make it noteworthy. The only thing to watch out for is reckless driving. Georgian rules on overtaking, especially while going around bends at 80mph, seem wildly different from Britain’s highway code.

Mitrala National Park

There’s plenty of adventuring to do The Caucasus Mountains stretch from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea – which, fun fact, is actually a lake – across the northern half of Georgia. The most well-known jumping point into the mountain range is Stepantsminda (formerly known as Kazbegi). The picturesque town is situated in a valley more than 5,000 feet above sea level. The altitude isn’t the only thing that will take your breath away; the snow-covered peak of Mount Kazbek is otherworldly and the hilltop Tsminda Sameba Church, towering over the town, makes the view that bit more special. The area offers varying lengths of hiking opportunities and mountain biking is readily available too.

If you’re not after a limit-pushing adventure while on holiday but fancy spending time in nature, there are multiple national parks across Georgia. Mtirala National Park is a stone’s throw from the Black Sea resort of Batumi.

As you drive into the park, the trees become bigger, the road becomes narrower and the huts selling honey become fewer and far between.

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Georgian National Opera Theatre, Tbilisi

“ If you love bread, cheese and butter, you’ll be in your element”

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It’s unpredictable The North of Georgia feels less European and more in line with somewhere like the Himalayan regions of India in terms of the buildings, level of development and landscape, while areas of Tbilisi ooze high fashion with ultra modern shops, galleries and young professionals. There are moments where the two collide, presenting some unexpected delights. In a beautiful rooftop cafe that overlooks the city, for example, the toilet might be a hole in the ground or you could be in a relatively urban area when you spot a woman herding cattle across the road.

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Zhinvali Water Reservoir

It’s very affordable If you do your research, you can fly for much cheaper than you may think. Wizz Air offers direct flights from London Luton to Kutaisi (Georgia’s second city) for less than £100 return. Yes, going via London is annoying, and yes, it always becomes more expensive when you factor in train fares, airport transfers and extravagant picnics to keep you entertained, but you can always make an event of it. Once you land, transport, food and accommodation are all pleasantly inexpensive. You can stay in a swanky hotel for the same price as a hostel bed in London, so depending on how you like to travel, you could really treat yourself!

It hasn’t been tainted by mass tourism (yet) Aside from taxis driving up beside you every now and again to offer a lift, there’s very little hassle. You’re given space to explore at your own pace. The people are genuinely friendly, thrilled that out of all the places in the world you could have chosen to go on holiday, you selected their home.

The food and drink is delicious If you love bread, cheese and butter, you’ll be in your element.

Khachapuri is Georgia’s answer to pizza – it’s messy and filling and downright delicious. From street vendors to luxurious restaurants, you’ll find it everywhere you go. There are variations originating from different regions of the country, but you can’t go without trying the Adjarian khachapuri, which is in the shape of a boat and holds a puddle of melted cheese, butter and a raw egg on top. It’s not all so outrageous though, with walnuts, aubergine, dumplings and bean stews also being staples. Georgia is also one of the oldest wine regions in the world, and they’re good at it too. If you like the idea of a wine tasting trip without breaking the bank, take a look at what's on offer from Tbilisi.

Street vendor, Kutaisi

October 2019

Eating Khachapuri in Kutaisi

TRAVEL

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Ginger & Chilli

Photo: Platform Photo: Dockyard Social

Mana Poke

Photo: Ailidh Forlan

Platform

Street Eats We speak to Ailidh Forlan ahead of her new guide to the wild world of Scottish street food

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think what the publishers didn’t realise is that street food doesn’t really exist in January or February because... y’know... it’s freezing outside.” That’s the kind of local knowledge that’s always worth bringing in, and when it comes to the world of modern street food, Ailidh Forlan is well-placed to get people up to speed.

A judge at this year’s Scottish Street Food Awards, long-time member of The List’s food and drink review team and one of Scotland’s go-to foodies on Instagram, Forlan’s latest project brings much of her street food knowledge together in one place. Street Food Scotland profiles over 60 of the country’s best vans, traders and markets in a book that’s as comprehensive as it is drool-inducing.

Yet when we catch up with Forlan, she admits that she wasn’t initially convinced by the idea. “It wasn’t my idea to write a book,” says Forlan, “[Black & White Publishing] came to me with that. At first I thought ‘Oh God’ – when I tried to write my university dissertation, which was 10,000 words, I had numerous breakdowns... I was like ‘I cannot possibly do this’.

“Then I was like ‘What am I talking about?’

I wrote my dissertation on Chaucer – which, hilariously, you can actually buy on Amazon next to [Street Food Scotland] – but this I was actually really passionate about.” Soon enough, she found herself running up against a slightly different problem. “I wrote the first 25,000 words without blinking, I guess I just got really stuck into it.

“I think I’m naturally a longer writer. I mean, they asked for 30-40,000 words and I

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wrote 67,000 so, yeah…”

That passion and dedication to the modern world of street food shines through in the book and in conversation. “It’s a really difficult thing because I’ve built up a career on reviewing restaurants, so I can’t come in and just slate them all,” says Forland, “but to an extent, there’s something so much more immediate and fresh about [street food].

“There aren’t heat lamps, it’s given to the customer instantly, it’s not waiting about for the waiter, in some locations, to decide whether they can be arsed to take it to the customer. You’re not looking at pages and pages of food where the restaurant feels like they have to offer it to cover all dietary requirements; it’s just someone who can cook one thing and do it really well.

“If I had to choose between a day in a new city going from restaurant to restaurant, or even three really good restaurants, I just wouldn’t do it – I would just beeline for an amazing street food market where I can sample ten dishes throughout the day and just get the best of everything.”

The Scottish street food scene is still in its early stages, comparatively speaking, and many of the same issues that have dogged the scene for years remain. Unsympathetic local bureaucracy, the availability of pitches, the weather – the classic menu of legitimate gripes.

Yet the continued success of a set of street food hubs in Edinburgh and Glasgow has allowed vendors to get regular slots, build a bit of a rep, and maybe even dodge the rain from time to time. “I think it was Jeremy at [Edinburgh street food van] Chick and Pea who

made a great point,” says Forlan. “Maybe my book shouldn’t even be called Street Food Scotland; in Scotland, street food is very rarely sold on the street.”

That makes places like The Pitt in Leith, Platform at the Arches (RIP), Dockyard Social in Finnieston and Big Feed in Govan crucial in Forlan’s eyes. “For the traders, it provides a solid base. They’ve got a roof over their heads, and because these particular places are big enough now, there’s this guaranteed footfall so they always know roughly how many people they should be cooking for.

“From a punter’s point of view, I love the street food that isn’t in these places – like Francesco Bani of Wanderers Kneaded. He has a pitch on The Meadows, and I think that’s great, but how often I will venture out to him for dinner and sit in the cold is a lot less than I would go to The Pitt. I’ve got vegan friends, gluten-free friends, the works; it’s nice for us all to have something to eat at the same time without feeling too constricted.”

That ability to set your own parameters is one of the traits that street food has in its favour; the other is that there’s just something that’s inherently interesting about it. “I won’t say I’m bored of restaurants,” says Forlan. “I just want a better experience every time.

Maybe I’m a difficult person to please. I love, for instance, teppanyaki experiences and things like that; I love The Table on Dundas Street where you can see Sean [Clark] cooking in front of you.

“Street food gives you all of that, the smells, the colours, watching your food being cooked in front of your eyes, all fresh – I think

FOOD AND DRINK

Interview: Peter Simpson

people want that.” And while many conventional restaurants go to weird lengths to keep the dining room and kitchen separate, the immediacy of street food makes for plenty of opportunity for those of us who love sniffing and staring at dishes as they fly past.

Forlan says: “No-one’s trying to be too fancy or too fine-dining; no-one’s making emulsions or foams or – what is it – spherification?

It’s just nice to take it back.

“A lot of street food looks good – there’s a limit to how good you can make something in a Vegware tray look – but it’s not all style over substance. It’s raw, gritty food that’s all about good ingredients.”

When asked for some standout traders from the five-dozen featured in the book, Forlan goes deep into the memory banks to pull out a few examples. Smoke and Soul from Aberdeen with their pulled pork macaroni cheese (“the kind of comfort food you want to eat when it’s cold in Scotland”), Glasgow’s Gallus Pasta (“the most incredible pasta you’ll ever eat”) and the meaty wonders of Glasgow food truck Fatboys.

But the truth is that Scotland’s packed with great, affordable and exciting food.

“Street food is seriously all-inclusive,” says Forlan. “Throughout the book, there are pictures of people of all ages, genders, races, dogs, children, there is absolutely everyone in there. That’s how food and drink experiences should be.”

Street Food Scotland is published on 24 Oct via Black & White Publishing instagram.com/plateexpectations

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Cock of the Walk Shiny lights, big flavours, giant mushrooms and domes on the roof – a look at the magical and ridiculous world of the Edinburgh Cocktail Week

Words: Peter Simpson

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In a cocktail bar As we said earlier, more than 70 bars are involved in the Week’s simple premise – buy a wristband, then wave that wristband to get £4 cocktails devised exclusively for the week’s festivities. The venues are dotted all over the map, but three that have our seal of approval to get started with are Camera in the southside, The Basement on Broughton Street, and the Lioness of Leith in… Leith.

Start there, and work your way around.

In a cocktail village Bars come and go, but a Cocktail Village? That comes but once a year. The Village itself, in Festival Square on Lothian Road, features nearly 20 pop-up bars from #brands of all shapes and sizes, from big lads like Patron Tequila and Absolut Vodka to local greats like Pickering’s Gin and Pilot Beer. The Pop Up Geeks are also in tow, bringing an Indiana Jones-riffing ‘Temple of Rum’ to proceedings.

There’s also a selection of masterclasses on

Edinburgh Cocktail Week

At a cocktail class If you like to mix your cut-price drinking with a little bit of learnin’, that is also an option. The new Holyrood Distillery is hosting interactive guided tours – you could go on one of those.

Eden Mill are running a gin-blending masterclass – that could be interesting. Beefeater Gin will let you have a go at knocking together your own cocktail – those are skills that could prove useful when you’re trying to impress but haven’t topped up your drinks cabinet/ cupboard for a while.

offer, and the one thing that every Scottish food event needs – a sturdy roof.

In a cocktail forest But what if the Village life is getting you down and you want to get back to nature – albeit a bit of nature that’s still carefully managed and overflowing with more alcohol than a 1930s speakeasy? Well, head to the Cocktail Forest, out the back of the Cocktail Village. There’s a wigwam, a forest floor and canopy, giant toadstools and even more pop-up bars.

Photo: Edinburgh Cocktail Week

dinburgh Cocktail Week is back, and it’s more OTT and WTF than ever before. Now taking place over a full week with more than 70 bars involved, it’s a celebration both of the city’s drinking scene, and the drinks world’s tendency towards ludicrously camp displays of power. If you like bright lights, tasty beverages and aggressive corporate branding, it’s the place to be. Here are some of the places we recommend enjoying a tipple during this year’s festival.

In a cocktail dome That’s right, a dome. New to Edinburgh Cocktail Week this year are these eight-seater tent-slash-nightclubs, sat on the roof of The Glasshouse Hotel next to the Omni Centre.

They’re the centrepiece of the rooftop garden at The Glasshouse, where you’ll be able to get stuck into even more mixed drinks, this time under the genuine actual stars.

Edinburgh Cocktail Week, 14-20 Oct, wristbands £6-13.50 edinburghcocktailweek.co.uk

Chews Bulletin October’s food and drink events guide features festivals a-plenty, and more tuba than you may have expected

e start this month’s round-up with two words – ‘oompah band.’ That’s what WEST Brewery are promising/threatening with the return of their OktoberWEST party. A celebration of Bavarian beer culture, expect delicious and oversized steins, chewy pretzels and plentiful use of the tuba. 4 Oct, from

6.30pm, Templeton Building, Glasgow Green, £10-26, facebook.com/westonthegreen Back-pedalling a day, there’s also an Oktoberfest vibe to the latest Versus event from the Innis and Gunn Beer Kitchen in Dundee. The format is fairly straightforward: try four German beers from the homeland, try

Craft Beer Experience

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Photo: Marion Larguier

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four German-style beers from the UK, try four Oktoberfest-inspired bits of food, then decide which part of the smorgasbord was your favourite. Beer, food and passing judgement – three thumbs up from us. 3 Oct, 7pm, 10 South Tay St, £25, tickets via Eventbrite Over in the east, it’s the return of Edinburgh Coffee Festival to the hip and happening surrounds of the Corn Exchange.

Inside, there’ll be an extensive range of coffee and coffee-related paraphernalia to check out, and brews from some of the finest roasteries in Edinburgh and beyond. Outside, there is an Aldi, Asda *and* M&S Foodhall. 5 Oct, 10am-5.30pm, Corn Exchange, 10 New Market Rd, £8-10, edinburghcoffeefestival.co.uk Next up is a festival with a pretty self-explanatory goal for a title – Women in Beer. The weekend of events, talks and tastings is brought to you by Beers Without Beards, a group that aims to increase the role and visibility of women in the beer world. There will be special collaborative beers to be had at venues across Edinburgh, and talks on everything from beermaking to beer-marketing. 10-13 Oct, various venues across Edinburgh, beerswobeards.com Back in Dundee, Festival of the Future returns this month with a range of scienceinspired events and chats. Most relevant for us

FOOD AND DRINK

Words: Peter Simpson

is the Future Street Food event, which pairs life sciences researchers from Dundee University with local producers and foodies to look at the possible future of our collective grub. 17 Oct, 6pm, Discovery Centre, University of Dundee, £5, dundee.ac.uk/festival-future Over in Glasgow, things come screaming back into the present day with a Vegan Afternoon Tea from Twisted Empire Bakes. The amount of cream in a standard afternoon tea puts the world of tiny sandwiches and teeny cakes off limits for vegans, so expect this to be a busy one. 20 Oct, 12am and 2pm, Ocho Cafe, 8 Speirs Wharf, £20, tickets via Eventbrite The month comes to an end with an experience – a Craft Beer Experience, to be precise. The CBE once again takes over the Assembly Roxy in Edinburgh for a weekend of interesting and varied beers from producers from across the country. What sets this apart from the myriad other beer festivals? Possibly the Replicale contest, in which the attending breweries each try their hand at the same style, and gentle competition ensues. Regular readers of this column will be pleased to hear that, yes, you will receive a commemorative glass to take home with you. 31 Oct-2 Nov, various times, 2 Roxburgh Pl, Edinburgh, £11-15.40, craftbeerexperience.co.uk

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Making Waves

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Ahead of releasing the second part of their ambitious debut album Infancy, The Ninth Wave talk exploring new sounds, a dying music industry and why Glasgow is “fucking class”

Interview: Dylan Tuck

ypically, a debut album showcases a band’s progression from earlier EPs into a fuller body of work, resulting in a record that comes half from expectancy to do bigger things, half from needing to define a sound via that medium. Infancy sees The Ninth Wave do both of these things – but then again, they are not your ‘typical’ band.

On their debut, boldly released in two parts over the space of six months, the Glaswegian duo consisting of Haydn ParkPatterson and Millie Kidd undoubtedly quench the urge for bigger things while simultaneously positively defining their project. “[Writing Infancy] felt different to when we just released EPs, because it’s a big bunch of songs,” Patterson tells us. “I think a lot of people were expecting us to put something bigger out this year, and then when the first half came out, it was really nice to hear all the nice words people said.”

It’s undoubtedly a release that raises eyebrows (not just through its split release), moving through the gears as it progresses, and pushing their sound far beyond the realms of expectancy, into the swirling unknown. “We started to write a lot more, and more songs sounded like they belonged together,” Kidd admits. “It wasn’t like ‘right, you need to make an album’, it was just a natural progression for us and that’s what made it so nice to make. It might not sound it in the songs,” she jokes, “but we definitely had a nice time writing and recording it.”

The pair create music that’s invitingly interesting, sonically rich and seam-bursting with ideas – and its staggered release only goes to exemplify the thought going into their music – even showing astute self-awareness of their place in a malnourished music scene. “[Releasing Infancy in two parts] reflects how disposable the music industry is nowadays,” Kidd reveals. “Everybody gets so impatient over music and will wait for months for an album to come out, then will listen to it over and over, and after a while they’ll think it’s done and then not listen to it again, moving onto the next thing that comes out. We didn’t want to be a throwaway band, so by releasing it in two parts I guess it just reminds people that you’re there.”

It’s an interesting concept, and one that’s hard to disagree with. As a release, both parts sit nicely individually but really shine beautifully when put together to complete their post-punk puzzle. “I think when you listen to it in its entirety, it definitely feels like more of a progression as the album goes on, but equally they’re both as good on their own in their own rights,” Kidd says contemplatively.

“They were all written and recorded at the same time, but they can definitely be listened to as individual parts,” Patterson adds.

The second part is set to complete the

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Photo: Stuart Simpson

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record upon its release on 15 November, with the group telling fans to “expect the unexpected”. “The opener of part two [Human Behaviour] is the first time we’ve made a song like that, where it’s all based around Millie on the piano,” Patterson reveals. “It’s got her little sister playing the trumpet on it as well, and it’s the one that changed the most from the demo to the finished thing.” Kidd adds: “I think because we have such a defined sound, people always expect us to do the same tricks. Infancy has allowed us to prove people wrong, that we’re not just the one thing, not just the big reverb swells and guitars – we’re much more than that. Both of us have quite extensive musical influences, and we wanted to explore more complex musical terms, and that’s elaborated on in the second part of Infancy more than the first.”

When it comes to influences, the band admit to having a pretty wide range of inspiration: “For me, it’s always Cocteau Twins and that kind of sound, but also more modern stuff like FKA Twigs, with their broken drum samples and harmonies that they explore and play with in their songs,” Kidd shares. Both of those artists can be found on the band’s 16-hour-long Drive to Bath playlist that contains “all sorts of stuff ”. Yet, one undeniably key part of the band’s genetic make-up is their love of their hometown.

“ Infancy has allowed us to prove people wrong, that we’re not just big reverb swells and guitars – we’re much more than that” Millie Kidd

“Glasgow has been, and still is, a really good place to develop yourself and grow as an artist,” Patterson happily admits. “The band has been around Glasgow for two or three years, but we as people have been here in music for god knows how long,” Kidd adds.

“You can always take inspiration from other people as well, because everybody is always giving it their all, and everyone is such a fighter

Music

for their place in the Glasgow music scene. It’s small enough to really know everyone well so that they’re your friends and you want to see them progress. There’s always a lot of other artists in the crowd that will make the effort to get the crowd going as well. It’s like if you scratch our back, we’ll scratch yours.”

The group also like to keep it close to home when exploring the more visual aspects of their work too. “What’s been really nice about Infancy,” explains Kidd, “is that we’ve been allowed to visually explore in all of our music videos, working with great new, up-and-coming Scottish directors like Beth Allan and Ainsley Bowman. It’s given us a lot of creative freedom to express more about the songs than people might realise. We’re trying to work with as many local talents as we can, keeping it in Scottish blood – we want to show everyone how good Scotland is.” “It’s fucking class,” Patterson interjects.

The Ninth Wave are already an award-winning group having bagged the Best Newcomer Award at the Scottish Alternative Music Awards (SAMAs) back in 2016. While Kidd thankfully notes, “it was great for getting our name on the map,” Patterson openly admits, “we were a different band then” despite noting to himself that the award proved to be “some form of validation for what [they’d] already done at that point.”

“We polish it every day!” Kidd reassures us. “Just give us more awards!” she jokes, and on current form The Ninth Wave might not be waiting long for their next one.

Infancy Pt. II is released on 15 Nov via Distiller Records theninthwave.online

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Lights in the Dark Last Night From Glasgow and Olive Grove artists Pocket Knife, Domiciles, Kohla, The Girl Who Cried Wolf, Lemon Drink, Moonsoup and Mt. Doubt discuss their upcoming gigs and releases

Do Not Miss Pip Blom @ The Caves, Edinburgh, 9 Oct; Stereo, Glasgow, 11 Oct If there’s a prize for most shows played in 2019 it’d surely have to go to Pip Blom. When we spoke to the Dutch four-piece earlier in the year they were at South by Southwest, gearing up for nothing short of an eye-watering summer season of festival shows off the back of releasing their debut album Boat. A glittering indie-pop romp that gives hips a mind of their own, be sure to catch one of their Scottish dates this month as they’ve definitely earned themselves a break in the new year.

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Photo: Hugo Macedo

Pip Blom

Just Mustard

Just Mustard @ Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh, 10 Oct Although their debut album Wednesday was released last May, it wasn’t until this year that things really took off for Just Mustard. A tour support for fellow Irish troupe Fontaines D.C., followed by appearances at The Great Escape, support slots with The Twilight Sad and The Cure, and a late addition to this year’s stunning Primavera Sound line-up in Barcelona, it doesn’t appear things will slow down any time soon for the five-piece from Dundalk.

With their brilliant debut album recently repressed, this might be one of your last chances to catch them in such an intimate setting.

Lemon Drink

Tenement Trail @ Various, Glasgow, 12 Oct New for 2019, Tenement Trail has moved to Glasgow’s East End where the Barrowlands, BAaD, St Luke’s, The Winged Ox and more will help you discover your new favourite band.

This year’s line-up features Skinny faves Dream Wife near the top of the billing, with Brighton by way of London’s biggest houseplant fans Squid also set to play. There’s also a slew of excellent local talent to get your teeth sunk into: OK Button, Maranta, Swim School, Shredd, ST.MARTiiNS, Lunir, Zoe Graham and Tongue Trap to name a few.

Music

Dream Wife

Ladytron

Ladytron @ La Belle Angele, Edinburgh, 18 Oct Following on from releasing their eponymous sixth studio album in February, Ladytron are finally making their way to Edinburgh (we’re pretty sure they’ve not played here for some time, which is particularly frustrating considering Helen Marnie now lives at the other end of the M8). The purveyors of fuzzy electro-pop did, however, tell us earlier in the year that releasing Ladytron wouldn’t lead to copious amounts of touring, and being that they don’t all live on the same continent as each other, we can let them off.

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Photo: Andrew Perry

stark psych-meditations from Fife since 2015, and their debut record This Is Not a Zen Garden was released earlier this year. “We wanted to record somewhere we’d have time to experiment,” Nick Young (guitar/vocals) begins. “ We went on Airbnb and sourced the weirdest place we could find: a little old lady’s cottage next to Loch Goil. We put all the couches in the kitchen and recorded all day and all night in her living room.”

Domiciles are primarily driven by Young and Rory Cowieson, who he met studying sound engineering at Fife College. “Our original ambition,” Young continues, “was to intimidate people with the sheer volume of our guitars. We did that for ages, but people were leaving our gigs. We’ve reigned that back a bit. There are three synths and an organ on stage now.”

Notorious perfectionists, Domiciles’ live show has been tweaked and twisted over the years into the force of nature it is now. A winter tour behind the record is currently being pieced together, with a couple of dates,

Photo: Maria Louceiro

here are a disheartening number of ailments and predicaments in the world that has no miracle cure or immediate solution. Should you, however, catch a heavy case of the autumn or winter blues as 2019 draws to a close, two of our bonnie wee country’s most celebrated independent labels have prepared an exquisite and eclectic barrage of events and releases sure to light up even the darkest of months ahead. Last Night from Glasgow and Olive Grove Records both put artist and community over profit, as every artist interviewed below has attested. The results, should you be inclined to seek them out, are often sublime.

Glasgow-based newcomers Lemon Drink are set to release their debut single, A Song for You, via LNFG on 25 October. Sophie Bartholomew (vocals/guitar) explains: “It started off as a joke. KC [Kirstie Cunningham, guitar] came to my flat with a verse she’d

catching the Edinburgh residents supporting Idlewild in Inverness (21 Nov).

Elsewhere on the label, Rachel Alice Johnson is on the brink of following recent single T O U C H – an intimate, elegant and inescapably captivating affair – with an EP and her live debut as Kohla. Rehearsals have begun, with two dancers and labelmates L-Space set to accompany Johnson – moved to incorporate elements of hip-hop, R’n’B and contemporary into her work by the likes of FKA Twigs – onstage.

“Until I started Kohla, I never really thought about how movement can enhance a performance,” she begins. “We’ve choreographed the whole show. It’s like nothing I’ve done before, and I don’t really know anyone else in Scotland that incorporates dance, so it’s kind of scary! The girls [Johnson’s two dancers] are so good. I’ve learned a lot from working with them.”

While most LNFG acts are based in Scotland’s major cities, Domiciles have been transmitting their hypnotic and increasingly

Photo: Ian Schofield

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Photo: Pany Inthaxoum

Photo: Brian Sweeney

written about a guy I’d seen a couple of times, then awkwardly bumped into in Broadcast. He was really drunk and wouldn’t leave us alone until he passed out on the bar and got chucked out.

“I can be quite quiet,” she continues.

“Every day, as a young woman, you come across things in society that aren’t quite right, and songwriting gives me a voice to respond to that. You could easily assume a song like Pull Your House Down [taken from the band’s first EP, due for release in early 2020] is just another song about a guy, but it’s Kohla about pulling down the house of the patriarchy.

I’m not literally going next door and pulling someone’s house down.”

Highly proficient in processing “awkward and rubbish experiences that later seem funny” into concise, melodic outbursts, Lemon Drink will, after launching their single at The Old Hairdressers (26 Oct), perform at LNFG’s Remember Remember the 3rd of November all-day extravaganza which will see the likes of Slime City and Annie Booth take to the Òran Mór stage.

Booth, in addition to performing solo, is a member of Mt. Doubt, who, alongside Life Model, have recently joined the LNFG family.

Frontman Leo Bargery, enthused to be “sharing a roster with bands like Cloth”, is nevertheless a little impatient to catapult the band’s new record out into the world next year. Currently being mixed, Bargery and co’s new songs, their most beautifully and brutally vulnerable to date, can be previewed by those

Interview: Fraser MacIntyre

October 2019

Chromatics

Slime City

Gloomfest II @ Conroy’s Basement, Dundee, 26 Oct Under no circumstances when you leave the house tonight to go to Conroy’s Basement should you say “I’ll be right back”, as we all know what that means. An alternative night out for Halloween, Gloomfest is back in Dundee with live music from the soulfully dark Queequeg’s Coffin and rollicking Glasgow three-piece Slime City, who feature a shoe in their list of instrumentation. With song titles like You and Everybody That You Love Will One Day Die, it’ll be the perfect Halloween night out, and we’re sure you’ll make it home in one piece (insert maniacal laugh here).

Music

Moonsoup

Photo: Louise Connor

stuff is really sexual!’”

Her collaborator Michael Nimmo delights in sharing a particular example of Meredith’s generosity: “I had a stupid idea. I told him I’d love to release a song about cookies on a cookie-shaped picture disc. Later, after we’d forgotten about it, he just said, ‘Oh by the way, I could only afford five, but here they are’.”

The vibrancy of Connor and Nimmo’s songs can perhaps only be matched by the duo’s approach to live performance. Connor asked two of her friends if either of them would be interested in dancing onstage wearing a squid costume, and both were so adamant that they must be the one to do so that she ended up buying a second just to keep the peace. “My flatmate made a giant, papier-mâché shrimp costume also,” she nods. “It was very impractical and slightly painful.”

After hearing and meeting singer-songwriter Moonsoup (real name Niamh Baker), who recently moved to Glasgow from Falkirk, the pair were delighted to partake in a split EP with her. Baker is currently performing solo, though her project is “changing in shape all the time,” she tells us.

“The EP is quite different to the last one,” she says. “It’s not as innocent.” Recorded with her “mates Luke and Ian at Green Door,” Baker’s songs balance laid-back instrumentation with sharp, funny and commendably forthright observations and confessions. This song title alone, I Don’t Like Rocket Unless It’s

In Small Portions, should be enough to entice you into delving into her small, yet promising discography.

There is still, ludicrously, after all of that, more from the two labels to anticipate, including a new double A-side from dreamarchitects L-Space (4 Oct), and the much anticipated debut record from Cloth is due in November. Pop, garage, psychedelia, R’n’B, folk and a cavalcade of other genres collide in the carefully assembled rosters of these two incredibly active labels. Seek out Last Night from Glasgow and Olive Grove online to find out more, or better yet, catch them at a gig and ask how stressed they are on a scale of one to ten. lastnightfromglasgow.com olivegroverecords.com

MARINA @ Usher Hall, Edinburgh, 28 Oct Marina Lambrini Diamandis, known mononymously as MARINA, released her fourth studio album Love + Fear in April. A gleaming technicolor dream, it led to a stunning stage show of the same name. Following a date in Glasgow earlier in the year, a run of festival slots across the summer and an extensive tour in the States, she’s bringing part two of her Love + Fear tour to Edinburgh’s Usher Hall this October. A true pop extravaganza, complete with dance routines and neon costumes, it is simply, in a word, unmissable.

MARINA

Review

Photo: Zoey Grossman

Hiip Priest presents: Dear Green Fèis @ Broadcast and Nice N Sleazy, Glasgow, 19 Oct Hiip Priest have been running shows for almost two-and-a-half-years now, but Saturday 19 October sees the Glasgow DIY promoters putting on their biggest show yet. They host a double venue all day party at the ideally located right next door to each other Broadcast and Nice N Sleazy. And with zero clashes throughout the day, you can tootle back and forth until your heart’s content and not miss a thing! Performers include Scarlett Randle, who recently played TRNSMT, and Wet Look, fresh from playing Belle and Sebastian’s Boaty Weekender!

Chromatics @ SWG3, Glasgow, 24 Oct Along with the release of their latest single, Time Rider, back in February, Portland’s Chromatics announced a run of American dates, their first public concerts in over five years. Fast-forward a few months and you can catch them at Glasgow’s SWG3. Head along to hear Ruth Radelet, Jonny Jewel and co play their favourite tracks from Night Drive, Kill for Love and Dear Tommy. Their set will also be accompanied by visuals from Jonny Jewel, live mixed by video artists Danny Perez, with support from Desire.

Photo: Chromatics

Wet Look

Photo: Martin Clark

Pocket Knife

Photo: Louise Connor

– the new solo project of Kid Canaveral’s David MacGregor – recently brought LNFG and Olive Grove together in co-releasing the album, though the labels were far from strangers to each other before that.

Turning the camera in Olive Grove’s direction, and following volumes one and two of their Archipelago EPs being released in August, the latest instalments of commanderin-chief Lloyd Meredith’s adventurous, six-part Creative Scotland-funded series, volumes three and four are set to arrive in late autumn, featuring Moonsoup and Pocket Knife.

Recent SAY Award nominee Carla J. Easton initially planted the idea of signing Pocket Knife in Meredith’s head. The duo were still taking their first, tentative steps into performing live when Easton offered them a support slot in Edinburgh. Meredith was at the gig, and Easton instructed him to “sign them before someone else does!” Louise Connor (vocals) laughs as she recalls their set: “It was our first seated, more mature audience. They were really nice, but I was like, ‘Shit! All of our

Photo: Stephen McLeod

including Edinburgh’s Sneaky Pete’s (13 Nov) already announced.

A more recent signing of LNFG’s is The Girl Who Cried Wolf, which brings together seasoned songwriters Lauren Gilmour and Audrey Tait. “We run our own studio,” Gilmour begins, referring to Novasound in Glasgow.

“Over the last three years we’ve been writing music for other people, and this year we wanted to devote time to our own work. I was really missing playing live.

“Our job five days a week is writing in lots of different styles,” she continues. “It’s been really nice and empowering just to do our own thing and see what that sounds like now. My voice, what I have to say, and the way I think about things has changed.”

Gilmour and Tait (formerly of Hector Bizerk), whose impeccable drumming will be familiar to those who have caught Broken Chanter live in recent months, will be accompanying the release of a new single with an intimate celebration at The Blue Arrow (22 Nov). The debut release from Broken Chanter

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Album of the Month Kim Gordon

No Home Record [Matador, 11 Oct]

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It may seem odd that Kim Gordon, one of experimental rock’s strongest and most defining voices has only now, after more than 35 years of producing records in bands and duos, decided to release a solo album. But good god was it worth the wait. Keeping with the discordance that existed in her previous work, whilst marrying influences from the current electronic avant-garde to semitraditional song structures, she has forged a superb genre-spanning solo debut.

In many aspects No Home Record is a crystallising of Gordon’s longstanding interests. The fragmented poetics of her lyrics are unchanged, and her area of choice remains the spaces where the emotional and the political become entangled. Never collapsing into empty sloganeering, her lyrics accumulate scraps of emotionally dense lived experience, allowing them to coalesce into a political statement rather than forcing the issue.

The delivery often moves away from traditional melody, becoming closer to spoken word, and it’s here where Gordon’s iconic

Current Affairs

Object & Subject [Tough Love Records, 11 Oct]

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Glasgow’s Current Affairs are something of an underground supergroup, bringing together members of Shopping, Anxiety and Rose McDowall’s band, among a few other wellloved acts, to create an 80s-indebted postpunk/new-wave celebration. While Current Affairs’ sound is heavily steeped in that era, it doesn’t mean they can’t find an enjoyable way to explore and push the (sub)-genre further.

Object & Subject is a collection of everything Current Affairs have committed to tape so far in the form of a debut 12” record.

The band have had a fairly stop-start nature over their three years together, due to their various other commitments, which explains the creation of this compilation and why a couple of songs (Cheap Cuts, Breeding Feeling) appear in two different forms here.

This, however, plays into the band’s 80s-influenced DIY ethic perfectly.

Regardless, these are catchy, energetic, occasionally awkward songs that reach for nostalgia while reminding us how much the post-punk genre still influences us today.

Given that genre is the current zeitgeist thanks to bands such as IDLES, Fontaines D.C. and The Murder Capital, this is an excellent time for the Glaswegian quartet to capitalise on that wave of interest, and thankfully, Object & Subject delivers on that promise. [Adam Turner-Heffer] Listen to: Cheap Cuts, Breeding Feeling

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vocals come into their own. Her voice, in its odd texture, manages to sound hollow, like she’s almost lost her voice, without sounding airy or unrooted. While this could read like a criticism, it simply means she’s capable of singing with incredible closeness and intimacy, able to move up a gear into harsh forcefulness without changing her delivery in any great manner as on the battering, squawking maelstrom of Murdered Out. However, what is most remarkable about No Home Record is the balance it achieves between sheer sonic breadth and an incredible emotional and thematic focus. Lead single and opener Sketch Artist sets the tone for the album in stunning fashion. It moves from sawed guitars to obliterating bass tremors and scraping digital hiss, with interjections of submerged pastoral folk guitar. By contrast, Paprika Pony melds a beat that’s not far from the laid-back end of Memphis rap, and Don’t Play It, with its tumbling drum pattern submerged in hiss and woozy sub bass, calls Burial to mind.

Kim Gordon

Despite this wild embracing of disparate genres, no song feels out of place. They are united by Gordon’s essential vision of dissonance, tension and a very specific kind of sonic space, often clustered and dense but with an essential warmth. For all the screeching dissonance and politically infused anger present, No Home Record is a real joy of an

Declan Welsh and the Decadent West

Anna Meredith

FIBS [Moshi Moshi, 25 Oct]

Cheaply Bought, Expensively Sold [Modern Sky UK, 18 Oct]

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Declan Welsh has always been a musician with something to say, and his debut album alongside his band The Decadent West proves to be the ideal platform to get his views across.

Cheaply Bought, Expensively Sold is full of biting scuzzy guitar riffs over basslines that lean towards funk. Lead single and album opener No Fun grabs you and pulls you through the chaos of a 3AM party before it abruptly ends, leaving you wondering what happened, much like the night out it portrays. The album then barely stops for breath until its midpoint, where Be Mine briefly hints at a softer side before the indie-punk attitude returns.

It’s the lyrics and narratives that drive Cheaply Bought, Expensively Sold forward, which is expected for a songwriter also known for his poetry. Often tongue-in-cheek, sometimes politically motivated, without resorting to angry young man territory, and always well-crafted, Welsh manages to dig deep into the seeming mundanity of city life in a way reminiscent of Mike Skinner or Alex Turner in Arctic Monkeys’ early days.

Cheaply Bought, Expensively Sold is a strong debut which more than hints at the emergence of a promising talent who’s set to grow. [Eala MacAlister] Listen to: No Fun, How Does Your Love

Anna Meredith’s second album is filled with hushed, acoustic torchlight songs. That, unsurprisingly, is a fib. There is, however, a small element of truth buried within that cheeky statement that rings true when listening to FIBS, because it doesn’t repeat the sound Meredith boldly fashioned on Varmints back in 2016. Indeed, she abandons her previous tools to forge a new arsenal of instruments – both electronic and acoustic – with which to experiment.

Armed with this fresh palette, Meredith has established an album that’s maximalist yet

SHHE

SHHE [One Little Indian, 11 Oct]

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Sometimes to forge an identity, you have to break down the old one. This is the process producer and songwriter Su Shaw, better known as SHHE, undertook to help establish her creative identity. Leaving her relationship and swapping Fife for Dundee, Shaw found herself immersed in a new community who helped to forge SHHE as both her solo musical identity and a platform for collaborations. Quite often it’s easy to imagine her self-titled debut album as the soundtrack to the type of artistic project Shaw has become increasingly involved in. It’s

RECORDS

Photo: Natalia Mantini

rrrrr Shite rrrrr Boring rrrrr Solid

album, proof if proof were ever needed that Gordon will not allow herself to slide into anything approaching resting on her laurels.

[Joe Creely] Listen to: Sketch Artist, Don’t Play It, Murdered Out

intricately composed, one that continues to see her blur boundaries between the organic and the electronic. Single moonmoons interweaves sweeping, atmospheric cello and arpeggiated synths in a swirl that gradually gains momentum, and Paramour maxes out at a heart-racing 176 BPM. Squalling guitars come to the fore again on Limpet, with the exuberant pop tendencies of Inhale Exhale and Killjoy providing even more intrigue.

Yet, though FIBS skips swiftly between moods and sounds, Meredith’s innate ability to bring these parts together into a collection that’s both bursting with compositional creativity, while still maintaining its own sense of cohesion and an accessible edge, inspires awe. It’s no lie: Meredith has struck gold once again. [Eugenie Johnson] Listen to: Inhale Exhale, Paramour an album with sparse arrangements that evoke intimate moods. Guitar riffs and electronic notes frequently linger in the air alongside Shaw’s vocals, but there are intense moments as well. On Beds, Shaw gradually builds up a surprisingly oppressive soundscape, while BOY sees her searchingly question: ‘it’s over, it’s over, so why did it begin?’ before some of the album’s most punishing electronics burst into the mix. However, sometimes moments can linger a little too long. The likes of closer Maps Part 2 – which repeats the climactic melody from Maps Part 1 almost unaccompanied for five minutes – can feel wearing. Despite this, SHHE establishes Shaw’s identity as a composer of hushed yet atmospheric and affecting electronic music. [Eugenie Johnson] Listen to: Beds, BOY

THE SKINNY

Vagabon [Nonesuch Records, 18 Oct]

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Even on first listen, it’s undeniable that Vagabon, Lætitia Tamko’s self-titled second record, is infinite. In its thematic complexity it offers so much to interpretation that its warmth and inclusivity is vast; in its colourfully emotional soundscapes it transgresses the ability to be defined under any one genre.

‘Our bodies lie unresponsive’, Tamko croons, as the record opens with the hauntingly lush Full Moon In Gemini. Setting her voice at its forefront, there’s an immediate sense of folkish storytelling that carries throughout the record, indicative of a closeness between Tamko and Vagabon. As the track, in its brief intensity, fades out into whispering vocals

Angel Olsen

All Mirrors [Jagjaguwar, 4 Oct]

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“I don’t know if it’s something I inspire or attract, or if it’s just in the way I’m looking at my surroundings, but drama is something that surrounds my world and always has,” admits Angel Olsen, and there’s something refreshing about

Common Holly

When I Say To You Black Lightning [Dalliance, 11 Oct]

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When I Say To You Black Lightning is, despite its intimate, disarming emotional punch, “perfectly balanced”. Brigitte Naggar, aka Common Holly, doesn’t waste a note, or allow herself and her band to part with anything that would detract from the feel or poignancy of a song. Naggar offers empathy rather than sympathy, making for an infinitely more potent and complex record.

It concludes with one cathartic, bombastic, skyscraper of a moment, as Naggar repeats ‘Don’t leave me / I’m crazy / OK’, accompanied by frantic guitars and raucuous, Big Thief-esque drums. Crazy OK is a delightfully modest and endearing song with which to end a warm, insightful and frequently jarring record full of pain, love, curiosity and mystery. [Fraser MacIntyre] Listen to: Uuu, Crazy OK, Measured

October 2019

and loudened strings, the end feels almost premature, necessitating the record concludes with its reprise.

Water Me Down permeates an enduring warmth. Through Tamko’s amalgamation of indulgently rich thumping drums and balmy synth-like strings, she succeeds in blending dusky bedroom pop, with a balladry that supersedes any attempt to give her music a singular definition. Where Home Soon is a slow-burning winter sunrise and Please Don’t Leave the Table is an electronically rich, fragmented call for company, Secret Medicine seems to be a combination of the two: a slow-starting fragmentation of fluttering snare and synth. ‘I know I’m a mess / I change my mind and I’m back at it again’ she confesses, again opening the door to interpretation.

Contemplating ideas of home, alienation and the human desire for community, against rich bedroom beats and folk-inspired vocals, Vagabon is a record both stripped back yet

the acceptance of this self-analysis. Olsen’s four LPs to date are overflowing with emotional turmoil and doomed romance, themes that might have grown tiresome were it not for her evident optimism and relentless passion.

All Mirrors retains a good amount of iconic devastation, Olsen’s timeless, musing lyrics as wise as ever, if perhaps more cynical than before. Yet there is a new, almost paradoxical, quality to the sound: as though it comes both from the past and the future. Dramatic orchestral arrangements combine with shimmering,

Vagabon

electronically rich; genre disparate, but ultimately inclusive. A rewarding listen, it’s an achievement beyond comprehension.

[Bethany Davison] Listen to: Water Me Down, Secret Medicine

otherworldly effects to produce an unpredictable and slightly unsettling atmosphere.

Olsen’s usually warm and starkly human vocals are unfamiliar, almost alien.

Opening track Lark is a steady, measured beginning to a record that is anything but – at first reminiscent of the expansive My Woman until it explodes into this new, limitless orchestral soundscape. Mid-song there’s relief in a melody borrowed from How Many Disasters, an early demo which appears on the B-sides record Phases. Tonight returns to the purity of

Olsen’s vocals, quiet and tender as though whispered into the ear – although the swirling orchestral arrangement is oversweet, leaving too little to the imagination.

All Mirrors ends on the heroic Chance, dotted with lyrics from previous records (‘What is it you think I need? / I wish I could believe’), and whether intentional or not, it brings all of her music, all of her misery, to a catastrophic head. [Katie Cutforth] Listen to: Lark, Spring, Chance

Floating Points

Big Thief

Danny Brown

Carla dal Forno

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Crush [Ninja Tune, 18 Oct] Crush presents some of Sam Shepherd’s most tightly-constructed and dense work to date.

Dancefloor-pulverising single LesAlpx is propelled by a muscular pulse while Bias combines jazz-like motifs with an otherwise feverish techno landscape. Yet in amongst these maximalist leanings are endless moments of sonic intrigue.

Whether it’s the grand sweep of strings and stuttering electronics found on Falaise, or the sparse, metallic intrusions that weave in and out of Karakul, Shepherd keeps the listener on their toes.

Amongst it all, he consistently imbues minute details, sometimes blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moments that cry out for repeat listens. Crush may be some of Floating Points’ most assertive work, but sinking into its rich and deeply layered textures reaps countless rewards.

[Eugenie Johnson]

Photo: Tonje Thilesen

Vagabon

Two Hands [4AD, 11 Oct] Two Hands is the “earth twin” to U.F.O.F.’s “celestial” spirit and it shows. Recorded a few days after U.F.O.F., Big Thief’s first of two 2019 albums, switching Washington State’s dewy forests for the harsh, decaying desert of El Paso, Two Hands is altogether warmer, sweatier, and more direct.

On more intimate tracks like Wolf and Cut My Hair, Adrienne Lenker displays once again how she is a once-in-a-lifetime treasure who must be cherished as long as she’s in our presence leading her “family” band across the globe. Arguing which record between this and U.F.O.F. is better is pointless, they are two sides of the same sovereign coin. All it proves is 2019 is Big Thief ’s year. [Adam Turner-Heffer] Listen to: Not, Shoulders, Wolf

Listen to: LesAlpx, Sea-Watch

RECORDS

uknowhatimsaying¿ [Warp, 4 Oct]

Look Up Sharp [Kallista Records, 4 Oct]

Executive produced by A Tribe Called Quest’s Q-Tip, uknowhatimsaying¿, much like his previous Atrocity Exhibition, has Danny Brown unable to sit still, moving from one mind-boggling canvas to another effortlessly. Most dazzling is his ability to ride these beats – even those that verge on, well, beatless. On Run the Jewels collaboration 3 Tearz, Killer Mike and EL-P are fine, but seem battle drunk from fighting with production that refuses to stay still.

If anything, uknowhatimsaying¿ is a little more controlled than Brown’s previous record, and perhaps that’s the experienced hand of Q-Tip exerting influence. It does nothing to besmirch the crown that Brown has already claimed his own, as one of the best, and most boundary pushing, artists in the rap game. [Tony Inglis]

Carla dal Forno’s solo works have always treaded a delicate line between the spacial heaviness of experimental electronics and a hazy stillness that managed to be both tremendously pretty and rather troubling simultaneously. She stays in this space on Look Up Sharp, but develops her fundamental skills in every way.

Maintaining her loose relationship with genre, drawing on trip-hop, ambient and post-punk, the production style moves away from the minimal intimacy of her debut and into a cleaner, more expansive sound. As an exploration of an incredibly specific emotional space, and the attempts to leave it, Look Up Sharp works tremendously, but it’s dal Forno’s compositional poise and skill with restraint that sets her apart as a creator of works of truly unnerving grace. [Joe Creely]

Listen to: Belly of the Beast, Savage Nomad

Listen to: I’m Conscious, Don’t Follow Me

Review

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Risky Business Sam Shepherd, aka Floating Points, talks us through his new album Crush and his upcoming live shows in collaboration with Hamill Industries

“I

’m always trying to capture the moments in my life when I’m actually able to just get stuff done,” Sam Shepherd tells us over the phone while enjoying some rare downtime at a friend’s vineyard in Mount Etna, Sicily. Idyllic as it may sound, this is not a regular occurrence for Shepherd.

Under his Floating Points moniker, Shepherd is one of the most revered producers in electronic music, but juggling multiple responsibilities is something he knows all too well. In the early days of his musical career, he balanced making music and DJing with studying a PhD in neuroscience and epigenetics at University College London, earning his doctorate in 2014. Just a year later he released his debut album as Floating Points, Elaenia, on his own label Pluto.

Elaenia received widespread critical acclaim and was named the best album of 2015 by Resident Advisor. It demonstrated Shepherd’s love of jazz and classical music, pushing the boundaries of dance music just about as far as they could go. Prior to this, he also formed the Floating Points Ensemble, a 16-piece group led by Shepherd, with whom he won the Best Maida Vale Session award at Gilles Peterson’s Worldwide Awards in 2010.

In the four years between Elaenia and new album Crush, Shepherd kept himself just as busy, touring around the world with his live ensemble as well as playing solo dates, but when he found himself in a rare quiet period he didn’t use it to relax. “I think there definitely was a period of a few months when I didn’t have any gigs... nothing else to really do and it allowed me to get really focused,” he says. “But, having said that, the two years leading up to making the record were so important in the process, so even though it physically took me five weeks to do it, there was probably a couple of years of learning.”

Shepherd isn’t one for doing things by halves, and even though the album took just five weeks to make, he spent an extensive period prior to recording familiarising himself with a range of new instruments and equipment. One of these instruments was the Rhodes Chroma, a synthesiser notorious for being difficult to programme. “I created hundreds of sounds on this thing and had

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thematic ideas, so I think when those five weeks came around I was actually looking to my own presets on these synths I’d made,” he says.

“There were certain sounds in my head that I could recreate quite easily on the modular side of things because I’d been experimenting for a number of years before that.

“You end up making some of the best stuff when you first get the thing because it’s so exciting and you quickly explore the thing, and the excitement of that, it makes for sort of serendipitous, spontaneous music quite quickly,” he continues. “I wanted the album to have some spontaneity, and it’s very kind of chaotic, and actually that wasn’t in the learning process of the instruments, because I felt like I knew the instruments, so I was at the other end of the learning process of the instruments.”

Many of the album’s tracks were recorded live in just one take, and there’s a sense of urgency throughout the record that comes across as a result. Opening with the slowbuilding orchestral sounds of Falaise, the album reaches its peak with the middle trio of LesAlpx, Bias and Environments before eventually slowing down to a close with two-parter Apoptose. “I think it’s fair to say that the heavier things, the sort of really percussive and distorted things, are certainly a function of the equipment I was using and I was working fast,” says Shepherd.

“A lot of those tracks are one-take, live things and, as a result, they had that sound of immediacy and things are distorting and things probably don’t sound right... and then, on the other side, there’s things like Requiem [for CS70 and Strings] and Sea-Watch and Falaise that are much more considered, but I was writing those on the same equipment,” he continues. “I wanted you to listen to it and think ‘well this is so simple’, even though I feel like there’s a lot of delicate stuff going on with the modular stuff.”

Naturally, Shepherd’s ambition extends to his live shows too. For his upcoming dates in support of Crush, he chose to work with Barcelona-based creative studio Hamill Industries, founded by Pablo Barquín and Anna Diaz, once again. The team also worked on the video for the album’s second single, Last Bloom, filmed over 30 days and using

Photo: Dan Medhurst

Interview: Nadia Younes

“ I wanted you to listen to it and think ‘well this is so simple’, even though I feel like there’s a lot of delicate stuff going on” Sam Shepherd

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numerous scale models of various natural landscapes. And the production levels of the live shows are just as high. “It’s incredibly archaic what they do but there are various technologies they use,” says Shepherd.

“One of them is an old-fashioned oscilloscope – you know, that you have in a lab test bench – and we send into that super high frequency audio signals to draw what are essentially Lissajous figures, which are these patterns you get on oscilloscopes,” he continues. “And then, because that signal they send into the oscilloscope is audio, they can treat that signal in the same way I can treat audio, so you can add delays to it, you can add reverb to it, you can do a cut-off filter on it, and all these transformations have an analogous visual result.”

With the visuals directly correlating to the music played on stage by Shepherd in real time, it’s an incredibly high-risk production, but it feels like an AV show in the truest sense.

“It’s compact as a production but everything hangs by a thread,” says Shepherd. “I’m expecting it will probably go wrong at times, but I think that risk needs to be taken.” And it feels like the kind of risk only someone as ambitious and daring as Shepherd would be able to take and successfully pull off.

Crush is released on 18 Oct via Ninja Tune floatingpoints.co.uk

THE SKINNY

October 2019

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THE SKINNY

Club, Actually It’s not just the Central Belt playing host to Scotland’s best parties this month, as Perth and Paisley get in on the October party action too Words: Nadia Younes Illustration: Fran Caballero Palidrone: SPFDJ B2B VTSS @ The Mash House, Edinburgh, 4 Oct Since Palidrone brought Swedish-born SPFDJ to Edinburgh for her Scottish debut in February last year, she’s only returned to Scotland twice, and both times to Glasgow. But the Edinburgh promoters are bringing her back to the capital this month alongside Polish-born Martyna Maja, aka VTSS. As well as featuring on the Discwoman roster, Maja released her 2018 EP Self Will on SPFDJ’s Intrepid Skin label, so pairing them up for this show is an inspired decision.

Voyage presents Mike Servito The Ice Factory, Perth, 5 Oct Mike Servito had already made a name for himself in his hometown of Detroit before making the move to New York in the late 2000s.

He soon became a resident at Brooklyn club night The Bunker, which he still currently holds, and started getting gigs all over the world. A close friend of The Black Madonna’s, Servito has gained a reputation over the years as a DJ’s DJ, known for his skilful mixing ability as much as

his track selections, and is guaranteed to bring a massive party to Perth.

Mind Yer Self: DMX Krew (live) + Fear-E The Berkeley Suite, Glasgow, 11 Oct We can’t stress enough how thrilling DMX Krew’s live hardware sets are, and how much you have to see one for yourself. Having performed and released music under several aliases over the course of his 25-year career, Ed Upton has somehow managed to still remain fairly underground, despite his 18 releases on Aphex Twin’s Rephlex label before it shut down in 2012. Supporting him is Dixon Avenue Basement Jams’ Fear-E, and as always with MYS shows all profits go to charity, this time to Help Musicians Scotland.

Missing Persons Club: Cera Khin B2B Clara Cuvé Club 69, Paisley, 18 Oct If anything were to encourage us to make the journey out to Paisley, it’s a party like this.

Missing Persons Club throw their first party outside of Glasgow in three years at Paisley’s Club 69, also known as Rocksy’s Basement, The Club Paisley and, simply, The Club. For the party, the Glasgow collective have invited Berlin-based DJs Cera Khin and Clara Cuvé to go B2B to demonstrate the extraordinary diversity of their respective musical influences.

Club_Nacht: Move D + Telfort The Caves, Edinburgh, 18 Oct For the first in a new series of parties, the team behind Club_Nacht bring together two friends and avid supporters of each others’ music, Move D and Telfort. David Moufang, aka Move D, will play a three-hour set, following a support slot from Edinburgh-based DJ and producer Telfort, handpicked by Moufang himself. The pair’s history runs deep, with them having

previously played together in the capital when they went B2B for local label Lionoil’s third birthday at The Bongo Club in 2017.

Shoot Your Shot presents T4T LUV NRG The Berkeley Suite, Glasgow, 19 Oct Partners in music and in life, Eris Drew and Maya Bouldry-Morrison, aka Octo Octa, bring their T4T LUV NRG tour to just six cities across the world this year, with one of the two UK dates taking them to Glasgow for Shoot Your Shot. The pair launched their T4T LUV NRG label back in June with a two-track release, Raving Disco Breaks Vol. 1, from Drew and a release from Bouldry-Morrison as Octo Octa soon followed in the form of third studio album Resonant Body. Support comes from Bonzai Bonner, Anna Gram and Mi$$ Co$miX. theskinny.co.uk/clubs

Running Tracks Ahead of the label’s showcase at Electronic Glasgow this month, Made In Glasgow Recordings boss Gary Lawson tells us how the label was formed and what we can expect from the showcase

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cotland’s electronic music scene is thriving, and Electronic Glasgow wants to show why. Now in its second year, the festival returns to Glasgow, with events taking place in venues across the city representing the range and diversity of the Scottish scene.

The festival opens with a five hour set from Soma Records’ founding duo Slam, celebrating 15 years of their Return to Mono parties at Sub Club, and closes with a showcase from Made In Glasgow Recordings.

In between, there are various parties from a range of established names and new faces on the scene, as well as two days of free producer/DJ workshops and discussions at The Space Community Arts Centre.

The aforementioned closing party from Made In Glasgow Recordings coincides with the label’s latest release from new duo Manakinz, made up of James ‘Harri’ Harrigan and Max Raskin, aka Affi Koman, with their Half a Quarter EP. Ahead of the showcase, we spoke to label boss Gary Lawson about its formation and what to expect from the event.

The Skinny: How and when did Made in Glasgow Recordings begin?

Gary Lawson: The label began from a chance meeting between myself and singer-songwriter Pete MacLeod in Bez’s dressing room during the Happy Mondays tour at the end of 2015.

We agreed to meet up a few weeks later and during the catch up Pete let me hear a remix

October 2019

of a track of his from Octave One and asked for advice on putting it out. We both then approached Bizzy and Jamie from Desert Storm to come on board and together with the help of the Rubadub crew Made In Glasgow Recordings was born.

“ Any event which shines a spotlight on the [Glasgow] scene and helps celebrate it can only be positive” Gary Lawson

How do you find it running a record label in Scotland, and Glasgow in particular?

The city is full of like-minded people who really embrace electronic music so we’re just grateful to be a very small part of it. By and large people are supportive, plus there’s loads of amazing home-based talent out there so finding music to put out isn’t a problem at all.

Interview: Nadia Younes

Which artists will you be showcasing at your event and why have you chosen them?

The opportunity to have Harri and Affi Koman – the production duo behind Manakinz – play for the first time at the Electronic Glasgow closing party seemed too good to miss, while Rebecca Vasmant, Discos No Further, Adam [Zarecki], Bizzy and Kodie [Blak] are all either part of the label or good friends and very talented DJs! Do you think events like Electronic Glasgow are important for Scotland’s club scene?

Would you like to see more of them?

Absolutely! Glasgow is one of the greatest cities in the world for electronic music with world class producers, artists and the most up for it crowd anywhere, so any event which shines a spotlight on the scene and helps celebrate it can only be positive. It’s a UNESCO City of Music after all, with over half a million music visitors every year, so everyone involved in the club scene across the country surely benefits from that.

Made In Glasgow Recordings Showcase takes place at The Space, Glasgow, 20 October Electronic Glasgow takes place at venues across Glasgow from 11-20 October facebook.com/madeinglasgowrecordings facebook.com/electronicglasgow facebook.com/manakinzmusic

CLUBS

INTRODUCING MANAKINZ Harri and Affi Koman: “The Manakinz project started in November 2018 out of sheer laziness as we live close to each other, always have a laugh and share a mutual love of Sumatra Mandheling. The guys from Made In Glasgow really liked our early demos and were keen to do something with us. Mucho Tranquilo is actually the first thing we ever made together and What Must I Do came together very quickly. Since then we’ve finished loads of tunes and have quite a few things coming out in the not too distant future.”

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Things We Say in the Dark

By Kirsty Logan

rrrrr In a literary world seemingly saturated with gaudy horror that attempts to induce fear through the ill-treatment of women and the harmful othering of disabilities, Kirsty Logan is here to shine a flickering light on

what horror could and should be. Things We Say in the Dark is a distinctly feminist horror collection, where fear is induced by the decay of life’s perceived safety nets, providing hair-raising Gothic-eqsue terror that the genre desperately needs. Stories range from lingering ghosts to unsettling isolation, from monstrous callings to the Kelpies’ revenge, but all have one thing in common: home.

We view our homes as sites of comfort and safety, but Logan asks: are they? Her stories all prey on our anxieties that the home may not be the sanctuary we believe it to be while also providing poignant commentary on women’s fears. Logan’s prose is phenomenal.

Each sentence is carefully crafted and each story completely spellbinding. While reminiscent of Angela Carter and Shirley Jackson, Logan is truly one of the best contemporary horror writers. Inclusive, powerful and eerie, Things We Say in the Dark is a dark shimmering potion of both unease and nourishment.

So go home, lock your doors and windows, but just know that your fears are in there with you. [Rebecca Wojturska] Harvill Secker, 3 Oct, £12.99

Rhyme Watch National Poetry Day returns, Dr John Cooper Clarke comes to Dundee and Edinburgh gets a new book festival Words: Beth Cochrane

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n 3 October, schools, libraries, literary organisations and anyone else you can imagine being interested in poetry will be hosting events to celebrate National Poetry Day. Set up in 1994 and growing more popular every year, the UK-wide celebration of poetry will focus on the theme of ‘Truth’ for 2019.

Expect workshops, readings and, in some cases, sweet shops.

Haddo Arts has produced yet another outstanding artistic programme for its Haddo Arts Festival, running 5-12 October. The festival is bringing local and international communities together for a programme of world-class musical performances, complete with a splash of poetry from Scotland’s Makar, Jackie Kay. Her event will take place on 8 October in Haddo House Library, Ellon.

Beginning the evening will be a series of musical performances from Ruaraidh Williams and Jeremy Coleman, presenting a selection of pieces for cello and piano. The Makar is then set to give an hour’s reading, where the Haddo audience can likely expect her usual jovial wit, sharp humour and, of course, sizzling poetics.

Bloodaxe Books have a particularly exciting month for new titles. With five collections launching on 24 October it’s hard to decide which to focus on. There’s Cuban poet Legna Rodríguez Iglesias’s A Little Body Are Many Parts, translated by Abigail Parry and Serafina Vick, which has been called everything from playful to intense to practically obscene. But there’s also Katrina Porteous’s Edge, which promises to be a fascinating read. Comprising of three poem sequences – Field, Sun and Edge – the work was commissioned for performance in Newcastle’s Life Science Centre Planetarium, with accompanying computer music by Peter Zinovieff. Scientists at the forefront of space exploration have inspired Porteous, and her

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Review

Akin

By Emma Donoghue

How to be Autistic

By Charlotte Amelia Poe

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New York City widower Noah has small pleasures in his somewhat lonely retirement, including an imminent solo trip to Nice – the first time returning to his birthplace since his childhood. But when he receives a call from a social worker looking for a temporary home for 11-year-old Michael (the son of Noah’s estranged, deceased nephew), his plans are thrown into disarray.

Slower-paced than 2010’s thrilling hit Room, there is no doubt that Akin retains all of the same bitterness-come-tenderness of familial connection which Donoghue is so adept at writing. Moments of seeming connection come between the two much to Noah’s delight, yet they are always fleeting. As soon as he seems to have Michael’s attention he loses him again, back to his phone or his own thoughts.

Although it’s frustrating, this is also one of the novel’s greatest assets. Donoghue is a realist, and there isn’t going to be a sudden happy ending. The childless Noah doesn’t suddenly become a natural father, a Daddy Warbucks whom Michael can instantly trust. They didn’t have an instant connection but they’re working on it, and that’s all anyone can really do.

Sharply focussed with glimpses of a heroic history juxtaposed against a failing social system in the present day, Akin will force you to consider what family really means. [Emily Hay]

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In a series of short personal essays spanning from the mid-90s to the present day, Charlotte Amelia Poe draws us a picture of growing up, undiagnosed, with autism. The picture is not a pretty one. Poe demonstrates extreme resilience as they are failed by nearly every authority figure in their young life, bullied throughout school by both peers and teachers. Poe is branded a troublemaker for reactions and coping mechanisms outside their control, and regarded with suspicion and mistrust to the point where learning was impossible.

Above all, Poe shows us that far more than anything inherent to autism itself, it is the lack of accommodation – the refusal to trust autistic people’s articulation of their experiences – that creates barriers to them living fully in allistic society. In Poe’s words, “every one of us is both high and low functioning, depending on the circumstances.”

How to be Autistic is a call to action: raw, honest, often deeply frustrating, but ultimately hopeful. Poe’s impassioned call to “create something beautiful” is a rare positive message aimed directly at autistic readers who may find aspects of their own experience reflected in these pages, and hope for a future that may not always seem bright. [Eris Young] Myriad Editions, out now, £8.99

Picador, 3 Oct, £16.99

poetry translates the language of space into the unique beauty of poetry. Other titles out via Bloodaxe this month are Maitreyabandhu’s After Cézanne, Frank Ormsby’s The Rain Barrel and White Ink Stains by Eleanor Brown.

Dundee has one of the UK’s greatest contemporary poets performing on 19 October at the Gardyne Theatre. Supported

by Scottish spoken word artists Leyla Josephine and Rana Marathon, Dr John Cooper Clarke will be reading from his new book (and his first book of poetry in a fair while), The Luckiest Guy Alive. This is absolutely a gig not to be missed, and is certainly going to be a highlight of the month.

Also in Dundee, hosted by Dundee Rep Theatre and Glasgow’s Sonnet Youth, is thick skin, elastic heart. Taking place at the Rep on 21 October, the performance is billed as collective contemporary spoken word poetry from millenial voices, apparently ‘as if Dylan Thomas’ Under Milk Wood had been written in 2019 and filtered through Instagram’. Giving the ‘snowflakes’ back their voices for more than 280 characters, thick skin, elastic heart could be an insightful view into a much-misunderstood generation.

One of Edinburgh’s many fantastic independent bookshops, Golden Hare Books, is hosting its very first book festival this month (18-20 Oct). The shop has produced a huge programme, with many brilliant poetry events peppered throughout. A few examples include Speculative Books launching Elaine Gallagher’s debut collection, a panel discussion on the legacy of Nan Shepherd’s The Living Mountain, and Stewed Rhubarb and Speculative Books joining forces to deliver a workshop on demystifying the process of running your very own independent poetry publishing press.

Grand Union

By Zadie Smith

The River Capture

By Mary Costello

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Distinctive, smart and full of wit – Zadie Smith’s novels are consuming, her fiction a delight. Grand Union takes these charms and presents them in bitesize offerings. The astute power of observation that flows throughout Smith’s work and dexterity in prose is captured as she leaps across countless subjects, genres and narratives in quick succession, exploring the modern world.

The last days of life, moral panic spreading through upper echelons, privileged teens diving into virtual reality – there’s also a reprieve from the alternating pace as readers can put their feet up in the pool on a package holiday, ignoring the world beyond the horizon. Her characters are razor sharp; it’s almost a shame to leave them after such fleeting visits. Though these rapidly shifting stories might not always feel fluid together, the breadth of Smith’s talent remains clear as she plays with form throughout. Standouts include the speculative The Canker, and the fun deconstruction of storytelling in Parents’ Morning Epiphany.

As with most collections, some stories shine brighter than others, but when they really strike it right, they’re the perfect reminder of just why Zadie Smith is held in such high regard. [Heather McDaid] Hamish Hamilton, 3 Oct, £20

theskinny.co.uk/books

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In geology, a river capture occurs when one stream diverts into the channel of another. It is a form of this phenomenon that alters the life of Luke O’Brien, the protagonist of Mary Costello’s second novel, after he returns from Dublin to his family home on the River Sullane. When he is unexpectedly visited by a young woman, he is swept into a current of family secrets, finding solace in literature.

One novel in particular is a constantly compelling draw for Luke: James Joyce’s Ulysses.

As Luke’s everyday life parallels those of Ulysses’ Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus, Costello’s writing reflects Joyce’s by adopting different narrative perspectives and occasionally donning a stream of consciousness style. It’s often poetic and enveloping. In a sense, the text itself undergoes its own form of river capture; as Luke’s life is thrown further into tumult, Costello’s writing descends into ever-more Joycean tendencies. Much of the latter third is written in an interrogative format, mirroring the style of Ulysses’ Ithaca episode.

Though the scale of this and its methodical descriptions are true to Ulysses’ style, it ultimately hampers the pace. While The River Capture can throw up sublime passages and doesn’t necessarily require much prior knowledge of Joyce’s work, it may perhaps be best enjoyed by his fans. [Eugenie Johnson] Canongate, 3 Oct, £14

BOOKS

THE SKINNY

Living in Emergency Artist Alberta Whittle shares the intentions of her major and ambitious solo show in Dundee Contemporary Arts, specifically discussing insidious anti-blackness, caring strategies for ‘living in emergency’ and the racialisation of the climate crisis which we all live. Whittle describes the way the untameable elements feature in her video work between a whisper and a cry: “[it is] like a wave that has grabbed you and chewed you up. […] there is this moment of deadly silence […] if you were just getting seduced with watching Divine (the dancer) it’s a little slap in the face to keep you awake and make you come up for air and have a little gasp.”

“ Central Africa is on fire and we are not hearing anything about this”

expressing it as an other. It’s distancing, allowing there to be an emotional distance from these histories and also from what is happening right now.”

She adds, “The titling for the Chattel house… is after a calypsonian Carew who died because his house was washed off to sea, because of the situation of global warming. On first glance it might look like ‘Oh isn’t it beautiful’ but it’s sinking away before our eyes and we are involved with that, our own complicity – it’s right there.”

In this context of ‘living in emergency’, sitting with anxiety and not breathing properly can be an all too common experience. As a remedial acknowledgment, the two ancillary

There’s also a large scale replica of a Barbadian Chattel house in the show. Speaking about this, Whittle shares: “Something that is said about my work is how exotic it is, which really annoys me. Because it isn’t exotic… This idea that the Caribbean [is seen through]… a lens of extreme colour – it is a particular lens of the black Caribbean body and I really refute that, because it suggests that the Caribbean is not also a part of the British Story. It’s really

A Whittle, between a whisper and a cry, Film Still 2019

October 2019

Photo: Keith Hunter

Nice Cave, installation view

It’s Saturday afternoon (just) and the invigilators open the double doors. The room is immediately overwhelming. Delicate cut ‘spinners’ are metal and dazzling. Thousands of these are hung around the room. Although different shapes, they each have the same basic structure. A central shape is cut metal, then revolving around it on the same axis there is a one centimetre outline, then there’s another and another, like the flat metal ripples of the central shape that shimmer as they in turn reflect the light. There are thousands, hung in columns ceiling-to-floor, and half the huge mainspace of Tramway is filled with them. As well as Spirograph-looking asterisk shapes, there’s a repeated gun motif, a threat amongst the shining decoration.

Beads are studded into patterned net wallcoverings around the room. Yellow stair ladders lead to the island of sculpture above.

Alberta Whittle: How Flexible Can We Make the Mouth, Dundee Contemporary Arts, until 24 Nov

Alberta Whittle

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rooms at the back of Gallery 2 “are meant to provide breaks: while still sitting with these histories, you can really take a pause and have time to reflect.”

Throughout the show Whittle embeds opportunities for pause and there’s a sense of welcome and nurture, as works committedly challenge the ‘innocence of the West’. “The [West] regard their participation in this catastrophe, that it is something that has just happened, whereas it has been a systematic process of accumulation, industrialisation and also of marginalisation of certain people and geographies.”

Up there is dense with thickets of fake foliage and flowers, populated by aged ornaments that have been breathtakingly embellished with slow craft techniques. Amongst the thickets of fake plants and flowers and chintzy knick-knack sculpture, there are caricatured black minstrel figurines with old tennis rackets taped into their hands, turned into huge nets with swooping billowing looking beadwork. It sounds a note of uncertain menace into the fake paradise as it’s captured in the feathery nets set in the replicas of racist blackface.

Working back around the room on the designated path, spot the gun shape at the centre of one of the ‘spinners’. Incongruent with what might be expected of glitzy decor, it’s a reminder that on the wall it reads ‘POWER’ writ large. This dazzling display of glitter, glimmer and novelty ornaments, with its delicately disturbing details is an imaginary splendour that nevertheless belies the harsh conditions that make escapist flight so necessary. [Adam Benmakhlouf]

A mounted revolvable tin is a prayer wheel.

It’s one of a series that comes from Sandhu’s many service jobs in Glasgow. Mounted on the corner beside the large mantra ‘NO MORE ARTISTS’, it’s a dignified acknowledgement that the position of ‘artist’ is more likely to suggest someone working illicitly across a series of jobs to earn a living.

‘NO MORE ARTISTS’ is emblazoned across a scanned image of Buddhist sculptures. A juxtaposition is made between sacred artefacts and ‘artists’, and in the comparison there is the reminder of Modernism’s rabid cultural appropriation of African and Eastern. Contextualised like this, ‘NO MORE ARTISTS’ is a mantra for the retiring of a politically incorrect professional association with the Western supremacy of Modernism and its simultaneous denaturing and erasure of Eastern, African and Middle Eastern cultures.

A series of three looping videos show

Sandhu playing sax with a battle-joy on the Scottish shore as the inclusively named Storm Ali blows in, then he exhaustively slumps in his studio behind a John Baldessari-esque ultramarine dot, and finally hitting himself in the mouth with a prayer wheel and a pained expression. The looping images are of labour: against the gale, to stay awake, to catch the ball of the prayer wheel in his mouth.

In place of the identifier of ‘artist’, that more often comes as a release from responsibility (ethical, social, political, civic, historical), what might emerge instead is the necessary hard work for each member of homogenous mass of ‘artists’ to self-identify and have a clear sense of the parameters and impact of their actions. On the way out by the door (easy to miss), a stack of A3 handouts further furnishes some alternate imaginaries of post-artist practice. In sum and in all caps, number 13 of 49 pieces of advice from curator-founder of the platform Instituting Otherwise, Meenakshi Thirukode: ‘DON’T BE AN ASSHOLE’. [Adam Benmakhlouf] Run ended

Aman Sandhu, installation view

Until 24 Nov

ART

Photo: Alberta Whittle

he weather, the shore, the sea and the climate loom large in Alberta Whittle’s major solo show at Dundee Contemporary Arts. The film from the forest to the concrete (to the forest) is stamped with the date 09.09.19 – just nine days after Hurricane Dorian hit. Whittle argues that the climate emergency is placed at the doorstep of others. “Africa produces 4% of the world’s greenhouse gases, the whole continent, but yet it is so at the front line,” she says. “I really want this exhibition to bring together… what anti-blackness really means.

“There is an erasure in many conversations about climate catastrophe… [there was] a terrible hurricane that moved through the Bahamas last week but what I see in the weather in the news in the UK, is ‘oh isn’t this wonderful we are about to go through a period of sunshine’. For me that is really quite typical that we don’t want to understand our own complicity when it comes to thinking about which communities are most at risk and the fact that they are people of colour, black people. It’s not accidental, the groundwork was really laid during colonialism and slavery.

Central Africa is on fire and we are not hearing anything about this.”

Thinking about climate, Whittle refers to theorist Christina Sharpe whose book In the Wake: On Blackness and Being characterises ‘the weather’ as an ‘anti-black atmosphere’ in

Review

Photo: Matthew Arthur Williams

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Interview: Kate McLeod

49

In Cinemas By the Grace of God

Director: François Ozon Starring: Melvil Poupaud, Denis Ménochet, Swann Arlaud, Éric Caravaca

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A sense of waiting, watching and not daring to hope pervades François Ozon’s latest feature.

Unconventionally, this true-life drama was made during the trial that it dramatises: the case against Philippe Barbarin, Archbishop of Lyon, who turned a blind eye to sexual abuse crimes committed by local priest Bernard Preynat. The verdict was not scheduled until a month after its world premiere at Berlin Film Festival, but this limbo has now been resolved: Barbarin was found guilty. Seen through this lens, the film retains its righteous outrage and aptly captures the moment in time when pragmatism and hope coexisted with no cinematic happy ending.

Indeed, this feeling that the paint has not dried on the story heightens the sense that closure might not be as easy as a conviction for Preynat’s victims. The torturous procedure that Alexandre (Poupaud) and his fellow survivors go

through – both in terms of the law, and what this admission does to their personal lives – is made palpable through Ozon’s ever-unfolding narrative and expansive dialogue. These words, understated and plentiful, are the overwhelming takeaway, lending a verisimilitude that supports the slice-of-life picture created here.

Ozon makes the dialogue surprisingly cinematic by coaxing unfussy, ultra-realistic performances from his cast, keeping intense focus on the content rather than cinematic or performative flourishes. On that front, the descriptions of the sexual abuse are graphic, but nothing is shown. This approach is sensitive, sobering and needs no exaggeration to express its injustices.

By the Grace of God may be almost too big and too urgent to do its subjects coherent and complete justice, considering that Ozon’s flair for dramatic structure clashes noticeably with the film’s lack of resolution. That said, its ambition, urgency and unwillingness to reach for the easy answers or condemnations leave a lasting impression. [Carmen Paddock] Released 25 Oct by Curzon; certificate 15

Monos

Director: Alejandro Landes Starring: Sofia Buenaventura, Julián Giraldo, Julianne Nicholson

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In Monos, a group of teens play war on a misty mountain ridge. Their de facto commander is an adult called The Messenger, but he’s towered over by all the kids, even the one dubbed Smurf. The other teen grunts include Wolf (the leader), Rambo (the sensitive one) and Bigfoot (the crazy one). There’s also Shakira, the squad’s cow, a special gift from the rebel force in charge of this clandestine mission.

Despite their rigorous training, discipline doesn’t come naturally to this juvenile platoon. Partying, violent horseplay, irresponsible use of semi-automatic weapons and sexual dalliances are more their speed, and as you’d expect, that all lands them in a whole heap of trouble.

Alejandro Landes doesn’t give us a clue as to when or where the events of Monos are taking place, although the fog-covered hilltop location peppered with dank concrete bunkers

calls to mind the more scenic parts of the mysterious Zone from Tarkovsky’s Stalker. The New York-based director was born in Brazil to Colombian-Ecuadorian parents, so it’s safe to assume he had plenty of inspiration for Monos’ allegorical war story in the turbulent recent history of South America.

This thrilling work suggests war is a surreal game with no purpose other than to survive. Heart of Darkness, Lord of the Flies and the jungle adventures of Werner Herzog all feel like key texts for Landes, but this talented young filmmaker has a distinct cinematic style all his own, creating a film that’s constantly alive with surprising images and tense setpieces. Adding a fairytale quality is Mica Levi’s bewitching score, which modulates from twinkly wind arrangements to sci-fi bleeps to bone-rattling drones.

Monos is an intense experience, but even at its most brutal the film’s surreal beauty shines through. Plenty of black humour is thrown in there too; their cow is named Shakira, after all. [Jamie Dunn] Released 25 Oct by Picturehouse Entertainment; certificate 15

The Day Shall Come

Monos

American Woman

The Day Shall Come

The Peanut Butter Falcon

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Director: Jake Scott Starring: Sienna Miller, Christina Hendricks, Aaron Paul, Will Sasso, Sky Ferreira, Pat Healy, Alex Neustaedter After his debut misstep 20 years ago – the utterly forgettable Plunkett & Macleane – Jake Scott proves he can do quite a bit better.

Set in rural Pennsylvania, American Woman follows Deb Callahan (a never better Sienna Miller), whose life is upended when her teenage daughter disappears. With no answers forthcoming, Deb is left to raise her grandson and go on as best she can.

Scott’s third feature – which comes nine years after his last, the solid but little-seen Welcome to the Rileys – is comfortable with taking its time, slowly sketching in the details of one family’s complicated inner dynamics. We observe Miller, Christina Hendricks (as Deb’s sister) and Amy Madigan (as her mother) as they bristle and love and shout at each other, sometimes shifting between these states in the space of a breath. The impoverished world Deb lives is much like those explored in Gone Baby Gone and Joy, albeit with a touch more humanity. What could easily come across as reductive is, in the hands of Miller, nuanced, subtle and compelling. [Tom Charles] Released 11 Oct by Signature Entertainment; certificate 15

Director: Chris Morris Starring: Marchánt Davis, Danielle Brooks, Anna Kendrick, Denis O’Hare, Andrel McPherson, Curtiss Cook Jr. Chris Morris’s blistering first feature, Four Lions, took us inside a cell of would-be jihadists whose idiotic bumblings didn’t dampen the savagery of their aims. Star of Six, the Miami-based religion at the centre of The Day Shall Come, is a similarly cockeyed bunch but nowhere near as dangerous. Their army could fit comfortably inside a Mini Cooper, while the closest thing they have to a WMD is an air horn that summons dinosaurs. When the local chapter of the FBI is faced with such innocuous would-be revolutionaries, there’s only one thing to do: arm Star of Six to the teeth so that this terrorist threat can be neutralised.

Morris is the master of this kind of down-is-up logic, and here he pushes the Kafkaesque satire to the kind of delirious levels only he (and perhaps Armando Iannucci) could get away with. Craven careerists with an aversion to common sense and human decency are the true danger to the world in The Day Shall Come, which can’t provide the same heart-in-mouth power of Four Lions’ caustic finale, although it’s no less tragic.

[Jamie Dunn] Released 11 Oct by Entertainment One; certificate 15

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Review

Director: Tyler Nilson and Michael Schwartz Starring: Zack Gottsagen, Shia LaBeouf, Dakota Johnson A man with Down’s syndrome (Gottsagen), recently escaped from his care home, bonds with a lawless ex-fisherman (LaBeouf) so he can attend the wrestling school of his dreams? Our Indie-Trash Senses are tingling!

Truth be told, however, The Peanut Butter Falcon is better than it has any right to be, the potential mawkishness of its premise offset by its acuity for local detail.

When we say this movie is set in North Carolina, we mean in North Carolina. The swampy backwaters, dilapidated wooden houses and an abundance of rust establish mood well enough, but there’s also side-characters, like a blind holy man, who strike a tone of recognition in the viewer; these feel like living, breathing people.

The film is not bountiful with ideas outside of the bond between Zak, the wrestling wannabe, and Tyler, the ex-fisherman; LaBeouf and Gottsagen fill in most of those spaces themselves. But directors Michael Schwartz and Tyler Nilson know how to spin a yarn, and this is a surprisingly good one. [Thomas Atkinson] Released 18 Oct by Signature Entertainment; certificate 12A

FILM & TV

Non-Fiction

Director: Olivier Assayas Starring: Guillaume Canet, Juliette Binoche, Vincent Macaigne

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Following the ghostly text messages that Kristen Stewart received in Personal Shopper, Olivier Assayas’s Non-Fiction is another contemplation of our relationship with the technology that defines our everyday interactions, but played in a much breezier register.

Non-Fiction is a wry comedy that attempts to capture and comment upon the shifting sands of our digital lives, with Parisian publisher Alain (Canet) struggling to negotiate the tricky transition from print to digital while his wife Selena (Binoche) has an affair with shambolic novelist Léonard (Macaigne), who tends to turn such experiences into semi-autobiographical prose.

This premise has all the makings of a classic farce, but the characters keep stalling to debate issues surrounding the nature of art in the 21st century, which can feel a little repetitive and dry. Nevertheless, the film is often very funny and it’s a pleasure to watch this cast (notably the scene-stealing Nora Hamzawi as Léonard’s perceptive wife). And as these characters argue over the pros and cons of the digital future, Yorick Le Saux’s lovely 16mm cinematography ensures Non-Fiction keeps one foot firmly planted in the analogue world. [Philip Concannon] Released 18 Oct by Curzon; certificate 15

THE SKINNY

At Home The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance

A Good Woman is Hard to Find

The King

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Director: Louis Leterrier Starring: Nathalie Emmanuel, Taron Egerton In 1982, The Muppets creator Jim Henson wrote and directed The Dark Crystal. A live-action film featuring only puppets, it offered a glimpse into a mysterious, dark fantasy world. Now, the Jim Henson Company and Netflix have produced a prequel series thats elaborates upon the original with richness, humour and sincerity.

The world of Thra is populated by a variety of creatures.

Foremost are the Gelfling, an elfin people made up of seven tribes. As far as they know, they have always served the Skeksis, a bird/lizard-like race who tower above their subordinates.

One Gelfling, Rian (Egerton), discovers the Skeksis have been draining the planet’s crystal lifeforce. Having depleted it, they find a horrifying alternative. Elsewhere, Brea (Anya Taylor-Joy), a Gelfling princess, experiences a vision leading her to believe the balance of the world is awry. And Deet (Emmanuel), from an underground tribe, receives knowledge of the “darkening” from Thra itself. The three young protagonists all share the same mission: topple the Skeksis.

Puppets and sets are awe-inspiring: the Skeksis are both funny and terrifying. Perhaps the tactile nature of puppetry contributes to the sense that the stakes are real for the heroes, but this is largely down to the darkness in the writing.

Death is part of this world, but this makes the magic of the puppetry come to life in a sense in which CGI often fails.

The voice acting is provided by an astounding line-up.

Stand-out performances from Nathalie Emmanuel as the sweet and brave Deet, and Simon Pegg as the conniving Chamberlain, are a match for the brilliance of the puppeteers’ acting.

The original Dark Crystal was brief and mysterious. This prequel has the space and material to develop a vast and truly magical experience. [Gianni Marini] Streaming on Netflix now

October 2019

Director: Abner Pastoll Starring: Sarah Bolger, Edward Hogg, Andrew Simpson

Director: David Michôd Starring: Timothée Chalamet, Robert Pattinson

Attempting to merge the social realist drama with the revenge exploitation flick, this tight Northern Irish thriller went down a storm at 2019’s Frightfest, taking home the horror festival’s best acting and best film awards. It’s centred around the council estate life of Sarah (Bolger), a recently widowed single mum of two whose daily struggles with grief, living expenses and an overbearing mother are made worse when local thug Tito (a charismatic Andrew Simpson) cuckoos her house to stash recently stolen drugs. Simpson brings a real palpable menace to the character as he flits from charming to psychotic in the space of a few seconds. Meanwhile, local gangster Leo Miller (Hogg) is busting kneecaps in search of Tito and his pinched stash.

As you can imagine, things dramatically go south in a (very stylish) orgy of bloody violence. Much like 2017’s Irish revenge picture Bad Day for the Cut, this film throws a seemingly ordinary protagonist into a world of violent thuggery, sleazy clubs and campy villains. Bolger puts in a fine performance as the soft-touch widow who eventually snaps under the stress, guiding her way out of the underworld labyrinth. There are some especially tender scenes between Sarah and her mother (Jane Brennan) and the two kids, and the score is atonal and jarring where it needs to be, with a dismemberment scene that has the same visceral energy as Shallow Grave.

Perhaps where it falls short are some of the plot ABCs: we can predict exactly where this film is heading, given it feels like a facsimile of so many exploitation B-movies. The sexed-up ‘avenging angel’ finale is also problematic, and Edward Hogg as the villain seems to want to channel Paddy Considine at his most nefarious, but comes across more like Derren Brown having a shite week. [Adam Stafford]

Australian director David Michôd gives us a loose, mud-spattered retelling of Henry IV (parts 1 and 2) and Henry V that’s both brooding and pacy, dour and deeply satisfying. Timothée Chalamet cuts a dashing Prince Hal, the hedonistic heir with no hunger for wielding power. Yet step up he must, when his father’s pox-ridden body gives out. As an actor, Chalamet’s balletic physicality and soulful eyes are his greatest assets, and he uses both here to convincingly play both boy and man, wastrel prince and warrior king.

A moral pacifist is now on the throne, but warmongers are still in the throne room whispering in his ear. Enter Robert Pattinson as the smarmy Dauphin of France, happy to take on the novice monarch and his army. “I enjoy to speak the English,” he tells Hal at their first meeting. “It’s simple and it’s ugly.” If you enjoy your period epics with a touch of camp, Pattinson’s gleeful turn as this bitchy Frenchman should bring you plenty of joy.

As impressive as these two actors are, it’s Joel Edgerton as fallen knight John Fallstaff who leaves the biggest impression. The boastful coward of the plays is here replaced by a steely tactician who only speaks when he has something to say, and Edgerton, so often given the role of the everyman, brings a hitherto untapped worldliness to his performance.

Henry V’s heroics at Agincourt are often deployed as propaganda (see Laurence Olivier’s Henry V), but Michôd’s outsider’s eye gives us something more prickly, where the mood of a nation flies in the face of logic and reason, and an individual’s greed and vanity comes before king and country. If you’re looking for a distraction from the chaos of British politics look elsewhere. Every second of The King is like looking in the mirror. [Jamie Dunn]

Released on Digital HD on 25 Oct by Signature Entertainment – also in select cinemas from 25 Oct

Streaming on Netflix from 1 Nov and in UK cinemas from 11 Oct

FILM & TV

Review

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Stage Directions N

othing beats a good touring production – there’s something exciting about seeing a show that’s travelling around a country playing to different audiences every other night, and this month appears to be full of them.

Fibres, a production from Stellar Quines and Citizens Theatre, begins its Scottish tour this month in Glasgow at the Barrowfield Community centre on 17 October. The play explores the nuances of love through the eyes of four very Glaswegian characters; its tour continues across the country until 2 November. The excellent Sonnet Youth are also kicking off a national tour in their home city: thick skin, elastic heart, a spoken-word exploration of millenial issues, will open at Platform on 17 October, and go on to tour Scotland until February 2020.

Touring productions also include writer and performer Hannah Lavery’s The Drift, produced by National Theatre of Scotland and the Workers Theatre. The autiobiographical and poetic spoken word show about race and belonging in Scotland today will kick off in Aberdeen on 2 October, continuing until 12 October. Scottish Ballet will be continuing their tour of The Crucible throughout October, visiting Aberdeen, Inverness and Edinburgh (3-18 Oct).

Over at the Tron Theatre in Glasgow, Queen Jesus productions are presenting a series of performances, discussions and events, marking the tenth anniversary of the first production of The Gospel According to Jesus, Queen of Heaven. This show, which reimagines the Bible through the lens of a transgender Jesus, was groundbreaking when

it first premiered, triggering an onslaught of controversy and acclaim.

At the Couper Institute, Glasgowbased choreographerperformer Claire Cunningham will perform her show Thank You Very Much, described as ‘a powerful new work... [that] uses the phenonomon of tribute artists to explore impersonation, identity, acceptance and the challenge of being yourself ’ (31 Oct-3 Nov). And don’t miss the excellent Dance International Glasgow festival at Tramway this month (4-26 Oct) – Róisín O’Brien tells us more on p28.

In Edinburgh, arts producer Anatomy take over The Traverse for one night only on 24 October with its particular brand of vital, genre-defying, live-art cabaret. After two sold out runs at the National Theatre of Great Britain, Inua Ellams and Bijan Sheibani’s hugely acclaimed Barber Shop Chronicles hits the Lyceum in Edinburgh; get tickets while you still can (23 Oct-9 Nov). Within Sight, a spoken

Words: Eliza Gearty

thick skin, elastic heart

word study of ableism through the perspective of a young runner who finds out she hasn’t made the GB Paralympics team, also sounds interesting (The Scottish Storytelling Centre, 3 Oct). theskinny.co.uk/theatre

Unfolding Good Together As a new TEDx conference arrives in Glasgow, we meet one of the organisers, Martin Petrov, to find out what they have planned

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his month Glasgow Caledonian University will play host to a new branch of the TEDx franchise. The Unfolding Good Together conference will take place on Saturday 12 October and promises to offer inspiring speeches, music, live entertainment and even goody bags for its attendees.

A TEDx event differs from the core TED (technology entertainment design) Talks as they are independently run, designed to offer smaller communities a platform to share ideas in locations around the world.

Organisers must obtain a license and conform to the organisation’s core guidelines around platforming diverse ideas and rejecting profiteering.

Martin Petrov, director of World of Film International Festival (WoFF), is part of the 30-strong team presenting this TEDx edition. He provides some insight into what will be on offer at their event.

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Review

What can audiences expect from this TEDx? It is our inaugural edition but we are overly excited to have on board some fantastic speakers and performers from all over the world – as far as California (fashion designer Jeff Garner) and Australia (Ross Reekie, speaking about sustainability and ethics in the work environment). It is an honour that people are coming all the way just to present at our conference.

Is there an underlying theme?

The theme for this year’s conference is ‘Unfolding Good Together’. All our speakers have developed their talks around the idea of social good and how we can make our immediate or broader community a better place, each speaking about their experiences, brands, businesses, ideas that enable this to happen. We also have implemented the theme into planning and organising the conference by using sustainable materials, working with

local companies and recycling or hiring equipment to minimise environmental imprint.

Can you tell us a little about some of the speakers?

I am so proud about all 11 of them. They have unique, inspiring, motivational ideas that improve the lives of others, enable change, create dialogue, break boundaries and make our planet a better place.

Some of them I knew well before the recruitment process, and some others I have become friends with during the last few months while preparing them for the conference.

One thing I can reveal now – and nobody knows it yet – is that we will open the conference with the talk of Timi Hesselhoj. Timi is a scientist who also has worked in the creative industries for the last few years. She will be telling us a very personal story, empowering

THEATRE / DIGITAL

women in science to act and eliminate inequalities and biases in science. Believe me, we will start the day with a bang (and a great surprise)!

What do you hope audiences will take away at the end of the conference?

The messages that the speakers have incorporated in their talks are powerful and very current. I am sure that from among the 11 speakers, each audience member will find at least a few stories, if not all, to connect to, find motivation to write their own personal story, make a fresh start or keep pushing forward where they feel hopeless. Everyone will certainly get inspired for something they are currently working on, for an idea, or just a modus vivendi.

TEDx Glasgow Caledonian University, 12 Oct, 9am5pm, £26-£30

THE SKINNY

Photo: Stewart Tait

Exciting productions hit stages across Scotland this Autumn, on tour and at home

ICYMI Edinburgh Comedy Award Nominee and Chortle Student Comedy Award Winner Elf Lyons falls deep into genre-busting parody series Documentary Now! Illustration: Emer Kiely

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ere is a secret: I do not watch a huge amount of comedy.

I was brought up on arthouse films and Soviet cinema by my performance artist mother. I watched The Shining when I was seven and chose to watch The Battle of Algiers by myself one Sunday afternoon when I was eleven. At the age of twelve I knew who Marina Abramovich was. It is no surprise that comedy was a discovery I made later on in my life. To this day I am still catching up with the classics of our time: Blackadder, Fawlty Towers, The Big Bang Theory, Mrs Brown’s Boys… you know, all those well-loved and respected classics…

So – being asked to binge watch one series of a comedy show that I’ve been meaning to watch was hard – where do you go with so much choice?

Then, I found Documentary Now! Sure, it’s pretty recent – but it mixes some of my favourite things: comedy, documentary, re-enactment and epic cinematic editing with two of my favourite actors – Bill Hader and Fred Armisen. With Hader’s ‘hard man’ act and Armisen’s soft-cheeked likability the two balance together on screen as good cop/bad cop with great complicité. I could not resist.

Documentary Now! is described as being a ‘mockumentary’ – but it isn’t. Mockumentary is Spinal Tap - and you cannot get better than Spinal Tap. Mockumentary does not convey how smart Documentary Now! is. It mixes re-enactment with tight editing techniques, a great use of old footage, a love of film theory and a huge dose of superb comedy performances that creates something that teeters between comedy and also

October 2019

cinematic performance art.

Each episode is a standalone homage and acute parody of a well-respected documentary film or filmmaking style. Done so clearly with great research and precision it’s hard to consider each episode is made with the intention of being solely comic.

The first episode is an almost shot-forshot mimic of the cult seventies documentary Grey Gardens by the Maysles brothers – and just as you are watching the episode, starting to wonder where it is going and if it is starting to plateau, the narrative takes a sharp 180 degree turn and takes you somewhere you weren’t expecting, into another genre – with a surprisingly scary and funny twist.

One of my favourites in the series is episode four, The Eye Doesn’t Lie. Armisen’s incredibly irritating portrayal of the ‘wrongfully convicted man’ in this The Thin Blue Line parody made me cry laughing. For anyone who watched Making A Murderer, this is the best episode to start off with as it is clear what they are trying to do in the series and in the episode. And again, like episode one, it takes you places you weren’t expecting.

Also – bar one episode where Hader and Armisen superbly skewer the ignorance of privileged Vice documentary filmmakers – it neither punches up or punches down at those it is emulating in the episodes. When it boils down to it, Documentary Now! is a lovingly made pastiche series that’s essential viewing, even if you’re not familiar with its source material.

Elf Lyons’ Love Songs To Guinea Pigs will be at The Stand, Glasgow on 12 Oct and The Basement Theatre, Edinburgh on 13 Oct.

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Review

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Building Momentum With his Netflix special Momentum coming to 140 countries near you, The Lateish Show’s Mo Gilligan chats characters, GIFs and diversity

Interview: Rob Young

Photo: Pete Dadds

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“ If I think of black people hosting a TV show, I can count them on my hand...

In the next 10, 20 years it’ll just be the norm” Mo Gilligan

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Review

f any comedians want to know the value of social media on their career, they would be wise to consult self-proclaimed ‘meme hoarder’ Mo Gilligan. The star of Channel 4 chat show The Lateish Show shot to fame through his character-driven videos, and now boasts more followers than a minor religion. Perhaps the first commandment of the Holy Church of Mo would be ‘GIF hard or GIF home’, as Gilligan is a master of the millennial favourite.

He is, naturally, a supporter of social media. “Listen, I love GIFs,” he says ardently.

“It’s quite hard now to explain things these days without using a GIF. And I’m a big fan of memes. I’m a hoarder: if I see a good one I have to take it. You know how people have bad pictures on their phones? I don’t have that. I just have tons of memes.” He laughs joyfully, perhaps bemused by his own online geekery.

“Social media is how I got my audience and how I ended up doing the tour, so I am locked in to what’s happening,’’ he explains. “It’s not wasted time. I learn a lot about politics through the trending topics, and that’s cool. I do have days when I think I’ve got to have a detox, but I just find myself back on it!” Indeed, short-form videos featuring characters like ‘The Geezer’ (Friday having it large, Sunday at B&Q) and ‘The Roadman’ (think classic teen at a London bus stop) are what built Gilligan’s audience, and fans will be pleased to hear that these creations plus his crowd-pleasing observational style all feature in the new Netflix special, Momentum.

About the rest of the show, however, he is uncharacteristically coy: “It’s different, but I don’t really want to give away why. It’s a personal piece: a lot of it is about me, my family, my upbringing. If you’ve never known who I am, it’s the perfect special to watch.” Gilligan is the first black British comedian to have a Netflix special, and he is certainly proud to be at the forefront of the changing comedy landscape. The title of the show was supposed to be Gilligan’s debut Edinburgh hour in 2017, but unfortunately, he couldn’t afford to go. However, with his huge online audience and the potential exposure of Momentum, it is difficult now to imagine Gilligan wanting to slog it out at the Pleasance for a month, and that’s without considering The Lateish Show, an excellent vehicle for sketches, camaraderie and introducing Steve Coogan to grime music.

Put simply, it is unlikely you will find a more eclectic group of people on the sofa than here. It is a world where Kelis can share milkshake recipes with Danny Dyer, or even more incongruously, Anderson .Paak can chat rap next to Eamonn Holmes. This diverse and inclusive feel is something carefully cultivated

by Gilligan. “I’m such a fan of seeing people on screen who you would never see together; it’s important for TV and representation. Everyone’s got different stories, and sometimes I notice when people on the sofa are learning stuff about the other guests.”

There is no word yet on The Lateish Show coming back for a second series, but if the online community get their way, we will definitely be seeing Gilligan on Friday nights again.

That said, the problem with being so entrenched in social media is that you have to

COMEDY

deal with a few naysayers. Remarkably, Gilligan even has a positive spin on trolls, and enjoys reading negative comments about the show.

“I’m always finding ways to make it better,” he says. “Sometimes that criticism is really good, and you can take those things. It’s important: you can learn a little bit about yourself.”

It’s this anti-showbiz attitude and humbleness that has surely contributed to Gilligan’s popularity, but that’s not to say he’s stopping at the lowly world of chat shows and Netflix specials. He fell into comedy almost accidently, realising a talent for copying mannerisms, but Gilligan’s background is in performing arts, and anyone who has seen his character work will know that he is a superb actor. So, is Hollywood around the corner for him? Well, not without some admirable conditions. “If I ever got into [acting] I would want to do it properly. I never want to feel like I’m being typecast or doing a cameo. I would want to be taken seriously. Sometimes it’s hard when you’re a comic and they just want you to be the funny guy.” With Gilligan’s thoughts on typecasting, it is difficult not to think about how black comedians are represented in the UK, almost as if there is a limit to how many success stories are allowed at once. On the suggestion that the average Briton would still struggle to name a black comedian who isn’t Lenny Henry, Gilligan sighs thoughtfully.

“If I think of black people hosting a TV show, I can count them on my hand. It’s not people’s fault that they can’t name a black comedian, but hopefully things are going to start changing. There’s a new generation watching my content who might want to get into what I’m doing. In the next 10, 20 years it’ll just be the norm. I can’t think of a black female who has hosted a show in this country, so things do need to change.” The future, thankfully, is promising, as evidenced by a small change that Gilligan noticed recently. “I was listening to the radio, and they played four black British artists in a row,” he says. “And I thought to myself, when I was younger that would never happen.”

Of course, you can’t open a newspaper these days without reading a story about racial identity, offensive jokes and who exactly can get away with what, so how does Gilligan square the fact that The Geezer feels like a white character?

“He’s actually not!” he quickly protests.

“He is whatever you want him to be. My characters never have names. If you say ‘oh he’s pretending to be a white guy’ then that’s what you take from that. I’ve never tried to portray a white guy. You know, I’ve got black friends in East London who act like that! For me, I just want people to laugh at it.” Well, his audience are certainly doing that, and can fall in love all over again with Kavani’s Mum et al when the Netflix show drops.

It has been a hectic year for Gilligan, and now that the momentum is calming down, he can value a (slightly) quieter life. “There’s a bit of time to chill now, and I can spend time with family and friends,” he says. “I’ve had a TV show and a Netflix special in the same year. I just want to go on holiday to be honest!”.

Mo Gilligan’s Netflix special Momentum is available now

THE SKINNY

Glasgow Music Tue 01 Oct YEAR OF THE COBRA

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 19:30, £10

Seattle-based sludge metal duo.

MISS JUNE

SWG3, FROM 19:00, £9.75

Raised in the embers of punk rock, Miss June harness jagged, noisy guitars filtered through the unrivalled stage presence of frontperson Annabel Liddell.

EARTHGANG (WIFISFUNERAL + INNANET JAMES)

SWG3, FROM 19:00, £19.69

Altanta hip-hop duo, made up of Olu and WowGr8.

DERMOT KENNEDY

SWG3, FROM 20:00, £15 - £35

The fast-rising Irish singersongwriter returns to Glasgow for another headline show.

DEAFHEAVEN & TOUCHÉ AMORÉ (PORTRAYAL OF GUILT) THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 19:00, £22.50

The post-black metal group head out on tour with post-hardcore band Touché Amoré.

JULIE’S HAIRCUT (THE KUNDALINI GENIE + VELVET BOMB)

BROADCAST, FROM 19:00, £9

Active since the late 90s, Julie’s Haircut is a band from Emilia, northern Italy, devoted to spacey, hypnotic sounds.

KING GIZZARD & THE LIZARD WIZARD

BARROWLANDS, FROM 18:45, £26.44

Melbourne psychniks evoking the eclectic rock experimentation of Frank Zappa.

ZAC SCOTT (ZOË BESTEL)

CCA: CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART, FROM 19:30, £7.50 - £12

Zac Scott introduces his debut album For The Love Of… within a seven-piece live band.

ELEANOR KANE

HOWLIN’ WOLF, FROM 23:00, FREE

Eleanor Kane blends soul and funk influences with a gritty undertone to produce raw, vocal driven pop.

Wed 02 Oct CRYSTAL

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:30, FREE

Bold, brazen and utterly mesmerising, Crystal are a four-piece grunge/punk band from Glasgow.

JAY1

SWG3, FROM 19:00, £12

The North London-born rapper who left the big smoke for Coventry in 2016 to pursue a musical career.

ALYN COSKER

STEREO, FROM 19:30, £12

Drummer Alyn Cosker leads a powerful, exciting group presenting exhilarating virtuosity and accessible melodies on a deep, funky groove.

THE TOMMY BENTZ BAND

HOWLIN’ WOLF, FROM 23:00, FREE

A distinct blend of southern style rock and blues flair, with his well-rounded sound being completed by remnants of jazz from USA. LUCY MAY WALKER (MEGAN D + MEGAN AIRLIE)

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 19:30, £8

Lucy May Walker is a folk-pop singer-songwriter originally from Worcestershire, now living in London.

KYAN

THE BLUE ARROW, FROM 19:30, £9

Kyan blends alt soul, indie electronic beats and classic lyric-driven compositions to create a new soundscape that he describes as dark soul.

KANO

OLD FRUITMARKET GLASGOW, FROM 19:00, £27.50

One of the most vital voices in the UK music scene, Kano makes a return to Glasgow.

Thu 03 Oct

WHENYOUNG (ABBIE OZARD)

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:00, £11

London-via-Dublin indie pop trio, who count Bono as a mentor.

October 2019

RE:FORMATION NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 19:30, FREE

A night of improvisational music.

BLACK COUNTRY, NEW ROAD

SWG3, FROM 19:00, £10.25

Six-piece guitar group turning heads with their energetic live shows.

ALIVE GLASGOW (SUGARTHIEF + THE ESTEVANS + HOURGLVSS + KICKLIPS)

BROADCAST, FROM 19:00, £6.60

The righteous, triumphant, rock’n’roll new music tour returns.

CARTILAGE (IDEAL + OVERWHELMED)

THE FLYING DUCK, FROM 19:30, £5

Doom grunge, industrial noise and Queer punk.

THREE CARD TRICK

HOWLIN’ WOLF, FROM 23:00, FREE

Scotland’s most popular power trio perform three hours of rockin’ blues.

TV SMITH (JOE MCMAHON + BILLY LIAR)

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 19:30, £9

The Adverts punk legend brings his epic solo show to Glasgow.

MUSE-IC

PIE & BREW, FROM 21:00, FREE

Talented singer-songwriters Nicola Evans and Olivia Ennemoser invite local singers and songwriters to join them every week.

ELLIOT GALVIN TRIO

THE BLUE ARROW, FROM 19:30, £5 - £8

2014 winners of the European Young Jazz Artist of the Year Award in Germany, with Galvin on piano, Tom McCredie on double bass and Simon Roth on drums.

Fri 04 Oct

GOGOBOT & THE “BOWBOWBOTENSEMBLE” ORAN MOR, FROM 19:00, £12.50

Glasgow trio who emerged in 2010 with a strident mix of synth anthems, a pounding rock base and infectious pop melodies.

TWO DOOR CINEMA CLUB (SPORTS TEAM + FUZZY SUN)

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, FROM 19:00, £34.50

Bangor indie-rock outfit comprised of Alex Trimble, Kevin Baird and Sam Halliday, built on a bed of angular guitar pop with electro undertones.

SUB VIOLET (AMUR + THE LINKS + THE PERPETUAL CANTS)

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:30, £8.80

Alternative rock band from Motherwell, Scotland.

MARK MCGOWAN (GABRIEL KELLEY)

MONO, FROM 20:00, £12 - £14

Glasgow based singer-songwriter Mark McGowan brings his divine combo of soul, blues and acoustic crooning our way.

ALICE HUBBLE (RODNEY CROMWELL)

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 19:30, £10

70s-influenced electronica.

EASTERN PROMISE 2019: BURD ELLEN

PLATFORM, FROM 19:00, £7.50 - £20

New solo project from Debbie Armour featuring Gayle Brogan and Lucy Duncan, using traditional song to explore and evoke dark landscapes and deep stories.

SPQR

SWG3, FROM 19:00, £9.25

Art-pop trio from Liverpool.

THE MYSTERY LIGHTS

BROADCAST, FROM 23:00, £9.50

With a live show known for its raw, visceral energy and relentless assault, you can expect something pretty thrilling from The Mystery Lights.

SEBADOH (DEARLY BELOVED)

BROADCAST, FROM 19:00, £19.25

Lou Barlow’s post-Dinosaur Jr project, bringing the lofi indie sound.

BANG BANG ROMEO STEREO, FROM 19:00, £8

RALPH PELLEYMOUNTER (CHARLOTTE CARPENTER) THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS, FROM 19:30, £11

Former To Kill A King frontman taking the leap into solo territory.

BLIND LEMON GATORS

HOWLIN’ WOLF, FROM 18:00, FREE

Fronted by vocal powerhouse Anastasia Walker, Bang Bang Romeo are a propelling force for female-fronted bands and an open voice for the LGBTQ+ community.

The latest blues project from singer Greig Taylor and features Iain Donald on acoustic slide guitar and stomp box.

ST LUKE’S, FROM 19:00, £16.88

Abstract Orchestra plays the music of legendary rapper MF DOOM with their 16-piece orchestra and killer MCs.

The Grammy Award-winning indie folk musician, best known as a member of Old Crow Medicine Show, but now paving a solo trail.

HOWLIN’ WOLF, FROM 23:00, FREE

PIE & BREW, FROM 21:00, FREE

ABSTRACT ORCHESTRA PLAYS MF DOOM

INVADERS

The Invaders bring you a set of 60s R’n’B and vintage blues.

QUICK (FAIRWEATHER FRIENDS)

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 19:30, £8

Up and coming folk band drawing inspiration from traditional bluegrass to modern alternative indie music.

ORGANIC GROOVES

PIE & BREW, FROM 18:00, FREE

A fusion of Glasgow’s finest DJs collaborate with talented vocalists and exceptional musicians to offer something fresh and exciting to the city’s vibrant music scene.

SKELTR

THE BLUE ARROW, FROM 19:30, £5 - £8

GLASGOW AMERICANA: CHANCE MCCOY (CAITLIN BUCHANAN + MARK W. GEORGSSON)

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 19:30, £12

THE KINKS EXPERIENCE

Recreating the authentic live sound of the UK legends that were The Kinks.

RICHARD SPAVEN (REBECCA VASMANT DJ SET)

THE BLUE ARROW, FROM 19:30, £10

Spaven’s sublime intuitive drumming and his personable nature quickly established him as a favourite amongst the Jazzre:freshed faithful.

RIDDIM BOX AT THE BLUE ARROW

THE BLUE ARROW, FROM 23:00, FREE

Expect a blend of dancehall to Afrobeats to UK bass in a stunning club space, all powered by the Strawberry Jam Sound System.

An eclectic mix of future soul, funk, drum ‘n’ bass, improv and more.

Sun 06 Oct

Sat 05 Oct

50 years on from their landmark farewell show, Kofi Baker, Malcolm Bruce and Will Johns are reuniting to pay homage to Cream’s extraordinary legacy.

STEVIE NIMMO TRIO

ORAN MOR, FROM 19:00, £16.50

One-half of the Nimmo Brothers, Stevie Nimmo – a longstanding figure in the blues and roots world plays with his own live band trio.

TWO DOOR CINEMA CLUB (SPORTS TEAM + FUZZY SUN)

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, FROM 19:00, £34.50

Bangor indie-rock outfit comprised of Alex Trimble, Kevin Baird and Sam Halliday, built on a bed of angular guitar pop with electro undertones.

OCTOBER DRIFT (WULVER + BRONSTON + ANOTHER BLURRY PHOTO)

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:30, £8.80

October Drift appeared at the start of 2015 with their beefy yet melodic sound and gained a reputation for delivering blistering, high-energy live shows.

A DAY OF FESTIVAL (MALLORY KNOX + COLOSSAL SQUID + MEGALOMATIC + BANSHEE + CANAL CAPITALE)

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 16:00, £18 - £22

A Day Of Music Festival brings something slightly different to Glasgow’s favourite street.

EASTERN PROMISE 2019: LUBOMYR MELNYK

PLATFORM, FROM 18:00, £7.50 - £20

The ‘Prophet Of The Piano’, Erased Tapes recording artist Lubomyr Melnyk is returning to Platform for Eastern Promise.

EASTERN PROMISE 2019: DAVID ALLRED

PLATFORM, FROM 18:00, £7.50 - £20

Erased Tapes recording artist David Allred brings his minimalist, poignant and achingly beautiful music to Platform for Eastern Promise.

RHYTHM METHOD

SWG3, FROM 19:00, £9.75

London duo with fans in the diverse pair of Elton John and Mike Skinner.

BLACK PEAKS

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 19:00, £13

The Brighton-based techrockers take a trip up North.

DZ DEATHRAYS

STEREO, FROM 19:00, £12

Brisbane thrash duo who, in suitably wild-hearted style, started life at a house party.

THE MUSIC OF CREAM

ORAN MOR, FROM 19:00, £25

TRUMANS WATER (EMU WAR)

BROADCAST, FROM 19:00, £13.75

The veteran American “spazzrock”/”squiggle-core” group’s live shows have been rare in recent years so grab tickets while you can.

ALMA

STEREO, FROM 19:00, £13

Finnish pop sensation, with the brightest hair you’ll ever see.

MIX MASTER MIKE

ST LUKE’S, FROM 19:00, £16.88

Grammy Award-winning DJ and producer, known for his work with Beastie Boys, Cypress Hill and Metallica.

THE KILLING FLOOR (CHARLOTTE MARSHALL)

HOWLIN’ WOLF, FROM 21:00, FREE

The Howlin’ Wolf’s open stage blues jam.

DAN MANGAN (MURRAY A. LIGHTBURN)

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 19:30, £14

Two-time JUNO award-winning and Polaris Music Prize listed musician and songwriter based in Vancouver, British Columbia.

SAM OUTLAW (LYDIA LUCE)

GLEE CLUB, FROM 19:00, £16

Glasgow Americana with Sam Outlaw and Lydia Luce.

Mon 07 Oct

TIGRESS (DETER + KILLING OUR DARLINGS + FORREST CAN’T RUN)

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:30, £8.25

Indie rock quintet who formed in 2015.

JON BELLION

SWG3, FROM 19:00, £25.31

Singer, songwriter, rapper and producer from Long Island, New York.

ARCTIC LAKE

SWG3, FROM 19:00, £11.25

Electronic trio creating reflective and thoughtful music.

PHOBOPHOBES (MIDDLE CLASS GUILT)

BROADCAST, FROM 19:00, £8

Phobophobes make some of the most alluring, unsettling, inventive and cutting-edge music of the age.

BILL RYDER-JONES: PIANO TOUR

CCA: CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART, FROM 19:00, £16

Bill Ryder-Jones reimagines songs from his fourth album, Yawn, with only vocals and piano, opening an even more intimate window into his world.

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

STUART NEIL

ELEANOR KANE

HOWLIN’ WOLF, FROM 23:00, FREE

HOWLIN’ WOLF, FROM 23:00, FREE

Stuart Neil of The Hoojamamas and Harry & The Hendersons brings his solo act to The Wolf.

FINN ANDERSON AND BAND

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 19:30, £10

Part of a select number of UK shows to celebrate the release of Finn Anderson’s debut album Until The Light.

Eleanor Kane blends soul and funk influences with a gritty undertone to produce raw, vocal driven pop.

MICAH ERENBERG (JASON RIDDELL)

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 19:30, £7

Tue 08 Oct

Multi-instrumentalist, singer-songwriter and frontman extraordinaire from Matlock, Manitoba, Canada.

ORAN MOR, FROM 19:00, £13.50

Thu 10 Oct

PIERCE BROTHERS

Brothers Jack and Pat, who’ve taken their music from busking on the streets of Melbourne out into the world.

THE PSYCHEDELIC FURS (THE WENDY JAMES BAND)

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, FROM 19:00, £32.80

London alternative rockers led by frontman and songwriter Richard Butler.

THE SLOW SHOW (ELEANOR KANE + JOHN EDGE & THE KINGS OF NOWHERE) KING TUT’S, FROM 20:00, £13.75

Manchester band chock with American alternative folk references, but with a distinctive Northern English touch.

ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE (PEACH CARNIVAL)

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 19:30, £12 - £15

Kawabata Makoto and his band of sonic outlaws, mixing traditional melody with hyper-aggressive playing techniques and plenty of improvisation.

THE RASMUS

SWG3, FROM 19:00, £25.31

Yes, the Finnish rockers are still going strong and are no longer in the shadows.

HELMET

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 19:00, £21.94

The much-respected metal group play The Garage.

BESS ATWELL (MAX POPE + MEGAN D)

BROADCAST, FROM 19:00, £8

After dabbling in acting, musical theatre and fine art as a kid, Atwell discovered her love of singing.

JESSE TERRY (EMMA STEVENS + MARTHA HEALY)

THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS, FROM 19:30, £12.50

New England-based singersongwriter Jesse Terry has made it his mission to share his love of music fully and completely, without regard for shading his emotions or tempering his convictions.

OLD BOHEMIA

HOWLIN’ WOLF, FROM 23:00, FREE

Live blues and vintage rock’n’roll covers; this soulful two-piece will be sure to wow you with their young bluesy folky nuance.

Wed 09 Oct BITW (YNYS + SYBS)

SWG3, FROM 19:00, £7.25

Vowels aren’t cool anymore, in case you didn’t know; or at least in the case of show.

AMBER RUN

SWG3, FROM 19:00, £16.88

Rising young Nottingham quintet of the soft folk-rock variety.

NEKKURO HÁNA

BROADCAST, FROM 19:00, £5

Making self-proclaimed ‘sex music’, the Glasgow-based quintet’s performances are pleasurable for the mind, body and soul.

HOOTIE AND THE BLOWFISH

BARROWLANDS, FROM 19:00, £49.50

The South Carolina rockers are back with their first album in nearly 15 years and are heading out on the road too.

EASY LIFE

ST LUKE’S, FROM 19:00, £15.75

Leicester five-piece attempting to blend hip-hop, funk and jazz with little success.

GIFT HORSE (THE NATURE CENTRE + MOONSOUP) THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS, FROM 19:30, £6

Glasgow duo combining the breathy chanson-pop vocals of French-born guitarist Audrey Bizouerne with the darkly comic Scottish storytelling of drummer David Maxwell.

RED RUM CLUB

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:30, £11

Sextet from Liverpool, combing sounds of old and new channeling Tarantino-esque wild western vibes with the help of a solitary trumpet.

MOLLY LINEN

MONO, FROM 20:00, FREE

Lost Map Records’ latest signing launches her debut EP, Outside.

THE REMOTE VIEWING TOUR (MW + SUGASHANE + KING MERAKI + GBH)

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 19:30, TBC

The Remote Viewing Tour is a unique expression of bass heavy electronic music and traditional boom bap hip-hop.

THE ACADEMIC

SWG3, FROM 19:00, £11

Band of four chucking out indie rock intelligence.

LAURAN HIBBERD

SWG3, FROM 19:00, £9.75

Isle of Wight-raised singer-songwriter with a sense of humour accompanying her catchy tracks.

FOTF X BROADCAST (ENDLESS SWARM + GENDO IKARI + CHRISTWVRKS)

BROADCAST, FROM 19:00, TBC

Friends of the Fanzine present an evening of live music and art.

HOOTIE AND THE BLOWFISH

BARROWLANDS, FROM 12:00, £49.50

The South Carolina rockers are back with their first album in nearly 15 years and are heading out on the road too.

HENGE

STEREO, FROM 19:00, £10

Live electronics out in Ancoats.

RUSSELL HASWELL (YEAH YOU + USURPER)

THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS, FROM 20:00, £7 - £10

Producer extraordinaire known for his numerous collaborations, with the likes of Florian Hecker and Aphex Twin.

JUDITH OWEN

CCA: CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART, FROM 19:30, £21

Singer-songwriter and pianist currently riding the wave of a tremendous couple of years of critically-acclaimed albums and live shows.

FLYING PENGUINS (THE GIRL WHO CRIED WOLF + ZOË BESTEL)

THE GLAD CAFE, FROM 19:30, £7

An orchestral indie pop group with playful hints of ‘spook’, Flying Penguins create melodic songs that combine expansive orchestration with vocal harmonies and introspective lyrics.

GUS MUNRO

HOWLIN’ WOLF, FROM 23:00, FREE

Gus Munro is one of the hidden gems of Scotland’s thriving music scene, with his music described as Scottish-folk–blues.

VITAL IDLES (LEWSBERG + DOMICILES)

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 19:30, £8

Glasgow four-piece crafting vibrant pop music, as demonstrated on their 2018 debut Left Hand.

MUSE-IC

PIE & BREW, FROM 21:00, FREE

Talented singer-songwriters Nicola Evans and Olivia Ennemoser invite local singers and songwriters to join them every week.

NEW FOCUS QUARTET

THE BLUE ARROW, FROM 19:30, £8 - £10

The London jazz group bring an eclectic mix of styles to The Blue Arrow.

Fri 11 Oct JESCA HOOP

ORAN MOR, FROM 19:00, £15

Manchester-based, Californiaborn songstress rich with layered harmonies, cavernous production and slow, sombre seduction.

THE MEMBRANES (SHOT BALOWSKI)

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:30, £13.20

The influential 80s UK post-punk band return with a full choir.

AS DECEMBER FALLS

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 19:30, £8

Pop-rock group fronted by Bethany Curtis and based in Nottingham.

SWITCH 2019 (THE SENSATRONICS + FAVOR P33CH + THE BOYS)

PLATFORM, FROM 17:00, FREE

Live music event showcasing undiscovered bands, established acts and collaborations in Glasgow’s experimental music scene.

THYLA (MEDICINE CABINET + SPYRES)

BROADCAST, FROM 19:00, £9

Brighton dream-pop outfit cementing their position as one of the UK’s most promising acts.

PIP BLOM

STEREO, FROM 19:00, £10

20-year-old Amsterdam native, Pip Blom makes droll super cool slacker grunge with killer tunes.

NICK HARPER (CAROL LAULA + PORT ERIN)

CCA: CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART, FROM 20:00, £16

Guitar genius Nick Harper, with guests Carol Laula and Port Erin, brings a special one-off show, updating and augmenting material from his successful 58 Fordwych Rd tour.

RIGID SOUL

HOWLIN’ WOLF, FROM 23:00, FREE

A three-piece blues/rock band from Glasgow with a lot of energy, who will have the room on their feet.

MURKAGE DAVE

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 19:30, £10

Returning to East London from Manchester, Murkage Dave’s debut album Murkage Dave Changed My Life documents the changing landscape and gentrification of the area he grew up in.

ORGANIC GROOVES

PIE & BREW, FROM 18:00, FREE

A fusion of Glasgow’s finest DJs collaborate with talented vocalists and exceptional musicians to offer something fresh and exciting to the city’s vibrant music scene.

HUSKY LOOPS

THE BLUE ARROW, FROM 19:30, £11

Husky Loops are a band set on breaking the rules, bending genre boundaries and stepping boldly into the unknown.

Sat 12 Oct

CITIZEN COPE (JO HARMAN)

ORAN MOR, FROM 19:00, £22.50

American urban-folk artist Citizen Cope has built a following organically over the years since his 2002 debut album.

COLOURS CLASSICAL: CELEBRATING 30 YEARS OF STREETRAVE CLASSICS 1989-2019

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, FROM 18:30, £37.90 - £43.50

The Scottish Festival Orchestra, accompanied by Musichoir, will perform the sounds of STREETrave, curated by STREETrave’s very own Jon Mancini and Boney.

NEW HOPE CLUB

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 18:30, £18.50

British pop rock trio formed in 2015.

MONARCHY (EGOPATTERN)

BROADCAST, FROM 19:00, £8

English electronic duo, made up of Andrew Armstrong and Ra Black.

TENEMENT TRAIL 2019

VARIOUS VENUES, TIMES VARY, £29.15

Glasgow media lot Tenement TV host their annual music fest.

CHOP CHOP

THE FLYING DUCK, FROM 19:30, TBC

Brighton-based band making music in the vein of post-punk, art-rock and prog.

JIM BOB THE ART SCHOOL, FROM 19:30, £15

The Carter USM singer returns as a solo artist.

HUGH KEARNS

HOWLIN’ WOLF, FROM 18:00, FREE

Scottish multi-instrumentalist songwriter Hugh Kearns is influenced by the likes of John Prine, Johnny Cash, Hank Williams and The Rolling Stones.

RUM SHACK 5TH BIRTHDAY (THE MODERN INSTITUTE + COMFORT + BANANA OIL + SMACK WIZARDS + SEMISPECIFIC ENSEMBLE + CURRENT AFFAIRS + LOOSEN UP DJS) THE RUM SHACK, FROM 15:00, £5 - £10

All day and all night party for Rum Shack’s 5th birthday, with live music from some of the best bands in Glasgow.

THE JUST JOANS (THE MARTIAL ARTS + U.S. HIGHBALL)

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 19:30, £7.50

The Motherwell-based indiepopsters play a trademark angsty set.

NIGEL CLARK

PIE & BREW, FROM 21:00, FREE

Russian virtuoso guitarist incorporating flamenco, jazz standards, Latin and gypsy into his mighty mix.

CURSE OF LONO

THE BLUE ARROW, FROM 19:30, £10

London five-piece, whose songs cover themes including infidelity and sexual jealousy, the death of friends and frontman Felix Bechtolsheimer’s personal struggle with heroin addiction.

TINY MURDER (POCKET KNIFE + CHARRETTE)

THE BLUE ARROW, FROM 23:00, £5

Tiny Murder is a wave of cinematic dream pop tinged with 90s nostalgia, providing a powerful wall of synth along with honest and emotive lyrics.

Sun 13 Oct RURA

ORAN MOR, FROM 19:00, £15

Scottish five-piece who won Live Act of the Year at the 2015 Scots Trad Music awards for their unique blend of fiddle, Highland pipes, whistle, flute, bodhran, guitar and voice.

CRAIG FINN & THE UPTOWN CONTROLLERS (LAURA STEVENSON)

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:30, £24.75

Craig Finn is a Minnesota-bred singer-songwriter based in New York City, perhaps best known as the singer of The Hold Steady.

BIS + LIIES (SPARE SNARE)

MONO, FROM 19:00, £11

Co-headline tour from the local DIY heroes.

ISSUES

CATHOUSE, FROM 19:00, £15

American metalcore outfit from Atlanta.

MIDGE URE

BARROWLANDS, FROM 19:00, £26.50

The former Ultravox bassist and Live Aid man revisits his back catalogue.

SWIM DEEP

STEREO, FROM 19:00, £10

Bright indie hopefuls making sun-kissed slacker pop in their hometown of Birmingham, then touring it to a venue near you.

THE KILLING FLOOR (CHARLOTTE MARSHALL)

HOWLIN’ WOLF, FROM 21:00, FREE

The Howlin’ Wolf’s open stage blues jam.

PILLOW QUEENS

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 19:30, £8

While taking influence from US DIY indie and punk scenes, Pillow Queens stay true to their Irish heritage, using Dublin colloquialisms in their lyrics and singing in thick Irish accents.

Mon 14 Oct WINSTON SURFSHIRT

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:00, £12.10

Initially the solo project of singer/rapper/producer Winston Surfshirt, which has grown into a six-piece musical collective.

SLOWTHAI

SWG3, FROM 19:00, £5

Northampton born and bred, slowthai is the rapper speaking out for a generation of kids who’ve been ignored for too long by the powers that be.

Listings

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DUMB (U.S. HIGHBALL) BROADCAST, FROM 19:00, £6

FAR CASPIAN (HOME$LICE + CONOR HEAFY)

Birmingham-based four-piece, mashing up US college rock influences with their inescapable Britpop heritage.

The Leeds dream-pop trio have been tipped as ones to watch, so go watch them maybe?

STEREO, FROM 19:00, £11

Thu 17 Oct

CUB SPORT

Independent Australian alt-pop group from Brisbane, Queensland.

SUGAI KEN (CUCINA POVERA)

THE FLYING DUCK, FROM 19:00, £10 - £13

Blending native folklore, geographical sound design and personal ambience, Sugai Ken has been an active composer in Japan’s underground scene since the mid 90s.

CREEP SHOW (JOHN GRANT + STEPHEN MALLINDER + PHIL WINTER + BENGE)

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 19:30, £7

ARMORY SHOW

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:30, £19.25

British band formed in 1983 featuring Richard Jobson, Russell Webb, John McGeoch and John Doyle.

FELIX RABIN

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 19:30, £10

Throughout the four years he played at Montreux Jazz Club, Félix Rabin played in the bands of Lady Gaga & Tony Bennett and Santana, among many others.

SAINT AGNES (SOEUR)

BROADCAST, FROM 19:00, £9

THE ART SCHOOL, FROM 19:30, £16

Psychedelic rock’n’roll from East London.

MICHAEL CASSIDY

Formed in 1999 from various members of Overcast and Aftershock, the Massachusetts-based five-piece are still making loud and angry metalcore, natch.

Creep Show brings together John Grant with the dark analogue electro of Wrangler.

HOWLIN’ WOLF, FROM 23:00, FREE

Michael Cassidy from The Easy Winners, with a tender voice and intimate lyrics.

ALESSI’S ARK (KATE MCCABE + BETHANY FERRIE)

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 19:30, £8

Dulcet-toned folk rock from the London-based musical project of Alessi Laurent-Marke.

Tue 15 Oct JOSIN

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:30, £8.80

Cologne-born singer who ditched medical school to pursue a musical career.

TAUPE (AILBHE NIC OIREACHTAIG + AMID) NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 19:30, £5

KILLSWITCH ENGAGE

BARROWLANDS, FROM 19:00, £28.60

CHASTITY BELT

STEREO, FROM 19:00, £12

Seattle rock’n’roll foursome made up of guitarists Julia Shapiro and Lydia Lund, bassist Annie Truscott and drummer Gretchen Grimm.

HUNG PARLIAMENT (STOCK MANAGER)

THE FLYING DUCK, FROM 19:30, £5

Bedroom pop music filled with drum machines, cheap beats, fuzzy guitars and intimate, indie shoe-gazing songwriting.

REVEREND AND THE MAKERS

ST LUKE’S, FROM 19:00, £17.50

Tyneside punk/jazz/chaos maestros now splitting their time between Newcastle, Manchester and Edinburgh.

Yes they’re still at it! Jon McClure and his band hit the road to showcase tracks from their new album.

BARROWLANDS, FROM 19:00, £30.25

THE SSE HYDRO, FROM 18:30, £33.50 - £62.45

RICHARD HAWLEY

The Sheffield icon, formerly of legendary 90s bands Pulp and the Longpigs.

TESSA VIOLET

STEREO, FROM 19:00, £9

Singer-songwriter and vlogger, formerly known as Meekakitty, from Chicago.

ANTON O’DONNELL

HOWLIN’ WOLF, FROM 23:00, FREE

Anton O’Donnell plays with a rock swagger, blues groove and the rough and tumble of Americana.

JERKCURB

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 19:30, £8

South East London songwriter and visual artist whose debut album Air Con Eden is the culmination of several years of intense creative focus.

Wed 16 Oct OLD DOMINION

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, FROM 19:00, £28.35

Country group straight from the country hub of Nashville, Tennessee.

THE MURDER CAPITAL (HAPPY COUPLE)

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:30, £11

Hailing from all corners of Ireland, The Murder Capital are a post-punk band driven by the desire to affect cultural change.

ALI HORN (GHOSTBABY + SUPERCLOUD)

MONO, FROM 20:00, £5

LITTLE MIX

X-Factor 2011 winners, known for having the lowest-selling winner’s single since 2004. That said, they’ve released some bangers since then. If you manage to resolve your conflicted opinions, here’s (yet) another chance to see them in Glasgow’s SSE Hydro.

BLUE MILK

HOWLIN’ WOLF, FROM 23:00, FREE

Blue Milk are a Glasgow-based blues band strongly influenced by the Mississippi Delta sound from the early 1920s to the 1960s.

TERRITORIES (TRANSIENT SUNS + A SEA OF DEAD TREES)

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 19:30, £6

Five-piece from Glasgow who aim to take listeners on a meditative journey with their music.

MUSE-IC

PIE & BREW, FROM 21:00, FREE

Talented singer-songwriters Nicola Evans and Olivia Ennemoser invite local singers and songwriters to join them every week.

ALASDAIR ROBERTS

THE BLUE ARROW, FROM 19:30, £9 - £15

Inimitable folk musician and songwriter Alasdair Roberts plays a full band show.

Fri 18 Oct

THE SKINTS (BEDOUIN SOUNDCLASH)

Ali Horn returns with Dreamers, an expertly crafted slice of indie pop with a heavy dose of psychedelia.

London quartet whose rock sound takes in reggae, dub, ska, pop and roots as it goes.

SWG3, FROM 19:00, £16.31

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:30, £11

HEADIE ONE

ORAN MOR, FROM 19:00, £19

COUNTY LINE RUNNER

The highest-charting drill rapper ever, whose collaborative track with Dave, 18Hunna, made it to number six in the UK Singles Chart.

Adam Day, aka County Line Runner, uses his dynamic lyrics and storytelling to look at universal feelings from another angle.

BROADCAST, FROM 19:00, £12.10

90s art punk band The Yummy Fur launch their best of album, Piggy Wings.

SKATING POLLY (SHE MAKES WAR)

Pop rock duo who came together when playing an improvised set at their family’s halloween party.

THE TRITONES

HOWLIN’ WOLF, FROM 23:00, FREE

One of Scotland’s best cover bands perform a double set of 60s R’n’B and straight blues.

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Listings

THE YUMMY FUR

MONO, FROM 20:00, TBC

FEVA (THE PETTY THIEVES)

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 19:30, £7

Newcastle via Durham alt-rock quartet.

NIGHT MOVES

THE LAWNMOWER (I SOLAR)

JAWBONE

SAMANA

TOMORROW SYNDICATE

WOLFTRAIN

SWG3, FROM 19:00, £11.25

THE FLYING DUCK, FROM 19:30, £5

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 19:30, £15

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 19:30, £7

MONO, FROM 20:00, £8

HOWLIN’ WOLF, FROM 18:00, FREE

American indie rockers specialising in psych-country.

BARNS COURTNEY

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 19:00, £12

The English-born folk rock musician with the backwards name.

ART ALEXAKIS

BROADCAST, FROM 19:00, £17.60

Some 30 years into his career as a recording artist, Art Alexakis has started a new chapter in his remarkably prolific career, now as a solo artist.

ROB HERON & THE TEA PAD ORCHESTRA

STEREO, FROM 19:00, £12

Western swing, blues, gypsy jazz and country from the Newcastle-based band.

ADAM GREEN

80s inspired duo with catchy lyrics and music to make you shimmy.

BILL THOMPSON (SUSANNAH STARK + DUNCAN MARQUISS)

THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS, FROM 20:00, TBC

Sound artist and composer with a particular interest in perception and embodied presence.

DOGHOUSE ROSES

CCA: CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART, FROM 19:30, £11

Iona Macdonald and Paul Tasker combine harmony vocals, guitars and clawhammer to bring songs borne of the past but looking to the future.

LITTLE MIX

THE SSE HYDRO, FROM 18:30, £33.50 - £62.45

LITTLE MIX

X-Factor 2011 winners, known for having the lowest-selling winner’s single since 2004. That said, they’ve released some bangers since then. If you manage to resolve your conflicted opinions, here’s (yet) another chance to see them in Glasgow’s SSE Hydro.

THE SSE HYDRO, FROM 18:30, £33.50 - £62.45

HOWLIN’ WOLF, FROM 18:00, FREE

CCA: CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART, FROM 19:00, £17

Adam Green is an artistic polymath. A songwriter, filmmaker, visual artist and poet, who was at the forefront of New York’s anti-folk scene in the late 90s as one half of The Moldy Peaches.

X-Factor 2011 winners, known for having the lowest-selling winner’s single since 2004. That said, they’ve released some bangers since then. If you manage to resolve your conflicted opinions, here’s (yet) another chance to see them in Glasgow’s SSE Hydro.

BLUES MAMA

MESS O BLUES

Mess O Blues play with the heartiness of an Irish stew and the spice of a Scottish haggis.

COCO & THE BUTTERFIELDS

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 19:30, £12

The duo of Tom Twyan and Dulcima Showan, notably neither called CoCo or Butterfield.

Sun 20 Oct PROUD MARY

London-based four-piece who are all respected musicians in the industry, among them having played for the likes of Tom Jones, Eric Clapton and Laura Marling.

Working from their analogue recording studio and darkroom in the remote mountains of Wales, Samana take themselves out of solitary and out on the road.

Tue 22 Oct

PIE & BREW, FROM 21:00, FREE

THE CULT: SONIC TEMPLE

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, FROM 19:00, £42.75

The 1984 revivers of metal play their seminal album Sonic Temple in full to celebrate its 30th anniversary.

JAKE CLEMONS (BEN MCKELVEY)

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:00, £16.50

The American singer-songwriter, (and saxophonist for Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band).

HAELOS

SWG3, FROM 19:00, £13.50

Cinematic rock three-piece from London making music for a “world that’s forgotten the chillout room”.

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 19:00, £25

San Francisco rockers based around the songwriting of Stephan Jenkins and Brad Hargreaves.

THE MODERN STRANGERS

BROADCAST, FROM 19:00, £9

The Kent quintet head out on their first ever UK tour.

LAMB

ST LUKE’S, FROM 19:00, £28.13

SWG3, FROM 19:00, £16.88

HOWLIN’ WOLF, FROM 23:00, FREE

The debut Scottish show from Isle of Man four-piece Voodoo Bandits.

Fresh-faced Brighton singer/ songwriter famously compared to Justin Bieber.

PIE & BREW, FROM 18:00, FREE

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 19:00, £16.50

ORGANIC GROOVES

A fusion of Glasgow’s finest DJs collaborate with talented vocalists and exceptional musicians to offer something fresh and exciting to the city’s vibrant music scene.

DAVID FORD

THE BLUE ARROW, FROM 19:30, £15

With a back catalogue of critically-acclaimed studio albums, songwriter David Ford is essential listening for anyone who gives a damn about music.

Sat 19 Oct THE BLOCKHEADS

ORAN MOR, FROM 19:00, £25

The Blockheads (once known as Ian Dury And The Blockheads) are now fronted by one of Ian Dury’s best friends, Derek ‘The Draw’, the band’s vocalist and wordsmith.

LIFE MODEL

MONO, FROM 21:00, FREE

ROYAL REPUBLIC

Swedish punk and funk-influenced four-piece, who specialise in making a big ol’ racket.

ANDREA BOCELLI (BEVERLEY KNIGHT)

THE SSE HYDRO, FROM 18:30, £56.75 - £141.90

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 19:30, £9.50

The latest musical project of New York musician Jade Lilitri, signed to Triple Crown Records.

TREPPENWITZ

THE BLUE ARROW, FROM 19:30, £5

Treppenwitz is the meeting of three musicians: pianist Matthew Aplin, bassist Tom Riviere and drummer Steve Hanley.

VARIOUS VENUES, TIMES VARY, £12

Mon 21 Oct

Hiip Priest present their first double venue all day party, featuring various artists of different genres playing between Broadcast and Nice ‘n’ Sleazy.

THE SELECTOR (RHODA DAKAR)

QUEEN MARGARET UNION, FROM 19:00, £27.50

The Selecter will be playing an extended, hit-rich set each night with some added live favourites and surprises.

NESHIIMA

CATHOUSE, FROM 18:30, £10

Glasgow metal nuts incorporating elements of tech and melodic into their mix.

HOT CHIP (ROSIE LOWE)

BARROWLANDS, FROM 19:30, £29.15

Whether it’s breezy funk or towering emotional house, Hot Chip have been filling dancefloors for over 15 years.

MELT BANANA

STEREO, FROM 19:00, £15

Noise rock band formed in Japan in the early 90s.

LOGAN MIZE

ORAN MOR, FROM 19:00, £18

Kansas-born country musician, who counts the Trousersnake himself, Justin Timberlake as a fan.

THE RAILS

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:30, £16.50

Sharp, true folk rock rarely heard since the 70’s.

DEEPER

BROADCAST, FROM 19:00, FREE

Chicago-based band blending post-punk and indie rock.

K.FLAY

ST LUKE’S, FROM 19:00, £16.31

Try and forgive Kristine Flaherty for this mental stage name, she’s been nominated for two Grammys after all.

JED POTTS

HOWLIN’ WOLF, FROM 23:00, FREE

Jed Potts of JP and the Hillman Hunters has been supplying only the deepest of grooves and the rudest of shuffle and blues for quite some time now.

HONEYBLOOD

QUEEN MARGARET UNION, FROM 19:00, £13.75

CHROMATICS (DESIRE + IN MIRRORS)

Returning after five years, Chromatics blur the lines between stage and screen in their new shows.

LITTLE SIMZ

SWG3, FROM 19:00, £12.50

Astoundingly talented Islingtonborn rapper with high profile fanz including Kendrick Lamar and Jay Z. NSG

ORAN MOR, FROM 19:00, £18.50

Blues-rock guitarist blending soul-wrenching melodies with blistering technique.

REAL FRIENDS

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:00, £16.50

ORVILLE PECK

MONO, FROM 20:00, £11 - £14

Outlaw cowboy Orville Peck croons about love and loss from the badlands of North America.

SWG3, FROM 19:00, £14.06

Lads marrying the likeable Northern charm of Little Comets and the sunny pop vibrancy of Saint Raymond.

EVERYONE YOU KNOW

SWG3, FROM 19:00, £11.25

English sibling duo of Rhys Kirkby-Cox and Harvey Kirkby.

SKENGDO X AM

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 19:00, £13

Brixton drill rappers at the centre of a debate over censorship, regarding their prison sentencing for performing their song Attempted 1.0 at a gig in London.

HOT FLASH HEAT WAVE

BROADCAST, FROM 19:00, £9

San Francisco band whose sound is reminiscent of psychedelia, dream pop and post-punk.

WHY?

STEREO, FROM 19:30, £16

The Cincinnati-bred gents (aka Yoni Wolf, Josiah Wolf and Doug McDiarmid) tour on the back of their latest record.

DREAM PHASES

THE FLYING DUCK, FROM 20:00, £6 - £8

Dream Phases share a love of sounds ranging from noise pop to classic soul to dreamy folk.

CJ SIMMONS

HOWLIN’ WOLF, FROM 23:00, FREE

Nashville duo CJ Simmons is Christian and Jessica Simmons, originally from Oklahoma.

Australia’s fast-rising heavy sleaze rock band return to the UK. SUNN O)))

QUEEN MARGARET UNION, FROM 19:00, £27.50

For 16 years, Sunn O))) have been challenging the way we think about music and show no signs of stopping.

AN EVENING WITH WILL YOUNG

SEC, FROM 18:30, £39.75 - £56.20

The one-time Pop Idol winner tours on the back of his latest studio album.

THIS FEELING (THE CAPOLLOS)

BROADCAST, FROM 19:00, £7

Branded as “the best club in the UK for future rock & roll stars”

by Noel Gallagher – it speaks for itself, right?

THE SHERLOCKS

BRISTON MARONEY (JEALOUS OF THE BIRDS)

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 19:30, £10.50

After a childhood and adolescence spent adrift, Briston Maroney’s life finally comes into focus with the four songs on his Indiana EP. LATIN RHYTHMS

PIE & BREW, FROM 18:00, FREE

Acoustic Latin rhythms hosted

by Portugese musicians, Sergio Prazeres and Mariana Moreira.

MARTIN KOHLSTEDT

THE BLUE ARROW, FROM 19:30, £10

Composer and pianist Martin Kohlstedt continues to produce dynamic sounds.

Sun 27 Oct THE LONG RYDERS

ORAN MOR, FROM 19:00, £20

Sheffield indie-rock unit made up of two sets of brothers.

The founders of alt-country, who brought the genre into the mainstream in the 80s.

STEREO, FROM 19:00, £15

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 20:00, FREE

BARROWLANDS, FROM 19:00, £19.25

THE SPECIALS LTD.

Tribute to The Specials.

SCOTTISH ALTERNATIVE MUSIC AWARDS 2019 (THE COSMIC DEAD + CHLOBOCOP + FRANKY’S EVIL PARTY) ST LUKE’S, FROM 18:30, £10 - £20

Annual music awards bash, this year hosted by Jim Gellatly and Leyla Josephine.

THE ROBIN ROBERTSON BLUES BAND

WHOLLY CATS

Glasgow cowboy jazz, boogie rock’n’roll trio.

WSTRN

SWG3, FROM 19:00, £18.56

West London-based collective consisting of Akelle Charles, Haile and Louis Rei. CHARLI XCX (RINA SAWAYAMA)

SWG3, FROM 19:00, £22

UK rap group consisting of six members – Kruddz, ODG, Papii Abz, Dope, Mxjib and Mojo.

A heady blend of blues, jazz, original R’n’B and early soul.

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 19:30, £8

BROADCAST, FROM 19:00, £11

Former Wu Lyf clan member turned alluring solo performer.

CATHOUSE, FROM 19:00, £13.20

ONLY THE POETS

Atmospheric, textured pop songs from the Glasgow solo artist.

KRIS BARRAS BAND

SNAKE BITE WHISKY (NASTY RATZ + CYSTER SCALPEL)

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 19:30, £7

Scottish blues band bringing you all the best tunes, with influences from the greats such as The Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, B.B. King and Albert King.

The much-hyped singer/ songwriter delivers intricate, post-apocalyptic pop in her own multi-layered performance style.

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 19:00, £17.50

Wed 23 Oct

CASSIA

OSO OSO (PRINCE DADDY & THE HYENA + PUPPY FAT)

Lumineers-esque makers of “hey! ho!”-peppered indie-folk.

Young trio from Reading bringing back Britpop. Someone had to.

HOWLIN’ WOLF, FROM 21:00, FREE

The Howlin’ Wolf’s open stage blues jam.

PICTURE THIS

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, FROM 19:00, £17.65

Gus Munro is one of the hidden gems of Scotland’s thriving music scene, with his music described as Scottish-folk–blues.

American pop punkers from Illinois signed to Fearless Records.

Four-piece dream pop band from Glasgow, mixing classic indie and pop influences with the noisier side of alternative bands.

HIIP PRIEST PRESENTS: DEAR GREEN FEIS

GUS MUNRO

The acclaimed classical artist, and the world’s most beloved tenor, returns to Glasgow with his first all-new material album in 14 years.

THE KILLING FLOOR (CHARLOTTE MARSHALL)

Thu 24 Oct

THIRD EYE BLIND

Not an A1 tribute act; instead, a rising South London rapper.

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 19:30, £6 - £7

CONOR MAYNARD

THE BLUE ARROW, FROM 19:30, £15

American singer-songwriter and guitarist based in Houston, Texas.

SWG3, FROM 19:00, £23.63

A2

LA-based (by way of Manchester) rock quintet.

VOODOO BANDITS

ROBERT ELLIS

SWG3, FROM 19:00, £14.06

Powerful blues/rock band from Glasgow, with a lot of energy and an extra helping of grit.

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:30, £16.50

Chris Clark is one of the country’s premier jazz entertainers with an unrivalled knowledge and execution of the American Songbook.

Now flying solo, Stina Tweeddale hits the road.

The Mancunian duo who, along with Massive Attack, were among the forebearers of the trip-hop scene.

HOWLIN’ WOLF, FROM 23:00, FREE

CHRIS CLARK JAZZ

Glasgow’s kraut masters of vintage synth-driven rock.

CHARRETTE (MOUNSOUP)

THE FLYING DUCK, FROM 20:00, £5

THE BOUNCING SOULS

ST LUKE’S, FROM 18:00, £18

New Jersey punk-rock lot who’ve entered that landmark 20-years-in-the-biz zone, all done under their own admirable DIY style.

DOG DAISIES (COP GRAVEYARD + FAITH ELLIOTT)

THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS, FROM 19:30, £5.50

Indie-pop project based around the sonic adventures of Lancaster songwriter Stephen Hudson.

THE EASY PEELERS

HOWLIN’ WOLF, FROM 23:00, FREE

The musicians at the core of The Hoojamamas and Harry & The Hendersons bring their blues act to The Wolf.

RAMBOOTAN EP LAUNCH

THE RUM SHACK, FROM 19:30, TBC

Rambootan launch their EP of jazz and soul sounds.

THOMAS TRUAX (SCUNNER)

THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 19:30, £9

Thomas Truax (pronounced troo-aks) is an American singer/ musician, inventor and multimedia artist.

NIMBUS SEXTET

PIE & BREW, FROM 21:00, FREE

Contemporary jazz six-piece, blending jazz, hip-hop and world music elements.

59:60 LUCA MANNING – CHET BAKER: CHET

THE BLUE ARROW, FROM 19:30, £5 - £8

The 59:60 series at The Blue Arrow pays tribute to a selection of era-defining albums from the year 1959: the year that changed jazz.

Fri 25 Oct FARA

ORAN MOR, FROM 19:00, £14

Fara brings together four leading musicians at the forefront of today’s Scottish folk scene.

THE TREND

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:30, £8.80

The indie rock’n’roll Glasgow outfit take on their biggest headline show to date.

HOWLIN’ WOLF, FROM 23:00, FREE

FRANCIS LUNG (ROBERT SOTELO)

ORGANIC GROOVES

PIE & BREW, FROM 21:00, FREE

A fusion of Glasgow’s finest DJs collaborate with talented vocalists and exceptional musicians to offer something fresh and exciting to the city’s vibrant music scene.

THE CALUM GOURLAY QUARTET

THE BLUE ARROW, FROM 19:30, £5 - £8

Glasgow-born bassist, composer and band leader Calum Gourlay takes his brand new quartet out on tour.

Sat 26 Oct

THE SENSATIONAL DAVID BOWIE TRIBUTE BAND

ORAN MOR, FROM 19:00, £15

David Bowie tribute act.

HAPPY MONDAYS

O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW, FROM 19:00, £37.30

Bez, Gary Whelan, Mark Day, Paul Davies, Paul Ryder, Rowetta and Shaun Ryder take to the stage for a greatest hits tour.

CHAI

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 19:30, £12

Japanese quartet spreading their own unique message of NEOkawaii alongside their music.

BAMBARA

SWG3, FROM 19:00, £10.25

Frontman Reid Bateh, drummer Blaze Bateh and bassist William Brookshire have always been adept students of noise rock and post-punk.

MIPSO

BROADCAST, FROM 19:00, £16.50

A discernible and rising force in the upstart musical genre known as Americana, Mipso’s music is lush and forward moving.

THE DETROIT COBRAS (THE PEA WEES)

DREAM STATE (NORMANDIE)

Welsh post-hardcore band, led by vocalist CJ Gilpin.

THRICE & REFUSED (GOUGE AWAY)

BARROWLANDS, FROM 19:30, £33

Joint headline show from two of rock’s finest.

MICHAEL RAY

STEREO, FROM 19:00, £16

Country musician signed to Warner Music Nashville.

GLASGOW ROOTS REVUE

ST LUKE’S, FROM 13:00, £22.65

All-day festival of blues, country and Americana.

THE KILLING FLOOR (CHARLOTTE MARSHALL)

HOWLIN’ WOLF, FROM 21:00, FREE

The Howlin’ Wolf’s open stage blues jam.

HARRI ENDERSBY (STEVE GROZIER + THE LOGANS) THE HUG AND PINT, FROM 19:30, £7.50

A songwriter and musician whose music blurs the lines of the folk genre, drawing inspiration from both contemporary and traditional music.

Mon 28 Oct TYLER RAMSEY

ORAN MOR, FROM 19:00, £13.50

Singer-songwriter from North Carolina, best known as the former lead guitarist in Band of Horses.

LITTLE COMETS

KING TUT’S, FROM 20:30, £17.60

Kitchen sink-styled indie-rock quartet led by the dynamic Robert Coles.

STRIKING MATCHES

STEREO, FROM 19:00, £14.50

Guitar-wielding duo creating an unexpected and unique sound that defies easy categorization.

WEYES BLOOD

THE ART SCHOOL, FROM 19:00, £14

ST LUKE’S, FROM 19:00, £28.13

Solo project of New York-based musician Natalie Mering, aka exJackie-O Motherfucker member and Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti associate.

LEMON DRINK

THE SSE HYDRO, FROM 18:30, £51.10 - £170.25

Blurring the lines between R&B, rock’n’roll and soul, The Detroit Cobras are the go-to party band for those in the know.

THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS, FROM 19:30, £5 - £7

Glasgow-based indie duo consisting of Sophie Bartholomew and Kirstie ‘KC’ Cunningham.

CHER (PAUL YOUNG)

Cher needs no introduction, so we’ll just leave it there.

ANDREW THOM NEIL

HOWLIN’ WOLF, FROM 23:00, FREE

Andrew Neil of The Hoojamamas and Harry & The Hendersons brings his solo act to The Wolf.

THE SKINNY

October 2019

Listings

57

Edinburgh Music Tue 01 Oct

PRESSURE VALVE UNPLUGGED

BANNERMANS, FROM 17:00, FREE

Local artists play stripped back sets, before the public get to be the stars at karaoke.

BILL CALLAHAN

USHER HALL, FROM 19:00, £27.50 - £38.50

American singer/songwriter also known for his work as Smog, still serving up lo-fi underground rock from his spot on the Drag City roster.

GOODNIGHT LOUISA

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 19:00, £4

Goodnight Louisa is a dark dream pop project created by Louise Anna McCraw, exploring conventional pop melodies, intertwining synths, guitars and thought provoking lyrics.

Wed 02 Oct ALIA TEMPORA

BANNERMANS, FROM 19:30, £7 - £10

Symphonic metal from Brno.

KEANE (MARIE WHITE)

USHER HALL, FROM 19:00, £38.50 £108.90

Tom Chaplin et al return to a live setting, with new material to boot.

VUKOVAR (SNIDE RHYTHMS + FALIRAKI)

WEE RED BAR, FROM 19:00, FREE

Indie rock/pop born out of brutalist Northern England.

MISS JUNE

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 19:00, £10

Raised in the embers of punk rock, Miss June harness jagged, noisy guitars filtered through the unrivalled stage presence of frontperson Annabel Liddell.

Thu 03 Oct THE HERETIC ORDER

BANNERMANS, FROM 19:30, £7 - £10

A classic metal band for the modern age.

DEAD WHITE MALES (UNBEGUN + HOUSEKING + CHLOE HAWES)

WEE RED BAR, FROM 19:00, £3 - £6

Intense, atmospheric post-rock.

BILLY MITCHELL EP LAUNCH

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 19:00, TBC

Billy Mitchell celebrates the release of his new six track EP through Assai Records.

Fri 04 Oct

TV SMITH (JOE MCMAHON + BILLY LIAR)

BANNERMANS, FROM 19:30, £13 - £15

The Adverts punk legend brings his epic solo show to Glasgow.

THE SMITHS LTD

THE HIVE, FROM 19:00, £10 - £12

The Smiths tribute act.

BOTH SIDES NOW: THE JONI MITCHELL CELEBRATION CONCERT

THE VOODOO ROOMS, FROM 19:30, £18

The music of Joni Mitchell is celebrated in this performance of some of her best-loved songs.

THE ORPHAN BRIGADE

THE VOODOO ROOMS, FROM 19:30, £15

Ben Glover, Grammy nominee Neilson Hubbard and Joshua Britt tour their highly-anticipated third album, recorded on the wild west coast of Ireland.

WARREN CAPALDI

WEE RED BAR, FROM 19:00, £10

Live music fundraiser.

FRESH PRODUCE: SAVAGE MANSION (TWOTONETELEVISION+ CHECK MASSES)

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 19:00, £7

Savage Mansion, the project of Glasgow-based songwriter Craig Angus, tours with a new five-piece line-up.

MEURSAULT (JONNIE COMMON)

LA BELLE ANGELE, FROM 19:00, £6

Neil Pennycook and his Meursault cohorts return to Edinburgh with new record Crow Hill.

WHENYOUNG

THE MASH HOUSE, FROM 19:00, £11

London-via-Dublin indie pop trio, who count Bono as a mentor.

Sat 05 Oct

WIDOWS (BARBARIAN HERMIT + DRUDGE) BANNERMANS, FROM 20:00, £7

Heavy, crushing metal from the UK.

BARSHASKETH (BELLICISTE + ÚIR & ÚLFARR) HENRY’S CELLAR BAR, FROM 19:00, £8

Unrelenting black metal from the UK, Serbia and Finland.

EDINBURGH BLUES CLUB (MARTIN HARLEY)

THE VOODOO ROOMS, FROM 19:30, £17.50

Edinburgh Blues Club is a Social Enterprise established to harness popular support for regular blues events in Edinburgh to ensure that the city and surrounding areas do not miss out on quality touring blues acts.

BANG BANG ROMEO

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 19:00, £10

Fronted by vocal powerhouse Anastasia Walker, Bang Bang Romeo are a propelling force for female-fronted bands and an open voice for the LGBTQ+ community.

TRADLANTIC (HANNAH FISHER & SORREN MACLEAN + TONY MCHUGH + SAMUEL NICHOLSON) SUMMERHALL, FROM 19:30, £10

A music-filled evening hosted by three brothers who are rowing across the Atlantic Ocean this coming December, with all proceeds going to Scottishbased charities.

HILLTOP HOODS

LA BELLE ANGELE, FROM 19:00, £18

The huge Australian hip-hop trio come to Scotland.

HOUSE OF PHARAOHS

THE MASH HOUSE, FROM 19:00, £11.50

London collective who are shunning genre categories and keeping their business in house.

EDINBURGH OKTOBERFEST AT THE PITT (SLAUGHTERHOUSE BRASS BAND)

THE PITT, FROM 12:00, £1 - £2

Authentic Oktoberfest at The Pitt hosted by Barney’s Beer, with on-tap beers straight from Munich, delicious street food and live music from some of Scotland’s hottest brass, funk and soul bands.

Sun 06 Oct CRANACHAN

BANNERMANS, FROM 21:00, FREE

Classic rock covers from the 60s to present day.

ALICE WALLACE

THE VOODOO ROOMS, FROM 19:30, £13

Americana artist Alice Wallace draws on some powerful female influences, like Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt, invoking their fierce, independent spirits.

CHANCE MCCOY

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 19:00, £12

A virtuoso fiddler, guitarist and banjo player, Chance McCoy is best known as a member of GRAMMYwinning Americana powerhouse Old Crow Medicine Show.

EDINBURGH OKTOBERFEST AT THE PITT

THE PITT, FROM 12:00, £1 - £2

Authentic Oktoberfest at The Pitt hosted by Barney’s Beer, with on-tap beers straight from Munich, delicious street food and live music from some of Scotland’s hottest brass, funk and soul bands.

Mon 07 Oct

SOUNDHOUSE: THE THIRD HALF

TRAVERSE THEATRE, FROM 20:00, £12

An unlikely trio of creative wizards presenting new original tunes and rediscovered Gaelic songs.

PULLED APART BY HORSES (BABA NAGA)

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 19:00, £12

This Leeds quartet are a tightlyknit rock band who make music that thrills and menaces; their songs armed with sucker punch riffs and zinging choruses.

FANGCLUB THE MASH HOUSE, FROM 19:00, £9.50

The Edinburgh all star band follow up on their two sell out shows this year with another stellar line-up.

FATALISTS (FISTYMUFFS + THE TESLA COILS + LITTLE LOVE UNTUCKED)

Post-rock-punk-prog noisy merchants.

Tue 08 Oct

Pearl Jam tribute act.

WEE RED BAR, FROM 19:00, £4 - £6

PEARL JAM UK

THE LIQUID ROOM, FROM 19:00, £16.50

BANNERMANS, FROM 17:00, FREE

TRUDY AND THE ROMANCE (NATURE TV + RAEBURN BROTHERS)

FINN ANDERSON (LITTLE ACRS + MAN OF THE MINCH)

This swoonsome threesome make mutated 50s pop music, blending prog-rock, jazz and psychedelia.

PRESSURE VALVE UNPLUGGED

Local artists play stripped back sets, before the public get to be the stars at karaoke.

WEE RED BAR, FROM 19:00, £8

Drawing on his Celtic roots, Finn Anderson embraces a love of jazz and pop with theatrical storytelling.

Wed 09 Oct

CONVICTIONS (FAMILIAR SPIRIT)

BANNERMANS, FROM 19:30, £9 - £11

Aggressive in your face metal with a religious message.

PIP BLOM

THE CAVES, FROM 19:00, £10

20-year-old Amsterdam native, Pip Blom makes droll super cool slacker grunge with killer tunes.

ROSE COUSINS

THE VOODOO ROOMS, FROM 19:30, £12

Rose Cousins is a fully mature writer/artist in her next great stride.

LEWSBERG

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 19:00, £8

A dream gig for fans of Parquet Courts, Television, Sonic Youth, Pavement or Talking Heads. So that’s pretty much everyone, right?

BLOXX

THE MASH HOUSE, FROM 19:00, £8.80

Indie-pop band, who played to a huge, elated crowd at 2018’s The Great Escape festival.

Thu 10 Oct AMERICAN HITMEN

BANNERMANS, FROM 20:00, £7

A rock band from Utah featuring none other than Tim ‘Two Guns’ Cord, Dan ‘Hitman’ Cord, Phil ‘The Thrill’ Snyder and Dave Briggs.

Guess Dave wasn’t in the mood for nicknames.

THE NATURE CENTRE (C(H)ORD + HOUSEKIND)

HENRY’S CELLAR BAR, FROM 20:00, TBC

Brummy indie pop brimming with ideas and gusto.

STRAWBS

THE VOODOO ROOMS, FROM 19:15, £17.50

Acoustic Strawbs includes David Cousins, lead guitarist Dave Lambert and the astonishingly versatile Chas Cronk.

STORM THE PALACE

THE VOODOO ROOMS, FROM 19:30, £6

Storm the Palace are at the forefront of the cinematic folk-pop revolution you hadn’t realised you needed.

LUNIR

WEE RED BAR, FROM 19:00, £5 - £6

LUNIR fuse acrobatic vocals, live looping, one-handed drumming and an adventurous sonic palette to create a kaleidoscopic hybrid of colour and soul.

JUST MUSTARD (MEDICINE CABINET)

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 19:00, £10

Fresh from supporting The Cure, Just Mustard bring their unique blend of noise, trip-hop and shoegaze to Sneaks.

KAWALA

THE MASH HOUSE, FROM 19:00, £11

The duo of Jim Higson and Daniel McCarthy describe their music as “indie meets folk meets Afrobeat”.

Fri 11 Oct

HEADSTICKS (THE CUNDEEZ + BUZZBOMB + GALLOWGATE MURDERS + TARTAN HEATHER) BANNERMANS, FROM 19:30, £5 - £10

The folk punks make their Edinburgh debut.

NICK GLADDISH BAND

Nick Gladdish and his band begin the Blurry Lines tour.

Listings

WALT DISCO THE MASH HOUSE, FROM 19:00, £8.80

Grungy 90s riffs over a throbbing pop heart, they’re a deafening feedback loop of leather and amp stacks with a sugary sweet edge.

HENRY’S CELLAR BAR, FROM 19:30, TBC

58

OUT OF THE ORDINARY THE VOODOO ROOMS, FROM 19:30, £13

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 19:00, £9

Sat 12 Oct FORGOTTEN SONS

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 19:00, £3

Forgotten Sons are a rock band hailing from The Shetland Isles, who deliver high-energy rock at its most elemental.

Sun 13 Oct CRANACHAN

BANNERMANS, FROM 21:00, FREE

Classic rock covers from the 60s to present day.

LEIF ERIKSON

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 19:00, £9

The London-based five-piece return with new music, a new EP and live dates.

POM POKO (ORCHARDS)

THE MASH HOUSE, FROM 19:00, £11

Bella Union-signed Norwegian pop-punk quartet.

Mon 14 Oct

SOUNDHOUSE: NATHAN BELL

TRAVERSE THEATRE, FROM 20:00, £12

Nathan Bell’s latest tour sees him visit Scotland with two brand new albums.

TEN TONNES

THE LIQUID ROOM, FROM 19:00, £14.30

George Ezra’s lil bro, Ethan Barnett, paving his own musical career.

LOCAL NATIVES

SUMMERHALL, FROM 19:30, £18

Silver Lakes indie-rockers whose core trio met at high school, to be joined later by a bassist and a drummer.

Tue 15 Oct

PRESSURE VALVE UNPLUGGED

BANNERMANS, FROM 17:00, FREE

Local artists play stripped back sets, before the public get to be the stars at karaoke.

THE MURDER CAPITAL

THE MASH HOUSE, FROM 19:00, £11

Hailing from all corners of Ireland, The Murder Capital are a post-punk band driven by the desire to affect cultural change.

Wed 16 Oct JAMMIN’ AT VOODOO

THE VOODOO ROOMS, FROM 21:00, FREE

Monthly Live Jam Session with some of Scotland’s leading musicians playing lounge grooves from many genres.

SELF ESTEEM (NIMMO)

THE MASH HOUSE, FROM 19:00, £13.75

Self Esteem is the brand new project from Rebecca Taylor of Slow Club. Her new sound is dramatic, direct, charming and deafeningly exciting.

Thu 17 Oct THE CHRISTIANS

THE VOODOO ROOMS, FROM 19:30, £24.50

Formed in Liverpool in 1986, The Christians went on to become one of the UK’s biggest soul bands with hits like Ideal World and Harvest for the World.

BROKEN CHANTER (ADAM ROSS)

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 19:00, £10

The solo project of Kid Canaveral’s David MacGregor, a light-hearted raconteur and heavy-hearted singer.

WARSAW VILLAGE BAND (BRUK)

LA BELLE ANGELE, FROM 19:00, £13 - £15

Warsaw Village Band’s style is rootsy, yet experimental; euphoric and haunting.

Glasgow art-pop quartet winning over the masses with their flamboyant 80s glam-rock influenced tunes.

LEWIS MCLAUGHLIN & FRIENDS (HECTOR SHAW + KAITLIN ROSS) THE OLD DR BELLS BATHS, FROM 19:00, £6 - £10

Edinburgh songwriter Lewis McLaughlin is attracting attention around the country with his honest, atmospheric songwriting and intelligent musical arrangements.

Fri 18 Oct

DOOMSDAY OUTLAW (DAXX & ROXANE)

BANNERMANS, FROM 19:30, £10 - £12

A night of bluesy rock with a stoner edge.

PAUL SIMON’S GRACELAND

THE QUEEN’S HALL, FROM 20:00, £27

The London Gospel Choir perform the classic Paul Simon album in full live on stage.

MELT BANANA

THE CAVES, FROM 19:00, £15

Noise rock band formed in Japan in the early 90s.

MÖTLEY CRÜDE (NEON HURRICANE)

THE HIVE, FROM 18:30, £8 - £10

Mötley Crüde are the UK’s only tribute to the Lewd, Crüed and tattooed rockers from the Los Angeles Sunset Strip.

THE BLOCKHEADS

THE VOODOO ROOMS, FROM 19:30, £25

The Blockheads (once known as Ian Dury And The Blockheads) are now fronted by one of Ian Dury’s best friends, Derek ‘The Draw’, the band’s vocalist and wordsmith.

SAINT AGNES (SOEUR)

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 19:00, £8

Psychedelic rock’n’roll from East London.

LADYTRON

LA BELLE ANGELE, FROM 19:00, £27

Ladytron mix synth pop, shoegaze and indie pop into a sound all of their own.

CAMEO HABITAT

THE MASH HOUSE, FROM 19:00, £7.70

Cameo Habitat are a four-piece indie rock band from Edinburgh.

Sat 19 Oct VOODOO BANDITS

HENRY’S CELLAR BAR, FROM 19:00, £6

The debut Scottish show from Isle of Man four-piece Voodoo Bandits.

SAINT ETIENNE: TIGER BAY

THE QUEEN’S HALL, FROM 19:00, £30.50

The 1990-formed English synthpopsters return to perform their classic album in full.

RESURRECTION (NEVER KNOW)

THE HIVE, FROM 18:00, £10 - £12

Stones Roses tribute band.

TREPPENWITZ

THE JAZZ BAR, FROM 17:30, £11

Treppenwitz is the meeting of three musicians: pianist Matthew Aplin, bassist Tom Riviere and drummer Steve Hanley.

TAM PETTY AND THE HEARTFAKERS

THE VOODOO ROOMS, FROM 19:30, £10

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers tribute.

MILES KANE

THE LIQUID ROOM, FROM 19:00, £22

The non-Arctic Monkey half of the Last Shadow Puppets does his nostalgic Merseybeat thing.

ALASDAIR ROBERTS AND FRIENDS

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 19:00, £12.50

Acclaimed singer, songwriter and balladeer Alasdair Roberts is joined by Stevie Jones, Alex Neilson and Ailbhe Nic Oireachtaigh for a night of beautiful songs.

LOST ANGELS

LA BELLE ANGELE, FROM 19:00, £17

A supergroup featuring members of Slash’s Snakepit, Jellyfish, Imperial Drag, Alice Cooper Band and White Lion.

PROUD MARY

THE MASH HOUSE, FROM 19:00, £16.50

LA-based (by way of Manchester) rock quintet.

Sun 20 Oct THE KUT

BANNERMANS, FROM 21:00, TBC

Currently all over the likes of Kerrang TV and the like, this trio are not to be missed.

THE UNTHANKS: EMILY BRONTË SONG CYCLE THE QUEEN’S HALL, FROM 19:00, £22 - £24.50

The Unthanks invite us into the darkly passionate world of Emily Brontë, with a song cycle bearing all the quiet beauty they are known and loved for.

ANOMALIE

THE VOODOO ROOMS, FROM 19:30, £12.50

Anomalie is the live electronic project of Nicolas Dupuis, a classically trained keyboardist and producer based in Montreal.

INGLORIOUS (CONCRETE KINGDOMS)

LA BELLE ANGELE, FROM 19:00, £15 - £17

The especially flaxen five-piece that is Inglorious hit Edinburgh with a dose of rock.

Mon 21 Oct FELIX RABIN

BANNERMANS, FROM 19:30, £12 - £14

Throughout the four years he played at Montreux Jazz Club, Félix Rabin played in the bands of Lady Gaga & Tony Bennett and Santana, among many others.

Tue 22 Oct DAYANA

BANNERMANS, FROM 19:30, £7 - £10

Dayana mixes her Celtic/ Colombian roots and creates an enchanting form of rock’n’roll.

Wed 23 Oct HAWKLORDS (SPG ONE)

BANNERMANS, FROM 19:30, £16 - £19

Psychedelic legends returning for another hallucinogenic evening.

THOMAS TRUAX

THE VOODOO ROOMS, FROM 19:00, £9

Thomas Truax (pronounced troo-aks) is an American singer/ musician, inventor and multimedia artist.

SKINNY PELEMBE (ACOLYTE + CHARRETTE)

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 19:00, £10

Born in Johannesburg, growing up in Doncaster, Skinny Pelembe poses a quadruple threat – he produces, plays guitar, sings and MCs.

Thu 24 Oct SNAKE BITE WHISK

BANNERMANS, FROM 20:00, FREE

The Australian sleaze rockers return to Edinburgh for some dirty rock’n’roll.

JAWBONE

THE VOODOO ROOMS, FROM 19:30, £15

London-based four-piece who are all respected musicians in the industry, among them having played for the likes of Tom Jones, Eric Clapton and Laura Marling.

PRESS TO MECO (CHAPTER AND VERSE)

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 19:00, £10

The alternative-styled progressive rock thugs go heavy duty on the guitars, as per.

Fri 25 Oct

SHREDINBURGH FESTIVAL IV (SHRAPNEL + DISPOSABLE + IFREANN) BANNERMANS, FROM 20:00, £10

All day metal festival with some of the thrashiest outfits around.

CAEZIUM

CABARET VOLTAIRE, FROM 19:30, £8

Young Edinburgh psych-rockers rich with synth-laden, guitartotin’ electro-rock sounds.

THE POLIS

THE HIVE, FROM 18:00, £10 - £12

Fantastic tribute to the music of The Police.

GALLUS

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 19:00, TBC

The hotly tipped five-piece from Glasgow return to Sneaks to shake things up.

BOMBSKARE: SKALLOWEEN

SUMMERHALL, FROM 19:00, £15 - £18

The bishops of bounce, the sorcerers of skank, the undisputed masters of Scottish death reggae come to Summerhall for a special Halloween show.

VISTAS (SWIMMING GIRLS)

LA BELLE ANGELE, FROM 19:00, £10

Indie-rockers Vistas (formerly known as Friend of a Friend) head out on a Scottish headline tour.

VANDAL PALACE

THE LONG RYDERS

THE MASH HOUSE, FROM 19:00, £7

LA BELLE ANGELE, FROM 19:00, £23

Four-piece indie rock band from Edinburgh.

Sat 26 Oct

The founders of alt-country, who brought the genre into the mainstream in the 80s.

CERTAIN DEATH (DOG TIRED + KINGPIN + BROTHERS IN BLOOD)

BANNERMANS, FROM 19:30, TBC

Annual night of metal hosted by Kldys finest.

ABEL GANZ

THE VOODOO ROOMS, FROM 12:30, £8

Abel Ganz mould influences from folk, Scottish roots and even elements of Americana.

ONE RECKLESS NIGHT

THE VOODOO ROOMS, FROM 19:30, £8

Celebrate the release of Reckless, the smash-hit fourth studio album from Bryan Adams.

THIS FEELING: THE CAPOLLOS (DOGTOOTH + SUNSTINGER) SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 19:00, £7

The Capollos are a young, exciting and award-winning alternative rock band from Aberdeen, spearheaded and founded by twin brothers Kyle and Lloyd McDonald.

XO: A CELEBRATION OF ELLIOTT SMITH IN AID OF TINY CHANGES (WITHERED HAND + BROKEN RECORDS + SIOBHAN WILSON + CARLA J. EASTON + KATE LAZDA (KID CANAVERAL) + MATT NORRIS + HARRY HARRIS + LITTLE KING)

Dundee Music Fri 04 Oct

NIRVANA UNPLUGGED EXPERIENCE

CHURCH, FROM 19:00, £13.50

Relive Nirvana’s legendary 1993 performance as Edinburghbased singer Ewan Mackenna and a talented band pay homage to MTV Unplugged’s most famous concert.

THE SNUTS (RUVELLAS + KIERAN FISHER + CIARA WATT)

FAT SAM’S, FROM 19:00, £15

The Snuts bring raspy, fuzzy indie rock.

NERVUS (GOODBYE BLUE MONDAY + COMFORT + SOFA TIME) CONROY’S BASEMENT, FROM 19:30, £5 - £7

Radical anthemic melodic punk rockers from Watford, England.

SUMMERHALL, FROM 19:00, £14

Sat 05 Oct

THE SPECIALS LTD.

Fisher Stevens leads a live band and brass orchestra tribute to the life and music of Neil Diamond.

Artists from Edinburgh and beyond take on the songs of the iconic and gifted songwriter Elliott Smith, in aid of mental health charity Tiny Changes.

LA BELLE ANGELE, FROM 19:00, £12 - £15

Tribute to The Specials.

PSYCHEDELIC PORN CRUMPETS

THE MASH HOUSE, FROM 19:00, £13.75

If King Gizzard’s name didn’t put you off, then stay tuned for these guys. One mind-meltingly good psych band.

Sun 27 Oct

THE MEN THAT WILL NOT BE BLAMED FOR NOTHING

BANNERMANS, FROM 19:30, £12 - £15

A night of steam punk from this tremendous band.

THE STRAITS UK

THE VOODOO ROOMS, FROM 19:00, £10

The Straits UK are made up of five musicians all with a passion for delivering quality music and performance every time.

VANTAGE POINT (EASILY DISTRACTED)

A BEAUTIFUL NOISE

CAIRD HALL, FROM 19:30, £22 - £24

VENGABOYS

CHURCH, FROM 22:00, £20

Sounds like they’ve finally finished partying in Ibiza (or Eat-Pizza, as they like to call it), and are back in town.

THE SMITHS LTD

BEAT GENERATOR LIVE!, FROM 20:00, £10

The Smiths tribute act.

Sun 06 Oct COLUMBIA

CLARKS ON LINDSAY STREET, FROM 15:00, £6

Another Oasis tribute act.

Tue 08 Oct JAMIE LAWSON

BEAT GENERATOR LIVE!, FROM 19:30, £15

Acoustic singer-songwriter with an Ivor Novello Award under his belt, so he must be good.

WEE RED BAR, FROM 19:00, £5

Thu 10 Oct

PALM SUNDAY: LIVE BANDS

CLARKS ON LINDSAY STREET, FROM 19:00, £11

The Edinburgh metallers play a hometown gig.

PARADISE PALMS, FROM 20:00, FREE

Paradise Palms proudly open the stage to live music again.

Electronica, funk, galactic jazz, lo-fi, leftfield and beyond.

SIXTIES ON A SUNDAY (FAYNE AND THE CRUISERS)

THE BASEMENT THEATRE, FROM 14:00, £7.50

CATHOLIC ACTION (QUICHE + MIDNIGHT ALLEYS)

The Glasgow quartet formed in 2015 and quickly began making a name for themselves with their memorable and characterful songwriting.

Fri 11 Oct UK FOO FIGHTERS

CHURCH, FROM 19:00, £15

A Sunday afternoon to drink, dance and sing along to simply the most authentic 60s band you will ever hear.

Foo Fighters tribute act.

Mon 28 Oct

BEAT GENERATOR LIVE!, FROM 20:00, £10

JONAH MATRANGA (DAMN CARGO)

BANNERMANS, FROM 19:30, £11 - £13

Former FAR frontman returns with his Halfway to A Hundred acoustic tour.

SOUNDHOUSE: THE SLOCAN RAMBLERS

TRAVERSE THEATRE, FROM 20:00, £12

Sat 12 Oct

THE DOORS OF PERCEPTION

The Doors tribute band.

FUNK CONNECTION

CLARKS ON LINDSAY STREET, FROM 15:00, £5

Aberdeen’s finest 10-piece funk, soul and R’n’B band.

Fri 18 Oct WALT DISCO

Blending impressive bluegrass virtuosity with a fresh contemporary appeal, The Slocan Ramblers mix fine originals with rowdy old-time numbers.

Glasgow art-pop quartet winning over the masses with their flamboyant 80s glam-rock influenced tunes.

USHER HALL, FROM 19:00, £33

Sat 19 Oct

MARINA

Welsh songbird/sass-pot Marina Lambrini Diamandis has ditched her diamonds and is now just going by the subtle MARINA. DIVING STATION

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 19:00, £6

A culmination of four contrasting creative personalities, resulting in detailed, interwoven arrangements framing memorable, dynamic songs.

CHURCH, FROM 19:00, £8

VOLCANOVA (ISAK + VFLAMBDA)

CONROY’S BASEMENT, FROM 19:00, £6 - £7

Stoner rock from Iceland.

Sun 20 Oct FOCUS

CHURCH, FROM 19:00, £20

Fronted by founding member Thijs Van Leer, the iconic Dutch music masters best known for hits Hocus Pocus, House of The King and Sylvia are back.

THE SKINNY

SEATTLE SUNDAY CLARKS ON LINDSAY STREET, FROM 15:00, £6

Grunge tribute with The Lost Dogs.

Thu 24 Oct THE DUNTS

CHURCH, FROM 19:00, £11

Four-piece council punk band from Glasgow.

ED MUIRHEAD

CLARKS ON LINDSAY STREET, FROM 19:00, £5

Hometown album launch party for the Dundee piano champ’s new album, Stars From a Sidecar.

Fri 25 Oct

CAROLE: THE MUSIC OF CAROLE KING

CAIRD HALL, FROM 19:30, £24.50 - £25.50

The story of the career of one of the most successful and admired songwriters in the history of popular music.

Sat 26 Oct THE ILLEGAL EAGLES

CAIRD HALL, FROM 19:30, £27.50

Eagles tribute act.

ANTI-NOWHERE LEAGUE

BEAT GENERATOR LIVE!, FROM 18:00, £12

Long-standing punk rockers, on the go since 1980.

Glasgow Clubs ELEMENT THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 23:00, TBC

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

OESTE

BROADCAST, FROM 23:00, FREE

For their first ever party, Oesta invite Largs-based young gun OL3 to warm the booth up ahead of residents Joyo and Kelso.

SHAPES: BARELY LEGAL

SUB CLUB, FROM 23:00, £6 - £10

From house, garage and grime to drum’n’bass and beyond, Barely Legal has proven herself an aficionado in all genres on the club spectrum.

Fri 04 Oct GLITTERBANG

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 23:30, £3

Disco divas and Euro-pop anthems for those ready to sweat.

CATHOUSE FRIDAYS

CATHOUSE, FROM 22:30, £5 - £6

Sun 27 Oct

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

CONROY’S BASEMENT, FROM 19:00, £10 - £11

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 23:00, £3 - £6

EMME WOODS

Clackmannshire-based singersongwriter on a tour of Scotland.

Tue 01 Oct #TAG TUESDAYS

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 23:00, £0 - £4

Indoor hot tubs, inflatables as far as the eye can see and a Twitter feed dedicated to validating your drunk-eyed existence.

Wed 02 Oct IT’S NOT A PHASE, MOM!

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 23:30, FREE

Nu-metal, pop-punk, emo and early 00s tunes.

CATHOUSE WEDNESDAYS

CATHOUSE, FROM 23:00, £4

FRESH BEAT

Dance, chart and remixes in the main hall with Craig Guild, while DJ Nicola Walker keeps things nostalgic in G2 with flashback bangers galore.

ANWULI SOUND 004

STEREO, FROM 23:00, £5

The usuals Iz-E and Edo are joined by Dell Monte and Evanthéa, playing everything from footwork to jungle to dancehall.

THE HAMMER HITS: JENNIFER CARDINI

SUB CLUB, FROM 23:00, £5 - £10

Sub Club hosts the Glasgow leg of the inaugural ‘The Hammer Hits’ tour, with special guest Jennifer Cardini.

SQIFF 2019 AFTERPARTY (SIPPIN’ T + ISHWAQ + JUNGLEHUSSI)

THE ART SCHOOL, FROM 23:00, £6 - £8

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

GLITTERED! WEDNESDAYS

Glasgow-based DJs ISHWAQ and Junglehussi go B2B ahead of a closing set from Sippin’ T to close SQIFF this year.

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 23:00, £0 - £4

Sat 05 Oct

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

Thu 03 Oct STAR SIGNZ

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 23:30, FREE

Flamboyant disco dream weavers.

LCD SOUNDSYSTEM EXHIBITION OPENING

SWG3, FROM 18:00, FREE

One half of Optimo, JG Wilkes plays an exclusive DJ set at the opening of SWG3’s LCD Soundsystem exhibition.

UNHOLY

CATHOUSE, FROM 23:00, £2 - £4

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

FANTASTIC BOYS

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 23:30, £3

Hip-hop, nu-metal, trap and techno patter.

GREEN VELVET PRESENTS LA LA LAND (MASON MAYNARD + ALISHA)

SWG3, FROM 22:00, £24.50

House and techno legend Green Velvet (aka Cajmere) takes to SWG3.

SHOOT YOUR SHOT: SHREKTOBER

SWG3, FROM 23:00, £5 - £7

Shrektober is a specially curated edition from one of Scotland’s best-loved club nights Shoot Your Shot.

LETS GO BACK TO THE 80S DISCOTHEQUE SWG3, FROM 23:00, £11.25

DJ’s Bosco and Rob Mason have been DJ’ing since the 80s and will take you back to the sound of the dancefloors in 1980s.

CATHOUSE SATURDAYS

CATHOUSE, FROM 23:00, £5 - £6

Or Caturdays, if you will. Two levels of the loudest, maddest music the DJs can muster; metal, rock and alt on floor one, and punky screamo upstairs.

I LOVE GARAGE

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 23:00, £5 - £7

Garage by name, but not by musical nature. DJ Darren Donnelly carousels through chart, dance and classics, the Desperados bar is filled with funk, G2 keeps things urban and the Attic gets all indie on you.

HARSH TUG

BROADCAST, FROM 23:00, FREE

OG Kush + hip-hop bangers with Notorious B.A.G.

POTENTIAL (MAVEEN + CLAFRICA + ISO YSO + BADGALNT) STEREO, FROM 23:00, £5

Celebrate sounds of the world and the diaspora from four Djs with potential.

SUBCULTURE

SUB CLUB, FROM 23:00, TBC

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

SCENE 1 (12TH ISLE + OCTO TRAX)

THE ART SCHOOL, FROM 23:00, £8 - £10

A new night aiming to reintroduce you to the dancefloor through your eye not phone.

DIVINE (ANDREW DIVINE)

THE RUM SHACK, FROM 22:00, £5

Ska, psych and soul from one of the best record collections in the UK.

Sun 06 Oct NULL / VOID

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 23:30, FREE

Industrial goth rock disco.

HELLBENT

CATHOUSE, FROM 23:00, TBC

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 23:00, £0 - £4

SCIENCE FICTION

The Queens of the Glasgow disco scene, FKA Drugstore Glamour.

UNHOLY

CATHOUSE, FROM 23:00, £2 - £4

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

ELEMENT

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 23:00, TBC

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

AFLOAT (REEDALE RISE)

LA CHEETAH CLUB, FROM 23:00, £6

Afloat invite electro don Reedale Rise for a live set.

Fri 11 Oct

ELECTRONIC GLASGOW: DEATHKILL4000 (DIRTY MARC)

BLOC+, FROM 23:00, FREE

One of Glasgow’s longestrunning alternative nights, with resident DJ Dirty Marc at the helm of the multi-genre affair, playing bass, hip-hop, rock, disco and dance.

BALKANARAMA

CLASSIC GRAND, FROM 22:30, £9 - £10

All singing, all dancing Balkan orgy, plus belly dancing and free brandy. As in, we’re sold.

ANNA & HOLLY’S DANCE PARTY

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 23:30, £3

Rock’n’roll, garage and soul.

ELROW GLASGOW: EL BROWNX

SWG3, FROM 21:00, £47.60

The immersive clubbing experience celebrates US culture with their latest theme.

CATHOUSE FRIDAYS

CATHOUSE, FROM 22:30, £5 - £6

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

FRESH BEAT

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 23:00, £3 - £6

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 23:00, £3 - £4

STEREO, FROM 23:00, TBC

BARE MONDAYS

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 23:00, £3 - £4

WAIT AND BLEED

Nu-metal night, featuring songs from the likes of Slipknot, Korn, Limp Bizkit and Linkin Park.

HOT TOWEL (RAISSA PARDINI + PLEASURE POOL LIVE)

THE FLYING DUCK, FROM 23:00, £5

DJs Sean Hardy, Lil’ Lew and David Barbarossa invite you for a special Hot Towel treatment.

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

LA CHEETAH 10TH BIRTHDAY (LORY D + THE BURRELL CONNECTION)

Tue 08 Oct

Lory D graces the booth to celebrate 10 years of La Cheetah.

ONLY THE SUBJECT

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 23:30, FREE

#TAG TUESDAYS

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 23:00, £0 - £4

Indoor hot tubs, inflatables as far as the eye can see and a Twitter feed dedicated to validating your drunk-eyed existence.

Wed 09 Oct RETRONIC

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 23:30, FREE

Rock’n’roll, and 50s and 60s bangers.

CATHOUSE WEDNESDAYS

CATHOUSE, FROM 23:00, £4

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

SHAKA LOVES YOU

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 23:30, £3

Thu 10 Oct

SESH

Mon 07 Oct

Sat 12 Oct

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 23:00, £0 - £4

CATHOUSE, FROM 23:00, £5 - £6

Dance, chart and remixes in the main hall with Craig Guild, while DJ Nicola Walker keeps things nostalgic in G2 with flashback bangers galore.

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

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

Hip-hop and live percussion flanked by wicked visuals.

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 23:30, FREE

LA CHEETAH CLUB, FROM 23:00, £12 - £15

ELECTRONIC GLASGOW: RETURN TO MONO: - 15 YEARS AT SUB CLUB

SUB CLUB, FROM 23:00, £10 - £12

Return to Mono residents Slam play a special five-hour set in honour of the nights 15 year anniversary at Sub Club.

BODY PARTS PRESENTS (NAZAR + AKUMU + DJ TORNADO)

THE ART SCHOOL, FROM 23:00, £5 - £7

A special night of drums and dance from Body Parts, with all profits going to the charity Musicians Without Borders.

MYS WITH DMX KREW (LIVE) (FEAR-E)

THE BERKELEY SUITE, FROM 23:00, £8 - £10

A key figure of the DIY electronic music scene, Ed Upton returns to Glasgow for the first time in eight years.

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

CATHOUSE WEDNESDAYS CATHOUSE, FROM 23:00, £4

THE RUM SHACK, FROM 21:00, FREE

Celebrate The Rum Shack’s 5th birthday with a free reggae party.

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

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

New wave of underground Glasgow DJ talent.

October 2019

GLITTERED! WEDNESDAYS

FREE REGGAE PARTY (RUMSHACK STEVE + CAROLINE MURPHY + SELV-D + DOUBLE DEE)

CATHOUSE SATURDAYS

Or Caturdays, if you will. Two levels of the loudest, maddest music the DJs can muster; metal, rock and alt on floor one, and punky screamo upstairs.

I LOVE GARAGE

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 23:00, £5 - £7

Garage by name, but not by musical nature. DJ Darren Donnelly carousels through chart, dance and classics, the Desperados bar is filled with funk, G2 keeps things urban and the Attic gets all indie on you.

JUICE

THE FLYING DUCK, FROM 23:00, £5

Chucky presents a LGBTQ+ dance party.

COOKING WITH PALMS TRAX (KI/KI)

LA CHEETAH CLUB, FROM 23:00, £12 - £15

The boy wonder Palms Trax returns, inviting KI/KI along for the ride.

SUBCULTURE: LIL LOUIS (HARRI & DOMENIC) SUB CLUB, FROM 23:00, £12

Subculture residents Harri & Domenic host a special outing from house DJ, producer, writer, filmmaker (and all-round talented bugger), Lil’ Louis.

A LOVE FROM OUTER SPACE

THE BERKELEY SUITE, FROM 22:00, £10

Andrew Weatherall and Sean Johnston’s rather ace London night comes our way.

ELECTRONIC GLASGOW: J-BONE COLLECTIVE – GENERAL LEVY (J-BONE COLLECTIVE + GENERAL LEVY) ROOM 2, FROM 23:00, £8.80 - £11

J-Bone invite a true legend of the UK music scene, General Levy, who came to prominence in the mid 1990’s and remains one of the most in-demand MCs of his generation.

ELECTRONIC GLASGOW: LET’S GO BACK TO ACID (DUNGEON ACID + BOSCO & ROB MASON + NIALL MOODY) ROST, FROM 23:00, £8 - £10

Dungeon Acid makes a rare Scottish appearance alongside LGB stalwarts Bosco & Rob Mason and Niall Moody for a Let’s Go Back to Acid special.

Sun 13 Oct SESH

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 23:00, £3 - £4

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

Mon 14 Oct BARE MONDAYS

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 23:00, £3 - £4

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

GLITTERED! WEDNESDAYS

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

ATTENTION//PLEASE (OCTOTRAX)

LA CHEETAH CLUB, FROM 23:00, £0 - £5

For the latest instalment of their Selectors Series, A//P invite a local duo who specialise in deep dug diamonds from the dustiest corners of the record store, Octotrax.

Thu 17 Oct PRAY 4 LOVE

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 23:30, FREE

All love songs + all bangers.

UNHOLY

CATHOUSE, FROM 23:00, £2 - £4

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

ELEMENT

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 23:00, TBC

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

PALA

LA CHEETAH CLUB, FROM 23:00, £0 - £5

Veitch, Casey and stengo play all night long.

Fri 18 Oct

ELECTRONIC GLASGOW: SUGO

BLOC+, FROM 23:00, FREE

Shake what you got to the sound of the best of the worst Italo/ Euro trash from the last four decades.

SINGLES NIGHT

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 23:30, £3

Beans + Divine explore the hits on 7” vinyl.

CATHOUSE FRIDAYS

Indoor hot tubs, inflatables as far as the eye can see and a Twitter feed dedicated to validating your drunk-eyed existence.

Wed 16 Oct DON’T BE GUTTED

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 23:30, FREE

All-out decadence in the name of euphoria.

SWG3, FROM 23:00, £6.25

An extravaganza of soul shaking and body rocking disco classics alongside the greatest hits from the legendary ABBA. CATHOUSE SATURDAYS

CATHOUSE, FROM 23:00, £5 - £6

Dance, chart and remixes in the main hall with Craig Guild, while DJ Nicola Walker keeps things nostalgic in G2 with flashback bangers galore.

JAIVA

THE FLYING DUCK, FROM 23:00, TBC

A new club night for Glasgow about freedom of sound and freedom of movement. Play what you like, dance how you like. Relax, enjoy.

PARTIAL

LA CHEETAH CLUB, FROM 23:00, £0 - £5

Following last month’s 5th birthday party, Partial residents Adler and Ubo go back to back all night long.

TAYHANA (WILLIAM FRANCIS)

THE ART SCHOOL, FROM 23:00, £4 - £6

Genre-defying Argentinian DJ and producer, now based in Mexico City.

DJ FOOD PRESENTS: KRAFTWERK

DRYGATE BREWING CO., FROM 19:30, £8 - £10.50

DJ Food (Ninja Tune/Solid Steel) presents a 90 minute full audio visual show and DJ set called Kraftwerk: Klassics, Kovers & Kurios.

Edinburgh underground heavyweights channeling serious nae-nonsense techno and dark body music.

Sat 19 Oct

ELECTRONIC GLASGOW: FANTASTIC MAN

BLOC+, FROM 23:00, FREE

A special edition of Glasgow’s long-running Fantastic Man night for Electronic Glasgow, with resident DJs Derek Obama and Tim Vincent bringing the bass for a four-hour party like no other.

BARE MONDAYS

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

Tue 22 Oct #TAG TUESDAYS

Or Caturdays, if you will. Two levels of the loudest, maddest music the DJs can muster; metal, rock and alt on floor one, and punky screamo upstairs.

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 23:00, £0 - £4

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 23:00, £5 - £7

Wed 23 Oct

I LOVE GARAGE

Garage by name, but not by musical nature. DJ Darren Donnelly carousels through chart, dance and classics, the Desperados bar is filled with funk, G2 keeps things urban and the Attic gets all indie on you.

VIV

THE FLYING DUCK, FROM 23:00, TBC

FRESH BEAT

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 23:00, £3 - £6

ROST, FROM 23:00, TBC

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 23:00, £0 - £4

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 23:00, £3 - £4

Foundry invite up-and-coming Danish DJ Repro along for their 2nd birthday celebrations.

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

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 23:30, FREE

#TAG TUESDAYS

ABBA DISCO WONDERLAND

Exotic dreamy disco.

Performance club night.

ELECTRONIC GLASGOW: POWERHOUSE (DARKALI + TENBIT + DJ VOID)

House, techno, UK garage and dubstep.

Mon 21 Oct

THE LANCE VANCE DANCE

CATHOUSE, FROM 22:30, £5 - £6

Tue 15 Oct (PINK, ORANGE, RED)

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 23:30, £3

FOUNDRY (REPRO)

LA CHEETAH CLUB, FROM 23:00, £5 - £7

SHOOT YOUR SHOT: T4T LUV NRG (BONZAI BONNER + ANNA GRAM + MI$$ CO$MIX) THE BERKELEY SUITE, FROM 22:00, £8 - £15

Eris Drew and Octo Octa bring their T4T LUV NRG tour to Glasgow for one of two UK dates on their six stop world tour.

MOJO WORKIN’ (FELONIOUS MUNK)

THE RUM SHACK, FROM 21:00, £3

Rum Shack monthly soul party playing Northern, Motown, ska and more.

ELECTRONIC GLASGOW: MY HOUSE YOUR DISCO (DISCOS NO FURTHER + SHAKA LOVES YOU) THE AMSTERDAM, FROM 21:00, £5 - £7

MHYD resident Discos No Further invites Shaka Loves You to The Amsterdam basement for Electronic Glasgow.

ELECTRONIC GLASGOW: SUPER 8 SHOWCASE (VAJ.POWER + DJ SCOTIA + KAMI-O + MAVEEN + CHESTER + RUSSELL GOLD + CRAIG HENDERSON + GORBALS NEBULA) ROST, FROM 23:00, TBC

One venue, two rooms, eight DJs/artists all based in and around Glasgow, with all profits going to the Clubber2Clubber organisation.

Sun 20 Oct

PSYFUNKTION GATHERING

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 23:30, FREE

Psytrance and techno trippiness.

CHEERS FOR THIRD SUNDAY

CATHOUSE, FROM 23:00, TBC

DJ Kelmosh takes you through Mid-Southwestern emo, rock, new metal, nostalgia and 90s and 00s tunes.

SESH

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 23:00, £3 - £4

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

Indoor hot tubs, inflatables as far as the eye can see and a Twitter feed dedicated to validating your drunk-eyed existence.

FREAK LIKE ME

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 23:30, FREE

Soul, hip-hop and funk.

CATHOUSE WEDNESDAYS

CATHOUSE, FROM 23:00, £4

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

GLITTERED! WEDNESDAYS

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 23:00, £0 - £4

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

Thu 24 Oct BREAKFAST CLUB

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 23:30, FREE

An 80s mega-mix party.

UNHOLY

CATHOUSE, FROM 23:00, £2 - £4

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

ELEMENT

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 23:00, TBC

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

SHOW X SUB CLUB: EATS EVERYTHING + TRUNCATE

SUB CLUB, FROM 23:00, £5 - £12

Eats Everything wants you to rave with him, as he embarks on his ‘Come Rave With Me’ UK tour, so that you should do.

Fri 25 Oct EASY PEELERS

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 23:30, £3

Bangers ripe and ready for your enjoyment.

ROCKY HORROR HALLOWEEN SHOW

SWG3, FROM 22:00, £11.25 - £14.06

Rocky Horror Picture Show and Halloween-themed clubbing experience, featuring entertainment, live music and themed cocktails.

CATHOUSE FRIDAYS

CATHOUSE, FROM 22:30, £5 - £6

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

FRESH BEAT

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 23:00, £3 - £6

Dance, chart and remixes in the main hall with Craig Guild, while DJ Nicola Walker keeps things nostalgic in G2 with flashback bangers galore.

DRAG ME TO HELL

THE FLYING DUCK, FROM 19:00, £5

A night of unparalleled entertainment from Glasgow’s most uninhibited karaoke night.

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LUNACY (LISSA + JANA WOODSTOCK) LA CHEETAH CLUB, FROM 23:00, £8

Mutant Club Music for the dancefloor freaks.

BIGFOOT’S TEA PARTY: HAAI

SUB CLUB, FROM 23:00, £6 - £10

Aussie titan HAAi continues to go from strength to strength, so head along to Subbie to see what all the fuss is about.

NEVER BEEN KISSED (MILK DJS)

THE RUM SHACK, FROM 20:00, £5 - £6

90s/00s party with live visuals and some surprises.

Sat 26 Oct SHAKA LOVES YOU

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 23:30, £3

Hip-hop and live percussion flanked by wicked visuals.

GLITTERBOX

SWG3, FROM 21:00, £33.75 - £39.38

The Glitterbox phenomenon returns to Glasgow.

CATHOUSE SATURDAYS

CATHOUSE, FROM 23:00, £5 - £6

Or Caturdays, if you will. Two levels of the loudest, maddest music the DJs can muster; metal, rock and alt on floor one, and punky screamo upstairs.

I LOVE GARAGE

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 23:00, £5 - £7

Garage by name, but not by musical nature. DJ Darren Donnelly carousels through chart, dance and classics, the Desperados bar is filled with funk, G2 keeps things urban and the Attic gets all indie on you.

ELISCO (RAY MANG)

LA CHEETAH CLUB, FROM 23:00, £5 - £7

Elisco returns to give you that monthly dosage of sublime disco.

SUBCULTURE: JOHN TALABOT (HARRI & DOMENIC) SUB CLUB, FROM 23:00, £5 - £12

After a number of epic Subculture sessions, John Talabot resounds in the Subbie basement once again.

RUMSHACK STEVE PRESENTS

THE RUM SHACK, FROM 20:00, £5 - £7

Glasgow’s ruffest reggae party continues with a very special guest.

Sun 27 Oct

FANTASTIC MAN PRESENT: VROOM VROOM

NICE ‘N’ SLEAZY, FROM 23:30, FREE

Charli XCX afterparty, following her gig at SWG3 Galvanizers.

SLIDE IT IN

CATHOUSE, FROM 23:00, TBC

Classic rock through the ages from DJ Nicola Walker.

SESH

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 23:00, £3 - £4

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

Edinburgh Clubs HEATERS: PEARSON SOUND (SKILLIS) SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 23:00, £5 - £10

Hessle Audio co-founder, UK dance pioneer, cutting edge producer and DJ, Pearson Sound is back in Edinburgh.

Thu 03 Oct

UNDERGROUND SOCIETY

CABARET VOLTAIRE, FROM 23:00, TBC

Expect music from across the spectrum at Cab Vol’s weekly party, every Thursday.

HI-SOCIETY

THE HIVE, FROM 22:00, FREE

Student anthems and bangerz.

SILK THURSDAYS

THE LIQUID ROOM, FROM 22:30, £1 - £5

Weekly Thursday chart, house, R’n’B and indie night with DJ Big Al. POPULAR MUSIC

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 23:00, £1 - £3

DJs playing music by bands to make you dance: Grace Jones to Neu!, Parquet Courts to Brian Eno, The Clash to Janelle Monae.

Fri 04 Oct FLY CLUB

CABARET VOLTAIRE, FROM 23:00, TBC

With a powerhouse of residents, including Denis Sulta, Theo Kottis and Jasper James, FLY Club has been setting the standards for a serious party business for over four years at Cab Vol. ELECTRIKAL: HYBRID MINDS

THE BONGO CLUB, FROM 23:00, £10 - £14

The DJ and production duo of Josh White and Matthew Lowe, Hybrid Minds play an exclusive Scottish show.

FLIP

THE HIVE, FROM 22:00, £0 - £4

Yer all-new Friday at Hive. Cheap entry, inevitably danceable, and novelty-stuffed. Perrrfect.

PROPAGANDA

THE LIQUID ROOM, FROM 22:30, £4 - £6

Clubber’s favourite of indie classics and baggy greats, from Primal Scream and the like.

MISS WORLD: LOGIC1000

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 23:00, £5 - £7

Sydney-born, London-based producer Samantha Poulter, aka Logic1000, conjures concepts, genres, samples, UK-centric dance rhythms, hyper-accurate digital synths and disembodied textures.

VERSION II PRESENTS: JAY LUMEN

LA BELLE ANGELE, FROM 23:00, £15 - £23

REWIND THE LIQUID ROOM, FROM 22:30, £5

Student anthems and bangerz.

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 23:00, £6

POPULAR MUSIC

FIRECRACKER RECORDINGS: HEAL YOURSELF AND MOVE

Edinburgh-based label Firecracker Recordings have international reach and acclaim, specialising in oddball house, techno and electronics.

FIESTA DO SAMEDIA 2

VARIOUS VENUES, FROM 23:00, £8 - £12

Sun 06 Oct SUNDAY CLUB

THE HIVE, FROM 22:00, FREE

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

COALITION

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 23:00, FREE

Believe presents the best in bass DJs from Edinburgh at his weekly Sunday communion.

Mon 07 Oct MIXED UP

THE HIVE, FROM 22:00, FREE

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

HOMETOWN

HECTORS

CABARET VOLTAIRE, FROM 23:00, £0 - £7

Since May 2012, Hectors has become Edinburgh’s soundest midweek shindig, drawing in capacity crowds each and every Tuesday to their home, the prestigious Cabaret Voltaire.

MIDNIGHT BASS

THE BONGO CLUB, FROM 23:00, £4 - £5

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

TRASH

THE HIVE, FROM 22:00, FREE

Alternative Tuesday anthems cherrypicked from genres of rock, indie, punk, retro and more.

Wed 02 Oct COOKIE

THE HIVE, FROM 22:00, FREE

93s and 00s cheesy pop and modern chart anthems.

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Sat 05 Oct PLEASURE

CABARET VOLTAIRE, FROM 23:00, TBC

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

MUMBO JUMBO + LUCKY 7

THE BONGO CLUB, FROM 23:00, £3 - £7

Funk, soul, beats and bumps from the Mumbo Jumbo gang and room two residents Lucky 7.

BUBBLEGUM

THE HIVE, FROM 22:00, FREE

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

Fri 11 Oct FLY CLUB

CABARET VOLTAIRE, FROM 23:00, TBC

SSL XL (SLIMZEE + TUBBY + GROOVE CHRONICLES + SKILLIS + MC ONYX STONE)

THE BONGO CLUB, FROM 23:00, £8 - £12

Sound System Legacies explores the legacy of dub, reggae, roots music and sound system culture on more contemporary club and dance music styles.

FLIP

THE HIVE, FROM 22:00, £0 - £4

Yer all-new Friday at Hive. Cheap entry, inevitably danceable, and novelty-stuffed. Perrrfect.

PROPAGANDA: ARCTIC MONKEYS

THE LIQUID ROOM, FROM 22:30, £4 - £6

Clubber’s favourite of indie classics and baggy greats, from Primal Scream and the like.

HOT MESS

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 23:00, £6

Hot Mess is a hot and messy queer rave. Non-stop bangers and mash, selected and sequenced with love by Simonotron.

Tue 08 Oct

PARADISE PALMS, FROM 21:00, FREE

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 23:00, £3 - £4

HECTORS

CABARET VOLTAIRE, FROM 23:00, £0 - £7

Since May 2012, Hectors has become Edinburgh’s soundest midweek shindig, drawing in capacity crowds each and every Tuesday to their home, the prestigious Cabaret Voltaire.

MIDNIGHT BASS

THE HIVE, FROM 22:00, FREE

Gemma and Doug’s diverse tastes are underscored by a shared love of Afro-Carribean music, creating a heady mix of dancehall, afro house and dubbed-out percussion.

CULTUR (MAG)

PARADISE PALMS, FROM 21:00, FREE

The return of the fleeto to Sneaks, as Hometown YT hit the club with bags and bags of belters.

THE MASH HOUSE, FROM 23:00, £6 - £10

Tue 01 Oct

DJs playing music by bands to make you dance: Grace Jones to Neu!, Parquet Courts to Brian Eno, The Clash to Janelle Monae.

PARADISE PALMS, FROM 21:00, FREE

One of the best selectors in the country playing all night on his own, bringing Mediterranean vibes and whistles to the Palms stage. One not to be missed! Solo Catania!

BARE MONDAYS

PARADISE PALMS, FROM 21:00, FREE

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 23:00, £1 - £3

With a powerhouse of residents, including Denis Sulta, Theo Kottis and Jasper James, FLY Club has been setting the standards for a serious party business for over four years at Cab Vol.

RIVIERA PARADISO (ANDREA MONTALTO)

THE GARAGE GLASGOW, FROM 23:00, £3 - £4

PARQADISE PALS: BEATROOTS (ICED GEM + DOUG)

Weekly Thursday chart, house, R’n’B and indie night with DJ Big Al.

Bringing the heat to the streets since 2018, but this time with tropical twist.

Mon 28 Oct

Palidrone welcome back their first ever guest SPFDJ to go B2B with Warsaw-born, Discwoman affiliate VTSS.

SILK THURSDAYS

THE LIQUID ROOM, FROM 22:30, £1 - £5

The annual Fiesta is back again for a night of live music and global club cuts over two venues featuring top acts from around the world.

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

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

THE HIVE, FROM 22:00, FREE

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

With releases on Drumcode, Relief and Footwork, and appearances at top clubs and festivals worldwide, Jay Lumen is undoubtedly one of the biggest names in techno.

PALIDRONE: SPFDJ B2B VTSS

HI-SOCIETY

THE BONGO CLUB, FROM 23:00, £4 - £5

TRASH

Alternative Tuesday anthems cherrypicked from genres of rock, indie, punk, retro and more.

Wed 09 Oct

ERROR404 2ND BIRTHDAY: OVERLOOK

THE BONGO CLUB, FROM 23:00, £4 - £6

Bristol-based DJ, and one part of UVB-76, Overlook makes his Scottish debut.

COOKIE

JACUZZI GENERAL PRESENTS…

UNDERGROUND SOCIETY

CABARET VOLTAIRE, FROM 23:00, TBC

Expect music from across the spectrum at Cab Vol’s weekly party, every Thursday.

HIJACK

THE BONGO CLUB, FROM 23:00, £4 - £10

An underground music night focused on drum and bass and 140.

All singing, all dancing Balkan orgy, plus belly dancing and free brandy. As in, we’re sold.

THE EDINBURGH SOUL TRAIN

LA BELLE ANGELE, FROM 23:00, £6 - £10

An uplifting journey filled with funk, soul, disco and Motown classics.

FIRST EDITION: PROJECT PABLO

THE MASH HOUSE, FROM 23:00, £10 - £14

Montreal musician, Project Pablo returns to Edinburgh, this time taking on The Mash House.

Sun 13 Oct SUNDAY CLUB

THE HIVE, FROM 22:00, FREE

PLEASURE

CABARET VOLTAIRE, FROM 23:00, TBC

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

DR NO’S SKA CLUB

HENRY’S CELLAR BAR, FROM 23:00, FREE

Baz and Dave spin out some belters under a strictly vinylonly policy.

HOBBES MUSIC 6TH BIRTHDAY (JACKSONVILLE + EXTERIOR + GAMING + HOBBES + RENATA)

THE BONGO CLUB, FROM 23:00, £3 - £7

Acclaimed Edinburgh label Hobbes Music assembles a proper cast of favourites from the past, present and future of the label.

BUBBLEGUM

THE HIVE, FROM 22:00, £0 - £4

HEART OF GLASS

Glamourous, glittery, flamboyant, feathery, ostentatious and rock ‘n’ roll, Heart of Glass plays only the best music from the 70s and beyond.

SMASH HITS PRESENTS WE LOVE THE 90S

THE LIQUID ROOM, FROM 22:30, £6

Edinburgh’s biggest 90s retro night.

TEESH’S 6TH BIRTHDAY

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 23:00, £6

6 years of TEESH! To mark the occasion, DJ CHEERS serves up a solo mind buffet just for you.

Headset features Skillis and friends playing garage, techno, house and bass downstairs, with old school hip-hop upstairs.

CLUB_NACHT: MOVE D + TELFORT

THE CAVES, FROM 23:00, TBC

New party series Club_Nacht launch with Move D headlining and hand-picked support from Edinburgh local Telfort.

FLIP

THE HIVE, FROM 22:00, £0 - £4

Yer all-new Friday at Hive. Cheap entry, inevitably danceable, and novelty-stuffed. Perrrfect.

DAS HAUS

WEE RED BAR, FROM 23:00, £5

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

Das Haus’ debut event in Edinburgh will feature the likes of Duke Boara, DJ Lesula, Tip Top and RO-G1 running the show.

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 23:00, FREE

THE LIQUID ROOM, FROM 22:30, £4 - £6

COALITION

Believe presents the best in bass DJs from Edinburgh at his weekly Sunday communion.

Mon 14 Oct MIXED UP

THE HIVE, FROM 22:00, FREE

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

GROOVELABS

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 23:00, £5

After last month’s roaring success, Groovelabs return with another party raising money for an important cause.

Tue 15 Oct HECTORS

CABARET VOLTAIRE, FROM 23:00, £0 - £7

Since May 2012, Hectors has become Edinburgh’s soundest midweek shindig, drawing in capacity crowds each and every Tuesday to their home, the prestigious Cabaret Voltaire.

MIDNIGHT BASS

THE BONGO CLUB, FROM 23:00, £4 - £5

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

TRASH

THE HIVE, FROM 22:00, FREE

Alternative Tuesday anthems cherrypicked from genres of rock, indie, punk, retro and more.

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 23:00, £1 - £3

WEE RED BAR, FROM 23:00, £6 - £10

Thu 10 Oct

MESSENGER SOUND SYSTEM THE BONGO CLUB, FROM 23:00, £5 - £7

Sat 12 Oct

HEATERS: CLAFRICA (CAP’N GOODTIMES)

Clafrica brings his soul-hitting house and hip-hop sounds to the intimate Sneaks dancefloor.

TRASH THE HIVE, FROM 22:00, FREE

Wed 16 Oct

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

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 23:00, £1 - £3

HEADSET THE BONGO CLUB, FROM 23:00, £5 - £7

Monthly installment from a self-ordained General who’s decided to dedicate his life to hydrotherapy and electronic delight. Nu-disco, electronica and leftfield.

THE HIVE, FROM 22:00, FREE

93s and 00s cheesy pop and modern chart anthems.

BALKANARAMA SUMMERHALL, FROM 22:30, £9 - £10

COOKIE

THE HIVE, FROM 22:00, FREE

93s and 00s cheesy pop and modern chart anthems.

HEATERS: ALEXIS (C-SHAMAN)

One of techno’s lethal new lights, Alexis makes her Scottish debut.

A serious talent with big things on the horizon.

Thu 17 Oct

UNDERGROUND SOCIETY

CABARET VOLTAIRE, FROM 23:00, TBC

Expect music from across the spectrum at Cab Vol’s weekly party, every Thursday.

HOMETOWN PRESENT: THURSDAY DUB CLUB

THE BONGO CLUB, FROM 23:00, £5

New midweek monthly from the Hometown Promotion Soundsystem, celebrating reggae, rubadub, dancehall and roots.

HI-SOCIETY

THE HIVE, FROM 22:00, FREE

Student anthems and bangerz.

SILK THURSDAYS

THE LIQUID ROOM, FROM 22:30, £1 - £5

Weekly Thursday chart, house, R’n’B and indie night with DJ Big Al. POPULAR MUSIC: WALT DISCO

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 23:00, £1 - £3

DJs playing music by bands to make you dance: Grace Jones to Neu!, Parquet Courts to Brian Eno, The Clash to Janelle Monae.

Fri 18 Oct FLY CLUB

CABARET VOLTAIRE, FROM 23:00, TBC

With a powerhouse of residents, including Denis Sulta, Theo Kottis and Jasper James, FLY Club has been setting the standards for a serious party business for over four years at Cab Vol.

PROPAGANDA: UV PARTY

Clubber’s favourite of indie classics and baggy greats, from Primal Scream and the like.

ATHENS OF THE NORTH DISCO CLUB

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 23:00, £5 - £7

Edinburgh’s finest gem-digging, discogs destroying re-issue label goes real world once again. Rare records that’ll make you dance, guaranteed.

PARADISE PALS: MISS WORLD (EMILY + JULIA)

PARADISE PALMS, FROM 21:00, FREE

All female DJ collective based in Edinburgh, and residents at Sneaky Pete’s and EH-FM.

Sat 19 Oct PLEASURE

CABARET VOLTAIRE, FROM 23:00, TBC

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

SOULSVILLE

THE BONGO CLUB, FROM 23:00, £3 - £7

Residents Cameron Mason and Calum Evans spin the finest cuts of deep funk, Latin rhythms and rare groove into the early hours.

BUBBLEGUM

THE HIVE, FROM 22:00, £0 - £4

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

UNPOP

WEE RED BAR, FROM 23:00, £5

An indie-pop dance party where turning up fashionably late just won’t do.

DAN JUICE ALL NIGHT

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 23:00, £5

Dan Juice is back for another four hours of dancefloor music magic, with all proceeds going to charity.

JGP: COOLANT BOWSER

PARADISE PALMS, FROM 21:00, FREE

The General brings TEESH resident Coolant Bowser to Edinburgh for a pool party in Palms.

Taps aff all over the joint.

Sun 20 Oct SUNDAY CLUB

THE HIVE, FROM 22:00, FREE

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

COALITION

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 23:00, FREE

Believe presents the best in bass DJs from Edinburgh at his weekly Sunday communion.

Mon 21 Oct MIXED UP

THE HIVE, FROM 22:00, FREE

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

Tue 22 Oct HECTORS

CABARET VOLTAIRE, FROM 23:00, £0 - £7

Since May 2012, Hectors has become Edinburgh’s soundest midweek shindig, drawing in capacity crowds each and every Tuesday to their home, the prestigious Cabaret Voltaire.

MIDNIGHT BASS

THE BONGO CLUB, FROM 23:00, £4 - £5

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

Alternative Tuesday anthems cherrypicked from genres of rock, indie, punk, retro and more.

Conscious roots and dub reggae rockin’ from the usual beefy Messenger soundsystem.

Wed 23 Oct

THE HIVE, FROM 22:00, £0 - £4

COOKIE

BUBBLEGUM

THE HIVE, FROM 22:00, FREE

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

HEATERS: SKILLIS

WEE RED BAR, FROM 23:00, £5

93s and 00s cheesy pop and modern chart anthems.

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 23:00, £1 - £3

Few do it better than Skillis.

Mind-blowing technique meets selector prowess for a rare all night showcase from one of Edinburgh’s best.

Thu 24 Oct

UNDERGROUND SOCIETY

CABARET VOLTAIRE, FROM 23:00, TBC

Expect music from across the spectrum at Cab Vol’s weekly party, every Thursday.

WACK: CALM FUNDRAISER

THE BONGO CLUB, FROM 23:00, £5

Wack raise money for Campaign Against Living Miserably, a charity dedicated to the prevention of suicide, at their latest party.

STRANGER SOUNDS

A tribute to the era of Stranger Things, the 80s.

IBIZA TRANCE CLASSICS (JUDGE JULES)

THE LIQUID ROOM, FROM 22:30, £10.15 - £16.75

Find yourself transported to summer sun, boat parties and massive club nights on the island.

RIDE

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 23:00, £5

Live fast die yung, Ride gals do it well. Teacha El and Checkyer Strides play 00s R’n’B and 90s hip-hop and put their lighters up.

NIKNAK

PARADISE PALMS, FROM 21:00, FREE

THE HIVE, FROM 22:00, FREE

Expect a night of electronic bangers and sumptuous dance moves to finish off the month in style.

SILK THURSDAYS

Sun 27 Oct

HI-SOCIETY

Student anthems and bangerz.

THE LIQUID ROOM, FROM 22:30, £1 - £5

Weekly Thursday chart, house, R’n’B and indie night with DJ Big Al. POPULAR MUSIC: JAMES OVERGROUND

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 23:00, £1 - £3

SUNDAY CLUB

THE HIVE, FROM 22:00, FREE

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

COALITION

DJs playing music by bands to make you dance: Grace Jones to Neu!, Parquet Courts to Brian Eno, The Clash to Janelle Monae.

Believe presents the best in bass DJs from Edinburgh at his weekly Sunday communion.

Fri 25 Oct

Mon 28 Oct

FLY CLUB

CABARET VOLTAIRE, FROM 23:00, TBC

With a powerhouse of residents, including Denis Sulta, Theo Kottis and Jasper James, FLY Club has been setting the standards for a serious party business for over four years at Cab Vol. SAMEDIA SHEBEEN: DISCO MAKOSSA

THE BONGO CLUB, FROM 23:00, £5 - £7

Disco Makossa takes the dancefloor on a funk filled trip through the sounds of African disco, boogie, house, acid, kwaito and techno.

FLIP

THE HIVE, FROM 22:00, £0 - £4

Yer all-new Friday at Hive. Cheap entry, inevitably danceable, and novelty-stuffed. Perrrfect.

SWEET ‘N’ VICIOUS

WEE RED BAR, FROM 23:00, £5

Sweet ‘n’ Vicious serves up a delightful mix of saccharine sixties girl group sounds, YéYé, popcorn and borderline kitsch classics with mean rockabilly, wild rock ‘n’ roll and sleazy surf instrumentals.

PROPAGANDA: PIZZA PARTY

THE LIQUID ROOM, FROM 22:30, £4 - £6

Clubber’s favourite of indie classics and baggy greats, from Primal Scream and the like.

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 23:00, FREE

MIXED UP

THE HIVE, FROM 22:00, FREE

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

TENBIT

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 23:00, £3

Tenbit return with a night of techno and bass-heavy burners.

Yeo!

Dundee Clubs Fri 11 Oct

FLOOR ABOVE PRESENTS: TOMMY HOLOHAN

BEAT GENERATOR LIVE!, FROM 23:00, £8 - £12

Floor Above presents Irish techno heavyweight Tommy Holohan.

Sat 12 Oct THE REGGAE SPECIAL

UNDERWORLD CAFE, FROM 19:00, FREE

The very best in 60s Jamaican music all played on original press 45.

LIONOIL: D.TIFFANY (C-SHAMAN)

SNEAKY PETE’S, FROM 23:00, £5 - £7

Glasgow Theatre

HAPTIC & FRIENDS: LABEL LAUNCH

CCA: Centre for Contemporary Art

Montreal’s D. Tiffany brings expansive sound, skills and party spirit to Sneaks for the next installment of Lionoil’s residency.

THE MASH HOUSE, FROM 23:00, £3 - £5

Haptic launch their new record label with a party at The Mash House, featuring sets from some of their favourite Scottish talents.

JACUZZI GENERAL’S AQUA PALACE: PLANT CITY

PARADISE PALMS, FROM 16:00, FREE

One stop shop of musical seduction, dance move exploration and good times.

Sat 26 Oct PLEASURE

CABARET VOLTAIRE, FROM 23:00, TBC

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

AC #2: BINH (ALIEN COMMUNICATIONS)

//BUZZCUT// DOUBLE THRILLS 9 OCT, 6:00PM, £9 - £19

//BUZZCUT// Double Thrills is Glasgow’s programme of raw, radical and risky performance and Live Art, taking over CCA once a month.

Platform

THICK SKIN, ELASTIC HEART

16-26 OCT, TIMES VARY, PRICES VARY

A hybrid poetic theatre production, showcasing a kaleidoscope of diverse UK voices, played out like a frenzied scroll through a social media feed.

CABARET VOLTAIRE, FROM 23:00, £5 - £8

Perlon stalwart, Club der Visionaere resident and Time Passages label boss Binh makes his Edinburgh debut.

THE SKINNY

Theatre EASTERN PROMISE 2019: THE PANOPTICON 4 OCT, 7:00PM, £7.50 - £20

World premiere of the National Theatre of Scotland’s new production The Panopticon, based on the bestselling novel by Jenni Fagan and directed by Debbie Hannan.

The King’s Theatre 9 TO 5 THE MUSICAL

8-12 OCT, TIMES VARY, £13 - £77.50

Musical tale of the blonde queen of country-tinged pop, based on the film of the same name.

PAGE2STAGE EDINBURGH 19 OCT, 7:30PM, £5

Showcasing extracts from four brand new plays read in front of a live audience, with a chance to carry on discussions and meet the team, writers and actors.

VIOLA

11 OCT, 7:30PM, £9 - £12

A new aerial theatre performance reimagining Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night through the eyes of Viola.

Festival Theatre SCOTTISH BALLET: THE CRUCIBLE

17-18 OCT, 7:30PM, PRICES VARY

The Old Hairdressers

Arthur Miller’s famous Tony Award-winning re-telling of the 1692 Salem witch trial hysteria, performed by the Scottish Ballet.

15 OCT, 7:30PM, TBC

7-12 OCT, TIMES VARY, £29.50 - £49.50

RIGHT OF ENTITLEMENT

A new piece of writing by Hags Ahoy theatre company, concerned with class, education and social mobility.

Theatre Royal SCOTTISH OPERA: TOSCA

16-26 OCT, TIMES VARY, £21 - £85

Scottish Opera take on Anthony Besch’s treasured production of Tosca, which transports Puccini’s drama to Fascist Italy in the early 1940s.

THE MOUSETRAP

28 OCT-2 NOV, TIMES VARY, £13 - £50.50

Agatha Christie murder mystery, famous for being the longestrunning show of any kind in the history of British theatre.

WHAT’S IN A NAME?

1-5 OCT, TIMES VARY, £13 - £51.40

A riotously funny evening that questions whether a person’s name truly reflects who they are.

Tron Theatre THE DRIFT

10-12 OCT, 8:00PM, PRICES VARY

Hannah Lavery’s beautiful story of love, loss and bereavement, as well as a searingly honest portrayal of growing up mixedrace in Scotland.

ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD

24-26 OCT, 7:45PM, £8.50 - £11

The Tron’s resident Young Company of 18-25 year olds takes a closer look at how we perceive time moving, how we wait for something to happen and the gulf between presence and absence.

Edinburgh Theatre Assembly Roxy

THE MONSTER AND MARY SHELLEY

25 OCT, 7:30PM, £8 - £10

Lord Byron challenges Percy and Mary Shelley to each write a ghost story, and after a ‘waking dream’ Mary begins to write a story that will haunt and define her for the rest of her life.

ON YOUR FEET!

The inspiring true love story of Emilio and Gloria Estefan and charts their journey from Cuba to Miami and finally to international superstardom.

King’s Theatre Edinburgh AN INSPECTOR CALLS

8-12 OCT, TIMES VARY, £18.50 - £32

Stephen Daldry’s multi-awardwinning production of J.B. Priestley’s classic thriller.

FRANKENSTEIN

21-26 OCT, TIMES VARY, £18.50 - £32

A new adaptation of Mary Shelley’s gothic horror masterpiece, fusing ensemble storytelling, live music, Bunraku-style puppetry and stunning theatricality.

THE NIGHT WATCH

15-19 OCT, TIMES VARY, £18.50 - £32

Olivier-nominated playwright Hattie Naylor brings to life Sarah Waters’ story of illicit love and everyday heroism set in the late 1940s.

A WOMAN OF NO IMPORTANCE

1-5 OCT, TIMES VARY, £18.50 - £32

A bold and richly enjoyable production exploring innocence and morality through Oscar Wilde’s glittering wit and masterful language.

PRISM

28 OCT-2 NOV, TIMES VARY, £21.50 - £35

Terry Johnson’s Prism returns to the stage with Robert Lindsay reprising his role as the double Oscar-winning cinematic master Jack Cardiff.

Royal Lyceum Theatre BARBER SHOP CHRONICLES

23 OCT-9 NOV, TIMES VARY, £10 - £33

A generously funny, heartwarming and insightful new play set in Johannesburg, Harare, Kampala, Lagos, Accra and London, inspired in part by the story of a Leeds barber.

LOVE SONG TO LAVENDER MENACE

THICK SKIN, ELASTIC HEART

9-12 OCT, TIMES VARY, £10 - £20

16-26 OCT, TIMES VARY, PRICES VARY

A beautifully funny and moving exploration of the love and passion it takes to make something happen and the loss that is felt when you have to let it go.

SOLARIS

David Greig brings Stanistaw Lem’s classic sci-fi novel to the stage for the first time to create a stylish 1960s space-scape for a story which explores the nature of love, loss and consciousness.

The Basement Theatre SHORT ATTENTION SPAN

2 OCT, 8:00PM, £4 - £6

An evening of short plays written and performed by emerging writers specifically for that event.

The Edinburgh Playhouse ANNIE

1-5 OCT, TIMES VARY, £13 - £92.50

A musical set in 1930s New York, Annie tells the story of a flamehaired orphan in pursuit of her real parents.

WE WILL ROCK YOU

7-12 OCT, TIMES VARY, £13 - £84.90

Surefire crowd-pleaser for the festive season, packed with Queen’s inherently theatrical songs and a witty script by Ben Elton.

THE KING AND I

17-26 OCT, TIMES VARY, £19.50 - £110

Lavish new production of the beloved musical, with giant gold Buddha’s, shiny costumes and acrobatic dancers, no less.

THE ROCKY HORROR SHOW

28 OCT-2 NOV, TIMES VARY, £13 - £96

The latest incarnation of the favourited rock’n’roll musical heads our way.

Traverse Theatre CLYBOURNE PARK

3-5 OCT, 7:30PM, £5 - £17

Comedy dealing with the issues of the constant flux of urban neighbourhoods. Russ and Bev try to sell their house but the buyers are blocked by the white, middle-class Neighbourhood Association.

THE PANOPTICON

10-19 OCT, TIMES VARY, £5 - £15

Brought for the first time to the stage, The Panopticon is a visceral, bloody and brutal testament to life and friendship.

THE DRIFT

10-12 OCT, 8:00PM, PRICES VARY

Hannah Lavery’s beautiful story of love, loss and bereavement, as well as a searingly honest portrayal of growing up mixedrace in Scotland.

ANATOMY: FINEST CUTS

24 OCT, 8:00PM, £5 - £12

A best of seven years of genredefying performance.

A PLAY, A PIE AND A PINT: THE SIGNALMAN

1-5 OCT, TIMES VARY, £13.50

Thomas Barclay is transported back in time, to the night when he was the Signalman who sent the Edinburgh/Burntisland train onto the Tay Rail Bridge.

A PLAY, A PIE AND A PINT: FLY ME TO THE MOON

Marie Jones’ black comedy investigates whether we are valued more in life or in death.

A PLAY, A PIE AND A PINT: THE SWEETEST GROWL

15-19 OCT, TIMES VARY, £13.50

The story of Gorbals-born Mary McGowan, who gave up her singing career to became a Glasgow housewife. But did she have any regrets?

THE MONSTROUS HEART

22 OCT-2 NOV, TIMES VARY, £5 - £20

The Monstrous Heart is thrilling, chilling, witty and surreal, examining afresh the eternal question of whether we ever really change how we’re made.

Comedy The Amsterdam HARD LOTION

1-5 OCT, TIMES VARY, £10 - £33

8-12 OCT, TIMES VARY, £13.50

October 2019

A hybrid poetic theatre production, showcasing a kaleidoscope of diverse UK voices, played out like a frenzied scroll through a social media feed.

Dundee Theatre Dundee Rep

THICK SKIN, ELASTIC HEART

16-26 OCT, TIMES VARY, PRICES VARY

A hybrid poetic theatre production, showcasing a kaleidoscope of diverse UK voices, played out like a frenzied scroll through a social media feed.

A-Z OF DUNDEE

2-12 OCT, TIMES VARY, £12 - £25

A brand new anarchic, fastpaced, (and mostly true) history of Dundee.

DOUBLE BILL: PROCESS DAY & THE CIRCLE

18-19 OCT, 8:00PM, £10 - £17

Dundee Rep’s ensemble of exceptional dancers transform into sleek, androgynous beings inhabiting dark recesses and shadows, guided by a futuristic techno soundtrack.

Glasgow Comedy Blackfriars Basement

GLASGOW HAROLD NIGHT

1 OCT-3 DEC, 8:00PM, FREE

One hilarious show, completely improvised by two teams, based off an audience suggestion.

Improv comedy at its finest.

IMPROV FUCKTOWN

8 OCT-10 DEC, 8:00PM, FREE

Some of the best improvisers in the country are leaving home comforts behind to perform in a variety of fun and exciting longform improv formats.

Drygate Brewing Co. BREW HAHA!

6 OCT, 7:30PM, £5

Spend your Sunday enjoying some of Scotland’s finest comic talent.

Glee Club

FRIDAY NIGHT COMEDY

4-25 OCT, 7:00PM, £8 - £20

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

SATURDAY NIGHT COMEDY

5-26 OCT, 7:00PM, £8 - £23.95

An evening of award-winning comedy, with four superb standup comedians that will keep you laughing until Monday.

Oran Mor NEWS HACKS

20 OCT, 4:00PM, £12

Writer of the long-running hit topical radio show Watson’s Wind Up, Rikki Brown presents a fresh take on the news and those making the news.

FRISKY & MANNISH: POPLAB

24 OCT, 8:00PM, £16

You are invited into Frisky & Mannish’s PopLab to peek down the microscope at all their latest research projects.

SEC

ROMESH RANGANATHAN: THE CYNIC’S MIXTAPE

26-27 OCT, 6:30PM, £26.10

Romesh Ranganathan is back with his most brutally honest show yet, delivering a carefullycurated selection of all the things he has found unacceptable since his last tour.

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

6 OCT, 7:30PM, £3

Stand-up comedy night.

The Flying Duck VISION BOARD

5 OCT, 8:00PM, £5

A comedy show, hosted by Gemma Flynn and John Aggasild, featuring special guests.

ON THE FLY

13-20 OCT, TIMES VARY, £5

Join three of the hottest improv teams making it all up on the fly.

VIKKI STONE: SONGBIRD 15-16 OCT, 8:30PM, £11 - £13

Multi-award-winning comedian and musician Vikki Stone returns with an all new show of her trademark comedy songs and stand up.

ASHLEY BLAKER AND IMRAN YUSUF: PROPHET SHARING

27-28 OCT, 8:30PM, £14

Two great comedians join forces to form an unlikely double act.

NELSON MANDELA: GLASGOW STATUE FUNDRAISER

9 OCT, 8:30PM, £12

The King’s Theatre

An evening of top comedy in support of the Nelson Mandela Scottish Memorial Foundation, raising funds to erect a statue of Mandela in Glasgow.

2-20 OCT, 8:00PM, PRICES VARY

13 OCT, 8:30PM, £17

EDDIE IZZARD: WUNDERBAR

A delicious insight into the surreal and fantastical world of Eddie Izzard.

The Stand Glasgow

MICHAEL REDMOND’S SUNDAY SERVICE

20 OCT, 8:30PM, £5 - £6

Our popular Sunday show has resident Irish funnyman Michael Redmond at the helm.

RED RAW

1-29 OCT, 8:30PM, £3

Legendary new material night with up to 10 acts. Every Monday in Edinburgh and Tuesday in Glasgow.

THE THURSDAY SHOW

3-31 OCT, TIMES VARY, £5 - £10

Start the weekend early with five comedians.

THE SATURDAY SHOW

5-26 OCT, 9:00PM, £17.50

The big weekend show with five comedians.

THE FRIDAY SHOW

4-25 OCT, TIMES VARY, £6 - £12

The big weekend show with five comedians.

MIDWEEK COMEDY CABARET

22-23 OCT, TIMES VARY, PRICES VARY

Midweek comedy showcase.

COMEDIAN RAP BATTLES

2 OCT, 8:30PM, £4 - £6

The country’s best comedians battle it out.

NICK HELM

6-20 OCT, TIMES VARY, £13.50

Resurrected from the ashes, come and witness two time Edinburgh Comedy Award Nominee and International Treasure In Waiting shaking his ass, singing songs and righting wrongs.

MONDAY NIGHT IMPROV

21 OCT, 8:30PM, £3

Comedian improv battle.

RACHEL FAIRBURN & KIRI PRITCHARD-MCLEAN: ALL KILLA NO FILLA

13-13 OCT, TIMES VARY, £15

In this live version of the hugely popular podcast the pair will talk all things murder and macabre while having a right laugh doing it.

ANDY ZALTZMAN: THE BUGLE LIVE

7 OCT, 8:30PM, £12

Hosted by Andy Zaltzman (with John Oliver from 2007 until 2015, and with a cast of guest co-hosts since its 2016 relaunch), The Bugle is one of this universe’s leading topical podcasts.

ELF LYONS: LOVE SONGS TO GUINEA PIGS

12-13 OCT, TIMES VARY, £10 - £12

THE SCUMMY MUMMIES SHOW

PROJECT X

12-13 OCT, TIMES VARY, £10 - £12

Elf Lyons hits the road with her new show, Love Songs to Guinea Pigs, a surreal tale of love and loneliness.

1-29 OCT, 7:00PM, £0 - £3

20 OCT, 6:00PM, £10

3-31 OCT, 8:00PM, £5

Comedian Scott Gibson and pals road test new material, halfbaked ideas, and ramble on about a story or two.

MONKEY NUT LIVE

The Queen’s Hall

DANNY BHOY: WORK IN PROGRESS

The Stand’s popular Sunday show has resident Irish funnyman Michael Redmond at the helm.

Monkey Barrel welcome the weird, the wacky and the downright hilarious to the stage.

SPONTANEOUS POTTER

A brand new Harry Potter play from some of Edinburgh’s most top notch improv wizards.

28 OCT, 7:00PM, £5

Edinburgh Comedy Assembly Roxy SHANE TODD: THE TODDFATHER

11 OCT, 7:30PM, £10

When you lose a bet with a mate and have to get The Toddfather tattooed on your leg you can either have it removed, or become The Toddfather.

Brig Below

GIGGLEJAM COMEDY CLUB

3 OCT-7 NOV, 7:30PM, PRICES VARY

Brand new comedy club hosted

by Conor Hunter in the heart of Leith on the first Thursday of the month at Brig Below.

Dalriada Bar

THE PORTOBELLO COMEDY NIGHT

4 OCT, 8:30PM, £12

A night of comedy in Porty.

A monthly round-up featuring sketch, character, musical and stand-up comedy all from the minds of Joe McTernan, Megan Shandley and Jojo Sutherland.

MONKEY BARREL COMEDY’S BIG SUNDAY SHOW

6-27 OCT, 7:00PM, £5

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

THE WEE SHOW

12-26 OCT, 4:30PM, £5

Saturday afternoon comedy show at Monkey Barrel.

PETER PANCAKES

14 OCT, 7:30PM, FREE

Phil O’Shea brings a handpicked selection of riotous lols to Monkey Barrel on the second Monday of the month.

PLANET CARAMEL’S WEDDING

21 OCT, 8:00PM, £0 - £3

A bombastic, surreal narrative comedy adventure like no other; Scotland’s leading sketch trio will make sure your big day will be bloody huge.

Festival Theatre The Basement AN AUDIENCE WITH ELAINE C Theatre SMITH 4 OCT, 7:30PM, £22 - £25

THE COMEDY SHOW

BAFTA Award-winning Elaine C Smith returns to the stage for a hilarious evening of stand-up comedy, songs, audience participation and some very special guests.

4-26 OCT, 8:00PM, £10 - £12

2-20 OCT, 8:00PM, PRICES VARY

4 OCT, 1:00PM, £8 - £10

EDDIE IZZARD: WUNDERBAR

A delicious insight into the surreal and fantastical world of Eddie Izzard.

Monkey Barrel Comedy Club THE EDINBURGH REVUE

8-22 OCT, 7:00PM, £0 - £2

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

SPONTANEOUS SHERLOCK

10-24 OCT, 8:00PM, £5

An entirely improvised Sherlock Holmes comedy play from Scotland’s hottest improv troupe.

MONKEY BARREL COMEDY’S BIG FRIDAY SHOW

4-25 OCT, 7:00PM, £10 - £12

13-14 OCT, 8:30PM, £12 - £14

MONKEY BARREL COMEDY’S BIG SATURDAY SHOW

The boys are back and mixing things up with a brand spanking new show that will split sides, blow minds and drop jaws.

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

ELF LYONS: LOVE SONGS TO GUINEA PIGS

Ellie Gibson and Helen Thorn celebrate the scummier side of parenting, from drinking wine at tea time to hiding from the PTA.

Elf Lyons hits the road with her new show, Love Songs to Guinea Pigs, a surreal tale of love and loneliness.

THE NOISE NEXT DOOR: REMIX

TOP BANANA 2-30 OCT, 7:00PM, £0 - £3

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

5-26 OCT, 7:00PM, £14

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

Bringing you top notch line ups from the best in the world of comedy for a side-splitting evening every Friday and Saturday at 8pm.

MUM’S THE WORD

A comedy gig designed for parents with babies hosted by comedian and mum, Katie Mulgrew.

BESOMS

24 OCT, 8:00PM, £6 - £7

SCOTT GIBSON AND PALS TRY NEW JOKES

16 OCT, 8:00PM, £10

BEN ELTON

4-5 OCT, 6:30PM, £31.50

After a 15 year absence, the Godfather of modern stand-up returns to the medium he did so much to define.

The Stand Edinburgh RED RAW

1-29 OCT, 8:30PM, £3

Legendary new material night with up to 10 acts. Every Monday in Edinburgh and Tuesday in Glasgow.

THE THURSDAY SHOW

3-31 OCT, TIMES VARY, £5 - £10

Start the weekend early with five comedians.

THE SATURDAY SHOW

5-26 OCT, 9:00PM, £17.50

The big weekend show with five comedians.

THE FRIDAY SHOW

4-25 OCT, TIMES VARY, £6 - £12

The big weekend show with five comedians.

MIDWEEK COMEDY CABARET

22-23 OCT, TIMES VARY, PRICES VARY

Midweek comedy showcase.

STU & GARRY’S FREE IMPROV SHOW

6-27 OCT, 1:30PM, FREE

Improvised comedy at its very best every Sunday.

NICK HELM

6-20 OCT, TIMES VARY, £13.50

Resurrected from the ashes, come and witness two time Edinburgh Comedy Award Nominee and International Treasure In Waiting shaking his ass, singing songs and righting wrongs.

BONA FIDE

A monthly night bringing you the best from across comedy’s glorious communities, hosted by self-confessed cheeky besom Jay Lafferty.

8 OCT, 8:30PM, £5 - £6

3-31 OCT, 8:00PM, £2.50

Fresh from an Edinburgh Comedy Award nomination, Larry Dean tries out some brand new jokes.

THE COMEDY SHOW: NEW SH*T

The Comedy Show’s wee sister, where old pros and new talent try out fresh material for free.

BELTER COMEDY

10 OCT, 8:00PM, £6

Bringing you the best and brightest of the comedy scene, showcasing brand new gags alongside tried and tested material.

FRED MACAULAY IN CONVERSATION

13 OCT, 5:00PM, £8 - £10

Fred MacAulay, one of Scotland’s best-loved stand-ups, is back with his monthly live chat show.

Joining Fred will be stars from the worlds of sport, entertainment, business and politics.

New comedy show with a different theme every month, hosted

by Jay Lafferty.

LARRY DEAN: WORK IN PROGRESS

9 OCT, 8:30PM, £4 - £5

JOJO SUTHERLAND AND SUSAN MORRISON: FANNY’S AHOY!

27 OCT, 5:30PM, £4 - £5

Set sail with the award-winning grand dames of Scottish comedy.

THE END OF THE WORLD SHOW

16 OCT, 8:30PM, £5 - £7

Armageddon is not so much nigh as teabagging the world in the face. So now that we’ve bought the tickets to Hell in a handcart and this really is the end of civilisation, surely we can still find the time to trivialise it?

Listings

61

SHAMBLES 2 OCT, 8:30PM, £4 - £5

A collective of Edinburgh’s top comics join forces to provide an evening’s worth of entertainment, with the emphasis on the alternative, every month.

THE CABARET OF DANGEROUS IDEAS

3 OCT, 5:30PM, £5

Join The Cabaret of Dangerous Ideas and challenge your preconceptions on hot button issues.

PATRICK MONAHAN: STARTED FROM THE BOTTOM, NOW I’M HERE

6 OCT, 8:30PM, £12 - £14

Smart and funny observations on a newfound middle-class lifestyle with ski holidays, through the prism of poor, immigrant, living-in-a-caravan roots.

THE NOISE NEXT DOOR: REMIX

13-14 OCT, 8:30PM, £12 - £14

The boys are back and mixing things up with a brand spanking new show that will split sides, blow minds and drop jaws.

VIKKI STONE: SONGBIRD

15-16 OCT, 8:30PM, £11 - £13

Multi-award-winning comedian and musician Vikki Stone returns with an all new show of her trademark comedy songs and stand up.

SUSIE MCCABE: BORN BELIEVER

23 OCT, 8:30PM, £13

In her 40th year, Susie McCabe has decided to leave cynicism behind to be an all-new positive Susie (optimistic at best, positive at pushing it).

ASHLEY BLAKER AND IMRAN YUSUF: PROPHET SHARING

27-28 OCT, 8:30PM, £14

Two great comedians join forces to form an unlikely double act.

The Voodoo Rooms

ISAAC BUTTERFIELD: WHY SO SERIOUS?

9 OCT, 7:30PM, £17

Why So Serious? explores the political correct culture of our eve-changing world, from the good, the bad and the ugly.

Dundee Comedy Caird Hall

FRANKIE BOYLE: FULL POWER

2 OCT, 7:30PM, £27.50

Touring Scotland properly for the first time in over a decade, Frankie Boyle presents his sense of mounting horror in the form of stand-up comedy.

Dundee Rep

AN EVENING WITH ERIC & ERN

24 OCT, 7:30PM, £10 - £23.50

A brilliant homage crammed full of renditions of those famous comedy sketches that hits all the right notes.

The Gardyne Theatre JANEY GODLEY

12 OCT, 8:00PM, £16.75

Live voice overs and stand up like you’ve never seen before from the Queen of Scottish Comedy.

Glasgow Art CCA: Centre for Contemporary Art GRACE SCHWINDT: FIVE SURFACES ALL WHITE

1-13 OCT, TIMES VARY, FREE

A new multi-channel moving image installation, resulting from the artist’s ongoing interest in how public health is perceived and treated, and how mental health is discussed in contemporary society.

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Listings

Art JASMINA CIBIC: AN ATMOSPHERE OF JOYFUL CONTEMPLATION 1-13 OCT, TIMES VARY, FREE

Jasmina Cibic presents her NADA film trilogy, installed within a specially developed immersive installation featuring props and sculpture, as well as an ongoing vocal performance in the CCA gallery spaces.

LIZZIE WATTS AND YVONNE ZHANG: BETTER RAINFALL

11-26 OCT, TIMES VARY, FREE

A multi-channel video installation centred around the multispecies residents of a fictional British suburb.

Compass Gallery

SOPHO CHKHIKVADZE: GAZING

11 OCT-1 NOV, TIMES VARY, FREE

Sopho Chkhikvadze is a powerful and imaginative artist, twice nominated for the BP Portrait Award.

David Dale Gallery and Studios K.R.M. MOONEY: ORES

3-26 OCT, 12:00PM – 5:00PM, FREE

Moving between abstraction and site-generated forms, the three works in Ores emerge jointly through their formal properties, whereby entangled notions of value and resource production surface in relation to the building’s history.

Glasgow School of Art ULTRASONIC GLASGOW

5-31 OCT, TIMES VARY, FREE

The exhibition documents the early Glasgow pioneers of ultrasound, particularly the pivotal role of design in the development process.

GoMA

FIONA TAN: DISORIENT

1 OCT-26 JAN 20, TIMES VARY, FREE

A two-screen video installation combining a fictional scene, documentary footage and spoken word to explore complex historical identities, cultural perceptions and truths about the world we live in.

MARK-MARKING: PERSPECTIVES ON DRAWING

1-20 OCT, TIMES VARY, FREE

A group show featuring work by six contemporary artists who place drawing as central to their practice and challenge this assumption.

Hunterian Museum & Art Gallery

ILANA HALPERIN: MINERALS OF NEW YORK

1-13 OCT, TIMES VARY, FREE

This latest project from Ilana Halperin takes her back to her childhood home of New York through a ‘mineral biography of the city’.

BARKCLOTH: REVEALING PACIFIC CRAFT

1 OCT-29 NOV, TIMES VARY, FREE

This exhibition highlights The Hunterian’s world-class collection of Pacific barkcloth (tapa) and showcases the findings of the Arts and Humanities Research Council funded project, Situating Pacific Barkcloth in Time and Place.

Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum THE LINDA MCCARTNEY RETROSPECTIVE

1 OCT-12 JAN 20, TIMES VARY, FREE

A major retrospective of photography by Linda McCartney will be shown in the UK for the first time, curated by Paul, Mary and Stella McCartney. It features iconic names and moments in music from the 1960s along with more intimate and emotional later work.

Platform

EASTERN PROMISE 2019: DUNCAN MARQUISS

4 OCT, 7:00PM, £7.50 - £20

Coinciding with a new exhibition of artwork at Platform, Duncan Marquiss will perform a live soundtrack to moving image works made onsite in and around the spaces at Platform.

EASTERN PROMISE 2019: MANDATORY RECONSIDERATION

5 OCT, 6:00PM, £7.50 - £20

A new performance developed from the artist’s experience of participating in a Pecha Kucha, which also considers art’s relationship to different types of work.

The Glasgow Art Club DENISE FRASER: CREATION CREATION

1-5 OCT, 11:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

New work by Scottish painter and mixed media artist Denise Fraser.

GAC AUTUMN EXHIBITION

1-19 OCT, 11:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

An exhibition of work by elected artist members of the Glasgow Art Club.

THE ARTIST’S STUDIO

25 OCT-15 NOV, 11:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

An installation of Thomas Jacobi’s ink rubbings taken from the floor of the late Thomas Hutcheson’s studio in Glasgow.

The Lighthouse UNBUILT MACKINTOSH

1 OCT-31 DEC, TIMES VARY, FREE

Unbuilt Mackintosh showcases stunning architectural models based on the unbuilt designs of Charles Rennie Mackintosh.

TESTS OF CHANGE AND SPACE PIONEERS

1-14 OCT, TIMES VARY, FREE

Initiated by Architecture and Design Scotland, and supported

by The Scottish Government, this programme uses ‘space hacks’ to quickly allow pupils and teachers to explore possibilities for their schools.

BIND

4 OCT-1 DEC, TIMES VARY, FREE

This exhibition brings together a collection of handmade book structures and forms, demonstrating the diversity and innovation present in contemporary bookbinding.

FURNITURE MUSIC

5 OCT-6 JAN 20, TIMES VARY, FREE

Yuri Suzuki presents his solo exhibition that explores definitions of sound design in contemporary culture.

The Modern Institute

SIMON STARLING: A-A’, B-B’

1-26 OCT, TIMES VARY, FREE

The GSA grad returns to Glasgow, and to The Modern Institute, with a new work.

Tramway

JONATHAN BALDOCK: FACECRIME

1-6 OCT, TIMES VARY, FREE

Inspired by the discovery, in 1974, of more than a thousand perfectly preserved inscribed clay tablets in the ancient city of Ebia, Syria, Jonathan Baldock has created a new installation of work comprising of precariously stacked ceramic columns.

NICK CAVE: UNTIL 1 OCT-24 NOV, TIMES VARY, FREE

American artist Nick Cave addresses issues of gun violence, gun control policy, race relations and gender politics in America, and its resonance across the world.

ZADIE XA: CHILD OF MAGOHALMI AND THE ECHOS OF CREATION, 2019

26 OCT-15 DEC, TIMES VARY, FREE

Korean-Canadian artist Zadie Xa creates a sub-aquatic marine environment, inviting audiences to enter into an immersive world by way of atmospheric lighting, surround-sound, large-scale video projections, sculptures and costumes.

iota @ Unlimited Studios

NORMAN SUTTON HIBBERT: KINDER KINDER

1-5 OCT, 12:00PM – 5:00PM, FREE

The artist has been interested in the impact that the behaviour and attitudes of adults have on children, and the works in this exhibition respond to the stories of many of these children, past and present.

Edinburgh Art City Art Centre VICTORIA CROWE: 50 YEARS OF PAINTING

1-13 OCT, TIMES VARY, FREE

Embracing every aspect of her practice, this exhibition of Victoria Crowe’s work will feature over 150 paintings, stemming from youthful student works to the assured, timeless landscapes and portraits of recent years.

THE ITALIAN CONNECTION

1 OCT-24 MAY 20, TIMES VARY, FREE

The Italian Connection explores the enduring bond between Scotland and Italy, celebrating the ability of art to transcend geographical borders.

Collective Gallery

JAMES RICHARDS: MIGRATORY MOTOR COMPLEX

1-20 OCT, 10:00AM – 4:00PM, FREE

James Richards’ exhibition features a six-channel electroacoustic installation that explores the capacity of sound to render artificial spaces and locate sonic and melodic events within them.

IF PLAY IS NEITHER INSIDE NOR OUTSIDE, WHERE IS IT?

1-6 OCT, 10:00AM – 4:00PM, FREE

A new film by Perthshire-based artist Helen McCrorie, showing as part of Edinburgh Art Festival 2019, which centres on a childled outdoor playgroup that meets in the grounds of a former military camp in Scotland.

Dovecot Studios

JULIE COPE’S GRAND TOUR: THE STORY OF A LIFE BY GRAYSON PERRY

1 OCT-2 NOV, 10:30AM – 5:30PM, £0 - £9

An exhibition showcasing the complete set of tapestries designed by Grayson Perry for A House for Essex and exploring the creation of the house.

OUR LINEN STORIES

1 OCT-25 JAN 20, 10:30AM – 5:30PM, FREE

This exhibition and events series celebrates contemporary design in flax fibre and linen, and Scotland’s extraordinary relationship with this quintessentially European textile.

Edinburgh Printmakers

HANNA TUULIKKI: DEER DANCER

1-5 OCT, 10:00AM – 6:00PM, FREE

A new cross-artform project by artist, composer and performer Hanna Tuulikki, investigating the mimesis of deer, specifically representations within dance from across cultures.

A MACHINE FOR MAKING AUTHENTICITY 1-12 OCT, 10:00AM – 6:00PM, FREE

From ‘curiosity’ to ‘art’, ‘souvenir’ to ‘ethnographic artifact’, this exhibition plays on the transformation of Castle Mills from a site of mass industrial manufacture to one of handmade artistic production.

Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop

LUCY WAYMAN: CLOVEHITCH

1 OCT-30 MAY 20, 11:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

Lucy Wayman’s work, created from marine rope, follows her interest in the industrial and historic uses of rope, connecting ideas of system, control and release.

Ingleby Gallery GARRY FABIAN MILLER: MIDWINTER BLAZE

12 OCT-20 DEC, 11:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

The photographs included in this exhibition are characteristically virtuosic meditations on colour and form, but they also mark the end of an era as the artist battles with the extinction of the analogue materials in a digital age.

Gallery of Modern Art

CUT AND PASTE: 400 YEARS OF COLLAGE

1-27 OCT, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, TBC

The first survey exhibition of collage ever to take place anywhere in the world, with a huge range of approaches on show, from sixteenth-century anatomical ‘flap prints’ to computer-based images.

NOW: KATIE PATERSON, CIARA PHILLIPS AND OTHERS

26 OCT-31 MAY 20, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

In the first major showing of the artist’s work in a public institution in Scotland, the sixth and final exhibition in the NOW series will highlight the work of Scottish artist Katie Paterson.

PICTURE HOOKS 2019

26 OCT-31 MAY 20, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

The highly-acclaimed exhibition returns for the fourth time to showcase the work of awardwinning children’s illustrators alongside that of emerging illustrators.

ROSALIND NASHASHIBI

1-27 OCT, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

National Museum of Scotland

A new two-part film work by Rosalind Nashashibi, shot in Lithuania, London and Edinburgh, commissioned as part of Edinburgh Art Festival’s Stories for an Uncertain World programme.

1-20 OCT, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

Scottish National Portrait Gallery

BODY BEAUTIFUL: DIVERSITY ON THE CATWALK

Discover how today’s fashion industry is challenging perceptions and championing alternative ideals of beauty on the catwalk, in advertising, editorial and behind the camera.

Open Eye Gallery QUARTET

4-28 OCT, TIMES VARY, FREE

An exhibition showcasing works from four new artists to the Open Eye Gallery: Nerine Tassie, Susan Mitchell, Kate Montgomery and Fi Wallace Velarde.

IMPRESSIONS: TWO CENTURIES OF PRINTMAKING

4-28 OCT, TIMES VARY, FREE

A wide-ranging exhibition featuring examples from some of the most prominent printmakers in the last two centuries.

Patriothall Gallery

OLGA KALISZER: FRIEZE

5-20 OCT, 12:00PM – 6:00PM, FREE

Olga Kaliszer uses the photopolymer print process to transcribe digital film, and to deconstruct the moving image frame by frame to capture often unnoticed instantaneous gesture.

HANNAH KILLOH: TOKASHIKI

5-20 OCT, 12:00PM – 6:00PM, FREE

Hannah Killoh’s work explores the everyday within a Japanese paradise through the medium of photography.

Royal Scottish Academy RSA

PHILIP REEVES RSA: FRAGMENTS OF FORM

1-13 OCT, TIMES VARY, FREE

A retrospective exhibition of the pioneering printmaker and collagist Philip Reeves RSA. ADE ADESINA RSA: AURORA

1-20 OCT, TIMES VARY, FREE

Focusing on the effects of climate change, deforestation and energy consumption, Ade Adesina’s ecologically-minded, monumental linocuts, woodcuts and etchings demonstrate the limits to which his chosen media can be pushed.

NEO-NEANDERTHALS

1-20 OCT, TIMES VARY, FREE

A collaborative project between artists Robbie Bushe RSA and Jeanne Cannizzo using scientific data on the inheritance left by the Neanderthals to ‘revisit’ the popular image of hairy, lowbrowed, unintelligent beings.

THE MODERN PORTRAIT

1-27 OCT, TIMES VARY, FREE

A display collating paintings, sculptures and works from the Portrait Gallery’s twentieth-century collection, feat. a variety of well-known faces, from Ramsay Macdonald to Alan Cumming, Tilda Swinton to Danny McGrain.

ART AND ANALYSIS: TWO NETHERLANDISH PAINTERS WORKING IN JACOBEAN SCOTLAND

1 OCT-26 JAN 20, TIMES VARY, FREE

A small exhibition focusing on two 17th century artists, Adrian Vanson and Adam de Colone, showcasing a group of paintings which have been examined by paintings conservator Dr Caroline Rae, along with the findings from her research.

IN FOCUS: THE EXECUTION OF CHARLES I

1 OCT-26 JAN 20, TIMES VARY, FREE

An exhibition centred around a painting of the execution of Charles I – based on eye-witness accounts and contemporary engravings – by an unknown Dutch artist.

THE REMAKING OF SCOTLAND | NATION, MIGRATION, GLOBALISATION 1760-1860

1 OCT-21 JUN 20, TIMES VARY, FREE

An exhibition exploring the lives and careers of the Scots behind the period of dramatic change between 1760 and 1860, when Scotland rapidly attained a central role in European cultural life and in Britain’s industrial and imperial expansion.

ARTIST ROOMS: WOODMAN, ARBUS AND MAPPLETHORPE

1-20 OCT, TIMES VARY, FREE

Celebrating the work of three of the twentieth century’s most influential photographers, with a particular focus on selfportraiture and representation.

THE LONG LOOK

1-27 OCT, TIMES VARY, FREE

The Long Look is a collaboration between the painter Audrey Grant and the photographer and printmaker Norman McBeath.

St Margaret’s House MASHA AND THE PRINTS

5-13 OCT, 10:00AM – 6:00PM, FREE

Exhibition of linocuts and etchings by Masha Tiplady, member of Edinburgh Printmakers.

Stills

CINDY SHERMAN: EARLY WORKS, 1975-80 1-6 OCT, 11:00AM – 6:00PM, FREE

An exhibition showcasing seminal early works by Cindy Sherman, one of the most influential artists of the last 40 years.

Summerhall

ALAN SMITH: THE NEW WORLD – RETROSPECTIVE

2-27 OCT, 11:00AM – 6:00PM, FREE

After a life threatening illness, Alan Smith found the need to return again to the language of art and has completed a new body of work, prompted by Tiepolo’s Il Mondo Nuovo.

ANDREW SIM: NEW SODOM WILL BE A SHINING CITY ON A HILL

2-27 OCT, 11:00AM – 6:00PM, FREE

Andrew Sim’s pastel drawings express the strains of a community being pulled between a forward-facing radicalism and the unresolved traumas of the past; a personal account of learning what it means to be a queer person in 2019.

JANE FRERE: EXIT - 100 DAYS OF KHAOS!

2-27 OCT, 11:00AM – 6:00PM, FREE

Continuing to create pastel murals, and with other forms of media, Jane Frere used the Instagram hashtag #Exitkhaos as a novel means of daily documentation, charting her personal response during the 100 day countdown to the initial Brexit date.

JOSH HANER: THE NEW YORK TIMES - CARBON’S CASUALTIES

2-27 OCT, 11:00AM – 6:00PM, FREE

In dramatic drone footage coupled with still photography on the ground, Josh Haner captures diverse environments as they are reshaped around the world while highlighting the intimate stories unfolding within them.

JOSEPH BEUYS / LEONARDO DA VINCI

2-27 OCT, 11:00AM – 6:00PM, FREE

Robert McDowell curates an installation of art, prints, photographs, publications and objects of and about Joseph Beuys who remains a major inspiration of Summerhall.

OUT OF SIGHT OUT OF MIND

11 OCT-3 NOV, 11:00AM – 6:00PM, FREE

A diverse and ambitious multimedia exhibition created by hundreds of artists with experience of mental health issues.

Talbot Rice Gallery

SAMSON YOUNG: REAL MUSIC

1-5 OCT, TIMES VARY, FREE

The first major UK solo exhibition of Hong Kong artist and composer Samson Young, featuring an ambitious collaboration with the University of Edinburgh’s Next Generation Sound Synthesis research group.

DCA: Dundee Contemporary Arts

ALBERTA WHITTLE: HOW FLEXIBLE CAN WE MAKE THE MOUTH

1 OCT-24 NOV, TIMES VARY, FREE

Barbadian-Scottish artist Alberta Whittle’s first major solo exhibition in a UK institution draws together new and recent artworks to reflect on memory, trauma, weather and tensions between the land and sea.

The McManus AS WE SEE IT: TWENTIETH CENTURY SCOTTISH ART

1 OCT-22 DEC, TIMES VARY, FREE

Exploring the innovative and diverse approaches artists have taken in their creative practice.

Whether representing the real world, abstracting elements from it or depicting a realm from the imagination, each artwork is unique and individual.

AMONG THE POLAR ICE

1 OCT-8 MAR 20, TIMES VARY, FREE

Selected from Dundee’s nationally significant fine art and whaling collections, this exhibition showcases a small but growing collection of polar artworks which spans 200 years.

V&A Dundee MAEVE REDMOND

1 OCT-15 SEP 20, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

A compelling piece of graphic design that unpacks the wider context around a 19th century trade catalogue by cast iron manufacturers Walter MacFarlane & Co. CIARA PHILLIPS

1 OCT-15 SEP 20, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

A new commission, championing the often-unseen process of making by evoking a moment suspended in time where vital decisions about materials and their composition are made.

SCOTTISH DESIGN GALLERIES

1 OCT-15 SEP 20, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

Explore the everyday relevance of design and how it improves our lives, experience the processes that underpin it and discover little-known stories of Scottish design with international impact.

STUDIO NICHOLAS DALEY

1 OCT-2 FEB 20, 10:00AM – 5:00PM, FREE

A series of objects and a specially commissioned film work will show the inspiration behind Nicholas Daley’s work, from his Jamaican-Scottish heritage to the influence of music in his approach to fashion.

The Queen’s Gallery

RUSSIA: ROYALTY & THE ROMANOVS

1 OCT-3 NOV, 9:30AM – 6:00PM, £7.20

An exhibition exploring the relationship between Britain and Russia and their royal families, through more than 170 works of art in the Royal Collection.

Dundee Art Cooper Gallery JASMINA CIBIC: THE PLEASURE OF EXPENSE

18 OCT-14 NOV, TIMES VARY, FREE

A major solo exhibition of new works by award-winning Slovenian artist Jasmina Cibic, featuring film, sculpture, photography, textile, performance and archives.

Scottish National THE SKINNY

The International Stage Design curators Local Heroes have scouted out the best contemporary design from Scotland at this year’s London Design Festival, speaking to designers and makers about why attending international events is so valuable to their practice

Make Bank

October 2019

Photo: Jason Leung

Bute Fabrics Showing for the first time at the London Design Festival, Bute Fabrics launched a new range of six fabrics in collaboration with Tom Dixon that will be released in three phases over the course of 2020. Their collaboration will be the first range of fabrics Tom Dixon have ever launched, so the project is unique.

Bute took over one of the arches in the

Kate Trouw, Swell Earrings

Make Bank This year Fife design studio Tom Pigeon combined a showcase of new design work – a brand new collection of print – alongside the official UK launch of Make Bank, their social project which aims to tackle creative poverty in UK schools by providing materials and support for disadvantaged young creatives. The reaction to Make Bank from the thousands who visited was “amazing”, founder and designer Kirsty Thomas tells us.

“The festival has a pretty creative audience so we were speaking to people all the time that understood the importance of what we are trying to do. People were interested in getting involved, donating money, volunteering their time and collaborating to make more impact. There are lots of interesting leads to chase post-show.”

Showing at Design Junction – also part of the King’s Cross Design District at Coal Drops Yard – the well-travelled team explain why London continues to draw them back. “We

Make Bank

Sofa Forlife

generally do one London show a year. It’s a great opportunity to get out of the studio, present new work, talk to our customers and clients and meet new people that we might want to work with.

“There is a buzz about exhibiting in London during design festival – the city is immersed in design, people are talking about it, there are great opportunities to meet interesting people and see groundbreaking work.” themakebank.org.uk | @the_makebank Sofa Forlife “Currently, every single sofa ends up in landfill,” the energetic Iain Gauld of Sofa Forlife tells me at their Design Junction stand. The newly established company are launching a clever design for a more sustainable future that tackles the lack of adaptivity and opportunity to customise traditional sofas that often makes moving house a bit heartbreaking. Their design fits through doorways, and up narrow stairwells.

“No more pivoting!” he says.

Glasgow-based Sofa Forlife have

DESIGN

Photo: Susan Castillo; Art direction: Stacey Hunter

Coal Office at Coal Drops Yard, King’s Cross, as part of the #touchyfeelynoisysmellytasty event and had a live weaving demonstration during the week of the festival to highlight to visitors the full weaving process, from yarns to finished fabric. This interactive element was an enormous success with droves of visitors taking part in the production process. We waited until things had quietened down to ask Bute’s Wendy Murray about their experience of LDF19.

“We’ve been working closely with the team at Tom Dixon Studio for the past 12 months on this unique collaboration: a range of new textural fabrics in signature Tom Dixon hues.” Of the wildly popular demonstrations she tells us: “There was lots of interest in the new collections and it was valuable to get feedback on the colours during the preview, as two of the colours that we hadn’t actually selected for the final collections were really well-received – so we are now reconsidering the final palette.

“We were delighted to be a part of the Tom Dixon / Coal Office Collective. A walk around Coal Drops Yard alone is really inspiring: lots of collaborations, new products and product development discussions. The area has so many visitors over the course of the week (in excess of 65,000!) that there really is no place like it to get feedback from customers en masse.” butefabrics.com | @theatelierbute

Photo: Sean Dooley

Kate Trouw The inimitable work of Scottish designer Kate Trouw was exhibited as part of the London Design Fair in the Old Truman Brewery at Brick Lane – the most electric event during the London Design Festival for our money. Her new jewellery collection Pettycur combines hyperreal 3D airbrush techniques, iridescent colour palettes and porous textures to create free spirited, yet instantly wearable pieces. Since launching her brand in 2016, it has grown ever more distinctive with a surreal edge captured here by Glasgow photographer Susan Castillo.

The former architect designs and makes from a small Scottish coastal village where a daily swim in the North Sea has replaced her London commute. We catch up with Trouw at LDF and ask her about how audiences have reacted to her new work and why she feels it’s worthwhile making the journey south each year for LDF. “It was interesting to finally get this collection out into the world and see people’s responses to it,” she says. “My new collection’s a bit more abstract than previous ones so people were genuinely intrigued about the materials and processes used to make it, so it led to some interesting conversations and new ideas. It’s always good to try and take a step back from what you’ve made and try to see it through the eyes of others.

“The Festival is a good excuse to get down to London and get an intense injection of city life. We’re lucky that we have a city that attracts major international designers just a few hours away on the train. Hopefully we’ll be able to coax some of them up north in the future as well.

“London Design Fair in particular is great because it’s a mix of big brands and independent designers, it’s open to trade and the public, and you get lots of international exhibitors alongside UK talent. There’s a good buzz and there’s always at least a couple of things that blow your mind!” katetrouw.com | @katetrouwjewellery

Interview: Stacey Hunter

Bute Fabrics

recognised that modern customers require more flexibility, longevity and quality than the market is currently providing. Their designs allow you to replace the arm rests, legs and cushion covers over time as your taste or situation changes. They’ll even refurbish and resell your old components and give you a discount on your new ones.

The design team had visited the London Design Festival a few times and told us they “loved the vibe”. They continue, “We had just finished our newest design and this was our first time exhibiting the sofa at LDF. We were looking for feedback on the design from visitors to prepare us for our Kickstarter campaign in a couple of months.

“We had a lot of interesting conversations which helped us to look at our design from a new angle. Visitors loved to have a seat on the Sofa Forlife, especially after a long day walking around the LDF – and we’re pleased that their pups got comfy as well.” sofaforlife.co.uk | @sofaforlife

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